From: CathyLex Date: 23 Jul 1998 16:19:55 GMT Subject: NEW: The Little Fight (1/1) MSR, by CathyLex "The Little Fight" (1/1) by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) SPOILERS: Tiny but negligible for results of DB/A/OB; I guess for XFFTF as well. Slightly, backstory to "The Children's Teeth." Email me at CathyLex@aol.com if you want to read it & haven't. RATING: G CATEGORY: V, MSR, potential cavity territory ahead ARCHIVING: Knock yourself out. Just let me know so I can tell my husband where to visit, though this one may be a bit too sappy for him.... FEEDBACK: Well, yeah... that would be nice! Goes to CathyLex@aol.com DISCLAIMERS: Give to Chris Carter, 1013 & Fox Network what is Chris Carter's, 1013's & Fox Network's... Dedication: to Joy, my beta, who says she loves stuff like this; Sorry that I was so eager to post this that I didn't send it to you first. I just got to thinking, and this came out... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The brand-new, high-tech surveilance equipment sparkled with noise in the darkness, and they both jolted awake. Scully was on her feet almost immediately. "I got it." "No," Mulder, on his feet as well, reached and rested a hand on Scully's shoulder. "Go back to sleep." "No. S'okay." Her voice was still drowsy. "I got it." "I was awake anyway," he lied. She saw through him, even in the dark of night. "Were not." "You got up last time," he protested, "and the time before that, and the time before that..." After a moment, Scully sighed and pulled the blanket back over herself. "I guess I am being a little greedy." "Does that mean I win?" "This time..." He straightened his t-shirt and quietly stepped out of the room. He switched on the hall light and proceeded directly to the source of the noise in the room next door. Amazing how someone so small could manage to be so loud. Mulder stooped and reached into the crib to pick up his infant daughter. Her little mouth formed a howling oval of discontent, which lost some of its tension once her father picked her up. The crying continued, however, directly next to his ear as he placed her flailing little form on his shoulder. A quick check revealed that her diaper was not the problem. He carried her into the kitchen to warm up one of her bottles. As he waited for it to warm to the proper temperature, he walked her in circles around the kitchen. She could have been screaming bloody murder for all he cared. His nerves jangled at her yowling, but he was just content to hold her. Before the bottle had finished heating, the baby's cries had quieted to little hiccups, then had dissipated completely. "What was that about, Meg?" He laughed to her softly as he cradled her in his arms. "Huh?" Apparently Margaret Grace Mulder was just as content to be held. He marveled at her. Swirls of strawberry blond hair formed short, soft curls about her round face. Enough days had gone by for her little eyes to settle on their final color, and if Scully's eyes were the color of the sky, this little girls' were the color of the sea -- a startling blue-green. Eyes miraculous enough to make even the angriest of atheists believe in God, just in case her birth alone hadn't been enough. Tiny Meg seemed to be considering her father with equal attention. She reached up and grabbed the tip of his nose in her miniature fist. He laughed as he wiggled his face from her grip. "Watch it, kid," he told her. "Soon enough you'll probably end up with one of these for your very own." She responded by pointing her tiny lips into an intense yawn. He remembered reading somewhere, years ago, an essay written by a father the night before he was to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding. The author had written something to the effect saying the first thought every daughter has when she first sees her father looking down at her in her crib was: "Sucker." "Sucker" was right. He thought he'd been a protective older brother. That was nothing compared to this. He walked back into her room and settled on the rocking chair. He'd put her back to bed in a few minutes. Just a few minutes more. He squinted across the room to be sure the window was locked. He looked back down at his daughter to find she had fallen fast asleep. Gone were the crying wrinkles from her delicate little face. He'd never seen anything so peaceful before in his life; so very normal compared to the rest of his life, the rest of her mother's life. The baby he held in his arms represented all the mundane that had been taken from them, somehow, impossibly, now returned to them. He'd heard Scully before telling him and telling herself that not having children would give them greater freedom in their fight against the future. They wouldn't have to worry about someone at home, depending on them both for everything. Right? Right? Her words had been hollow comfort to both of them. But now, everything was different. They were no longer fighting for lost sisters, no longer fighting out of some sense of vengeance. Nor were they fighting to save billions of anonymous lives from an anonymous virus. They were fighting for one. One little life with a future of endless possibilities. He allowed himself to indulge in fatherly wonderings, another triviality he never had dreamed would be his. Will she like basketball? What will be her favorite flavor of ice cream? Will she laugh at his jokes? Will she get along better with her mother? Will she do well in school? Will she learn to play piano? Would he have to teach her to drive? Will she have prom dates with roaming hands? What will she want to be when she grows up? What college will she choose? Will she grow up, get married, and have a family of her own? Will they find the formula for the vaccine in time for her to do any of these things? Her little face rippled into another yawn. He snuggled her closer and sighed. For now, this moment was enough to provide him the motivation to fight a thousand fights, more if need be. This moment was enough, and nothing They could do could ever take her from them. He and Scully would see to that. For now, this moment was enough. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END 1/1 Sorry. I just had to get sappy to see if I could even write sap. Does anyone have a cavity yet? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scully: Well, gee, Mulder, there's also this report of a shipment of drugs and illegal weapons coming into New Jersey tonight. Mulder: I hardly think the FBI's concerned with matters like that. From: CathyLex Date: 20 Oct 1998 20:20:39 GMT Subject: NEW - The Children's Teeth: Guardian Dear 1/1 New: "The Children's Teeth: Guardian Dear" by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) Category: V, MSR/kid, AU -- "The Children's Teeth" Rating: PG Spoilers: Vague references up to and including US5 & da Movie (Emily, All Souls, Wetwired, Revelations). Yet *another* prequel for "The Children's Teeth" 1-11/11. Email me if you want to read that story, or just visit my web page, The Basement Office, graciously admin'd by Galia at http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htm Summary: "We've tried to protect her from everything.... The world, the whole universe is full of pain, and not even a mother's arms can keep all tragedy at bay." Disclaimers: Mulder, Scully, Emily, Maggie Scully, Melissa Scully, and other assorted characters mentioned/alluded to herein are the intellectual property of 1013 Productions, Chris Carter, and the Fox Network. No commercial gain or other harm is intended. Meg Mulder and Kevin *Declan,* however, are MINE! ALL MINE!!!! Feedback: Pleeeeeeeeeeze? To CathyLex@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have not wrapped my arms around our daughter like this for a long, long time. I think the last time may have been nine years ago, when she had the chicken pox. The fever and the itching would not let her sleep, so we stayed up into the wee hours -- eleven o'clock for her -- taking turns reading to each other. We read to her, and she read to us. She's always been ahead of herself. When she finally grew sleepy enough to admit she needed to go to bed, she insisted on kneeling by her bedside for her prayers. I let go and knelt next to her as she began her favorite prayer, and I prayed along with her. Her father stood in the doorway, keeping a respectful silence. //Angel of God, my guardian dear// //To whom God's love commits me here// //Ever this day be at my side// //To light, to guard, to rule and to guide.// The first prayer I ever taught her. Easy to remember because of its sing-song quality. Also, it speaks of angels, and I cannot shake the feeling that she has an angel watching over her. At least one angel. Perhaps more. A sleepy "Amen" fell from her lips, and I put my arms around her to lift her into bed. Her usual response. "I can do it myself." Our Meg has been independent from the womb. Her first full sentence, in fact, was, "I can do it myself," spoken on her first birthday when her namesake Grandma tried to help her balance a piece of cake on her baby fork. Those five words soon became her faithful standby. Putting clothes on: "I can do it myself." Hand washing: "I can do it myself." Shoe-tying: "I can do it myself." Not that her independence has made her any less affectionate. Her first single word was "hug." Her grandmother, her father and I were amazed. The 'h' sound is one of the most difficult sounds to make, and she chose to make that her first. Ever since she has always done things the hard way. She is,after all, her father's daughter. Now our daughter is thirteen. She leans against me, her head tucked into my neck. She shakes and shakes and no matter how tightly I hold my arms around her, she still shakes. Maybe that's because at thirteen she is already taller than her mother, and my arms aren't long enough to still her anymore. Or maybe it's because she is my baby girl, and I will always shake for her at times like these. Once, my mother reminded me that a parent's love is the only kind of love that moves towards separation. One day I will have to let this daughter go, too. In nothing like the same way I let go of my first, but I have to wonder... which loss will be the more painful? We sit in a hospital waiting room, familiar territory for both of us. More familiar for her sometimes. She has never stayed overnight in a hospital bed since she was born in one, but she has had her share of waiting room vigils, telling her father or my mother or myself that, "It'll be okay," through a voice straining to contain all fear and tears. "It'll be okay." The magic words in our little family. Now, I whisper those same words to her and kiss her cool, damp forehead. She takes a ragged breath and I know she is choking back the tears she thinks would be babyish and immature. She is always so very, very brave and tries so hard to be very adult. "Only-child syndrome," Mulder calls it. This moment is the first lull we've had today. My adrenaline is still shooting through my veins, as it has been ever since the first moment the phone rang and I heard that word: the one word no mother wants to hear screamed. "MOMMY!" Meg only calls me that when she's feeling particularly sad, cuddly, or the rare times she is frightened. Usually she opts for the quick, casual "Mom." She had just left our house not one minute before, walking three doors down to her friend Kevin's house. "Mommy," she sobbed even as I could hear her diligently trying to control the rising panic. "Mommy, Kevin's slit his wrists. I called 911, but there's blood everywhere and I--" "I'm on my way," I gasped into the phone and took off for the Declans' house. As I ran down the sidewalk without a parting word to either Mulder or my mother, images of my daughter and her neighborhood buddy flashed through my mind. Some distant part of me always thought it appropriate that a boy named Kevin had appointed himself the protector of our child. "Kevin said I was too little to climb that tree, but I did it anyway." And Meg, at four years old, fell out of that tree. She would have gone to the hospital herself that time had Kevin Declan not been there to break her fall. And then, on the occasion when the two of them went sledding at the park on a rare snowy day: "Kevin said I should stop picking fights with the fifth-grade boys." They ended up carrying each other home when the fifth-grade boys, with whom our third-grade Meg had picked a fight, shoved them into the half-frozen creek. I did not enjoy seeing my daughter come in the back door dripping wet, her hair strung with bits of ice. "Kevin said I'm acting like an airhead." This she said not two weeks ago, after we had come home from visiting her Uncle Billy and his family. As soon as we got in, Meg rushed over to Kevin's to share the news: she'd met a boy while out in California. A *fifteen year-old* boy. Her father was not impressed, and apparently Kevin was even less so. Meg stormed home, told me what Kevin had said, and then she went out to the driveway, practicing foul shots for an hour, slamming the ball against the backboard with more anger than precision. As the number of days since they had last spoken to each other grew, my mom quietly urged Meg to go see Kevin or at least call him. Meg kept sticking out her jaw and saying, "I'm fine, Gram." Both my mother and I bristled at that. Mulder, however, took the opportunity to give me a "see how it feels" look. Meg is the best of us, but she can also be the worst of us. Finally, she got sick of waiting and went over to the Declans' house. Thank God her patience had chosen that moment to run out. So I ran to her. When I burst through the Declan's unlocked front door, I yelled, "Meg!" "Mom!" She called back. "Up here!" Her voice sounded less panicked, but barely. I followed my daughter's call up to the bathroom to find her fifteen year-old protector sprawled groggily on the tile floor. He had hung the throw rugs over the shower rod to keep them from getting bloody. The thought was chilling. At thirteen would I have had the presence of mind to start tying tourniquets of ripped bath towels on my best friend's arms to stop the bleeding he had caused by his own hand? I don't know. I'd like to say I would have. Our Meg, however, had started such first aid already. She is a miracle in so many ways. "Am I doing this right?" was all she could ask. The sirens were not far behind. Neither was her father. In the car, as Mulder drove us just behind the ambulance, I could hear Meg in the back seat whispering a prayer. Her prayer was not "Our Father," "Hail Mary," or even the short "Glory Be." "Angel of God, my guardian dear..." When she came to the "amen," she began again. "...to whom God's love commits me here..." Under her breath, she repeated the prayer all the way to the seat she now holds in this waiting room. "... ever this day be at my side..." My heart breaks for her with every rhyming couplet, and it occurs to me that she is Kevin's protector just as much as he is hers. "... to light, to guard, to rule and to guide, Amen." I wonder where she learned that trick? "Angel of God, my guardian dear..." Now the four of us sit, waiting for word. Mulder was able to find Rayelle Declan's cell phone number to let her know what had happened to her son. Ray is with her child, and Mulder and I are with ours. My mother sits next to me, her hand steadying my right shoulder. Mulder steadies my left. He asks our daughter in his softest, most fatherly voice, "You okay, Miss Molly?" The nickname fails to bring the usual smile to her face. She takes a shuddering breath and begins, "I'm fuh--" A stifled sob snags in her throat. Her blue-green eyes fill with tears, but she refuses to set them free. "Oh, Dad, Gram, Mom," she cries, burying her face farther into my neck. "I did everything wrong..." I could see this coming -- the guilt. After all, she is half-Catholic, half- Mulder. The poor girl was doomed to the guilt monster from the start. I pull her even closer, soothing, "Meggie..." We've tried to protect her from everything. Moments like this intensify my instinctive mother's fear that we cannot protect her from anything. The world, the whole universe is full of pain, and not even a mother's arms can keep all tragedy at bay. She goes on to explain in a halting, strained voice that when she was waiting for me to come over, she called Kevin a "rat-bastard" for doing this to himself. She yelled at him for being selfish. And now she's berating herself for not seeing the signs earlier, for turning her back on him, for being an airhead. She's accusing herself of being immature, of not thinking before she acted. At thirteen. My God. We listen. At times like these there is not much more a parent or grandparent can do. My Meg is stubborn and independent and arrogant and reckless and smart beyond her years, and she knows it; she doesn't need me to remind her, so I don't. I just love her. I think that's all she needs. She stops ranting at herself. "Meggie," her father murmurs, "it'll be okay." In my embrace she raises a hand to wipe her eyes. Her father hands her a tissue, which she takes with a grateful, quivering sigh. When Meg is done with it, my mother holds her hand out to take the used tissue and throw it away for her. I just hold her. "Mommy?" She asks at my silence. I kiss her forehead again. "What, baby?" She is still my baby girl. Even as she strives for adulthood, even through each growth spurt, she is still my baby girl. Just as I am my mother's and always will be. My mother and I. We have both known the loss of a child, and we both cling, albeit lightly, to our younger daughters. My mother has passed her faith on to me, and as I have made that faith my own I have offered it to my daughter. That faith tells me that all souls in heaven still care for us, the living. They still watch over us. I close my eyes briefly, and I can see a small blond girl watching over the left shoulder of our coltish, reckless Meg. I can see Emily watching over her sister, my baby girl. I dimly remember, through the mists of temporary delirium, a time when my own mother called me "baby." She said it as she stepped in front of the gun I aimed at the man who is now the father of her granddaughter. Did my mother know even before I did? I would step in front of a loaded gun for Kevin Declan. Meg sits up straighter and I loosen my arms around her. "It'll be okay?" She asks. She just needs to hear me say it. "It'll be okay," I reassure her, knowing the outcome before the doctor has made any diagnosis. END 1/1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit The Basement Office: http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htmI "I just want to be taken away to some place where I don't have to worry about finding a job." From: CathyLex Date: 27 Oct 1998 01:00:41 GMT Subject: REVISED: Sister's Blood 1/16 The Children's Teeth: Sister's Blood (prequel) 1/16 by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) CATEGORY: alternative universe (point of attack is about fifteen-plus years or so from the present), deep dark nasty angst, MSR RATING: Probably PG-13, to be safe; very mature situations but no graphic descriptions. SPOILERS: Yes. To be specific, all up to & including US5 & XFFTF. Especially "Emily"/ "All Souls", and "The Red and the Black" SUMMARY: "If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?" -- Piers Anthony TO READ OTHER STORIES IN "THE CHILDREN'S TEETH" UNIVERSE: Visit your local library! No, not really. Actually, please visit my webpage, graciously admin'd by Galia, at http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htm Click on "The Children's Teeth" Universe. AND SIGN THE GUESTBOOK TOO, DURNIT!!!! DISCLAIMERS: None of these characters belong to me, with the exception of Meg Mulder, Kevin Declan (both of whom I am proud to own), Gerald Cho (a.k.a. "Pleather Boy") and the Wexfords (whom I am ashamed to own). Everyone else (even Emily C. Wexford) in some way belongs to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Network. No commercial gain or other harm is intended in the writing of this piece. Further, I do not own //Star Wars//, The Force, or //A Spell for Chameleon// by Piers Anthony, the first book of his Xanth series. No commercial gain or other harm is intended in these mentionings. THANKS: to Joy, Mara, Jo, Sally, Galia, and all the good folks in XPFC. Each of you has a fingerprint in this story. DEDICATION: To JC, for making me work hard : ) FEEDBACK: Now why would I want that? Graciously accepted and answered at CathyLex@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The LORD then said: 'What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil!'" Genesis 4: 10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now I am called Wexford. I would like to say, "I was born Emily Camille Wexford," but I cannot. I was not. Even the most pathetic of Dickens' characters started out with more than I. I cannot begin by saying, "I am born." They even took that from me, along with everything else. Because They gave me my existence. Existence. I cannot even say "life." Truly, I should not even say that my existence was given; it was not a gift. I was... created. Brought forth. Engineered. Initially, I was the third of five. Emily A through Emily E. I am Emily C. Emily Camille. The middle child, oddly enough. I was adopted by the Wexfords, who gave me my last name and so much more. Now, years later in the awareness of young adulthood, that understanding fills me with bitterness -- a bitterness I have chosen to fight, and a fight I will have always. Occasionally, I wonder why They picked "Camille" for me. Why not "Christine", or "Claire," or "Catherine"? Perhaps it was some sick joke, because "Camille" is so close to "chameleon." But I doubt They have a sense of humor, because They gave me none. I wonder... would I have had a sense of humor under different circumstances? Would I, had I been born, coddled, raised in love, the darling girl among a passle of grandsons? Perhaps. For I have seen what I could have been. What I am not. What I can never be. Because, instead, I am Wexford. The extent of the engineering that went into my existence astounds even me, even now. Not only my physical shape, my gender, my blond hair and pert nose, but the environmental factors that shaped who I am, who They wanted me to become. But some things even They could not have predicted or engineered Their way around. From the time I was adopted up until I was eleven years old, I was raised on a farm in Ohio. A corn farm, isolated from any major roads. Unlike most farm girls, I did not grow up picking corn and baling hay. I was sickly, or so I was told. I was able to pronounce "autoimmune hemolytic anemia" perfectly by the age of six. Daily injections, weekly visits to The Clinic, of which I can only remember the car rides back and forth, were my way of life. Weeks at a time have blanked themselves out, and only recently have some of those memories started to resurface in any identifiable way. I would wake up in my bed, weak. My adoptive mother would come into my bedroom and ask me how I was feeling, saying that I had fallen ill again. Then she would hand me another box of books to read. She would not feel my forehead or my cheek to see if I was running a fever. She would not fluff my pillows or sing songs to me. Sometimes she would bring me a glass of water. Sometimes not. Then she would leave me with my books and my solitude. My isolation. And I would start to read again. My parents, the people I called my mother and father, never touched me. Not even once. Not that I can remember. Even when they gave me my injections, they wore gloves. I killed them when I was eleven. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is what I remember of that day. It was a Sunday, but I'm not sure how I know that. We hadn't gone to church that morning, nor had we gone to synagogue the day before. Somehow, the flow of time just let me know it was a Sunday. Another box of books sat at the foot of my bed. A battered paperback from the used bookstore sat on top of the pile, on the cover a picture of a knight or something talking with some fantastic creature possessed of wings and a lion's mane. Interesting. //A Spell for Chameleon// by Piers Anthony. I opened and read ravenously, finishing the story mere hours after setting eyes on the first page. Two of the women in the story had magical powers; they could change their faces. The Sorceress Iris could make everyone who saw her think she was devastatingly beautiful, even if she was just wearing her housedress and hadn't showered in two weeks. Iris was all about the illusory. Seeing is believing, even if what is seen is not the truth. The other character, a girl named Chameleon, was doomed to a cycle of magic: she varied from beautiful and stupid to dog-ugly and brilliant, hitting average on both traits somewhere in the middle of her cycle. Chameleon wanted to find a spell that would make her like everyone else. I understand now that my imagination was a defense mechanism; it inoculated me against the effects of my long-standing isolation. With no playmates, not even parents' love, I found faithful friends in my books. These friends challenged me, taught me right from wrong, and were always there for me whenever I needed them. I did not need to call their names in the dark and hope they might not ignore me this time. These friends were with me always, on demand. Faced with such possibilities as those presented by Iris and Chameleon, my fertile imagination itched. Wouldn't it be neat if I could be like Iris, be like Chameleon, and change... Just as I had tried unsuccessfully to use The Force to move my bed after reading //Star Wars// books, I now tried to change my face. I imagined myself beautiful, like Iris, with long, flowing hair, a bewitching mouth, and with Chameleon's long-lashed violet eyes... Something strange was going on. My face felt... weird. I pressed my fingers to my cheekbones, and the skin beneath rippled and shifted. When hair longer than my own and of a different color tickled my forearms, I jumped up and ran for my vanity mirror as quickly as I could, considering I still felt sick enough to stay in bed. I was never a screamer, not much of a crier either. I simply stared at the mirror and rubbed my eyes. When I reopened my eyes, nothing had changed. Everything had changed. I ran for the kitchen. That was a Sunday morning, so my parents were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading their newspapers when I reached the bottom of the steps on shaky legs. "Dad?" I asked. "Mom? What's happening to me?" My father looked up from his paper. "My God..." My mother, who had her back to me, looked up at my father and then turned to face me. "What's happening to me?" I repeated on a half-sob. My mother dropped her coffee cup, splattering hot coffee and shards of ceramic all over the kitchen. The coffee was fresh, because it scalded the skin around my ankles terribly. I bent to pick up the chunk of mug that had landed nearest me, but it was hot and slick with coffee. My fingers fumbled and the sharp, broken edge cut deep into my palm. That was the first time I saw my own blood. "No! Don't--" my mother cried, but it was too late. That was also the first time I touched the people who called themselves my parents. They began to cough and choke. I ran to them, ignoring the slice in my hand and the green fluid pouring forth from it. My father tried to push me away, but already he was too weak. "I'll call 911," I assured them, but already they were unconscious. Their faces swelled beyond recognition. Their breathing was uniformly shallow. I had no idea what was happening. I had even less of an idea what was happening when the ambulance I called failed to materialize, and in its place arrived several helicopters, brimming with men in white hooded suits. They called me "biohazard." I remember next to nothing of what happened after that. Until I was given my first assignment. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No. I have oversimplified. My assignment was not given to me one morning as I sat in an office chair, not handed to me in a manila folder. This assignment was melted into me over time, over the years I was in Their tutelage. Each of us, all five Emilys, had been created for a specific purpose. For Their specific purpose. Our common "nature" was thrust into five different "nurtures," with the hopes of five separate outcomes. One, the organizer. Another, the investigator. The communicator. The healer. And me. The cold-blooded killer. That had taken some doing. You're probably wondering when They told me all of this. They didn't. I just knew. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't remember when Lynch came onto the scene. It must have been some time before I was fourteen or fifteen. She was Emily E, Emily Elizabeth Lynch. She was the first of the other Emilys I ever saw. I suppose she was "orphaned" in some way similar to mine. She may have told me about it, and I forgot, or perhaps she never told me at all. My memory is utterly unreliable, as I am sure you have figured out by now. Regardless, somewhere in our preteen years we were put together: An odd combination. The Investigator and The Murderer. Somewhere They rustled up a dog for us that day. A little nasty thing. Pekinese, I think. Tan with a black face, like it had been nuzzling a bag of charcoal and no one had bothered to wash it clean. This dog was our alibi. Anyone seeing us wandering that suburban DC neighborhood would have thought us twin sisters out walking their dog. Just about anyone, that is. They dropped us off on the other side of the block and told us the house number we were to observe. Another lazy Sunday. Automatically some part of me, which had long since been shut down, handed the dog leash to Lynch. I did not want that dog to bite me. I did not fear the pain. I feared my own blood. We began our walk. The sun shone on front garden patches, on swing sets made of pressure- treated wood, on mailboxes that looked like little country barns. People mowed their lawns. Teenage boys washed their cars and looked up at Lynch and I appreciatively. Children in sturdy helmets rode their bikes. We walked Their dog. After the second corner we rounded, we crossed the street per Their orders, to keep the requisite distance from the subject of our surveillance. "The girl," my tutor had told us both. "The one you will have to watch from now on." We understood. They had informed us. We simply never had seen her before now -- thus, the purpose of this whole excursion. We were supposed to be talking, as sisters do, in order to look ever so natural. I could not think of a topic of conversation to save my life, however. I suppose Lynch was at a loss as well, because she remained silent. The panting of that stupid dog was the only sound between us. The voices ahead of us and across the street were quite active, however. We were about four doors across and away from a rather lively basketball game. A quick calculation of the house numbers told me that the game was in the driveway of the house we'd been sent to observe. That would make our job easier. "Time out!" We heard a man's voice call. "We're not falling for that again," laughed a girl, younger than us. It must have been her. "Right, Mom?" "Yeah, Mulder," said the woman, passing the basketball to the girl who had just spoken. "No more cheating. We're on to you." "Yeah, *Mulder*," teased the girl. She had her back to us. As she stood in place and dribbled the ball her sandy gold curls bounced with each movement. "You have to cheat because you know we're gonna kick your ass!" Suddenly, he pulled the girl into a playful headlock. "Hey, *Mulder*. That's no language for a nine year old to use." She dropped the basketball and giggled. "Phew! Deodorant, Dad! Puhleeeze!" The man released her and she scrambled down the driveway to retrieve the basketball. That was when we saw her face. Lynch drew in a sharp breath. I made no change in my outward demeanor. In so many ways, that girl's face was like ours. The girl dribbled the ball a few more times and tried passing it to her mother. The woman made no move to catch, so the ball hit her in the shoulder and "thud-thud-thud"-ed against the asphalt driveway. "Mom! Wake up!" "Scully?" The man asked as we passed out of visual range and prepared to turn another corner. "What's wrong?" We rounded the corner and did not hear her answer. "That's our mother," Lynch whispered to me. She had reached the conclusion They had designed her to reach. Which made that girl our sister. Which made my target my sister. And for myself, I was experiencing exactly what They had engineered me to experience: the first clear emotion I ever can recall having. Heart- rending, blood-boiling, rampaging jealousy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When we were returned to the house (not "home"; I can only call it a "house"), my burly tutor took me into a dark room that held a graying old man strapped to a chair. This was another lesson, another test for me. "He's one of us," my tutor told me, "and he's one of the traitors to The Project. One of those who've been plotting against us." Never mind the fact that I did not know anything about The Project this traitor might have been betraying. I had always been told *what* to do, not *why.* I looked up at my tutor's flattened hair, his bloated, scarred face and knew it was all an illusion, just like the Sorceress Iris. The tree-trunk neck and the acne-pocked cheeks made him look the textbook definition of "intimidating." I was intimidated as well; not by just his face, but by his history with me. This was yet another tutoring session. And I knew how all of my tutoring sessions with him ended. After all, this had been going on since I was eleven. He pulled forth the silver weapon I had been taught to use in theory, but never in practice. He took my hand in his and placed the weapon in my palm. My skin burned and crawled at his all-too-familiar touch. "What do you want me to do with this?" I was stalling. I knew the answer. And he knew I was stalling. "Someday," he told me, "you will use it on her." Her. My sister. The girl Lynch and I were assigned to watch for the rest of our days. I was to kill her with *this*? "Is she one of us?" "No," he replied, walking to the door. "But it's just as effective on them." The door clicked shut behind him. I turned to the prisoner, the traitor. Unbelievably, the prisoner smiled at me. His eyes were soft and compassionate as he looked at me carefully. I froze under the warmth of his gaze. "You don't have to do this," he informed me in his calm and kindly voice. "You have a choice." Did I? His gentle smile was of the same tone as the smile that man had given my sister before hugging her in a fatherly headlock. No one ever smiled at me like that. And no one would ever smile at me like that again. Blood-boiling, rampaging jealousy. I completed my assignment. I opened the door, left the room, and the door clicked shut behind me. My tutor was standing there, waiting for me. I stood waiting for him, for what had become the inevitable ever since I came under his guidance at the age of eleven. As always, he reached first for my belt-loops, as if I were a mug with handles so he could raise me to his lips and drink me empty. Then, one of his hands slid under my hair and pressed the downy skin at the back of my neck. The other hand slid from a belt-loop to the buckle of the belt itself. My skin craved this thirsty contact, starved for touch as I had been for all of those desert years with the Wexfords. My consciousness, however, rebelled and shut down until I had been drained to the dregs and once more there was nothing left of me. Nothing left but the shell, and the shell was all They ever wanted anyway. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, as the person I have become, this is very difficult to write. Someone once told me, "The mind is kind." Did I read that somewhere? Or was it you, when you suggested I write all of this down, since I so obviously could not speak any of it out loud? I still cannot speak it. I'm finding it difficult enough to write. As if remembering it alone wasn't painful enough. But no, I understand. It is like you said. If I'm ever to put any of this behind me, I need to face it. And I so very much want to put it all behind me. I take comfort and courage knowing that you understand, that my biological mother understands as well. I appreciate your understanding that I cannot bear to be touched, even in just a simple handshake or a non- threatening, friendly hug. Someday, I hope I will be able to. Just not yet. But I am working on it. And I especially appreciate your taking the time to help me out, sharing your expertise with me as I fight against what They wanted me to become. Especially considering that your background isn't so much in this one-on-one counseling psychology. Your kindness means even more, under the circumstances. If I ever seem ungrateful, I apologize in advance. Thank you, Agent Mulder. END 1/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "... a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us. " - from a letter of Franz Kafka to Oskar Pollak ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They do make mistakes, you know. They never make the mistakes They intend to avoid, of course. They make entirely different mistakes. It's called "hubris:" the blinding pride of which you and Agent Scully and I and select others are living proof. Someone once told me God herds camels through the micron-holes in Their plans. Not in so many words, but his message was crystal clear. That someone's name was Joseph. Joseph was a librarian; a librarian I never would have met had They not so engineered my psyche to Their own ends. They put me with the Wexfords and made me into a murderer. As part of that process, They also made me into a bookworm. Their theory: my compulsive reading would forge the proper neural pathways conducive to morphing -- an imagination strong enough to change not only the imaginer, but also the perceptions of those around her. Around me. I know, I know. You told me to use first person when I'm writing this. I'm trying. They made me imagine that I *could* be the girl of a billion faces. This would give me the flexibility I would need to be one of the most efficient tools in Their arsenal. Wherever I would go, whatever I would do, I could slip away and vanish without a trace. They did not ever stop to think that my "human" nature might rebel against Their plans and seek shelter from Their manipulations. They did not ever stop to dream that my imagination might seek to free me from Their ever-sure grip. And so They were unconcerned when I found my solace in books. They had books for me at the house (not "home," "house") at first. After each lesson from... *him*... I would find a book -- any book would do -- and lose myself in it. That way, I would not have to think my own thoughts or feel my own feelings. The fictional characters could do that for me. Some time before I turned twelve, I already had devoured every book in reach. I was allowed the long walk, and after turning sixteen the short drive, to a little local public library, by myself -- a rare treat. That little glass-and-red brick building became my sanctuary. They never stopped me from going there. I suppose They assumed my reading would only cement Their plans for me, develop my morphing abilities to needle-sharp precision. They did not anticipate Joseph. Soon enough, I was eighteen. By then, the check-out librarian, a middle-aged woman whose nametag read "Rachel," knew my face and always gave me a smile and a nod when I walked by her desk. She never knew my name. I never offered it, and I made sure my demeanor did not invite her to ask. I never checked out any books, so they could not have found my name on a library card. I'm sure the staff of that small library thought I was beyond strange, hovering around all alone the way I did, but my behavior was compulsive. Nothing could have mattered to me less than the opinons of a bunch of old ladies who had no idea what I was. I did not anticipate Joseph. The first time I saw him, I had to run into the bathroom, all but ready to throw up. I did not permit myself the luxury of vomiting; I was not sure if my bodily fluids might kill everyone in the whole poorly-ventilated building. I merely clutched at the rim of the toilet bowl, retching on dry heaves. He was so beautiful. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Curly blond hair -- not straight and pale like mine, but golden. Crinkly blue eyes and a merry upturned mouth. He looked like he had just stepped out of //Narcissus and Goldmund// into my little library, pushing around a cart loaded with books in need of reshelving. He stopped and looked at me. He smiled at me as if he knew me. His smile did something to me, made me want things I had dreaded before, things I had willed and had hoped to forget. There is no other way I can explain it. Which is why I ran to the bathroom, sick to my stomach that I could not smile back at him. Any normal eighteen year old girl would have. And for the first time, I fully realized that I was not a normal eighteen year old girl. I began to realize that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I ran out of that building and back into the car I was allowed to drive. When I arrived back at the house, I ran back up to my room and was greeted in the hallway by Merchant. Emily Denise Merchant. The Communicator. Merchant had come to us a while before that -- I don't remember exactly when or how. Quickly enough, Lynch and I had just accepted her presence, as in the year before *that* we had accepted the presence of Emily Ann Abbot. The Organizer. It hadn't taken Lynch, The Investigator, long to figure out the significance of our four middle names, and that Emily B was missing. It had taken Lynch even less time to figure out what had happened to Emily B; Lynch just used her special access privileges to the database in the study. Their database, Their study. Lynch told the rest of us what had happened. I don't remember feeling anything when she told us, except a distant jealousy that Emily B had been given to parents who had loved her enough that their love for her had become a threat to Them. Distant, blood-boiling, rampaging jealousy. I'm sorry. Again, I digress. You told me this would be difficult to write, but you never said how much. I guess if you had, I never would have started. Now that I have started, I know I must continue. That day, the day I first saw Joseph, Merchant caught me in the hallway. She reached out and gripped my shoulders in her hands, and she weaseled her way into my mind, reading my thoughts and my life as she had been trained to do, much in the same way I had been trained to kill in cold blood. My morphing could not hide me from her. She knew more about me than I did, thanks to her talent -- the "gift" They had given her. Merchant locked her eyes on mine, and I knew there was no sense in looking away. It was like looking into a mirror, except my mirror image was wearing different clothes. I made my face blank anyway. She had emotions. She'd lose them soon enough; They would see to that. Her brow furrowed. Her fingers dug into my shoulders and I froze at her touch. "Wexford," she murmured to me without moving her lips or pushing air through her vocal cords -- another part of Their gift to her. "Don't think you can change. You can never change." There was no point in my talking. I merely shrugged out of Merchant's grasp and walked back into the room I shared with Lynch. It was my turn to stay inside anyway. With the four of us there, only two of us were ever allowed out at any one time. Identical twins could be explained, but not identical quadruplets. I needed more anesthesia. I picked up a magazine and started to read mindlessly. I don't know how long it was before the door opened without a warning knock. It was him. His eyes danced at me over his pitted, puffy cheeks. Shadows defined his silhouette. By then, I was eighteen. I should have known to stop him. I should have known I *could* have stopped him. After seven years... I should have, but I did not, and he reached for my belt loops again. I did not know how to stop him. That knowledge came the next day. I needed the comfort of my books, but I was terrified I would see that boy again. I wanted more than anything to see that boy again. First thing in the morning, I drove back to the library. As I walked in the glass doors, I scanned the room carefully. I was concentrating so hard I did not hear Rachel the librarian calling over to me. "Miss? Excuse me, Miss?" No one had ever called me "Miss" before. I turned to her slowly and looked at her. She looked frightened. The crows' feet around her eyes quivered. "Joseph left these for you." She pushed a small stack of books at me across the countertop. I was confused. "Who?" "Joseph," Rachel nodded, her glasses sliding down her nose a notch, "the young man about your age who just started working here. He said that if I saw you come in here, that I should give these to you. He said he thought they'd be good for you to read." *Joseph.* My stomach churned involuntarily even as I promised never to forget that name. I took the books in my hands and nodded wordlessly to the woman. She bobbed an uncomfortable nod back at me and resumed cleaning the barcode reader. I did not even look down at the books in my hands until I had reached "my spot": a secluded little desk in the reference section with miscellaneous graffitti scraped into the veneer of the desktop. When I sat and finally did look down at the books Joseph had left me, I began to tremble. //A Spell for Chameleon// by Piers Anthony. I jerked my head up and looked around, as if Merchant had been prying into my thoughts again and I had just begun to sense it. //How did he know?// My shaking hands put the book aside so I could see the title underneath: //I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings// by Maya Angelou. This one I had never read. I dove in immediately, drinking in the words. As I read, becoming immersed in the story of the little girl abused, I began to realize even more fully... Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. The book underneath *that* was a thick book of poetry. //The Collected Works of Anne Sexton.// Confessional poetry of the late twentieth century. A woman gone mad, trapped by the pain of the past. Eventually, a suicide. I read. The hour hand swung around the clockface. The more I read, the sharper the realization became, sharper than the pain of that ceramic shard slicing into my upturned palm. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. With me. With what had been done to me. With what I always had wanted to stop. With what I never had been able to stop. With what I had been asked to do and made to do. With what I had been told time and again I was powerless to change. *Wexford. Don't think you can change. You can never change.* I pushed Anne Sexton aside, unable to read more than halfway through, the pain was so intense. Instinctively, my fingers sought a spot somewhere in the middle of //A Spell for Chameleon// for the scene played out on the cover of the book: Bink the wanderer talking with a monster, the Manticora, who guarded the Magician Humphrey's castle gate. The Manticora had come to ask if he, a monster, had a soul. The Magician Humphrey had answered him: "Only those who posses souls are concerned about them." I began to shake again. The pain was stubborn. It would not go away. I was wandering through the sandstorm of a barren desert, too tired to continue but still needing to search for fresh, clean water. I forced myself to read on. Then, my eyes froze on the sentence that finished the page: "If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?" Somehow, I had missed that sentence when I was eleven. A gentle voice spoke from the stirring of long- dormant memories: *You don't have to do this. You have a choice.* Did I? Did I have a choice? I who was not permitted human emotions or human dreams? How could I have a choice? How could I have a soul? "I knew you would read all that." The voice spoke in the present. I nearly jumped to my feet and bolted when I saw him, *Joseph*, looking over my shoulder. I took several deep breaths to keep myself from running to the bathroom again. I looked up at him, forced myself to meet those disarming blue eyes. I tried to speak, but did not know what to say. Finally, I managed a weak, "How?" He smiled softly at me. "I think you know." I could only shake my head. He bent and looked into my eyes more closely. "You know what Emily Merchant can do," he whispered. He knew about Merchant? "You can do it too," he urged, "They just never wanted you to know how." I shook my head again. "Here," Joseph said, taking my hands in his. I was too frightened to pull away. "Close your eyes and focus." I hesitated, but followed anyway. Was I imagining things? Just like I could *hear* Bink and the Manticora talking when I read, I could *hear* Joseph. He was saying, "You have a choice." I gasped and broke the contact. My stomach contracted once more, but I willed it into peace. Joseph's eyes twinkled at me with soft intensity. "See?" I stammered. "I-I was imagining things." Now he shook his head. "You have a choice," he said out loud, by way of confirmation. I wasn't imagining things. Or was I? "How?" I asked again. "Don't ask," he answered me, holding his hands out again to help me focus. "Find out for yourself." I placed my hands in his, and the first thing I *heard* him saying was, "Someday you'll be able to do this without needing to hold anyone's hand, once you've learned enough." Then, Joseph told me about the plans for colonization -- the parts of Their Plan They had not deemed necessary to tell me. The virus. My place in Their police force. My ability to kill, and our ability to heal. How my alien blood conflicted with my human shell. How my daily injections of "medicine" kept my blood from eating me alive. So much death devouring everything. And why? Why? Joseph did not have an answer. All he had were choices. "You don't have to do this. You have a choice." People passing by us must have thought we were a typical young couple, holding hands and looking deeply into each others' eyes. Had they but known... "Why did you give me these books?" I asked him. He answered, "What better way could I have told you that what They are doing to you is wrong?" My newly-opened mind began making the sort of connections Lynch could make. Joseph was right. I would not have listened to spoken words. These books were the only way to reach me. But why would this stranger, this one of us, want to reach out to me and tell me all these things? "Why?" His blue eyes hardened. "Because They made us for wrong, but some of us want to put it right." Right and wrong. I swallowed hard. "What do I do?" Joseph shrugged. "What do you want to do?' Never before had anyone asked me that question. "I don't know," I answered truthfully. "I need to think about it." Joseph nodded. "Will you be here tomorrow?" "I don't know," I repeated, getting up to leave. "Emily," Joseph whispered as I pushed my chair away from the desk. I could not remember the last time anyone had called me by that name. "Remember," he murmured, reaching out to grasp my hand, "there are some of us, the ones who want to put Their wrongs right. We are resisting. You have a choice..." Resisting. Finally, it all slipped into place. Joseph was a traitor, too. Or was I the traitor? What was "right"? Their Project, or Joseph's loyalty to a beautiful and flawed planet? What did it mean, to resist? Did that make me a traitor, for wanting to believe him? Would They ask me to kill him once They found him? I dropped his hand and backed away from him. He seemed hurt. Then, across the space I had put between us, I felt his fear -- not for himself, but for me. No one had ever been afraid for me before. I turned on my heel and fled the library once again. Merchant must have said something about our encounter from the day before, because when I stepped outside, *he* was waiting for me. A bulky silhouette stood patiently by the car that had brought me here. END 2/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If you do well, you can hold up your head; But if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: His urge is toward you, Yet you can be his master." --Genesis 4:7 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Seven years' worth of habits and conditioning die hard, so I automatically walked over to the car. My tutor's eyes were cold on me. I could not see, because I was too shaken to meet his glare, but I could feel the usual chill. Could he read my thoughts as well? I never had thought of that possibility, not until that moment. Merchant had told him. "You're not supposed to be out today," was all he said. Today was Merchant's and Abbot's turn. Not Lynch's, not mine. "Emily!" I turned to see Joseph pushing open the library's glass doors and running after me. When he saw the man with me, his pace slowed. His steps became more calculated as he continued coming over to us. He had also come looking for Joseph. How had he known? *Joseph,* I imagined, willing him to hear me, *get away.* Joseph must have heard or somehow sensed what I said. My tutor began walking to Joseph, narrowing the gap between them. "If you touch him," I hissed, "so help me, I will kill you." My tutor turned his mocking gaze at me. He obviously didn't believe my warning. He should have. He continued walking to Joseph, and Joseph continued walking toward him. As the gap between them closed, I saw my tutor pull forth something silver. I reached into my own pocket and pulled forth the weapon that had been given me as well. I stepped behind him as stealthily as he had taught me to do. He was focused on Joseph, so he did not know what I was doing behind his back. Joseph however saw what I was doing. "Emily, don't. There's another way." Joseph's words were not spoken out loud, but *he* heard them. He turned and saw the silver length in my hand, trained on him. With his free hand he grabbed my free hand and pulled me to him. His grip crushed my wrist. I changed my warning. "If you ever touch me again, I will kill you." He did not let me go. I may have been created smaller than he, but I finally was beginning to realize the scope of the strength They had given me so that I could meet Their ends. *He* still must have thought that I believed myself weak, for when I shoved him to the ground with every ounce of my angry energy, he actually looked shocked. I was afraid again when he got back up and lunged for me. I danced just out of his reach, but They had given him the longer legs and arms, and I didn't think fast enough to imagine myself longer ones. His fingers dug into my belt-loops and he crushed me to him. I pushed against him, trying to break free, but every physics student knows that two equal forces pushing against each other cancel out. In the struggle, his breath was hot in my ear, giving rise to fresh rage within me. I shifted and tried to slide sideways out of his grip, but I only managed to get myself face to face with him. His arms looped around me only tightened. His lips, so close to mine... his leering expression... his scent in my head like I imagined a knife wound to the stomach would be... Blood-boiling, rampaging fury. That alone gave me the advantage over him. I twisted my arm free and plunged the gimlet into the base of his neck. His eyes widened. "I warned you." I stabbed again. His grip on me loosened "Don't you ever--" Another stab. "--ever--" And another. "--touch me--" And a last. "--again." The body slid from my arms, and the devouring began. I watched in fascinated horror. So that's what would happen to me. "Emily Camille," Joseph spoke up. His eyes were full of horror as well. He was one of us. This is what would happen to *him.* This was what I could do to him. Not if I could help it. "No!" I shouted at him, brandishing the stiletto in front of me. "Stay away from me!" I could do this to him. That last thing I wanted was to do this to him. "No, Emily." His voice was soft. Sympathetic? Did it matter? *You have a choice...* No. Joseph and the old man were both wrong about me. I had killed the Wexfords. I had killed the old man. I had killed my tutor. I had killed everyone who ever had taught me anything. Except for Joseph, who in this short time had taught me the most of all. I had a choice, and I would not -- *ever* -- hurt Joseph. I would never hurt anyone again. I grabbed the car keys and jumped behind the wheel. I refused to look back at Joseph, to see my heartbreak on his face. I had to get away to do what I needed to do. They would come looking for me for killing *him,* and Their justice would be swift. Or would it? Did They have other plans for me? Or, worse: was this all part of Their plan? I had a choice. I would never hurt anyone again, regardless of Their plans. End 3/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, suvivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind." --Anne Sexton final stanza of "Her Kind" from //To Bedlam and Part Way Back// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I disappeared. I changed my face. I drove until I no longer knew where I was, and then I found a thrift store. I bought one new outfit because I did not anticipate needing more than one. Blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Nondescript. Indistinguishable. I paid in cash. I changed my face again. I drove further until I saw another mall. I parked in the farthest reaches of the lot. I threw the car keys into one trash dumpster and my old clothes into another. I mingled with the crowds of shoppers. I imagined myself another new face. Each hour, I went through another transformation, so that whoever might try to track me would fail. They had taught me every trick I knew. They had taught me invisibility. Now I would become invisible to Them. I left when the mall closed. The double-door slammed behind me and I stepped out onto the sidewalk. I began to walk. Soon enough, someone would come along... A car slowed beside me. A window rolled down. A man leered out at me. "Hey!" My hair was long and dark now. My eyes were violet. I batted my thick lashes at the driver. "Hey," I purred. He licked his lips in satisfaction at my response. "Lookin' for a ride?" I did not smile, but I nodded and opened the unlocked passenger door. He wore an old t- shirt with a faded picture proclaiming the delights of the "Baltimore Summer Crab Feast '09". He smelled of sweat and motor oil, beer and cheap cigarettes. Not at all what I was used to. Except for his burliness. I fought back another wave of nausea. "Just drive," I ordered in my new voice. He complied. After a few minutes of silence, he asked, "So, what's your name?" He looked back to catch my eye seductively and saw my icy stare. His emotions were raw enough for even my untrained mind to sense. He was confused by me. I kept my voice cold. "Biohazard." Now, he was frightened. I had just guaranteed he would not touch me. He drove several miles then pulled into the parking lot of "Jesse's Motel." I opened my door, stepped out and began walking away from the car. "Hey!" The rough voice behind me called. "Where you going?" I kept walking. I braced myself to use my newfound strength. But I did not need it. He was too frightened by me to follow. Success. Success all my own. I needed to keep moving, to keep changing. I needed to die. I could not slit my wrists. I could not drown myself. I could not suffocate or shoot myself. They had created me to be virtually indestructible. Except for one of two ways. I could waste away -- my only remaining option. By the time They might find me, I would already be dead and gone. A strange sort of suicide. I walked through the sparse patch of woods behind the motel. I walked and walked and found another highway. I clung to the shoulder. Another car slowed beside me. Another window rolled down. Another man leered out at me. "Hey..." "Just drive," I said, seating myself in the passenger seat. "Where you going?" "Away," was my answer. This pattern went on for days and nights. How many, you're probably wondering? I can't begin to guess. Time was not important. With each new driver, I grew weaker and weaker. I was sweating through my t-shirt, even my jeans. With each new man, the painful cyst at the back of my neck grew. The fever had started, and my blood grew sluggish in my veins. There were no more shots. There was no more medicine to keep me alive for Their plans any more. Success. Success all my own. At first, I watched the landscapes slip by: the crowded buildings and crunched people of cities, the cookie-cutter houses of the suburbs, the rolling fields and farms and wildflowers of the abundant, incessant highways. Soon enough, though, I was no longer strong enough to keep my head up. I hoarded my draining vitality and spent it only on shifting my shape and walking from one driver to another. "Hey..." "Just drive..." Some wore business suits and had briefcases in their backseats. Some had obviously been drinking. Some were boys on their way home from college with hatchbacks full of fragrant laundry. They asked for my name. I picked names and faces from my favorite childhood books. "Dicey." "Sara Louise." "Laura." Once, "Anne," when I had red hair. Eventually, I chose not to answer the question. I needed to save my energy until I was far enough away. "Just drive." But could I ever get far enough away? Three times they, my drivers, tried to rape me. The first two times were early in my journey; I was still strong enough to push them down with the inhuman strength They had given me. Inhuman strength. I heard their bones crunch. I felt their blood, slick and hot and red, against my palms clenched into fists. Then I ran. I changed my face. I changed direction. And it would begin again. "Hey..." "Just drive..." The third time was different. He must have sensed my weakness. I could sense his intent even as I fell into his car. I thought myself still strong enough, though. I even let go of my faces, letting the face They gave me show through. The face called Emily Camille Wexford. I was trying to save energy. I was running out of energy to save. // And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.// Before I could even think of sleep. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and he wore khakis and a sweater and a pair of brown loafers. I remember watching those loafers push the gas pedal, the brake, the clutch. Standard transmission. "What's your name?" "Chameleon," I answered that time. I was so tired and weak. We were in a city at that point, but I did not know which one. Night had fallen hours before. He pulled the car into an empty parking lot. I reached for the door quickly, but not quickly enough. With one arm he pinned both my arms behind my back and turned me to face him. He pressed me to the seat, my arms still behind me. His pulse throbbed in a vein at his temple I was still not afraid. I was stronger than he could have been. They had made me stronger. But why couldn't I move my arms? That was when I saw the knife, its silver blade leaning up against my cheek. Then I was afraid, but not for myself. "You don't want to do that," I warned him. "If you say another word," he breathed at me. He did not finish his warning. His mind was elsewhere. I fought. I tried to sit up to free my arms. I kicked. But my limbs were not inflicting the damage I had come to expect. I was now too weak. The end was near. His left hand held the knife. His right hand fought with my jeans. "You don't want to touch me," I cried, my voice so weak and pathetic. "You don't want to touch me." "WHAT DID I TELL YOU?" His voice was a shouting whisper as he pulled the blade down my cheek in what was meant to be a warning cut. And the green poured fourth. For a brief second his face registered surprise, then disgust, then surprise again. Then he began to cough and his brown eyes swelled shut. He clawed at himself, trying to escape what my blood was doing to his body. His coughing became a strangled wheeze. Then he stopped breathing all together. His throbbing temple slowed to an intermittent bump, and then was completely still. For long moments the lifeless body weighed me down. I could not escape his weight. I needed to keep moving. I could not die here. I needed to run. I touched my finger to my cheek. A crust was growing over the wound. I pressed my hand to my cheek and tried to imagine the wound gone. It worked. The crust dissolved into my skin and was suddenly... not. Still, I must have done something wrong, because my cheek still hurt. So Joseph was right. I could heal as well. At least, to outward appearances. But not for long. Soon, I told myself, I would be gone. Dawn was peeking over the buildings by the time I had freed myself completely. I could walk only if I clung to walls, telephone poles, mailboxes, newspaper vending machines. Cars passed me by. I must have looked as weak as I felt, and I didn't have the energy to change my appearance. My sickness frightened them away. Good. The end was close anyway. My limbs were lead. I could hear my heart working overtime to push the blood through my corroding veins and arteries and capillaries. My breathing grew shallower and shallower with each step I took. Sweat rolled off of me, and my mouth was a desert so dry I could no longer swallow. Often, I would turn a corner and see the morning sun glaring off of a long, wide strand of water. A river. Or was it two rivers? Three? I thirsted. Occasionally, I lifted my head to search for an alley in which to die. Too many people. People everywhere. I needed to be alone for this. I would wait until I was alone. Could I imagine myself dead? I did not know. It would be worth a try, though. But first I needed to find the right place. People on their way to their jobs hurried past me, stopping only to stare briefly as I made my stumbling, halting way down the street. I could no longer walk, so I fell to my hands and knees and crawled. My hands scraped along, raw against the concrete sidewalk. No blood, though. I watched carefully for chunks of glass or metal so I could avoid them. I could not move fast enough. I could not find a totally empty alley. I could not breathe enough to move on. I would die here on a sidewalk in an unknown city, my dissolving body a freakshow for the clueless passersby. Perhaps, irony or ironies, the parents of my sister, my target, would be called out to investigate my death, I thought as my arms and legs gave out underneath me and my still-aching cheek met the pavement. Perhaps my mother indeed would find me. If They didn't find me first. END 4/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal [but the sleek and the strong I will destroy], shepherding them rightly." --Ezekiel 34: 16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I collapsed in front of a coffee shop. From what I've been able to piece together, the shop's owner was not pleased with the way my unconscious, discolored body turned away his customers. He must have called the police who came to pick me up. "Jeez! What the hell is?" One of the officers squatted beside me and touched the lump on the back of my neck. I remember calling out, "Don't touch me," as the arms of the two police officers went around me. "What is this? Some weird rash?" Said one, sliding dark blue sleeves underneath me, trying to lift me off the ground. "We need to get this one to a hospital." "No," I was able to say aloud. "No treatment. I'm eighteen. No treatment." "We can't just leave you in the street, sweetheart." "Don't touch me," was my reply. It was becoming my litany. "No treatment. I'm eighteen." The officer grabbing my feet said, "I know where we could take her." "The Cov?" Asked the other. I was raised from the sidewalk in one motion. "When we get in the car, radio ahead to Sister Shan. Let her know we got another one for 'er." I was carried into a waiting police car. The car drove. The lights did not flash; the siren did not blare. Information about me was issued over the radio. I sensed the officer in the passenger seat looking back at me every minute or so, with a mixture of concern and curiosity. The police car stopped. The door opened, and I was carried up a shallow ramp to a metal door. One of the officers clumsily bent to press a button on an intercom while still trying to balance half of my weight. Moments later, the door beeped and I was carried over the threshold. "Hey, Sister" both officers grunted. "Officer Coleman, Officer Ravitsky," spoke the woman who was now looking at me with worry. "You know where to find the Intake Office." I was carried down a brightly-lit hallway while the policemen gave the woman some information. "Found her collapsed on the sidewalk." "Where?" "In front of CuppaJoe's, on Cherry near Seventh." "How long has she been like this?" "Dunno, S'ter." The woman opened a door to a small but comfortable office and ushered all of us through. She looked at me and smiled. "Do you feel well enough to sit up, honey?" I shrugged with all the energy I could muster. "Okay, guys, sit her in that chair. Gently, now. No shoving." I was placed in a cushioned chair facing a neat desk with a rather old computer. I leaned my head against the chair's high back so I could watch the three around me. No one was touching me. I felt desolately better. The woman took a seat in the desk chair and swiveled it around to face me. The policemen remained standing, watching. "My name is Sister Shannon King," the woman said, her warm eyes trying to meet mine. I had to look away. "But everyone calls me Sister Shan. I'm the intake counselor here at Covenant House. What's your name?" My head dropped and my eyes fell closed. "Biohazard," I replied. I could feel the policemen looking at me strangely, but Sister Shan seemed unaffected. She reached out to put her hand on mine. I pushed myself hard against the back of the chair, trying to inch out of her reach. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" The officers jumped at my scream. Sister Shan still remained calm, however she did put her hand back in her own lap. "Okay, I won't touch you. Don't worry. You'll be safe here." I would have laughed if They had given me a sense of humor. "Do you want us to call anyone?" Sister Shan continued. "Do you have any parents or relatives who might be looking for you?" Even without a sense of humor, I could recognize the irony of her question. No one would believe who might be looking for me. "My parents are dead," I told her. She nodded with sympathy. "How long ago did they die?" I closed my eyes again. "It's okay," she reassured. "You don't have to talk about anything yet if you don't want to." My eyes remained closed. "Are you sick?" She asked me. I nodded. "I'm going to die." "Don't worry," she said again, "we can get you to a hospital. We'll--" "No!" I whimpered. "No hospital. No treatment. I want to die." Sister leaned closer, a look of concern on her face. "Why do you want to die?" I paused. I didn't want to answer her, but time was running out, and soon enough my answer wouldn't matter anyway. "They can't use me anymore if I'm dead." "Who's 'they?'" The way she said "they" was clearly lower-case. I tried to swallow, but my throat was solidifying as the moments passed. "Honey? Who's 'they'?" "They..." was the last thing I was able to say. My throat dried up. I could no longer speak. "What are they using you for?" I could not answer her. She sighed, "Okay, let's get her up to one of the rooms in the infirmary. If she won't let us take her to the hospital, all we can do is keep an eye on her. And pray she'll change her mind." The policemen carried me once more, and soon I was in a bed with white sheets and had a very young, clearly confused doctor looking over me. The police officers left me and with the exception of the doctor, I was on my own. "Don't touch me," I wanted to warn the doctor. My lips would not respond. Luckily, Sister Shan told him I didn't want to be touched or treated, but she did want him to keep a close eye on me. So he did. Would no one let me die alone? Sister Shannon looked at me gravely and made the sign of the cross just before pulling a string of rosary beads out of her skirt pocket. It was some time later that afternoon when you and Agent Scully found me, after the Pittsburgh PD called you out to investigate the strange death of one Anthony Lorenzo, aged tweny-three, found dead in his car in a downtown parking lot. END 5/16 PART 6 DISCLAIMER: I'm pretty sure he's out of copyright as well, but none of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins belongs to me either. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Thus says the Lord God: Because they have said of you, 'You are a land that devours men, and you rob your people of their children'; therefore, never again shall you devour men or rob your people of their children, says the Lord God. " --Ezekiel 36: 13-15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hours passed. Sister Shannon and the doctor stayed by my bedside. I wished with all the world that I could have spoken and told them to get away from me for their own safety. But I could not, and so they did not. Sister was called away from my bedside for a brief moment, only to return with the news I had dreaded. "Honey," she said softly, "your twin sister is here." So They had found me. //Which one?// I thought, but luckily I could not speak my thoughts. "She says she has your medicine with her. She says you can come home and no one will be mad at you. She just needs to give you your medicine." I dug deep within myself to find some energy; I only needed enough to shout "NO!" or at the very least shake my head. But I could do neither. Sister Shan frowned sadly at my silence. "Honey, we want to help you, but you have to want to help yourself. Do you want me to let your sister in?" I blinked at her, willing her to understand me the way Merchant could have. My blinking must have given her an idea. "Honey --" She had renamed me. "Honey, blink once if you want to say 'yes,' and blink twice if you want to say 'no'. Can you do that for me? Do you want us to let your sister in the building to help you?" So whichever of my "twins" had come to "rescue" me was not even allowed into the building yet. I was safe, and my caretakers were just that little bit safer. I blinked twice just before I slipped into the coma. For all intents and purposes, I never should have woken again. Once I had slipped into that coma, I could have been only hours, days at best, from the ultimate end. Later, I remember hearing Sister Shannon mutter something about "the grace of God" that woke me up. But nuns are always saying stuff like that. I know that now from experience, but more on that later. Joseph said that it was hearing my biological mother's voice reading those words that woke me. Or perhaps it was the words alone that woke me. Because, again, I did not anticipate Joseph. When I woke, both of you were there. In the cold dark place I called my own at that time, I could hear a woman's voice, trembling a bit, clumsy with the meter at first, but growing more sure as the words pressed on: "Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; "Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man "In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; "Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be..." The voice trailed off and my eyes opened. I saw her. The mother of my target. The mother of my sister. The mother of my own sorry self, and she was sitting by my deathbed. Did she know who I was? Did she know *what* I was? //Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man/ In me...// She saw my eyes open and she stopped reading. Our eyes met and something inside of me wanted to panic. Something inside of me crumbled and wanted to cry. //...or, most weary, cry I can no more....// She tried to say something to me, but her voice shriveled in her throat. It was like looking into a mirror, only my image was red-haired and in her forties. I saw your partner swallow. I saw her eyes, the blue eyes she had given me and Lynch and Sim and Abbot and Merchant. I watched the water puddle and gather, the bottom rims of her eyelids levees refusing to let the tears break free. No one had ever cried for me before. Her eyelids shut and swallowed those tears. Your partner spoke to me, looking not at the worn poetry book in her hand, but directly into my eyes, the eyes They had taken from her and given to me. Her eyes returned to the slim volume, and she continued to read. "But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me "Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan "With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan, "O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?" I was bruised, a heap of the shell They had designed. I was frantic to flee, for the safety of others, but to flee whom? Them? Or myself, what They wanted me to be? *You have a choice.* A choice? From whom? And how? And why? Your partner continued reading to me. But you know this, Agent Mulder. You were there, in the background, listening as well. "Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. "Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, "Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. "Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven- handling flung me, foot trod "Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? "That night, that year of now done darkness "I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God." Whom was I wrestling? Them or me, Emily Camille? Who was my opponent? What was I resisting? Questions I was too tired to ponder. Or so I thought, until Agent Scully closed the book of poetry and held a vial up so I could see its contents, as if she held a jewel in her fingers -- a jewel with sharp edges that both sparkled and cut. "There's a young man outside," she almost whispered, "who asked me to read that poem to you. He also asked me to give you this. I *know* it will make you well, if you want it." *Joseph.* So he had found me. How? Why? I closed my eyes, and the dark place beckoned me to return. My ears were still accepting sounds, and the sound was your partner's, my mother's voice. "He asked me to tell you that you have a choice." I had a choice. I had a choice, and the darkess called to me, the most enticing sound I'd ever heard. I had a choice, and They had sent one of my sisters to steal that choice and make it for me. I had a choice, and Joseph had tracked me down somehow to remind me. But if I chose to "not choose not to be," didn't he realize that They would still use me? I would be alive, but I would be Death. I had a choice, and my mother held it in her hands, and if I didn't make that choice, I may bring her with me into death, because I knew with the deepest certainty that she would not leave my side. I could accept this relief, just this once. I could take just enough shots so I could get my energy back. With my energy back, I could disappear again, run out to the solitude of the country, and no one would find me or stop me then. My body would devour itself, like that oerboros, that Greek snake that swallows itself and becomes a symbol of life for others. That would be my success. Success all my own. Wouldn't it? I opened my eyes and blinked. Once. When my mother gave me the injection, she did not wear gloves. END 6/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live." --Deuteronomy 30: 19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The effect of the medicine was not immediate. I was lying on that infirmary cot for hours, still unable to talk. Agent Scully refused to leave my bedside. After she had administered the first saving injection, she took hold of my hand and would not let go. That frightened me. I kept trying to talk or to move my hand out of hers. I did not want her touching me. Not because I was afraid that she would hurt me. I wasn't, surprisingly enough. I was afraid of what was inside of me that might hurt her. I only wanted to protect her from what I was -- what They had made me. Eventually, I was able to see you, Agent Mulder. You kept coming and going, bringing Agent Scully cups of water and asking how I was doing. I could tell you were concerned, eyeing me carefully. I especially remember how you kept a respectful distance. I only wished your partner would do the same. When I finally had my voice again, my first words were spent on trying to warn Agent Scully. "Please let me go..." My voice faded with the effort. The effect on her was similar to what might have happened if I had jabbed a blunt and rusty shovel into her stomach and started digging up the most painful memories of her life. The levees that were her eyelids still clung to the tears, but my senses were returning, stronger than ever before, and I felt her pain at my command. She withdrew her hand, however, even as her face twisted in hurt at being pushed away. You must know I only said that to protect her. I hope she'll understand that. You can understand, though, can't you, Agent Mulder? I felt abandoned, but I felt better as well. I tried willing myself to get up and walk away, but my body was not yet back in line with my imagination, regardless of that imagination's potency. I think that was when Agent Scully's cell phone first rang. Or perhaps I slipped back into unconsciousness and the ringing woke me. Regardless, the next thing I remember is Agent Scully pulling out her cell phone, turning it off, and then returning her eyes to me. And then another phone began to ring. It was yours, Agent Mulder. Do you remember? As you left the room to answer it, I remember hearing you say, "Oh, hi, Meg." My mother's face twitched and blanched. She had just chosen me, the child of her flesh and yet still a stranger, over her daughter, the child of her love and her long-awaited miracle. She was stewing in guilt. So was I. When you returned, I looked up at you and found my voice once more. "My sister?" Sister Shannon was still in the room, and she did not understand. "Do you want me to bring your sister in from outside now, honey?" Both of you tensed at the prospect. You needn't have worried. I was out only to protect you both. I whispered to Sister, "No." And then, to my mother, "My little sister?" You and my mother passed information between yourselves with a wordlessness even Merchant could envy. Merchant. Was she the one outside waiting for me? Or was it Abbott? Or Lynch? I strained with every last strand of whatever-I-am in me on the off chance that I could have sensed which one was out there. My efforts were fruitless and only resulted in my passing out yet again. And I woke again, feeling much stronger. In the meantime, night had come and the room was dim, lit only by a small lamp in the far corner. The young and confused doctor had long since gone, his vigilance replaced with Agent Scully's. You, in your turn, kept vigil over Agent Scully, and Sister Shannon kept vigil over the whole scene like some sort of referee. I sat up and all three of you jolted and looked at me. I wanted to tell all of you that I was fine, that I didn't need anyone, that all I needed was to leave this place and to be left alone. I tried to talk, but found the words were not coming. My jaw hinged up and down, but the speech refused to go past my vocal cords. "What is it?" Agent Scully asked me. Why couldn't I say the words? That's when you came over to the bedside and hunkered down beside Scully. "Can you talk?" I shook my head and closed my eyes, resigned to my muteness. You frowned, deep in thought. "I think she wants something to write on." Scully's head swung around and she looked at you with a mixture of relief and gratitude. Suddenly, the words flew from my mouth unbidden. "I want something to read." Apparently, no one in that room was expecting me to say that. After a stunned moment, Agent Scully must have realized she was still holding Joseph 's slim book of poetry. With a nod, she handed it to me, and I took the potential painkiller from her, sure to keep my hands on the side of the book opposite hers. Our fingers didn't even touch. Success all my own. The book was worn and dogeared in several places. A bright piece of purple ribbon stuck out of one page as a bookmark, and I automatically opened to that page. And, of course, the bookmark had been guarding the poem "Carrion Comfort" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. //Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man// //In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; // //Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be...// The words hounded me. I could not escape this time, not even in the written word. I pressed my hands to my face to keep it from changing into another form, something that was from Them and not my own. But even I was Theirs. I did not want to be Theirs any more. I did not want to be Their new bounty hunter, replacing the one I had just killed out of green-bloody vengeance. Human tears threatened, and with a choking cry I reached into my pocket and pulled forth the stiletto. I expended my every last ounce of energy flinging it across the room at a window, but the window was chicken-wired and shatterproof, because the silver length merely bounced off and clattered to the ground. Then, I fell into a feverish, frantic heap on the cot. I heard a few uncertain footsteps, which stopped. I heard the silver gimlet being picked up off of the infirmary floor, and then I heard you speak. Your voice was a shock to me. "You don't want to stop living," you said. Next to me, my mother's voice was heavy with hurt and fury. Blood-boiling, rampaging hurt. Blood-boiling, rampaging fury. Hurt for me, fury for what They had done to both of us. "You just want to stop killing," she said. I opened my eyes and looked up at you, you standing there and holding the weapon in an angry, knowing hand. Then I turned my eyes to my mother. Her expression of awe and shocked understanding must have been mirrored by my own, so similar to hers. How had she understood so well? Because she is my mother? Because I am flesh of her flesh, the child of her pain? Was that enough and nothing else? How had you known? Because of your love for her? I guess it was inevitable that you would know. In a way, you are Their child, too. Perhaps all of that gave me that tiny sliver of hope I needed. //Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be...// Agent Scully's eyes flew to my own. She actually smiled at me, almost with... pride. Proud? Of me? A half-human, half-monster *thing,* of which she should have been so ashamed? "If that's what you want," she whispered, still smiling, "we can find a way." The uncertainty within ruled me still. I shook my head at her, even as the hope continued to dawn. "Emily," her voice ached, and the levees broke and the tears rolled down her cheeks silently, one right after the other. "I will do all I can. There has to be another way. There has to be another way this time--" Her voice caught and froze. *This time.* Why was she fighting for me like this, after what had happened with Emily Beatrice Sim? What was she feeling? What made this time any different than the last? "Emily," she repeated, regaining her voice, "you have a choice..." As she said those words, *Joseph's* words, I understood her fight for me. She wasn't naive; she knew what They had created me to become. But she also believed, impossibly, in my humanity. She believed I had I choice in spite of Them. My mother believed in me. So finally, I could believe as well. In that dim room, that night, day came. I nodded my assent. One more word came from my lips. "How?" END 7/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I do not ask you to take them out of the world, But to guard them from the evil one. They are not of the world, Any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them by means of truth-- 'Your word is truth.'" John 17: 15-17 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Wait a minute," interrupted Sister Shannon. I have to admit. I had forgotten that anyone else was in the room. The way Agent Scully started at Sister's sharp words, I think she had forgotten as well. "Would someone mind terribly telling me exactly what the *hell* is going on here?" I hadn't know nuns could curse. I guess they're human, too. Sister Shannon looked very, very frazzled. "At this moment," Sister continued, "I am at least partially responsible for what happens to this young woman, eighteen or not. There are words being said here which seem to be affecting her very deeply when she is *clearly* in a very anxious state. "Agent Scully, I *allowed* you and your partner to come in here, thanks mostly to your *government* credentials and your claim to be investigating a murder-- and now I'm hearing all this talk of -- this talk -- of *what,* I don't know. Now unless someone in this room can give me some clear explanation -- Agents, I am going to have to call my hospitality short and ask you both to leave until you can get a warrant for this young woman's arrest." My mother rose from my side and stood to face Sister Shannon head on. I watched, wordless. Steel versus steel. My mother's voice hardened like a shield about me. "This young woman's name is Emily. Emily Camille Wexford. She is fleeing from medical experimentation." How clever of her. She told the truth. Not the whole truth, but enough of it. Sister Shan let her crossed arms drop slowly to her sides. She turned her head slightly and bored her eyes into Agent Scully's. "On humans?" Her voice even, Agent Scully confirmed, "On humans." Again, not the whole truth, but enough. "What kind of experiments?" I could tell Sister Shannon still was uncertain whether or not she should accept this information. "Genetic engineering. Cloning." Sister blinked twice, trying diligently to hide her dismay. She looked at me briefly, and my silence did not deny what she had just heard. "Sister," my mother continued, "I am Catholic as well. I imagine that we feel the same way about such disrespect for human life." I think only I could have detected the way my mother's voice leaned so lightly but so certainly on the word "human." Sister Shan frowned deeply and refolded her arms over her chest. She looked to you, and then to my mother, and finally she turned her critical eyes on me. "Is this true? Emily Camille Wexford?" I raised my eyes to Sister Shannon's and took a deep breath. "Yes," I answered her, my own voice sounding stronger than I thought it should have. Sister Shannon pursed her lips, deep in thought. Your partner looked to me again. I know, I know. First person. My mother. At length, Sister sighed. "I see. So, what happens now?" My mother turned back to me and resumed her seat by my bedside. "Emily," she said, "what do you want to do?" That question again. The power of my mother's belief lent me the strength not only to choose but to voice that choice aloud. "I want to see Joseph." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When Joseph came running into the room, over to my bedside, Sister Shannon and you and my mother all stepped aside on some sort of instinct. Joseph reached his arms out to hold me. I put my hands out to ward him off. "Don't touch me," I whispered. He stopped, confused at first, but then he reached out to me with his mind and understood. "Emily," he said softly, "don't worry. You won't." I trusted him. Still, I did not trust myself, even with the weapon out of my possession. So I insisted, "Don't touch me." He nodded in respect. I had chosen to live, but I still did not know how that choice would be carried out. "How?" I asked him, somehow knowing he would have an answer. "There are hiding places for us," he told me, "I can get you to one of them not far from here. You'll be safe there." Safe. *Safe.* The concept was alien to me, but newborn hope let me hunger for it. I was still shaky and weak, but growing stronger by the minute. And my mother believed in me. "I am ready to go now," I told him. His face clouded over. "Emily Lynch is out there." So it was Lynch, The Investigator, who had found me. My mother looked at me with a mixture of longing and dread. Another part of her, another child who could call her "mother" was waiting to return me to the purpose for which They had created me. Joseph added, "She is waiting for them to leave." He looked up and indicated the both of you. "And then?" My mother asked Joseph. He sighed, anxious. "I think you know." Four out of the five of us in that room visibly shuddered. Turning to look specifically at Agent Scully, Joseph spoke again. "I have an idea of how Wexford and I can get out of here, and I can get her to safety, but I'm going to need your help. Both of you." I think I remember you uncomfortably shifting on your feet. Now it was your collective turn to ask, "How?" The two of you spoke the word with one voice. Sister Shannon seemed surprised at the synchronization. That was to be the least of her surprises from that minute on. Joseph turned back to me and asked, "Are you strong enough to morph yet?" I strained to anticipate what form he was suggesting I take. When I grasped his thought, I nodded and focused on my mother's face, seeking her approval. Without waiting for word from you, her eyebrows straightened and she nodded with intensity. "We'll protect you." When she turned and looked at you to urge your own assent, her urging was redundant. "We will," you agreed. For my part, the effort was minimal. So few changes needed to be made. Add a few lines here and there, darken the hair to auburn. I could have held this form indefinitely, if the need had pressed. Joseph, however, had many more changes to make for himself. And on top of that, there were clothes to be exchanged yet... "My God," Sister Shan muttered when she saw the undeniable transformations taking place right before her eyes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I suppose it was dumb luck that sent me to a shelter for homeless teenagers, which collected used clothing for the residents of the shelter. Otherwise, what would the two of you worn? Sister Shannon had been stunned into quietude, but she did not hesitate to bring changes of clothes for you and my mother when she realized they were needed. My mother's suit hung loosely on me, and I worked a bit harder to make myself fit. The wool and silk smelled of citrus and soap. What did Scarlett O'Hara's mother smell of? Was it lemon verbena? Suddenly I can't remember. It will come back to me. Then, the four of us stood staring at each other uncomfortably. You gave Joseph the keys to your rental car and directions to the hotel where the three of you would meet up again once I had been safely hidden away. Then my mother reached out to return something to me. The silver stiletto. I shook my head. "No. I want you to have it." "Emily--" "Please," I begged. "You're going to need it." She held out her hand, frozen with indecision, then to my relief she put the weapon into the pocket of the secondhand jeans she wore -- the jeans she wore so that I could escape from Them with her face. The indecision vanished from her face and she reached up behind her neck. Her fingers worked at a clasp, and a tiny flash of gold responded to the flash of silver I had just asked her to take from me. "Please," she begged in return, holding out to me a gold cross dangling at the bottom of a thin, sparkling chain. "I want you to have it." Tears threatened us both as she fastened the chain about my neck. A word, a word I had never before spoken, threatened to leap from my mouth unbidden. I pressed my lips together to keep myself from saying the one word I'd always wanted, always needed to say, but had never been given the opportunity. *Mommy...* But I remained silent. I could not say the word out loud, even in my need. I had never even called my adoptive mother by that name. She tapped at the cross without touching me. "You're going to need it," she said. I pinched my eyelids shut and turned to the door, whispering, "I'll see you again soon." She nodded. She would still care for me. Because of her, I would live. Because of both of you, risking your lives for my monstrous self, I would live. Right then and there, I made myself a promise. Somehow, I would live to justify that sacrifice. I would prove my mother's belief in me -- in this one of five creatures formed from her unwilling flesh in a cruel and greedy universe. Maybe that sacrifice would free the other three of me who now lived on also. Maybe, someday. Joseph was looking to me expectantly. I followed him to the door. "You're gonna show Them," Joseph whispered to me, reaching for my hand. I pulled away from his reach, pleading wordlessly for his understanding. Which was given, I could tell, with one look from him. With a conviction even my fear and uncertainty could not defeat, he repeated, "You're gonna show Them." Joseph and I left the building and drove into the early dawn. END 8/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We do indeed live in the body but we do not wage war with human resources. 2 Corinthians 10: 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The sun was just clearing the horizon when I saw the sign along the roadside. "WEXFORD 5 MILES." My pulse jumped. "That's where we're going," Joseph told me, pointing with one hand. I looked at his face, so different from the face I had seen on him before. His expression at the irony of our destination seemed entirely at home on that borrowed face. "What's in Wexford?" I asked in the voice I had borrowed from my biological mother. "Home," he answered with the voice he had borrowed from you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We passed a gatehouse at the entrance to a long, twisting, tree-lined driveway. When we reached the drive's end, Joseph parked your rental car in an asphalt crescent drawn in front of a large house of gray stone. The house was banked by fallow fields of grass and wildflowers on the left, and an apple orchard stretched behind the house on the right. The birds in the orchard had just begun to wake each other with song. Joseph got out of the car and I did the same, following him up to the heavy, carved oak front door. He rang a bell and smoothed your tie. I fidgeted in my mother's shoes, looking behind us to see that we hadn't been followed. After a time, the door opened. A large, stern- looking woman in a plain brown dress stiffened at the sight of these two strangers at her door at such an ungodly hour. "Can I help you?" Joseph underwent yet another transformation. His face rippled and shifted, and he was once again the golden librarian who had come to rescue me. The keeper of the door sighed with relief and pulled the door open further. "Mr. Fauchelevent!" The last name picked at my memory despite its flat American pronunciation. "You've read //Les Miserables//?" I asked Joseph. His blue eyes twinkled at me. "Unabridged," he whispered back, explaining, "I'm their gardener." I nodded, still too stunned and weak to inquire further. "You're safe here," he assured me. "You can let go." He meant I could let go of my mother's form. I did so, too tired from the effort to protest or to afford mistrust. The wool suit was baggy on me once more. "Oh, dear," the woman muttered. "Mother Prioress," Joseph said warmly, "I need you to hide someone for me." The Mother Prioress began chuckling softly. "What is it?" Joseph asked. She shook her white-gray, veiled head. "Twenty- five years ago when I first took vows, we prayed that the dwindling numbers of religious vocations would be filled once again. I just never anticipated the Lord would fill our Cloister in *this* way!" "Well," Joseph sighed in a tired voice, "you're the one always saying that the Lord works in mysterious ways." She chuckled again, and I sensed an old bitterness in the dry laugh. "Yes, but every day is a new surprise. My dear," she said, turning to me, "welcome to the Discalced Carmelite Cloister of Wexford, Pennsylvania." "She's still very tired and weak," Joseph reported to the Mother Prioress, who nodded briskly as I stepped inside. "I'll be back soon," Joseph reassured me. I didn't need to ask where he was going. I nodded as he shut the door behind him. A moment later, I heard the rental car pull away. "Come, dear," the elder woman beckoned with an even sigh, "I'll show you to your room." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, truthfully speaking, it was not quite a room. More of a closet, to be honest. A metal frame held a single-thickness mattress covered with plain but clean sheets, blankets and a pillow. A nightstand with a single electric lamp was to the right of the bed. A few pegs stuck out of one wall for hanging clothes; a brown dress hung on one peg, a plain white blouse hung from the next peg, and a white nightgown hung on another. An old wooden crucifix decorated an otherwise blank wall. A rickety washstand with a small, expedient mirror was the only other furnishing. I sat tentatively on the bed. It was comfortable enough. My body was recovering, but I was still very, very tired. "What time was your last injection?" The Mother Prioress asked, in the same casual tone of voice I might have expected her to use when asking me when was the last time I had eaten, and would I like some milk and cookies before bedtime? I blinked at her. "I don't remember." She nodded. "Don't worry, then. We'll figure it out. I'll let you sleep now." With a grandmotherly smile, she made ready to depart. But there was still one question not yet answered which she could probably answer for me. "Why are you taking care of me?" Her hand stilled on the door. Her white brows knit together. In a halting, strained voice, at length she answered me. "I have a . . . a personal stake." My heart began to hammer. "Are you one of us?" The crows feet about her eyes quivered. "No. I am not." I raised my eyes to look at hers more closely. Blue. Very, very blue. Startlingly blue. I searched her hair for a sign of now gone darkness. If my guess was correct, she had once been blond. The angle of her cheekbones through her sagging skin, the tilt of her chin was so similar... Absently, she raised a hand and rubbed at something on the back of her neck. She was Joseph's mother. "Am I the only one--" I stopped. The only one of what? "The only one like me here?" I finished. "Right now you are," she replied, her voice tight with checked emotion. "Don't worry, dear. They never would think to look here. The hospitals and clinics, maybe, but not here. They think that people of faith are no threat to Them." The way she said "They" was clearly upper case. Implicit in her words: people of faith were Their greatest threat of all. Still, how could that be? "Aren't They tracking you?" Her stern eyes momentarily shining with complicity, she answered, "Not anymore." I was shocked. That was impossible. Their Project had made it so. "How?" Her hand moved back down to the doorknob. "Later, my dear. There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, no secret that will not be made known. Now, I should let you get some sleep." She shut the door and I was alone. As her footsteps echoed down the hall outside my new room, I looked around some more. Finally, I chose to change into the nightgown before crawling into the bed. I began to unbutton the shirt my mother had lent me, and the mirror caught my eye. I stepped closer and inspected my reflection. The dark streaks of the fever were gone from my skin. I also noticed the small, gold cross gleaming at my throat. A symbol of my mother's faith. My biological mother, who believed in me. I cleared my throat, and the sound echoed quickly off the close walls of the room. Alone. I was finally alone. So of course for the first time since I was a little, frightened child, I did not want to be alone. I did not want to be touched, but neither did I want this desolation, this barrenness. I looked back into the mirror and conjured my biological mother, Agent Scully, back onto my face. The soft, light wrinkles of impending middle age intensified around the expressive eyes and eyebrows. I tried to summon her proud smile onto my transformed lips. I tried. I failed. My lips retained their cold, straight line. My appearance could change, but I was still the same on the inside. Half human, half monster. Everything had changed, but nothing had changed. No wonder my parents had never wanted to touch me -- my parents the Wexfords. How much my straight-line mouth resembled that of the woman I had called "Mom" up until I was eleven. My biology was not from them, but nevertheless the Wexfords had helped make me what I had become. The Wexfords whom I had killed. The Wexfords who had not loved me as much as the Sims had loved Emily Beatrice. Why hadn't they? Was I any less loveable than she had been? I must have been. I must have been more the monster. Why else had They chosen me, Emily clone C, out of all the other five to be Their future bounty hunter? "Mommy," I choked involuntarily, and my face changed. My hair deepened into a dark brown bob, and I was Joyce Wexford, the woman who had called me "daughter" but had never touched me. "Mommy," I let myself sob, clawing at the mirror, imagining that if I got through the looking glass I could have crawled into her lap and pressed my cheek into her warm palm and found it comforting. If I imagined hard enough, she would have felt my cheek and my forehead to see if I had a fever. She would have read to me and sung songs to me and fluffed my pillows. She would have loved me. I could have made her love me. She would have loved me. She would have been my Mommy. She would have come when I called for her in the darkness. She would have been worthy of the name... "...Mommy..." If I had known I could have killed her by picking up that shard of broken cup, I wouldn't have done it. I had it in me to choose to be good, to do right. I only had been trying to help. And I had shown that to my mother, the woman who had given me the name Wexford, by trying to clean up after her broken mug. The first lesson of adulthood came to me in that mirror: some things about my parents I could not have changed. Joyce Wexford still would not have loved me even had my 911 call gone through, even had I saved her from my poisonous blood. I could not have made her love me. I did not belong to Joyce Wexford because of her own indifference. However, neither did I belong to Agent Scully, because They had taken me from her before she had a chance to truly become my mother. And I did not belong to Them because I had chosen not to. So whose was I? Where did I belong? For the moment, there was no answer to that question. My sobbing softened. I stopped scratching at the glass. My face faded into the first face I had ever called my own: Emily Camille Wexford. If I had chosen to live, I would have to learn to live with this face. I would have to learn to live with myself. The Children's Teeth: Sister's Blood 10/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The weapons of our warfare are not merely human. They possess God's power for the destruction of strongholds." 2 Corinthians 10: 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And so began the only time of my life I can almost call "peaceful." Five years of such peace, actually, give or take a few months. The rigorous routine of the Discalced Carmelites was not a burden to me but a relief. I never was forced to participate in their rituals, but I was included and treated with respect nonetheless. As for my name... well, all the other sisters knew *what* I was, and I heard from time to time that one or the other of them was fasting for my spiritual edification, for the good of my soul. My soul. I would have laughed had They given me a sense of humor. But at the cloister I was given a new name. I wore the brown habit jumper and white blouse of a novice. They called me simply, "Sister." I found that appropriate, for "Sister" is the one thing I have always been. I followed the way of Carmel for five years, if only in the motions but not in any belief of my own. I woke at 5:30 each morning, washed up, and went to Chapel for Morning Prayer. Then, Morning Prayer was followed by a sort of quiet time called "Mental Prayer." At first, I wasn't entirely sure how to use this time. Eventually, the Mother Prioress taught me all sorts of meditation tools. They were easy for me to use with my sharpened imagination. They didn't give me any earth-changing mystical experience of the Sister's God, but they did give me an undeniable peace. The peace helped. I think the peace set the stage for future healing. Then, it was time for Mass with Father Timothy, who shared the gatehouse with Joseph. Father Tim was a portly man who had an illness that had disfigured his hands. His voice as he chanted the prayers of the Mass was a bit nasal, but he always smiled at me kindly. He never showed any dismay that I did not take the sacraments. He would wave a gesture of blessing in my direction, nodding at me and whispering, "Sister." There were at least two hours each day devoted only to reading. When I first heard this -- I think that was when I held my first smile. And there were books to read -- new books I had never seen before: The Bible, //The Interior Castle// by Therese of Lisieux, the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, foundress of the Discalced Carmelites. Poetry. The complete works of Thomas Merton. The ideas and ideals I now received were novel, but I was not ready to accept them as my own. They included so much talk of a loving, creative God. I could not believe that a loving God could have allowed the creation of a monster like me. Still, I began a collection. The verses I liked I would write down on bits of paper and stash them in my pillowcase. Sometimes, I would bring those slips of paper to Chapel with me and use them for Mental Prayer time. As the years passed, my pillow became too rustly with the scraps, so the Mother Prioress gave me a notebook and I copied into there those bits of verbal nourishment. Our days were framed by something called "The Liturgy of the Hours," which, according to the sisters, transformed the entire day's activities into a prayer: from the smallest wiping of a dish to the hours spent in adoring meditation before their Blessed Sacrament. Morning prayer, mid-morning prayer, mid-day prayer and examination of conscience, grace before a leisurely lunch, mid-afternoon prayer, Vespers at 4:15 on the button, and the Office of Readings and Night Prayer. Then bed and exhausted, dreamless sleep. That frame was colored in with simple hard work. In my first life, I learned how to morph other faces onto my own, how to become other people and how to kill in cold blood. Now I learned how to do laundry, how to pick apples and make apple butter, how to sweep and wash dishes and bake bread and how to weave. I was especially good at weaving. There was such an order to it -- the absorbing task of warping the loom, of winding the shuttles and pressing the treadles with my sandal-shod feet. Sister Frances and Sister Mary Therese would complain about "drowning in a sea of brown thread." I swam in that sea, blissfully, mindlessly lost. I grew stronger. I learned how to give myself the injections I had always relied on others to administer. I learned how the other sisters hid vials of the serum among the styrofoam peanuts used in shipping crates of our Cloister's apple butter, so that the serum could be distributed without Their knowledge. The Mother Prioress showed me the secret stash of the liquid hidden among the jars of apple butter behind a loose stone in the basement wall -- hidden just in the unlikely case They should ever find out just what was going on in that big stone house in Wexford, PA. I think those five years spent under the spell of the Cloister weighted my loyalties for me. This planet began to woo me and win me. The flurry of the spring wind carrying apple blossoms to the ground, the kiss of snowflakes melting on my cheeks as I lugged firewood to the hearth inside, the snap of fallen leaves beneath my sandals, the tickle of summer humidity sending the white puffs of milkweed pods sinking to the ground... there were times when the changing of the planet's seasons erased all pain from my mind and threatened to make me glad to be alive. Those were the times I could almost forget what I was. I could almost forget that I was in this world, but not of it. The six women who called me their "Sister" seemed to act like they had forgotten what I was, even if I couldn't. My weaving partners, Sisters Frances and Mary Therese, had taken their perpetual vows a few months before my arrival. Before that, they had worn the white blouse and brown jumper of the novice. Sister Frances was short - about my height - ten years older than me, and much possessed of both a talent for drawing and a very dry wit. Sister Mary Therese had a great shock of curly blond hair under her habit's veil, and she was always laughing about something. She could play the violin. Before she took her vows her name had been "Heather." "You changed your name?" I asked her. She laughed her broad, musical laugh. "*I* didn't change it. The Mother Prioress changed it for me." "Why?" I asked her. I had so much to learn. She explained to me, "The taking of a new name symbolizes the change in our lives. Now that I belong in this world and not the world outside, my identiy has changed, too. Before the Cloister, I was Heather. Now, I am called Mary Therese." The Mother Prioress had not given me a name other than "Sister," so that's what I was called. I was "Sister" to Mary Therese, Frances, Anne, Cecilia Bernadette, Helen Gabriel, and even to Mother Prioress. Each in her own way taught me something new: herbals and cooking from Helen Gabriel, cleaning and fire-building from Anne, a little bit of sewing and calligraphy from Cecilia Bernadette. The Mother Prioress, however, taught me how she survived Them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was so simple. So simple, in fact, I am sure They never feared anyone would have thought of it. But the Mother Prioress had, and it had worked. Before joining the convent, she had earned herself a PhD in Optical Physics -- the study of light. The tool she discovered had little if anything to do with light, but it had everything to do with invisible force. One afternoon, after I had finished my turn at washing and drying the lunch dishes, the Mother Prioress called me into her office. When I sat in the chair she indicated I should take, she held her closed right fist out to me. She was holding something. With her eyes, she told me to open out my hand and accept it. She understood that I did not want to be touched, and she always respected that wish. When something cool and solid dropped into my palm, all I could do was stare stupidly at it for what seemed like a full minute. "It's a magnet," I observed simply. The Mother Prioress' eyes shone again. She shook her head. "It's freedom." "I don't understand," I told her honestly. She sat down behind her tidy wooden desk, wincing at the arthritis in her back as she did so. "The chips They use to track us," she began, "cannot be taken out." I frowned, trying to remember what little I knew about the neck-chips. "There's a self-destruct process that begins if the chip is removed from the subject." The Mother Prioress nodded. "Chip removal triggers a terminal cancer." I looked back down at the cool, dark metal in my palm. "What does a magnet have to do with it?" Her cryptic smile grew; she noticed that I was learning how to ask questions. "How could the tracking mechanism of the chip be destroyed without removing it, do you think?" So it was to be the Socratic Method. I chewed thoughtfully on my inner lip. A magnet? It looked absolutely harmless -- hardly the menacing metal point to which I was accustomed. What could a magnet do? Or, rather, what could a magnet do to a delicate little chip containing both tracking equipment, biological information, and neurochemichal commands? A harmless magnet //could// destroy an electronic tracking device... "No," I almost laughed. "Mother Prioress, that's too easy." "Isn't it, though?" "But how could you possibly know it works?" I leaned heavily on the word "know." She nodded with respect at my skepticism. "A long time ago, when you were just a girl I think, there were attempts at mass abduction. Many people who had these chips in their necks were... were 'called' to certain places. Many were destroyed. I was called as well, but I was able to refuse the call. That is how I know this magnet works." I looked disbelieving at the solid gray metal bar in my open palm. "But Mother Prioress, how do you know the magnet was responsible for that? Maybe it was just you -- you were strong enough to resist--" "Sister," she interrupted me, "have you looked closely at the necks of your fellow sisters in this cloister?" I nearly dropped the magnet. Half-confused, but half-stunned because I understood what she was implying, I shook my head slowly. "Everyone in this cloister has been able to resist Their calling, thanks to that magnet that is too simple to do any damage. That, and the will of God, of course." How could I not have noticed? It was so obvious, but I had been so absorbed with my own learning and my own safety that I had been oblivious. So this was how my Cloister sisters resisted: with the unseen power of prayers and magnets. The unexpected threat is the greatest threat of all. The Mother Prioress leaned back thoughtfully in her chair. Her voice lilted with a yet to be issued challenge. "Now do you understand, Sister?" I nodded and stretched out my arm to return the magnet, but the Mother Prioress held her hand up in a gesture of refusal. The magnet weighed heavily on my palm. "What do you want me to do with this?" I asked her. "What do you want to do?" She asked me in return. I still did not yet have an answer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Joseph was around, but not often. I've read enough fairy tales in my time to know what was *supposed* to have happened. My savior and I were supposed to fall madly, daintily in love and live together happily ever after. Well, that did not happen. During those peaceful five years, I hardly ever saw him, really. He was usually off galavanting around God knows where, presumably seeking out others like ourselves, recruiting them away from Them, demagnetizing chips or some other heroics. I was too busy falling in love with this earth and pondering my place in it to take either much notice or offense. He did come home for holidays sometimes. He sat in the back of the Cloister chapel for every Easter Mass. At holiday dinners, he and Father Tim sat around the table with the rest of the sisters, who showed a friendly reverence for their priest and a motherly affection for Joseph. The sisters listened intently to Father's words, nodding in loyal assent as he informed them about the further advances of Vatican II, the need for increased prayers for the Holy Father. However, the sisters also made sure Joseph finished his mashed potatoes and asked him, "Are you getting enough to eat out there, Mr. Fauchlevent?" He was the son They had taken from the sisters, and the sisters fussed over him accordingly. We did not talk much, Joseph and I. Like the other sisters, I called him "Mr. Fauchlevent" those rare times I addressed him directly. Those rare times he addressed me directly, he called me "Sister" and nothing more. I suppose he was giving me time and space to find the peace I so desperately needed. But as I learned in my readings of the sisters' Bible, "To everything there is a season...," and my time of peace came to its inevitable close. END 10/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." --Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 5, 8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was autumn. November 25, actually. I remember the date because that morning at Mass we had celebrated the feast day of St. Catherine of Alexandria -- the patroness of philosophers, students, of women divinely appointed and sent by God to convert men... After five years, my head was brimming full with the sisters' knowledge. Thanksgiving was near, and Joseph usually came home for that, spending a few days at the Cloister raking leaves with us and preparing the kitchen and herb gardens for winter. So as I swept the great hall leading to the entrance way, I was not surprised at the rattle of Joseph's war-weary car pulling into the Cloister driveway. The doorbell rang loudly in the otherwise silent Cloister. From her office near the front of the house, The Mother Prioress bustled as quickly as her arthritic knees allowed, and when she opened the front door, I froze, staring, disbelieving. I was surprised to see that Joseph Fauchlevent had brought someone to the Cloister with him -- Agent Scully, my mother. My hands began to shake so badly I accidentally dropped the broom. I picked it up from the floor, leaned it against the wall, and listened. I was at the far end of the hall, and their voices were softened, so I could not hear them clearly. For the seeming eternity they held their hushed conversation, I nervously fumbled with the small gold cross I always wore, not out of personal belief, but in the same way I wore my novice's habit: because it had been given to me, and I didn't want *not* to wear it. "You're going to need it," had been my mother's words to me five years before. At twenty-three I still could not make sense of those words, nor of the meaning behind the simple joining of a horizontal line with a vertical line. Five years in a cloister taught me the *story* behind the cross, of course, but that's all it was -- just another story. Down the hall, Agent Scully stepped just slightly to the left, peering around the broad shoulders of the Mother Prioress. My mother saw me and recognized me. I chilled with irrational apprehension when I squinted and saw her lips form that same proud smile she had offered me on my deathbead. After five years of hearing nothing from me, she still believed in me? She could not take her eyes off of me. I looked down at my hands and folded them before me. Mother Prioress turned to look at me as well. "Sister," she called to me across the entrance hall. I looked up, meeting the Mother Prioress' eyes, if only to avoid Agent Scully's, which were so like my own. "My office, if you please," she asked, her voice strong across the distance. I nodded with sisterly obedience and followed them into the office of our prioress. Rarely did more than two people come in to talk to the Mother Prioress at once, so there were only two chairs sitting opposite her desk. The Mother Prioress indicated for Agent Scully to take a seat, which she did, but not without first looking at me once more. I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. I could tell she wanted to reach out to me, to hold me like the firstborn baby girl They never let her cradle in her arms. I stiffened my back, willing her to understand my body language if nothing else. Joseph looked at me and waved his hand toward the other empty chair, but I shook my head, preferring to stand -- perhaps so I could run should instinct or some other urge dictate that I do so. The wrinkles in the Mother Prioress' face deepened in an expression of pained worry. She folded her hands in front of her. "First, we will pray," she commanded. Joseph and Agent Scully bowed their heads along with the Mother Prioress. I did not, however. I wanted to see what was happening. For support, I leaned back against the wall. I knew something was about to happen. The Mother Prioress rattled off some spontaenous prayer of her own. I don't remember the words she used. All I remember was my palms growing clammy, my heart thumping painfully beneath the shell of my ribs, the hum of that long-lost foe -- Sister Anxiety -- buzzing in my ears. Something was about to happen. Something already was happening -- already had happened -- and the two visitors had come to let me know what that was. The Mother Prioress's prayer comcluded, closed by the three "Amens" spoken aloud. I remained in anticipatory silence. The Mother Prioress commanded Mr. Fauchelevent -- my Joseph -- to tell me what he had just told her in the entrance hall. I don't remember the exact words he used, but I remember the gist: Their mass abductions were starting again full force. Their Project, suddenly and unexpectedly thrown off track decades ago, was now back into play. Decades -- a mere blink of time in the cosmic sense. After giving me this information, all three were silent. I searched each face individually. Joseph's face was blank as he awaited my response. The Mother Prioress knitted her brows together, but her expression told me no details of the cause of her worry. Agent Scully -- my mother -- was also worried. I could feel her concern like static electricity: invisible on her blank-set face, but charging the distance I had put between us with an undeniable current. The room filled with my silence. All three were waiting for me to respond to this information. At last, I spoke. I answered with a question. "Why are you telling me this?" Joseph shifted in his chair and turned to face me more fully. He looked down briefly, then he leveled his gaze directly at me, pinning me to the wall with his eyes. I never before had seen him so merciless. I quickly wondered if it was really *my* Joseph, the Cloister's "Mr. Fauchelevent," but that worry fled when I saw the tiniest ghost of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth -- a small, reluctant, bittersweet smile, but a genuine smile nonetheless, softening his necessity-borne harshness. "I've come to ask you," he answered, "for your help." I leaned more heavily on the wall. *The Resistance.* "There are only so many of us who can slip through the cracks in Their Project," he explained, thoughtful lines pinching the corners of his eyes. The way he said "They" was clearly upper-case. "We need all the help we can get," he finished. "Why did you bring her?" I asked him, my voice sounding cold with a distant defense. Joseph opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted. "I came here, essentially," my mother answered, uaffected by my wariness, "to talk you into staying here, in the Cloister, in Wexford." If I hadn't already pressed my back to the wall, I would have taken a step backwards. I finally found the courage to look my mother in the eyes. Eyes so much like my own. "Why?" My voice was a dry, apprehensive croak. Her brow furrowed as she searched for the right words. Finally, she said, "Because leaving is too dangerous." Because I am her daughter, the child of her pain. Because I represent so much that has been lost, so much that has been regained and returned at impossible odds against Their all-powerful plans. "Because," she continued, her voice growing raspy with the tears she again would not release, "if you were my daughter Meg, I would not let you go." My sister, my target. I had forgotten her name. A picture of that sunny Sunday sprang to my mind. In my imagination, a nine year-old girl scrambled down a driveway chasing a runaway basketball. A mess of curly golden hair framed a secure, well-loved smile. A sense of humor. All things I could never have, could never be. Because of Them. And I had a choice. I turned back to Joseph. "What do you want me to do?" He frowned slightly. Once again, I was asked, "What do you want to do?" I looked to the Mother Prioress, my eyes pleading for her guidance. Her face read something akin to Agent Scully's worry. Her voice was pained as she echoed, "Sister, you have a choice." She wanted me to choose for myself. Again I looked to each face staring back at me waiting for my response. I could not make a decision that quickly. I hadn't had enough practice in such things. "I need to think about it," I said, walking to the office door. No one stopped me. They let me go. As slowly and calmly as I could, I made my way over to the coat closet and wrapped myself up in the big, brown woolen coat I had made for myself my first winter at the Cloister. The stitching was uneven, necessitating multiple repairs, but it was something I could almost call my own. Its warmth was a comfort. I began to walk out of the Cloister to the apple orchard, the trees bare of leaves in preparation for the coming winter. As I walked, I became acutely aware of Mother Prioress' magnet banging against my thigh through the pocket of my novice's habit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I wandered the barren orchard for the better part of an hour, I think, pondering what to do. It was a windy day, and bits of crushed dead leaves kept flying up into my eyes. The habit veil holding my hair down kept whipping around, ready to fly off into the gusts at any minute if I weren't careful. My skirt slapped around my legs. My fingers grew white with the cold, so I jammed my hands deep into my pockets. I turned the smooth, solid magnet inside over and over in the fingers of my right hand. I took my hands out of my pockets just once so I could pull my veil more tightly over my freezing ears. The cold was within and without, but it did not chase me back into the shelter of the Cloister. Again, I had a choice. The fireplaces and ever-present oil heat of the Cloister house beckoned. Still, I remained outside, studying the gnarled, knotted trunks of the apple trees, memorizing their patterns -- patterns I had seen nearly every day for the past five years but never really took the time to notice. I would have loved to have had a book with me, to erase all choices from my my mind with the pains and adventures of some fictional character, but to get reading material would have necessitated a trip back inside to the Cloister library. I feared that if I returned indoors I would never want to leave again. So I stared through wind-watered eyes at the trees. This mindless activity consumed me until I heard the back door leading from the Cloister to the orchard open and slam shut. My mother was walking towards me across the orchard. I couldn't bear to watch her for long, the wind pulling her red hair in all directions despite its being not even chin-length. I wondered if her hair had always been this shade. I saw no hint of gray. She had to color it, to cover up the manifestations that this world was wearing even on her. Again, I studied the knots and twists of the tree trunks. "Emily." Her voice carried on the wind, was not obliterated by it. I had not been called by that name in five years. I did not look up. "How do you know it's starting again?" I asked. I had to ask. To make an informed decision, I needed all possible evidence. "Where's your proof?" Something in her flinched at my questions, at my mistrust, my skepticism. "Because," she answered me, her even voice still riding steady on the wind, "I was there." Only then did I look up. I was genuinely startled. Such a simple, obvious answer. They were tracking and calling her, too. Still. And in my habit skirt pocket I held the means of stopping that call. If only I would reach out, I could set my mother free. "And this time," she said, looking at the tree that previously had held all my attention, "I remember what happened very clearly." I did not want to know what happened. I didn't need to know, so I did not ask. Selfish of me, I know, but those were my thoughts at the time. I had problems of my own to be unraveled. I tried to think of another question to ask. I guess I was stalling again. "Where's your partner?" She looked up at the overcast sky. "He's home," she answered simply. "With my sister?" I had to ask. She raised surprised eyes to meet mine. "My little sister," I specified. Her lips curled thoughtfully inward. "Yes. Mulder's home with Meg." "Why?" She breathed deeply in, then out, squinting as another gust of wind pushed at us both. "Some things a woman needs to do on her own." I fixed my eyes on a bulging knot in the nearest tree trunk. "Does your daughter know about..." My voice cracked slightly on "your daughter," and I stopped myself. I almost asked if my little sister knew about //me//, but to do so would mean asking if she also knew about Merchant and Abbot, Lynch and Sim. "Does she know about *us*?" On the word "us" I pointed to myself in the hopes that Agent Scully might understand. "There is a lot she doesn't know," she admitted. "Mulder and I agreed she's still too young to..." And her voice faltered. The wind filled the silence obligingly until Agent Scully, my mother, found the right words. "She's still too young to understand... certain things." I did the math in my head quickly. "She's sixteen." "Sixteen," Agent Scully nodded. "And you just turned twenty-three." She remembered. In her voice, I sensed a fierce protectiveness borne of the knowledge of dreadful, extreme possibilities. And, God only knew why, that protectiveness extended to me as well. She looked at me again, and I let her look into my eyes despite myself. "All grown up," she said, the proud smile returning. What did she have to be proud of in me? I reminded myself of that promise I had made to myself when I was eighteen, wearing her clothes and making my escape. I had vowed to make myself *worthy* of her pride. Had I done that yet? I glanced down at my shabby, handmade coat. An accomplishment, but not a source of deep pride, when with what They had inadvertently given me, I *could* be doing so much more. "All grown up," Agent Scully repeated, "but I don't -- I don't want you put yourself at risk. There are others who can do that." But if there were so many others, why did Joseph come asking for me? With shaking hands, I reached out to run my fingertips against the bark of the apple tree. The mythical Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The tree where Man had made a choice. In contrast, the tree the Sisters of the Cloister used to make good, sweet foods for many to enjoy. The tree of the sisters alibi for their serum- shipping operation. The Tree of both Good and evil to be sure. I stepped closer to the tree, and the movement caused the magnet in my pocket to hit me in the thigh with a reminder slap. I raised my eyes and looked to my mother again. "You were there?" She winced, I guess at the memory of Their call. The same wince I've caught on my reflection in the mirror when I think of... *him*, my tutor. She nodded. Still shaking with fear at what I was about to do, I reached into my right pocket and brought forth the magnet, the tool of freedom Mother Prioress had bequeathed to me. I stepped closer to Agent Scully, confusing her when I craned to look at the back of her neck. Eyes trained well in another life found the tiny mark easily. Hands trained to help in this latest life of mine touched the magnet to the spot on my mother's neck. I held it there a moment, then pulled away, stepped back, and shoved my cold hands back into my pockets. It was the closest I had come to willingly touching another person since that day I had taken the stiletto and plunged it into *his* neck. But if I were to return to this world good for all the evil that had been bred and nurtured into me, I would have to learn to touch and be touched. Touch is not always hurtful, and isolation is not always safety. But those are easy thoughts to think, however difficult to live after the lives I've led. My touching the magnet to my mother's neck: it was a start. "You're free," I told my mother. Her eyes pulled smaller in disbelief. "You'll see," I replied to her skepticism. "Can you find others for me to free? I then asked. "How many other lives can we save?" My words upset my mother. She shook her head, her blue eyes clouding with more of her instinctive protectiveness. "Emily..." And I responded with my my need -- instinctive or learned? nature or nurture? -- to undo all They had done in the name of Their Project. To undo all of the crimes in which They had engineered me to take part. I responded with a very human need: the need for independence. "Please let me go..." That wasn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to say, "Mommy, please let me go," but I still could not say that word. At least, not out loud. Pain and pride colored my mother's face, a combination I have never seen with such clarity on any other. Again, I could tell she wanted to hold me... and I wanted to be held, to feel safe in the arms of my mother, but I still was not ready. I took a small step backwards to let her know. Agent Scully looked back at the Cloister house. She asked, "Are you ready to go back?" She meant go back to the Cloister, but she also meant back out to the real world, the world They were working to conquer and subdue. My hands still shook, but not even my own trepidation could stop me. I could make a difference. I could bring healing to a weak world, freedom to those enslaved. I could distinguish myself from the three others who shared my DNA and my first name. "Some things," I said, nodding, "a woman needs to do on her own." Agent Scully and I, mother and oldest daughter, had reached an understanding. We leaned into the wind and returned to the Cloister so I could prepare to leave it. END 11/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Through the Spirit one receives faith; by the same Spirit another is given the gift of healing and still another miraculous powers... But it is still one and the same Spirit who produces all these gifts, distributing them to each as he wills." 1 Corinthians 12: 9-11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As Agent Scully and I walked together to the Mother Prioress' office to inform her of my decision, the bell for Vespers rang. The life before me and the life I was living had their first clash, but Agent Scully thought quickly. "You're going to need clothes," she said, pointing to my novice garb. She was right. I nodded, a bit embarassed I hadn't thought of that fact. There was so much I hadn't thought of, even in my desire to make an informed decision. "I'll go," my mother said, "get some clothes and things for you." My mother was going shopping for me. How normal. "I don't know my size," I told her. She looked at me carefully. "Don't worry. I think I can handle it." She was noticing that, were it not for her high-heeled shoes, we would have been the exact same height, the exact same size. And, with nothing more than a parting smile, she went off to find Joseph and his car keys. I hurried to the chapel for Vespers -- for the last time. I kept silent through the chanting, the familiar call and response. I did not even listen to the readings. I wish I had listened. Perhaps I could have gleaned some courage and meaning from the words. My nerve began to wane, however, during Mental Prayer. I stole looks around the chapel at the untroubled faces of the sisters, focused in prayer before their Blessed Sacrament. The Body and Blood of Christ were present as always in the golden tabernacle, and the sisters sat transfixed, enraptured by what seemed to me little more than skinny wafers and fermented grapes. These women had sacrificed their entire lives to pray before these things, to offer their entire lives in simple faith that their prayers made a difference "out there." My Mental Prayer was genuine that evening, even if it wasn't directed at the Sisters' God. I wretch lay wrestling again, trying to justify instead my knee-jerk desire to stay at the Cloister. I *could* just take my vows and pray, just like the sisters, and thus achieve their same peace forever. "If the Church is the Body of Christ," the Mother Prioress had explained to me once, "the Discalced Carmelites are the heart -- unseen, but a vital part, pumping blood to all the extremities. We see the work of the hands, we see where the feet take the body, but none of that can be done without the beating of the heart." I looked up to the crucifix over the chapel altar. The wood-carved Christ had blood pouring out of his hands; red blood pumped by his human heart, blood pouring out of the hands he used to heal. I looked down at my own hands, their works fueled by green blood. These same hands had done murder. This same blood could kill with a spilled drop. I looked back up at the representation of Christ above the altar. I knew the stories. He had lived in near anonymity until he was thirty. And, according to the sisters' belief, his death and resurrection brought life to all, conquered death forever. According to the sisters' beliefs, had he chosen to stay in the safety of his mother's house, the whole world would have been different. The Cloister at Wexford would never have existed. And he had a choice, too. "Father, take this cup away," he had prayed -- or so the story went -- the night before the nails had driven into his hands. "But not my will, but Yours be done." He had risked it all, lost it all, gained it all, all out of hope for the human race, fictional character or not. Hope demands a sacrifice. Time for individual Scripture Reading came, and I randomly flipped open the Bible the sisters had given me my first full day at the Cloister. My eyes came to rest on a passage: "Through the Spirit one receives faith; by the same Spirit another is given the gift of healing and still another miraculous powers..." Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. What coincidence I should just happen to open to that reading. I continued drinking in the words, as was my custom. "But it is still one and the same Spirit who produces all these gifts, distributing them to each as he wills." As who wills? No God had given me these gifts, They had. God had not created me, They had. How could these words apply to me, especially since I couldn't even be sure I had a soul? I looked back at my hands. These same hands could heal, if I would only risk to learn how. This blood gave me the chance to hide in Their world and unravel Their tightly- woven plans. My hands. As the sisters would say, I was "called": called to be the hands. My praying had always been hollow and self- centered, when it was supposed to be heaven- bound, selfless, and other-centered. I could only do real damage if I left this warm heart of prayer called The Carmel at Wexford and returned to the outside. And what did I have to fear anyway? The worst They could do was kill me. Would that have been such a loss? My resolve, once weakened, emerged stronger than before Vespers had begun, and I walked into our dining room ready to share my decision with my sisters. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Honestly I was surprised by their response. I always had kept them at arm's length -- literally. But as I told them over dinner that I was going to leave, my announcement was met with silence. Soup spoons lowered to bowls with devestating clatter. Sharply indrawn breaths. Sister Cecilia made a small, whimpering sound. Mary Therese began blinking her eyes fiercely. "Well," the Mother Prioress said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, "sisters, we all saw this coming. Though I must say I had hoped you would perhaps decide to stay and take vows with us." I bored my eyes into my soup bowl, my newfound courage still slow in coming. "I considered it, Mother Prioress. However, I can do the most good outside of the Cloister." "But prayer and contemplation give the greatest possible good," Mary Therese flared, a curl escaping from her veil as she turned her head. "Sister, it's so dangerous out there." Mother Prioress shot Sister Mary Therese the same reproving glance she always shot whenever Mary Therese let her passions get away with her. "Sisters," the Mother Prioress sighed, "we all know each of us is called to a different work. No one work is greater than the other, and no one work is more dangerous than the other. Need I remind you God could call any of us to Him at any time?" The rest of dinner was spent in an uncharacteristically heavy silence. The sisters were going to miss me. No one had ever missed me before. After Night Prayer, on the way to my last night in my Cloister bedroom, the Mother Prioress stopped me in the hall. "Sister, I would like you to consider something before you go." The fear spiked within me again. There was already so much I hadn't considered. Need I be reminded? I nodded for her to continue. "You have never been baptized, have you?" Baptism. The naming of a Christian. The choosing of patron saints who would presumably watch over that soul and interceed for her sake before God. The claiming of a soul's identity for the life that is their loving, creative God.... My head was brimming full of the sisters' knowledge. "No," I answered simply, "I have not." The Mother Prioress spoke no more, but her age-softened eyes urged me to accept her invitation to give my soul and my life to her God. My soul. Somehow, the concept was no longer even remotely funny. "Good night, Mother Prioress," was my only response, as I bowed and walked slowly back to my tiny bedroom for the last time. "Good night, Sister." I stopped, considered. "Please," I said, turning to face her once more in the dim hall, "call me Wexford." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following morning, Father Tim insisted that I stay long enough to share in a Mass for my safety before taking my leave. Joseph attended the Mass as well. I came to the chapel that last time wearing my mother's clothes, the same I had worn on my original trip to the Cloister. Without my even trying, this time around they fit well. Five years, and I hadn't even noticed the weight I had gained. I was still thin, but no longer bony. I looked into the mirror on my washstand, and the face returning my scrutiny was rosy-cheeked and firm, not gaunt and fever-pale. Still, fear danced in my eyes. I hadn't been "out there" in five years. I hadn't faced Them in five years. The final words of the Mass, Father Tim spoke directly to me: "The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." "Thanks be to God," I answered along with my sisters this time, still not sure for what I was thankful, however, or what lord I would be serving in the end. I turned to leave the chapel, and Agent Scully was waiting for me right outside, a set of luggage at her feet. "Your clothes are inside," she said, pointing to the suitcases. "And here's some money for you as well," Joseph said from behind us. He handed me a purse. I opened it up and found a wallet stuffed with bills, credit cards, a drivers license with someone else's name, face and signature, in addition to several vials of my serum and a handful of syringes. Agent Scully looked over my shoulder. "Agent Mulder and I have some... some colleagues who will secure identification credentials for you as needed." "How do I find the people I am going to help?" Joseph answered me, "We will be in contact with you on a regular basis. I can also teach you some of the things you have not yet fully learned -- to help you reach the full potential of your gifts." I flinched involuntarily. A picture of *him,* my tutor from days long gone, sprang to my mind. The tutor I had murdered. I had to be careful who taught me things. "We'll see," I answered him vaguely. As we went to leave, the sisters followed us to the door to bid me farewell. Joseph opened the door for my mother and me. My mother stepped out into the eye-stinging light of the overcast November morning. I took one step over the threshold and stopped. I was leaving without saying goodbye. I turned to see the Carmelite Sisters, who had taught me so very, very much. They had taught me so much, and I... I had not killed them. I had not hurt them. They had survived me. A miracle, but not the greatest miracle they had done for me. Without even thinking, without even the slightest trace of nausea, I fell forward into their arms, which reached up reflexively to catch me. I reached for my sisters and they held me tightly -- the first time I was able to reach for human touch. Before it got too much for me, I stood up and disengaged myself from their arms, from their tearful group embrace. The nausea had started against my will. "Will you be back for Thanksgiving?" Asked Sister Helen Gabriel, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron. "I might," I answered, "but I doubt it. I will be back, though." "When?" Asked the Mother Prioress. "Soon," I answered, picking up my suitcases again. I followed Joseph and Agent Scully out to the car. I took a seat in the back, and we drove for hours, silent. Images of the Cloister behind me kept springing to mind. I needed something to distract myself from what could only have been described as homesickness. I devoted my attention to the drivers license picture in my purse: Michelle Kazuko Inoue, MD. Single. Brown hair, brown eyes, five feet, four inches. Date of birth July 3, 1972. When we pulled up to the Lariat Rental lot so I could pick up a car of my own -- for this assignment, at least -- I walked up to the rental desk as Doctor Michelle K. Inoue. When I emerged from the building with keys to a shiny new rental, Agent Scully gave me one last thing -- the one last thing I was hoping she'd forget to give me. "I think you should have this back," she said, holding out to me the silver weapon I had passed on to her when I was eighteen. I shook my head in refusal, gaping at the symbol of the life, of the death I'd chosen to leave behind me years ago. //Wexford, don't think you can change.// Merchant's words. //You can never change.// The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My mother, however,insisted, "Please, you're going to need it." My fingers fumbled indecisively with the small gold cross at my neck -- the symbol of a noble faith in which I did not share. "Then," I said, removing the necklace, "you should have this back as well." She was taken somewhat aback. "Why?" I tried to put it into words. It felt more right for me to have tools of destruction -- a magnet for destroying Their plans in one pocket, a stiletto for destroying Them in the other -- than it did for me to have a symbol of a faith not my own dangling beneath my head. How would the sisters have put it? The words of others so often worked better than any words I could imagine on my own. I paraphrased, "A woman cannot serve two masters. She must love one and despise the other, or she must deny one and serve the other." Agent Scully -- my mother -- was not happy with my words, but she agreed to the trade. Silver and gold changed hands and returned to their original owners. I gave both Joseph and my mother small smiles of farewell over the nauseous trepidation that they might want to hug me as the sisters did, even though now I held in my hands such a destructive device. They both seemed to understand. My smiles were returned. With that, I turned from them to begin this new leg of my life in a small white rental car. Thank God driving is like... riding a bike. I hadn't been behind the wheel in five years, but driving came back to me almost miraculously. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To go into great detail of my life after leaving the Cloister would not really be all that theraputic, I don't think. If you think I should, Agent Mulder, tell me and I will go back and fix it later, but it was all rather monotonous, truth be told. For over a year I ran around the country in other women's skins. I became doctors, lawyers, trusted family friends, all so I could sneak into other people's lives and unobtrusively slide my magnet against the chips in their necks. The false credit cards you and my mother passed along to me provided me with no end of seedy hotel rooms and difficult to track car rentals. For over a year They could not find me, so They could not stop me. I remained safely anonymous. I still could not call Agent Scully, "Mommy." It just did not feel right. We were comrades-at-arms, not family -- not in any normal sense. Besides, the two of you had a family of which I could never be a part. Sometimes, I have to admit, I would think of myself as Esau, the older brother whose birthright was stolen by his conniving twin Jacob, all according to God's will as written in the sisters' Bible. But as the time went by and the picture of my nine year-old sister cemented itself in my mind, I realized she and I were more like Ishmael and Isaac: the older child born under circumstances of human greed and design, in contrast to the true inheritor, born as an impossible and miraculous gift from God. Our fates were formed for us, not by us. So as much as the old heart-rending envy still rampaged within whenever I thought of my little sister, I could not hate her. Perhaps because I was learning not to hate myself. I would never be the older sibling killing the younger out of blood-boiling, rampaging jealousy. I had erased from my forehead the mark of Cain. Success. Success all my own. Or so I thought. In that year, I continued learning, albeit independently. I learned that I had opinions. It may sound ridiculous that I had a great epiphany when I discovered that I prefer Big Macs (TM) over regular cheeseburgers, but that realization and others helped me think of myself as a true individual. I was not Their Emily clone C, nor was I any of the thousand faces They had created me to make. I was, and I am Wexford. I learned so much, but not enough. I am still so angry at my refusal to keep in contact close enough for Joseph to teach me the finer points of our healing abilities. Even more so, I am angry at myself for always going to you and my mother for names of people to free. I should have found other sources. I should have covered my tracks better. Hubris, I guess it was. I guess I can never change. If only I had, I would not have put your lives in such jeapordy, and you and my mother would still have your Meg, my little sister, with you. You have been taken from your family, and it is all my fault. END 12/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree." --Romans 8:28 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Somehow, They found out where I was getting the names of Their subjects, and after all of the times the two of you cooperatively threw the wooden shoes into Their machine, I suppose They'd had enough. I know in the past They had orchestrated attempts on your careers and your sanity too numerous to mention, but never before had They made such a blatant strike at your very lives. At least, not that I know of. And, after all, I am relatively uninformed. I still can't figure out how long They'd been watching to corner us the way They finally did. They knew enough to wait for one of the relatively rare times when I was meeting not only with you and my mother for new connections, but I was meeting with Joseph as well; I was running low on my serum, and he was bringing me a fresh supply. These meetings had become so ordinary to me, even the danger had become customary. I guess I grew lazy, adolescently confident: nothing had happened so far. I stopped looking over my shoulder quite as much. I wasn't as hesitant to call Agent Scully on her cell phone as I had been in my early days out of the Cloister. Still, I did maintain the bare-minimum of cover; I walked into the abandoned steel mill as someone else -- a woman named Rebecca Zander. Height: five feet, nine inches. Eyes: gray. Hair: Dk. Brown. An organ donor. She had a Fashion Bug credit card, maxed. She was a Texan, from Houston, supposedly flown out to western Maryland to visit an old college roommate, one Mrs. Jennifer Witherspoon. Mrs. Jennifer Witherspoon had a chip in her neck, and Rebecca Zander had just casually destroyed that chip over lunch at an Italian restaurant. Rebecca Zander had ordered fettucine chicken Florentine; Jennifer Witherspoon noticed aloud that her old friend Rebecca no longer hated spinach as she used to in the old days. Rebecca Zander smiled back sheepishly and offered no explanation. Still as Rebecca Zander, I followed the directions to the old Lehigh Steel Mill. I remember how surprisingly heavy the traffic was, and how it was making me late, especially once that trash truck pulled out in front of me on the narrow road leading to the mill. Their trash truck? In retrospect, I can only guess so. The extent of the engineering They put into such things amazes even me, even now. At the time I was too irritated with the inconvenience even to consider such a possibility. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed not two but three cars there, and still I did not suspect a thing. It was a rare occasion that the four of us were meeting to begin with. Equally rare but not unheard of were the times you and your partner had to drive in two separate cars by necessity of your investigations. I just figured this was one of those times. I did not know anything was wrong until I trotted up the steps to the entrance, made my way through the door, and followed the low murmur of voices to an office. The door was ajar. I entered and froze in shock. You were already there. Agent Scully was already there. Joseph was already there, and I was already there. My blond hair swung in an arc as I turned to face myself, myself as Rebecca Zander. A stunned time easily comparable to eternity passed over us all -- all of us except the one who had come expressly to cause such a moment. My mother looked to me, then to her other daughter, my sister. "Emily?" she asked. Her voice came out small, dry and cold. I knew. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. They had discovered us. Even as I marveled at seeing my own face on someone else for the first time in over six years, my old training waged war on my new loyalties and sensibilities. My fingers reached into my pocket for the old weapon my tutor had given me all those years ago, but I did not bring it forth into the light. Cain and Abel. I was no longer a murderer. So I had made myself, and so I would stay. I had changed. //You can never change.// Merchant's silent words never left me completely. "Wexford." My voice came to me from my sister's mouth. She had to speak the name out loud. It was not Merchant. I pulled the weapon out but did not push the button to release its deadly point. I merely clutched at it meaningfully, as a warning. //Whatever you've got planned,// I willed her to hear me, //it's not going to work out.// Abbot or Lynch? She pulled a gun. A crude weapon, clumsy in the hands of someone who has not honed her skill for its use. Lynch had been the one trained in the use of that weapon. As she turned the gun on Joseph, I knew it was not Abbot who had come to this meeting in my place. "Lynch," I gasped. My partner from my childhood -- our childhood. The four of you were standing so close to each other, an intimate little noose of a circle. I was too far away, all the way back at the door. I could not move fast enough in my shock, so when Lynch pulled the trigger, the shot landed in Joseph's middle at point-blank range. So his blood spurted and landed on my mother and yourself, also at point-blank range. Joseph fell, clutching at his stomach. My mother and you, her partner, both fell, clawing at the raw burns digging into your faces. Joseph's breath coughed out of him. Both of you struggled to breathe at all. I remember feeling my own throat close up as well. Some sympathetic response, or just the automatic effect of panic? Joseph's blue, blue eyes searched mine, pleading for help. I remembered a night when a knife slid down my cheek, and I was able to close the wound. Would that be enough to heal? I gave myself no choice but to try. I would have to touch them. They had no other help but me. I moved quickly, but a hand clamped on my arm and stopped me. "Wexford," Lynch said, fixing her eyes -- *my eyes* on Rebecca Zander's dark ones. "Come back with me..." My old friend nausea hit me like a tidal wave. I wrested my arm from my sister's grip. I hissed old ords at her, warning her of the blood- boiling, rampaging fury filling my gut. "If you ever touch me again, I will kill you." I did not wait to see what effect my warning had. I rushed blindly to the three who had been sprawled on the dusty floor with one gunshot from Lynch. What I saw there was... horrible. All of you were unconscious by then, because I had not moved fast enough. Joseph's blood had splattered your skins with acidic burns. I summoned every ounce of courage it would take to touch, and placed all that courage first into the wound in Joseph's stomach, thinking that if my poor efforts would be enough to revive him, he could do the rest for yourself and my mother. I imagined the wound gone. I imagined it closing up. I imagined the green blood running its plotted course through Joseph's veins. He blinked. It was working. His skin closed over where once a brief gaping hole had been. He groaned loudly. He was in pain. "Joseph?" I called. His eyes rolled back until all I could see was the white. Seconds were vital. He had to heal. //Had// to. I could not do this myself. I hadn't accepted enough training. "Joseph!" I shrieked, "come on, you have to get better. You have to help me!" His head lolled on his neck and his eyes closed once more. I felt desperately for a pulse, and found only a weak one. I imagined for him a strong heart beating fiercely, but imagination was not enough. Joseph took in a deep breath, but when he coughed in exhalation, his lips were spattered with more flecks of green. I did not know anything at all about the inner workings of our bodies. I could not imagine new parts for Joseph. I could not imagine his pain away. Keeping one hand on Joseph's stomach, I nevertheless reached over to my mother willing her breathing to return to normal, not the weak wheeze that had come over her at the touch of Joseph's blood. Her breathing became less hindered, and I crawled over to you to do the same. The same resulted, but none of you was conscious yet. I was making no headway. I looked up. I had not noticed until then that Lynch had gone. Where, I don't know. Why, I can't even begin to guess. I looked back at the three of you. I could not figure out what to do. When I was eleven I had called 911, but the results had been tragic. I am, after all, Biohazard. The sisters of the Cloister would have called on their God in such a situation. But I was no longer a sister of the Cloister. I was, I am Wexford. My identity, however, could not stop some primeval mental twitch from tweaking my brain. Was it a prayer, or simply my staring down the face of despair? I don't know, and I still have not found the courage to ask. Whatever it was, some indefinable time later, I heard a thunder of multiple footsteps tramping up to the office where I now struggled with unschooled t0ouch to keep my three patrons alive. When the footsteps grew closer, then stilled themselves over the threshold to the office, I looked up and saw several silhouettes -- human shapes, but the uncovered presence of Joseph's spilled blood had no effect on them. "There he is," said one, "oh my God." "Take them all to the vans," commanded another. "Hurry!" I could not see their faces at all in the dim dusty air. I was lifted off the floor by purposeful hands. "No!" I shouted, wrestling, "Don't touch me!" But their strength equalled if not surpassed my own. I could not resist. "You may find this hard to believe," answered my captor, "but we're here to rescue you." Just then, I heard someone cough. I think it was you, and Agent Scully's own coughing was not far behind. I turned my head to see both of you breathing -- not well, but on your own -- and being dragged to your feet by some of the others who had just rushed into the office with my own captor. "Fauchelevent?" my captor called over the din. "Here," he hissed. "Thanks, Scott." "Joseph!" I shouted in relief. "It's okay, Emily," he called back, but weakly. Still distrusting, I did not go easily down the stairs as Scott my captor dragged me. "Where are we going?" I demanded of him. I received no answer, except being propelled outside the building and into a large van. "What is happening?" I shouted to him as he took the driver's seat and roundly ignored me. Shortly thereafter, another man was helping Joseph into the seat beside me. Then we were driven off. I turned to look out the back window just in time to see you and Agent Scully being helped into another van. The man riding shotgun who had just helped Joseph leaned out the opend window and shouted to the people loading the van behind us, "GO! GOGOGO!" Tires squealed. Dust flew. I turned again and saw the other van pulling close behind us. "GET DOWN!" Scott the driver shouted to all of us. Joseph reached out and grasped my hand to pull me down. Before I could pull back a great noise shook the air around us and forced my face to the seat. When I looked up again, the building from which we had just been dragged was alive with flames and billowing with choking gray smoke. I stopped asking questions just then, for the time being. In numb silence, I watched the landscapes roll by. We were heading north. The gentle hills kept getting taller. We passed over the Pennsylvania border by way of a non-toll bridge. These people knew where they were going, where they were taking me and Joseph, you and my mother. Hours later, I realized I knew where they were taking us as well. White lettering on the green sign read, "WEXFORD, 5 MILES." END 13/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? And hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance." --Romans 8: 24-25 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In hope we were saved, but hope requires risk. Hope demands sacrifice. Dusk had come by the time we reached the mouth of the Cloister's long driveway. I was ignored again in the flurry that ensued with our arrival. Well, almost ignored. "Stay here, Wexford," Scott snapped as he leapt out of the van and ran up the steps to the Cloister house. I rediscovered my voice. "How do you know who I am?" But Scott was already gone. The man in the passenger seat answered me instead with more questions. "How do we know who you are? Fauchelevent, didn't you tell her anything?" Joseph smiled weakly. "She didn't ask, Lenhart." The man Joseph had just called Lenhart turned to face me with a wolfish but friendly smile. "We're your family, Wexford." Thick black eyebrows danced at me over dark eyes. "Family?" I echoed, giving Joseph an uncertain glance. "You're one of us," Lenhart explained, "The Resistance." "Joseph?" I was asking for confirmation. He nodded and closed his eyes, as if very, very tired. "Is that how you found us?" I asked Lenhart. Lenhart shrugged and looked casually at his fingernails. "We knew where Fauchelevent was going today, and then we got information that They were on to us. Simple, really, once you see how we work things." Simple. I almost laughed. I actually felt the giggle bubbling up in my throat. So it hadn't been that mental twitch of mine that had summoned these people to drag us away in their vans. "Who? Who gave you that information?" Lenhart simply stared at me. Perhaps some questions are best left unanswered. "What happened to that steel mill?" I asked nevertheless, looking out the window so as to leave the question open for either Joseph -- Fauchlevent -- or Lehnart. Beside me, Joseph gave a shuddering breath. Lenhart answered with words, however. "They went for overkill this time. Just sending Lynch wasn't enough. They think you're all dead now, or beyond saving." The way he said "They" was clearly upper-case. "So," Lenhart waxed loquacious, "we decided to give Them what They wanted and to make the best of it. We play along like the three of you are dead, see?" "What do you mean, 'we'?" I demanded, turning to face Lenhart. "Who gives you the right to decide that for us?" I pinned him with my gaze, with the icy gray eyes of Rebecca Zander. He fidgeted uncomfortably. "We *haven't* decided that," Joseph whispered. Then he insisted, "You have a choice." Those same words, but this time I knew the choice was not just mine. My mother and her partner would have to make a choice as well. Hope demands sacrifice. Sighing with irritation -- irritation was not nearly as painful as raw fear -- I asked one more question. "Well, what are we doing here, then?" Jerking a thumb towards the van parked behind ours, Lenhart answered. "We need their help." He used a lower-case "their." He meant you and my mother, but you know that. "For what?" I forced some snappiness into my voice -- Rebecca Zander's voice. In a weak murmur, Joseph replied, "We need a vaccine, and we're running out of time." "But why did we have to come *here*?" "We're not staying here," Lenhart grumbled. Silent minutes later, I saw familiar faces in familiar habits scrambling down the front steps of the Cloister. They were all carrying boxes brimming with what I can only describe as... stuff. Clothes, food, apple butter, vials and hypodermic syringes. Stuff. Lenhart jumped out of the van and opened the back door. Sister Helen Gabriel was the first one in, followed by three of the other five. Mother Prioress and Sister Mary Therese were climbing into the van behind ours. "Sister!" Helen Gabriel smiled, handing me the box she had been carrying. "Are you ready for an adventure?" I opened my mouth to speak, but the irony of the words I was about to say hit me. Hit me hard, actually. That tiny giggle that had stirred inside of me a few minutes ago gained momentum. I began to snicker. Then, I was not just giggling, but laughing. Laughing out loud, deep, body-shaking belly-laughs. Was I ready for an adventure? "Do I have a choice?" I asked Sister Helen Gabriel, as tears of laughter streamed down my cheeks and Scott put the car in gear, heading us off onto a night-dark highway. I just barely heard Joseph's shallow- breathing laughter over the growl of the engine. Not only did I make a joke, but somebody else got it. Success. Success all my own. I hadn't even noticed that in my laughter I had reverted to the face I had originally called my own, that of Emily Camille Wexford. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I can only describe that whole night as surreal. Morning brought us further upstate. No green highway sign gave us warning of our destination, but I knew we were still heading north. Faint gray light shone in the passenger side windows and fell upon the silhouette of a farm sprawling at the top of a long uphill driveway. I squinted and saw a light shining in one window. Someone had waited up for us. "There it is," Lenhart yawned. Scott turned the wheel and we were bumping our way up the pothole-pocked drive. "Like I said when we bought it," Lenhart grumbled through grittted teeth, "the place needs some major work." "Small town," Scott said. I could see his knuckles whitening at his grip on the steering wheel, even in the dark. "Backward. No surveilance cameras in any of the stores or gas stations. It's the safest place around. You know that just as well as I do. Besides, the sisters' liked the name." A wave of light laughter issued from the other passengers. "And," Scott added, "it's got those underground passages. The best deal we could've found. Thank God for Erie's lake-affect snow." "We should've had more time to fix it up before bringing them here," Lenhart complained to no one in particular. Scott frowned. "No point arguing it now. They forced our hand." Joseph sat up next to me. His gunshot wound was gone, and other than looking exhausted, he appeared none the worse for wear. He turned and gave me what was meant to be a reassuring smile. "What is this place?" I asked him, knowing he would have an answer. "It's a farm we bought as a base of operations and research," he explained, "in a little town called Mount Carmel." Then I understood the sisters' appreciation, being from the Discalced religious order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Scott pulled us up to the driveway and the sisters filed out, carrying their boxes. Lenhart took Sister Helen Gabriel's box, since she was the oldest, even older than Mother Prioress. Then, Joseph crawled out of the van, and I followed him. An early morning breeze lightened the May heat and humidity. I looked around, and apparently everyone else was doing the same. There was an ancient, paint-peeling hex sign over the barn doors, typical of old Pennsylvania Dutch farms. The doors of the other van suddenly slammed shut. A woman a few years older than me was leading my mother and her partner up the front steps of the farm house. I remember it clearly -- so clearly, I don't think even my unreliable memory could ever lose that image. The two of you were clinging to each other, walking so slowly, as if each step hurt. I wanted to stop you, to ask what was wrong. Were you still just in pain from Joseph's blood? I thought our abductors had healed you. They had, hadn't they? I wanted to call out to my mother, but I did not know how to address her. The word "Mommy" was not for me to say, and now that I know why your posture spoke of such despair, I am doubly glad I did not say that word; I am sure I only would have twisted the nails in the fresh wound of the sacrifice you had decided to make. "Sister," a familiar voice called softly on the morning haze. I turned and saw Mother Prioress, her brows knit together in the same expression of worry I'd so often seen and caused. She was carrying a box, and either through nature or old habit, I reached out to carry it for her. She surrendered it gracefully. She must have noticed how I was watching the two of you, because she offered me the explanation I could not demand out loud. "They've made a choice," she sighed, her voice tired but heavy with compassion. I stopped walking, afraid of what Mother Prioress would say next, but still I had to ask. "And?" The Mother Prioress waved her hand, inviting me to keep walking up the steps with her. "Do you remember the gospel of John, chapter fifteen, verse thirteen?" I could actually feel myself blush. I was no longer under her care, but I did not want to disappoint the Mother Prioress. "I have not kept up with my scripture reading," I admitted. She did not respond with any condemnatory words. She only nodded in acknowlegement. "It's from Our Lord's Last Supper, Sister. Now do you recall?" Surreal. This whole experience was so surreal. I tugged on my brain to determine Mother Prioress' reference. The Last Supper discourse: Jesus' parting words. Parting words. He was about to be taken away from his friends and family. Parting words. I ventured a guess. "'Man hath no greater love than this...'?" "... than to lay down one's life for one's friends." The Mother Prioress nodded and finished for me. I looked up the steps just in time to watch you and my mother enter the house, our new home. "They made a choice?" I asked the Mother Prioress. "Sister," she nodded and said in a voice more bitter than sweet, "I would like you to attend a funeral." Hope demands sacrifice. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was more of a memorial service, actually. The bodies had not been found, so a Mass of Christian Burial was not an option, and would have been inappropriate, given that only one of you was Catholic. I pulled out an old identity, one I had not used in months. An older woman named Joanne Forte, birthdate 3/4/54. Never married. Brown eyes. She was my height: five feet, three inches. A minimum of effort went into becoming her, and I knew I was going to need all the energy I could spare. I decided to drive instead of taking a flight out there. It was an nine hour haul from northwestern Pennsylvania back out to the suburbs of DC. Plenty of time to think. Plenty of time to prepare myself for seeing my little sister again. But nothing could have prepared me for all I was about to encounter. According to the media, there had been a bombing of an abandoned steel mill in western Maryland. No suspects had been named, but two federal agents had been presumed dead. No one knew why they were there in the first place, not even their superior agents, but their rental car had been found at the scene of the bombing, and the agents themselves were nowhere to be found. The investigation team was looking into various leads, the most promising of which pointed to any one of thousands of local laid-off steel mill workers and their families. I would have laughed when I read that, but I had other things on my mind. I was still trying to find the obituaries. Once I found them, I found where the memorial service would be held, and when. My little sister was much taller than I had expected her to be. In my mind, Margaret Grace Mulder was still nine years old, playing basketball in her driveway, utterly innocent to the fact that her older sister was being trained up to kill her, much less that she even *had* an older sister, or five... It took me several minutes to figure out it was her. She was standing at the head of a relatively short line. Her hair was pulled back into a French twist, which kept loosening as time went by. An older woman stood next to my little sister, holding Meg's hand and softly talking to her. Actually, it was more like my sister was holding *her* hand, offering the elder mourner strength. My grandmother. Since I was sixteen, I'd been aware that I had a little sister, outside of those who had been created just like me. But the realization that I had a grandmother as well was... eerie. I had a grandmother, and uncles, and cousins. My little sister, born, coddled raised in love, the darling girl among a passle of grandsons, had just lost her family. I, created, brought forth, engineered... had just found more family than I had ever imagined reading about in any of my books. I did not pass through the receiving line at first. I just watched from the back of the crowd, but that still did not put me at much of a distance from where my sister and my grandmother were shaking the hands and accepting the hugs and sympathies of their few fellow mourners. It seemed to be mostly family -- my family -- and a very few friends in attendance. Family. My family. I kept my distance and Joanne Forte's face. A tall young man, African-American, gently forced his way to the front of the receiving line and bent to hug my grandmother. Then, he said something to my sister, something I could not hear, and he placed his dark hand softly against my sister's ash-pale cheek. For the first time since I had seen her, she actually looked like she was about to cry. She did not, however. She just nodded and smiled. Who was he? He must have been important to her if he could almost make her lose her composure like that. I decided to get a closer look at my sister's face. I don't know why. Curiosity, I suppose. I looked around carefully to see if anyone had noticed me. They -- upper-case -- would surely be watching this event. No one seemed to be paying particular attention to my -- Joanne Forte's -- presence. I joined the line, keeping my eyes fixed on my sister so I could continue wondering what kind of person she was. With each hand she shook, her face cemented more deeply into a non-expression. Her eyes were completely dry as I watched her, but the gray shadows coloring her eyelids spoke of hours of crying alone, perhaps into a pillow. When her hands weren't busy with the business of being part of a receiving line, they were brushing back the wayward curls that kept escaping from the twist at the back of her head. The the tilt of her cheeks, the angle of her chin -- so much of it was like looking into a mirror. She was eighteen now. Eighteen. *All grown up,* as my mother had said. *Our* mother. She looked so vulnerable, but so strong. You would have been proud of her had you been there. I'd forgotten to bring flowers. To my own mother's funeral. Yet another thing that no one had ever thought to train into me. I had nothing to give my sister or my grandmother. Nothing. I could not even touch them for comfort. Or couldn't I? Hope demands sacrifice. I shook my grandmother's hand. Success. Success all my own. She smiled, and it was my mother's smile. "Thank you for coming," she said. Her voice was tired with weeping. Then I was standing before my little sister. I had to look up to see her eyes. Her eyes had the same shape as the eyes They had given me, but hers were colored with flecks of green. She did not smile at me. She gave no greeting. "How did you know them?" She asked me. I hadn't prepared an answer to that question. I thought quickly for something that was the truth -- maybe not all of it, but enough of it. "We were comrades-at-arms," I explained in Joanne Forte's sixty-something voice. Something in my sister's face twitched at that strange phrase I chose, but she did not press. I could sense she was too busy trying to control her own grief. She did not reach for my hand. She did not say "thank you." In fact, she stepped back from me. I made the greatest sacrifice I could think of making at the time; I reached out to another human being, my little sister. I took her hand in mine, and imagined healing for her passing from my hand into hers, from my green blood into her red blood, from my heart into hers. I did not know if my imaginings would make a difference. I just held her and let myself hope that my touch could actually give her some measure of peace. Suddenly, tears sprang to her eyes unbidden. She almost ripped her hand out of mine. "I am so sorry," I said, because, after all, it is all my fault. Then I turned and left. I did not stay for the service. On the drive back to Mount Carmel, I thought about how I almost made my little sister cry. I had only wanted to heal her. It seemed I couldn't do anything right, not even the sorts of things They had created me to do. Unless tears are a form of healing, too. I stopped on the way home to get gas for the car. When I went to pay, I picked up a newspaper. "SUSPECT CHARGED IN STEEL MILL BOMBING FOUND DEAD IN CELL." I read on. "Son of a former mill employee, Mr. Joseph Fauchlevent, age 28, who reportedly confessed to setting the bomb at the abandoned Lehigh Steel Mill last week, was found dead in his cell shortly before three AM. Cause of death is still undetermined...." So much death devouring everything. I dropped the paper in the parking lot. Hope demands sacrifice. Tears are a form of healing. One week ago, after I left your funeral, I arrived back here at this farm in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania -- this farm the sisters are already calling "the new Cloister." I spent this past week after my return alone in my room, coming out only for food and refills on serum. I finally have decided to make amends for my guilt, to put right all that I have put wrong, and that is why I came to you today, Agent Mulder, to ask for your help. Well, yesterday, at this point. I need to put this all behind me and become a new person if I am ever going to learn to heal. If I am ever going to uncover the full potential that is me, I need to learn these things. I will. I must. It is a difficult thing for me to learn, but hope demands sacrifice. This is the least I can do, in light of what you and my mother and Joseph have given up. So you told me to write it down, since I so obviously could not talk about it. So here it is. After writing all through the night, my hand hurts, I am more tired than I ever have been, and the sun is just starting to rise, but here it is. It was hard work but I know it nothing compared to what is to come. There is no spell to make me just like everyone else. There is only this sacrifice. It is a start. END 14/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You did not receive a spirit of slavery, leading you back into fear, but a spirit of adoption through which we cry out "Abba!" (that is, "Father") --Romans 8: 15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two years. I can't belive it. Almost two years have passed since I have written in this notebook. Two years, and I have learned so much, but it still was not enough. So much has happened in just the past thirty-six hours, and even though I did all I could, I should have been able to do more. I am so sorry, but sorry is not enough. Sorry cannot bring your daughter out of her unconsciousness -- a state I could have prevented had I learned enough. For nearly two years I have designated myself my sister's keeper; I have kept tabs on her through other members of the Resistance: namely, Scott, Lenhart and Keyte. The three of them watched over her and let us know that Meg Mulder was succeeding in the Foreign Languages program at Georgetown, despite being the youngest junior on campus. She was easy to keep an eye on, Lenhart quipped, because she was always studying. She hardly ever went out, but when she did it was either to go home and visit her grandmother or to take the Metro to Catholic University and have pizza and watch movies with her friend Kevin -- the tall boy who had touched her cheek at your funeral. The tall boy I could not save last night. A year ago, another death touched my little sister's life. Was this death engineered by Them? We can only guess. I attended the funeral for our grandmother, Doctor Scully's mother. At that funeral I did not approach my sister Meg at all. I had too much to hide this time. I wanted to tell her too much. It was all I could do to maintain our deep cover for her protection. Had I let myself get too close to her, I would have spilled it all, and I know that is not what you, her parents, wanted for her. For two years I have tried to learn the depths of my healing capabilities, but my earlier learning has left walls within me. The skill to murder left little room for my desire to heal, but I have made some headway. I memorized what Scott, Lenhart and Keyte taught me about removing the black oil. That alone took two years, and now I'm wondering if it was even worth the effort. Lenhart said that was the first thing I should learn, but after last night I have to wonder. Last night. Well, starting with two days ago, really, when Scott, Lenhart and Keyte returned to the new Cloister with information. "Wexford," Keyte called to me across our Cloister basement lab as she pulled her mouse brown hair into a ponytail. Last name is customary form of address in this world of ours; so many of us, clones, share first names with others who are not part of our resistant, rebellious efforts. Where last names tie humans together in families, they offer us one of the few indicators of our individualities. I left the tools I was sterilizing and walked out to her. Her face had an expression of cocky annoyance, which meant she was worried. "What is it?" "The boys and I just got back from a serum run," she said, "the boys" meaning Scott and Lenhart, "and along the way we got word that They have been watching your sister for the past couple days." The way she said "They" was clearly upper-case. *How* They were watching her, I didn't even need to ask. They had enough vehicles of surveilance at Their disposal, even I knew that, and Keyte never lied. Never. Not even white lies. I looked over at Doctor Scully, wearing the white lab coat I had bought for her last Christmas. She had not heard our conversation. She was hard at work directing the sisters in mass-production of our vaccine formula. At least one success has come out of our exile so far. "Which one?" I asked Keyte in a hushed voice, hoping Doctor Scully wouldn't hear and worry. "Your little sister," she explained, lowering her own voice. I shook my head. "Why? Why now?" All she did was shrug. "You haven't been out there with us in months. Has there been a break in security around here?" "Not that I can think of. I mean, except going out to get groceries at that store without a surveilance camera, nobody's come or gone besides the three of you," I answered my fellow soldier. Keyte's face went pale at the implications. "Scott and Lenhart -- they're not traitor material." "I didn't say they were. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What are you going to do about it?" Keyte snickered at me. "What do you mean 'you'? More like what are *we* going to do about it?" So whatever they wanted to do, they wanted me to be a part of it. "You're still the best morpher," Keyte continued, "and if we need to be out there keeping a physical eye on her, you're the best woman for the job." So I went with them. How did I find your daughter the next day? So much of my life has been spent as other people. I may not have learned all there is to know about healing, but I know how to be other people. All I had to do was think: if I were Meg Mulder, darling girl raised in love but suddenly on my own as the result of multiple tragedies... where would I have gone? When we got in the van, Scott looked to me for direction. I am the youngest, but my brothers and sisters in the Resistance still treat me like an equal -- an honor I often feel I do not deserve. Nevertheless, when Lenhart asked me, "Where to, Wexford?" I had no trouble offering a suggestion. "Back to D. C." Hours later, I had them drop me off at the graveyard. They drove around separately, looking to protect your little girl. I waited by your empty graves. I didn't even change my face. I found a hiding spot among a small stand of trees. The unexpected threat is the greatest threat of all. When I saw Lynch arrive with Kevin Declan, I was wearing the face They had given to me and my sisters, Emily A through Emily E. In my hiding place, I was Wexford. As Wexford, I watched my little sister place small, plastic-wrapped bouquets before four gravestones. As Wexford, I watched Lynch lead Kevin Declan out of her car, the car They had given her, and I watched her aim her gun through night's darkness at our little sister -- at my little sister. "Emily," I whispered from my shadows. Lynch, my sister, lowered her gun and turned to me. She was obviously shocked to see me, to see herself there, calling her by name. I stepped closer to Lynch. I could hear our little sister yelling something to her driver as Kevin, infected with the oil, pursued her. "Emily," I pleaded, "come back with me." Almost two years ago she had said the same words to me. She raised her gun again, but kept looking at me, her face pained. For those times They had sent Lynch after me, I had to try to lure her away from Them. She was my sister, and I am my sisters' keeper. Our fates had been chosen for us, not by us. How had Joseph lured me away? It still hurts to remember him, but I needed his memory to guide me in how to reach for my sister, Emily Elizabeth Lynch. "Emily," I told her, "you have a choice." When the blue light of night fell on her eyes, eyes exactly like my own, I saw what she was feeling: blood-boiling, heart-rending, rampaging jealousy. Nothing more. There was no hope there, not even desire. And so I knew what her choice would be. I tried to stop her the only way old habits told me I could. As fast as Lynch re-aimed her gun at our little sister, I rushed her, pulled the gimlet out and drove it into her neck. At the time it was the only way I could think of to stop her. I killed her. I killed Lynch. I killed my partner from long ago. I killed my sister, just as Cain had killed Abel. But I was still too late. Lynch fell to the ground, and the devouring began just as Meg Mulder fell with a gunshot wound in her left shoulder. "What have you done?" God asked Cain. "Listen; your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil!" If I think too hard, I can still hear Lynch's scream just before she was no more. Was the choice hers to make, or had I taken that choice from her? I just can't figure it out. I saw that Lynch's erstwhile captive had turned to watch what was happening through oil-clouded eyes. I had no time then to ponder over what I had done. I ran over to Meg's friend and called upon what Scott and Lenhart and Keyte had made me memorize about removing the black oil. I knew it in theory, but had never tested it in practice. *That's the first thing you oughta learn,* had been Lenhart's admonition. I had wanted them to teach me how to heal first, but they had insisted. *There'll be time to teach you the rest,* Keyte had assured me, but I could tell she was trying to assure herself as well. I called upon my utterly unreliable memory, and to my utter shock it worked. The gruesome black stuff came pouring out at my command, but it only bought time for Kevin Declan. I could not help him and heal Meg at the same time, and my little sister was sprawled in the grass, unmoving. Death behind me, death beside me, and death before me. I ran to Meg, knelt by her side. If she dies too, then what good have I done? I put my palm on her back and tried to imagine her wound closed. I knew it wouldn't work, but I had to try. Why hadn't I made Keyte come with me to that graveyard? Hubris, I guess. See? I told you I could have done more. Meg struggled. I told her not to fight it. I heard myself calling her my little sister. She must have known what I was, because she tried to get away from me, even with a bullet in her back. Even with death upon her she fought. Thinking about that now, I think I can say that I admire my little sister. At the moment, though, all I could think about was this: that I had to prove to her that I'm not like Them, that I am not one of Them, that I have chosen a different path. I *have* chosen a different path. My God. Everything has changed. When Meg's wound closed enough that she was no longer losing as much blood, we had to move her. We had no time. We still have to go back and get her friend later. I told her driver to get your daughter out of there. He helped me lift her into the car. I guess he only obeyed my command out of fear, because he had just witnessed what I had done to someone who looked exactly like me. A strange sort of suicide. "I'll ride with you until you can get her to a hospital," I told him, "but then you're on your own." He sort of waggled his head as if trying to shake himself out of a trance. That was when he asked that question. "Do you know where her parents are?" I was too stunned to answer. "I have a plane," he continued, in the obvious hope that he could persuade me to tell him where the missing parents were. I could not heal her wound totally, but I made a choice: a choice to trust that stranger and reunite my sister with her family. And your partner is a doctor. I acted in the very human hope that Mommy would make it all better. So Cho, the pilot, flew us here. I kept my palm on my little sister's shoulder the whole time, doing what little I could to keep her breathing even and to keep her blood from leaving her completely. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, after our mother has sewn Meg up properly, using some of the medical supplies we have hoarded against the colonization days to come, the two of you sit with her, reunited at last with your miracle daughter, the child of your love. She is still unconscious, and there is still much she does not know, but my choice, my risk has brought hope. Hope for the three of you. Perhaps I have it in me to heal after all. And perhaps being human is not about being pure good. Perhaps it is just about reaching out to others in hopes of making a difference. It's about choice. It's about sacrifice and touch. It's about always changing and learning. It's about having faith in others. It's about having faith in myself. You didn't have to thank me, you know. I am my sister's keeper. I should have been able to do more. It is morning again, and I have just reread what I have written here. I just looked in the mirror and nothing has changed, but as I read my own story, everything has changed. I think I need to find the Mother Prioress. And Father Tim. There is something I want to do now. I have sins to be forgiven, because I have murdered. When I chose to take away those lives, I took away that precarious gift called choice. And we all deserve a choice, red blood or green blood. We are all, at least partially, human. But I have also done good, and I have to acknowledge that. Within me I have life and death, blessing and curse, like all the human race. I have an identity to claim, and a family to call my own. Perhaps Doctor Scully can be persuaded to leave one daughter's bedside and help me just a little for just a few minutes. I am going to need a godmother. I will ask the Mother Prioress to give me a name. Now I am called Wexford, but I have changed. I know this now. END 15/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "But if we are children, we are heirs as well: heirs of God, heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so as to be glorified with him." --Romans 8: 17 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't have much time. I'm writing this quickly, as my little sister writes a note of her own, explaining where we are going. Meg thinks quickly, and doesn't give a second thought to risking her own life to save another, even while she is in such great pain now. Now, I am certain that I admire her. She is so much that I am not, so much that I can never be. While she still slept, I was baptized. Mother Prioress gave me names for my new identity. She whispered the names to Father, who poured the water over my head. "I baptize you, Michael Joan, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." As I was named, I looked to Mother Prioress, who smiled at me with tears in her eyes. Michael for the Archangel, defender of souls, warrior against evil. And Joan for Joan of Arc. The Mother Prioress had chosen strong patrons for me. Then, Father Tim touched me with the sacramental oil, saying the words of anointing, "Go forth and live as Jesus has called you, as prophet, priest and king." "Wait," Doctor Scully said, just as Father Tim was about to say the closing prayer. "Doesn't she have to put on a white garment?" Mother Prioress nodded, "That is traditonally part of the sacrament." Then, my godmother helped me into the white lab coat I had given her last Christmas. White -- the symbolic color of healing, hope, and new life. My christening gown. "Thanks," I whispered. Then, I pitched my voice low enough that she might not have heard it. "Mommy..." She must have heard it. She rested her hand against my cheek. At last, I did not need to pull away. Hours later, when Meg finally woke up, Doctor Scully called on me to explain to my sister what had happened in the graveyard. I described it as best I could, but there is still much she does not know. She is almost twenty one. Don't you think she is old enough now? But I suppose that is not my choice. When she sent both you and her mother away, Agent Mulder, she asked me to help her go back and find Kevin. I am helping her because it's my fault he's not here with us now in the first place. I am only human, but I still must do all I can to right my wrongs. So I will do all I can to make a deal. I will call on that house where I once was tutored, the house where my sisters still live. I will arrange a deal with Them. Just in case, I will bring the stiletto They gave me, but I hope not to use it. I know the danger in facing my remaining two sisters. I am not naive. But what is the worst They can do, kill me? I am more than what They created me to be. If They kill me, They destroy only the shell, and the shell was all They ever wanted anyway. I am taking some vaccine with me to cure Kevin for certain. I already have some of my own syringes. I gave Meg freedom to go through my clothes for something to wear on this journey of ours. My little sister is borrowing my clothes. How normal. Soon I will close this book and go to help her get dressed. She is still weak and in much pain. She needs my help. Miracle of miracles, I can hold her and there is no nausea. I do not have much more time to write, but I wanted to leave my own note. If I do not come back from this journey, I want my little sister to read this notebook I've kept for the purpose of healing. This might help her understand some of the things she has not yet learned about what is out there, about Their Project, and about what has been hidden from her and why. Perhaps she can see what kinds of sacrifices have been made out of hope for her future. Perhaps this will help her understand how much she is loved and needed. Then again, perhaps I will return to this farm, our new Cloister, to my family in all its shapes and forms. In fact, I am pulling off our poorly stocked library shelves two books I have always refused to read up until now. Their titles were too damning for me, I used to think, their premises too much wishful thinking. I don't think that anymore. Everything has changed. "The Story of a Soul," by Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun. "Little Women," by Louisa May Alcott. I think I will be ready to read them when I come home. Perhaps I will read them to my sister one day. My little sister. My family. END 16/16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, you hated it? You liked it? You don't know what happens to Wexford? Email me at CathyLex@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit The Basement Office:http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htm "I just want to be taken away to some place where I don't have to worry about finding a job." From: CathyLex Date: 15 Jun 1998 13:51:32 GMT Subject: NEW: Confessions of a Cigarette Smoking Girl, by EMC Confessions of a Cigarette Smoking Girl By Erin McCole Cupp Rating: PG (language -- twice) Spoilers: None Category: Vignette, imagine this happens about 17 years or so from now. MSR implied (so turn away now if the very thought skeeves you out). Nothing sloppy, however (see rating). Archiving: Knock yourself out. Just let me know so I can tell my dad if he wants to visit. Disclaimers: Give to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox Network what is Chris Carter's, 1013's and Fox Network's. But the other character is mine. Don't sue, please. I come in peace. Her eyes had been getting worse. She was otherwise in excellent shape, but no matter how much exercise a woman gets, nor how well-balanced her diet could be, a girl's eyes could still go on her. She had been meaning to schedule an appointment to renew the prescription for her contacts, but she simply hadn't had the time with all the paperwork that had been piling up exclusively for her. Her eyes had been getting worse, but her mental sharpness had, by order of life circumstances, grown even more so over the years. Which is why, one night while taking out the trash, she was able to spot the tiny tan and white blur out in the grass just off the back porch. She spotted it on her way back into the house. She stopped, thinking it was a piece of trash that might have slipped out a hole in the bag (Mom had put some broken glass in there Sunday night), and thus she picked it up, intending to take the stray back to the trash can. However, it was not a stray. It was a cigarette butt. Her heart jumped on instinct. She turned the offending object over in her fingers and saw printed on its side a blur that could only be words. Holding it an armlength away so she could see better (_how did I inherit this? Mom and Dad didn't get farsighted this early in their lives_), her eyes focused and she read the word she had dreaded to read. "Morley." "Damn," she muttered under her breath. She peered around the side of the house, looking for someone in a trenchcoat, hunched over with advanced age. Advanced age. Well, very advanced age after all these years. Scully couldn't help but chuckle softly at herself. The offending smoker had probably been some junior high kid cutting through their back yard to get to the school bus stop or something. If she would tell Mulder what had gone through her mind, even he would have laughed at her. "Mom!" A young female voice called out one of the second floor windows. "Can you help me? I'm stuck on this calculus problem!" Her fifteen year-old miracle was safe, in the house, and working on her homework. _Takes after me_ the veteran FBI agent thought proudly, _Not only smart enough to tackle calculus at this age but also smart enough not to ask her father for help with math._ "On my way, honey." She decided to say nothing about what she had found, to try not to think about it. That night, however, she was having trouble sleeping. Sometime after one in the morning, she woke up for the third time. She sat up in bed and looked over at the veritable log sleeping next to her, soundly for once. For a minute, she willed him to start awake, perhaps from one of his old nightmares returning to him unexpectedly. Minutes felt like eons, and he slept on. Damned therapy, easing all his nightmares away. She would have to do this on her own. _I'll just check in on her._ She thought. _It's a mother's prerogative. I used to do this all the time when she was little._ She slipped into her bathrobe and slippers. Soundlessly, so as not to wake her husband, her mother or her daughter, she crept down the hall to the room of the youngest member of the household. The door was open ever so slightly, so she peered in. The bed was empty. The house was deadly silent. She looked back down the hall. The bathroom door was open, the light off. _Where could she be?_ Should she wake him? Make him come with her? No. She would not. The girl was probably downstairs in the kitchen, getting a midnight snack. She did that whenever she was going through another growth spurt. Cereal at two in the morning. Cereal with bananas, washed down with two glasses of milk. She was already five-ten. _Okay, so maybe she doesn't take after me that much._ She was not in the kitchen. There was no dirty cereal bowl in the sink, no empty glass of milk. Stunned, Scully scanned the kitchen, wondering what to do. The pantry was too narrow to be anyone's hiding place. She circled the counter in the center, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the countertop. She looked up, out the windows. Outside the one window that opened to the trees in the side yard, something glowed orange. More on instinct than thought, she ran to the locked cabinet in the hall closet and, with shaking hands, removed her gun just before bolting out the back door. _Slippers don't make nearly as much noise as heels. Maybe I should wear these on stake out?_ What a ridiculous thought to have at a time like this. Tiptoeing through the garden patch that clung to the back wall of the house, she swung around to face the side yard and held her gun out before her. The orange glow was still there, but she could not see the owner who hid in the shadows of the maples bordering their property. "Mom?" The voice shook considerably. Half-relieved, half-terrified at hearing her daughter's voice, Scully held down her gun and walked over to the shadows. "Are you alone?" She could hear her daughter swallow. "Yeah..." The girl's voice still shook, as did the hand holding the cigarette. "Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure." Her voice sounded confused, as if she were not clear as to why her mother was asking this question. Probably because she wasn't. Mother walked straight up to daughter and stared down at the pack of Morleys in the girl's hand. She tried to keep her voice calm and clinical, but it came out sounding anguished. "Where did you get these?" Too petrified to do anything other than tell the truth, the girl confessed. "At the mini-mart on the way home from school. They didn't card me because I look eighteen..." The cigarette smoking girl then expected her mother to inflict upon her a lecture: beginning with the use of her full name (first, middle, confirmation and last), then launching into the medical dangers of smoking, continuing with something along the lines of "I'm going over there right now to arrest the sonofabitch who sold those to your underaged self, young lady," and concluding with some sort of grounding sentence. Instead, in the darkness, she saw her mother's eyes fill with tears which did not spill over her eyelids. Instead of getting angry or indignant, as teenagers are wont to do, the girl's dread waxed. Her mother hardly, hardly ever cried. "Mommy," she whispered, "I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again." Her mother merely held out her hand expectantly. Understanding the gesture, the girl surrendered the cigarette pack, along with the lighter. She herself hardly ever cried, and she felt as if she would spring a leak at any moment. Her mother looked at the confiscated objects in her hand, silent. "Mom?" The girl begged out of her fear, "Say something. Please." Except for finally using her daughter's full name in trademark motherly fashion, what Scully said was the last thing her daughter expected to hear. "Margaret Grace Katherine Mulder, if you decide that you are going to continue to smoke, please smoke another brand." END "Space aliens! Don't eat me! I have a wife and kids! Eat them!" --Homer J. Simpson From: CathyLex Date: 13 Aug 1998 15:53:05 GMT Subject: REP: She's Always a Woman to Me (1/1 MSR) by CathyLex REP: "She's Always a Woman to Me" by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) One knows it's time to repost an X-Files fanfic when one sees that one has misspelled the word "trust." CLASSIFICATION: M/other date, then MSR, V, H, AU RATING: G (for General fluffiness, and for "Good heavens, I can't believe I'm writing something that could be called songfic!") SPOILERS: Small one-liner for the movie XFFTF. If you haven't seen the movie, you probably won't even notice it, so go ahead and read. The same for "Christmas Carol/Emily." Small but negligible. SUMMARY: Mulder has a date with another woman. DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, and Mom Scully belong to Chris Carter, 1013 productions, and the Fox Network. Neither do I own any of the songs mentioned herein. Please don't sue. I have a negative net worth. ARCHIVING: Gossamer, please ARCHIVE THIS VERSION!!! All others, just email me and make sure my name & addy stay attached. FEEDBACK: Helps me grow big and strong! Via CathyLex@aol.com NOTE: So this is what happens when I listen to too much Billy Joel and go stargazing at a mountain drive-in movie theater with my best friends... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They had been growing apart lately. The psychologist in him knew this was inevitable, healthy even. Nevertheless, the growing rift between them did not make him happy. It made him nervous -- nervous about the future in general, and about tonight in particular. But she had asked him to go with her, and he'd agreed, and he would never break a promise to her if he could help it. Apparently, he was not the only one around the candlelit table experiencing that kind of nervousness. Across the table from them there was Frank O'Brien, a divorced and since-remarried stockbroker who had flown in from New York just for the occasion; his smiling quietude spoke of good-natured estrangement with the young woman who sat by his side. To O'Brien's right sat Allan Farzetta, also divorced, who had left his second wife behind in Colorado Springs for the weekend. To Mulder's left were the well-dressed but ill-at-ease Edlings, with Mr. Edling looking like a constipated fish in an obvious toupee. One Ben Gausz and date were to Mulder's right, and Mulder knew better than to laugh at the way the female Gausz's eyes frequently rolled at the middle-aged man's mannerisims; if Mulder laughed, he knew he himself would be the next victim of someone else's youthful giggles. Well, he already was by the looks of it. The girls around the table headed for the dance floor once the music started, leaving behind five men in varying states of graying and baldness. "//Au revoir//, Mulder," she told him. "Don't have too much fun without me." The other four snickered at how she called him by his last name. "Aren't you coming back?" He kept his voice from sounding childish and helpless. "Have to," she smiled at him impishly, her turquoise eyes twinkling at him in the low light. "You're my ride home." Ditched. So this was how Scully felt. He made another mental note never to do that to her again. Strangers, the five men who had been left behind looked awkwardly at each other for a few minutes, then down at the dessert plates that had yet to be cleared. Soon, though, conversation inevitably turned to "So, what do you do?" Taking a sip of water from the glass in front of him, Mulder answered simply, "I work for the FBI." No more explanation was needed or asked for, thank God. Funny enough, he had never given his date much more explanation than that either, and in her innocence she'd never thought to demand more. She'd never imagined there might be more to demand. Was that what had provoked him to keep her at some small distance all these years? Was that the reason she had lost her former devotion to him? They had always been rather close, but lately.... A new kind of guilt twinged in his stomach. There was so much he had never told her. The DJ was making an effort to get some of the older folks in the crowd to get out and cut a rug. "What Would You Say" by the Dave Matthews Band started to play, and Mulder watched across the room as his date wrinkled up her nose at the somewhat familiar music. He saw her mouth forming the word, "Oldies," and he couldn't help but chuckle to himself. Then, the music got slower, first with a current "slow dance," during which she left for the bathroom with the rest of her female tablemates. Then, a second song came over the sound system, and Mulder automatically smiled, wiping the beads of condensation off of the water glass in front of him. This song always made him think of Scully. Or, at least parts of it did. "...She can lead you to live She can take you or leave you She can ask for the truth But she'll never believe you..." Then again, many things made him think of Scully. Especially the tall, coltish girl walking back to the table from the bathroom as the song played. Epecially her, with those expressive blue eyes of hers, her stubbornness, her ever-blossoming indepencence... She kicked off her awkwardly high heels and nudged them under the table as she took her seat beside him. "Hey, Mulder." "Hey, Mulder," he completed their customary exchange. Suddenly, she stood back up again, tugging on his arm. "Come on, Mulder. I'm going to teach you how to waltz." His initial impulse was to blurt out, "Oh, no you're not," but he realized that for the first time in a long time, she was the one reaching out to him instead of the other way around. Someone in a developmental psych class had once told him that teenagers are like clams; they only open up either to accept nourishment or to eliminate wastes. So which was this? He looked up at her smirk and thought of Scully again. "Since when do you know how to waltz?" She shrugged. "I took a semester of Social Dance for PE. Coach said it would improve my grace." He sighed. "Come on, Mulder. You can do it. Don't tell me you're chicken!" He puffed out his cheeks as she took his hands and pulled him off of his chair. Not even Scully could have coaxed him into waltzing to Billy Joel; only she, the one who had finally taken his name and wore it with more grace than any of those who had gone before her with the name "Mulder", could have managed this -- his arm around her waist, his hand in hers, both of them counting together, "one-two-three, two-two-three." "I'll lead," she informed him, and he let himself follow. "...Oh-she takes care of herself She can wait if she wants She's ahead of her time..." If Scully made him a whole person, she made him a better one. "Oh-and she never gives out And she never gives in..." Unwittingly, she had even gotten him to throw out his old video collection when she had declared at the tender age of thirteen that she wanted to be an actress. "...She just changes her mind..." Miraculously they stopped stepping on each other's toes and fell into a comfortable rhythm. One-two-three, two-two-three... "...But she'll bring out the best And the worst you can be..." He thought of the first time he ever had held her. She had seemed so small then. He had gazed at her, spellbound, while Scully had started laughing, even through her pain and fatigue. "What's so funny?" He had asked. Scully had wiped her eyes with one hand and her sweat-beaded brow with the other. The gold ring on her left hand glinted in the flourescent light. "She looks like Ahab." He had looked down at the strawberry blond hair, still damp, which was thicker around the sides of her head and sparse on top. So she did look like a little old balding Navy captain. "Ahab Scully," he had laughed back at her, "or are we still naming her after your mom? Margaret Grace Scully, right?" Scully suddenly grew quiet. "Mulder." "What?" She shook her head. He hadn't understood her use of the name just then. It wasn't a call but a correction. "Margaret Grace Mulder." The hands that held the baby then began to tremble ever so slightly. He had assumed that since she kept her maiden name that their unlikely child would be a Scully as well. She surprised him with this additional gift, and he was overwhelmed. Even tonight he was still overwhelmed by the gift. He tried not to tremble now at the memory, and he tried not to tremble as Meg Mulder laughingly put her feet on her father's as they waltzed along. "Remember when we used to walk around the living room like this when I was little?" She asked him. He could only nod back at her. "...Blame it all on yourself Cause she's always a woman to me..." She wouldn't be a little girl much longer. Truthfully, she wasn't one anymore. He and Scully had hidden things from her to keep her safe, to protect her from the truth until she was old enough to understand. But would she ever be old enough to understand? He was fifty-six and he wasn't sure *he* was old enough. The song came to its end, and Mulder warmed gratefully as the miracle who was his daughter put her arms around him in an impulsive hug. Then the dreaded strains of "The Electric Slide" came over the sound system. Even time could not kill some things. "You okay, Mulder?" Her voice was curious and slightly worried. He looked back into those blue eyes, so much like Scully's, and chuckled. "I'm fine, Mulder." As they left the banquet hall that night, passing underneath the banner that read "Class of '17 Father-Daughter Dance," she asked him optimistically, "Can I drive?" He shook his head. "You never let me drive!" This time, he had a valid excuse. "When you get your license, then you can drive." She rolled her eyes. "I have my permit." He elaborated. "When you can back out of the garage consistently without getting the car stuck sideways, then you can drive." She bit her lip, embarrassed. He took her out to an all-night diner for ice cream. When the waitress came to ask them for their drink orders, she ordered a coffee. He swallowed his surprise, and he did not laugh as she stirred eight packets of sugar into the steaming black liquid. She still winced at her first sip, and he bit his lip to keep from embarassing her with more of his laughter. "What?" Her eyebrow arched at him suspiciously, another echo of Scully. Mulder shook his head and smiled. "You're just so much like your mother." She blushed and made a "pft" noise of derrision. "What's that for?" She was shaking her curls, which had long since grown in honey-bronze. "I'll never be that pretty." He stared at her in disbelief. "What ever makes you say *that*?" She shrugged, jabbing her spoon about the coffee mug. "It's six weeks to the prom and I *still* don't have a date." She was confiding in him. He soared in her trust, so rarely given to him as of late, but he didn't want to scare her off either. He shrugged back nonchalantly. "Why don't you ask somebody?" "I was hoping I'd get asked first." "Well," he said, "time is running out, isn't it?" Strange that he chose those words; he could have said the same thing to himself. Guilt chewed at him some more. "And," he added, as the waitress brought their ice cream, "you are the prettiest girl I've ever seen, so don't let some idiot guy make you think otherwise." She laughed a little, Scully's laugh. "Yeah, but you have to say that kind of thing to me. You're biased." He flicked a glance at her across the table. "Just because I'm biased doesn't mean it's not true." He could practically hear her blushing. "Thanks, Mulder." "Any time, Mulder." As they left the diner, he went to open the car door for her. Her face was turned up to the sky in wonder. "Wow. Look, Daddy," she said, pointing at the full moon, at the clear sky filled with sparkling stars. He envied her wide-eyed innocence, her ability to look into the sky and see something amazing and wonderful instead of extreme and horrible possibilities -- extreme and horrible probabilities. That made up his mind. He had to find a way to tell her the truth, before it was too late. They were silent the rest of the ride home. Mulder began formulating something in his head. He'd have to talk it over with Scully first, of course, but he had a feeling she'd approve. Speaking of whom, the living room light was on as they pulled up the driveway. "Mom waited up for us," Meg observed. They walked in and Scully was curled up on the couch watching a movie. "Hey. How was the dance?" Meg walked over and kissed her mother on the cheek. "It was good." "Did he step on your toes?" "Only three times. Grandma went to bed already?" Scully nodded at Mulder's date. "Hours ago. It *is* one o'clock." Meg rolled her neck around to pop the vertebrae back into place. "Yeah, I should get to bed too. I have track practice at nine." "Do you need a ride?" The elder Mulder asked. "Nah. Tasha's picking me up at quarter of. Well, g'night." She kissed her mother on the cheek once more, then walked over to her father to say goodnight to him with a hug and a quick peck on his cheek. "Night, Daddy." "Good night, Miss Molly." He hadn't called her that in a while. She broke into a huge smile before turning to leave. He watched her take off her shoes again and trot up the steps to her bedroom, then he sat down on the couch next to her mother. "So, did you have a good time?" Mulder nodded and closed his eyes as he he kicked off his own shoes. "Did you know she drinks coffee now?" Scully shook her head, her eyes wide with silent surprise. "She is growing up fast." Mulder nodded again. An hour later, Mulder sat on the couch by himself, the television providing background noise as he fumbled with a pen in his hand and an open notebook on his lap. He chewed thoughtfully on the pen, cracked his knuckles, then forced himself to begin. "Dear Meg," It was a start. But where should he really begin? With the truth. "Since the day we found out you just might be born, everything we have ever done has been to protect you." It was a good start. END ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Me: And when people get upset, Mr. Bigglesworth DIES!!!!!! Andy: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Angel, you are h**l and gone from Cartaghena." From: CathyLex Date: 22 Oct 1998 03:20:35 GMT Subject: REVISED: The Children's Teeth 1/11 REVISED: The Children's Teeth (1/11) by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) NOTE: I wanted to repost this since I plan to post the prequel "Sister's Blood" soon. Changes from the original (unfinished) posting are relatively minor, so if you enjoyed this the first time around, you still should have a good read. Don't worry, though; I didn't revise it to change history for the sake of the prequel! I just needed to fix some grammar -- especially the French grammar. ARCHIVE: Gossamer YES -- ARCHIVE THIS VERSION. Others, just let me know via email so I can let my husband know where to visit; make sure my name and email stay attached. CATEGORY: MSR, alternative universe, chock full o'angst RATING: PG-13 for violence & language SPOLIERS: "Emily" & other results of uh, Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath, vague references to everything up to and including XFFTF DISCLAIMERS: All characters mentioned from here on (with the exception of Meg, her two cats, Kevin Declan & family, Gerald Cho, Wexford, Mr. Moroz, the people working at the French Consulate, and the assorted nun) are in some way the intellectual property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and the Fox Network. No commercial gain or other harm is intended OVERALL DEDICATION: In the end, isn't it all for JC, best friend & inspiration extraordinaire? THANKS: to Julie, for correcting my French grammar. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In those days they shall no longer say, 'The fathers ate unripe grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,' but through his own fault only shall anyone die: the teeth of him who eats the unripe grapes shall be set on edge." -- Jeremiah 31: 29-30 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meg's head hurt. The pain bound itself all the way around her head just at eyebrow level, like some invisible, too- tight terrycloth sweatband. Her wrists hurt from so much typing. She could practically hear her eyelids scraping across her eyes each time she blinked, she'd been sitting in front of this blasted computer for so long. She looked back down at the document she was translating, and //les circonflex et les accents aigu// swam across the pages like so many fields of windswept corn. The translating software on the computer was down, and as the youngest of the lowly interns, not to mention the only American among them, her fate was sealed. "//Mademoiselle//," her internship advisor called over to her, "//c'est l'heur de quitter. On y va?//" Time to go home, Meg. If only she didn't have to finish this lengthy translation. If only she could... "//Non, merci//" she shook her head and rubbed her eyes, thankful her mascara was smudgeproof. "//Pas maintenant. En premier, il faut que je finisse.//" Madame Veillat smiled at her zealous intern. "//Ah, d'accord. A bientot.//" "//A bientot.//" Until tomorrow, Meg answered as Madame left the office, locking the door protectively behind her. //It's nice to have someone who wants to keep me safe again. That used to be Mom and Dad's job. And I used to yell at them for being overprotective. Funny. Ha ha ha. Har-dee-har-dee-har. Friggin' hilarious.// Meg raised her hands and rubbed her temples. Why did she do this to herself? Nearly two years had gone by, and she still stung herself unnecessarily with the grief. She turned back to her work and fell into the thoughtlessness of translation. Word for word. Idiom for idiom. This wandering between languages -- French, German, Spanish, Japanese, even some Russian (though that had been a bit difficult) -- had always been her forte. In the past two years, it had also become her work, her family, her comfort. Her anesthesia. What the other interns thought of as unbridled ambition in the tall, quiet, extraordinarily young and suprisingly smart American girl, Meg herself knew to be mere defense mechanism. She never before had needed to work hard at understanding her favorite academic subjects; how else would she have graduated college with an honors degree in Foreign Languages at the tender age of nineteen? Such things had always come as naturally to her as both her stubborn independence and her dry wit. These days, however, she deliberately chose to labor at the tasks before her, to let the work drain her to the dregs. A maniacal workaholic at the age of twenty. "Sublimation," she could almost hear her father saying. Almost. But the dead don't talk. No. No, no, no. //Non//. //Nyet//. Idiom for idiom. Word for word. Don't feel, just translate. Break down the words, chew them to bits, digest them until their meanings are lost and their ghosts can't edge past this novocained wall of lead. Something tickled at the base of her neck, startling her. Her disobedient hair was wriggling out of its braid for the third time today. Why did she even bother? She stopped and undid the braid entirely, hoping that freeing her hair might lighten her headache. Her sandy curls fell just past her shoulders. Darkness fell over the New York skyline, tinting the clouds blue-gray with reflected city light. She would have to walk to and from the subway alone in the dark. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. She had a gun and she knew how to use it. //Thanks, Mom.// Another reminder. Back to work, Meg, back to work. She submerged her consciousness for almost another hour, and then the phone rang. //At this hour? I'm the only one left in the office.// Reaching for a pen and paper, entirely ready to take a message for Mme. Veillat, Meg answered. "//Consulate Francais.//" The voice on the other end was female, American, and quite unexpected. "Miss Mulder." It was not a question, but a confirmation. "Y-yes?" She was not prepared for the voice on the other end to be speaking her native tongue, much less asking for her. "Speaking." "You are not an orphan," the voice continued smoothly. "Someone will be in contact with you tomorrow." Click. Silence. Meg did not cradle the receiver, but stared off into space, the proverbial deer in headlights. Then another voice came through the receiver. "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and..." She hung up. It had to be a crank call. Had to be. Must be. //Il faut.// When she pulled her hand away from the phone, she noticed that she was shaking uncontrollably, even to the chattering of her teeth. Without a second thought, she gathered up her coat and bag -- gun inside --and left the office, locking the door behind her. She did not want to go back to her lonely apartment. Never mind her two cats. They would survive another few hours or so without her. Instead, she made a stop at the second floor of the Consulate. It was a Wednesday night, so the place would be far from crowded, and her intern ID badge did not list her birthdate. Besides, these were the French. They would let her in without question. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The phone rang, but it took Kevin two rings to wake up. Even then, he slapped the snooze button on his alarm clock eight times before he realized that the noise was not coming from his bedside. He stumbled over to the desk in his room and picked up the phone. "Mnhllo?" His lips were not quite working yet. Pause. "Kev?" Even the sleepy fog of his brain recognized the familiar voice. "Meg? What the hell are you calling me for at this hour? You know I have to wake up early." The voice on the other end sounded muddy and slurred. "Umhn zztuck at the Consulate Club `n' I don't have `nuff money for the subway home. Come `n' get me?" "What are you doing over there at--" he found his glasses and looked at his clock again "--at quarter to midnight?" "Whudduyathink? Drinkin' like a sponge, dumbass." "Didn't they card you?" "Kevin, can ya come get me or not?" "Aw man, Meg. Yeah, I'll come get you. Give me ten minutes." "Thanks, //mon cher//." "Yeah, //mon cher// my black ass." "Jus' come rescue my little white ass, will you, Prince Charm-less?" Only Meg could get away with talking to him like that. He hung up on her and started to dress. He hoped she was sober enough to realize that he did not have the proper ID to go up and meet her. Thank God traffic was lighter at this hour, otherwise he really would have killed her for making him "rescue her little white ass" -- yet again. Then again, she had rescued him enough during their childhood years. It was a mutual thing, which would probably never end. An irritating late spring drizzle had begun to fall on his way there -- just enough to need the wipers, but pathetic enough to make them screech against the windshield in protest at being so misused. When he pulled up to the building, Meg was standing by the curb, her bag slung over one shoulder and both her hands jammed deep into the pockets of her trenchcoat. For the first time probably since sixth grade, all of her hair was down. The drizzle settled on the frizzing curls and reflected the streetlight from above, forming an urban halo around her glowering face. She swayed on her feet, but her gaze was steady. He leaned across and opened the door for her. She sank into the passenger's seat, and Kevin took a whif. "Man, do you smell minty fresh. The French acutally stock their bars with Rumple Minze?" "Nothin' but shots. To wash this taste out of my mouth. Didn't work, though." "Jeez, Meg. How much did you drink?" "Enough to be broke for the rest of the week." "Broke? You? Never." Fumbling drunkenly with her lapbelt, she mumbled, "I see the Crap Cruiser started tonight? Did you finally feed the hamsters in the wheel that powers this thing?" She was referring to his slightly reliable `12 Toyota. She was always pestering him to invest in a new car, especially now that he was raking in the bucks with his computer job. Still, this was the first car he had ever bought with his own money; he held onto it out of sentimental attachement. Not to mention the fact that it was cheaper to insure. He pulled away from the curb and dodged a bus to get back into traffic. "This Crap Cruiser is taking you home, so I suggest you--" "Don't take me home," Meg interruped quietly. Kevin glanced at her for as long as he could and still keep from rear-ending the car in front of them. Her face did not carry its customary arrogant smirk. He knew her well enough to gauge her emotions, and what she was feeling now was something she would have allowed only him, her best and oldest friend, to see. Meg Mulder was afraid. Kevin could only think of three times he had seen this expression -- not phobia, but real fear -- on her face. The first was when he dragged her on her first upside-down roller coaster when she was six and he was eight. Seven loops forwards, seven loops backwards. They were both the same height then -- just tall enough to be allowed on the ride. She had been scared to death, but both their dads came along with them and sat in the seats right behind them. As the coaster had reached the top, Meg had clutched Kevin's dark hand in her pale one, clutched so hard he was afraid she might break both their fingers. And then the roller coaster thundered down the other side of the hill, and Meg threw her arms in the air, screaming with delight. At her insistence, they went on that roller coaster eight times after that. The second was at her parents' burial. Kevin and his mom had stayed behind after everyone besides Meg and her grandmother had left the cemetery. Ever since that old bald guy had told Meg that her parents had died in that explosion, Meg had kept a steely expression in her turquoise eyes. She did not cry. She stuck out her jaw and kept telling everyone: "I'm fine." "I'm fine." "I'm fine." But at that cemetery, when her grandmother threw her arms around her granddaughter and began to sob, Meg's stoicism broke. Kevin saw her face blanch as her composure washed away under her grandmother's tears. Meg still did not cry, but Kevin saw her face and knew she was afraid. Not even one year later, he attended the funeral for that grandmother, Meg's namesake, killed in a car crash. Meg did not cry at the viewing or the funeral. But at the gathering at their home afterwards, one of Meg's uncles (the one she didn't like at all, whose name Kevin could never remember) approached her about selling this house and her moving in with him and his family when she wasn't going to school at Georgetown. But she //was// eighteen. She //could// decide for herself. Immediately after that conversation with Uncle Whatshisface, Kevin pulled his best friend into her parents' old room and closed the door behind him; she might not admit it, but she needed a friend now more than ever. He lifted her face to his, forcing her to look directly at him for the first time in months. Finally, the tears welled up in those blue green seas, and she buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing, lost. All he could do was hold her and stroke her hair, soothing, "It's okay. It's alright." They never again spoke of it, but that was the third time Kevin saw Meg's fear. That also helped him understand why she moved back to school before the summer was over (not just because she wanted to take summer classes), and why she stayed with him and his family the next Christmas, three houses down from her childhood home. The old house was sold, and Meg inherited that and other money from those three deaths. She was never broke, for she invested wisely with no outside help, but she was never the same after that terrible span. She graduated Georgetown the same year he graduated Catholic U. He landed a great job in New York; he was certain she had applied for this internship so she could be close to him again, though she never would have admitted it. "She's trying to hold onto a little bit of her childhood, son," his mother had told him. "The rest has been taken from her. Can you blame her?" Of course not. He was actually happy she'd be following him. He didn't mind having her along at all. She'd be someone to talk to. Together again, neither of them would be quite so lost in the great big real world. Now, in the Crap Cruiser, the only talking was the plaintive rattle of the engine. He did not ask her anything else and drove straight to his own apartment. In the coherence of morning she would tell him what was wrong. Or, he'd help her figure out what was wrong. Two minutes away from his apartment, Meg rolled down the window. "Pull over," she ordered. "We're almost there." "Now!" He figured out what was coming and pulled over. Meg threw the door open and bent to the curb. Kevin leaned over his friend and pulled her hair back as she vomited into the street. "Mmm," Kevin joked, "minty fresh." "Not funny," she choked between heaves. Kevin reached and brushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen and clung to Meg's sweaty left cheek. As they climbed the steps to his apartment, she clung to him with both arms and he kept one arm around her shoulders. "You're finally taller than me," she slurred drowsily. "When'd that happen?" "Tenth grade." He tried to laugh, but it came out as a puff of air from his nose. They were silent the rest of the way up. He unlocked his door and led her to the bedroom. When she realized where he was taking her, she giggled. "Why, Kevin Declan! You're not going to take advantage of a girl, are ya?" "No, I'm going to take advantage of the couch, and you're going to promise not to do the technicolor yawn all over my new sheets." She passed out before she even hit the pillow. He emptied his trash can, left it by the bedside as a precautionary measure and shut the door on his way out to the living room. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The alcoholic stupor wore off around four in the morning, and from then on Meg could not sleep. After lying in the bed for another hour, fighting the spins, she crawled into Kevin's bathroom for a drink of water. Thinking little about communication of germs, she cranked open the faucet and held under it the blue plastic cup sitting next to Kevin's toothbrush. As she sipped, she sat on the cool tile and leaned her forehead against the obnoxiously yellow yet cooling porcelain of the sink. Someone would be in contact with her tomorrow. Well, today, at this point. If, of course, that woman had been telling her the truth. Which she probably hadn't been. Most likely, it was one of the other interns who could fake a really good //accent Americain//. But why? Jealousy? Meg laughed. Yeah, jealous of what? The sparkling opportunity to shrivel up in front of a computer screen all day and into the night? Maybe it was something else. Those French had a sick sense of humor, after all. Their language was musical and skyward bound. The people, however, were flatulent of soul, in Meg's humbly hung-over opinion. Meg reached up into the sink and got herself another cup of water. The videophone on Kevin's computer started to ring and Meg startled at the shards of broken silence settling around her. She pressed her eyes with the fingers of her right hand. She really should have gone out and woke Kevin so he could answer the call, but her gelatinous legs would not respond to her brain's commands. Minutes passed and the videophone rang on and on. Finally, Kevin opened the bedroom door, muttering impatient curses at his computer. From her vantage point, Meg watched Kevin flop into the desk chair and wiggle the mouse to get the screen to switch itself back on again. A few beeps and clicks and the videophone software was fully engaged. "Who is it?" Meg called. "Huh. No ID. This better not be another advertisement for a home equity loan," Prince Charm-less grumbled. "Especially not at five am," Meg agreed, pulling herself up to a standing position by leaning heavily on both the toilet and the sink. "Should I answer it?" Kevin asked her once she was standing in the bathroom doorway. Meg shrugged. "It's been ringing for five minutes. If you keep ignoring it, I have a feeling they'll persist." With a sigh, Kevin clicked in all the right places and accepted the call. "Mr. Declan," a male voice answered, "We need to talk to Margaret Mulder." Kevin turned wide eyes on his friend. He stammered, "It-it. It's for you." END 1/11 "The Children's Teeth" (2/11) by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What a lioness was your mother, a lion of lions! Among young lions she raised her cubs." --Ezekiel 19: 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At first, Meg was obviously thrown off, but she quickly recomposed herself. She turned to the bathroom mirror, combed her fingers loosely through her disheveled curls, and smoothed her hands over her wrinkled blouse. With a resigned sigh she stepped in front of the computer. Kevin got up out of his chair and indicated for Meg to take it, but she shook her head and he resumed his seat. "Whoa," came another voice from the computer. "Look-ie here. That's a Scully all right." Meg arched a suspicious eyebrow at the four men staring back at her from the other side of the videophone. All four of them reminded her of people she had encountered during her college years. The man who had just spoken looked sort of old and slimy, like the janitor on the men's floor of her freshman dorm, whom Meg had always suspected of peeking up the drains to look in on the girls' showers upstairs. This guy had very little of his graying hair left, and his eyes bugged out at her from behind thick glasses. "Nah, look at that nose. That's a Mulder nose if I ever saw one." This was spoken by a guy who looked like one of her old roommates' Performance Studies professors -- old, but trying too hard to look too young and missing the mark completely. His white hair was a little too thin and stringy to be so long, and his high-fashion glasses were not only about four years out of date, but entirely out of place on his peaked, wrinkled face. "Can I get you some salt?" Meg asked. All four men stared at her, unsure of what she was saying. "You know," she explained, "to pour on my wounds?" All four of them laughed embarrassed little laughs. "You lucked out, sweetheart," The Janitor told her. "You got the petite version of that nose. You make that nose look good." The three others turned and glared at The Janitor. "What? What did I say?" A third man looked like he could have been a real college professor: complete with understated salt-and-cinnamon haircut, neatly trimmed beard, and a worn but distinguished suit and tie. This one just smiled at her softly and said, "So, you're Miracle Meg." At his words, Meg's knees called for surrender. She leaned on Kevin's shoulder to keep from falling over. Her voice came out detestably weak: "How did you know about that?" All four of the men exchanged glances. The Professor replied, "We're...friends of your father's." "And your mother's," The Janitor pointed out, "very, very good friends." The three others glared at him once more. "What? What?" "Well," said the fourth, a young Asian guy about her age, dressed like all the Computer Graphics majors would dress -- in black faux leather from head to toe, "not all of us were honored to make their acquaintance. I am simply a fervent admirer of their work." "Their...work?" Kevin asked. "Meg, weren't they just FBI agents?" Meg rubbed her weary eyes and nodded, "Yeah. What's to admire? And how the hell did you find me here?" Glasses-man pointed to Kevin. "He has to leave. We need to talk to you alone." "What the--?" Kevin stood up and shouted at the screen. "This is my apartment, my computer, who do you think--" Meg made her face blank and her voice steel. "No. Kevin stays." The three older men on the other side of the screen were visibly taken aback by the girl's unconscious attempt at imitating her mother. The attempt was unreservedly successful. The Professor leaned into the screen. "Meg -- do you mind if we call you 'Meg'?" The girl shrugged. "I mind if you call me 'Margaret.' 'Meg' is infinitely better." "We needed to get in touch with you because you may be in danger. You are being tracked--" "No kidding, Professor. You're the ones tracking me." Glasses-man interrupted, "We only contacted you because a number of classified satellites have been keeping tabs on you for the past three days." "If they're so classified," Kevin asked, his voice still heavy with irritation, "then how do you know about them?" Smugly shaking his head from side to side, The Janitor answered, "We make it our business to know these things." The Professor continued: "The people who wanted your parents dead two years ago may be after you now. You need to get out of New York and go into hiding." "What do you mean 'wanted my parents dead'? They caught the guy who set that bomb." //Meg, honey?// //Hey, Gram!// //Honey, something terrible has happened...// The spins returned and her grip on Kevin's shoulder tightened. "Meg, you okay?" "I'm fine, Kevin," she whispered back. "They caught //a// guy," answered Glasses-man, "but not //the// guy." "Look," Kevin broke in, "why are you sickos doing this to her? Can't you see you're messing with her head? What is your problem?" "Meg, you've been kept in the dark for too long now," The Professor almost shouted, "and now it could cost you your life, and Mulder and Scully's lives, if you don't listen to us." "A little difficult to kill them twice, don't you think?" Meg inquired bitterly. The four men talked to each other with their eyes once more. "We think," answered The Janitor, "that the reason you're being watched is because whoever is watching you thinks your parents are alive." END 2/11 "The Children's Teeth" (3/11) by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." -John 8:32 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "All right, that's enough, you sick bastards," Kevin sneered at the videophone as he clicked with the mouse and the screen went black. "Kevin! What did you just do?" Kevin turned and blinked at his friend. Dark circles sat under bloodshot, angry eyes. "Meg, come on. Don't tell me you were actually falling for all that crap." "I don't know! You didn't even give me the chance! Get the connection back!" "Meg--" "Do it, Kevin!" Her voice had reached a nearly hysterical pitch, very unlike Meg. Kevin stood up and put his hands on her shoulders, looking right into her eyes. "Look, Meg, I am really starting to worry about you. You've been through the wringer these past two years, and you've never given yourself a chance to deal with it. You keep working yourself into a zombie state, and after what happened last night... Meg, you're just skipping down the yellow brick road to self- destruction. Something's gonna give, and soon. I think it's time you got yourself some help." Her eyes and voice turned icy with sarcasm. "I appreciate your minor in psychology, Dr. Declan, but--" He cut her off by turning his forearms up to her. Thin, pale scars trickled down each wrist. Upon seeing them, Meg's eyes lost their ice. "You stopped me from going down that same road seven years ago. Remember?" Meg closed her eyes. "Hell, Meg, your mom is the one who saved my life when you found me like that, five minutes from bleeding myself to death. She might have saved my life, but //you're// the one who made sure I got the help I needed to keep on living." Her voice softened. "That was different." "How? How was that different?" The tension between them snapped when Kevin's computer merrily announced: "You have new mail!" Kevin hung his head and sighed. Meg flicked her eyes back at the computer. "It's from them," she whispered up at him. Kevin looked back at Meg before he returned to the computer and opened up his mail account. Clicking in all the right places, he announced, "'Subject: For Miracle Meg.' What is all this 'Miracle Meg' crap, anyway? It's not about that stupid nickname you got in fifth grade, is it? What was it? 'Miracle Grow'?" Meg rolled her eyes. "Sort of, in a round about way. We were doing this thing in class about the importance of names, and the teacher told us to go around and say if we had a nickname. So I made the mistake of telling the class that Grandma called me 'Miracle Meg.' It got mutated into 'Miracle Grow' because I was so tall." "I'm still confused. Why did your Grandma call you 'Miracle Meg' in the first place?" Meg shrugged again. "I was never supposed to be born. My mom was infertile because of some medical testing she went through when she was younger. She never told me much more than that." Kevin's eyes narrowed. "But if she was infertile, then how //were// you born?" Her eyebrows jumped up and down. "Well, that would be a miracle, don't you think? And that's why I wear this..." She pulled forth an oval charm on a silver chain. "Your Miraculous Medal? I thought that was a gift from your aunt, that nun in Philadelphia." "Yeah, my mom's cousin, my Aunt Bridget. She gave this to my mom when she found out that mom would never have kids, and //voila!// Here I am." Kevin nodded and looked back at the computer screen. "It has a download attached." "Can you download it?" Kevin sighed yet again. "I don't know if I should. It's never good to accept downloads from strangers." "Come on, at least read the email." "Meg, do you know how little sleep I'm running on?" She bent and kissed him on the cheek. "I know. I don't deserve your friendship." Shaking his head, he opened the email: MY LADY MULDER: PLEASE READ THE ATTACHED FILE. IT CONTAINS INFORMATION YOU NEED TO KNOW. WE PROMISED YOUR FATHER WE WOULD GIVE THIS TO YOU WHEN YOU WERE OLD ENOUGH. WE MAY BE ABLE TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR PARENTS.MEET ME AT THE PERRENOD FARM IN LIBERTY, NY AT 5:00PM. BE CAREFUL! YOU ARE BEING WATCHED, AND NOT JUST BY US! WITH DEEPEST AFFECTION, GERALD CHO, LGM "'My Lady'? 'With deepest affection'?" Kevin snickered, "What a weirdo. And what does LGM stand for?" "Can you scan the file for virus?" Meg asked, kneeling beside Kevin. Frowning at the screen and maneuvering the mouse, Kevin nodded. "I can, but they might be smooth enough to have encrypted a virus that my software can't detect." "Well, let's chance it." "If my system crashes because of this--" "Don't worry. I'll buy you a new one." He huffed. "You'd better." In mere seconds the file was scanned and available for use. Kevin stood and gave Meg the chair and the mouse. Her mouth was a bucket of sand as she swallowed and opened the file. They gaped at the screen as the file came up. "'Dear Meg,'" Kevin whispered. "It's a letter." "It's my dad's handwriting," Meg whispered in return. "They must have scanned a letter he wrote before he--" She stopped and swallowed again, just before scrolling to the bottom of the document. Kevin counted aloud. "Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Thirteen pages!" "Thank you, Count von Count," Meg smirked, trying hard to cover her dismay at seeing her father's handwriting addressing her from beyond the grave. "Looks like I have some reading to do." Kevin nodded and patted her on her back. "Well, you do that while I try to get ready for work." As she began to read through her father's barely-legible scrawl, she heard Kevin on the phone in the background. "Hi, this is Kevin Declan in Communication Design. I'm going to be about two hours late this morning. Family emergency." Meg made a mental note to call in to Mme. Veillat. She had a feeling she finally would be making use of one of her sick days today. Then, she dove into the thirteen pages of what her parents had been hiding from her for the past twenty years. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When Kevin came out of the bathroom, Meg was shuffling around his bedroom, searching through his dresser. "What are you doing?" "Looking for something to wear out of here. I can't very well wear this suit again. It smells awful -- like it spent all night in a bar or something. I'm going to borrow your green t-shirt and a pair of your jeans. Do you have a belt I can use to hold them up?" "Meg, I--" "I promise I'll give it all back. Oooh! Can I borrow a baseball cap too, to hide all this hair? And how about a pair of your sneakers?" "Meg, they'll never fit. Your feet are too small." "Hmn. Nobody's ever said that to me before." She flashed him a winning smile. "Throw in two pairs of socks and you got yourself a deal, mister." "Did you finish reading that download?" Her face clouded over and she nodded. "What did it say?" Meg continued gathering in her arms items around the room. "Well, it explained a whole lot." "Like what?" "Oh, like why my mom never made me eat liver." "What!" "Nothing, nothing. Do you remember Jodie Waterhouse?" Kevin stared at her as he began threading his tie under his collar. "Jodie Waterhouse? That girl you were friends with in middle school? Preacher's Kid, really naive?" "Yeah. Remember that time she came over and the three of us were playing 'Star Wars' or something, and she said she was having these weird stomach pains, and when she went to the bathroom she said she was bleeding?" "How could I forget?" Kevin laughed. "Even I knew what was happening to her. The look on your mom's face when she had to explain to the poor girl that she was getting her period. Jodie's parents hadn't even told her about it at all." Meg stopped and looked up at Kevin, her expression a strange flavor of bitter. "I think I'm feeling right now what Jodie felt that day when my mom told her the truth." Kevin studied Meg, trying to wrench a clue from her suddenly blank face. "What did that letter say?" Meg shook her head and carried all of her stuff and some of Kevin's into the bathroom. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." She shut the door behind her, and Kevin heard the shower faucet start to run. Without reading the letter from Meg's dad, Kevin saved it and put it away before he went out into the kitchen to make breakfast. He found some eggs and cheese and tried to throw together his special "hang-over omlettes" for the occasion, but after forty five minutes turned the omlettes into inedible rubber, Meg was still in the shower. Kevin worried. He went back into his bedroom and knocked on the bathroom door. "Meg? Are you decent?" The only answer was the hiss of the shower. He knocked harder. "Meg? Open up!" Still no answer. He panicked, realizing he had left his razors out on the sink. She might have... "MEG! I'M COMING IN NOW!" He turned the knob. It was locked. He reached above the doorframe and pulled down the little steel pick that served as the key. He jiggled and prodded and the door yielded. The window was open and the beach towel that served as a curtain pushed aside. Meg's wool suit, trenchcoat and bag lay on the floor. Kevin leaned out the window and looked up and down the alleyway five floors below; he saw nothing but trash. "Damn." He turned back to the inside and saw a piece of paper and something metal lying on the closed toilet lid. The metal was a key. Her apartment key. The paper was an old receipt on the back of which she had scribbled, "Please feed S & Mr. B for me? Thanks! You're a doll. MGM." MGM. Margaret Grace Mulder. "S" stood for Schrodinger. "Mr. B" stood for Mr. Bigglesworth. Her two cats. Kevin crumpled the note in his hand. He muttered to his reflection in the bathroom mirror, "She ditched me!" But where had she gone? That was easily answered. He ran back to the computer and reopened that email. "Liberty, New York." He whispered to himself. He picked up the phone and hit redial. "Hi, this is Kevin Declan in Communication Design again. Looks like I can't come in at all today. That family emergency is turning into a family disaster." END 3/11 "The Children's Teeth" (4/11) by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Where the carcass lies, there the vultures will gather." --Matthew 24: 28 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ //I have finally lost my mind.// Five stories above the dirty alleyway behind Kevin's apartment, Meg was clinging to the narrow ledge leading from his bathroom window to the rusty old fire escape. In baggy clothes, shoes three sizes too big for her feet, and with a backpack -- Kevin's backpack -- this was not easy. It would have been much, much easier just to take the stairs down and walk out the front door, but if what she had just read and just been told was true, the apartment's "security cameras" made such a trip far too risky. Not nearly as risky as shuffling along a six-inch ledge to get to a dilapidated fire escape. //I have finally lost my mind.// Her fingernails dug into the mortar between the bricks. Ten more feet. Five more. Three. Reach, stretch, and grab the skinny railing, then swing up onto the escape. And escape. Kevin would come looking for her, of course. He always did. But with a head start in this huge city, she figured she'd be able to keep him out of this as much as possible. Then she had to ask herself: exactly what was the "this" from which she was protecting Kevin? An incredible scenario of aliens, conspiracists, colonization, viruses and vaccines. Incredible. Unbelieveable...except for the fact that it explained so much. Her father's letter explained so much of those little ghosts of uncertainty that still haunted her from her childhood: why Grandma Scully had lived with them (to protect Meg), why they got her a puppy when she had asked for a baby brother, why they never took her in on "take your kids to work" day, why they had forbidden her to join up with a French exchange student program when she was fifteen, most of all why they had always evaded her questions of, "Why do you have to go away so much?" It explained the cold look of fear on her fearless parents' faces when she had told them, "I could work for the CIA! I could be a spy! I could work at the UN!" Then, as a sulky fourteen year-old, she had told herself that her parents were just grumpy old dream-squashers when her father had suggested that she teach high school instead. Had Meg but known... //Why didn't they tell me?// Even that was easily explained. How //would// they have told her? Yes, sweetheart, there are real vampires. We don't go visit your Aunt Samantha's grave because she was abducted by aliens when she was //your// age. Don't watch so much TV, because it will rot your brain. Literally. We're afraid to let you go to France because you might be abducted and come back to us with an implant or a virus or worse. There really //might// be a monster under your bed. Sleep tight, honey! She shuddered. So now, knowing what she knew, what was she doing? Why would her parents have disappeared if they weren't really dead? Why would they have left her grieving, hanging, numb for nearly two whole years? A line from her father's letter came back to her: "Since the day we found out you just might be born, everything we have ever done has been to protect you." She laughed bitterly and mumbled to herself. "Who were they to decide that for me?" That answer was simple. He was her father, she was her mother. Tears bit at her eyelids as she tasted this painful brew of her parents' love and betrayal. They had hidden the universe from her, hidden her from the universe: gone to private doctors -- friends of her mother's-- for all of her immunizations, sent her to private schools, went to crowded places for vacations, shielded her from security cameras at every chance. And now, here she was, running to a stranger, hiding from the unknown, trying to find out if they really might be alive. After all, their bodies had never been found. She had never before allowed herself the luxury of the possibilities, of the hope that arose as a result. Then again, if she was being tracked, it was because whoever was doing the tracking hoped Meg would lead them directly to her parents. So if she was to look for them, she would have to do so unnoticed. And the cameras were everywhere. In the buses, the taxis, at the ATM's, her apartment. Options were slim. She had survived her downward climb. Her feet met the cracked asphalt beneath her, and her gun slapped against her thigh through the pocket of Kevin's jeans. She stopped and pulled Kevin's belt tighter. Looking out on the street, her inborn recklessness took over. She had no money left. She had to get to Liberty. She watched the cars pass her, watched them stop as the light blushed red. Genes long dormant began stirring within her, her mother's legacy. Her mother had had this particular genetic trait, but had too much integrity to ever call upon it. Her father would have called upon it, had it been his by heritage, but it was not, as fate would have it. She approached one of the stopped cars and knocked on the window. When the driver opened the window two inches, that genetic trait kicked in full force. She turned on the Irish charm. She pulled her gun from her pocket and smiled as only a gun-wielding Irishwoman could have. "Good morning, sir," she sang out to the driver who blinked at the gun pointed his way. "I was hoping you could drive me somewhere." The man pressed a button with a shaking finger and the door popped open. Meg took a seat and buckled her lapbelt. The light turned green. "Do you know how to get to Liberty?" The man nodded, his eyes dark and wide, his lower lip trembling. She was afraid he had wet his pants. "Oh, good," she giggled, "that makes matters easier. Liberty, then, if you please." The man gulped and drove. Meg began to laugh hysterically. //I have finally lost my mind.// END 4/11 The Children's Teeth" (5/11) by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "A man who has friends must show himself friendly, and there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." -- Proverbs 18:24 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kevin unlocked the door and automatically reached down to prevent Schrodinger from running out into the hallway again. He picked up the fuzzy gray creature and tucked him under his arm while walking into Meg's apartment. He looked around at the artfully messy living room. Boxes of her belongings -- still unpacked after a year -- piled up against the wall. The door to the bedroom stood ajar, revealing more boxes, but no bed. Mr. Bigglesworth sat fat and majestic on the pillow of Meg's futon, facing the silent television with a look of utter boredom on his feline face. Schrodinger wiggled out of Kevin's arms only to flop at his feet and play with the laces of Kevin's shoes. "Ouch! Quit it, Schrodie!" The younger of the two cat's claws had just gone through Kevin's socks and assaulted his ankles. He reached down and lifted Schrodinger up by the scruff of his neck as a warning. The warning did not have its desired effect. Schrodinger promply began to purr and nuzzle Kevin's face. Mr. Bigglesworth looked up at the two of them and rolled his yellow eyes. "Okay, what do you two want," he called as cheerfully as he could, placing Schrodinger on the carpet, "canned or dry?" Schrodinger trotted enthusiastically behind Kevin into the kitchen, and Kevin could almost hear Mr. Bigglesworth groan at the effort required to lift his bulbous body off the futon and into the kitchen. Only breakfast could have so motivated the flabby brown tabby. Feeling creative, Kevin divided one can of "chicken & giblet delight" and two handfuls of kitty kibbles into the two cats' bowls. He mixed the food with a fork and dropped the fork onto the ever rising pile of dishes in Meg's sink. Both cat's ate ravenously. He freshened their water bowls as well. Looking up onto the fridge, he saw, tucked under a magnet, a picture of the two of them at Meg's senior prom. The picture had been taken in her living room, probably by her grandmother. In it, Kevin was dipping Meg, her rose in his teeth. Meg had thrown her head back, her mouth open wide in unrestrained laughter. When after that had she ever laughed in that way again? They had been so young then, he in his tux and she in a blue-silver gown, elegant beyond her years. Her hair had been swept up into some complicated twist, and tiny white roses peeked out from her gold curls. That dress had made her tomboy figure unrecognizable, and her eyes had glimmered like deep green-blue pools. The candlelight at the tables had brought out the red highlights in her hair. He had almost kissed her that night. Almost. He took a walk into the bathroom to make sure the litter pan was not in need of freshening as well. It was not. He was very, very glad. Well, with the cats fed, he was free to pursue Meg, hopefully to keep her from doing anything stupid. He stepped out of her apartment and locked the deadbolt behind him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "So, Mr. Moroz," Meg said to break the tension as they came out of the darkness of the Lincoln Tunnel, "do you have any children?" The man was thirtysomething and very nervous. Meg didn't want to scare him. She merely wanted his help, and the best way to get it just happened to be with a gun. Oh well. "Uh," he swallowed, "y-y-no. No, I don't." "Hmm," Meg nodded. "That's a shame. You seem like such a nice guy, like you'd make a great dad. What about your wife?" "W-w-w-what wife?" "The one who gave you that wedding band on your left ring finger." "Oh? Oh! That wife. She's fine. She's great." Meg reached for the cell phone that sat between them. "You want to call her?" The man flicked his eyes at her, incredulous. "Go ahead," she shrugged. "While you're at it, you might want to call in to work, tell 'em you need the day off or something. Just don't mention me, okay?" "O-o-okay." "Thanks. You're a peach." Every toll booth they encountered, Meg pulled Kevin's baseball cap low over her face and feigned sleep against the car door. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kevin was speeding. The little Telemap in the Crap Cruiser was on the fritz -- yet again -- so he was getting to Liberty the old fashioned way, with a rustly, wrinkly map that defied all efforts at any convenient folding pattern. He was about one hour away, he guessed. He glanced down at the map to see if his guess might be right. The car veered sharply into the gravel-packed shoulder. With a grumbled curse, he looked up and regained control. He was still speeding. Then the lights began flashing at him from behind. "Great. Just great." Kevin pulled over and brought out his license and registration, waiting for the inevitable. On top of everything, he was about to increase his insurance rates. "Wonderful," he muttered. In the rearview, he saw the baconmobile. He also saw the black sedan behind it. A blond woman, late twenties, in a somber business suit got out of the sedan and approached his car. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meg changed her mind. She told Mr. Moroz to drop her off about four miles down the road from Liberty. She had until five o'clock and it was just barely nine- thirty am, according to her watch. Well, according to Kevin's watch. She had plenty of time to walk around, find the Perrenod farm, and find a payphone, but not necessarily in that order. The payphone came first. And that was what she found first. A "Phone-from-car" outside of a gas station, close to the road and far from any visible cameras. Still, to be on the safe side, she dipped her head low and kept close to the phone as she dialed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The blond woman had just introduced herself with a badge, saying she was Special Agent Emily Lynch from the FBI, and she had a few questions for him. Would he please step out of the car? As he opened the door, his cell phone rang, nearly turning his heart palpitations into a full-blown heart attack. The blond FBI agent nodded at him, indicating that he was free to answer the call. With a confused sigh, Kevin accepted the call. "Hello?" "Kev, it's me." His heart eased a bit at Meg's voice, sounding somewhat safe. "Where are you?" "I'm fine. I just wanted to make sure you're not following me. Where are you?' "This really isn't a good time, Meg. I've just been pulled over." "For what?" "Speeding, I think." "Oh. Good. When you're done with getting your ticket, go back to your apartment. I'll call you there." "I'd like to, but I have an appointment with Special Agent Emily Lynch." Silence rang out from the other end. "Meg?" "Kev, what did you say her name was?" "Special Agent Emily --" "Oh, God, Kevin! Get out of there! Get back in your car and just drive away!" This time, Meg was on the receiving end of the silence. A clattering smacked her ear -- the sound of Kevin's cell phone being knocked to the ground. "Kevin! Are you there? Kevin! Can you hear me?" He could not. The black sedan rolled right over the cell phone lying on the road, crushing it to bits as it drove off for parts unknown. END 5/11 "The Children's Teeth" 6/11 by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "You're not beaten if you can still take a beating." --Henry Rollins ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Noon had just passed, and the late spring sun was hot. Meg was tired, but she could not allow herself to sleep. From the directions of the service station attendant, she had found the Perrenod Farm -- a vast stretch of abandoned fields punctuated with a single burnt-out farmhouse. She found an overgrown field of grass and lay down in it, hoping that would hide her. Because she knew what had happened. They had followed Kevin hoping to find her. Not finding her, they had taken Kevin to get to her. They wanted to get to her so they could get to her parents, if they indeed were still alive. So //They// would come looking for her. Possibly here. If only she had been in that car with Kevin.... Guilt teased her with what could have been, had she not been so thoughtless. She needed to stop and think. Memories stirred. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The hospital smell was harsh on her young nostrils. Her tiny hands clung, one to Grandma's hand, one to her kindergarten- sized school bag. Up the elevator, down the winding halls, eye-level with doorknobs and desktops. Nurses in colorful scrubs, doctors in white jackets, and then a beloved figure standing in front of a door just down the hall. "Mommy!" Meg had called out, forgetting what Grandma had told her about being quiet in the hospital. Her mother smiled and walked quickly to meet them. And then Meg was in her mother's arms, her schoolbag hitting her mother on the back. "Shh, sweetie, shhh." "Is Daddy in there?" "Yes, he is, honey. He's resting so he can get better." "What made him sick?" Her mother sat down on a chair just outside the room, gathering Meg onto her lap. Meg's feet dangled at the ends of her long legs, knocking against her mother's shins. A moment of silence passed as Mother and Grandmother exchanged looks. Then, her mother's voice soothed, "Some people were trying to hurt some other people, and Daddy and I tried to stop them." Meg fixed wide eyes on her mother's face. "Did they shoot at you? With guns?" Her mother sucked in her cheeks then answered. "Yes, and Daddy got hurt, but the doctor says he's going to be okay. He just needs to rest in the hospital for a while." Meg knew that guns were dangerous. She was scared. Her mother saw the fear on her normally fearless little face and pulled her closer, hugging her tightly. Meg hugged back, hard. "Can I go see Daddy now?" Her mother let Meg go and put her down on the floor. She held Meg gently by the shoulders and gave her a very serious look. "We can go see him, but you have to promise to be very quiet, because you're too young to be allowed into his room." Meg straightened herself up, trying to look older. "I'm very grown-up. You told me so yesterday when I read that story to you." Meg felt her mother's hand against her cheek. Her mother nodded as a bittersweet smile graced her face. "I'll stay out here," Grandma told them. "I'll wait for you right here, okay, Miracle Meg?" Meg silently followed her mother into the dark hospital room, lacing her small fingers in her mother's cool ones. Meg squeezed her mother's hand bravely and whispered up to her, "It'll be okay, Mommy." Her mother smiled again. In the room, they stood together by her father's bedside, but Meg was still too small to see anything other than a big white lump so far up on the elevated mattress. Her mother saw her craning her neck, and she picked little Meg up in her arms. Then she saw her father's face, pale, his eyes closed. "Hi, Daddy," she whispered to him. His eyelids fluttered and opened. His eyes scanned the room and settled on the two women who had come to visit him. Slowly, painfully, a smile spread across his face. "Good golly, Miss Molly!" His voice rasped to her merrily, calling her by his personal nickname for her. "I have a picture for you," she whispered and wriggled out of her mother's arms. She opened her school bag and brought out a piece of paper. She handed it to her mother, saying, "Here, show this to Daddy." Her mother took the paper obediently and held it before her father. "It's beautiful," he said quietly. "It's okay. I'm not a very good artist, but I am good at explaining things, so I'll tell you what it is," Meg reported to her father as her mother lifted her up once more. "It's a rose. Grandma says that if you pray to St. Therese for something and you see a rose, that means you get your wish. So I made a rose just in case anyone was praying for something." Her father nodded and swallowed. "Very, very nice. Scully, tape it up on the wall over there?" Her mother nodded softly. Her father smiled at her again, a weak but warm smile. "Come here, Miss Molly, and give your dad a kiss." "Mulder, no. You have to lie still if you're going to--" "Then lower her down to me." Her mother sighed hopelessly and held their daughter close to the hospital bed, standing among the IV poles and heart monitors. Meg held onto her mother tightly but leaned down so she could kiss her Daddy on the forehead. Tubes were coming out of his nose. The hospital smell was still harsh. "Daddy," she pleaded in a whisper as she sat upright once more, "please don't get shot again." He laughed a little. "I'll do my best, Miss Molly. I'll do my best." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meg sat up, startled. The memory had been so real. She must have been so tired that she slipped directly into REM. She looked down at herself to make sure that she was indeed twenty years old, sitting in a grassy field wearing Kevin's oversized clothes, not five years old and clinging to her Mommy's suit lapels. The sun had moved; she had indeed slept and woke up thirstier than ever. She would have given the world for an ice cold root beer right about now. And she would have given that root beer if she could just find Kevin. She had to think. What to do? With Kevin gone, there was no one to help her. She had no car, no money, and she was suffering guilt from her earlier car- jacking escapade. Never before had she felt so alone. Her stomach grumbled again. Her head swam and she felt vaguely faint. She did not want to eat, but her body indicated to her otherwise. She searched in Kevin's backpack, hoping he'd left some sort of food in there. All she found was a half-emptied pack of orange Tic-Tacs. Better than nothing. She opened up the box and shook the contents into her open mouth. As she mushed the candies around with her gravely tongue, her stomach's grumbling grew louder and more insistent, then seemed to take on a life of its own. It wasn't until she had pressed her hands frantically to her middle that she realized the noise was not being produced by her stomach at all. The noise came from above. She curled up into the smallest ball she could possibly form and huddled among the grasses. A bit of her memory urged her to start praying. She hadn't prayed for just over two years. She hadn't abandoned God out of her grief, or so she told herself. She simply hadn't had time to think about Him. She made the time now. As a five year-old, she had prayed to St. Therese. Now, she did the same. "Please, let me find them." Mom. Dad. Kevin. The rumbling noise grew closer, closer still. She looked up and saw a little Cessna skim the field twenty feet above her to come to a landing father down the field. She knelt in place and peered just over the tops of the tall grasses. A man clad all in black stepped out of the cockpit and looked around. Even so far away, over the rippling of the grasses and the hammering of her heart in her ears, Meg could hear the creaking of his outfit. "Pleather-boy," she whispered to herself. By the sun, he was about two hours early. She stood up and looked at him. His eyes recognized her and he came running towards her, removing his sunglasses with his right hand. And in his left hand he was carrying, of all things, a deep red rose. The hair on Meg's arms prickled. END 6/11 "The Children's Teeth" 7/11 by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "What shall we say after that? If God is for us, who can be against us?" --Romans 8:31 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pleather-boy swept before Meg into a bow such as Queen Camilla of England herself might have received. His outfit creaked at the motion. He held the rose up to her with great flourish. "My lady Mulder," he said, falling to one knee like a post-millennial dork-in- shining-pleather. "It is my great honor to escort you to the headquarters of The Lone Gunmen." She gaped at him in utter disorientation. "Are you. . . Gerald Cho?" He bowed his head again, making his outfit creak even more, but he remained on his knee. "At your service, my lady." The hand with the rose remained extended towards her. //This guy clearly has involved himself in one too many role- playing games.// Tentatively, she took the rose from him. "Thank you," she mumbled, not wanting to seem too callous. "I am relieved that you are here early," he said, getting up clumsily, with even more creaking. "All the better for us. We must be going." He held out his arm for her to take. Meg tried very hard not to laugh. //And I thought *I* had lost my mind.// For her part, Meg ignored the proffered arm. She slung Kevin's backpack on her shoulder and began walking toward the Cessna. The creak-creak-creak noise that followed her revealed that Mr. Cho was not far behind. She hopped up into the passenger's seat of the cockpit. When the pilot had seated himself, she asked him, "So, where are you taking me, anyway?" "Washington, D. C.," he informed her, still keeping his voice flourishing. "I regret that I cannot tell you more than that, my lady." Meg rolled her eyes. Thank God he had met her in an airplane and not a car. It was a long, long drive from Liberty to D. C. She had a feeling, regardless, that this was going to be a long flight as well. Pleather-boy was getting the plane started when another buzzing sizzled right next to Meg's ear. She turned and found the source of the buzz bouncing against the window with futility. Meg began to scream to high heaven. "What is it?" Cho snapped his head to look at the cause of "his Lady's" screaming. Seeing what it was, he took a roll of papers from the floor and swatted at the window, twice. On the second swat, the offensive creature was dead and had landed in Meg's lap. Her screaming increased. Pleather-boy picked it up in his fingers and made the connection with his knowledge of Meg's background... It was a bee. Shuddering, Meg tugged nervously on her Miraculous Medal dangling from its silver chain. "Sorry," she wheezed. "It's just this phobia I've always had..." As she spoke the words, she made the connection as well -- the connection to what her father had included in his letter. She'd always been so angry at herself for being afraid of something so stupid as, of all things, bumble bees. She'd never had any fear of snakes, heights, water, spiders, even public speaking, but a friggin' bumble bee could send her fearless self into hysterics. Now, even that childish demon had its origin. Kevin would be so amused when she told him. When she saw him again. She buckled herself into the seat as Pleather-boy began the takeoff process once more. She removed Kevin's hat and wiped the cold beads of sweat off of her forehead and cheeks. This was going to be a long flight. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And it was. It turned out to be one of the longer hours of her life, followed by a car ride in a little gray Ford, almost as run-down as Kevin's Crap Cruiser. Pleather-boy's urging for her to hide under her hat was redundant; she had done so as soon as he had directed the car from the abandoned airfield out onto a busy road. The Beltway. Metro signs. Familiar roads. Familiar sounds and smells. She was missing it all, though. Her face slouched under the brim of the baseball cap. Her mind churned. How to find Kevin without falling into the trap that had been set for her with Kevin as the bait? She thoughtfully turned the rose in her hand, feeling justly punished with the prickling of the thorns against her fingers. In less than another hour, Pleather-boy was opening her car door for her and leading her through a dank garage, up some flights of steps and through a dark hallway. Buttons beeped, locks yielded, and they were through a door, walking up a narrow staircase into a dark room cluttered with various chunks of equipment -- mostly of the computer variety. Glasses-man, The Janitor and The Professor were there, too. They turned and looked as she and Pleather-boy reached the top of the steps. All three of them stood and stared at her. //They see me,// Meg thought, //and they see two ghosts.// The eeriness of the situation was palpable. They were measuring her up to see how much of her was really her parents. Meg straightened her spine and looked back at them all, in turn, unblinking. "Yep," nodded The Janitor, "that's a Scully all right." "Here I am," she announced, ignoring him and keeping the tremor out of her voice. "You said you might be able to help me find my parents. Now you have to help me find Kevin Declan, too." They must have known she would make that demand, because The Professor answered her, "We saw what happened to him, up to a point." Glasses-man interrupted, "That's why Cho here was sent out to find you so early." Meg took the chair that Pleather-boy offered her and set the rose on her lap. "You saw what happened 'up to a point'? At which point did you lose track of him? Is he even alive?" She was aware her voice was verging on the hysterical once more. She gripped her knees and tried to calm herself. //So much for me being a Scully, on that point.// "While we've been waiting for you," The Professor told her, "we've been doing some checking. It turns out that a fingerprint turned up at a crime scene in western Pennsylvania four days ago." "So what?" Meg asked, "That's where fingerprints usually turn up, isn't it?" Glasses interrupted, "But the fingerprint was found at the scene of a murder of a convenience store clerk. The local cops found the owners of all the fingerprints left at that scene except for this one particular fingerprint." "Which belongs," The Professor finished for him, "to a deceased FBI agent, one Fox William Mulder." Meg was glad she was sitting down. "Was it a fresh print?" "Fresher than a prom date," assured The Janitor. "The report from one of our online sources said it couldn't have been more than two days old." "But it wasn't from the day of the murder," Pleather-boy added to set Meg's mind at ease. Meg breathed deeply. "So that's why they started keeping an eye on me. Still, how can we be sure it was really--" She broke off, unable to bring herself to say "my father" out loud. The hope was still too difficult to accept. She swallowed and started over. "How can we be sure it was really him? Can you check out the security tapes from the days before that murder?" The Professor shook his head. "The store is in a small, rural town called Mount Carmel. It didn't have a security camera." "Dead end, then." Meg's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Well, what about Kevin?" "After our call to Declan's house this morning, we did lose track of you," The Professor told her, "so that means you did a good job of eluding the cameras." "But those satellites we've been plugging into for the past three days," The Janitor told her, "'conveniently,' they've been down ever since we saw what happened to your buddy." Meg turned angry eyes on him. "What did you see?" "He was pulled over by the State Troopers," reported Glasses. "A black sedan pulled up behind them, and a woman from the black car approached Kevin's car. He got out, she touched him on the shoulder and pulled him into the black car." Meg squeezed her eyes shut and dug through her memory of that phone conversation. "Emily," she breathed. She turned back to The Janitor. "Do you make it your business to weasel into government employee databases?" He folded his arms. "That's one of our many specialties." "Good. See if there are any FBI agents with the first name of 'Emily'," she ordered. At that, The Lone Gunmen went to work for yet another Mulder. Glasses-man took the keyboard and brought forth records on several Emily's working in the federal government. The search narrowed to a list of only those Emily's working for the FBI. Meg ran her eyes over the list scrolling onto the screen. Finding the one that jabbed at her memory, she pointed her finger at the screen. "That's the one. Emily Lynch." Another double-click, and a new screen came up. "ALL RECORDS FOR LYNCH, EMILY ARE CLASSIFIED." Meg laughed. After what she had read this morning, this was exactly what she had expected to find. "Wait," Glasses responded, "let me see if I can hack it." "No," Meg shook her head. "No, don't bother, at least not yet. Look up somebody else for me, though. There is somebody else that might be able to help." All four men looked at her yet again, trying to figure out what she was doing. Meg, keeping her eyes on the screen, said softly, "See if you can find a Skinner for me. Assistant Director Skinner." With a shrug, Glasses-man attacked the keyboard once more. The database cheerfully obliged with the requested information. "Home address?" Meg asked. Glasses scrolled down to the requested information. "Thanks. Print that out for me," she requested. "Now, who can loan me a car?" "I will drive you," Pleather-boy insisted. Meg pursed her lips. //I was afraid he'd say that// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By the time they pulled into the apartment complex parking lot, it was nearly seven. Meg sat up straight for the first time since they had emerged from the Lone Gunmen's garage and looked at all the cars, searching for a dark- green, late-model Buick, registered to one Walter Skinner. She saw it. He was home. She opened the door and got out. So did Pleather-boy. She froze and turned her most chilling expression on him. "Look. I need to do this alone." Pleather-boy looked at her with uncertainty for what seemed like a full minute. When her glare did not waver in the slightest, he finally sat back behind the steering wheel and shut his door. Meg sighed in relief. She walked up to the proper building, her heart playing the bongos through her entire body. //What if he doesn't remember who I am?// Taking a deep breath, she pressed the intercom buzzer next to the name "Skinner," and waited for a reply. END 7/11 "The Children's Teeth" 8/11 by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "You can't kill the devil." --Chris Carter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Who is it?" The voice coming at her from the intercom was hard and clipped, making Meg's nerves jump even more than they already were. "Sir," Meg cleared her throat. "Excuse me for bothering you, sir, but--" Her throat closed up. There was a security camera just above the lintel to the building's main entrance bearing directly down on her. The intercom crackled once more with that authoritative voice. "I'll let you through." Meg was shocked as the door buzzed and popped open to admit her. //Well, that was easier than I thought. I guess he does remember me after all.// She went through the door and up the flight of steps to the second apartment on the right. Her parents' boss was opening the door as she came down the hall. As he turned in her direction, he began saying in a voice of controlled shock, "Agent Sc--" He stopped himself mid-word. As his eyes came to rest on her, she realized he hadn't remembered her at all. When he heard her voice over the intercom, he simmply had thought she was her mother. Over the phone, people had always mistaken her voice for her mother's. That used to be funny. For the merest moment, the older man's face spoke volumes, then was a mask of unyielding control once more. Once again, Meg thought, //He sees me, and he sees two ghosts.// She tried to regain her grip on her floundering sense of humor. "Sorry, she's not here right now. Can I take a message?" Meg was not surprised when Skinner did not even smile at her joke. Wordlessly, he indicated for her to come inside. Once he had shut the door behind them, he spoke. "Miss Mulder, how are you doing? I haven't seen you since--" "The funeral, yes." She answered him. "I'm fine, thank you." The Assistant Director nodded in acknowledgement. "What brings you here unnanounced?" Meg suddenly became aware of how intimidating this man was. She tried to remind herself that this was just an old bald guy who should have retired years ago, especially since he hadn't been promoted in decades. But standing here before him now made her wonder how her father and mother could have ever defied him in any way, shape or form. And here she was, about to interrogate him. Meg took a deep breath, and began the with the words she had rehearsed in her mind on the way over to this apartment building. "Mr. Skinner, sir, at the funeral you told me that if I ever needed anything that you could help with, that I shouldn't hesitate to contact you." He folded his still-powerful arms across his chest and nodded at her to continue. His glasses reflected the room's light. "I've received some strange information within the past twenty-four hours, and I was wondering if you knew the whereabouts of my parents." His greying brows deepened in their seeming perpetual frown. His tight jaw tightened. "Miss Mulder, I don't mean to be harsh, but your parents were killed in that explosion two years ago. To the best of my knowledge, they are somewhere in the rubble that resulted from said explosion." Meg's eyes shut on her involuntarily, and her face burned. //Sunburn. That's what I get for being half-Irish and falling asleep in a field at high noon.// The Assistant Director saw her reaction and indicated for her to take a seat on a nearby couch. She nodded with gratitude and sat down, removing her hat. Kevin's hat. As he sat down opposite Meg, the Assistant Director asked her, "What sort of information have you received?" Meg perched on the edge of the sofa. "First, I received a phone call at work. Someone telling me that I -- that I am not an orphan, and that someone would be in contact with me." His frown grew even deeper. "Who?" "Who called me? A woman, but I could not recognize the voice. Then, early this morning I got a call at a friend's house from some former colleagues of my father's from outside the Bureau--" Recognition flickered across his solid face. "--who said there was evidence that my parents are still alive, and that someone wants to use me to find them. So when I went to meet them, that friend I was staying with was pulled over by the police and someone from the FBI. Ever since, I've lost contact with him." "When did that happen?' "About nine this morning." "Have you tried to contact your friend since?" Meg shook her head. "What about these 'colleagues.' Do they call themselves 'The Lone Gunmen?'" Meg was about to nod when her stomach decided to speak up instead. Loudly. Meg cringed with embarrassment. The shadow of a smile visited the Assistant Director's face for the briefest of moments. "Miss Mulder, when was the last time you ate?" Sheepishly, she answered, "I had some Tic-tacs around three this afternoon, sir." Assistant Director Skinner stood up and walked into his kitchen. "Why don't you try to contact your missing friend while I make a sandwich for you." "Sir, that's not necessary--" "I insist. There's a phone on the endtable." "But, sir, it's long distance to New York City." "Go ahead and make the call." Meg felt she had just been issued an order. She went over to the phone and dialed Kevin's home number. When that was not successful she tried his cell phone. The call was rung directly through to an automated message: "This call cannot be connected due to a hardware malfunction. Please contact your service provider for more details." Meg cradled the reciever with a sigh. Assitant Director Skinner returned to the living room with a ham sandwich and glass of iced tea. Meg didn't feel much like eating or drinking, but she sat down anyway and accepted the offered provisions with a whispered, "Thank you, sir." "Miss Mulder, have you considered the possibility that these two calls you have received are simply someone's sick joke?" Meg laboriously swallowed her first bite of sandwich before replying. "I have considered that possibility, sir. The first call from the woman could easily be a joke. My contact with the Lone Gunmen, however, has -- well, sir, it's explained a whole lot of my life and my relationship with my parents." "How so?" "My father left a letter for me with them before the explosion, just in case anything should ever have happened to him or to my mother. I was given an opportunity to read that letter this morning." "How can you be sure this letter was from your father?" She heard the accusation implied in his unspoken words. He thought that in her vulnerability she'd been taken in by some sort of scam. Kevin had thought the same thing. "Sir," she replied evenly, "I know about the X-files." His face changed when she said that; not obviously, but his lack of expression changed minutely into another lack of expression. "I see." She kept her eyes fixed on him as he removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Only then did the man look the slightest bit old, perhaps because the movement revealed so much of his weariness. But then his glasses were back in place, and the Assistant Director was his mighty self once more. "Miss Mulder," he said, "I know it is difficult to lose any family member at any time, much less both parents and a grandmother within the space of a few months. I can understand your wanting your parents to be alive, but we need to think rationally here. "The man who was responsible for your parents' death is dead as well, and I'm not talking about the man who confessed. I'm talking about the man behind it all. That man died of lung cancer more than eighteen months ago. I myself saw the body. The people who worked with him -- all dead. Time alone killed them. There are no more X-files." Meg pushed the sandwich away. "So, you're saying--" "Miss Mulder," the Assistant Director said, "you should go home, back to New York. Call me when you get in. I know someone in New York, and I can arrange for you to get the best grief counseling available." Fighting the intimidation she felt, she forced herself to look directly into the man's eyes. His concern was genuine. He was not covering for her parents. Her parents //were// dead. Meg swallowed the lump in her throat. She was strong, and she would not cry, certainly not here. She stood and extended her hand to Assistant Director Skinner. He took it and returned her firm handshake. "I'm sorry I bothered you, sir," she said as she walked to the door. "Thank you for your time, honesty, and for the sandwich." "Miss Mulder," he replied, "good luck. If you still can't find your friend, you know where to reach me" "Thank you." She nodded and walked back down the hall to the stairs. She did not look back, even when she heard the door to Skinner's apartment close behind her with a final //click//. Down the steps, across the parking lot, and she opened the passenger door to Pleather-boy's car. He regarded her in expectant silence. She took a few deep breaths before she could respond. "Just take me back to New York." "But, my la--" "Cut the 'my lady' crap and just get me back to New York, would you, Pleather- boy?" Hurt, Cho turned the key in the ignition and pulled back onto the street. Meg kept the hat off her head and sat up straight. No more of these stupid games. Kevin had probably just been carjacked. Bizarrely enough, that should have been a comfort. He would be okay. He had to be okay. When she got in tonight, she would call the police and file a missing person's report. Then she would call his mother. //How am I going to explain this to Mrs. Declan?// Up ahead, a sign blared for a convenience store. Meg had no money. She pointed to the sign. "Stop up there. I need an ATM." Wordlessly, Pleather-boy obeyed, and Meg went inside. She looked up at the security camera behind the counter, but she made no move to hide from it. She walked up to the ATM and punched in her numbers. While waiting for her cash & receipt, she looked directly into the camera and laughed at herself for being so gullible, and at such cost to her best friend. Resigned, Meg agreed with Kevin and Skinner; it was time to get help. As she left the store, she passed by a stand of cheap flowers; she and Kevin called them "honey-I'm-sorry" bouqets. With a deep sigh, Meg picked up four and paid for them before returning to the car. Pleather-boy was waiting by her door and opened it up for her. Guilt panged at her some more. "Can we stop somewhere before we get back?" She asked him as nicely as she could. "I think I need to make a visit." "Certainly my la--" Pleather-boy stopped himself and nodded. "Of course. Where do you want to stop?" "I need to pay a visit to my parents and my grandmother." At first, Pleather-boy looked quite confused, but then he understood. They both got in the car and Pleather-boy pointed the car towards the cemetery. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I'm coming with you," Pleather-boy informed her as she opened her door. The cemetery was officially closed after dark, but Meg had insisted in her quietly forceful way. Besides, Pleather-boy didn't seem to have that much respect for authority, even graveyard authority. They had driven through the winding paths up to the section where the Scully family plots were. Meg had been here only four times before, but with her photographic memory, she knew her way even in the dark. She stepped out of the car and walked to the grave stones, Pleather-boy creaking along behind her. When she saw the four stones she had come to visit, she turned to her escort. "Please," was all she said. He seemed to understand and kept back a little as she approached. Meg stopped at the stone that marked the grave of her aunt, Melissa Scully, and placed one bouquet before it. In the summers, when Meg was little, she would spend all of her time outside, the sun would bleach her sandy gold curls. Grandma would wind her hair into pigtails each morning to keep it from tangling too much, and as she did so she would tell Meg how much she looked like her Aunt Melissa at that age. Another bouquet for Grandma, Margaret Scully. Closing her eyes, Meg touched the stone as if its solid coolness could connect her somehow to what had been lost: discipline, traditions, heritage, and ever-present, unconditional love. When all else was turbulent, Meg could always count on Grandma to make it all better. She stepped to her right and stood before the grave stones that memorialized her parents. No caskets lay beneath her feet, merely earth. Grandma had been the one who had insisted on the stones, so that something would have remained behind in their memory. Meg's fingers tightened around the crinkly plastic covering the bouquets' stems. But the rustling that she heard was not a result of that movement. She looked up and saw shadows stirring in the darkness ahead. She blinked and squinted and saw a familiar figure. Her heart leapt in relief. "KEVIN!" He did not speak. Meg threw the flowers down and began running to him, throwing her arms out to hug him and never let him go. But another figure stepped right behind him. Blond, late twenties, somber business suit. Meg froze in her tracks and looked closely at Kevin's blank face. That was when she saw his eyes. Meg stepped backwards. "Kevin. Oh, no." Kevin blinked, and the blackness swirled. He began walking toward her with a purpose. Her father's letter had said... Meg turned on her heel and started to run. She shouted to Cho, "GET IN THE CAR!" There were more rustlings behind her, but she did not look back. Pleather-boy was slow to respond. He kept looking behind her in fascination. "GET!!! IN!!! THE!!! CAR!!!" Then, the pain hit her in her back, somewhere on her left side. A scream curdled into the night sky, but it was not her own; it came from behind her. A woman's scream. The force of Meg's pain pitched her forward. Her face kissed the dewy grass. She could hear nothing, but over the moist smell of growing grass she smelled something that had the darkness of gunfire. She had been shot. She tried to get up, but she found herself unable. Warm blood tricked over her back and shoulder down onto the grass. "Kevin," she whimpered, "Kevin..." "Shh," came a woman's voice over her. Someone was touching her on her back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a chin-length bob of blond hair. "Emily," she cried with all of her dwindling strength. "No..." "Shh," the woman repeated as she placed her palm over the source of Meg's newly- spilled blood. "Don't fight it. Just don't fight it, little sister." Meg detested herself and her weakness; she found she could not fight this Emily's power as she slipped into unconsciousness. END "The Children's Teeth" 8/11 "The Children's Teeth" 9/11 by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Can a mother forsake her child, Be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you." --Isaiah 49: 15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stars. Clouds. A heavy, constant hum. Rattling. Fog. Fog. Blackness. Stars. Blackness. Merciful blackness. Then, stars and rattling again. And all along, a searing, piercing pain. Voices? Voices. The two frantic voices that had been there all along. One of them spoke to her often, softly: "Hang on, little sister. Hang on." A flutter of blond hair. Movement and persistent touch. Being lifted and stretched out. The pain... the pain... Another voice shouting for help. A flurry of hands, tubes, needles. A swish of robes. A white jacket and an obscured face. "Oh, my God." //Oh, my God.// Meg dreamed she knew the voice. But it could only have been a dream, a dream of fresh grief. And then, blackness. Blackness. Fog. Blackness. Then, through the blackness, quiet. A light, constant "beep" counted time. Pressure on her hands. A feather-light touch brushing against her hair. Still, nothing but blackness. Through the blackness, someone singing softly, singing softly to her. Her heart responded to the sound before her brain could. "//Good golly, Miss Molly...//" Then, blackness again, relieved by dreams... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The game was different, but the scene was so similar. An eight year-old girl in pigtails plopped on the floor in front of the television, pondering her next move. He watched across the board from her, waiting his turn. As she picked up a white pawn, she looked up, distracted momentarily. "Dad! You make such a mess with these!" She was pointing to the crumbling mess of sunflower seeds falling bit by bit onto the chess board. "Watch," she told him. "This is how you can be neater." Meg carefully placed a sunflower seed in her mouth, with the seam of the shell poised vertically between her top and bottom front teeth. With a calculated effort, she pressed her jaws together and the shell cracked neatly in two. She spit the two halves onto her palm and proudly showed them to her father. "See!" She was expecting him to laugh at her. Instead, his face became a mask of worry. She automatically bit down on the kernel. "Ouch!" Something was running down her lower lip. She wiped her hand against her face, and her hand was painted with a thin streak of red. "C'mere, Miss Molly," her dad said, holding out his arms to her. "Let me see." Clambering over the chess board and scattering the pieces, she climbed into her father's lap. She opened her mouth and he peeked in. His sigh of relief was heavy. "It's just a loose tooth." Meg reached in and wiggled the bottom tooth around with her finger. She looked up at her father's face once more, and found it pale, distressed. "Daddy? Are you okay?" He responded by hugging her tightly, patting her pigtails protectively. "I'm okay, Miss Molly. Let's get Doctor Mom to take a look at it." "Daddy, Mommy's not a dentist. I can pull it out myself." He scooped her up anyway and held her high in the air. She reached up and, giggling, tapped the ceiling. "Did I hear my name?" "Mom! I have another loose tooth and Dad doesn't think I can take care of it myself." Her father replied in a silly indignant voice, "Tattletale." He put her back down on the ground and she ran to her mother, who bent down to look in her daughter's open mouth. "Schheee?" Meg slurred, pointing. She closed her jaw again and reported to her mother, "It just bled a little teeny bit, and Daddy got all scared, but I wasn't scared at all." Mommy looked up at Daddy silently, her eyes full of knowledge. Meg put her hands on her hips. "You two are doing that again." Mommy looked back at her, ready to laugh. "Doing what?" "Talking to each other with your eyes." Always in control, Meg's mother changed the subject. "Daddy's going to get a little bit of gauze from the bathroom so you can take your own tooth out, and the gauze will keep you from bleeding all over the chess board. Sound good?" Meg considered the offer, then nodded. "Yep. Sounds good." Mommy bent to kiss her daughter on the forehead, and Meg returned the kiss with a giggle. Looking up, Meg watched as her parents spoke to each other once more without saying a word. Still, eight year old Meg could not help feeling just slightly left out. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eight years old. She had been eight years old when... What her mother had understood then, Meg could finally understand now, even if only in a dream. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Of all the dreams she had, that one had been the most vivid. She woke up in pain, but the fog and blackness were gone. So was the black, starlit sky. She blinked and felt her eyelids rejoice in the movement. The pressure on her right hand increased. Meg turned her head slightly to the right, and the effort was momentous. Her eyes focused. She blinked and saw copper, lightly touched with silver, a tiny flash of gold, and two blue, blue skies. "Mommy," she tried to say, but found she could not speak. Was this real? Had she died? No, she was in too much pain for heaven. She felt her mother squeeze her hand firmly, felt two drops of salt water fall onto her from above. Her mother was crying and smiling. "Hi, sweetie." She tried to ask where her father was, but again could not. There was something in her throat. "Shh, honey," her mother soothed, touching her cheek lightly. "It's okay. You're going to be fine. Just lie still and try to stay quiet. There will be plenty of time to talk later." Her own cheeks were wet as the tears spilled silently down. "Good golly, Miss Molly." Her left hand was squeezed and she turned her head in the direction. There was her father, smiling at her, shaking his graying head in amazement. She looked carefully at both parent's faces and saw the scars. Burn scars. Dimly, her mind realized that they had been in that explosion. But how did they get to be here now, at her bedside, holding her hands and urging her on to recovery? It didn't matter. They were here now. "Meg," her father leaned close and whispered to her, "please don't get shot again." //I'll do my best, Daddy,// she tried to say with her eyes, //I'll do my best.// Somehow, she knew he understood. She drifted off into an easy sleep. The more she rested, the sooner she would be able to find Kevin. END 9/11 "The Children's Teeth" 10/11 by Erin McCole Cupp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, no secret that will not be known." --Luke 12:2 The Curse: "When you grow up, I hope you have children just like you!" -- Bill Cosby's mother ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mere hours later, a cluster of brown- robed nuns and one Doctor Dana Scully worked together to remove the majority of the medical tubing from Meg's body. Meg's mother was issuing commands in her deep, authoritative doctor's voice. Nuns? It was not by any means a pleasant experience. She was grateful that her father held her hand the entire time; and yet, as an independent twenty year old woman, she was embarrassed at the depth of her gratitude. One of the nuns offered her ice chips as soon as she was able to accept them, which she crunched on greedily. The ice seemed to melt almost on contact. Her mother was by her side once more. The authoritative voice was replaced with soft concern. "How are you feeling?" Meg swallowed the water and automatically rasped, "I'm fine, Mom." Meg's mother gave her a look; she knew Meg was not telling the complete truth in that statement. Meg's father, however, was chuckling softly to himself. Both blue-eyed women arched inquisitive eyebrows at him. "See?" He simply smirked at Meg's mother, "It's genetic, and there is no cure." Meg didn't understand, but she was still too uncomfortable to spend time puzzling out her parents' in-jokes. And there were more important questions to be answered. "What happened?" She asked, looking from mother to father. "How did I get here?" The sooner she had that answer, the sooner she would know what happened to Kevin. "Can I answer that?" A blond woman in her mid- to late- twenties came closer to Meg's bed. She wore no makeup, and instead of the somber business suit she wore blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Meg increased her grip on her parents' hands. "No, Meg," her father reassured her, "it's all right." Meg turned her panicked face to his. "But she's--" "Emily Wexford," her mother interrupted. "She's the one who saved you and brought you here to us." The Emily frowned. "No. I should have been able to do more..." "Wexford," her mother reassured, "you did all you could." Meg shook her head. "I don't understand. What is going on here?" "Don't worry about it, Meg," her father said. "No!" Meg's dry voice cracked at the force of that one word. "I've been kept in the dark for twenty years. I'm in on this now whether you like it or not. Whether I like it or not. My best friend could be dead right now for all I know, //because// I'm in on this, and I'm still not entirely sure what 'this' is! Somebody damn well better give me some answers, and that somebody better do it now!" Her parents exchanged looks that could only have been, Meg realized, guilt. At once, Meg regretted her outburst. She looked down at the sheets. "Mulder," her mother said, the authoritative voice returning, "she's right." Her father's face was blank. Meg was not surprised. "Wexford," her mother requested, "tell Meg what happened at the cemetery." The Emily stepped closer yet as the doctor beckoned her to do so. With a deep breath, she began to explain. "There are five of us. Well, there //were// five of us at the beginning. Emilys, that is. One died over twenty years ago." Meg glanced at her mother, whose eyes were gently closed. "I killed another two nights ago in the cemetery." Meg looked at this Emily critically. "How?" She continued. "The four of us who made it to adulthood were recruited by those who created us to serve their purposes. Then I found out what their purposes were." "Colonization," Meg whispered. She answered her father's questioning look with, "I got your letter." He nodded gravely. Emily nodded as well. "So I joined The Resistance. Two nights ago, I was at that cemetery." "You'd been watching me?" "For the resistance. When we saw you back in front of the cameras again, I was sent to follow you, to protect you in case //They// tried to hurt you." "What about Kevin?" "As you've probably guessed, //They// caught him to catch you. They'd given him the black virus. From what we understand, he was to give it to you, and you were to go find your parents so their hiding place could be destroyed." Meg shuddered. So what she had seen in Kevin's eyes had been what she thought it was. She blinked back the tears. "When you started to run from them in the graveyard," she continued, "Lynch, the Emily keeping an eye on Kevin, shot you, presumably to stop you. My guess is that her plan was to heal you, then give you the virus and send you out to find Mulder and Scully." "But I'm okay, relatively speaking," Meg insisted, "What happened?" "They didn't know I was there, watching. I was able to get the oil out of Kevin and keep you alive enough to fly you out here." She was an alien-human hybrid. She could heal people. "But why couldn't you heal me all the way? And where is Kevin now?" "I don't understand the healing mechanism entirely, so I don't have complete control over it," Wexford explained, her expression pained. "I haven't had enough time or training. All I was able to learn fully was how to remove the black oil, and a few simple healing techniques." "And Kevin?" "I removed the oil, but we had to get you here fast if you were to survive. What a relief that your friend Cho had a plane." Meg's heart ached. "So Kevin was left behind..." Wexford nodded, "...and the virus most certainly returned to him. That was two nights ago. He's still in //Their// control." Meg looked up at her, trying to compose herself. They had sacrificed Kevin to save her. She shook her head and closed her eyes. Meg felt her mother's arms go around her tightly. Meg breathed deeply to keep the tears at bay. At length, after her mother had let go, Meg was in control enough to ask, "So when are we going to go find Kevin? We can save him, right? You have the --? Oh..." Her mother leaned closer once more, concerned. "What is it?" Meg raised a hand to her brow, full comprehension dawning on her. "That's why you've been in hiding for two years. You have the vaccine. She heard both parents sigh with relief that she understood. Her mother confirmed her suspicions. "We've just finished the final phase of testing. We began mass production about three weeks ago." "We couldn't risk exposure by contacting you," her father added, his voice weakening. "Too many lives were at stake. . . . //Your// life was at stake." Meg's eyes pinched at the understanding. Her mother's eyes were shining with the threat of tears once more, and her mother hardly ever cried. "It was the hardest decision we'd ever made." Meg sighed, ready to cry again herself. "No, I understand. I'm glad you did this if it helped find the vaccine. Now let's get some of it to Kevin." The three about her bedside looked at each other without speaking. "Now what?" She asked. "Right now," her father explained to her evenly, "we're in the underground passageways of a Carmelite religious cloister near Lake Erie. We have reason to believe that Cho's plane was tracked here. We're in the process of evacuating to a secondary site in Kentucky." "If we don't," her mother continued, "all our work will be destroyed when //They// get here." "How?" Meg asked. "Bombs," Wexford informed her. "Fire, whatever they can think of. To the public, it will all be explained away, of course. As usual." So that gave a reason for all the nuns bustling about, packing boxes of equipment and taking them upstairs. "Great," Meg replied, "so we're moving to a safe location. What does that have to do with Kevin?" "Meggie," her father said, obviously saddened, "we only have another forty- eight hours to find Kevin before it would be too late. We don't have the people to complete the move //and// go back and get Kevin in time." "I told you I would go," Wexford insisted. Meg's mother shook her head. "No. It's too dangerous for anyone, even you, to go alone." "Then I'll go with her," Meg said, sitting up as straight as she could. Her father shook his head. "No. Absolutely not." "Meg," her mother said, "you're not well enough yet, even if you did have the proper training." "But somebody has to go back and get him!" "Then I'll go with Wexford," her father said. "Mulder, you can't. We need you here." Her mother's eyes pleaded. "Besides," Wexford added, "this isn't a job for someone so..." She stopped and bit her lip, embarrassed. Meg bit down on the corners of her own lips to keep from laughing at her father's equally embarrassed expression. For someone who would be sixty in October, her father was in pretty good shape. But still... he would be sixty in October. "For someone who has all the scar tissue in his joints that you have," Wexford finished diplomatically. "But Meg's right," Doctor Scully admitted. "We can't leave Kevin behind. We do need to come up with a plan." Meg, however, was coming up with a plan of her own. "If we could evacuate sooner, is there a chance we could save Kevin?" "Slim," her father admitted. "Good," Meg nodded. "Why don't you stop waiting by my bedside and help get us out of here sooner?" "But Meg, you--" "I'm fine, Mom," Meg insisted again, in a stronger voice this time. Her mother clearly did not enjoy taking what she usually dished out. "Go finish saving the world," Meg continued, trying to smile, "I'll be alright. Just don't leave without me." Her parents obviously hesitated at leaving her at all. "Go! Hurry! Another life is at stake, too." Reluctantly, they both kissed her on the forehead before leaving the room, promising to be back to visit shortly. As much as it hurt Meg to watch them go, even knowing she would see them again, she continued turning her plan over and over in her mind. As Emily Wexford nodded at Meg, taking her leave, Meg hissed to her, "Wexford." "Yes?" "How did you kill that other Emily?" Silently, Wexford pulled something long and silver from her pocket. Meg knewwhat it was. So, Wexford had one. Good. That made the execution of her plan that much easier. "I need your help. Can you pull out this IV? We have some work to do." At first, Wexford frowned at Meg. And then she understood. Emily Wexford nodded at Meg Mulder. "Not bad, little sister. What's the plan?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Doctor Scully!" Sister Anne called to her over all the evacuation-induced shouting. Brushing back a wayward strand of her silvering hair (no need for hair color in a cloister), Scully walked over to the nun. "What is it?" She shouted back. "We were packing up the last of the vaccine, and we can't account for one vial!" Adrenaline shot through Scully's blood. There could be a security problem wandering the passages below. Great. She nodded and ran to Sister Cecilia. "Sound the bell," she told the nun, who nodded back in clipped understanding. Communications here were well-guarded. Neither Scully nor Mulder had picked up a cell phone in nearly two years. Even old-fashioned walkie-talikes were suspect. The primitive cloister bell was the best, most secure communication they had. Even if it was heard outside of their base of operations, no one would understand its significance. "Meg," she murmured to herself and began running for the improvised hospital room where her daughter was recuperating. In the hallway, she ran into Mulder. They didn't need to speak. They simply kept running. They found the room empty. With the anger of a father worried about his only daughter, Mulder ran to the empty bed and smacked his fist down on the bedside table with a muttered curse. Then, he froze. He bent and picked up a piece of paper left on the bedside table. He read it and cursed some more. "What?" Scully cried. "What is it?" Mulder handed the note to her. "She ditched us." Wide-eyed, Scully read the note and looked back up at her partner. Her jaw set angrily. "If you ever have entertained any doubt of that child's paternity," she growled to Mulder, "here is absolute, undeniable proof that she is //yours//!" Mulder continued staring at the note in Scully's hand. "I can't believe she ditched us." "It's genetic," Scully called over her shoulder as she ran back outside, "and there is no cure." END "The Children's Teeth" 10/11 "The Children's Teeth" 11/11 by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "There is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." --John 15:13 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Cold." Meg had whispered the word involuntarily. She hadn't wanted to speak her thoughts out loud, but it had slipped out through her chattering teeth. She wrapped Wexford's jacket around her more tightly and winced as the rattling Cessna jabbed new life into her wound's pain. Pleather-boy looked over at her briefly but then thankfully turned his concentration back to piloting their little aircraft. Wexford leaned forward from her seat in the back and asked, "Are you okay?" "I'm-m f-fine." Sure she was fine, considering she was in shock. She was shivering more than Pleather-boy's plane, she was bathed in an icy sweat that nearly soaked through the shirt Wexford had loaned her, and the nausea in her stomach and the pain in her shoulder blade were fighting a lively war for her attention. She looked down at the pair of jeans she was wearing -- also Wexford's -- and thought to herself, //Where's the flood?// Three pairs of Wexford's socks helped her fit back into Kevin's sneakers, because trying to fit Meg's size ten feet into petite Wexford's shoes had been a lost cause. "Here," Wexford extended a closed fist to Meg. Meg opened her palm underneath it. "What is it?" "Another pain killer. But eat some of those crackers first." Wexford pointed down at Kevin's freshly stocked backpack, and obediently, Meg pulled out the sleeve of soda crackers and the bottle of water Wexford had packed for her. Twenty minutes later, the pain killer took its effect. Meg was still in pain, of course, but at least she could function. She was still shivering. Wexford reached forward again and draped a rough-woven, brown wool blanket over her. Meg tugged on it gratefully. "We're almost there," Pleather-boy announced, "fifteen minutes more." Meg nodded and for the next fifteen minutes rubbed her arms briskly to get them warmed up again. As Pleather-boy brought them in for a landing in a wide field, Meg wrapped her fingers around the seat belt and gritted her teeth. The drug seemed to lose its effect as the plane bounced against the ground and jolted Meg about. She gritted her teeth some more to keep from passing out yet again. Wexford rustled about, bringing forth the needed equipment as Cho turned off the Cessna. "Oh no," Wexford breathed. Meg was still hurting too much to turn around. "What is it?" "I didn't bring enough vaccine," she groaned. "There's only enough in this vial for two doses." "That's okay," Meg contended, "we only need the one for Kevin, right?" Wexford tapped her fingernails against the vial. "No. We need one for both of you, too. Just in case." Of course. Why hadn't Meg thought of that? "So only one of us can get the vaccine." Wexford shook her head in regret. "Cho should get it," Meg volunteered. "What?" Pleather-boy's eyes gaped at her. "My lady, you're the one who will be in closest contact with the virus. You should be vaccinated." "No matter what happens," Meg explained, "we still need you to fly us out of here. I can't fly a plane. Can you, Wexford?" Needle in one hand, vial in the other, Wexford shook her blond head silently. "Well, then," Meg swallowed and dug her fingers into the blanket, "that's settled. Cho, roll up your sleeve." His face wrenched in agony and went deathly pale. Meg frowned at him. "What now?" "I'm afraid of needles." Meg didn't have the energy to roll her eyes, but Wexford did it for her. "Yeah, well I'm afraid of being stuck here with two homicidal alien-human hybrids and an extraterrestrial virus," Meg muttered back at him. "Roll up your friggin' sleeve." "Aaah--" was his only response. "Cho," Meg shouted, "don't make me shoot you!" Apparently he was too scared to think that she wouldn't have shot him for the same reason she insisted he get the vaccination. With shaking fingers, Cho removed his pleather jacket. Underneath he wore --surprise! -- a black t-shirt. He stuck his arm towards Wexford and turned his head to the window. Offering no words of comfort, Wexford injected the serum into the vulnerable flesh at the inner fold of his elbow. She then handed the vial and a fresh syringe off to Meg. Meg dropped her blanket and accepted the two vital items. With clammy hands, Meg refilled the syringe and concealed it carefully, poised for attack, in the sleeve of the borrowed jacket. "Is it done yet?" Pleather-boy whimpered. The two young women exchanged dryly amused looks. "Done," both informed him. "Now restart the plane," Wexford ordered. "You shouldn't have turned it off in the first place." Pleather-boy put his jacket on again and obeyed. Wexford looked up, her eyes following the black sedan that approached their plane from across the field. "They're here." The last two Emilys rode in the car; Kevin Declan sat straight and unblinking in the back seat. With a shuddering breath, Meg turned to Wexford, ignoring the pinch in her shoulder. "Ready?" Wexford nodded, tapping her right jeans pocket, assuring herself that the weapon was still there. Then, she climbed over Meg and opened the door to step outside. Meg stayed where she was, according to the plan. "Don't forget," Wexford said in a serious voice, "you have to act quickly." Meg murmured quiet acknowledgement and squelched all her fears that, in her woundedness, she would not be quick enough. Meg dropped her head and feigned unconsciousness. //This is all part of the plan.// Voices had begun an exchange just outside of her window. Without moving her head, Meg listened carefully. She could barely hear what was going on over the hum of the plane and Pleather-boy's jagged breathing. "So, Wexford," a voice just like Wexford's called out through the dim, dusty air, "The wayward sheep returns to the flock." "Abbot," the woman beside Meg called back. "Let's make the exchange and get it over with." "So," another Emily sneered, "that's her there?" "Yes, Merchant," Wexford answered her, "she's unconscious but alive." "Too bad you didn't stay with us," one of the other voice said. "You could have learned enough to save her." Wexford must have ignored their laughter, because she did not retort. What felt like an eon passed before the door next to Meg opened up. Her fingers tightened around the syringe. Familiar fingers reached for her chin, tilted her face up to look at him. The gesture echoed of past tenderness. Her heart throbbed at the sight of Kevin's face. Her heart nearly died at the sight of Kevin's eyes. With a swift movement, Meg tore the possessed-Kevin's shirt collar aside with her left arm. With her right arm, she thrust the needle into the tender flesh just beside his collarbone. Her thumb pressed the plunger, and the vaccine disappeared into him. He blinked. Another swift movement, and Wexford had pulled him away so the black oil would pour out onto the ground and not onto an unvaccinated Meg. Horrified, Meg saw the virus oozing out of Kevin's eyes and mouth, turning his screams of agony into violent gurgles as the fluid poured forth from him. Meg dropped the empty syringe and unbuckled her seatbelt. She flung herself against the back wall of the cockpit, as she and Wexford had planned. Now, it was up to Wexford to help Kevin back into the cockpit and get herself in so Cho could fly them to safety in Kentucky. But too long of a moment went by, and Kevin was not yet in her arms. "Wexford!" Cho shouted. A struggle crackled outside the plane. Cho unbuckled himself and reached across the cockpit. Meg sat up and looked outside, watching as Cho grabbed Kevin by his shirt and dragged him up into the cockpit. Meg reached for him greedily, oblivious to the harmless film of dead virus that still remained on his skin. She pulled him to her, his name a murmur within her. A weak moan escaped Kevin's lips. Then, a strangled cry sounded a few yards away. Meg snapped her head up just in time to see one of the other Emilys twist Wexford's arm, forcing her to release the silver gimlet weapon. "WEXFORD!" Meg screamed. "NO!" Another Emily grabbed the weapon. It gleamed as she drove it into the base of Wexford's neck. Wexford's eyes widened. Then, her body fell limp upon the grasses of the field. Meg struggled to get out of the cockpit, but Cho shut her door with a curse and leapt back into his seat. "We can't just leave her there!" She shouted at Cho. Meg grasped the door handle to open it, but her fingers were slick with oil. "Let me out!" "If you go back there, you die too!" He shouted back over the increasing hum of the engine. "You know her blood is toxic to us!" Meg pounded her fists against the window in futile lament. "No..." Cho pointed the plane skyward and they took off. His voice was heavy with desolation as he told her, "There was nothing you could have done..." Meg pressed her fist to her mouth. She closed her eyes to the pain, which was now reaching her on all possible levels. "Meg?" Kevin's voice reached her through it all, however. She turned to him and he blinked at her, confused. Her body buckled as she crawled to him, crawling to the shore after swimming through a hurricane. His arms were weak and slack, but they were warm and safe as they encircled her. "You saved me..." His voice was full of wonder. She let her head fall against his chest, and unconsciousness claimed her once again. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When they landed at the new site, the Kentucky Trappist monastery, Meg was conscious once more, barely. Kevin was still very weak, but with Cho's help, he handed Meg over to her father, who scooped her up in his arms as if she were five again. Meg's father looked down at her, his expression pure worry. In a deadpan voice told her, "You're grounded." Still, behind his jokes, and behind her mother's doctor face, Meg became aware of something else -- something she was sure her parents themselves couldn't even recognize -- tucked away in the midst of their relief that she, Meg, would be safe. //I am a pale version of Samantha,// she thought dimly, //and a dark version of Melissa.// "You look at me," she murmured in a faltering voice, "and you see two ghosts." Their eyes told her they did not understand what she meant, that they thought she was speaking out of delirium. Over all the commotion, Meg heard Cho relating what had happened to Wexford. "See? We're equals now." Meg whispered up to her father. Then, she looked at her mother and said, "I've lost a sister, too." Her mother's eyes began to glisten. Her father drew a sharp breath as he continued carrying her into the safety of the monastery. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kevin was feeling like his old self again less than twenty-four hours later, and he immediately claimed for his own the chair right next to Meg's bed. Cho had found a chess set for them, and once Meg was able to sit up again without pain, and when they weren't talking, they had begun to play. At night when Meg slept, Kevin remained in his chair, his head leaning on the side of Meg's bed. If she napped during the day, Kevin simply held her hand and gazed at her, silent and wondering. One time, Meg's parents were coming in for another of their frequent visits, and they found Kevin watching over their daughter this way. Mulder placed a hand on his partner's shoulder and whispered into her ear, "Does that look at all familiar to you?" Scully laughed softly, leaning against him. "Maybe a little." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Weeks had passed. The sweetness of the summer night called out to Meg through the tiny windows of her basement office in the monastery. She'd been spending so much time on her latest project -- learning Swahili -- because, for the first time in her life, so much depended on it. She was now part of something important. When she first had made the suggestion as to how her gifts could be used for this purpose, her parents had needed much persuasion before they reluctantly agreed. They needed her gift for multi- lingual gab, but they hesitated to expose her to more danger. Then, the first time she had helped them communicate with the resistance in Japan, she had turned to her father with a self- satisfied smirk: "And you said I should have taught high school!" In two more weeks she and Kevin, with Cho as their pilot, would be leaving for Africa to distribute some of the vaccine. Because they all knew the date was set. They simply did not have the luxury of knowing when that date would be. Meg wandered through the halls to the nearest exit, which led out to the vineyard. Removing her shoes, she walked among the grapevines, marveling at the twinkling of fireflies among the leaves and the ripening grapes. Ordinary fireflies. Nothing to fear. She smiled and wiggled her toes deeper into the velvety wet grass. Behind her, someone cleared his throat. She turned and smiled at Kevin, who carried a jug of the monastery's sweet wine. Meg had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday a week and a half before. "Did you finally get in contact with your mom?" She asked him. Her voice was soft on the humid night air. "Yeah, thanks to those three ancient geeks." He was referring to the Lone Gunmen. "That scrambler they gave us sure comes in handy for stuff like that." "They're angels, aren't they?" Her voice dripped sarcasm. "They can't be all bad," he answered her. "After all, they did adopt Schrodinger and Mr. Bigglesworth for you." "Yeah. Mom and Dad thought that was hilarious." "Where are they, anyway?" "My parents?" Meg shrugged. "They went to bed." Kevin looked at his watch. "It's only ten o'clock." Meg shrugged again. Kevin snickered. "You know what they're doing, don't you?" "Eeeeeewwww! Yuck! Puh-lease, Kevin!" Meg shuddered at him. "Don't even make me think-- ugh!" He laughed and offered her an earthenware mug, which she took and held as Kevin poured the wine, first for Meg, then for himself. Kevin held his mug up to her in a toast. "To our parents." Meg clinked her mug against his and took a sip. The wine was warm and sweet. "You miss your mom, don't you?" Kevin swallowed his sip of wine and placed the jug down in the grass. His voice was sad as he answered, "Yeah, I do." "You don't have to stay, you know." She almost hoped that he wouldn't. This work was so dangerous, and he was only involved in the first place because of her... Kevin shook his head. "No, I do. I need to be a part of this." Meg stepped closer to him. "Why?" Kevin sighed and looked up at the sky. "Remember when I was in the hospital, after I -- well, you know?" After he had slit his wrists. Meg nodded. "Your grandmother came to visit me. She asked me how I felt. I told her I felt worthless, because I was going to end up just like my dad..." The dad who had left Kevin and his mother when Kevin was only nine. "... and she told me something I will never forget. She said, 'God puts good people in the way of evil plans.' I didn't understand what she meant... and then all this happened. I thought at the time that maybe she meant you, or maybe that I was a good person in spite of my dad. But now it means something totally different to me. "I think it means that all this happened for a reason, that we were put here for a purpose --" "--to get in //Their// way," Meg finished for him. Kevin nodded at her, his dark eyes locking with hers. With her free hand, she tugged thoughtfully on her Miraculous Medal. The silver of the Medal warmed at her touch. Meg looked up at the sky, then back at Kevin. She raised her mug to him and he raised his in return. Meg's eyes twinkled at him in the darkness. She toasted: for Grandma Scully, for Emily Sim and Emily Wexford. For Melissa. For Samantha. For all the lost. For all their lives still meant, even in the loss. "To getting in //Their// way." Kevin laughed a solemn, reverent laugh. "To getting in //Their// way." Their mugs met. END 11/11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit The Basement Office:http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htm "I just want to be taken away to some place where I don't have to worry about finding a job."