From: cathylex@aol.com
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 12:05:47 GMT
Subject: New: The Children's Teeth: Litany 1/31

New:  The Children's Teeth: Litany (1/31)
by Erin (c) -- CathyLex@aol.com

DISCLAIMERS, etc. in "The Children's Teeth: Prescript"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Litany - a prayer with responses, in public
worship."

Webster's New Dictionary and Thesaurus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


January 23, 2024



Meg had lost so much weight recently that Kevin
was starting to worry about her.  Really worry,
even more than usual.  Meg had always been
slender to begin with, but lately she'd become
downright skinny.

When they were still just kids, his mom had
always told her, "You just need to grow into
those legs of yours, Megabyte."

"Coltish," Gram Scully had always said.  Legs
too long for the rest of her body.

Then when they were taking on New York City
together, he used to think to himself that she had
finally grown into her legs.  She was still tall and
thin -- "gawky" as she liked to call herself -- but
to his eyes it was a willowy kind of thin.  Her
muscles had been smooth beneath both the
business suits she wore to her internship at the
French Consulate and the t-shirts and jeans she
wore on the subway over to his apartment for
nights of old movies and bad Indian takeout.

Within the first weeks of the invasion, willowy
had become wiry.  She'd been doing too much
work on not enough food, carrying so much in
her frame pack sometimes he was genuinely
afraid she'd tip over backwards from the weight.
As they packed for each trip, he would try to
convince her not to take so much of the vaccine
with her and to pack more food instead.

"S'matter, Kev?"  She smirked, "you afraid a girl
can carry more than you?"

Now he hefted his own heavy pack higher onto
his shoulders and heard the vials of serum rattle
within.  Meg was fiddling with the compass.
Absently, she pushed the sweat- and rain-damp
sleeve caps of her t-shirt up onto her shoulders,
revealing her upper arms knotted with muscle
from climbing mountains, lifting overstuffed
backpacks, digging graves for strangers and
carrying away the empty shells of digested
bodies.

That part he would never get used to.  They'd
been traveling for well over a year now to so
many places, and their efforts just seemed like
such a drop in the proverbial bucket.  But they
kept fighting their little fight, making pinprick
dents wherever they could.

Someday, this would be over.  This would be
over and they would laugh about it.  If they lived.

"Are we lost yet?"  Cho, their pilot -- now hiking
companion -- asked as he pulled the black
pleather baseball cap off of his head and wiped
the sweat from his forehead.

Meg held up a finger to silence him.  Looking
from the compass to the sun peeking through the
forest canopy, and back to the compass again,
she shook her head.  "I know where we're going."

The skin of Meg's biceps, once Irish-pale, now
turned red with continued exposure.

"Meg," Kevin reminded her, "sunscreen."

She turned her turquoise eyes on him with a
faintly irritated grimace.  "Jeez, Kev.  Who died
and made you nag-meister?"

He couldn't help but smile a little.

She slipped the compass back onto her belt and
pointed.  "That way."

He had to ask.  "Are you sure?"

Meg gave an indignant huff.  "How many times
have I been wrong about these things?"

"That one time in Romania," Cho piped in.

Meg shrugged.  "Okay, that one time."

"Australian Outback," Kevin said, "and that's all
I'm going to say."

"Fine.  Twice."

Cho said, "What about that time when--"

"Okay, okay, I get it!"  Meg rolled her eyes and
slapped her compass irritably.  "I miss those old
GPS thingers.  They made this navigation
business so much easier."

"I miss satelites," Cho grumbled.

"I miss air conditioning," added Meg, "and I miss
temperate climates."

"And I miss lower altitudes and easy breathing,"
Cho said with a slight wheeze.

"Oh, great," Kevin muttered, "here we go again
with The Litany."

"The Litany" was what Kevin had named this
game of theirs -- a game to pass the time, their
call and response of what each of them missed.
They trudged through jungle and desert and
deciduous forest, or flew Cho's plane from tiny
airfield to tiny airfield, and when things got
boring or too melancholy, someone would begin
The Litany with the wry words, "I miss..."

"Your turn, Kev," Meg said to Kevin as she
turned her back and began hiking through the
rainforest, wielding her machete to clear a new
path.

Kevin fell into step behind his best friend and
sighed, trying to think of his own contribution to
The Litany.  "I miss... pizza."

Meg laughed.  "Kevin Declan, you *always* miss
pizza."

"I'm sorry," he answered, pushing at the branch
that had just thwacked him in the face, "I guess
I'm just not as creative as you two."

They marched to the beat of Meg's swinging
machete, Meg and Cho trading calls in The
Litany.

"I miss soaking in hot bubble baths."

"I miss just plain old showers."

"I miss nail polish."

"I miss deodorant."

"I miss you *wearing* deodorant, Cho.  Phew!"

They bickered back and forth like that, like
brother and sister, for minutes, and Kevin waxed
jealous.  Again.  It used to be Kevin who held
such verbal exchanges with Meg: on the
playground in the earliest days, or in front of the
computer games they shared back and forth, or
when she helped him with his Spanish homework
or he helped her with calculus... the good old
days.

Unbelieveable.  He was reminiscing over the
good old days at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

Those days were gone now.  His childhood
playmate had become a warrior.  What was that
old TV show?  Somebodyorother, Warrior
Princess.  In his mind, he made the substitution:
Meg Mulder, Warrior Princess.  He began to
smile to himself.  Then, he began to sweat even
more profusely as thoughts of Meg in leather
sprung to mind.

Inappropriate thoughts.  Unacceptable thoughts.
Unavoidable thoughts as his best friend battered
their way through the rainforest ahead of him, her
well-defined calf muscles flexing with each step.

Battle on, Meg.

"What're you laughing at, Kevin?"  Meg called
over her shoulder.

Kevin straightened his face.  "I wasn't laughing."

She actually stopped and turned to see his face,
flicking one of her lopsided smiles his way.
"Were too laughing.  Or at least grinning like you
just won Publisher's Clearinghouse."

Damn.  How did she *do* that?  Know he was
smiling without even seeing him?  Hoping her
pseudo-psychic powers did not let her see the
thoughts he'd just been entertaining, he shrugged
innocently.  Meg didn't quite look like she was
buying it.  He tried to think of something
distracting to say, but lucky for him the weather
obligingly provided diversion enough.

"Here we go with the rain again," he told Meg,
inwardly reflecting on how incredibly *stupid* he
sounded.

"We just *had* to go to Ecuador during the rainy
season," Cho whined behind them.  "Figures."

"It's always the rainy season in Ecuador," Meg
yelled over the *thwack! thwack! thwack!* of
her machete and the increasing pounding of the
monster-sized raindrops.

"At least it's chasing the bugs away," Kevin
offered.

"Yeah, thanks for the optimism, Kev," Meg said.

"Well, the bugs around here *are* huge," Kevin
defended.

"Stupid rain.  I can't see a thing."  Meg halted
their progress.  "Kev, reach into the top outside
pouch of my pack's rain cover and get my hat
out."

"Your adventure hat?"

She nodded, turning slightly.  "Now I know
you're laughing."

Kevin reached and unzipped the pocket.  "Only
on the inside."

"What do you have against my adventure hat?"

Kevin handed the khaki-colored //chapeau// to his
friend.  "I have nothing against your adventure
hat.  It just looks more suited to fishing for sea
bass than to our current line of work."

"You're just jealous," she snickered back,
reaching up to rub her palm against his dark
scalp, "'cause ever since you lost your hat
somewhere in California you've had to keep your
head shaved so we don't see you with nappy-
hair."

He closed his eyes briefly at the sensation of
Meg's hand against his stubbly hair.  "That's not
why I keep my hair this short, Meg."

"Is too!"

Now they *were* fighting like brother and sister
again, but this wasn't quite what he'd been hoping
for.  He wasn't quite sure what he *did* want,
but this certainly wasn't it.

"It's just more convenient this way," Kevin finally
answered.

Meg jammed her "adventure hat" onto her head
and turned to walk forward again.

And then she was gone.

Before panic could even register in his brain,
before he could even call her name over the
deepening rainstorm, the ground gave way
beneath Kevin's feet, and he was on his face,
hurtling down the side of the mountain behind
Meg.  A high-pitched scream from behind
revealed that Gerald Cho had fallen victim to a
similar fate.

Mud and rocks smacked his face, and he could
neither breathe nor see.  Fortunately or
unfortunately, a well-placed rock hit him in the
side with enough force to flip him over onto his
frame pack.  An involuntary holler escaped him,
but a wash of mud plugged his mouth shut.  He
choked.

And then, the ride was over just as quickly as it
had begun, throwing Kevin -- backpack and all --
against Meg, who had come to an abrupt halt in a
huge puddle.  He was hit again, this time by Cho.
The three of them, sputtering and gasping,
collected in the overflowing puddle like three
pool balls sunk in a pocket.

Kevin dragged his arm across the bottom of his
nose, clearing it of the sludge that had found its
way up there.  He coughed up several mouthfuls
of slick black mud.  His memory, in return,
coughed up images of when he himself had been
infected with the alien oil... the memory of raw
consciousness dawning with wrenching pain as
the stuff left him in violent gurgles.  A cold, dark
chill settled over him at the thought, and he sat in
the puddle, frozen.

He'd heard of people who had memory
blockages.  He wished he could have been so
lucky as to forget that moment of his life.

A sharp, falsetto yelp cracked him out of his
trance.  It was Meg's yelp.  He looked over and
saw her pushing her mud-soaked hair out of her
face with one hand, wiping her eyes with the
other.

"Hoo-boy!" She was laughing. "This is turnin' out
to be one *hell* of a mornin'!"

"Wow," Cho said in wonder, pulling his hat down
more tightly around his head.  "That was like
something out of a movie!"

Kevin glared at their pilot, who was exhibiting his
characteristic lack of grounding in reality.

"Too bad it's not a movie, Pleather Boy," Meg
said to Cho, struggling to get up.  "In movies,
none of the characters lose their hats."

Kevin briefly forgot his previous dread when he
saw that Meg's adventure hat had fallen off in the
mudslide.

Meg caught him laughing at her openly this time,
and she shook her head.  She pointed to the sky.
"*This* is why I don't wear sunscreen."

The three of them helped each other up, checked
each other for injuries, and, finding only scrapes
and bruises and soreness, they resumed their trek.
The rain did not let up until just before nightfall,
just before they reached the makeshift village of
their destination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ahhh.  There's my beauty," Cho breathed as they
came into visual range of the airfield and his new
mini-cargo plane.  He waved at the silhouette
standing by the plane, waving back at them
through the darkness.

"Who?"  Meg snickered, "the plane or the
//mamita// standing beside it?"

"My Lady Mulder," Cho said with sincerest
gravity, "no other than you could so verily steal
away my heart.  Veronica is nothing, a mere
carnation, compared to--"

"Cho, how many times do I have to tell you to
cut the 'My Lady' crap?"

Cho bowed to Meg as a servant might bow to the
Queen of Hearts, his backpack nearly tipping him
forward.  He caught himself just before he fell flat
on his face, and a slight blush tinted his cheeks.
Meg shook her mud-crusted curls and began
leading their descent to the airfield.  Kevin
followed them down to the plane.

"//Hola, Veronica!//" Meg called.

"//Margarita, como esta?//"

The two of them rattled conversation to and fro
//en Espan~ol//, and Kevin tuned them out.  He'd
barely passed the three mandatory years of high
school Spanish.  As he and Cho tossed their
packs into the plane, the only sense he could
make out of their words included something
about a bath.

Vernoica snickered at their state of cleanliness --
or lack thereof.  "//Tienen que ban~arse.//"

Meg snorted and nodded.

"Can we wash up here?"  Kevin asked Meg.

Grinning, she nodded back at him, just as
Veronica began chattering in Spanish once more,
handing Meg a piece of off-white paper and
talking to her in a tense voice.  Spanish or not,
Kevin could understand that Veronica's words
were not translating to good.

Meg frowned and took the paper out of their
Ecuadorian cohort's hand.  "German," Meg
reported aloud in English.  So that meant it was a
message from her mother, Doc Scully.

Meg's brow furrowed more deeply, and then she
gave a small gasp.  "Ohmygod..."

Kevin's heart contracted at the sound.  "Meg?
What's wrong?"

"What is it, my lady?"

Instead of arching her eyebrow at him in
irritation, Meg reached out to Cho and gave him
a soft, tentative hug.  Kissing him lightly on the
cheek, Meg whispered in Cho's ear.
"Something's happened.  We have to get home."

Kevin felt the familiar yet irrational flare of
jealousy stab at him once again, until Meg
translated the message into English out loud for
their benefit.

Thoughts of a bath and fresh clothes fled his mind
as Kevin followed Meg into Cho's retrofitted
twenty four-passenger plane.  Forget the other
deliveries they were supposed to make over the
next three weeks.  They needed to return to home
base.

If they weren't already too late.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We'll be touching down near Havana to refuel,
since I was expecting to go to Quito next, and
not all the way back north," Cho told them.  Meg
Mulder nodded and briefly thanked God for
Gerald Cho, their pilot and the youngest of the
Lone Gunmen.  The kid might have been a bit of
a flake, but he was a damn fine pilot, caring for
both plane and passengers alike.

Even if Kevin could be a bit cold to him
sometimes.

Meg turned and looked at her best friend, smiling
at him in reassurance.

"How ya doin', Prince Charm-less?"  She asked
him, trying to get him to laugh, even just a little.

He smiled for her benefit, but the smile did not
reach his eyes.

Meg knew Kevin did not like to fly.  She knew
what he did like:  roller coasters, rappelling down
cliffs, and as a boy he'd loved climbing trees and
dizzyingly-high jungle gyms.  But he did not like
airplanes.

*My Kevin is a complex man,* her brain
reflected, just in time for another side of her brain
to ask, *Since when did you start thinking of him
as 'your Kevin'?*

*Probably some time in college,* the other part
of her brain retorted.  She was used to these
thoughts by now.  She schooled herself to ignore
them.  Sometimes it even worked.

They descended to another "safe" runway -- one
they'd used in the past whenever they were en
route to South America.  Whenever, that is, they
were en route to South America ever since
colonization had gotten seriously underway.
Cuban Communists didn't seem such a threat to
Americans now that there were bigger fish to fry.
Metaphorically speaking.

Meg tried pulling her fingers through her hair, but
without much success.  Her curls were still caked
with the results of the rainforest mudslide.  She
indulged herself in a brief stab of embarrassment
at looking like such a mud bug in public.
Embarrassment was ultimately easier to deal with
than the raw sorrow that kept threatening to
overtake her ever since she had read the message
from her mother, the message that had told
them...

No.  //Non.// //Nyet.//  If she could translate it
into another of her languages, she wouldn't have
to feel the sharpness of the loss right now.  She
needed to stop thinking about it.  There wasn't
anything she could do about it until they got back
home anyway.  And even then, there wouldn't be
much more to do than grieve.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and followed Cho, a.
k. a. "Pleather Boy," out to the refueling area.
She needed to translate Ivan the airfield guy's
Spanish for him.  No.  She just needed to get out
and walk a bit, to clear her head.

The door reopened behind her, and she heard
Kevin step out to follow her like a protective
shadow.  She channeled her emotions into
irritation at Kevin's hovering -- the same old
irritation as always.

*You would think by now that Kevin would have
realized that I'm twenty-two, not the third grader
who needed him to stop her from picking fights
with the fifth grade boys.*

But even as she thought that, Meg realized that
the fifth grade boys weren't in fifth grade
anymore, and she was still picking fights with
them.  She was picking fights with Them.

With a heavy sigh, she stepped more forcefully
behind Cho and greeted old Ivan, the refueling
guy, with a falsely cheerful "Hola!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kevin followed Meg.  She didn't look well.
Truthfully, none of them looked well, himself
included, but Meg almost looked as bad as Cho.
This loss was hitting them all hard, but especially
Meg and Cho.  They'd both been pretty close to
him, and by now he was probably gone...

But in the here and now, right before his eyes,
something caught and demanded Kevin's
immediate attention.  He wasn't quite sure what it
was about the old man who suddenly appeared
from behind another plane, but something about
the stranger set Kevin at instant unease.  Maybe it
was the way his steps seemed to be unbearably
calculated, like a dancer's or a cat's.  Maybe it
was the way his old looking but well-kept leather
jacket hung on his frame, suggesting a vicious,
unnatural youthfulness.

Or maybe it was the simple fact that he seemed to
be approaching Meg for no good reason at all.

Forget "seemed."  He *was* approaching Meg,
and he was doing so with a concentrated purpose
shooting from deep within his dark eyes.

Cho was talking to Ivan, shouting at him in
English to gas up the plane.

"Pleather Boy," Meg told him, exasperated, "he
can't understand you any better if you're--"

She stopped mid-sentence.  The old man Kevin
had been watching had reached her.  She hadn't
seen him until he was standing directly next to
her, looking her up and down in a way that Kevin
didn't like.  No, he didn't like that at all.  Kevin
suddenly found himself wishing he had a gun of
his own, wishing desperately that he'd taken Meg
up on her offer to teach him to shoot like she
could.  His own aim was not the best it could
have been.  If only he'd swallowed his pride and
asked her for help...

Meg said something to the man in Spanish, but
she said it so softly Kevin had no hope of
understanding it.  He could tell it was a question,
though, by the way she tilted her head at him --
arrogantly, with one eyebrow cocked as if at an
errant child.  She'd bestowed that look on Kevin
enough times that he could recognize it
immediately.

The man reached out with his right hand,
insolently caressing Meg'scheek with his index
finger, drawing a line down around her jawbone,
and stopping to hold her chin gently between his
thumb and finger.

Oh, did Kevin want that gun.

The man said something to her in return, but
Kevin could not understand that either.  Cho had
since turned to watch the exchange, just in time
to stare as the old man stalked away from Meg,
the deepening night embracing him in shadows.

Beneath the traces of mud, Kevin saw that Meg's
face had paled and lost all markings of its former
arrogance. Again watching the retreating
stranger, Kevin rushed to Meg's side.
Tentatively, he reached out and rested a hand on
her arm.  She jumped involuntarily at his touch.
He pulled away on instinct.

Wide-eyed, Cho leaned over to Meg.  "What did
that German guy say to you?"

Frowning, she answered him. "It wasn't German.
It was Russian."

Kevin could sense her uneasiness.  "What did it
mean?"

"I'm not sure," she whispered, stiffening her back,
"but it sounded like--"

She stopped to swallow, hard.  It was all Kevin
could do to keep from reaching out and wrapping
his arms around her, to hell with what she
thought or how she felt about her "Pleather Boy."

Taking a deep breath, she began again.  "It
sounded like 'Daddy's little girl.'"

Kevin's mouth had long since gone dry. "What?"

Then, Meg shook her head.  "I don't know.  I
could be getting the idioms wrong or something."

"Meg," Kevin said, his own unease growing by
the second, were that possible.  "You never get
the idioms wrong."

"Which is precisely why this disturbs me so
much," she shot back.

Kevin looked up to see where the man had gone,
but the lights around the airfield only revealed so
much.  Cold dread crept up on him and settled in
for a good long stay.

"Weird," he murmured.

"Creepy," agreed Cho, shuddering visibly.

Meg, deathly still but looking after Russian-
speaker with anxious eyes, spoke as if to herself.
"Downright spooky."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I think it's getting to the point
where I can be myself again.
It's getting to the point
where we have almost made amends
I think it's the getting to the point
that is the hardest part."

--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gethsemani Monastery
Trappist, Kentucky
January 24, 2024


Dawn was well on its way by the time they
landed in Kentucky.  A light January frost tickled
the rolling fields, and the crisp grasses crunched
under their feet as they began walking from the
plane over to the monastery, or "home base" as
Meg and Kevin had dubbed it.

Through the morning light, someone was coming
to meet them.

"Mom..." Meg's tired voice called across the
field.

She quickened her steps as much as she could,
but she was far too tired to break into a run,
especially since she was still toting a frame pack
on her shoulders.  When they met at last, Meg
reached down and awkwardly hugged her
mother, and Dana Scully wrapped her arms
around her daughter and her daughter's backpack
in return.

"Meggie," her mother whispered into Meg's
cheek.  "You got my message."

Meg pulled back and looked into her mother's
face.  She could tell the older woman had been
crying, though her eyes were clear and dry now.

Meg asked, "Is he...?"

Her mother nodded, obviously negotiating her
speech around the lump in her throat.  "Last
night, around seven."

All of them turned to watch Cho's reaction, the
one who had been the closest to him.  Cho
straightened his back, removed his black pleather
hat almost prayerfully and whispered, "A brother
falls."

In a move of unexpected sympathy, Kevin patted
Cho kindly on the back.

A lump formed in Meg's throat.  She swallowed it
and pressed her fingers to her eyelids.  "Byers
and Langly?"

"They went to bed not too long ago," her mother
answered. "Finally."

"Where's Daddy?"

"He was right behind me just a--"

"Good golly, Miss Molly!" Her father's voice
interrupted, still from a few yards away.

Meg crossed the field, meeting her father
halfway.  Smirking softly, she greeted him.  "Hey,
Mulder."

"Hey, Mulder," he murmured back to her.  When
the elder Mulder reached and tightened his arms
around Meg, she hissed sharply, as if something
hurt.  He held her at arms length and asked,
"What's the matter?"

Still wincing, she answered, "I'm fine, Daddy."

"Don't give me that 'I'm fine' crap.  I get enough
of it from your mother."

"I heard that," Scully retorted just as she released
Kevin Declan from his own welcome-home hug.

Meg just barely laughed.  "Seriously, Dad.  It's
nothing.  Just a little misadventure we had down
an Ecuadorian hillside."

"How little a misadventure?"  Mulder directed the
question to Kevin, who, in response, grew wide-
eyed like a deer in headlights.  Kevin liked Meg's
dad enough, but he hated answering to Mr.
Mulder -- especially in regards to Meg's safety.  It
made him incredibly nervous.

"What?"  Meg demanded of her father. "You
don't trust me to tell you the truth?"

Smiling, he ruffled her muddy hair.  "Not the
whole truth."

"Gee, I wonder where I learned *that* bad habit,
then," Meg grumbled, her voice suddenly bitter.

Her father stopped and frowned at her.  "What's
that supposed to mean?"

Meg shrugged at him, her own face just as blank
as her father's was.  Mulder could have sworn he
heard her mumble something along the lines of "if
the shoe fits," but he didn't get a chance to ask
Meg to clarify further.  She had already turned
her back on him and resumed her walk back to
the monastery.

"Come on, guys," Meg called over her shoulder,
her voice heavy with sorrow, "let's go."

Placing a chivalrous kiss on Scully's hand and
bowing respectfully to Mulder, Cho departed to
catch up with Meg, leaving Mulder, Scully, and
Kevin Declan behind in their wake.

Kevin looked at each of his friend's parents in
turn.  Finally, he shrugged sheepishly.  "I'm sorry
about the loss of your friend... and I'm sorry
about Meg.  You know... how she gets...
sometimes."

As Kevin began running after Meg, Scully took
her partner's arm with a quiet sigh.  "Yes," she
said out loud, "yes, I know exactly how she
gets..."

Then, they both followed their daughter and
friends back to the monastery.  Somewhere along
the way, Meg slowed down enough that first
Pleather Boy, then Kevin, then her parents caught
up with her.  She didn't say why she seemed to be
waiting for them.  She just did.

When all five of them reached the monastery
entrance hall, the place was eerily silent.  The
three young people looked around suspiciously.

"The sisters are at meditation," Scully explained
to them in a whisper, so as not to disturb their
hosts, "and the monks are doing their chores."

The kids nodded and began removing their packs.

"Hey.  We'll put these away for you," Mulder told
them, keeping his own voice down.  "Why don't
you go wash up?  Looks like you could use it."

Too tired to say or even think of any sarcastic
responses, Meg, Kevin and Cho trudged off into
the winding halls of the monastery's main house,
looking for showers and soap and towels.

Scully took Mulder's hand and began leading him
to the kitchen, but he stopped her.

"What?" she asked sofly.

In a fluid motion, he pulled her into his arms and
held her tightly, wordlessly.

"Mulder," she mumbled into his shirt, "the kids
have got to be hungry.  Who knows when they
ate last?"

"I know," he whispered into the top of her head.
"It's just..."

His voice trailed off.  More than thirty years as
partners, and they still weren't good with words
for each other.

At least now they tried.

"It was just his time, Mulder," Scully said as
much to him as to herself.  "We both know that.
And vaccination and Kevlar and paranoia couldn't
protect him from everything..."

Mulder cut her off gently.  "You miss him, too."

"Of course I miss him."  She allowed herself a
small, bittersweet smile.  "He was a good friend."

With his thumb, he brushed away the small tear
that had trickled down her cheek.  "Then keeping
busy isn't going to make you miss him any less."

"Mulder, when did you become so calm and
rational?"

"It must have been while you weren't looking."

They stood there like that, holding each other and
grieving in silence, for a good five solid minutes.
Then Scully let go, ground the tears from her
eyes with her fingertips, and tugged on her
partner's arm once more.

"Let's go, Mulder.  Let's see if we can't put some
breakfast together for the kids."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Thanks, Doctor S.," Kevin said as he sat down
to a plateful of fried potatoes.

"Yum.  Potatoes.  How very Irish.  Getting me in
touch with my heritage, Mom?"  Meg asked as
she picked up her fork.

"More like we're getting you in touch with the
only food available right now," was her father's
answer.

"If we were getting you fully in touch with your
heritage I would have had your dad make these
into latkes," her mother smirked as she put a
plate down in front of Gerald Cho.

Cho looked at it listlessly but made no move to
eat.

Meg got up and made for the pantry.  "Do we
have any peanut butter?"

"Peanut butter?  On potatoes?" Kevin laughed.
"Meg, you are one sick and twisted girl."

"It's a gift, Kev," she answered, "a gift."

Everyone but Cho was laughing as well.

"Her grandmother and I used to joke," Scully
said, "that when the day came we'd always be
able to tell if Meg was pregnant because she'd
finally start to eat like a normal person."

Meg came out of the pantry carrying a jar of
peanut butter in her right hand and an expression
of bitterness on her face.  "Yeah, well, too bad
Gram won't be around to see that day, huh?"

Scully turned hurt eyes on her daughter, who
refused to even glance at her mother.  Scully
blinked twice and went back to frying potatoes.
Mulder coughed uncomfortably.

"Meg," Kevin admonished in a whisper.

Meg didn't even look up at him.  She simply sat
down, opened the peanut butter jar and began
applying the contents liberally to her potatoes.

An uncomfortable silence grew among the five of
them like a bunch of weeds.  After minutes of
staring at his plate but not touching it, Cho
looked up with tears in his eyes.

"How did it happen?"

Meg and Kevin both stopped eating.  Mulder put
his coffee cup down and released a ragged sigh.
Scully turned off the heat underneath the frying
pan and took a seat at the table next to her
partner.

Reaching out to take Cho's hand, she said, "He
had a heart attack three days ago.  He was
helping Scott and Keyte move out crates of the
hybrids' serum..."

As Scully continued to relate the story of how
she'd been able to artificially resuscitate him at
first, Meg noted how even her mother's voice
sounded despite how tired she must have been.

"He was in a coma until last night," Mulder added
when Scully's voice became too dry to go on.

Scully took a sip from her water glass and
continued.  "We did all we could, but--"

Her voice dropped off again, and Cho's grip on
her hand tightened.

Raising his head, he asked, "You gave him
artificial resuscitation?"

Scully nodded at him, her own eyes glistening
with unshed tears.

"Then he received his greatest wish before he
died," Cho said, his voice cracking with
unchecked emotion, "a kiss from the fair Agent
Scully, with whom he was deeply enamored."

Kevin turned aside so Meg wouldn't catch him
wiping his eyes.

"Jesus, Cho," Meg breathed on a sob, "break my
heart."

At that, Cho dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs
of his own and dropped his head onto the table.
In an instant, both Meg and her mother had
seated themselves on either side of him, wrapping
their arms around him.

"He was the closest thing I've ever had to a
father," Cho cried, and Kevin turned his face
forward again to listen.  "I mean, I don't
remember my parents.  I never told that to any of
you, did I?  I don't remember them.  I was raised
in foster homes.  And then I found their magazine
when I was thirteen, and all I wanted to do was
become one of them.  Gerald Cho, Lone
Gunman.  And when they finally answered all my
emails and told me they could use a pilot..."

His words were becoming unintelligible.  Meg
was stunned.  She'd always called Frohike "The
Janitor," because that's what he reminded her of.
He'd always called her "Sweetheart" at worst, or
"The Kid" at best, because there was only room
for one "Mulder" in this their world of last-name-
only forms of address.  She'd never before
thought of him as anybody's father figure.  Cho's
confession made the loss even more
heartbreaking.

When Cho's crying softened some, Scully patted
him on the back and suggested that he get some
sleep. Almost obediently, Cho nodded and got up
from the table.

"I'll go with you," Kevin said, pushing away from
the table as well.  Both Kevin's and Cho's
bedrooms were in the same wing of the huge
house.

Meg looked up and smiled at Kevin, inwardly
amazed at how compassionate he could be when
needed.

"Meggie, honey, you should get some sleep, too,"
Scully told her daughter.

Watching Kevin and Cho leave, Meg nodded.
"Yeah, I should, but I have a question first."

"What's wrong?" Mulder asked.

Meg stared directly at her father.

//Lookie here,// had been Frohike's words when
he'd first seen Meg, //that's a Scully allright.//

Blinking away the tears, Meg gathered the
courage she needed to ask the question that had
been bothering her ever since Havana.

"You wouldn't happen to know any Russian speakers,
would you?"

Meg waited patiently for an answer as her parents
exchanged worried looks.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Will these evildoers never learn,
They who eat up my people
Just as they eat bread?"
--Psalm 14: 4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meg's patience, however, was not as strong as
was her parents' reluctance to speak.

Her father stood up and took her gently by the
hand.  "Why don't you go get some sleep, Miss
Molly, and we'll talk about it later?"

Meg stood up too but forcefully wrenched her
hand out of her father's grasp.  "Damnit, Dad.
How much longer do you plan on keeping me in
the dark like this?"

Hurt, Mulder pulled his hand back.  "I tried
explaining it to you as much as I could.  That
letter I left you--"

"Oh, that letter?"  Meg's eyes narrowed with
pent-up anger.  "The letter that I wasn't meant to
get until after you were *really* dead?  Yeah,
some explanation that was!"

"It was the best thing I could think of," Mulder
yelled back.  "You were just a girl.  We only
wanted to protect you!"

"Protect me?"  Meg asked incredulously.  "How
was that protecting me?  How was letting me
think you were dead for two years protecting me?
Making me bury my grandmother *alone* when I
wasn't even nineteen -- how was that protecting
me?"

This last question Meg directed at her mother,
but her mother's only immediate response was a
very, very pained look.

"You could have found some other way to let me
know what was out there," Meg continued,
"something better than a -- than a posthumous
letter.  I mean, you had eighteen years with me
before this noble cause of yours *called* you
both out of my life without even so much as a
warning shot.  *Eighteen* years, Dad!  That's ten
more than *your* father had with Samantha!"

Even as she was saying the words, Meg knew she
had crossed an unspoken line. She clamped her
hand over her own mouth to prevent any more
damage from escaping.

Her father looked at her in icy shock, a defeat in
his eyes of which Meg never before had seen the
like.

It was too late.  She had gone too far.

"Oh God, Daddy," Meg whispered through her
fingers.  "I shouldn't have-- I didn't mean-- I was
just--"

But nothing could change what she had said.

Frohike's death, Cho's sadness, the words and the
touch of that Russian stranger, the unrelenting
stress of this unworldly struggle... all of it held a
magnifying glass to the feelings of betrayal Meg
had been burying ever since she'd found her
parents again after their supposed death.  Tears
bit at her eyelids.

"I'm sorry," Meg said as she looked down at her
mother.  "I'm -- I'm just not going to talk
anymore."

"Meg," her father called in a voice aching with
distance.

"I'm going to bed."  Meg stood in the doorway
and shook her head without meeting either of her
parents' eyes.  "We'll talk about it later."

And with that, she turned and left for the
bedroom she used when staying at the monastery;
the bedroom the sisters in the monastery called
"Sister Michael Joan's room." Sister Michael
Joan's room was given to Meg because Sister
Michael Joan was dead -- another casualty in this
quiet war.  And the woman the sisters called
"Michael Joan" Meg knew better as Emily
Camille Wexford.  Emily clone C, the only sister
Margaret Grace Mulder had ever known.

Meg Mulder did not permit herself the luxury of
tears until she was curled up in her dead sister's
bed, clutching the wire bound notebook Emily C.
Wexford had left behind for Meg, her little sister.
That Emily had left her story for Meg... but it
was only part of the story.  Meg's parents were
holding on to some more of that story, but they
hadn't seen fit to pass it on to her yet.  Their own
daughter, the one who should have known most
of all.

And then, at last, Meg cried for all she had lost.
Her trust in her parents she lamented most of all.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Kevin could hear Meg yelling downstairs.  He
could hear her father yelling back at her.  Their
fight was disrupting the usual spell of peace within
the monastery's walls.

But there was no peace within Kevin either.  He
was sick with thought and grief -- but not just
over the death of Frohike.  Sure, he'd liked the
guy enough, had laughed at his jokes and just
thought of him as an all-around nice old guy, if
amusingly perverted... but he'd never associated
him with any sort of father-figure type, the way
Cho had.

Cho had lost his surrogate father.  Meg was
fighting with her dad right downstairs.  Kevin,
however, didn't even know what had become of
his own father.  He hadn't seen him in nearly ten
years -- since he was fourteen.

One year after his last visit with his dad, Kevin
Declan had slit his own wrists in a moment of
adolescent despair.  His father had never even
come to visit him in the hospital.  At the time,
he'd figured it had been just as well that way, but
now...

But now, what had happened since Christmas
2023, that holiday weekend when strange things
had happened and changed the world over
forever?  On that greenhouse-effect-warm
December weekend, what had become of Kevin
LeRoi Declan, Jr.?

Slumped in a monastery bed, Kevin L. Declan III
did not know.  He didn't have the first clue.  And
that gaping void refused to let him sleep now, no
matter how tired he was.  He tossed and turned
for an hour or more, dry eyed, but with his
insides churning.

At last, Kevin sat up in bed and stared at the pale
scars marking his wrists.  He knew where to
begin looking for his father, and if he waited any
longer, the computers most likely would be in use
by the surviving Lone Gunmen.

Kevin got out of bed and began to dress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An Unknown Location
January 24, 2024


Their usual meeting place hadn't changed much
over the years.  The faces had changed, but the
overall mood of darkness and the haunting odor
of cigarettes had remained -- even though he who
smoked them had passed on not too many years
earlier.  He was gone, but he had left his scars
behind to mark his place.

The faces had changed indeed.  The current
population of the room would have, in the '90's,
been described as more "diverse" than it had been
twenty years previous.  No longer did the
presence of old white men dominate the room.
After all, self-absorption does not discriminate,
nor does self-preservation.

The wheelchair wheels hissed over the rich, dark
carpeting.  "So you saw them?"

"Yes," answered the man Meg Mulder would
have recognized from the airfield in Havana.
"When do I take them?"

The man in the wheelchair looked over at one of
the women, indicating with his eyes that she was
to answer the question.

The woman leveled her dark eyes at Meg's
Russian-speaker in response.  "You're sure
they've been vaxed?"

"We know for certain both Declan and Cho were
vaccinated.  Two of the clones witnessed it."

"And the Mulder girl was vaccinated as well?"

He nodded to the man in the wheelchair.  "It's
more than safe to assume so.  She's been exposed
to the virus enough, and I saw no apparent
effects on her or her companions.  They all
appear to be in excellent health."

The dark-eyed woman addressed the room as a
whole in a smooth, strong voice.  "They want to
begin testing the new strain as soon as They have
appropriate test subjects on hand.  A control
group of non-vaccinated humans has already been
gathered.  They have promised us quarantine if
we cooperate and provide Them with a small
number of test subjects who have already
received the earlier vaccine."

"When do I take them?"  He repeated the
question directly to the woman who had just
spoken.

"As soon as possible," was her answer.

He nodded and stood to depart.

Nodding as well, the man in the wheelchair
spoke.  "Krycek."

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

"Get them out of our way."

Krycek acknowledged the command and stalked
out of the room.

"Killing two birds with one stone," one of the
oldest men in the room observed, "efficient."

"Three," one of the women said, her voice eerily
soft.  "Three birds, really."

"More than that," snickered the man in the
wheelchair.  "Diana, let Them know we'll have
Their test subjects soon enough."

With that, the dark-eyed woman stood up and left
as well.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you call, I will answer,
And if you fall, I'll pick you up,
And if you court this disaster,
I'll point you home.
I'll point you home."
--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gethsemani Monastery
January 24, 2024

Meg woke to the warmth of sun straining against
the dark brown curtains of the tiny bedroom.  She
was surprised she had slept at all.  Her cheek
hurt.  Brushing her fingertips against it, she felt
the depressions that had resulted from falling
asleep on top of Emily Wexford's notebook.

She stood and walked over to the small mirror
hung on the wall and inspected the marks, small
and purple-red, but not bruise-worthy.  She
rubbed her cheek hard to even out the redness.
Her eyes were red too, oddly setting off the green
flecks that swam in the predominantly blue iris
she had inherited from the Scully side.

//Complimentary colors, red and green.  One
makes the other stand out.//

Confused by her own groggy thoughts, Meg
rubbed her eyes.  "I need sleep," she said out
loud.

She returned to bed and made a halfhearted
attempt to actually sleep again, but after fifteen
minutes she gave up and put her shoes back on
her feet.  Peering in the mirror once more, she
noted that her hair was half-damp from
showering earlier, but half-frizzing from being
slept on while still wet.  A quick search of the
tiny room yielded one of her ponytail holders,
which Meg made use of in short order.

She still didn't want to run into her parents, but
she emerged from her room nevertheless.  If they
wouldn't answer her questions, someone else
could.  She padded softly down the hall, on her
way to the office of the remaining Lone Gunmen.

She didn't bump into her parents along the way,
but she did nod greetings at Sister Helen Gabriel
and Sister Cecilia Bernadette.  Sweet old women,
glad to see her home and safe again.

Meg traipsed down the steps to the Gunmen's
makeshift base of operations, and she found
Kevin slumped against a wall in the dimly lit
hallway.

"I thought you'd be asleep," she called to him.

Kevin gave a start and looked up.  Stretching and
rolling his neck around uncomfortably, he
answered her, "I was."

"Sorry."

"I thought *you'd* be asleep," Kevin yawned,
standing up.

"Couldn't," Meg admitted, jiggling the doorknob.

"Me neither.  By the way, it's locked."

"Of course it is," Meg sighed.  "Why wouldn't it
be?  What the hell were *we* thinking?"

Kevin laughed a little.  "I didn't have the heart to
wake one of them and ask for the key."

Meg leaned against the opposite wall.  "What're
you doing down here anyway?"

"Oh."  Kevin shrugged, looking almost guilty.  "I
just wanted look up some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just stuff."

Meg glowered at him.

"What?"  Kevin tried to make his face blank, but
with very little success.

"Kevin," Meg said wearily, "I have my parents
hiding *stuff* from me.  I don't know if I can
handle it from you, too."

She wasn't looking directly at him, but he could
see the storm continuing to brew under her
lowered lashes.

"I'm sorry," he answered quietly.  When that
answer obviously did not satisfy her, he added, "I
just wanted to see if I could find my dad."

Meg's eyes shot back to his face.  Her jaw
dropped so slightly that only Kevin would have
noticed.  "Your dad?"

Kevin shrugged.  "Stupid, huh?"

Meg stood away from the wall and stepped closer
to him.  "No.  I don't think it's stupid at all..."

Kevin looked at her sideways when her voice
trailed off.  He urged her to finish: "But...?"

"But..." She bit her lip and searched for the right
words.  "There's a... it's painfully likely that..."

"I know."  She couldn't finish the sentence, and
he didn't need her to anyway.

Suddenly, her hand was warm in his, and she
gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.  "But if you
don't at least try..."

Kevin didn't need her to finish that sentence
either.  Meg understood.  She usually did.

The sound of someone else descending the stairs
gave them both cause to look away from each
other's eyes.  Shoes slapped against the centuries-
old flagstones with a hesitant thud-thud... thud-
thud.  Keys tinkled against one another.

In the spirit of the Cheshire Cat, a pair of thick,
dark-rimmed glasses were the first things
obviously visible on the face that had just reached
the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey, Glasses Man," Meg called out trying to
keep things light.

Langly acknowledged their presence with a
grunted, "Declan.  Kid."

"Kid," Kevin heard Meg snicker under her breath.

Both Meg and Kevin watched Langly carefully
for any sign of grief.  He wasn't acting any
differently than either of them would have
expected, but he did look even more peaked than
usual, and the forward slump of his shoulders was
even more pronounced than it had been when
they'd seen him just a week and a half before.

"I'm sorry," Meg said just above a whisper.
Kevin nodded his condolences as well.

Langly nodded back.  Again, no change in his
outward demeanor, but they could tell he was
affected by the way his pallor suddenly increased
-- if such a thing were possible.  "What do you
want?"

Under the circumstances, had that question come
from anyone else, Meg would have been offended
to the point of irritation.  But this was Langly, the
most socially inept of the overall socially inept
Lone Gunmen.  This was his equivalent of
inviting them in for tea and cookies and a friendly
chat.

Meg stepped aside and pulled Kevin with her so
Langly could get to the door more easily.  She
asked, "Can we get some info from you?"

Langly shrugged.  "Help yourself.  Computer's
free."

This Langly said as if Frohike had just gone out
for a cheesesteak and would be back any minute.
Meg's heart contracted.  Everyone grieved
differently, but this was borderline scary.  Then
again, virtually everything about Langly was
borderline scary.

When Langly opened the door, the room was
glowing with computer screens not shut down,
casting strange, ghostly light and shadows.
Kevin's hand slid along the wall and he turned on
the lights.

"Mister Bigglesworth!  Schrodie!"  Meg called
out, and one of her two cats came out to greet
her.  She reached down and scooped Schrodinger
into her arms, and the younger cat melted into a
purring ball of gray fuzz.

"Where's Mr. B?"  Kevin asked, looking around.

But the fat brown tabby was already winding
himself around Meg's ankles.

Meg put Schrodinger down and stopped to pet
Mr. Bigglesworth.  "He must be really happy to
see me if he's being that affectionate."

Kevin and Langly began talking computer
mumbo-jumbo, but Meg tuned them out.  That
was one language she did not understand well.
She paced around the room, looking from place
to place, her cats taking turns trying to trip her
up.  What she was looking for even she could not
determine.  Maybe, she realized, on some
subconscious level she was looking for Frohike.
She hugged her arms around herself.

"Hey, Kid," Langly interrupted her reverie.
"What are you looking for?"

She blinked at him stupidly a few times before
she figured out he wanted to know what
*information* she'd come seeking.

Kevin glanced up to see her frown at Langly's
question.  Kevin waved his hand at Byers'
unoccupied computer, indicating her to
commandeer it for the moment, but she shook her
head at him.

If she didn't need a computer, why had she come
here?

"I was looking for some answers, actually," she
replied, taking a seat out from under a desk and
gathering Mr. Bigglesworth onto her lap.

Langly sat behind his favorite computer.  His
glasses flickered at her with reflections from the
monitor.  "That's what we're best at."

Meg nodded, but her frown deepened.  "Jeez.  I
finally find someone who might be able to answer
my questions and I don't even know where to
start."

Langly's thin lips pressed together.  "Start at the
beginning."

Meg raised her eyebrows and snorted.  "The
beginning.  The beginning of what?"

Irritated with his owner's snort, Mr. Bigglesworth
leapt off of Meg's lap and began searching for a
new and exciting place to take a nap.

Langly waited, but soon returned his attention to
his computer when it seemed that Meg was
wasting his time by asking only rhetorical
questions.  Slightly irritated, both with Langly's
quirks and with her own helplessness, Meg
reached back with both hands and pulled tightly
on her ponytail to keep it from loosening more.

She had to ask something.  Anything.

"How did my parents get involved with this?"

Langly looked up at her again.  "They were
working on the X-files--"

"No," Meg interrupted, "I *know* that.  I want
to know *how* they got involved with all this.
*Really* *how*?  What happened?  How did
they find out about the virus and plans for
colonization?  About all the hybrids?  All the
mind-control business?  The tracking chips and
the mass abduction stuff?  About Their whole
conspiracy? How did they get married and have
me and still stay partners? And all the rest, the
stuff I still don't even know about yet?  How?"

When Meg had finally finished her litany of
questions, Langly just stared at her.  And stared
at her.  And stared some more.  Meg did not even
blink under his blank, glinting glare.

At length, Langly just averted his eyes and went
back to tapping away on his keyboard.

"Go ask your parents," he finally said.

Meg's jaw dropped.  This was obviously not the
answer she'd been hoping for.  "I already did,"
she growled.

Thwarted again, Meg stomped out of the room --
a dignified stomp, but a stomp nevertheless.  She
hesitated in the doorway and informed Kevin,
"I'm going for a run."

Kevin froze.  "Alone?"

"Yes, alone," Meg rolled her eyes. "It's midday,
Kev.  Don't worry.  There are nuns and priests all
over the place to watch out for me.  I'll be back
before you know it."

Reluctantly, Kevin did not stop her.

She had almost gone, but she suddenly stopped
herself, turned on her heel, and gave two last
words to her best friend:

"Good luck."

Then she was off and running up the steps, but
Meg's words and her small smile stayed with him
as he began working with the broken connections
of the post-colonization internet -- the colossal
ruins of what was once the information
superhighway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Running.  Meg didn't have to think when her feet
carried her over the fields and through the
vineyards of the monastery's acreage.  She didn't
have to remember betrayals or viruses or millions
of faces she still hadn't reached with the vaccine,
the millions of lives she might never save...  She
didn't have to think about any of those things.

So of course that was all she could think about.

When the cool air made her lungs ache, she
stopped and leaned against a barren grapevine to
catch her breath.  Hot with exertion but cold with
the wind on her sweat, she resumed movement
with a light jog in hopes of returning her rate of
respiration to something normal.

Under the serenity of the winter-abandoned
vineyard, a sound pulsed softly.  Meg looked
around but could not determine the source of the
noise, which was growing louder by the second.

It was coming from the sky.

Meg muttered some instinctive expletive as her
heart rate skyrocketed once more.  She was
somewhat hidden by the twisting vineyard, but
such camouflage could only do so much if this
was a genuine threat.  She emerged from the
vineyard cautiously, following the sound and
shielding her eyes against the harsh winter sun.

It was a helicopter, black and military.  After
another minute, Meg recognized the passenger, and
she breathed a huge sigh of relief.  She broke
into another run and rushed to meet them as they
landed in the monastery's makeshift airfield.

So word had gotten out to Skinner.



END 4/31The Children's Teeth: Litany 4/31
By Erin (c), CathyLex@aol.com

Disclaimers, etc in "The Children's Teeth: Prescript"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you call, I will answer,
And if you fall, I'll pick you up,
And if you court this disaster,
I'll point you home.
I'll point you home."
--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gethsemani Monastery
January 24, 2024

Meg woke to the warmth of sun straining against
the dark brown curtains of the tiny bedroom.  She
was surprised she had slept at all.  Her cheek
hurt.  Brushing her fingertips against it, she felt
the depressions that had resulted from falling
asleep on top of Emily Wexford's notebook.

She stood and walked over to the small mirror
hung on the wall and inspected the marks, small
and purple-red, but not bruise-worthy.  She
rubbed her cheek hard to even out the redness.
Her eyes were red too, oddly setting off the green
flecks that swam in the predominantly blue iris
she had inherited from the Scully side.

//Complimentary colors, red and green.  One
makes the other stand out.//

Confused by her own groggy thoughts, Meg
rubbed her eyes.  "I need sleep," she said out
loud.

She returned to bed and made a halfhearted
attempt to actually sleep again, but after fifteen
minutes she gave up and put her shoes back on
her feet.  Peering in the mirror once more, she
noted that her hair was half-damp from
showering earlier, but half-frizzing from being
slept on while still wet.  A quick search of the
tiny room yielded one of her ponytail holders,
which Meg made use of in short order.

She still didn't want to run into her parents, but
she emerged from her room nevertheless.  If they
wouldn't answer her questions, someone else
could.  She padded softly down the hall, on her
way to the office of the remaining Lone Gunmen.

She didn't bump into her parents along the way,
but she did nod greetings at Sister Helen Gabriel
and Sister Cecilia Bernadette.  Sweet old women,
glad to see her home and safe again.

Meg traipsed down the steps to the Gunmen's
makeshift base of operations, and she found
Kevin slumped against a wall in the dimly lit
hallway.

"I thought you'd be asleep," she called to him.

Kevin gave a start and looked up.  Stretching and
rolling his neck around uncomfortably, he
answered her, "I was."

"Sorry."

"I thought *you'd* be asleep," Kevin yawned,
standing up.

"Couldn't," Meg admitted, jiggling the doorknob.

"Me neither.  By the way, it's locked."

"Of course it is," Meg sighed.  "Why wouldn't it
be?  What the hell were *we* thinking?"

Kevin laughed a little.  "I didn't have the heart to
wake one of them and ask for the key."

Meg leaned against the opposite wall.  "What're
you doing down here anyway?"

"Oh."  Kevin shrugged, looking almost guilty.  "I
just wanted look up some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just stuff."

Meg glowered at him.

"What?"  Kevin tried to make his face blank, but
with very little success.

"Kevin," Meg said wearily, "I have my parents
hiding *stuff* from me.  I don't know if I can
handle it from you, too."

She wasn't looking directly at him, but he could
see the storm continuing to brew under her
lowered lashes.

"I'm sorry," he answered quietly.  When that
answer obviously did not satisfy her, he added, "I
just wanted to see if I could find my dad."

Meg's eyes shot back to his face.  Her jaw
dropped so slightly that only Kevin would have
noticed.  "Your dad?"

Kevin shrugged.  "Stupid, huh?"

Meg stood away from the wall and stepped closer
to him.  "No.  I don't think it's stupid at all..."

Kevin looked at her sideways when her voice
trailed off.  He urged her to finish: "But...?"

"But..." She bit her lip and searched for the right
words.  "There's a... it's painfully likely that..."

"I know."  She couldn't finish the sentence, and
he didn't need her to anyway.

Suddenly, her hand was warm in his, and she
gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.  "But if you
don't at least try..."

Kevin didn't need her to finish that sentence
either.  Meg understood.  She usually did.

The sound of someone else descending the stairs
gave them both cause to look away from each
other's eyes.  Shoes slapped against the centuries-
old flagstones with a hesitant thud-thud... thud-
thud.  Keys tinkled against one another.

In the spirit of the Cheshire Cat, a pair of thick,
dark-rimmed glasses were the first things
obviously visible on the face that had just reached
the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey, Glasses Man," Meg called out trying to
keep things light.

Langly acknowledged their presence with a
grunted, "Declan.  Kid."

"Kid," Kevin heard Meg snicker under her breath.

Both Meg and Kevin watched Langly carefully
for any sign of grief.  He wasn't acting any
differently than either of them would have
expected, but he did look even more peaked than
usual, and the forward slump of his shoulders was
even more pronounced than it had been when
they'd seen him just a week and a half before.

"I'm sorry," Meg said just above a whisper.
Kevin nodded his condolences as well.

Langly nodded back.  Again, no change in his
outward demeanor, but they could tell he was
affected by the way his pallor suddenly increased
-- if such a thing were possible.  "What do you
want?"

Under the circumstances, had that question come
from anyone else, Meg would have been offended
to the point of irritation.  But this was Langly, the
most socially inept of the overall socially inept
Lone Gunmen.  This was his equivalent of
inviting them in for tea and cookies and a friendly
chat.

Meg stepped aside and pulled Kevin with her so
Langly could get to the door more easily.  She
asked, "Can we get some info from you?"

Langly shrugged.  "Help yourself.  Computer's
free."

This Langly said as if Frohike had just gone out
for a cheesesteak and would be back any minute.
Meg's heart contracted.  Everyone grieved
differently, but this was borderline scary.  Then
again, virtually everything about Langly was
borderline scary.

When Langly opened the door, the room was
glowing with computer screens not shut down,
casting strange, ghostly light and shadows.
Kevin's hand slid along the wall and he turned on
the lights.

"Mister Bigglesworth!  Schrodie!"  Meg called
out, and one of her two cats came out to greet
her.  She reached down and scooped Schrodinger
into her arms, and the younger cat melted into a
purring ball of gray fuzz.

"Where's Mr. B?"  Kevin asked, looking around.

But the fat brown tabby was already winding
himself around Meg's ankles.

Meg put Schrodinger down and stopped to pet
Mr. Bigglesworth.  "He must be really happy to
see me if he's being that affectionate."

Kevin and Langly began talking computer
mumbo-jumbo, but Meg tuned them out.  That
was one language she did not understand well.
She paced around the room, looking from place
to place, her cats taking turns trying to trip her
up.  What she was looking for even she could not
determine.  Maybe, she realized, on some
subconscious level she was looking for Frohike.
She hugged her arms around herself.

"Hey, Kid," Langly interrupted her reverie.
"What are you looking for?"

She blinked at him stupidly a few times before
she figured out he wanted to know what
*information* she'd come seeking.

Kevin glanced up to see her frown at Langly's
question.  Kevin waved his hand at Byers'
unoccupied computer, indicating her to
commandeer it for the moment, but she shook her
head at him.

If she didn't need a computer, why had she come
here?

"I was looking for some answers, actually," she
replied, taking a seat out from under a desk and
gathering Mr. Bigglesworth onto her lap.

Langly sat behind his favorite computer.  His
glasses flickered at her with reflections from the
monitor.  "That's what we're best at."

Meg nodded, but her frown deepened.  "Jeez.  I
finally find someone who might be able to answer
my questions and I don't even know where to
start."

Langly's thin lips pressed together.  "Start at the
beginning."

Meg raised her eyebrows and snorted.  "The
beginning.  The beginning of what?"

Irritated with his owner's snort, Mr. Bigglesworth
leapt off of Meg's lap and began searching for a
new and exciting place to take a nap.

Langly waited, but soon returned his attention to
his computer when it seemed that Meg was
wasting his time by asking only rhetorical
questions.  Slightly irritated, both with Langly's
quirks and with her own helplessness, Meg
reached back with both hands and pulled tightly
on her ponytail to keep it from loosening more.

She had to ask something.  Anything.

"How did my parents get involved with this?"

Langly looked up at her again.  "They were
working on the X-files--"

"No," Meg interrupted, "I *know* that.  I want
to know *how* they got involved with all this.
*Really* *how*?  What happened?  How did
they find out about the virus and plans for
colonization?  About all the hybrids?  All the
mind-control business?  The tracking chips and
the mass abduction stuff?  About Their whole
conspiracy? How did they get married and have
me and still stay partners? And all the rest, the
stuff I still don't even know about yet?  How?"

When Meg had finally finished her litany of
questions, Langly just stared at her.  And stared
at her.  And stared some more.  Meg did not even
blink under his blank, glinting glare.

At length, Langly just averted his eyes and went
back to tapping away on his keyboard.

"Go ask your parents," he finally said.

Meg's jaw dropped.  This was obviously not the
answer she'd been hoping for.  "I already did,"
she growled.

Thwarted again, Meg stomped out of the room --
a dignified stomp, but a stomp nevertheless.  She
hesitated in the doorway and informed Kevin,
"I'm going for a run."

Kevin froze.  "Alone?"

"Yes, alone," Meg rolled her eyes. "It's midday,
Kev.  Don't worry.  There are nuns and priests all
over the place to watch out for me.  I'll be back
before you know it."

Reluctantly, Kevin did not stop her.

She had almost gone, but she suddenly stopped
herself, turned on her heel, and gave two last
words to her best friend:

"Good luck."

Then she was off and running up the steps, but
Meg's words and her small smile stayed with him
as he began working with the broken connections
of the post-colonization internet -- the colossal
ruins of what was once the information
superhighway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Running.  Meg didn't have to think when her feet
carried her over the fields and through the
vineyards of the monastery's acreage.  She didn't
have to remember betrayals or viruses or millions
of faces she still hadn't reached with the vaccine,
the millions of lives she might never save...  She
didn't have to think about any of those things.

So of course that was all she could think about.

When the cool air made her lungs ache, she
stopped and leaned against a barren grapevine to
catch her breath.  Hot with exertion but cold with
the wind on her sweat, she resumed movement
with a light jog in hopes of returning her rate of
respiration to something normal.

Under the serenity of the winter-abandoned
vineyard, a sound pulsed softly.  Meg looked
around but could not determine the source of the
noise, which was growing louder by the second.

It was coming from the sky.

Meg muttered some instinctive expletive as her
heart rate skyrocketed once more.  She was
somewhat hidden by the twisting vineyard, but
such camouflage could only do so much if this
was a genuine threat.  She emerged from the
vineyard cautiously, following the sound and
shielding her eyes against the harsh winter sun.

It was a helicopter, black and military.  After
another minute, Meg recognized the passenger, and
she breathed a huge sigh of relief.  She broke
into another run and rushed to meet them as they
landed in the monastery's makeshift airfield.

So word had gotten out to Skinner.



END 4/31The Children's Teeth: Litany 4/31
By Erin (c), CathyLex@aol.com

Disclaimers, etc in "The Children's Teeth: Prescript"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you call, I will answer,
And if you fall, I'll pick you up,
And if you court this disaster,
I'll point you home.
I'll point you home."
--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gethsemani Monastery
January 24, 2024

Meg woke to the warmth of sun straining against
the dark brown curtains of the tiny bedroom.  She
was surprised she had slept at all.  Her cheek
hurt.  Brushing her fingertips against it, she felt
the depressions that had resulted from falling
asleep on top of Emily Wexford's notebook.

She stood and walked over to the small mirror
hung on the wall and inspected the marks, small
and purple-red, but not bruise-worthy.  She
rubbed her cheek hard to even out the redness.
Her eyes were red too, oddly setting off the green
flecks that swam in the predominantly blue iris
she had inherited from the Scully side.

//Complimentary colors, red and green.  One
makes the other stand out.//

Confused by her own groggy thoughts, Meg
rubbed her eyes.  "I need sleep," she said out
loud.

She returned to bed and made a halfhearted
attempt to actually sleep again, but after fifteen
minutes she gave up and put her shoes back on
her feet.  Peering in the mirror once more, she
noted that her hair was half-damp from
showering earlier, but half-frizzing from being
slept on while still wet.  A quick search of the
tiny room yielded one of her ponytail holders,
which Meg made use of in short order.

She still didn't want to run into her parents, but
she emerged from her room nevertheless.  If they
wouldn't answer her questions, someone else
could.  She padded softly down the hall, on her
way to the office of the remaining Lone Gunmen.

She didn't bump into her parents along the way,
but she did nod greetings at Sister Helen Gabriel
and Sister Cecilia Bernadette.  Sweet old women,
glad to see her home and safe again.

Meg traipsed down the steps to the Gunmen's
makeshift base of operations, and she found
Kevin slumped against a wall in the dimly lit
hallway.

"I thought you'd be asleep," she called to him.

Kevin gave a start and looked up.  Stretching and
rolling his neck around uncomfortably, he
answered her, "I was."

"Sorry."

"I thought *you'd* be asleep," Kevin yawned,
standing up.

"Couldn't," Meg admitted, jiggling the doorknob.

"Me neither.  By the way, it's locked."

"Of course it is," Meg sighed.  "Why wouldn't it
be?  What the hell were *we* thinking?"

Kevin laughed a little.  "I didn't have the heart to
wake one of them and ask for the key."

Meg leaned against the opposite wall.  "What're
you doing down here anyway?"

"Oh."  Kevin shrugged, looking almost guilty.  "I
just wanted look up some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just stuff."

Meg glowered at him.

"What?"  Kevin tried to make his face blank, but
with very little success.

"Kevin," Meg said wearily, "I have my parents
hiding *stuff* from me.  I don't know if I can
handle it from you, too."

She wasn't looking directly at him, but he could
see the storm continuing to brew under her
lowered lashes.

"I'm sorry," he answered quietly.  When that
answer obviously did not satisfy her, he added, "I
just wanted to see if I could find my dad."

Meg's eyes shot back to his face.  Her jaw
dropped so slightly that only Kevin would have
noticed.  "Your dad?"

Kevin shrugged.  "Stupid, huh?"

Meg stood away from the wall and stepped closer
to him.  "No.  I don't think it's stupid at all..."

Kevin looked at her sideways when her voice
trailed off.  He urged her to finish: "But...?"

"But..." She bit her lip and searched for the right
words.  "There's a... it's painfully likely that..."

"I know."  She couldn't finish the sentence, and
he didn't need her to anyway.

Suddenly, her hand was warm in his, and she
gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.  "But if you
don't at least try..."

Kevin didn't need her to finish that sentence
either.  Meg understood.  She usually did.

The sound of someone else descending the stairs
gave them both cause to look away from each
other's eyes.  Shoes slapped against the centuries-
old flagstones with a hesitant thud-thud... thud-
thud.  Keys tinkled against one another.

In the spirit of the Cheshire Cat, a pair of thick,
dark-rimmed glasses were the first things
obviously visible on the face that had just reached
the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey, Glasses Man," Meg called out trying to
keep things light.

Langly acknowledged their presence with a
grunted, "Declan.  Kid."

"Kid," Kevin heard Meg snicker under her breath.

Both Meg and Kevin watched Langly carefully
for any sign of grief.  He wasn't acting any
differently than either of them would have
expected, but he did look even more peaked than
usual, and the forward slump of his shoulders was
even more pronounced than it had been when
they'd seen him just a week and a half before.

"I'm sorry," Meg said just above a whisper.
Kevin nodded his condolences as well.

Langly nodded back.  Again, no change in his
outward demeanor, but they could tell he was
affected by the way his pallor suddenly increased
-- if such a thing were possible.  "What do you
want?"

Under the circumstances, had that question come
from anyone else, Meg would have been offended
to the point of irritation.  But this was Langly, the
most socially inept of the overall socially inept
Lone Gunmen.  This was his equivalent of
inviting them in for tea and cookies and a friendly
chat.

Meg stepped aside and pulled Kevin with her so
Langly could get to the door more easily.  She
asked, "Can we get some info from you?"

Langly shrugged.  "Help yourself.  Computer's
free."

This Langly said as if Frohike had just gone out
for a cheesesteak and would be back any minute.
Meg's heart contracted.  Everyone grieved
differently, but this was borderline scary.  Then
again, virtually everything about Langly was
borderline scary.

When Langly opened the door, the room was
glowing with computer screens not shut down,
casting strange, ghostly light and shadows.
Kevin's hand slid along the wall and he turned on
the lights.

"Mister Bigglesworth!  Schrodie!"  Meg called
out, and one of her two cats came out to greet
her.  She reached down and scooped Schrodinger
into her arms, and the younger cat melted into a
purring ball of gray fuzz.

"Where's Mr. B?"  Kevin asked, looking around.

But the fat brown tabby was already winding
himself around Meg's ankles.

Meg put Schrodinger down and stopped to pet
Mr. Bigglesworth.  "He must be really happy to
see me if he's being that affectionate."

Kevin and Langly began talking computer
mumbo-jumbo, but Meg tuned them out.  That
was one language she did not understand well.
She paced around the room, looking from place
to place, her cats taking turns trying to trip her
up.  What she was looking for even she could not
determine.  Maybe, she realized, on some
subconscious level she was looking for Frohike.
She hugged her arms around herself.

"Hey, Kid," Langly interrupted her reverie.
"What are you looking for?"

She blinked at him stupidly a few times before
she figured out he wanted to know what
*information* she'd come seeking.

Kevin glanced up to see her frown at Langly's
question.  Kevin waved his hand at Byers'
unoccupied computer, indicating her to
commandeer it for the moment, but she shook her
head at him.

If she didn't need a computer, why had she come
here?

"I was looking for some answers, actually," she
replied, taking a seat out from under a desk and
gathering Mr. Bigglesworth onto her lap.

Langly sat behind his favorite computer.  His
glasses flickered at her with reflections from the
monitor.  "That's what we're best at."

Meg nodded, but her frown deepened.  "Jeez.  I
finally find someone who might be able to answer
my questions and I don't even know where to
start."

Langly's thin lips pressed together.  "Start at the
beginning."

Meg raised her eyebrows and snorted.  "The
beginning.  The beginning of what?"

Irritated with his owner's snort, Mr. Bigglesworth
leapt off of Meg's lap and began searching for a
new and exciting place to take a nap.

Langly waited, but soon returned his attention to
his computer when it seemed that Meg was
wasting his time by asking only rhetorical
questions.  Slightly irritated, both with Langly's
quirks and with her own helplessness, Meg
reached back with both hands and pulled tightly
on her ponytail to keep it from loosening more.

She had to ask something.  Anything.

"How did my parents get involved with this?"

Langly looked up at her again.  "They were
working on the X-files--"

"No," Meg interrupted, "I *know* that.  I want
to know *how* they got involved with all this.
*Really* *how*?  What happened?  How did
they find out about the virus and plans for
colonization?  About all the hybrids?  All the
mind-control business?  The tracking chips and
the mass abduction stuff?  About Their whole
conspiracy? How did they get married and have
me and still stay partners? And all the rest, the
stuff I still don't even know about yet?  How?"

When Meg had finally finished her litany of
questions, Langly just stared at her.  And stared
at her.  And stared some more.  Meg did not even
blink under his blank, glinting glare.

At length, Langly just averted his eyes and went
back to tapping away on his keyboard.

"Go ask your parents," he finally said.

Meg's jaw dropped.  This was obviously not the
answer she'd been hoping for.  "I already did,"
she growled.

Thwarted again, Meg stomped out of the room --
a dignified stomp, but a stomp nevertheless.  She
hesitated in the doorway and informed Kevin,
"I'm going for a run."

Kevin froze.  "Alone?"

"Yes, alone," Meg rolled her eyes. "It's midday,
Kev.  Don't worry.  There are nuns and priests all
over the place to watch out for me.  I'll be back
before you know it."

Reluctantly, Kevin did not stop her.

She had almost gone, but she suddenly stopped
herself, turned on her heel, and gave two last
words to her best friend:

"Good luck."

Then she was off and running up the steps, but
Meg's words and her small smile stayed with him
as he began working with the broken connections
of the post-colonization internet -- the colossal
ruins of what was once the information
superhighway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Running.  Meg didn't have to think when her feet
carried her over the fields and through the
vineyards of the monastery's acreage.  She didn't
have to remember betrayals or viruses or millions
of faces she still hadn't reached with the vaccine,
the millions of lives she might never save...  She
didn't have to think about any of those things.

So of course that was all she could think about.

When the cool air made her lungs ache, she
stopped and leaned against a barren grapevine to
catch her breath.  Hot with exertion but cold with
the wind on her sweat, she resumed movement
with a light jog in hopes of returning her rate of
respiration to something normal.

Under the serenity of the winter-abandoned
vineyard, a sound pulsed softly.  Meg looked
around but could not determine the source of the
noise, which was growing louder by the second.

It was coming from the sky.

Meg muttered some instinctive expletive as her
heart rate skyrocketed once more.  She was
somewhat hidden by the twisting vineyard, but
such camouflage could only do so much if this
was a genuine threat.  She emerged from the
vineyard cautiously, following the sound and
shielding her eyes against the harsh winter sun.

It was a helicopter, black and military.  After
another minute, Meg recognized the passenger, and
she breathed a huge sigh of relief.  She broke
into another run and rushed to meet them as they
landed in the monastery's makeshift airfield.

So word had gotten out to Skinner.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truly the evil man shall not go unpunished,
But those who are just shall escape."

--Proverbs 11:21
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Mulder spoke out of the blue after a couple of
hours of tense, silent work preparing more
supplies for transport.

"I should go talk to her."

It didn't take much for Scully to figure exactly
who "her" was.

"Mulder, she's probably asleep."

"Then I'll wake her up," he grunted, lifting
another crate onto the cart.

Scully gave him one of her looks through the dim
light of the storage room.  "Right.  That will go a
long way towards restoring her faith in you."

He let his arms fall to his sides.  "Then what am I
supposed to do?"

Scully sighed and leaned her hands heavily on the
handle of the cart.  "Maybe I should be the one to
talk to her."

"Scully--"

"The responsibility is *ours*, Mulder, *ours*.
I'm just as guilty as you are."

"Fine.  Then we should talk to her together."

Scully pursed her lips briefly.  "That might not be
the best idea right now."

"Why not?  What's wrong with it?"

"Mulder--" She halted, choosing her words
carefully.  "There's a lot of you in Meg.  The two
of you have the same sense of humor, the same
impetuousness... and the same tendency to act
out with rash anger when really you're just...
*hurting*."

Mulder had actually stopped to listen.

"And I'm afraid," she continued, "that if the two
of you talk right now, while your hurt is still so
raw, you'll only end up hurting each other more."

"What are you saying, that I can't even talk to my
own daughter?"

"See?"  Scully gave him one of her bittersweet,
upside-down smiles.  "That's exactly what I
mean."

Mulder opened his mouth as if to say something
else, but thought better of it and released a quick
sigh instead.

"Look, Mulder," she said, putting her hand on his
arm, "Let me talk to her.  And give her some time
to think about things.  That might be all she
needs."

"Time?"  Mulder looked doubtful.

Just as Scully was about to answer, they both
looked towards the open doorway, hearing
voices coming down the hall.

Scully frowned in mild disbelief.  "That sounds
like--"

Meg appeared in the doorway, carrying some
boxes.  She saw her parents staring back at her
and her face instantly paled.  All she could say
was a weak, timid, "Oh--"

Then, Skinner appeared in the doorway, along
with a young woman a bit older than Meg.  Both
of them carried more boxes.

Meg quickly placed her burden on a nearby shelf.
"I'll go get Kevin to help move more stuff out of
the helicopter."

She left without even another glance at her
parents.

"What was that about?" Skinner asked, watching
after Meg.

Mulder looked like he was about to run after his
daughter, but Scully's hand tightened on his arm.

Mulder stopped himself -- or, let Scully stop him.
"Come for the funeral, old man?"  Mulder asked,
reaching out to shake Skinner's hand.

Skinner nodded to both of his former
subordinates, reaching out to take Scully's hand
as well.  "It's quite a loss."

No more words needed to be said on that matter,
so Skinner offered none.  He gestured to the
young woman at his side.

"Scully, Mulder, have you met Captain
DeMaram, the helicopter pilot?"

"Captain Rachel Jo DeMaram," the woman --
who at first glance seemed barely more than a girl
-- answered, reaching out to shake both agents' --
former agents' -- hands.  "I don't believe we've
met.  My condolences."

Her voice was heavy with a southern accent, and
her brown hair had been cut militarily short.
Youthful freckles dusted her cheeks, but upon
closer inspection something in her quiet brown
eyes suggested a commanding maturity.  Perhaps
she was around 26 or 27? Scully mused.

"Rachel Jo?"  Mulder asked, shaking her hand.
"Is that short for something?"

Her mouth twitched in an almost-laugh.  "Well,
sir, I'm one of those devil pups, so I have friends
call me DP."

"So you're a Marine brat," Scully observed with a
mixture of sympathy and good-natured rivalry.

"Fourth generation, ma'am," DeMaram
confirmed.  "Both my parents were Marines, my
grandfather served in Vietnam with Mr. Skinner
here, and my great-grandfather was one of
Carlson's Raiders.  I'm just carryin' on the family
tradition."

She was clearly proud of her family history, but
the more DeMaram spoke, the more it seemed
she was fighting a loosing battle to modify her
southern drawl.  She humbly stuck out her jaw.

"If you'll excuse me," DeMaram said then, giving
them all a businesslike nod before leaving the
storeroom to finish unloading the helicopter.

"We figured we'd better bring some more
supplies if we were coming out here anyway,"
Skinner explained, "so I had the Devil Pup fly us
out here."

Scully nodded her agreement.  "It's safer than
driving."

Mulder snorted.  "Not much."

"So when did it happen?"  Skinner asked in the
same voice he had used in ages past to demand
their narratives regarding various investigations.

For the second time that day, Scully told the
story of Frohike's death.

Mulder only half-listened.  He was trying to think
of a way to bridge the ever-widening gap
between himself and his daughter.  His baby girl.

His baby girl, who would have killed him if she'd
heard him call her a baby out loud.

No.  Not a baby anymore.  It was time he realized
that.  Time he started acting that way, too.  But
how?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Meg had dragged Kevin out from behind Byers'
computer, and he resisted so little she almost
thought he was glad for an excuse to put his
search aside for a moment.

"Things not going well?" Meg asked him.

He scratched at his stubble and winced.  "Not
going at all, actually."

"Sucks," Meg sympathized.

Kevin shrugged, but Meg could tell he wasn't
telling her how much this was upsetting him.  He
changed the subject.  "Any word on when the
funeral will be?"

"Not yet.  Well, I haven't asked yet."  Meg shook
her head.  Then, an idea struck her.  "Kev, you
should sing for the service."

Kevin snickered just under his breath.  "I haven't
sung in a long, long time.  Well, not in front of
people, anyway."

"You used to sing for your church all the time,"
Meg offered, walking backwards over the field so
she could watch him.  "You'd do great."

Kevin looked at her doubtfully.  "I don't know
any Catholic hymns."

"Frohike wasn't Catholic, I don't think."

"Well, he obviously wasn't African Methodist
Episcopal either."

"How do you know?  He could have been AME."

She was trying to get him to laugh, to take his
mind off of things... by talking about a funeral.
How weird had their lives become?

Regardless, he knew exactly how to turn the
tables on her.  "Well, if I should sing for the
funeral, you should play."

Meg rolled her eyes, recognizing his tactic for
what it was.  "I haven't touched a piano in years,
at *all*, even *not* in front of people."

Kevin walked more quickly to catch up with her.
"Yeah, but if we practiced some--"

"'We'?"  Meg asked, surprised.  "You mean... we
should do something... together?"

She hadn't been thinking of a team effort.  Why
should she?  He had assumed -- oh, how
embarrassing.  Kevin forced himself not to flinch,
thanking God above that she wouldn't be able to
tell if he were blushing or not.

He answered her as casually as he could, "It
seems the obvious answer."

Meg chewed on the inside of her cheek and
shrugged.  "Ohh-kay, then what?"

Kevin took a moment to think.  "Every funeral I
ever sang at, I sang 'Amazing Grace.'"

Both stopped and looked at each other
doubtfully.

After a second, Meg confirmed both their
thoughts aloud.  "Somehow, 'Amazing Grace' just
doesn't seem all that appropriate for The Janitor."

"I was just about to say the same thing," Kevin
agreed, "Except for the part about 'The Janitor.'"

"Kevin, what *churchy* song could we possibly
pick for an old paranoiac like Frohike?"

As they finally reached the helicopter and climbed
inside, Kevin pondered what other songs he knew
off the top of his head.  "Do you know 'His Eye is
on the Sparrow'?"

Meg lifted the lid of one of the crates and peeked
inside.  "Oooh!  More syringes.  Goodie."

"Meg?"

She glanced back at him to answer his question.
"Know it?  It was one of my Grandma's favorites.
I learned it for her for her Christmas present
when I was nine."

Kevin caught himself sighing in disappointment.
"That was a long time ago.  You've probably
forgotten how to play it."

Meg gave him a look, as if to say, "how could
you forget my trademark memory?"  He laughed
a little under his breath.

She grinned back at him with a humble
arrogance.  "I think we can manage.  Besides, it's
probably as good as we're gonna get from a
religious song.  Just think of the words."

Kevin ran through the words in his mind and then
began to laugh a little more.  "Yeah.  I have to
agree."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The funeral was the next day.

The priests and brothers gathered on the right
side of the chapel, and the sisters on the left.  The
front left rows were reserved for the pallbearers:
Meg's father, Skinner, Kevin, and of course
Byers, Langly and Gerald Cho, whose black
pleather costume seemed, for once, wholly
appropriate.

Though the ceremony was not overtly Catholic,
the helpful influence of the number of priests at
the monastery could be felt throughout, even
when Gerald Cho, Lone Gunman, took to the
pulpit to speak on behalf of the surviving
members of his organization.

Cho stepped into the chapel sanctuary holding a
wrinkled piece of paper, his hands clearly
shaking.  He stepped behind the lectern, took a
deep breath, and stopped.

He looked up at those congregated.  Both Langly
and Byers were dry-eyed, but their drooping
shoulders spoke volumes.

Meg saw Pleather-Boy scanning the audience, so
she caught his eye and gave him a thumbs-up.
Cho almost smiled.

Kevin bit his lip and tried to relax his breathing.

Cho cleared his throat and began his eulogy.

"I have been asked to say something today about
the life of Melvin Frohike, but I also feel that no
words of mine could ever presume to pay proper
homage to such an esteemed colleague, friend,
and--"

Cho's voice suddenly stopped.

"--and mentor," Cho finished, his voice tight.  He
looked like he was about to burst into
uncontrollable tears again, but after another
moment, he regained his composure.  If Byers
and Langly were showing no emotion, Cho was
doing triple time for all of them.

"Father Timothy offered to help me compose my
thoughts for this eulogy," he continued, "and
when I told him how inadequate I believed my
words would be, he suggested I read something
appropriate instead.  He then suggested I look at
Psalm 64, and so I did, and the words were far
better than I could have written myself.  I believe
Frohike would have felt deeply edified by the
words of this particular psalm, and so I would
like to share it with you today."

He cleared his throat once more and began
reading in a loud voice that almost filled the
chapel.

"Hear, O God, my voice in my lament;
From the dread enemy preserve my life.
Shelter me against the council of malefactors,
Against the tumult of evildoers,
Who sharpen their tongues like swords,
Who aim like arrows their bitter words,
Shooting from ambush at the innocent man,
Suddenly shooting at him without fear.
They resolve on their wicked plan;
They conspire to set snares,
Saying, 'Who will see us?'
They devise a wicked scheme,
And conceal the scheme they have devised;
Deep are the thoughts of each heart.

"But God shoots his arrows at them;
Suddenly they are struck.
He brings them down by their own tongues;
All who see them nod their heads,
And all men fear and proclaim the work of God,
And ponder what he has done.
The just man is glad in the Lord
And takes refuge in him;
In him glory the upright of heart."

When he finished reading, Cho carefully refolded
the paper in his hands and furtively wiped his
eyes.  He mumbled something in the direction of
the homemade casket, but his voice was too soft
for either Meg or Kevin to hear.

Wiping her own eyes, Meg leaned over to Kevin
and whispered, "Well, that wasn't any 'The Lord
is my Shepherd,' that's for sure."

Kevin almost snickered at her comment.  "At
least now I don't feel stupid for not singing
'Amazing Grace.'"

Cho had just resumed his seat in the chapel, and
Father Timothy was nodding at Meg and Kevin
to take their places.

Meg ground at her eyes once again just before
cracking her knuckles with much ceremony.  She
whispered just under her breath, "Here goes
nothing."

They both stood and walked up the center aisle
of the chapel, clutching scavenged sheets of
music yellowed with age.

Meg chanced a glance at her parents, who were
both looking at her expectantly.  She still hadn't
spoken more than three words to them since, but
one look at both of their tear-stained faces further
deepened her regret at her outburst from the
previous day.

But she frowned.  Why was she feeling guilty?
They were the ones keeping secrets from her.
She steeled her spine and let the anger fester.
Anger was good.  Anger was better than
nervousness or grief.

When they reached the top of the aisle, Meg
bowed to the altar as her upbringing dictated, and
she advanced to the piano.  It wasn't until Kevin
took his place beside her that the thought
occurred to her that they had just walked down
the aisle together.

That's when the nerves hit.  She bit down on her
lips -- hard -- and set her fingers to the keys with
overstated precision.

She gave Kevin the introductory measures they
had prepared all yesterday afternoon into the
evening, and he nodded at her that he was ready
to begin.

Kevin dropped his chin -- a singer's trick, Meg
knew -- and the song floated from him in his
trademark thick, rich, soulful tenor.  Meg had not
heard this sound in ages.  A sound she realized
she had missed very much.

"Why should I feel discouraged?
Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely,
And long for heaven and home..."

The gooseflesh ran up Meg's left arm and over to
her right at the sound of his voice. Her fingers
were behaving themselves, despite the fact that
she was having trouble with where her mind had
decided to visit.  During Frohike's funeral, no
less.

How adolescent.  Things were getting bad, but it
wasn't anything that couldn't be controlled.  She
concentrated on her job: to accompany Kevin,
whose voice was like angels come to earth.

"...My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You think I only think about you
When we're both in the same room."

--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Kevin tapped his fingers impatiently on the
veneer of Frohike's old desk and listened with
equal impatience to the dull hum emanating from
the other end of the telephone.  He'd been lucky
enough to get through in the first place.  Now he
had to see if he'd be lucky enough to actually
talk to her.

"Hello?"

"Momma," Kevin said, gripping the phone with
both hands.

"Kevin!  Baby!  How are you?"  Her voice was tinged
slightly with the static characteristic of a
bad connection, but it was a connection, and
Kevin wasn't one to look a gift horse in the
mouth.

"I'm okay, Momma.  How are you?"

His mother laughed with good-natured resignation.
"Things could be worse, baby.  Much, much worse.
We've got just over two hundred at this camp now
as of today's head count."

"Man," Kevin breathed.  "That's a lot of people."

"But three more of them are nurses," his mother
continued, "so they're able to help me out some."

"*That's* good news."

"Yeah," she replied, sounding pleased but tired
nevertheless.  "You know how tough it was when I
was the only RN around, but things are getting
better.  Did Walter and Rachel Jo get out
there okay?"

Leave it to his mother to call everyone by their
first names.  "Yeah, they did.  Thanks for helping
them get all those supplies together, too.  The
funeral was today.  Everybody else is eating dinner
right now."

He could hear his mother making "tsk tsk" noises.
"And why aren't you eating with them?"

"I wasn't hungry."

"Don't you lie to your momma like that," she
scolded her twenty-four year old son.

"I'll eat when I get off the phone, Momma, I
promise."

"Hmmnh," she grunted a bit in disbelief.  "When
are you coming back to DC next?"

He could tell she missed him.  He smiled a little
but balked at what he had to ask her next.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I thought you and Megabyte would be getting back
to your delivery run through South America once
the funeral was over."  She sounded confused.

"Ah," he stammered.  "I might be changing plans."

"Why, baby?"  The concern in her voice suddenly
deepened.  "What's the matter?"

"Momma," he sighed, scratching the back of his
head thoughtfully, "when was the last time you
heard from my father?"

The dull hum returned.  Kevin's heart pounded.  He
hadn't asked her this question or any like it since
he was nine.

"I'm trying to look for him," Kevin explained,
mostly to fill the silence, "but all I've found
so far are dead ends."

"Kevin, baby," she answered, pained, "it's been
a long, long time--"

He wouldn't be put off.  "How long?"

He could hear his mother sigh.  "Since right
before you graduated from college."

Now it was Kevin's turn to be silent.

"I tried calling him to get an address because
I wanted to send him an invitation."

Kevin closed his eyes.  "Did you?"

His mother was silent for a moment.  Her
reluctance to answer him was clear, even over
the static on the line, but answer him she
did.  "Yes."

Kevin tried to grasp all the implications of
that single "yes."  Yes, she had talked to
Kevin's father.  Yes, she had sent him an
invitation to his son's graduation.  And, yes,
he had chosen to stay away.  From his own son's
college graduation.  By choice.  Just like he had
chosen to leave his family fifteen years ago.

Kevin held his head up with his right hand.
"Where did you send the invitation?"

Static again.  She was thinking.

"Don't try to talk me out of this, Momma,"
he warned her.  "I'm going to try to find
him with or without your help."

"Kevin," she said with her characteristic
quiet strength, "even after all he's done--"

"Momma," he tried to interrupt.

"Let me finish," she broke in.  "Even after
all he's done to both of us, I never wished
him any harm.  I just wanted you to know that."

Kevin opened his eyes and stared at the blank
wall ahead of him, stunned by his mother's
incredible courage, even after all she'd been
through.

"Just tell me one thing, son."

Kevin winced.  He knew what she was going to ask
him.  He wasn't sure how he wanted to answer her.
He wasn't sure what the true answer was at any
rate.

"Why do you want to find him, Kevin?  Why?"

Why?  His motivation, the reason for this sense of
urgency was buried so deeply within him that
he couldn't even grasp at it properly enough to
express it.  He couldn't think of an answer.

"Momma--"

"Do you still feel responsible for him?"  He let her
interrupt him.  "Kevin, baby, you can't save him now
any more than you could have saved him when you were
just a little boy.  Just like I couldn't save him.
Nobody can save him.  He has to want to be saved."

He heard in his mother's voice that hard-fought-and-
won acceptance of life's hardships known only by the
truly victorious.  Kevin, however, was not like his
mother.  Kevin couldn't just give up like that -- on
himself, yes;  on someone else, no.  Not now.  Not
under these circumstances.

He couldn't turn his back on his father.  To do so
would have put Kevin on the same level.

"He can't vaccinate himself, Momma," Kevin argued,
sounding stronger than he felt.  "I don't want
him in our lives any more than you do, but that
doesn't mean I want him dead."

His mother gave no response.  She was letting him
finish.  But what more could he say to explain
himself?  How had Meg understood so easily?  What
had she said to him in the hallway?

"And," he told his mother, "if I don't at least
try..."

*... that makes me just like him.*  He couldn't say
it out loud.  It hurt too much.

After another moment, his mother answered him
with a question.  "Do you have pen and paper?"

The lump in his throat was manageable.  "Thank
you, Momma."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The sisters had done their best to cook a post-
funeral meal with what few supplies were on
hand.  Skinner and DeMaram had brought with them,
among other things, such luxuries as a case of
macaroni and cheese and a few smoked hams that
were apparently meant to be Christmas gifts at
one time, by the look of their wrappings.

But for some people, Christmas hadn't come last
year.  Meg didn't have the heart to ask
DeMaram, seated across from her, where she
had found the hams.  She simply ate with
appreciation for the fact that her plate held real
meat neither from a can nor followed by the word
"jerky."

Kevin was not to be found.  He'd probably gone to
make his weekly phone call to the refugee camp
outside of DC where his mother lived and worked.
Either that or he was back on the computer, looking
for his father.

All the other dinner guests were beginning to
disperse as well.  Cho, Byers and Langly had left
without any parting words, but that was no surprise.
DeMaram excused herself to the supply room in hopes
of packing some more vaccine to take back with her to
the DC camp.

Skinner and her parents were sitting at the huge
kitchen table, drinking real coffee and talking.
Meg wanted the coffee but did not want to be the
only one of "the kids" left behind, and she certainly
wasn't ready to sit and talk with her parents over
coffee.  She still needed more time.

"Do you need any help, Captain?"  Meg asked DeMaram
as she began walking for the stairwell.

DeMaram shrugged.  "Can use all the help I can get."

"It's okay if I meet you down there, then?"  Meg
glanced back at the coffee pot still hot on the
stove.  "I wanted to get some of that coffee before
it's all gone."

DeMaram's brown eyes smiled.  "Nectar of the gods.
Believe me, I sympathize.  Go ahead, Miss Mulder."

"Please," Meg snorted, "Meg."

"Fair 'nough," she nodded, "then you'll call me
DP."  It wasn't an offer; it was a command.

Meg grinned back at her.  Nothing against Kevin or
Cho, but it was nice not to be the only girl around
for the time being.

Meg hurried over to the stove and pulled a coffee
mug out of one of the cabinets.  Still trying to
get out of the kitchen area as quickly as possible,
she dumped the coffee into the mug so fast that
the lid on the pot popped off, sending most of the
contents onto her left hand.

"Shhhi...," she muttered under her breath,
squeezing her eyes and lips shut so as not
to let on to anyone else what had happened.

She sneaked a look over her shoulder. They were still
deep in conversation. None of them had noticed her
clumsiness.  Banging cabinets open and shut to cover
her wincing noises, she was able to locate a dishtowel
and made quick use of it.  She wrung the towel out
underneath the running spigot and took advantage of
that activity, letting the cold water run over her hand.
A fierce red blotch was forming on the side of her index
finger and thumb, running midway down the back of her
hand.


She wrapped the cool, wet towel around her hand.
Picking up the half-filled cup of coffee in her
right hand, Meg left the kitchen without saying
anything either to Skinner, her mother or her father.
She walked slowly and stopped to inspect the burn a
few times whenever she was in a spot with relatively
good lighting on her way down to help DeMaram.  It
was a nasty shade of crimson, but no blisters were
forming.  She counted herself lucky and continued on
her way, hoping DeMaram hadn't assumed Meg had gone
back on her offer to help.

When she arrived in the basement, Meg heard
whispering coming from the end of the hall, near
the entrance to the storage room.  The silhouettes
peeking through the shadows seemed to be leaning
very closely towards one another, as if their
conversation were very open and intense.  Meg
strained her ears and was able to discern Kevin's
voice.

"Yeah," he was saying, "I'd like to go with you."

"Be more than happy to have you along, Kevin."

Meg didn't recognize the other voice right away,
but another sentence of that gentle southern accent
revealed the speaker's identity.  It was DeMaram.

"We plan on leaving tomorrow morning, later rather
than sooner."

*Leaving?*  Meg's heart began to hammer in her
ears.

She could see the shadows make way as Kevin
nodded to DeMaram.  "I'll be ready."

Now the humming in her ears was too loud; she
couldn't hear DeMaram's reply.  All she could
hear besides her own heart palpitations was that
tiny incredulous voice inside of herself:

*Leaving?  Kevin is //leaving//?  With another girl?*

Not a girl.  DeMaram had to be at least five years
older than Meg.  She clutched the towel and the
coffee cup more tightly to keep from dropping either.
She was feeling... angry?  Panicked?  Jealous?

All three and more?

She stopped herself.  This reaction was completely
irrational.  She needed to get out of this monastery
and re-teach herself how to think straight.

Meg turned around and walked back up the steps,
downing the rest of the coffee as she did so,
satisfied with the way it seemed to scrape her
throat with its stinging heat.  Once upstairs
again, she put the mug down on a table, found
her winter coat, and walked outside.


END 6/31The Children's Teeth: Litany 6/31
By Erin (c), CathyLex@aol.com

Disclaimers, etc. in "The Children's Teeth: Prescript"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You think I only think about you
When we're both in the same room."

--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Kevin tapped his fingers impatiently on the
veneer of Frohike's old desk and listened with
equal impatience to the dull hum emanating from
the other end of the telephone.  He'd been lucky
enough to get through in the first place.  Now he
had to see if he'd be lucky enough to actually
talk to her.

"Hello?"

"Momma," Kevin said, gripping the phone with
both hands.

"Kevin!  Baby!  How are you?"  Her voice was tinged
slightly with the static characteristic of a
bad connection, but it was a connection, and
Kevin wasn't one to look a gift horse in the
mouth.

"I'm okay, Momma.  How are you?"

His mother laughed with good-natured resignation.
"Things could be worse, baby.  Much, much worse.
We've got just over two hundred at this camp now
as of today's head count."

"Man," Kevin breathed.  "That's a lot of people."

"But three more of them are nurses," his mother
continued, "so they're able to help me out some."

"*That's* good news."

"Yeah," she replied, sounding pleased but tired
nevertheless.  "You know how tough it was when I
was the only RN around, but things are getting
better.  Did Walter and Rachel Jo get out
there okay?"

Leave it to his mother to call everyone by their
first names.  "Yeah, they did.  Thanks for helping
them get all those supplies together, too.  The
funeral was today.  Everybody else is eating dinner
right now."

He could hear his mother making "tsk tsk" noises.
"And why aren't you eating with them?"

"I wasn't hungry."

"Don't you lie to your momma like that," she
scolded her twenty-four year old son.

"I'll eat when I get off the phone, Momma, I
promise."

"Hmmnh," she grunted a bit in disbelief.  "When
are you coming back to DC next?"

He could tell she missed him.  He smiled a little
but balked at what he had to ask her next.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I thought you and Megabyte would be getting back
to your delivery run through South America once
the funeral was over."  She sounded confused.

"Ah," he stammered.  "I might be changing plans."

"Why, baby?"  The concern in her voice suddenly
deepened.  "What's the matter?"

"Momma," he sighed, scratching the back of his
head thoughtfully, "when was the last time you
heard from my father?"

The dull hum returned.  Kevin's heart pounded.  He
hadn't asked her this question or any like it since
he was nine.

"I'm trying to look for him," Kevin explained,
mostly to fill the silence, "but all I've found
so far are dead ends."

"Kevin, baby," she answered, pained, "it's been
a long, long time--"

He wouldn't be put off.  "How long?"

He could hear his mother sigh.  "Since right
before you graduated from college."

Now it was Kevin's turn to be silent.

"I tried calling him to get an address because
I wanted to send him an invitation."

Kevin closed his eyes.  "Did you?"

His mother was silent for a moment.  Her
reluctance to answer him was clear, even over
the static on the line, but answer him she
did.  "Yes."

Kevin tried to grasp all the implications of
that single "yes."  Yes, she had talked to
Kevin's father.  Yes, she had sent him an
invitation to his son's graduation.  And, yes,
he had chosen to stay away.  From his own son's
college graduation.  By choice.  Just like he had
chosen to leave his family fifteen years ago.

Kevin held his head up with his right hand.
"Where did you send the invitation?"

Static again.  She was thinking.

"Don't try to talk me out of this, Momma,"
he warned her.  "I'm going to try to find
him with or without your help."

"Kevin," she said with her characteristic
quiet strength, "even after all he's done--"

"Momma," he tried to interrupt.

"Let me finish," she broke in.  "Even after
all he's done to both of us, I never wished
him any harm.  I just wanted you to know that."

Kevin opened his eyes and stared at the blank
wall ahead of him, stunned by his mother's
incredible courage, even after all she'd been
through.

"Just tell me one thing, son."

Kevin winced.  He knew what she was going to ask
him.  He wasn't sure how he wanted to answer her.
He wasn't sure what the true answer was at any
rate.

"Why do you want to find him, Kevin?  Why?"

Why?  His motivation, the reason for this sense of
urgency was buried so deeply within him that
he couldn't even grasp at it properly enough to
express it.  He couldn't think of an answer.

"Momma--"

"Do you still feel responsible for him?"  He let her
interrupt him.  "Kevin, baby, you can't save him now
any more than you could have saved him when you were
just a little boy.  Just like I couldn't save him.
Nobody can save him.  He has to want to be saved."

He heard in his mother's voice that hard-fought-and-
won acceptance of life's hardships known only by the
truly victorious.  Kevin, however, was not like his
mother.  Kevin couldn't just give up like that -- on
himself, yes;  on someone else, no.  Not now.  Not
under these circumstances.

He couldn't turn his back on his father.  To do so
would have put Kevin on the same level.

"He can't vaccinate himself, Momma," Kevin argued,
sounding stronger than he felt.  "I don't want
him in our lives any more than you do, but that
doesn't mean I want him dead."

His mother gave no response.  She was letting him
finish.  But what more could he say to explain
himself?  How had Meg understood so easily?  What
had she said to him in the hallway?

"And," he told his mother, "if I don't at least
try..."

*... that makes me just like him.*  He couldn't say
it out loud.  It hurt too much.

After another moment, his mother answered him
with a question.  "Do you have pen and paper?"

The lump in his throat was manageable.  "Thank
you, Momma."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The sisters had done their best to cook a post-
funeral meal with what few supplies were on
hand.  Skinner and DeMaram had brought with them,
among other things, such luxuries as a case of
macaroni and cheese and a few smoked hams that
were apparently meant to be Christmas gifts at
one time, by the look of their wrappings.

But for some people, Christmas hadn't come last
year.  Meg didn't have the heart to ask
DeMaram, seated across from her, where she
had found the hams.  She simply ate with
appreciation for the fact that her plate held real
meat neither from a can nor followed by the word
"jerky."

Kevin was not to be found.  He'd probably gone to
make his weekly phone call to the refugee camp
outside of DC where his mother lived and worked.
Either that or he was back on the computer, looking
for his father.

All the other dinner guests were beginning to
disperse as well.  Cho, Byers and Langly had left
without any parting words, but that was no surprise.
DeMaram excused herself to the supply room in hopes
of packing some more vaccine to take back with her to
the DC camp.

Skinner and her parents were sitting at the huge
kitchen table, drinking real coffee and talking.
Meg wanted the coffee but did not want to be the
only one of "the kids" left behind, and she certainly
wasn't ready to sit and talk with her parents over
coffee.  She still needed more time.

"Do you need any help, Captain?"  Meg asked DeMaram
as she began walking for the stairwell.

DeMaram shrugged.  "Can use all the help I can get."

"It's okay if I meet you down there, then?"  Meg
glanced back at the coffee pot still hot on the
stove.  "I wanted to get some of that coffee before
it's all gone."

DeMaram's brown eyes smiled.  "Nectar of the gods.
Believe me, I sympathize.  Go ahead, Miss Mulder."

"Please," Meg snorted, "Meg."

"Fair 'nough," she nodded, "then you'll call me
DP."  It wasn't an offer; it was a command.

Meg grinned back at her.  Nothing against Kevin or
Cho, but it was nice not to be the only girl around
for the time being.

Meg hurried over to the stove and pulled a coffee
mug out of one of the cabinets.  Still trying to
get out of the kitchen area as quickly as possible,
she dumped the coffee into the mug so fast that
the lid on the pot popped off, sending most of the
contents onto her left hand.

"Shhhi...," she muttered under her breath,
squeezing her eyes and lips shut so as not
to let on to anyone else what had happened.

She sneaked a look over her shoulder. They were still
deep in conversation. None of them had noticed her
clumsiness.  Banging cabinets open and shut to cover
her wincing noises, she was able to locate a dishtowel
and made quick use of it.  She wrung the towel out
underneath the running spigot and took advantage of
that activity, letting the cold water run over her hand.
A fierce red blotch was forming on the side of her index
finger and thumb, running midway down the back of her
hand.


She wrapped the cool, wet towel around her hand.
Picking up the half-filled cup of coffee in her
right hand, Meg left the kitchen without saying
anything either to Skinner, her mother or her father.
She walked slowly and stopped to inspect the burn a
few times whenever she was in a spot with relatively
good lighting on her way down to help DeMaram.  It
was a nasty shade of crimson, but no blisters were
forming.  She counted herself lucky and continued on
her way, hoping DeMaram hadn't assumed Meg had gone
back on her offer to help.

When she arrived in the basement, Meg heard
whispering coming from the end of the hall, near
the entrance to the storage room.  The silhouettes
peeking through the shadows seemed to be leaning
very closely towards one another, as if their
conversation were very open and intense.  Meg
strained her ears and was able to discern Kevin's
voice.

"Yeah," he was saying, "I'd like to go with you."

"Be more than happy to have you along, Kevin."

Meg didn't recognize the other voice right away,
but another sentence of that gentle southern accent
revealed the speaker's identity.  It was DeMaram.

"We plan on leaving tomorrow morning, later rather
than sooner."

*Leaving?*  Meg's heart began to hammer in her
ears.

She could see the shadows make way as Kevin
nodded to DeMaram.  "I'll be ready."

Now the humming in her ears was too loud; she
couldn't hear DeMaram's reply.  All she could
hear besides her own heart palpitations was that
tiny incredulous voice inside of herself:

*Leaving?  Kevin is //leaving//?  With another girl?*

Not a girl.  DeMaram had to be at least five years
older than Meg.  She clutched the towel and the
coffee cup more tightly to keep from dropping either.
She was feeling... angry?  Panicked?  Jealous?

All three and more?

She stopped herself.  This reaction was completely
irrational.  She needed to get out of this monastery
and re-teach herself how to think straight.

Meg turned around and walked back up the steps,
downing the rest of the coffee as she did so,
satisfied with the way it seemed to scrape her
throat with its stinging heat.  Once upstairs
again, she put the mug down on a table, found
her winter coat, and walked outside.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You think I'm only here to witness
The remains of love exhumed."

--BNL, "Call and Answer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The wind stirred in the chysanthemums Meg had
planted in the cemetery all those months ago.
Chysanthemums, the flower for the month of
November.

Emily C. Wexford's birthday was in November.

There was no gravestone here, not even a body.
Wexford had disintegrated.  Disappeared without
a trace.  These winter-dry flowers shook in the
wind, a silent testimony to the one they
memorialized.

Frohike's fresh grave was close by.

The cold knifed its way through the towel around
her burnt hand.  The cold felt good.  The cold felt
right.  Meg had come out here alone in the dark.
The past few years convinced her that she grieved
better alone.

Once, when she'd first found out that her parents
were missing and most likely dead, she'd caught a
glimpse of herself in her dorm mirror and had
made this observation: Meg Mulder was not a
pretty crier.  Her cheeks would get all puffy and
red, her eyes would go completely bloodshot, and
her nose would run in the most unattractive
fashion.

Tonight, however, the tears were not flowing
freely, but instead trickling down her cheeks one
by one.  So much loss pressed in on her, and to
top it all off, Kevin was talking with another
woman.  No, not just talking.  They seemed to be
having a very intense conversation.

They'd only met yesterday.  How intense could a
conversation with a stranger get?  Intense enough
for her to talk him into leaving the monastery
with her?

Even though they'd known each other for almost
twenty years, anything would be more serious than his usual
conversations with Meg.  She could never bring
herself to talk seriously much with Kevin.  There
was too much history.  The switch from talking
about who had the better foul shot to talking
about how much she was turned on by the little
divet that formed between his eyebrows when he
really concentrated, by the feel of his stubble
against her bare shoulder that one night they'd
pitched their tent in the Outback...

Impossible.

The switch from the mundane, silly talk to the
serious stuff -- well, it would just be flat-out
impossible.  Serious talk would be dangerous.
Serious talk might mean having to tell him...
things.  Things Kevin would never have thought
about before, because Kevin did not think of her
... in that way.

Alone, she indulged in the tears.  Within the past
two years, she'd been preparing herself for the
day that would come: that inevitable day when
Kevin would meet someone else, fall in love, and
get married.  Meg had handled his past girlfriends
with nothing but amiability, but the older the two
of them got, the more the possibility solidified that
Kevin one day soon would meet "the one"... and that
"one" would not be Meg.

Hell, she'd lost everything else: her parents, her
Gram, Frohike, and once colonization had begun
she'd lost friends too numerous to mention.  Why
not Kevin, too?

Well, she'd never exactly lose him.  He'd just
grow out of her reach.

Meg tried to picture the future so that when it
happened it might not hurt so much.  She would
become "Aunt Meg" -- hopefully "Cool Aunt
Meg," the kids' favorite adult.  She'd go over
Kevin's house and cook Thanksgiving dinner with
his wife, and she'd smile at her, playing her "best
buddy" part so well, so seamlessly, that Mrs.
Kevin Declan III would never guess her
husband's childhood friend was jealous as all hell.
She'd never guess that her husband's childhood
friend spent nights dreaming of kissing her
husband...

How ridiculous.  Irrational.

//Let go of him,// she told herself.  //Get over
it.//

But letting go and getting over it seemed to be
the only thing she'd been doing for three years.
Betrayal and loss and death seemed to be
following her, and there was simply nowhere to
hide.  She couldn't even go to her mother -- her
other best friend.  That connection had been
shaken to the foundations as well.

Now the tears were flowing freely.  She let
herself cry loudly.  There was no one to hear.

"Do you remember the carousel at the mall when
you were little?"

The soft voice at her side startled her.  Meg
turned and saw her mother standing quietly
beside her, a few yards away.

Meg quickly wiped her face with the back of her
right hand.  Her mother came closer and held
something out to her.  A tissue.  Meg stared at it
for a moment, then resigned herself to taking it.

After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, Meg
hiccuped, "I don't remember."  The words felt
strange in her mouth.

"You were three."  Her mother turned her eyes to
the chrysanthemums.  Her voice softened with
remembrance.  "You didn't want to sit in your
stroller that day, so I told you you could walk if
you promised not to let go of my hand."

Meg smiled a little.  "So of course I did."

Meg's small smile was returned.  "Yes.  Yes, you
did let go, and I looked down and all of the
sudden you weren't there.  You couldn't have
been out of my sight for more than a minute, but
still, I had lost you."

Meg could see her mother's fear still lived at the
memory.  "How did you find me?"

Her mother laughed softly.  "I heard your little
voice calling, 'Look, Mommy, look!'  You had
found the carousel, and you wanted to ride it..."

Meg looked at her mother, suddenly shocked.
"That's why?"

Her mother turned her face back to Meg.  "'That's
why' what?"

"That's why," Meg guessed, "we never went to
the mall until I was ten.  Even during Christmas.
We always shopped mail order.  I thought it was
because you and Dad were so busy but..."

Meg's mother almost cringed.  "I just couldn't
bear the thought... I just couldn't bear the thought
of loosing you that way.  So I didn't take you
back to the mall for a long, long time."

It made sense.  Meg tried to read her mother's
face, but could not.  For the first time, she
became aware that her mother had more than just
facts to tell her.  She'd had feelings of her own.
Meg wasn't the only one being followed by
betrayal, loss and death.

In a voice colored with awe, Meg asked, "Why
are you telling me this?"

Another bittersweet smile graced her mother's
face.  "Maybe I should have taken you back to
the mall after that, but the danger to you seemed
too great.  I know it was nothing more than a
percieved danger, but I had to make a choice.
You missed out, undoubtedly, but it wasn't anything
you couldn't learn on your own when you were old
enough.  We only had your best interests at heart."

Meg looked back at the chrysanthemums, heavily
pondering her mother's words.  She wasn't just
talking about the mall.

"Meg," her mother sighed with a solidity, an
uneasy resignation, "we're not asking for your
forgiveness.  That might be asking too much.
That might be more than you can give.  All we
can hope for is your understanding."

Meg turned her mother's story over and over in
her mind.

Understanding.

She took a moment to try to guess at her
mother's feelings.  Meg knew so little of what her
mother been through in her life.  She felt ill
equipped for such imaginings.

Regardless, she had to venture a guess.  "You
must have been really scared when you couldn't
find me."

Her mother's eyebrows shot up then evened out
once more.  "Terrified, actually."

"But Mommy," she asked, her voice muted with
old hurt, her heart overflowing with confusion,
"how can I understand something I don't even
know about?  I've read Wexford's journal, and
I've read Daddy's letter, but it's not enough."

She stopped talking, giving time for her words to
soak in and giving herself time to choose her
words rather than blurt them.  Her mother
remained silent, her blue eyes glistening in the
starlight.

"I need to be told," Meg sighed at last, her eyes
pleading with her mother.  "I need *you* to tell
me."

Her mother blinked several times and reached for
her daughter's arm.  "Let's go inside, Meggie."

Meg stiffened with anger.  "Mom, you're putting
me off again."

Her mother's eyebrow shot up in response.  "You
want to hear the whole story out here?  In the
cold?  At night?"

It took a moment before Meg fully understood
what her mother had just said.  She gaped in
surprise.  "You're going to tell me?"

Her mother nodded briefly.  "Let's go inside.  I'll
make you a cup of tea.  We'll talk."

Somewhere between uncertainty and relief, Meg
searched for a way to answer this new turn of
events.  The light approach suddenly seemed
right.  It was the one she knew best.

"Okay, but no honey.  I'd rather have it plain if
we don't have any real sugar."

Her mother smirked at her daughter's endearing
quirkiness.  "I think we can manage."



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Perfect love casts out fear."

--1 John 4:18
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was lying on the floor.  The bathroom
floor.  The tiles pressed cold through his
shirt into his back.

"Dad?"

He was choking on something.  His lungs were
bubbling up into his windpipe.  He couldn't
breathe.

"Dad?"

Meg hovered above him.  Her eyes were wide.
Fear?  Glassy, almost as if... almost
feverish.

She was about to cry.  His brave little girl was
about to cry.  She cradled his head in her hands.

He tried to speak to her, but the words stuck.
He tasted blood in the back of his mouth.  Then
the blood pumped over his tongue, pushing against
his teeth, trickling warm over his bottom lip.

"Dad!"

He couldn't breathe.  He couldn't swallow.  He
couldn't move.

"Forgive me..."

He spoke to his daughter, and it was his father's
voice.

And then he woke up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He hadn't had such a disturbing nightmare in so long
that he was genuinely surprised to jolt awake with
his long-lost friend Cold Sweat rolling off of him in
a thousand rivulets.  He clutched fruitlessly at the
homemeade quilt with one hand, at his pounding heart
with the other.

"Jesus," he muttered, trying to catch his breath.
His chest hurt so much he was concerned momentarily
that the dream had woken him up to a heart attack.

He breathed for another minute and the pain lessened.
It was a panic attack of some kind, not a life
threatening pulmonary event.  Funny how growing older
and watching a friend die of natural causes forced
one to think seriously about one's own mortality.

"Scully."  He reached beneath the covers to hold her,
his lifeline, his love, one of two good dreams that
had ever come true and stayed that way.

She wasn't there.

He blinked into the darkness, letting his hand linger
over the spot in the bed that belonged to Scully.
It was long cold.  She hadn't come to bed at all
yet.

He reached over to the nightstand and took the
old clock in his shaking hands, lifting it to
his face so he could read it in such low light.
12:26 am.  Where was she?

After he stumbled over to the wall and switched
on the lamp, he bumbled about their bedroom,
dressing himself enough that he could wander the
monastery looking for his partner.

She'd ditched him.  He half-snorted at the irony,
turned off the light and shut the door behind
him.

It didnt't take him long to find her.  A soft
orange glow was emanating from the largest sitting
room on the first floor, and the warmth of the
glow was matched by the warmth of Scully's voice,
speaking softly.  She was saying words that
matched images and memories he shared with her.
More accurately, she was telling a story.  She
was telling *their* story.

He stepped quietly around the floorboards that
were sure to creak beneath his feet.  Soundlessly,
he peered around the entrance way to the sitting
room, and the sight that greeted his eyes made his
heart overflow with tenderness, where mere moments
before it had been bursting with nightmare.

Scully turned her head slightly.  She said nothing
to indicate that she saw Mulder standing there, but
he knew by her eyes that she was aware of his
presence.  She was sitting on the end of one of the
sofas, wrapped in a blanket, facing the crackling fire.
On her left, also wrapped in a blanket, her face turned
to the fire, was their daughter.  Meg had propped a
pillow under her head and was leaning against her
mother's lap, stretching her legs out across the rest
of the sofa.  The flickering shadows accentuated how
much her cheekbones and chin were a mirror image of
Scully's.

The two most beautiful women in the world.  Hands
down.  No contest.

*There's a lot of you in Meg.*  Scully's earlier
words came back to him, and he took a moment to
thank God or Whom- or Whatever that Meg had inherited
so much from her mother as well.

Mulder pondered his daughter.  He couldn't see her
entire face, but he could see the way the firelight
caught and held the red tones in her sandy hair.
Her eyes were shaped just like her mother's but fringed
with a thicker, curling set of lashes -- lashes
reminiscent of two aunts Meg would never know.  Those
lashes lowered and lifted as she stared intently into
the fire.

"So when Daddy found you in the hospital," she was
asking in that voice of hers so very much like her
mother's, "and you woke up and got better and stuff,
is *that* when you two..."

Her voice trailed off.  Mulder tried to read Meg's
face, but the angle at which she faced the fire
did not allow him a clear view of her expressive
eyes.

"When we what, baby?"

He almost laughed.  Scully hadn't called Meg "baby"
in more years than he could count.  He braced himself
for a complaint from his daughter, but none was
forthcoming.  Instead, Meg was fidgeting with her
cuticles, holding them up to the light and picking
at them with her fingernails.

"You know," Meg sighed uncomfortably, curling her
hands into fists before tucking them into her
armpits.  "When you two... got together?"

Scully's eyes subtly caught his again and they
shared a wistful smile.

"No," Scully replied, but Mulder wasn't sure whom
she was telling.  "It was a few more years yet before
anything like that happened."

"*Years*?"  Meg asked in disbelief.

It was all Mulder could do to keep from laughing out
loud.  Meg couldn't imagine her parents without each
other.  Funny.  Nearly twenty eight years ago, he
wouldn't have been able to imagine them together.
Fantasize, yes.  Imagine a too-good-to-be-true
reality, no.

Just like imaginining a child who was completely
Scully's and completely his own had once been
impossible, and now here she was, twenty-two years old,
staring into a fireplace and asking about the past
from which she had been born.

Scully brushed Meg's wayward curls away from her
cheek.  "Years," she replied, smiling sideways
at her eavesdropping husband.

Years of distance and misunderstanding.  Years spent
each trusting the other with life and limb,
with bizarre theories and demands for proof, but
years before either was willing to let that trust
cover heart and soul as well.

Years Meg would not have been able to imagine.

Buth they had defied the odds, as always.  They had
learned to play the game just as well as their
adversaries, had found unlikely allies, and by
some miracle... the two of them had pulled it off,
had become partners in the truest sense of the word,
in a sense so true it transcended the meaning of the
word.

And then, as if in complete defiance of everything
expected, even as expected by those accustomed to
expecting the unexpected, their daughter was born.
Meg was normal.  Meg was healthy.  Meg had red blood.
Their pain had become a pearl neither had dared hope
to hold.  She was his and she was hers, and naming her
Margaret seemed right, because "Margaret" means
"pearl."

She was beautiful.  She was everything they had
ever lost returned to them, everthing They had ever
taken from them, and so much more than either her
mother or father ever could have imagined.

She was also tempermental, sometimes gassy,
a bit accident-prone, at first had an "I'm-
hungry" cry to pierce eardrums, and eventually
she grew to be independent to a fault, but she was
completely his and completely hers.  She had the wide
Scully eyes, a modified version of the Mulder nose,
and, thanks to a double dose of recessive genes,
forest-thick eyelashes and a defiant mass of
sand-colored curls.

Like a movie in rewind, he closed his eyes and
watched their daughter in his memory.  First,
she was hauling boxes of books into her Georgetown
dorm.  Then she was walking up to the principal in her
cap and gown, receiving her high school diploma.  She
was laughing at her father, pulling him off of his
chair, teaching him how to waltz to Billy Joel at
that father-daughter dance.  She was sticking her
mouth-guard against her braces and picking up her
field hockey stick for the semi-final match.  She
was in the kitchen, making Christmas cookies with her
Gram, precipitating a flour fight with her mother.

She was thirteen, in the hospital waiting room, and
he was handing her a tissue, and she was sobbing,
saying it was all her fault that Kevin had slit his
wrists.

She was five, sitting in her mother's arms, her
childishly long legs dangling as she whispered,
"Hi, Daddy," and he looked up at her from his own
hospital bed, calling her "Good golly, Miss Molly"
and almost making her smile.

And she was three, prancing around the living room
in the new blue velvet and white eyelet dress her
grandmother in Rhode Island had sent for her
birthday.  She was giggling when he called her
"devil with the blue dress on," and Scully was
laughing at both of them when he discovered that
"Good Golly, Miss Molly" was the perfect nickname
for her.

And she was not even an hour old, and she was at
Scully's breast, and he kissed them both on the
forehead before letting fall silent tears of relief
and thanksgiving and... a kind of victory he hadn't
known existed.

And suddenly he was pulling Scully up off of the
floor in the autopsy bay, holding her against him,
smoothing her hair, panicked that she was sick
for the fourth morning in a row, terrified
because she never threw up like this during
an autopsy, never in all the years of their
partnership.  And he looked down just in time to
catch her wiping her hand against the bottom of
her nose.  And there was no blood there, only
a glove that hadn't even touched the dead body
yet.

And it took them a month and a half more before they
figured out the problem, because the possibility
was too extreme, even for them, the ramifications
too much for an innocent child to bear.  And just as
before they hadn't allowed themselves the hope for
a life together...

"How come it took you guys so long?"

*Because we thought we'd never have you,* he
almost said aloud, but quickly remembered that Meg
didn't even know he was there.

He wanted to keep it that way.  Scully was right
about waiting to talk to Meg.  After all, no one
knew Mulders better than Scully.

Besides, Meg wasn't asking about her own birth.
She was asking about her parents.  Meg didn't sound
confused, amused, or even awe-struck.  Instead, she
sounded... cautious?  Like she wasn't sure she wanted
to hear the answer.

"How come it took us so long?"  Scully reached over
to the coffee table in front of them and picked up
a mug.  She sipped from it thoughtfully before
answering.  "You have to understand there were...
rules against that sort of thing."

"I know that," Meg answered quietly, "but how did
you work your way around the rules?  And when did you
know you *wanted* to work your way around them?"

Scully was looking down at Meg's hair again,
brushing tendrils of it out of her face with her
ring-clad left hand.  "There wasn't any one time
I could pinpoint when I knew."

"You just... sort of... *knew*?"  There was that
caution in Meg's voice again, and Mulder wondered
at it.

"Oh, I denied it," Scully admitted, "or tried to
for a long time.  I made excuses to hide it, but
eventually it came down to a matter of being
honest with myself, no matter how your father
felt in return."

Meg looked up at her mother.  "Even if it meant
rejection?"

Scully smiled a little.  "I was never very good at
letting myself get so close to people that they
would see me at my weakest.  It wasn't so much a
matter of rejection as much it was about
vulnerability."

Even now Scully blushed at this and refused to
catch Mulder's eye.

"You were afraid it wouldn't work out," Meg
observed, her voice fresh with a confidence
that had not been there moments ago.

"Of course," her mother agreed, "that was only
natural."

"But it did work out."

Scully finally chanced a glance his way once more.
"It still is."

"Well," Meg said, her voice verging on whining
impatience, "how did you decide to risk it?"

For a second, Scully stopped breathing in order
to devote all of her energies to deciding how
to answer this latest question of Meg's.
"That," she said on a gusty sigh, "is a long
story."

Mulder waited for Meg to snap back with a
trademark smart remark of some kind, but she
surprised him.  She merely waited in expectant
silence.

Scully shut her eyes and reopened them to the
fire.  As she continued absently stroking Meg's
hair, the ring on her finger sparkled in the low
light, making Mulder think of the first time he'd set
his own eyes on that ring, and of all the trouble
involved in placing a ring on that particular
finger...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone.
Let us make him a partner like himself.'"

-- from The Book of Tobit 8: 6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

July 3, 2000



"Lone Gunmen."

"Frohike," Mulder said from the other side of the
phone, "I need you to do something for me."

Frohike clamped the phone between his ear and his
shoulder and wheeled the rickety old office chair
over to his terminal.  "Whaddayaneed, buddy?"

"I'm on my way there right now," he answered,
"I need you to come somewhere with me."

Frohike, interest clearly piqued, asked, "Where are
we going?"

"Uhm," Mulder stammered, sounding not quite like
himself, "you're a smart guy.  You'll be able to
figure it out when we get there."

"I don't like the sound of this," Frohike answered.
"You're not planning on coming up here with a fake
cast and then luring me to a deserted park?"

"Don't tempt me.  Besides, you're not pretty enough."

"So... where we're going," Frohike leered in such a
tone that Mulder knew how the question would end,
"will Agent Scully be joining us at this... mystery
location?"

Mulder gripped the cell phone more tightly in his
increasingly sweaty palm.  "That's the plan."

He jabbed the "END" button with his thumb
and turned down the road to the Gunmen's
humble abode.  The sun was starting to set.  He
flicked a glance at his watch.  Just over one hour
left.  Would that be enough time to get there?

What was he worrying about?  Why was he nervous?
She'd wait.  Even if they were late, she knew it
wouldn't be out of hesitation.  Besides, she'd
waited this long, hadn't she?

All the more reason not to keep her waiting any
longer.  And this was the one instance he'd vowed
he wouldn't ditch her.  The tires squeaked in
protest as he rounded the next corner a bit too
quickly.

Thankfully, Frohike was already waiting outside, thus
saving Mulder the trouble of waiting for the Gunmen
to unlock all seven deadbolts before letting him in.
When Mulder pulled the car up, Frohike jumped in with
an alacrity that could only have been caused by the
prospect of seeing Agent Scully at the end of the
journey.  Mulder coughed out a nervous laugh and
tugged at his tie, loosening it even more.

At the first stoplight, Mulder drummed his thumbs
anxiously against the steering wheel, puffing his
cheeks as he exhaled a long breath.

"Nervous," Frohike observed.  "Why's that?"

Mulder couldn't answer; he was afraid his voice would
crack just like it had on the day that Maureen Bryant
had asked him to take her to the Freshman Formal.
He already felt like a freshman in high school again,
giddy, like he was sneaking out the back door of his
mom's house at midnight to go necking with Maureen
under a tree in her backyard.

No.  Weak comparison.  This was like nothing he'd ever
experienced before.  Not even remotely like the last
time he'd made a similar drive to a similar place.

Similar, but not the same.  There were fundamental
differences this time.  This time it was real.  No
wonder he was so uncharacteristically edgy.  But it
was an undeniably good kind of edgy.  Beyond good.
The best kind.

He could practially hear old Frohike's brain
churning away, trying to guess at their destination.
It was safe to bet the poor guy had no idea.

And Frohike looked suitably confused when Mulder
pulled the car into the parking lot of one St.
John's Church in Alexandria.  There were only two
other cars in the parking lot; one Mulder
recognized, the other he didn't, but he knew who the
owner had to be.

They walked towards the main entrace to the church,
and Mulder asked Frohike, "Figured it out yet?"

"No," Frohike answered slowly and cautiously, "can't
say that I have.  Is this for a case you're working
on?"

Mulder only gave him a cryptic half-smile as he
pushed open the door, ushering Frohike inside.

They needed a few moments to allow their eyes to adjust
to the low, stained-glass inspired lighting.  The sun
was nearly down now, and at the top of the aisle in
the sanctuary, a white-haired priest was busy lighting
a few candles for illumination.

The candles sparked to life and shone on the two
other figures waiting for them in the sanctuary.

Mulder wasn't quite running down the aisle, but
Frohike's shorter legs had to do double time just to
keep up.

Mrs. Scully smiled at him when he reached the end of
his near run.  "Fox," she said, pursing the corners
of her lips like it was obviously all she could do to
keep a big, stupid grin from taking over her face,
"good of you to show up."

He was about to answer her something along the lines of,
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."  However, there was
someone standing quietly beside Mrs. Scully, and
he couldn't help but immediately devote all of his
attention to her.

"Nice dress," Mulder nodded at his partner, reaching out
and taking her fingers in his, letting his thumb graze
the ring she already wore.

"Well..."  Scully took a fold of the ivory crepe in
her hand and cast her eyes downward with a funny sort
of shyness he'd rarely seen in her.  It was obviously
all she could do to keep a big, stupid grin from
taking over her face.  "It's nowhere near traditional,
but it is *something* different from the kind of thing
I usually wear."

He gazed at her knowingly.  "Your mom insisted on it?"

"Among other things."  She gestured to the air about
her, indicating their surroundings of old stone-and-
mortar, stained glass and candles, statues and
crucifixes.

"For all your mom's help on this, we could have had
this thing on ice if she wanted."

When she gave him her trademark arched eyebrow, he
felt his nerves abate.  Still, he knew it
was obviously all he could do to keep a big, stupid
grin from taking over his face.

"Now that," she replied with her beautiful
Scully-smirk, "I would pay to see."

She leaned slightly to look around Mulder, and she
smirked at Frohike in greeting.  Mulder had forgotten
he was there.  When he turned to look at Frohike, the
old guy's reaction was more reward than Mulder had
thought it would be.  Frohike was pale.  Frohike was
open-mouthed in shock.

He looked up at Mulder and said, "You sneaky son of a
bitch."

"Please," Mulder mock-complained, "not in front of
Scully's mom."

"Or in church," Mrs. Scully chided softly with a smirk
of her own.  So that's where Scully got it from.

Their words had no effect on Frohike.  He repeated,
either for emphasis or because his brain couldn't
come up with anything better to say, "You sneaky son
of a bitch."

The priest walked over to the four of them, carrying a
large, thick book.  He cleared his throat and startled
poor uninformed Frohike.

"Fox?  Dana?  Are we ready to begin?"

Their eyes met for the shortest of moments, and in that
moment, there was no one else in the church.  There was
no one else in the world, no one else in the universe.
They were already bound together beyond words.  This
was just a declaration of that bond.

"I'll be goddamned," Frohike muttered over that moment.

The priest laughed a little.  "I certainly hope not,
Mr. Frohike."

Before Frohike could protest further or ask the priest
how he knew his name, Father was straightening his
back and declaring in a voice to fill the large church,
"Then let us begin this as we begin all good things,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit..."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~