From: magsrose@comcast.net
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:35:11 +0000
Subject: Fic by MagsRose - My Summer Vacation by Emma
Source: direct

Chapter 6 - 4





Once the large party arrived at the Highland Games, everyone went off
to do what each needed to do. The girls all had to sign in for the
dance competitions and get their numbers. Becky helped them with that.
Frohike went off to track down the rest of the Gunmen. The other
adults and Ian made final preparations in the booth for the day's
sales.

Emma saw very little of her father, Byers, Jimmy and Langly but she
knew that they were scattered around the grounds, trying to blend in
and watching for their suspect. She never saw Yves or if she did, Emma
did not recognize her in disguise. There were so many people and so
much activity that it would have taken a great deal of concentration
and close observation to recognize the mysterious woman in the crowd.
Emma had too much to see and do to bother with something she had been
forbidden to attempt anyway.

Between dances and costume changes, Megan, Rachel, and Emma would run
back to the Scottish Sword and Shield booth to see how things were
going or just to sit down out of the bustle for a while. Sales were
respectable but not spectacular. There was a lot of interest in the
antique swords and dirks but no one had bought any of them yet.

At lunchtime there was a break in the competition schedule. The three
'dancing princesses' as Bruce called them, went off to find a spot to
eat their lunches of scotch pies and lemonade and to watch the mass
bands. To Emma this was one of the high points of the weekend. Several
bagpipe bands came to the Games every year to compete against each
other.

During the Opening Ceremonies all the bands would march into the
grandstand area playing in unison. The effect was nearly overwhelming.
The sound of so many bagpipes playing the same song, the sharp sound
of the snare drums, and the deep booming of the bass drums that you
could feel in your chest. It was exhilarating and mournful at the same
time. It made Emma think of her mother. This was something they had
always shared.

A lone piper played 'Amazing Grace' in memory of those who died on
9/11. When the rest joined in, she barely managed to win the battle
with her emotions. She wasn't supposed to suppress her feelings but
there was a time and a place for that and this was neither.

During the boring speeches the folks that ran the Games insisted on
doing in the middle of the massed bands performance, Emma looked
around at the audience. She noticed a familiar face.

Surprised, she leaned out behind Rachel to get a better look. It had
to be him. Emma poked Rachel in the ribs, "Don't look yet, but the man
on the other side of you, two rows up, in the blue shirt...Okay, look
now."

Rachel turned to see the man Emma was talking about. Megan had
overheard the comment and looked at him also. "Yeah, what about him?"
Rachel wondered.

"I know him. He's a friend of my dad's. I wonder what he's doing
here?"

Megan gestured to all the people in the grandstands. "He's probably
doing what everyone else is doing."

Emma shook her head. "I don't know. I told him about it and he didn't
say anything about coming."

Rachel took another peek. "But he's wearing a kilt. He probably just
didn't tell you he was going to be here."

"My dad and all the guys are wearing kilts. That doesn't mean
anything."

All three girls turned and looked at the man again. This time he
decided to smile and wave at them. His cover was blown anyway. He
shouldn't have chosen a seat so close to them. He figured they would
be too engrossed in the goings on down on the field to notice him. The
only way to salvage the situation was to recognize the acquaintance.
He got up and climbed down the bleachers to sit by them.

Emma made introductions. "Agent Doggett, these are my friends Megan
and Rachel."

Doggett smiled and said, "Hello, girls, are you having a good time?"

Megan spoke for herself and her sister. "Yes, thank you."

Emma's curiosity bordered on rudeness, "You didn't say you were coming
here."

"You spoke so highly of it, I thought I'd better check it out,"
Doggett lied but he did it well enough that Emma bought it.

Looking around the bleachers, she asked, "Did you come by yourself?"

He watched her searching and answered the question she didn't ask,
"No, Monica is not here."

"That's too bad. She would have liked it, too."

"She wanted to come but she had something she needed to do."

"Maybe next time." Emma's matchmaking tendencies had the two of them
paired off. Her first goal was to get Jimmy and Yves together but
Monica and Agent Doggett where next on her list.

The dignitaries at the microphone continued to drone on and on. Rachel
was getting bored and made a suggestion. "Why don't we go see the
painting now while most of the people are here? We can hear the bands
again tomorrow."

This sounded like a good idea. Emma asked Agent Doggett, "Do you want
to come with us?"

"All right," he agreed, "Let's go." Doggett figured since he was
busted he might as well go with them instead of trying to follow them
when he would be too obvious. They climbed down off the bleachers
excusing themselves to the many people who were trying to listen to
the speeches. Once clear of the crowd, they headed to the building
where the painting was housed.

"Is the kilt yours or did you borrow it?" Emma asked, trying to make
conversation.

"It's mine."

"Seriously?" Emma was again surprised but then it did look like it was
made for him and he seemed very comfortable in it.

"Yup. Clan Campbell, on my mother's side." He told the truth that
time. The kilt was his and he occasionally wore it at formal family
events such as weddings.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It never came up."

"But I talked about the Highland Games the last couple of times you
came by the warehouse."

"I know but you never asked me if I was Scottish."

They arrived at the spot where they could view the painting. There was
no line outside and only a very short one inside. Most of the Games
participants were still awaiting the second half of the massed bands
performance.

While waiting in line, Emma explained to her two young friends that
Agent Doggett worked for the FBI. He was nice enough to show them his
official FBI identification card, the one with his picture on it. Both
girls were impressed.

They finally got close enough to see the painting. Doggett spotted an
old friend across the hall. He excused himself to do a little catching
up but still be close by. No one had gotten in line behind the girls
so they were able to examine the painting undisturbed.



It was a lot bigger than they had imagined. Pat had been selling
prints of it for years, so they were quite familiar with the picture
but were not prepared for the fact that it was at least four feet tall
and nearly eight feet wide.

"Wow, it's huge!" Rachel stepped back to get a better view.

"Yeah, the pictures Grandpa sells are a lot smaller." Megan noted. The
prints of 'The Thin Red Line' had always been her favorites because of
the story that went with them.

The painting showed the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders standing two
deep, dressed in their red coats and dark green kilts. On their heads
they wore tall, black bear hats each with a small, white feather
decoration near the top. Their sporrans were made of long, dark horse
hair and each pouch had six white tassels to decorate it. This was not
the uniform of soldiers going into battle but of a platoon on parade.

The men stood bravely, facing certain death. Their bayoneted rifles
aimed at the oncoming cavalry. In the misty distance, the commanding
officers sat on horseback watching over their depleted army,
undoubtedly proud of their men's unwillingness to give up when
surrender should seem to be the only viable option.

The Russian army was represented by a single horseman, his sword arm
raised defiantly but his head bowed in defeat, his horse collapsing
under him. Next to him another horse struggled vainly to rise.

Emma carefully studied the painting. She knew the story and had always
admired the bravery of the Highlanders it depicted. But standing there
so close to it she felt a connection to these men who had lived so
long ago. It was almost as if she was sharing the experience with
them: the smoke in the air, the smell of the gun powder, the shouting
of the men, the loud report of their guns and the screaming of the
injured and dying horses.

First she felt the Highlanders' fear, then their grim determination
but eventually their hope. It came with the realization that against
all odds they were winning and, in the end, the day would be theirs.

Now she knew. Finally she could understand why someone would want to
have this painting for his own. Yet, it also made her angry that
anyone could be so selfish as to deny others the right to see it and
to experience what she had when she stood in front it for the first
time.

Momentarily distracted by her anger, Emma noticed something about the
painting that she had previously missed. There were lights around the
edge of the frame. They were soft, dim lights and they wavered a
little in the air currents of the large room. At least that's what she
thought at first. Emma turned to Megan, "I wonder why they decorated
it with those lights."

"What lights?"

"The ones around the frame. They're so small. Then must be fiber
optics or something." Emma leaned a little over the velvet rope to try
to see them better. A security guard who was standing nearby cleared
his throat. Emma stepped back giving him an apologetic smile.

Megan still couldn't figure out what Emma was talking about. "I don't
see any lights."

Emma pointed to them. "Up at the top there's a bunch of them. See
they're kind of swaying in the breeze. There are more down the side."

Rachel studied the frame closely but agreed with her sister. "I don't
see them either and besides, there's no breeze in here."

Emma was about to accuse them of lying just to bug her when some of
the lights slid down the side of the frame and hung unsupported in the
air. She watched them in silence. They couldn't be fiber optics after
all. What she was seeing was physically impossible but she didn't
think she was imagining it.

What was going on? Two of the tiny points of light moved toward her
stopping in front of her about a foot away. She held out a hand, palm
up to see what would happen. One of the lights moved closer. It
touched the tip of her index finger, pausing there for a moment. Then
it followed the line of her hand and settled in her palm. It made her
skin tingle slightly but not unpleasantly.

Turning towards the two other girls, Emma showed them what she held.
"There. Can you see it now?" She raised her hand up to the level of
their noses.

"See what? What are you talking about?" Megan looked at her friend
like she was losing her mind.

Rachel thought she had an explanation. "She's teasing us, Megan.
There's nothing there and she knows it."

They couldn't see it. They really couldn't see it. Emma dropped her
hand and watched as the single point of brightness rejoined the others
surrounding the painting. Needing an out, she chose to let Rachel's
statement be her excuse. She liked these two girls and didn't want
anything to damage their friendship. "Yeah, I was just kidding. I had
you going there for a second though."

"No, you didn't," Rachel insisted, "I knew you were faking it from the
beginning." The three dancers moved away from the painting, leaving
space for the growing crowd of people to get a better view. Emma
paused in the doorway to take one more look. Yes, the lights were
still there. She hadn't imagined it. But why was she the only one who
seemed to be able to see them?

Doggett hadn't seen the girls leave and took off looking for them.
Maybe he was losing his touch. They shouldn't be that hard to shadow.
He just wasn't paying close enough attention. "Agent Doggett," Emma
said as he caught up to them, "I thought you were talking to your
friend."

"Why? Are you trying to ditch me?" He asked in mock concern. Emma gave
him a puzzled look. Oops, she was getting suspicious. "Actually, I was
about to leave when I met up with you. This just isn't as interesting
as you made it sound." That should do it.

"Well, have you checked out the sheep dog trials or better yet, we've
got an hour until we need to go back to compete, let's go see if Jimmy
really is trying the athletic events."

"You actually talked him into giving it a shot?" Doggett feigned
surprise. In truth, he was fully aware of all that was going on.

"He said it sounded like fun. Look, they're over there." She pointed
to the field in which the athletic events were being held. They all
headed in that direction.

The girls, especially Emma, were a bit bewildered that Agent Doggett
hung out in their general vicinity for most of the afternoon. They saw
Jimmy near the athletic field but didn't approach him. He was talking
to the other participants and Emma knew better than to get in the way.
She suggested that they go back to the booth to see how things were
going there.

Megan introduced Agent Doggett to her parents and grandparents leaving
it to Emma to explain how she knew him.

The girls were asked to go stand in line to buy food for the hungry
merchants stuck in the booth. Doggett watched them go, and then
quickly informed the curious adults that he had been pressed into
service to insure the safety of the kids. He left to find the girls.

Since he was getting hungry himself, he simply picked a food vendor
near them and bought himself some lunch bringing it back into the
vendor's hall to eat. He sat behind the cash register and watched Pat
and Bruce work the sword counter. Pat was a natural salesman. He had
an easy rapport with the customers although it seemed to Doggett that
he allowed some of them to monopolize his time.

Bruce was more matter of fact and seemed to sell more. Pat's knowledge
of swords was nearly encyclopedic but Bruce had the facts down and
could answer almost any question. He very seldom had to defer to his
father in order to assist the eager buyers.

Doggett found a sgian dhub he liked. The small knife fit perfectly in
the top of his sock. He could barely feel it against his leg. It was a
little more than he should spend on an item he would use maybe once a
year, if that, but he decided to splurge. He took a credit card out of
his sporran and tried to hand it to Pat.

Pat refused to take the card from him. "Your money is no good here."
Doggett insisted but Pat went on, "Let's just call it a fair trade for
services rendered." Pat glanced back at the girls who were laughing
together over something Becky had said.

Doggett shook his head and held out the card again. "I'm doing it as a
favor to Frohike."

"No matter, the results are the same. Keep your money. The knife is
yours." It was obviously pointless to argue with the Scotsman so
Doggett accepted the gift.

"Well, thank you then." He got no answer because at that point Pat
turned to admonish a careless customer who had brought a sword up over
his head, paying no attention to the people standing behind him.

"Leave the swords over the table." He growled.

Sheepishly, the miscreant set the sword back down and wandered farther
down the tables to look at battle-axes. Doggett put the knife in his
sock and turned to see that the girls were leaving. As he had hoped,
Emma stopped to invite him to come watch them dance. He pretended to
think about it for a second then accepted the invitation.

Sitting in the bleachers watching the proceedings, Doggett wished that
all stakeouts were this easy. He could just sit back, relax and enjoy
a gorgeous day. There was one drawback though. He was tired of hearing
the same song over and over as each group of kids came up to perform
one particular dance. He imagined it must be much worse for the
bagpiper, playing it again and again.

Frohike found him mid-afternoon. "How's it going? Are they running you
ragged?"

"They spotted me about noon, so I don't have to try to keep out of
sight anymore."

"You're not very good at this are you? How do you manage to keep your
job if you can't tail three little girls without getting caught?"
Frohike didn't often get a chance to torment Doggett so he didn't
hesitate to go for it when he saw an opening.

"It's your daughter. She doesn't miss much. How's your case going?"

"Nothing yet. But I'm sure this guy is going to wait until after
hours. I wish Yves knew more about his MO. It would've made this
easier."

"I checked the files at the FBI. We've got nothing on him. Interpol
had some information but it was pretty sketchy."

Frohike nodded, "Yves said he was the best. Hopefully, we can stop him
this time."

A young voice called up to them where they sat deep in conversation.
"Dad, Agent Doggett!" Emma waved vigorously. She quickly climbed up
the bleachers on their right side using the seats as stairs.

"Slow down before you break your neck," Frohike warned her.

"Oh, Dad, I'm always careful," she insisted with the certainty of the
very young who have never seen people seriously hurt themselves doing
everyday things. She dropped down next to him on the seat.


"How's the dancing going?" Frohike asked his daughter.


"Pretty good. There's a lot of girls competing though so I don't know
how I did. They're having the awards ceremony after this next dance.
Can you stay for it?"

"Sorry, honey, but I just came over to check up on you then I need to
leave."

"That's okay." She heard the announcer call her age group to come and
be ready to go on stage. She kissed Frohike quickly on the cheek, "See
you later. Bye, Agent Doggett." She then climbed back down the
bleachers even faster than she had come up them. When she reached the
bottom without any broken bones and ran off to rejoin the waiting
children, Frohike released his held breath.


Doggett thought about his own son, Luke, who would have been about
Emma's age now. For a moment he was jealous of Frohike, then he turned
to him and asked, "Do you realize just how lucky you are?"

Frohike had a fairly good idea where this comment was coming from and
admitted, "Yes, I think I do. My only regret is that I wasn't there
when she was small. At least you had that." He put his hand on
Doggett's shoulder. "And anytime you feel the need to experience
preteen emotional outbursts, just let me know. I'm sure we can arrange
something."

Doggett held up his hands. "I'm sorry but that 'pleasure' is all
yours. I wouldn't want to deprive you of all the joy that must
bring."

Frohike smiled. "Let me tell you, there's seldom a dull moment."

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Rachel and Emma only got
one metal each for their performances but Megan did very well. She got
first place in two dances and a third in another. She just missed
getting the aggregate trophy but all three were pleased with how they
had performed. That was it for the dance competition, which meant they
had all of Sunday to help with sales, wander around the grounds, or
just generally try to stay out of trouble.

After closing up shop, which required covering everything and taking
some stuff down, the Tougher family and Emma were ready to go out to
dinner. Doggett had stayed to help until it was time to go but
declined the invitation for a free meal. Emma ran after him as he
left. "Agent Doggett!"

He stopped and turned to see what she wanted, "Yes?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, I guess, but what for?"

"I know my dad made you come out here today even though he's too
sneaky to tell me."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because why else would you spend your day off following me and my
friends around?"

"Maybe I was just having a good time."

"Did you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did."

"Good, I knew you would. Are you coming back tomorrow or has he
suckered someone else into 'babysitting'?"

Doggett laughed at her choice of words and dropped his arm around her
shoulders. He looked around the nearly empty hall as if searching for
anyone who might be watching. He lowered his voice so only she could
hear. "I'm not sure what he has planned for tomorrow but keep your
eyes open. I'm hoping no one can beat the fact that I went unspotted
until past noon, even in my kilt."

It was Emma's turn to laugh. "I'll do that."


Late that night, Emma swam up out of REM sleep wondering what had
awakened her. She lay with her eyes closed listening to the sounds of
the other two girls sleeping on each side of her. Through her closed
lids she saw a moving light. She thought nothing of it at first
figuring that one of the adults was checking that they were all
asleep.

But then she began to wonder where anyone had found a flashlight. She
opened her eyes and could no longer see the light. She sat up and
scanned the room for anything out of the ordinary. Seeing nothing and
hearing nothing, she fluffed up her pillow and tried to drop off
again.

Before that could happen, the light was back. This time she sat up
quickly trying to catch whoever it was who was messing around in her
room in the middle of the night. She was betting it was Ian. As with
most little brothers, he enjoyed tormenting his sisters but there was
no one there and once again the light was gone. She looked over at the
clock on her nightstand. It was 3:33 AM.

Shaking her head in frustration, she lay down and finally went back to
sleep.





Chapter 6 - 5





Emma woke up early the next day and checked to see if her father had
made it home during the night. His bed was undisturbed. On the drive
to the grounds the previous day, he told her to call him in the
morning if he wasn't home. She sat down on the edge of his bed and
dialed his number from the phone on the nightstand.

The incessant melody of a cell phone ringing in the van woke up both
of the men who were not on watch.

Langly looked around groggily for the source of the racket. "What is
that noise?" He knocked cups and other debris off the dash searching
for the phone so that he could throw it out the window. "Make it
stop!" he complained loudly.

It was Byers's turn to do surveillance while the other two slept.
Jimmy and Yves were in her car on the other side of the grounds. "It's
Frohike's phone. That's his ring." Emma had set her father's cell
phone to play 'Scotland the Brave'. She claimed it would make it
easier to distinguish his phone from everyone else's. Langly insisted
it was just to irritate the hell out of anyone within earshot.

Frohike finally woke up enough to realize that it was his phone that
was ringing. He slapped his hand up onto the dashboard grabbing it
from where he had set it down to catch some Zs and hit the button.
"This had better be good!"

"Good morning, sunshine." Emma succeeded in not cracking up over his
early morning phone manners.

A little chagrinned at having barked at her for doing what he had
instructed, he calmed down enough to say, "Good morning, honey."

Langly grabbed the phone from Frohike. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yes, I do. Do you?" Emma wasn't put off by Langly's grouchy demeanor
either.

Langly tried to look at his watch but he had knocked his glasses onto
the floor of the van while attempting to end the maddening tune the
phone was playing. "No, I don't but it better not be as early as I
think it is."

"Langly, give me to my dad and go back to sleep."

Realizing he wasn't going to get a rise out of her, he handed the
phone to Frohike. "Here. She doesn't want to talk to me."

"I can't say I blame her. You aren't exactly all sweetness and light
in the morning."

"Yeah? Look who's talking."

While the pair of them decided to take their frustrations out on each
other, Byers took the phone and talked to a very patient Emma who sat
listening on the line.


"Hey, Doc, how are you this morning?"

"Hi, John, I guess I woke them both up."

"That you did."

"How did it go last night? Any progress."

"Not really. It was very quiet here all night. The only thing we saw
moving around was the security guards and a couple of drunken Scotsmen
who had to be escorted from the premises."

"Ah, that's too bad." She tried to think of something else to ask him.
He wasn't usually so open about an investigation, especially when they
were in the middle of it. "Didn't Yves think he would come during the
night?"

"We hoped so but there was no sign of him." Frohike and Langly had
wrapped up their little insult session and now Fro wanted to talk to
his daughter. "Here's your dad," Byers said and handed the phone back
to him.

"Hi, Dad."

"Hello, honey. How did you sleep?"

"Okay, but something woke me up in the middle of the night."

"What?"

"It was a light. I saw it a couple of times but I couldn't figure out
where it was coming from."

"Was is in your room or out in the hallway?"

"I think it was in my room. I could only see it when my eyes were
closed but when I opened them it was gone."

"And you never figured out what it was?"

"No, it was weird."

"Sounds like it." This didn't seem to be too serious to Frohike. Maybe
she had just imagined it or hadn't been fully awake.

"How did everything go yesterday?" Emma filled him in on how all three
girls did competing. He was glad she seemed satisfied with only one
metal. "You didn't give Pat and Rosalie a hard time?"

"No, I was too busy."

"What will you be doing today? I know the dance competitions are
over."


"We wanted to go watch the athletic events and maybe go over and see
the Highland Cattle. Pat said they have a couple of the white cattle
he was talking about."

"That sounds good. Make sure you help them out in the booth if you
can."

"I will."

"And stay away..."

"I know, I know." She cut him off. "Stay away from the painting but it
was so cool yesterday when I saw it. It was so huge! I had no idea it
was that big." Thinking about the painting reminded Emma of the lights
she saw around it. Tiny moving lights. Lights that were not there at
first but then they were. Kind of like lights you could see one second
and not the next. She wondered, "What if...?"

"Emma. Emma, are you still there?" Frohike checked the display on his
phone to see if they had been cut off. "Emma!"

"Oh, sorry, Dad. I was off in la-la land."

"Well, stay with me for just another minute."

"I'm listening."

"Good. I don't know what all will be going on today but I will try to
come by the booth to see you at um... how about lunchtime? Would you
like to have lunch with me?"

"Sure! That would be great!" Thinking about food made Emma concerned,
"Do you guys have anything decent to eat for breakfast?"

"Sure, yeah, there's some food around here somewhere." Frohike lied.

"Dad, the peanuts that Langly threw at me the last time we went on a
road trip do not count as food."

"Hey, I think I saw an orange rolling around or maybe it was an
apple."

"Yeah, right! Listen, I'm going to bring breakfast. Just come by the
booth and pick it up."

"Emma, you don't need to do that."

"Why not? I want to help."

Langly realized they were talking about food and was now interested.
"What is she saying?"

She could hear Langly in the background. "And you know Langly works
better on a full stomach."

Frohike glanced at his eternally hungry friend. "She wants to bring us
breakfast."

"And you're trying to discourage her? You are an evil man. Byers, help
me out here."

John's stomach was growling. The last food they'd had was scones left
over from the previous morning and those had been eaten before
midnight. "Something other than fair food would taste good."

The little breakfast elf on the other end of the phone could hear
their comments. "Okay, that's it. I'll bring some stuff with me. Come
by when you get a chance and tell Yves and Jimmy, too." Emma
remembered she wasn't supposed to talk to Yves. "Or someone can take
Yves some food. Whatever works best."

"We'll see you when you get here."

"Bye, I love you."

"I love you, too."

Langly climbed out of the driver's seat of the VW bus. He stretched
popping a few kinked up joints. Frohike climbed out also and headed
for a nearby gas station to use the can and buy a round of coffee. He
didn't think Emma would bother with that knowing it was readily
available from numerous food vendors at the Games.


Frohike returned after awhile with the coffee and they sat in the back
of the van drinking it and discussing the previous day's work.

"Man, I was a babe magnet yesterday. The girls loved my warrior look,"
Langly bragged.

Byers was not to be outdone. "I didn't do too bad myself. I had more
than one lassie ask me if I was going to the ceilidh."

"Lassies, huh? Only the dogs were interested in you."

Frohike had taken over watching the monitors from Byers. "Did either
of you 'dandies' get a phone number from any of these fair ladies?"

Langly turned his usual shade of red when embarrassed by his
inexperience in dealing with the opposite sex and Byers claimed, "I
was trying to keep my mind on the task at hand."

Frohike sighed and looked back at the monitors. "It doesn't do any
good to attract women if you're afraid to talk to them."

Langly was indignant, "I talked to them but I had to maintain my stoic
persona. Playing hard to get is a real turn on to some chicks."

"Yeah, but if you play too hard to get, they lose interest. Try asking
one of them for her number or even her name. You too, Byers, you guys
need to get out more."

Byers was surprised by this turn in the conversation. "Us? What about
you?"

"I have Emma to consider. I can't go forming any long-term
relationships until she's ready to have another woman as a mother
figure in her life."

This made Byers angry. "Don't use Emma as an excuse. I know she wants
you to be happy and since you and her mother were never together, I
don't think she has any thoughts of her mom being replaced in your
affections. You've seen how she is with Scully, Rosalie and even Yves.
She craves a female role model and I think she's keeping her eyes
open."

"What the hell are you talking about, Byers?" Frohike considered the
possibility that the man was seriously sleep deprived.

"I'm telling you, Fro, she's shopping for a mother."

"Now I know you're nuts. Michelle hasn't been dead for all that long.
She needs time to get over that before I can even consider replacing
her in Emma's life."

Byers knew he wasn't going to win this argument. "She not looking for
a replacement: just someone to make you happy and to love her. Mark my
words. She's going to drop someone in your lap sometime soon and you'd
better be ready for it." He leaned forward and checked the monitor for
the main gate. "The grounds are open. I'm going to get changed."

All three men had the good sense to change out of their kilts before
settling in for the long overnight stakeout. Byers grabbed the bag
with all of his gear and headed for the gate. Langly followed hot on
his heals with all his paraphernalia. Frohike set the equipment for
the day's work ahead and climbed out of the van, locking it behind
him.

All dressed and armored for the day, the Gunmen went in search of Emma
and her offering of food. They weren't disappointed: fresh fruit,
orange juice, bagels with cream cheese and muffins that were right out
of the oven. She had even gotten some good coffee, a whole thermos
full, which was a huge improvement on gas station sludge.

Activity at a Highland Games is always slowest on Sunday morning so
there were more people in the booth than outside it. Jimmy showed up
before all the food was gone. He packed some up for Yves and himself
but before he was ready to go, a blond female motioned to Emma from
outside the booth. Figuring that the woman meant to buy something,
Emma walked over to see what the she wanted.

She was surprised when the woman began to speak. "Emma, I need to talk
to your father." It was Yves. Her voice and British accent were
unmistakable. Emma looked more closely at her and recognized her under
the makeup. "Hurry, dear, it's important."

"Okay," she whispered. She wound around all the people in the booth to
where Frohike was standing. She tugged on his arm to get his
attention. "Dad, she wants to talk to you." Emma pointed at Yves; she
didn't know if she should say her name or not.

Frohike patted Emma's hand on his arm. "Stay here," he told her.

Watching the two of them talk in a corner over the swords, Emma could
tell that something was wrong. Neither of them looked happy and her
dad kept shaking his head. She wanted to do something so she got
Byers. "John, I don't know what happened but it can't be good."

"Hang on, Doc, I'll see what I can do." He walked over to Yves and
Frohike. He got a brief explanation from them, turned around, told
Langly and Jimmy they needed to go. He stopped in front of Emma. He
obviously wanted to tell her something but hesitated. Byers looked
over to Frohike as if asking permission. Fro just nodded and headed
out of the booth.

"What's wrong, John?" He drew her out into the middle of the vendor
hall, away from all the people.

"We failed. It probably happened last night. The painting has been
switched for a fake. It's a good one but Yves is sure it's not the
original."


Emma couldn't believe it. "That's impossible! You guys were here all
night. How can this be true?"

Byers put his hand on her shoulder to try to calm her. "Shh, keep your
voice down. This isn't common knowledge and the authorities are hoping
it is still on the grounds somewhere. That's what we are going to try
to find out. If we can just figure out how it happened..." His mind
was going a mile a minute wondering where they had gone wrong. "We
must have him on tape. I have to go." He squeezed her shoulder
absentmindedly before he rushed off to join the others.

Emma ran to the bathroom. She didn't want the others to know which
meant that she was going to have to lie to them. She suspected that
the adults would already have a good idea of what had happened but she
couldn't tell them the truth. She would have to admit that her father
and her friends had failed.

Maybe she would get lucky and no one would ask her what was going on
but then if they did she could tell them she didn't want to talk about
it. That would be better than lying anyway. All right. That's what she
would do. She washed her face and tried a big smile out on the mirror.
The mirror wasn't convinced.

She sighed and reentered the bustle of the vendor's hall. Pat, Rosalie
and all the others were busy with customers or other employments or
were possibly pretending that nothing had happened. Emma was thankful
for this. She went and sat down on one of the folding camp chairs that
lined the wall behind their cash register. Rachel came over and sat
down by her.

"What's the matter?" Rachel asked.

"I'm having a bad day," Emma said evasively.

"I'm sorry." They sat in silence for a few seconds. Then Rachel asked,
"Want to go do something?"

Emma studied her friend and gave her a weak grin. "No, I think I just
want to be by myself for awhile. How about later? I do want to go see
the Highland cattle."

"Me, too," Rachel admitted. "Do you want me to go away now?"

"No, you stay here. I'm going for a walk."

"You'd better tell my mom or my grandma."

"Yeah, I will."

Emma let the adults know that she was going out to wander around a
bit. They tried to convince her to take the other girls with her but
she said that she would not be gone too long. Rosalie hugged Emma,
holding her for longer than necessary. She asked her in a low voice,
"Are you going to be all right?"

"Sure. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay, but if you're gone too long, we'll have to call out the
obnoxious little brother search party to find you."

"That won't be necessary," Emma said with a smile watching Ian duck
expertly away from his oldest sister as she took a swipe at him for
stealing a bite of her bagel.

It was a beautiful day and the morning was still relatively cool. It
was much too nice to sit inside anyway. She thought that a trip around
the grounds would do a lot to improve her mood. She would see people
arriving excited for the day, hear bagpipers warming up and practicing
for individual competitions, or whatever.

She decided to go over to the clan MacKenzie booth and say hi. A lot
of these nice people had come to her mother's funeral and she was
still a MacKenzie. Not for the first time, she considered whether she
should change her last name to her father's. He had never asked it of
her and she was proud of her Scottish heritage. Maybe she should see
what he thought about it. Not today though. There was always time for
that later.

The folks at the MacKenzie clan tent chatted with Emma for a few
minutes. The conversation was a repeat of one she'd had several times
since her mom died. "How are you doing? Really sorry about your mom.
Who are you living with now? Your dad? How is that going?" and on and
on. She didn't mind though. Until all this was said, you couldn't
really go on to anything else. Might as well get it out of the way.

Wandering past the rest of the clan tents, Emma found herself outside
the building where the painting was supposed to be. She went inside.
If the painting was gone, she wasn't really breaking her promise and
she wanted to see the fake. The security guard was there but it was
still fairly early on Sunday morning so there were only a few people
standing around. She waited until the others moved on leaving only the
guard.

Emma stood as she had the day before and considered the new painting.
It looked exactly the same to her but there was something about it
that didn't feel the same. The connection she had experienced was
missing. The painting felt cold and meaningless even though the story
it told was identical to the original. She sighed and looked down at
the floor. All their hard work was for nothing.

In her peripheral vision, Emma saw movement. Oh, for god's sake, not
again, not now! This time the lights were all around her and not the
painting. They slowly started to swirl about her body. It was obvious
that the guard could not see what was happening. He glanced at her
then away.

Emma fought the urge to run because there had to be a reason for this.
The motion of the lights seemed to have a purpose. If only she could
figure it out. She turned her back to the guard and held her hand out
again. The lights continued their orbit of her body passing over and
under her outstretched hand.


She let her arm drop back to her side and closed her eyes. She relaxed
as much as she could while standing. Her therapist had taught her this
technique but would probably have been surprised at its application.
Breathing deeply, Emma opened her mind to the possibilities. After
about thirty seconds of this, she started to feel silly but then am
image that was not her own entered her mind. It was barely a whisper
of a thought, so tentative yet so desperate that she gasped. It was,
"Help us."

Ian found Emma walking back toward the vendor's hall. "That didn't
take long," he thought. He was glad because he didn't really want to
go look for her anyway. He stopped and waited for her to catch up but
she walked right past him without even noticing him. "Hey, Emma," he
yelled trying to get her attention. Someone else was looking for her
and heard the boy shout. The woman turned and spotted Emma talking to
a younger child. Walking up to them, she also called out to Emma.

"Monica! Agent Doggett said there was something you had to do this
weekend so you couldn't come."

"That was yesterday. Today I am free to spend the day here with you."

Emma looked at Agent Reyes through slightly narrowed eyes. "Did my dad
ask you to come and spy on me?" She was curious if Monica would lie to
her or not.

"Well, that wasn't exactly the way he put it but, yeah, that's why I'm
here."

"You can probably go home then. There's no need anymore."

"What do you mean?"

Ian was still standing nearby so Emma told him, "Go back and tell your
mom and grandma that I'll be right there."

"I'm not supposed to come back without you."

Monica suspected there was something Emma wanted to tell her without
the boy around. "Why don't we go see what they want? Then you can show
me around."

After checking in and introducing Agent Reyes to everyone, the two of
them went for a walk. Emma filled Monica in on everything she knew
that happened over night, which wasn't all that much. What she really
wanted to tell the FBI agent was a little harder to explain. They
found a quiet corner away from the general hubbub of the Games. Emma
told Monica about the painting, the lights she'd seen around it, the
lights that woke her up during the night and what happened when she
went to see the fake.

Monica listened to everything Emma said only speaking to ask for
clarification on certain points. Emma waited for her to say something
when she was done. "Have you told your dad all this?"

"Some of it. I told him about the lights I saw in the middle of the
night."

"What did he say?"

"Not much. Just that it was weird."

"But you didn't tell him about the lights you saw around the
painting."

"I didn't put the two together. I'm still not sure they have anything
to do with each other. What should I do?"

"Well, first of all, I think you should enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Then, tomorrow or the next day, when you have time to sit down with
him, you need to tell your dad everything you told me."


"I'm afraid to."

"Why? He'll listen to you won't he?"

"Sure he will but I don't know if he'll believe me." Emma carefully
studied her fingers as she asked the next question. "Do you believe
me?"

"Yes, I do," Monica reassured her. "Can I ask you one more question?"

"Okay."

"What do you think the lights are?" Emma hesitated. She liked Monica
and didn't want her to think she was crazy.

"Do you promise not to laugh at me?"

"I won't laugh at you."

Emma sighed then just went for it. "I think they're faeries."

 


Chapter 6 - 6




Monica went to check out the fake painting for herself. She was
curious see if she could sense anything unusual. Emma chose not to go
with her. The whole thing was getting too weird and she didn't want to
dwell on it. Following Agent Reyes' advice seemed like the best idea.
She planned on enjoying the events for the remainder of the day.
Monica wanted to track down the Gunmen to check if she could be of any
help so she got Emma to agree to wait for her before she did anymore
wandering around.

When Agent Reyes saw Langly in his kilt and leather armor with the
enormous sword strapped to his back, she did a double take. He crossed
her path, obviously intent on where he was going. "Langly? Is that
you?" He turned around and seeing her made a deep bow in her
direction.

"Fair lassie, to what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

"Frohike asked me to come and keep an eye on Emma and her friends but
she tells me that it's no longer necessary."

Langly reverted to his usual self to confirm the bad news. "Yeah,
unfortunately we don't need to be as careful anymore. The deed was
done right under our noses, actually, in front of our cameras would be
a better way to put it." He shook his head feeling like a failure. He
continued, "I'm going back to the van. Byers has been looking at the
tapes to see what we missed. He thinks he may have found something."

"That's encouraging. I'll let you go then but do you know where
Frohike is?"

"He was checking out the cameras he had placed around the grounds to
see it they had been tampered with. Just a sec." Langly reached into a
fold of the loosely gathered kilt that he was wearing and pulled out a
headset. Putting it on he asked, "Byers, can you see where Fro is?" He
listened for a few seconds. "Where's that?" He turned and looked back
the way he had come. "Got it." He listened some more. "Monica is here,
she wants to talk to him." More listening. "I know but Emma's
obviously on to it." Pause. "Alright, keep your shirt on, I'll ask."
Turning back to Monica. "He wants to know where Emma is."

"Tell him I left her in the booth with her friends and we're going to
meet back there in a bit."


"Did you hear that?" Langly asked over the headset. "All right. I'm on
my way." He removed the headset and put it away. "I gotta go. Frohike
is in the green building over there," Langly said while pointing out
the structure. "He and Yves are talking to security. Just flash your
badge and you should have no trouble getting in."

She didn't need to show her badge. Monica met Frohike and a blond
woman as they walked out the front door of security headquarters.
"Monica, where's Emma?"

"She's back with her friends in the vendor's hall. I told her to wait
there for me. She's on to us you know."

"Yeah, your partner blew his own cover. She's not stupid but at least
she didn't kick a fit."

Agent Reyes held her hand out to the blond woman, "You must be Yves.
My name is Monica."

Frohike introduced the two women to each other. Monica asked for an
update on all that had gone on briefly outlining what she already
knew.

"We're now nearly positive that not only has the original been
switched for a fake but that it was been removed from the grounds as
well. I checked my security cameras and they all looked fine but I
found this." He dug around in his sporran and pulled out a small
electronic device. "The folks here say it's not theirs."

"We suspect it interfered in some way with the signals from all the
security cameras on the grounds, not just ours," Yves explained.

"Wouldn't you have noticed it though?" Monica asked.

Frohike shook his head. "Not if the feed was uninterrupted. I'm going
to take it back to the van and see if I can figure it out."

He began to walk away but Yves stopped him. "Melvin, wait. I'm sure
Harris has already delivered the painting to his buyer. Why don't you
go find your daughter and spend the rest of the day with her and her
friends? We might as well salvage what's left of the weekend instead
of sitting shut up in the van doing something that can wait until
tomorrow."

Agent Reyes could see that she and Yves were thinking along the same
lines. It would definitely help to get Emma's mind off her 'faeries'
to spend some time with her father at the Games as she had originally
planned.

Frohike brightened at the suggestion. "You know, you're right. That's
an excellent idea. I'm still going to go back to the van and drop this
off. While I'm at it, I'll pry Byers's butt out of there, too."

"It was Langly who told me where you were. He was on his way over
there."

"Good, that will save me from having to hunt him down. Yves, do you
know where Jimmy went?"

"Yes and I'll take care of him. But first I'm going to go get rid of
all this make-up." Much to Monica's surprise, Yves reached up and
pulled off the short blond wig, revealing a mass of black wavy hair
underneath.

"It seems there is more to you than meets the eye," Monica observed.

Yves was amused by this statement, "And it's probably more than you
can even imagine."

The decision to spend the rest of the day enjoying the Highland Games
instead of poring over surveillance tapes was well received by
everyone. It was a delay of less than 24 hours but as Yves stated, it
wouldn't hurt to take the time off. The painting was gone and,
probably, so was Harris.

Jimmy really wanted to try tossing the caber and Byers wondered if an
old friend of his would be part of a Gaelic language choir that was
scheduled to perform later that afternoon. He had given up on the idea
earlier but now would have the time to go find out. Langly had seen a
vendor whose service included looking up people's genealogies on the
internet. He was curious as to what program the man used to do this
and wanted to go check it out.

Frohike just wanted to spend time with his daughter. He still felt
guilty for spoiling most of her plans for the weekend and wanted to
try to make it up to her. Emma was delighted to find that everyone was
now free of work and ready to have some fun. Monica was right; having
her father and her closest friends around drove her worries away. She
was too busy trying to organize the rest of their day.

When she found out that they all had something in mind, she asked only
that they would all be together for one event. That was for the massed
bands. She insisted that they all needed to hear it. Since not much
else went on at the same time, there was no problem making her happy.

Emma watched with satisfaction as they went off to enjoy their own
pursuits. She turned to find her father waiting for her. "Well, honey,
what do you want to do?" Emma considered her dad for a couple of
seconds wondering if telling him the truth would hurt his feelings.
Megan and Rachel had been waiting for a long time for her to be ready
to go see the Highland cattle with them. It wasn't really a 'bring
your dad along' kind of activity especially since Agent Doggett had
shadowed them all over the grounds the day before. It would be nice to
run around without adult supervision. She decided to see if her dad
could take a hint.

"Well, Megan, Rachel and I were going to go out and see the cattle.
You've probably already seen then considering how much you wandered
around yesterday."

"Yeah, I saw them but I'm willing to go again."

Darn, that didn't work. Maybe this would. "Are you sure you want to
spend all your time hanging out with us? We're really very boring."

Frohike barely succeeded in hiding his grin that time. He had gotten
it with the first comment but sometimes he just couldn't resist making
her squirm.

"I can't think of anything I would rather do more." Now Emma was
really getting uncomfortable. How could she tell him she wanted to be
alone with her friends? Frohike could tell that she was struggling but
had to bug her one more time. "Well, what are you waiting for? I'm
sure the girls will just love to spend the day with me."

That did it. It was too far over the top. He knew it and Emma finally
saw that he was purposefully trying to be difficult. "Oh, Dad, you can
be such a snot sometimes!"

He grabbed her and put her in a headlock. "Take it back or I'm not
letting you go!"

Emma's laughter was muffled as she declared. "No, I'm not taking it
back because you know it's true."

He let her stand up straight as he said, "All right, fine, insult me
and desert me. I'm sure I can find something to do around here."


Pat had been watching the exchange between father and daughter. "We
can put you to work. We can always use help at the sword tables to
make sure no one hurts himself."


"Thank you, Pat, at least someone appreciates me," Frohike sighed in
an overly melodramatic manner.

Emma laughed again, "Oh, stop it. You know I always appreciate you.
Even when you are a snot." She jumped out of reach, waving to him as
she exited the booth. Joining the other girls, Emma trotted off with
hardly a backward glance.

Smiling at the easy exchange between the two of them Rosalie said,
"They do grow up quickly, don't they?"

"I don't mind," Frohike admitted, "I'm pleased to see that she can
make friends and wants to be with them. I worry that she spends too
much time with us four guys and not more with kids her own age."

"Once school starts back up that should be less of a problem."


"I hope you're right. Michelle had her change schools shortly before
she died. Emma didn't really make any close friends there before the
end of the school year. Your two granddaughters are the first friends
I've ever seen her with. Did I thank you yet for bringing them?"

"Yes, you did, a couple of times and I'm sure they would have been
quite upset if we hadn't. They've always enjoyed Emma's company and
when they found out we intended to come out here the first thing they
asked was, 'Will we get to see Emma?' When I told them we were staying
with you they wanted to leave immediately."

Both adults smiled privately at the idiosyncrasies of young girls.

Rosalie noticed that Becky was getting overwhelmed at the cash
register and went to help her. Frohike stepped up to the sword table
to see if he really could be of any assistance. After asking a few
questions and watching how Pat and Bruce dealt with the customers, he
soon fell into the routine. Because he was wearing a kilt, people
assumed he knew more than he did but he didn't hesitate to refer them
to one of the other men. He paid attention to the answers given and
was able to offer more assistance as the morning wore on.

One customer was particularly interested in several of the antiques.
He had been by the day before and had discussed the history of
individual pieces with Pat. When he walked away without buying
anything, Pat was not discouraged. A purchase of that size was not
made lightly and the man had made several notes on the back of their
business card.

Pat saw Frohike talking to the man he had spent so much time with the
previous day but he was fitting a baldric onto a customer and figured
Fro could handle it. Pat heard his name and turned to see Frohike
pointing at the lock on the case that held the antiques. Taking his
keys out of his sporran, he tossed them to his new salesman who caught
them one handed. "The key and the lock have matching numbers," Pat
said turning back to his customer.

When Pat had completed that sale, he found Bruce wrapping up four of
the antiques for the other customer to take home. Becky was showing
Frohike how to work the credit card machine. Pat went over to speak to
the man who was willing to spend so much on their wares. After telling
Pat which ones he had decided to buy, the man explained, "I came in
here with the thought on buying only three of them but your associate
there talked me into the fourth."

The total sale came up to well over $10,000 dollars. It was far and
away the most they had ever made on a single sale at a Highland Games.
Pat slapped Frohike on the back. "You can come and hang out with us
anytime you want if you can convince people that they need to spend
that much."

Frohike gave him a crooked grin. "He already knew he wanted all four
swords and was just trying to justify spending the money. I simply
gave him a nudge in the right direction."

The girls had visited the cattle and checked out the sheep dog trials.
The dogs were amazing but Emma felt sorry for the sheep. After
listening to a harp demonstration for about 20 minutes, Emma suggested
they go see what was going on over at the athletics field. She thought
she could hear the tell tale sound of the thud and ring of wood
hitting the ground which meant they were tossing the caber.

She was right. They climbed up into the bleachers to watch. After they
had chosen a spot to sit, Emma noticed Yves walking toward them. She
had taken off all her make up and the blond wig. Emma didn't know if
she should wave and say hello or not. Yves wasn't in disguise anymore
and Emma wanted to introduce her to the other two girls but she had
promised.

Yves solved the problem by smiling at the three of them and climbing
up to where they sat. Emma relaxed and quickly made introductions.
Yves sat down with them and informed them, "I was down talking to
Jimmy. He tried the caber once but couldn't get it to flip over. As
soon as they go through all the other novices, he's going to try it
again."

"All right!" Emma was excited. Megan and Rachel echoed her sentiment.

They sat watching the progress on the field. At Games like this, they
often encouraged new comers to try their hands at the various athletic
events. The caber was the most difficult but with experienced
competitors around to help spot the newbies, it was fun to watch.

With help, the athlete got what looked like a small telephone pole up
on end. He would then wrap his arms around it and hoist it up into the
air enough to get his hands under the bottom, bracing the length and
weight of it against one shoulder. At least two other men would stand
nearby in case there was any danger of the tosser tipping over
backwards. If the pole started to fall in that direction, he would
need to twist his body out from under it and allow it to fall to the
ground.

Once it was safely balanced, the man began running with it to give it
some forward momentum. Then he pushed up with his hands making the
caber fall away in front of him, hopefully flipping so that the end
that was in his hands landed facing away from the him in a 12:00
position.

Several men stood waiting their turn. Jimmy was with them. The girls
watched him hoping he would notice them. When he finally looked their
way, they waved vigorously. He waved back but wisely did not give up
his place in line.

The other novices were entertaining to watch. Some managed to get the
pole up in the air but very few got it moving. Most just jumped out of
the way as the pole started to fall. One guy did really well and
actually got it to flip over but it landed at an odd angle. Two others
got it up on end but then it fell back toward them. A couple more
attempts by other athletes and it was Jimmy's turn.

Two men balanced the caber while Jimmy wrapped his arms around it. He
lifted it up and managed to get his hands under the bottom. For a few
seconds it looked like he was going to tip over backwards but he
maintained his grip and got the pole in the correct position. Emma
could see the look of intense concentration on his face. He began to
run with the pole and when he reached the appropriate spot, he heaved
upwards and away from his body with all his might. The caber flipped
over in the air, landed on the correct end and fell into about a 1
o'clock position, better than anyone else had managed.

Megan, Rachel and Emma jumped up and down screaming and cheering. Many
other people in the audience joined them in applauding Jimmy's
success. He looked up at them in the bleachers and raised both arms in
a triumphant pose.

Jimmy noticed that Yves was cheering, too. Maybe he had actually
impressed her, something that seemed very difficult to do. He saw that
all four of them were coming out of the stands to congratulate him so
he came around the fence to greet them. Emma caught Megan and Rachel
each by an arm to slow them down so that Yves would get there first.
Both girls turned to see what Emma was doing.

"Wait. I want to see what happens." She was gratified to see Yves hug
Jimmy and give him a quick kiss on the cheek. They couldn't hear what
the couple said to each other. When they turned to look at the girls,
Emma no longer restrained her two friends but let them go talk to
Jimmy. She was the last to congratulate him. She hugged him and he
lifted her off her feet in his enthusiasm. "I knew you could do it. I
just knew it," Emma managed to say even though she could barely breath
from the bear hug.

Jimmy put her down and stood grinning at her. "You were right. It was
so cool. I thought I lost it there for a second. And when I tossed it
over I was sure it was going to fall back on me! And I almost got it
to land at 12:00 o'clock!"

"You just need more practice," Emma offered as encouragement. "Man, I
wish I'd brought my camera."

"Don't worry, Em, you can always take pictures next year. I'll be much
better at it by then."

"You mean it? Do you really want to come again next year?" Emma asked
excitedly.


"Yeah, a lot of these guys," he waved his hand in the general
direction of the field, "meet and practice together. They asked me if
I wanted to join them."

"That is so great!" Emma felt vindicated. Until the investigation with
the painting came up, she felt that the others were humoring her and
were only coming because it was so important to her.

"Listen, are you guys hungry?" Jimmy felt like celebrating by treating
everyone to lunch.

Emma spoke quickly before the other girls could chime in, "We have
other plans but why don't you and Yves go ahead?"

Yves gave Emma a quick look that said, "I'm on to you," but Emma
didn't care. She grabbed her confused friends each by a hand and made
a speedy exit.

Rachel had the decency to wait until they were out of earshot of the
two adults before she complained about the rough treatment. "Let go of
me. That hurts!"

"Sorry."

"What were you doing? We could have gone to lunch with them."

"No, I want them to be alone."

It was Megan's turn to question Emma's motives, "Why?"

"If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone?"


"I guess."

"What about you, Rachel?"

"Sure, unless it's something really creepy."

"I'm not going to tell you anything creepy. It's just that I think
Jimmy is in love with Yves and I'm hoping she'll finally notice. If
we're around, she won't."

"Why doesn't he just tell her?" Megan was always practical.

"I'm not sure. Maybe he's shy or something."

"Why don't you tell her then?"

"Because I'd just get in trouble. I brought it up once and almost got
my head taken off. So I have to be sneaky. Look, why don't I buy us
lunch? I haven't spent half of the money my dad said I could use this
weekend." This sounded like a good idea so they ran off to find
something they could all agree on.





Chapter 6 - 7






At about 12:45, Emma decided to round up the stragglers for the massed
bands. Almost everyone had returned to the Scottish Sword and Shield
booth by that time, including Monica. Emma thought she'd left when the
FBI agent had discovered that her services were no longer needed.

"You're still here."

"Sure, I am. There's a lot of stuff going on and I have to admit; I
kind of like the guys in their kilts."

Emma saw an opening and went for it. "Did you know that Agent Doggett
has a kilt of his own?"


"No, I didn't."

"You should ask him to try it on for you. He's looks really good in
it."

Monica laughed at this suggestion. "I just might have to do that."

Taking another look around, Emma discovered that the only one missing
was Langly. She finally found him but had trouble dragging him away
from the genealogy man's computer. He had shown the fellow a few
tricks on entering databases that would help with his business. Langly
also made a few suggestions on how he could improve the program to
make the most of the information that was readily available. This, of
course, meant that Langly rewrote the whole thing.

All the cajoling in the world could not drag the computer god away
from an interesting problem. Emma finally resorted to the one thing
she knew he could not ignore: a wet finger in his ear. This drove him
crazy and his reaction was almost always immediate: to catch her and
torment her in a similar fashion.

They created quite a scene as they entered the main vendor hall: a
young girl in plaid shorts being chased by a tall man dressed for
battle, his long blond hair flying out behind him. Frohike heard them
coming long before he saw them. Emma laughing and squealing and Langly
telling her to stop. "What on earth did she do to piss him off this
time?" Stepping outside the booth, he waited for them.

Emma ran up and hid behind her father using him as a shield to keep
Langly from grabbing her. Now Frohike was getting angry. "That's
enough! Knock it off, both of you!" He lowered his voice realizing he
was making as big a scene as they were. "It's bad enough when you do
this at the warehouse, but in public it's embarrassing."

"But, but...she knows I hate that!" Langly sputtered. Emma popped her
head out from behind Frohike and stuck her tongue out at her pursuer.
Langly made another grab for her but she moved too fast and he nearly
knocked Frohike over in his attempt.

Putting one hand out to hold Langly off, Frohike used the other to
grab his daughter and pull her out from behind his back. Langly tried
again to get at her but Fro's well-placed hand kept him at bay.

"Just wait!" He turned to Emma, "What did you do?"

"He wouldn't listen to me!"

"That's not what I asked."

"But he promised to..."

"What did you do?"

"But, Dad, he..."

"Answer the question."

Heaving a big sigh, Emma finally did as she was told. "I licked my
finger and stuck it in his ear."

Laughter emanating from the Sword and Shield booth told Emma that she
had an audience. She ducked her head and smiled privately to herself.
It wasn't private enough though. Frohike saw her reaction to the
laughter and gave her arm a quick shake to bring her attention back to
him and Langly.

"This isn't funny."

"Sorry."

"Now, you know he hates that."

"Yes, I do."

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

"It's the only way I can get his attention."

Langly had heard enough. "She just does it to make me angry."


"Well, maybe if you could think about more than one thing at a
time..." Emma retorted.

"Yeah, right now I'm thinking of at least 5 ways to make your life
miserable."

Frohike pushed them farther apart. "Stop it." To Emma he said, "You,
go sit in the booth. I'll talk to you in a minute." He let her go and
watched her walk behind the counter and find a place to sit. To Langly
he said, "You're the adult here. You can't let her get to you like
that."

"I don't let her, she just does."

"Langly, come on, man, think about it."

"Yeah, well, you're right but..."

Emma watched them talking. She couldn't hear what they were saying but
she could tell that Langly was still not happy. She started to feel
bad for making him angry. Her impatience with his distractedness
really wasn't fair. He was always ready to help her when she needed it
and explained things in great detail when she got confused. Now she
was feeling pretty rotten. Langly was here because it was important to
her. He had found something that really interested him and she had
thought only of herself.


Deciding to disobey her father, she got up and went back out to them.
Langly saw her coming and stopped talking. Frohike turned to see what
had captured the other man's attention.

"Emma, I told you to go wait for me."

"Can I talk to Langly? Please?"

Frohike looked from Langly to Emma. "All right, see if you can work it
out but no more running around and screaming. That goes double for
you, missy!" Smiling at his joke she grabbed his finger, which was
barely an inch from her nose.

"Okay, Dad."


She got serious again as he walked off. "I'm sorry, Langly. I just
really wanted you to see the massed bands. I know how you get around
computers and stuff but I know you'll like this."

"I caught part of it yesterday. It was pretty cool."

"It really is." She was encouraged. "Do you forgive me?"

Langly paused and considered her. "On one condition."

"What's that?" She asked dreading the answer.

"I get to do the same thing to you."

"What do you mean?"

He stuck one finger in his mouth, pulled it out and showed it to her.

"Oh, come on!"

"That's my condition."

"All right, whatever, but hurry up." She closed her eyes tightly and
waited. Nothing happened. She opened one eye and peeked at him. He was
just standing there. She opened her other eye. "Well, what are you
waiting for?"

"I didn't say I wanted to do it right now. The effect is not the same
when you expect it."

"Huh?"

"It has to be a surprise."

"Just do it now." She swept her hair away from one ear.

"Nope, I'm going to get some lunch. I'll be back in time for your
concert." He walked off.

"It's not a concert, it's called the massed bands." She yelled at his
retreating back. She turned back to the booth, muttering to herself,
"And he says I'm a brat."


Leaving a bare bones staff in the booth, everyone else went out to
find seats in the bleachers for the show. Cutting it that close they
had a hard time finding enough seats together for the whole group.
They finally found a spot way up at the top near the end of the stand.
Feeling a little like a traitor for ditching him earlier, Emma chose
to sit next to her dad making sure she was out of Langly's reach.

The marching bands were magnificent, the music was loud, and the drums
reverberated off the walls of the buildings surrounding the parade
ground. There were long speeches, of course, but before the pipe bands
performed their final piece, everyone was invited to join hands and
sing along while they played Auld Lang Syne. All three girls showed
the others that they needed to cross their arms over their own bodies
before joining hands. When the song was over, the bands played
Scotland the Brave and marched together off the field.


The vendor hall was close to the parade grounds so most of the group
hurried back for the crush of customers that usually arrived as soon
as the performance was over. Frohike, Emma and the other two girls
helped with sales for about an hour until things settled down again
and pretty soon the kids were getting bored and in the way. It was
suggested that they all go find something better to do. Emma was
interested in seeing the choir that Byers had talked about: the one
that sang in Gaelic. She talked Megan and Rachel into going with her
but she could not convince her father to come along.


"I'm going to stay here and help with the swords."

"Are you sure?" Emma now kind of wanted his company but Frohike knew
she should spend time with her friends. They would be leaving the next
day.

"You go and have fun. I'll see you later."

"You'll be right here?"

"I'm not planning on going anywhere else."

"All right. We won't be long."

"Take all the time you want."

Consulting a map in the program, the girls found the spot where the
choir performance was to be held. The concert had already started by
the time they got there. Byers sat in the second row but there were
not enough seats near him for all three girls to sit in the same area.
They chose a spot near the back. Byers saw them as they walked past
and got up to join them. Emma left him the seat at the end of the row.
They all listened in silence to the rest of the song. Although Emma
couldn't understand a word, the music was beautiful. The choir was
singing accapella but there was a beautiful, red harp nearby. Emma
figured it would be used as accompaniment eventually. When the song
was finished, she asked John, "Is your friend here?"

He grinned and pointed off to the left side of the choir. "See the
woman near the back with the glasses?"

Emma looked where he had indicated. "The one with the green streak in
her hair?"

"Yes, that's Erynn."

The woman saw him pointing and smiled at them, giving them a discreet
wave before turning her attention back to the choir director. While
the choir sang the next song, Emma had time to reflect. She had
assumed that the old friend was a guy, someone John knew from college
or something. He had given no indication that she was a woman. The
budding matchmaker found this to be a very exciting development.

There were many questions she wanted to ask Byers but she knew he
would make her wait for a break in the music. No longer listening, she
carefully considered what she would ask first. "How long have you
known her? Was she your girl friend? How come you haven't seen her in
so long? Does she live near here? Have you talked to her yet?" She was
so distracted by this that the applause at the end of the song caught
her by surprise. Belatedly joining the audience in showing their
appreciation, Emma asked the last question on her mind, "Have you
talked to her yet?"

"No, not yet. She saw me come in and waved like she did just a minute
ago but there's been no opportunity for us to talk."

The choir started the next song leaving no chance for more questions.
The answer to the one question had pleased Emma. It would give her a
good idea of how close they'd been by how the greeted one another. Now
she was impatient for the concert to be over but something about the
song they were singing caught her attention. She found herself humming
along suddenly realizing she recognized the melody. The words were
unfamiliar but she did know this song.

She sat back in her chair closing her eyes. That helped, the darkness
helped. She heard a different voice singing words but in English. It
was her mother's voice. Her mom used to sing this to her as a lullaby.
She had completely forgotten about it until she heard the song again.
Once more she found herself fighting tears but she was also pleased to
have remembered something about her mother from so long ago. She
wanted to know the name of the song. Erynn would know and Emma hoped
she would get a chance to ask her.

At the break after this song, Megan and Rachel decided they wanted to
go get some ice cream. "Go ahead without me. I want to meet John's
friend."

"Do you want us to bring you guys back some?" Megan asked.

"No, thank you," Byers replied.

"Me neither, I'll see you later," Emma promised.

The choir sang a few more songs, utilizing the harp a couple of times.
The man who played the harp was very good but then so was the choir.
Emma recognized another song they sang but this one was not a lullaby
and her memory of it was more vague. John bowed his head and Emma
noticed that he had tears on his cheek. Whatever it was, it held deep
meaning for him. She put her arm through his and scooted a little
closer to him. He covered her hand with his and looked down at her
smiling, unashamed of his emotions. When the song was over, Emma
commented. "I kind of remember that last one. You seemed to know it.
What was it?"

"It was played at President Kennedy's funeral."

"Oh, I've seen tapes of that. That's why I recognized it." It also
explained Byers's reaction. Emma knew that President Kennedy was his
hero and that he'd been named after the man.

The concert was now over. Emma glanced up at the choir and saw Erynn
walking toward them. Byers stood up to greet her but Emma stayed in
her seat out of the way. "John, it's so good to see you!" They hugged
but Emma was disappointed that there was no kiss. She wasn't ready to
give up hope though.

"It's been a long time," Byers observed.

"Ten years?" Erynn guessed.

"Probably closer to fifteen," he admitted.

"No, it can't be that long. You haven't changed at all."

Emma mentally rolled her eyes thinking to herself, "Come on, come on,
get to the good stuff!"

Byers stroked his beard, "I know I'm a little grayer than the last
time we met. But you look fantastic!"

This was good, fantastic was good!

Erynn laughed. Emma liked the sound. "Thank you, John. The kilt looks
good on you. I don't think I've ever seen you in one before. You know,
I've always said you have nice legs." Emma made a small, gleeful noise
at this admission. Erynn looked behind Byers where Emma was trying to
hide without seeming like she was trying to hide. "Is this your
daughter?" Oops, not good. It had never occurred to her that Erynn
would think that she was John's daughter. She started to deny it but
John did it for her.

"Emma? No," he said and then to Emma who, once again, tried to hide
behind him, "Come on, get up." He put his hand under her arm to get
her to stand next to him. "She's the daughter of a good friend of
mine." He looked at Emma for a second and in that brief moment she saw
what looked like regret cross his face. "I have no children."

Erynn had also noticed the emotion's brief appearance. "That's too
bad. You would make a wonderful father."

"Sometimes he practices on me and you're right, he's pretty good!"
Emma declared trying to lighten the mood some. "And he's not married
either!"

Byers eyes widened in shock at Emma's bold statement. "Emma!"

"What? You're not. I'm not lying or anything." She turned to look at
Erynn and smiled, "How about you?"

"Emma, that's enough!" Byers was amazed at how cheeky the child was.

"What?" Emma asked again. "She's not wearing a ring or anything."

Byers face had now gone quite red with embarrassment. He gave Erynn an
apologetic look, 'I'll be right back," he told her. Putting his hand
in the middle of Emma's back, he pushed her towards the door to get
her out of the building. "That was very rude," he told her when they
got outside.

"I wasn't trying to be rude. I was curious."

"But you don't just blurt out something like that to someone you've
just met."

"Why not? It saves a lot of time."

"It's not polite."

"I'm sorry. You can go back now. Will you tell Erynn I'm sorry? I'll
go find the girls, okay?"

She didn't want to argue with him. She wanted him to go back to his
friend so she apologized hoping he would drop it. Her quick apology
did take the wind out of his sails. "Well, all right. But don't do it
again."

"Okay, I won't. I'll see you later." She trotted off but turned before
getting too far. "Why don't you see if she wants to come to dinner
with us?" Emma didn't wait for an answer but quickly ran off leaving
the idea firmly implanted in his brain.

He was headed back into the building when the realization hit him. It
wasn't just Frohike she was trying to find a wife for. The little
stinker was out to get them all paired up. That's why she'd been so
bold. She probably figured he wouldn't have the nerve to ask Erynn the
question himself. In all likelihood, she was right.

Erynn was still in the concert hall. She was talking to a couple of
other members of the choir. When she saw him, she came over. He was
relieved to see that she hadn't left. "You'll have to forgive my young
friend. It seems she has a new mission in life."

"And what would that be..."

"She wants my coworkers and me to all have female companionship."

"Do you have a problem with this?"

"Not really but her tactics leave a little to be desired."

"She was a bit forward but rather cute. You were funny though. Your
face got very red." Byers could feel his face reddening again. "Like
right now." Erynn explained, smiling at his reaction.

"She asked me to apologize for her," Byers went on with his original
subject.

"Tell her, 'Apology accepted'."

"Thank you, I will."

"And, John," Erynn paused to make sure he was listening, "the answer
is, 'No'."

"The answer?"

"To the question she asked me." She reached out and took his hand.

"Oh," he swallowed nervously. "Hey, listen, um, would you like to go
out to dinner with us?"

"Us? How many people are you talking about?"

"Quite a few really."

"I don't know. I was hoping for something a little more intimate."

"Like what?" Byers hoped he knew the answer.

"Maybe, dinner for two?"

"I'm sure that can be arranged," he said smiling.


Frohike walked around late in the day, collecting all the extra
surveillance cameras he had placed on the grounds. He tried to get
Emma to go with him but she refused saying she wanted to help out in
the booth. She really wanted to avoid the unexplained lights and going
back into that building was not something she was willing to do. With
one of his cameras, Fro discovered another mysterious device that
matched the one he'd found earlier. This meant that he could take one
apart and still have a working version for further study. Even if they
didn't catch the art thief, he might be able to copy this piece of
equipment. It would come in handy if it did what he thought it did.

It was finally time to tear down. The games ended at six that Sunday
evening and at 5:59 everyone started packing things into boxes,
breaking down the shelves, wrapping up the glassware, etc. The swords
were stored in wooden crates, which were extremely heavy and there
were many plastic bins for most of the other stock. With all the extra
help, they had everything packed up and ready to go in record time.
Jimmy and Langly were particularly helpful because they could lift the
heavy sword boxes.


Byers was still out and about. Emma filled everyone in on his visit
with his friend. She discovered that she was not the only one who
figured that the 'old friend' was a man. She was unable to answer most
of their questions because she had spent so little time with them
before she got tossed out. Byers finally came by but he was alone. He
wanted to return his 'hardware' before everything got packed up. Emma
grilled him about Erynn.

"Where is she?"

"She went to get her things out of her friend's car."

"Did you ask her if she wanted to go out to dinner with us?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't want to go with us." Byers decided to make her sweat a
little.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She thought about it for a second. "But you said she
was going to get her stuff. Is she coming back?"

"She is."

"Then what?"

"She's going out to dinner but only with me."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really, now get back to work and mind your own business," he
said with a grin. He put his hand on her shoulder, turned her around
and shoved her toward the booth. Next he found Frohike and took him
aside. "Do you think you and Langly can get a ride back to the house
so I can use the van for the evening?"

"Why? You got a date?" Frohike tried not to snicker.

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"Hey, buddy, that's great. Sure, we can find a way back." Frohike
reached into his pocket, he had changed out of his kilt to help tear
down, and handed Byers the keys.

"Is it the friend you were talking about?"

"Yes."


"Have a good time."

"Thanks, I'm planning on it."

 


Chapter 6 - 8





The Highland Games were finally over. It was a well-established
tradition that Pat and Rosalie took everyone out to dinner that had
helped in the booth during the weekend. It gave them all a chance to
share their experiences and to generally wind down after the event.
Sales had been good. Actually sales had been very good. More of the
antiques had sold then Pat had even dreamed of selling. People on the
east coast seemed to have more of an appreciation of historical items
than those on the west coast. This had been his hope in taking on the
expense of coming so far just to work at another Highland Games when
he could have done one closer to home.

"Does this mean that you'll come back next year?" Emma asked.

Rosalie didn't want to make promises she couldn't keep. "We'll
seriously think about it."

"What about Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina?" This was another
Highland Games that was close enough that Emma figured she could get
someone to take her to. "They're in July also and you could always
stay with us in between times and we could do stuff together."

Rosalie looked over at where Pat and Jimmy were deep into a discussion
on 'football'. Jimmy loved the game but he called it 'soccer'. "We
would have to talk about it but it would make sense. Coming this far
to do two Games would be more economical than doing just one."

Emma liked the way the conversation was going. Rachel had been
listening but wanted to change the subject. "Grandma, you said you
would ask them tonight."

"All right, all right, I will. Melvin?" Frohike was talking to Bruce
farther down the table and hadn't been following what was going on at
the other end.

"Yes?"

"Megan and Rachel were wondering if Emma could come spend some time
with us, maybe over the holidays or Spring Break? You are more than
welcome to come also."

Frohike smiled. "Let me guess. They've been plotting behind our
backs."

A wide-eyed Emma shook her head. "No, I didn't know about this."

"But I'm sure you wouldn't mind."

"It would be great! Can I? Please, Dad?"

"I don't see why not. We'll have to take a look at dates later. But
I'd rather go with you than send you on a plane by yourself."

The girls started talking excitedly to each other. Rachel telling Emma
everything she wanted to do when they got there and everyone she
wanted her to meet.

Later that night, the lights once again awakened Emma. She tried to
ignore them. She put her pillow over her face but she couldn't breath
that way. Tucking the pillow back under her head, she noticed that
this time she could see them with her eyes open. There were more of
them but not as many as she had seen around the paintings. She closed
her eyes and willed herself to go back to sleep. It didn't work. In
the darkened room, she could see the lights through her eyelids.
Trying not to wake the other girls, she sat up and whispered, "What do
you want?"

The lights stopped moving and hung suspended in the air in front of
her but she got no response. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath
and let it out relaxing all her muscles as she did so. "Tell me."

She waited.

Finally, she got an answer. "Help us." Once again, the simple
statement sounded so desperate.

"How can I help you?"

"You must help us," came the tenuous reply.

"Please, what do you want me to do?"

"Look."

She lifted her head and opened her eyes. Right in front of her face,
about a foot away, was one of the lights. It grew brighter and more
distinct. It took on a form within the glow. She watched in awe as a
face became distinguishable then a body and arms, legs and finally,
shimmering wings.

At this point Emma had seen more than her young mind could comprehend
in such a short time. There was only one thing she wanted: her dad.
She scrambled out of bed, not even thinking of how it would disturb
the others and ran to her father's room. She stood in his doorway,
once again not wanting to wake him but needing his comfort.

Frohike woke up and his first thought was that she was having another
asthma attack. "Emma, what is it?" He got up, putting on his glasses.

"The lights, the lights in my room."

He brought her the rest of the way into the room and shut the door.
With his arms around her he asked her to be more specific. "What about
the lights?"

"I saw the lights in my room again."

Frohike was momentarily confused but then remembered their
conversation from the previous morning. "Like last night?"

"Yes, only I could see them with my eyes open and there were more of
them and they were brighter."

"Let me go take a look."

"But, Dad, wait!" she begged as he let her go.

"What?" But then she couldn't tell him. It was too much. She shook her
head. "Go ahead. But I don't think you'll be able to see them."


He left her standing there. He didn't turn on the lights in her room
but Emma's quick departure had woken up the other girls. "What's going
on?" Megan asked when he came in the door.

"Emma said she keeps seeing lights. Did either of you see them?"

"No," they both replied but then Megan added, "She did say she saw
lights when we were looking at the painting the other day.

"Yeah, but she said she was kidding," Rachel insisted.

"I don't know, Rachel, she was serious but then you said she was
joking and she gave up." Megan hadn't been convinced at the time and
this made her wonder all the more.

"But neither of you saw anything in here just now or last night?"
Frohike double-checked.

"No, I was asleep until she ran out of here," Megan insisted.

"So was I," Rachel agreed.

"Okay, girls, thank you. Try to go back to sleep now."

Frohike went back to his room. Emma was sitting in the big overstuffed
chair waiting for him. She was wrapped in one of her mother's quilts:
her legs tucked up under her body. Frohike sat down on the corner of
the bed with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together in
front of him. "Tell me what's going on. Megan said you saw lights near
the painting, too."

Emma took a deep breath and let it out. "I didn't know what it was and
Megan and Rachel said they couldn't see them."

"Hang on." He held up one hand. "Start at the beginning."

She told him the whole story about the lights around the painting and
how they were not there at first but then they were. She mentioned the
lights from the night before. She had to admit to going back to see
the fake and how they were still there even though the painting was
gone. Frohike chose to let that slide. Other things were more
important at this point.

"And what about just now? The other times didn't scare you all that
much but you were terrified by what happened tonight."

"There's something else I haven't told you yet." Emma admitted.

"What?" She hesitated. "Honey, you can tell me anything. I always want
you to remember that. No matter what it is, you can tell me."

"But you'll think I'm making it up or that I'm crazy or something."

"I know you're not crazy and obviously, you're upset by what's been
going on so I doubt you're making it up."

She believed him but he didn't know just how nuts it sounded. Monica
had listened without judging her. Hopefully her dad could, too.

"When I went back yesterday, they talked to me. They did it again just
now."

"What do you mean?"

"They asked for my help."

"The lights talked to you? You could hear them?"

"Well, kind of. I just knew what they said."

"So, you talked back to them."

She nodded. "I asked them what they wanted."

"What did they say?"

"They didn't. They told me to look. So, I did. And one of them got
bigger and turned into a faery."

Frohike's eyebrows shot up. "Did you say 'a faery'?"

Emma's distressed grew with his reaction. "I knew you'd think I was
crazy."

He tried to reassure her. "No, no, baby, I don't think you're crazy
but are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

Emma looked down at her lap shaking her head. "No, I was wide awake."


"You're positive?"

Her head snapped up, her eyes flashing. "Dad, I know the difference
between asleep and awake." She calmed down and added. "And besides, it
happened yesterday in the middle of the day also."

"You saw faeries when you went to look at the fake?"

"No, not that. I heard them talking to me."

"Was that when they asked for your help?"

"That was the first time. They did it again just now."

"What do they want help with?"

"I don't know. They didn't say."

"What else happened?"

"Nothing. That's it."

Frohike took a deep breath letting it out slowly. "What do you want me
to do?"

Emma sighed. "I want you to make it stop."

Frohike took her hand. "I don't know that I can." It was difficult to
admit that he couldn't help her when she really needed it.

"I guess I already knew that. I was just scared and wanted to talk to
you." She squeezed his hand.

"Then I'm glad you woke me up. We can talk more about this in the
morning but you really should get back to sleep. Do you want me to go
check if your room is safe?"

Emma sat back, wrapping the quilt more tightly around herself. "Can I
just sleep right here? Please?"

"In the chair?"

"Please?"

"Okay, but you're going to wake up with a stiff neck."

"I don't care."

"You will in the morning. And get your feet out from underneath
yourself or you won't be able to walk either."

She did as she was told and Frohike tucked the quilt around her legs.
He kissed her, shut off the lights and returned to his own bed.

Frohike got up early the next morning, showered, dressed and went down
to make coffee. He was surprised to find Pat and Rosalie already up.
After the usual morning inquiries of how everyone slept, Pat asked,
"How's Emma?"

Frohike was puzzled. "She's still asleep."

"It sounded like she had a rough night." Rosalie said.

"I'm sorry she woke you. She had a bad dream or something." Frohike
lied. He wasn't sure how they would take it if he told them the
truth.

Pat wasn't fooled. "I thought she might have seen the faeries again."

"She told you about this?" Frohike asked.

"No, your friend Monica did. She wanted us to make sure that Emma
talked to you," Rosalie explained. "She said that Emma seemed pretty
upset about it."


Frohike ran his hand up over his head. These people were experienced
parents. Maybe they could offer him some advice. "It took a lot of
convincing to get the whole story out of her. She was worried that I
would think she was crazy."

Rosalie looked closely at him. "Do you?"

"No, but I think she has an over-active imagination."

Pat shook his head. "I wouldn't discount her story so easily. There
are a lot of things in this world that we just don't understand. Just
because you canna see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

Frohike thought of Mulder and Scully. "Yeah, I know, I have two
friends that spent years investigating such things. Monica and John
Doggett have taken up the cause. That's probably why Emma told Monica
first. She's heard stories about some of the less frightening cases
that all four of these agents have worked on."

Rosalie asked her next question trying very hard not to sound
judgmental. "Knowing what your friends have done, why do you find it
so difficult to believe that Emma might have experienced something out
of the ordinary?"

"I guess I don't want her to end up an X-File." He had to explain what
that was.

Rosalie said she understood his reluctance to accept something that
might cause his child pain. "But I think she needs to know that you
believe her more than she needs to be protected from it."

"She asked me to make it stop."

Pat shook his head again. "You're not going to be able to. If she's
right and they are faeries, they were there to protect the painting.
She might be the only one that could communicate with them. Not many
people can see them. My da used to tell stories about the wee folk he
saw as a young man. He told several people but they all thought he was
daft. He finally stopped telling the stories until he had
grandchildren of his own. My da was a great story teller but he was no
liar."


Frohike liked what he was hearing less and less. "What can I do?" he
asked in desperation.

"Reassure her that they'll not hurt her," Pat said. "That should help.
Then tell her to listen to them. Who knows, they may help you find
that painting."

Rosalie saw the look on Frohike's face at her husband's comment. "It
was obvious yesterday that you all were quite upset about something
and that the painting had been stolen was the only thing that made
sense."

"We're going to look more into it today. Byers figured he found
something on one of the tapes that might help."

"Good luck with that and with Emma, too." Rosalie smiled as she said
that. "You've got your hands full there but I'm sure Michelle would be
pleased with the job you're doing."

"Thank you, that's good to hear."


The truck arrived at about 8:00 to pick up the unsold goods to be
shipped back to Seattle. Bruce was flying back home to go to work. He
didn't have enough vacation left to spend the time on the east coast
with the rest of the family They planned on loading everyone else into
one of the rented Suburbans and heading south to see the sights. They
would meet up again in Florida and after a few days at Disneyworld,
they would all fly out for the UK.

By 10:00 AM everything and everyone was packed up and ready to go.
Good-byes were always hard but with the promise of meeting up again
during the holidays, they were a little easier to take. Rosalie gave
Frohike her cell phone number in case they had forgotten anything.
Father and daughter stood at the curb and waved goodbye until they
could no longer see the vehicles.

The house was very empty and very quiet. Frohike watched Emma putting
away the dry breakfast dishes. He wondered if he should bring up what
had happened during the night but Emma had other things on her mind.

"Are you going back to the warehouse today?" She asked when she was
done.

"Yes, I need to. Do you want to go or would you rather stay here?"

"No, I want to go. I want to see how John's date went."

Frohike had forgotten all about that. He laughed and said, "Well,
let's get out of here then."

When they got to the warehouse, Emma cornered Byers and demanded a
full account of his date. Langly and Jimmy coaxed Frohike upstairs to
talk away from the other two.

"All right, fill me in on all the gory details. What happened?"

Both men started talking at once. "Whoa, one at a time."

"I get to go first." Langly insisted. "Byers was out all night. He
didn't get in until about an hour ago. He was worried that you would
get here before he did."

"Why would that worry him?"

Jimmy jumped in. "He said he didn't want to have to explain to Emma
what he'd been doing all night."


"And?" Frohike demanded.

Jimmy looked puzzled. "And what?"

Now Fro was getting pissed. "If one of you doesn't tell me what
happened in the next minute, I'm going to knock your skulls
together!"

Langly looked disgusted, "The bastard won't crack. He keeps saying 'a
gentleman never tells'. I said if he actually was a gentleman, then he
might have something to worry about."

Frohike started laughing. It was a deep hearty laugh. The other two
men sat and watched wondering if he'd lost it. Tears were rolling down
his cheeks. "What's so funny?" Jimmy asked.

"Don't you see? No, you really don't, do you?" Fro stopped to take off
his glasses and wipe his eyes.

"What?" Langly shouted.

Frohike took his time making sure both men were watching him. "The
narc got some last night."

"Got some of what?" Jimmy asked.

Langly made an exasperated noise and asked, "What would you want if
you were out with a girl?"

"Probably dinner and a movie and if we got along really good then
maybe, well, you know." Jimmy grinned his goofy grin. "Oh, I see, he
got some." He repeated Frohike's line nodding. Then his grin faded.
"But how do you know if you haven't talked to him yet?"

"Yeah," Langly agreed. "You haven't talked to him. You don't know
that."

"Think about it," Frohike said, "if nothing had happened, he would
have said 'nothing happened'. But by saying 'a gentleman never tells',
he's as good as admitting it."

Jimmy thought about it for a few more seconds. "You know, his kilt was
really messed up."


Frohike started laughing again, "You mean he still had that thing on
when he came home? Oh, gods, this is too funny!"


After a few more minutes of speculation and jokes at Byers's expense
an unpleasant thought occurred to Frohike. "If he keeps this up, I'm
either going to have to sit down and have a talk with Emma or she's
going to need to spend more nights at home."

Langly nodded. "You'd probably be better off talking to her about it.
She's not stupid. She'd figure out why she wasn't allowed to spend as
much time here."

Jimmy was concerned, "Do you think Byers will want to bring his girl
friend here for the night."

"No, that's not what I'm saying." Frohike said. "But if he's out all
night on several occasions. Emma will notice and ask questions."

"Oh, you're right." Jimmy was glad that this job would not fall to
him. "Say, does she know about you and her mom?"

Frohike rolled his eyes, "I would hope so. She knows how babies are
made if that's what you're asking."

"Not exactly. Does she know that you and her mom weren't married and
that she was just looking for the right guy to get her pregnant?"

"I don't really know," Frohike thought about it for a few moments.
"She told me a while ago that her mom said she had only lied to her
once. That was about how Michelle got pregnant. I never brought it up
again."

"It looks like you're going to have to," Langly said.

Frohike was getting frustrated and the discussion was giving him a
headache. "Oh, man, I'm at a loss here. I wish she had come with an
instruction manual."

"You know you can buy them though," Jimmy suggested. "There's all
kinds of stuff like that at the bookstore."

"Yeah, and he would know. He's read most of them trying to figure what
he's doing wrong." Langly couldn't resist the opening Jimmy left him.

Jimmy ignored Langly. More and more he was finding that this was the
best way to deal with him. "And maybe you can talk to Agent Scully.
She's a doctor, isn't she, and a woman. I bet she'd be willing to
help."

Frohike considered this option. "You know, Jimmy, for a dumb jock,
sometimes you have good ideas."

Jimmy was pleased. "I do? Hey, thanks."

Byers told Emma quite a bit about his date. The 'G' rated parts of it,
anyway. He didn't let on that he was aware of her efforts to at least
find him a girl friend but now that he knew what she was up to, if was
entertaining to watch how her mind worked.

She seemed pretty pleased with his answers to her questions until she
asked if he and Erynn were going to be seeing each other more.

"We're planning on going out again tonight but after that it's up in
the air."

"But I thought you liked her."

"I do but she doesn't live around here."

"Where does she live?"

"She lives in Vancouver. Her choir came here to perform for the Games
and a couple other events. She has another performance today and then
she leaves tomorrow."

Emma was crushed. Byers noticed her change in mood. "Hey, Doc, it's
okay. I'd lost touch with Erynn but now that we've had a chance to
talk again, we'll be able to see each other when ever she's in town or
I head out her way."

"You got her email address and all that?"

Byers smiled and pulled a piece of paper out of his coat pocket.
"Right here."

"Have you put it in your email address book yet?" Not that she really
thought he would lose it but why take the chance.

"Yes, just before you got here."

"That's good."

After lunch Emma brought the subject up again. "Vancouver, like in
Canada?"

Byers had to rewind through all the conversations he had that morning
to find the one she had decided to pick up again. "Yes, like in
Canada."

Emma had been looking at an atlas on the internet to see how far away
from the Washington, DC area Vancouver really was. She found two
cities named Vancouver that offered some possibilities.

"Did Dad tell you that we got invited to go to Seattle during Winter
Break?"

"No, he hasn't mentioned it."

"Maybe you'd like to go out there with us. Vancouver is not that far
from Seattle."

Obviously, she wasn't ready to give up yet. Byers just laughed and
shook his head. "We'll have to see if I can afford it."

"I could buy you a..." Byers held up his hand to stop her
mid-sentence. His face told Emma that it would not be a good idea to
continue on that track.

"We had an agreement that you would not ask to buy us things," he
reminded her.

"But this is different," Emma protested.

"No, it's not." Byers said. "And December is quite a ways off. I
should be able save enough money by that time."

"You'll really think about it then?"

Byers smiled again. "I already am."





Chapter 6 - 9





The Gunmen spent most of the day reviewing the videotapes from
Saturday night. Byers was suspicious of the two drunks that were
thrown off the grounds in the middle of the night. Everyone searched
for images of the men on all of the tapes. There were hours of tape to
go through so for once Emma got to help out. They worked in pairs for
something like this and Frohike was busy taking apart one of the
devices he found with the surveillance cameras. Byers and Jimmy worked
together and Langly paired up with Emma. She took it very seriously
and was even able to identify a couple of segments that showed the
men.

In her excitement at being allowed to help she forgot about her
argument with Langly from the previous day. While she was intently
studying the video monitor, Langly exacted his revenge. She jumped and
squealed when she felt his finger in her ear. This earned them an
angry scowl from Frohike. "What are you two doing?"

"Nothing," they swore in unison.

"It doesn't sound like nothing. Knock it off."

Emma rubbed her ear and told Langly, "You're right. It is worse when
you don't expect it."

"See, I told you. So, don't do it any more."

"Okay, I won't. But how can I get your attention if I really need
it?"

"Oh, that's easy. Just call me by my first name. Then I'll know you're
serious."


"You're sure that'll work?"

"Try it next time and find out."

"It's Richard, right?"

"Yup."

Emma started giggling.

"What's so funny?"

"You just don't look like a 'Richard'!"

Langly gave her a crooked smile. "Yeah, I know. That's why I used to
tell people to call me 'Ringo'."

"You don't look like a 'Ringo' either."


"What do I look like?"

"You look like a..." Emma searched for a name. "You look like a
'Langly'."

"Well, I guess I was born into the right family then."

"Are you two going to sit there and chatter all day or do you plan on
getting any work done?" Frohike asked.

Before Langly could come up with an angry retort, Emma assured her
father, "We're going back to it right now." She didn't want to get
fired from her new job. Langly hit the rewind button to catch
everything they had missed while they were talking.

Yves came by in the early afternoon with copies of the security logs
that noted the rousting of the two drunks, which included the names
and identification that had been shown to security. She had checked
and the identification they used was bogus. By running back the tapes
and carefully observing their behavior, it soon became obvious that
the men were not as drunk as they had seemed at first, if at all.

Frohike carefully studied the dismantled electronics he had found. It
did appear to do what he first surmised. It not only blocked the
signal from a video camera, it transmitted a looped image so that it
wouldn't be obvious that the signal had been disrupted. He hooked up
the undamaged device and tested it. He was impressed. It was an
amazing piece of counter intelligence equipment. And it wouldn't be
all that difficult to copy. This would come in handy but right now was
not the time to extol its virtues.

He explained to the others how they had been fooled.

"But how did Harris know about our cameras?" Byers asked. "I can see
him disrupting the ones security put up but ours were well hidden."

Yves was studying the one that Frohike had taken apart. "I told you he
was good."

Langly took the piece of equipment from Yves. "This may explain how he
switched the painting but how did he get it off the grounds? Nothing
was removed during the night, security made sure of that." He looked
at Yves, "You're positive he didn't take it out of the frame."

"I'm quite certain the frame was switched, too. Tiny flecks of chipped
paint that probably flaked off when it was moved are now restored.
That didn't happen by magic. They took the whole thing, frame and
all."

Frohike offered his theory. "They used that," he pointed to the thing
in Langly's hand, "to keep us complacent, moved the painting to a
preselected spot during the early morning hours, then hauled it off in
broad daylight probably safely crated and stashed under a pile of
trash or something else that security would have taken no notice of."

Byers thought of something he had seen the previous day. "Langly, do
you remember yesterday morning as we were entering the grounds, we had
to wait for that truck, the one carrying the port-a-potties?"

"Yeah, I remember." He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Man, did those
things stink!"

"I thought it was odd at the time. Why would they be taking any of
them away when the Games were still going on?"

"Maybe because they were too gross to use! I know they got my gag
reflex working overtime."

"It doesn't take much to do that," Frohike said.

Byers continued, "But they usually pump them out and refill the blue
chemicals for the new day. There would be no reason to take them away,
unless there was something in one of them that they didn't want anyone
to see."

Langly slammed his fist onto the tabletop making the coffee cups jump.
"Oh, man, do you mean to tell me they drove off the grounds with the
painting right in front of us?"

Yves looked thoughtful. "Byers is probably right. Security wouldn't
think twice about the sanitation crew coming onto the grounds,
refilling the portable toilets, and leaving again. If we had
discovered earlier that the painting had been stolen, the guards would
have searched anything that size. The painting would fit nicely into
one of the larger units."

"This does give us a place to start, though." Yves continued, "The
truck must still be around somewhere. It might give us vital clues, if
we can track it down."

Emma had been very quiet during this whole discussion. She figured
they had forgotten that she was right there but she knew there was
something they were overlooking. "What about the port-a-potties? They
may not be with the truck any more."

From the surprised reactions her statement elicited she knew she was
right: they had forgotten about her.

She hurried on to make her point. "If they're not with the truck, if
they dumped them somewhere, someone will complain."


Frohike frowned at her. "Why are you still here?"

"I was helping."

"You need to go up stairs."

"But I already know everything, why can't I stay? I might be able to
help some more."

"I could use some assistance looking through the videos for shots of
the truck," Langly said as he sorted through the tapes to find the
ones of the gate where he and Byers had waited for the truck to pass.

"And she has a point about the portable toilets," Yves added. "No one
else thought of that."

Frohike scowled at Yves then at Emma. Eventually he gave in and let
Emma stay. "Go help Langly," he told her.

"Thank you, Dad," she said giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Go on before I change my mind."

Langly moved to a computer and Byers, Jimmy and Emma watched the
videos to find footage of the sanitation truck leaving the grounds.
Byers found a good picture and froze it. They were able to get the
name of the company off the driver's door of the truck but there was
no clear picture of the driver.

"Frohike, the name on the truck is Port-O-Let/Sanikan, Portable
Restrooms."

"Good, I'll call them and see if any of their trucks went missing this
weekend."

Langly was scanning 911 calls to see if someone had reported missing
flat bed trucks, port-a-potties, or the unexplained appearance of
either in their near vicinity.


After numerous phone calls and a great deal of computer research, it
was discovered that a truck had been stolen from the Port-O-Let
company but more than a month previously. There had been two portable
toilets on it at the time. The manager was surprised that anyone cared
about the stolen truck and portable toilets. The police certainly
didn't. The truck and both units had turned up the night before. He
was about to go pick them up.

"We believe your truck was used during a crime," Frohike explained.
"We would like to see if there is any evidence that may lead us to the
perpetrator."

"Sure, come on out. I won't touch it until you get there."

"Thank you, we really appreciate it."

With the location of the truck in hand, almost everyone loaded in the
van. Emma decided not to push her luck and didn't even ask to go with
them. Langly stayed with her. He wanted to continue to check 911 calls
for anything unusual. Emma kept out of the way, playing computer games
or just wandering around. She couldn't settle on one thing.

It was very quiet in the warehouse and she jumped at every noise,
wondering if the others had returned. She kept getting up and checking
the monitor to see if they were at the door. Her restlessness got to
Langly. He was keeping half an ear on her and it was easier to
concentrate in a room full of people than one anxious 12 year old
wandering aimlessly around the room.

"Hey, bratface, come here. I could use your help."

"Really?"

"Yes, I'm going buggo reading these 911 logs. I could use a fresh pair
of eyes."

"Sure, no problem." She wheeled a chair up next to him and studied the
screen. "So, what am I looking for?"

"Look here in the 'complaint' column. I'm checking for anything that
looks weird: mentions sanitation trucks or abandoned outhouses, stuff
like that."

That kept her busy so he could concentrate and it didn't hurt to have
some extra help. Weird to one person may not be weird to another. She
pointed out a couple he had missed. They didn't come up with anything
really promising until shortly before the others came back.



When they did get back, Frohike, Byers, Jimmy and Yves were
discouraged by what they had found and had not found. The truck was
wiped clean. The manager from the portable toilet company said that it
hadn't looked that good since it was new. Inside one of the
port-a-potties, they found a crate the right size and shape to hold
the painting. At first the Gunmen had been elated, then on closer
inspection, they realized it had been built out of old shipping
pallets. These could have been picked up anywhere and would give them
no real clues.

"I'm sure Harris left it there to taunt us and the police," Yves said.
They had called the cops when they were done with the truck. They
would want to take a look at it, too. "He could've easily destroyed
the crate or left it elsewhere."

"But now we know for sure how he did it," Jimmy was trying to lighten
the mood.

"Tell them," Emma encouraged Langly, pulling on his sleeve to get his
attention.

"Tell us what?" Byers asked.

Langly started to speak but Emma cut him off in her enthusiasm. "He
found something: a real clue. Tell them," she repeated.

"I will if you'll give me a chance."

"Sorry. Go ahead."


Langly gave them the details of a 911 call he had found. "Someone
called in to say that some kids were playing around in a warehouse out
by Dulles."

Emma broke in, "The caller said they do it all the time."

Langly looked down at her. "Do you want to tell it or can I?"

"No, you tell it. You found it."

"Anyway, the police knew the warehouse was supposed to be empty but
when they got there, instead of kids, they found that someone had been
living there."

"That's why the caller thought that it was kids messing around, there
shouldn't have been anyone in there," Emma couldn't help herself. He
wasn't telling the story the way she would have.

Langly continued. "There was a full sized Chevy pickup parked inside.
They also found a couple workman's coveralls." Emma started to
interrupt him again but he put his arm around her, loosely covering
her mouth with his hand. It was enough to shut her up but not
suffocate her. "The coveralls had Port-O-Let's logo on the back."

"Did they happen to list the license plate number in the report?"
Frohike asked.

"Got it and ran it. It belongs to Avis. The description of the truck
in the police report matched Avis's records."

Byers scratched his beard thoughtfully. "They must have transferred
the painting to the Chevy pickup to deliver it to the buyer. The
sanitation truck would be too noticeable in a residential area. At the
airport, no one would think twice about it. But I can't believe he
would be careless enough to leave the original license plates on the
rental truck."

"Maybe he didn't have a chance to change them yet," Jimmy said.

Yves agreed with Jimmy. "Harris probably figured he had plenty of time
to do that after he had acquired the painting."

Frohike unwrapped Langly's arm from around Emma and had her sit near
him to keep her out of trouble. "Were you able to find out who rented
the truck?"

Langly grinned. "Yes, I did." He reached behind Yves to his
workstation and picked up a piece of paper. He handed it to her.

Jimmy looked over her shoulder at the name, reading it out loud.
"Wesley Thomason. Why does that sound familiar?"


Yves smiled at Langly. "Because it's one of Harris's aliases."

It was pretty late by the time they called it a night. Frohike and
Emma had planned on staying at the warehouse for a while. Not wanting
to miss out on anything, Emma stubbornly insisted that she was not
tired even after a very busy weekend, getting up early several days in
a row and being awakened twice in the middle of the night. Frohike
found her with her head resting on a keyboard about an hour after she
should have gone to bed.

He gently shook her shoulder, "Emma, wake up and go to bed before you
get a permanent imprint of those keys on your face."

"Hey, I wasn't asleep. I was doing something."

"Yeah, you were drooling on my laptop," Langly fussed. He wiped off
the keys with the bottom of his t-shirt.

"Well, it seriously needed cleaning anyway!"

"Don't take it out on Langly. Just go to bed."

The tired twelve year old looked up at her friend. "Sorry, Langly.
That wasn't very nice of me." She decided to give it up and headed
upstairs. "Good night." She called back at everyone.

"I'll be up in a few minutes to check on you. And don't forget to
brush your teeth." Frohike reminded her.

She waved feebly at him as she trudged up the stairs. "I won't."

Too tired to worry about unexplained lights, Emma quickly dropped into
a sound sleep not waking up until well into the next day. Turning to
sit on the side of the bed she stretched, wondering if she had moved
at all during the night. Her thoughts ran back to the previous day.
She smiled remembering that for once they had really let her help on a
case. And Langly had even allowed her to watch him hack into several
computer systems. She wondered if her dad knew about it. She didn't
see how he couldn't. John had told her once...

"John. Oh, my god, he had another date last night! I missed it!" Emma
ran out of her room into the main living area.

"Hey, look who's finally awake!" Langly said with a laugh.

"Where's John?" Emma looked around the kitchen for him.


"Good morning, Dad. How are you today?" Frohike teased. "Did you sleep
well? I did, thank you very much for asking."

"Hi, Dad. Is John up yet?" She was not going to be distracted.

"Yes, he's down stairs." Emma dashed off in that direction.

"Whoa!" Frohike said as she rushed past him. She stopped with a
confused look on her face. He pointed at her bare feet. "You know
you're not supposed to go down there without shoes." Although they
tried to keep the floor in the work area clean, stray pieces of wire
and other electronics debris were a hazard to unprotected skin.
Frohike had to use a pocket knife to get a nasty bit of something out
of her instep a couple of weeks earlier.

Heaving a big sign, Emma said, "Dad, I'll be careful." Frohike reached
into his pocket, pulled out his penknife and waved it in front of her
nose. She got the message and ran back to her room to slip on a pair
of flip-flops.


She found Byers at his computer. "Morning, John." She figured it was
worthless to launch right into it.

"Good morning, Doc." Byers replied with a grin, knowing what was
coming next.

"How are you this morning?"


"I'm fine. How did you sleep? Did anything wake you up last night?"
Emma wasn't surprised that John obviously knew what she had been going
through. She knew her dad talked to Byers when something was on his
mind.

"Nope, nothing," Emma said with some relief. She hadn't thought about
it until he mentioned it. "I slept all night."

"Good. How come you're not dressed?" He frowned at her.

"I just got up," she said in her own defense.

"And you couldn't wait to come and say, 'Good morning' to me instead
of having breakfast and getting dressed?" Sometimes it was just too
easy to tease her.

"I wanted to find out how your date went," she said a little
petulantly.

"Oh, is that it?" As if he didn't know. "It went fine." He turned back
to his computer screen.

"That's it? It went fine?" Emma asked to try to get him to give her
details.

"Yes, that's it. We had a good time. What did you do last night?" He
tried to change the subject.

"I slept. We already talked about that." She was getting a little
testy.

Frohike came down knowing that Emma would be nagging Byers. "Emma, go
get dressed. Langly made you some breakfast."

"He did? I thought he couldn't cook." Emma was amazed.

"He's not as inept at it as he would like us to believe. Hurry up
before it gets cold."

"Don't you mean soggy," Emma asked grinning.

"Go on!" Frohike said, taking a menacing step toward her. "Git!"

Giving a small squeak, Emma trotted up to her room to change out of
her jammies.

Frohike waited until she was out of earshot. "Byers, thanks for being
here when she woke up."

"You're welcome. Langly said you were worried about needing to have a
little father/daughter talk."

"Yeah, I'm working up to it. Listen if you want me to keep her at the
house overnight just let me know."

"No, need. Erynn left for home earlier this morning."

"Oh, no problem then. Say, you never said how you knew her," Frohike
was curious.

"We dated for a few months. But then she moved away. We kept in touch
for quite a while but eventually I lost track of her."

"And now?" He was almost as bad as his daughter.

"Got all the information and if Emma has her way, I may see her in
December."

Frohike grinned and slapped his friend on the back. "Good idea!"

An hour and a half later, the buzzer went off breaking everyone's
concentration. Emma ran to let the visitor in. "Check the monitor
before you open the door!"

"Yes, Dad. You always say that and I always do." Emma looked down at
the screen. Yves stood looking up at the camera. "It's Yves."

"Let her in."

Yves had a list of possible buyers for the painting. Some of these
they had checked out earlier. But now that they had the description of
the rental truck, they could interview the neighborhoods around the
homes of the suspected stolen art collectors to see if anyone had seen
the truck.

Byers, Yves and Jimmy went out to the Avis office that had rented the
truck. It had been returned and they wanted to check it out. They
didn't plan on finding much evidence but the mileage that had been put
on the truck would help them narrow their search for the buyer. Yves
wanted to talk to the clerk who had actually rented out the truck to
see if she/he would recognize Harris.

These activities would take most of the day and probably well into the
night. If they found a likely recipient of stolen artwork, they would
check deeper. And if it came down to it, they would take appropriate
action. Emma listened to the numerous discussions going on around her
but no one would explain what 'appropriate action' meant. Frohike told
her to stop asking. She finally did.


There was one question Emma wanted answered. At a break in all the
activity, she decided to bring up the subject. "Yves, what about Colin
Harris?"

"What about him, Emma?"

"Are you going to catch him?"


"Not this time." At Emma's disappointed look, Yves continued, "But I'm
not giving up either. I have several contacts keeping their eyes open
for me. He's going to show up somewhere and I'm very patient."

"Good!" Emma was pleased. "I know you'll get him."


As the day wore on, one particular art collector seemed to stand out
as the most likely recipient of The Thin Red Line.

Neighbors reported seeing a truck that matched the description of the
rental vehicle that the police had found in the warehouse. The two men
who arrived in the truck had delivered a large armoire. The painting
could have fit into the piece of furniture that was described by the
neighbors.

At this point, Frohike made a phone call. Emma had agreed to baby-sit
for Scully and Mulder that evening. This was something she had done a
couple of times in the past. If she could spend the night there as
well, it would solve quite a few problems. It would leave all the
Gunmen free to try to get the painting back without having to leave
someone behind with Emma in case they all got arrested for breaking
and entering.

Scully was more than happy to have Emma overnight. To Frohike's
surprise, Emma found this arrangement to be preferable to going home
once her services were no longer needed.

"If I stay at their place, I can go to bed at a normal time instead of
trying to stay awake until they get there. I always get too tired and
late night TV is weird." She had no appreciation for Leno, Letterman,
and infomercials.


Mulder showed up at about 6:00 PM to pick up Emma. She was ready to
leave but Mulder had to poke around and see what the Gunmen were up
to.

"Isn't Dana waiting for us?" Emma finally asked him after three false
starts for the door.

Mulder shrugged, "She's a patient woman."

"With you around, she needs to be," she said with a sly smile.

"Emma!" Frohike shook his head at her. She was getting too sassy. He
was going to have to do something about that. "That was disrespectful.
You need to apologize."

"Sorry, Mulder," a red faced Emma said.

"That's okay, kid. Come on, let's go. Dana's patience does have its
limits."


Scully was a little nervous about leaving Emma alone with William with
no backup. Mulder told her she had been with the FBI too long.

"Mulder, you know what I mean." Scully said. "Her dad's usually
available if she has a problem."

"I have your cell phone number and your mom's number and the number at
the restaurant and all the emergency numbers." Emma was sitting on the
floor with William sharing McDonald's french fries with him. "We'll be
okay. Really."


Scully studied the self-assured girl deciding that she believed her.
"All right, but don't hesitate to call me if you need me."

"I won't."


Little William and Emma spent a pleasant evening together. He didn't
want to go to sleep but with a few more stories and some back rubbing
he finally dropped off. Emma watched TV for a while until she fell
asleep on the couch. She woke up around 11PM, brushed her teeth,
changed her clothes, pulled William's blanket up over his shoulders
and went to bed.

Mulder and Scully arrived home shortly after midnight. Scully went to
check on the kids. Both were sound asleep in William's room. "See, I
told you they'd be fine." Mulder didn't get to say 'I told you so'
very often but he didn't rub it in either.


Something woke Mulder up in the middle of the night. It was the sound
of talking in William's room. Figuring that the boy was awake and Emma
was trying to get him to go back to sleep, Mulder went to help.
Something made him pause just outside the door to the baby's room.
Emma was talking but not to William.

"I know you need my help but I don't know what to do."


Mulder wondered if she was talking in her sleep. Stepping all the way
into the room, he stopped in amazement. Emma was sitting up in bed.
She seemed to be talking to several tiny moving lights that were in
front of her and scattered around the room. She sounded desperate.

"I can't go with you. It's the middle of the night. I would get in so
much trouble."

Mulder moved slowly across the room. He didn't want to startle her or
scare off whatever the lights were. He spoke softly. "Emma, what are
they?"

"Mulder," Emma also used a quiet voice, "you can see them?"


"Yes, what are they?" he repeated.

"They're faeries but you're the only other person who's been able to
see them." She was relieved. It meant that she was not going crazy.
This thought had tormented her making it difficult to accept what she
was seeing.

"I see a lot of stuff other people don't see. What do they want?" He
sat down at the foot of the bed trying to watch as many of the lights
as he could.

"They want me to go with them. They want to show me something. But I
can't, not now." She waved her arm towards the darkness out the
window.

"What if I went with you?"

"You would? Yes, that'd be great. Thank you, Mulder."

"Get dressed. I'll be right back." He went to throw on some jeans and
a sweat jacket. He hurried then realized he needed to give Emma time
to dress, too. He stood in the hallway. Emerging from William's room,
the lights swirled around Emma like dry leaves blowing around a
courtyard on a windy day.

"Can you drive us? I think it's pretty far but they seem to understand
that we can't walk all the way."

Mulder grabbed his keys from the desk. "Let's go."

Yves and the Lone Gunmen were parked a few houses away and across the
street from the home of the suspected stolen art collector. Frohike
had picked a parking spot in the darkest area between two
streetlights. Langly located the blue prints for the palatial home and
found that there was a very large vault in the basement: large enough
to house an impressive collection of other people's art work. The five
of them were sitting in the van debating their next move.

Frohike simply wanted to break in, get the painting and get the hell
out of Dodge. Byers favored a much more cautious approach figuring
that there was more inside than just The Thin Red Line. He thought
they might as well check it out to see if there was anything else to
recover.

"How much do you think we are going to get into this van with the five
of us in here? The painting is barely going to fit. I'm telling you,
Byers, let's just get what we came for. If there's anything else in
there, we can alert the authorities and have them take care of it."

Byers wasn't convinced. "Once we take the painting, this guy is going
to know that we're on to him. He'll hide or sell everything else and
not pay for his crimes!"

"Look, can we just make a decision here," Langly said. "It's after
3:00 and we're running out of time."

"Hey, someone's coming," Jimmy called out. He was on lookout. Pointing
the camera toward the approaching car, he zoomed in on it. The car
stopped in front of the house they were interested in. Two people got
out of the car and stood checking out the house: two very familiar
looking people.

 



Chapter 6 - 10






Frohike swore imaginatively and added. "What are they doing here? I'm
going to kill Mulder!"

He slid the door open and stomped across the street, making way too
much noise for such a clandestine operation. He did manage to keep
from yelling, though. Emma saw him coming and could tell he was
furious. She ran out into the street to meet him. He took her by the
hand and led her back to the van. Pulling open the driver's door, he
pushed her in ahead of him, climbed in himself and, starting the
engine, drove away.

Mulder ran back to his car and followed the VW bus as it turned a
corner.

Emma didn't say anything as they drove. Frohike only said one thing to
her, "Put on your seat belt." She searched around for it but couldn't
find it. Byers was sitting at her right side. He pulled the belt out
from under her and helped her put it on.

Frohike was fuming. Emma wanted to talk to him, to explain but she
figured he would ask when he was ready, maybe when he had calmed down
a little.

Frohike wasn't worried about where he was going. He just wanted to get
Emma out of there. How had she known where they were? Why on earth had
Mulder brought her out to them when he knew what had happened the one
time she had gone on a stakeout? They had been lucky that last time.
He wasn't willing to take another chance on her being taken into
custody and questioned for hours on end. What had happened to her was
too close to torture. It would never happen again. If the police had
been called, if they had been arrested when she was with them... Yves
was right, she could be taken away from him or worse yet, she could
have gotten seriously hurt. Damn Mulder, what was he thinking?

Checking his rearview mirror, Frohike could see that Mulder was still
behind them. He spotted a deserted grocery store parking lot and
pulled into it suspecting Mulder would follow.

Shutting off the motor and setting the parking brake, Frohike jumped
out of the van. Emma tried to follow him but was held up by her
seatbelt. "Dad, wait! Please!" She was afraid of what he would do to
Mulder. He ignored her. Mulder was standing next to his open car door
waiting for Frohike to close the distance between them.

"Frohike, I ..." The irate father did not let him finish. He pushed
Mulder against his car.

"What the hell were you doing bringing her out to us? I trusted you to
take care of her not to put her in danger."

"Frohike, I was just trying to help her." Mulder fought to remain
calm.

"Help her? How? What if the cops had come?"

Emma had caught up with them, getting to her father just ahead of the
others who had also piled out to stop Frohike from beating the crap
out of Mulder. She grabbed her father's arm and pulled on it, putting
all of her weight into it. He raised his arm and swung it outwards to
break her grip and shake her off. This put her off balance and,
turning as she fell, she came down hard on her left arm.

To the others who had just arrived on the scene it looked like Frohike
had hit Emma. Jimmy bent over her where she lay cradling her scraped
and bleeding arm.

"Emma!" Realizing she was hurt, Frohike turned to help her but Langly
and Byers stood between him and the pair on the ground. He tried to
push his way through them but they held him back. Byers spoke calmly
to him. "You can't hit her like that, Frohike."

Frohike was shocked that his friends believed he could do such a thing
to Emma. "I didn't hit her. I could never hit her."

Sitting up but obviously in pain, Emma confirmed his story. "He didn't
hit me. I fell when he made me let go." Byers and Langly stepped aside
allowing Frohike to check on her. Kneeling beside Emma, he put his arm
around her and said, "Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt
you."

"I know, Dad. Ow! Careful," she complained as he turned her arm over
to see the other side.

Now that she finally had his attention, she tried to explain her
presence at their stakeout. "Dad, Mulder and I didn't know you guys
were at that house. He can see the faeries, too, and was trying to
help. They wanted me to follow them. That's where they led us."

"Faeries?" Jimmy asked in confusion.

"She told me the whole story while we were driving," Mulder explained,
"and I think she's right about the lights being faeries." Yves came
back from the VW bus with the first aid kit and started to clean up
Emma's arm as Mulder continued. "From what I've read, there are
several different kinds of faeries. Woodland faeries, water faeries,
house faeries and such protect those areas. This group has attached
itself to what has to be considered a national treasure. Emma's
feeling of connection to it opened her mind to the fact that the
faeries were there. When it was stolen, they sought her out in the
hopes that she could help retrieve it."

"I told them I couldn't follow them because it was the middle of the
night and Mulder heard me talking to them," Emma said.


"I offered to go with her since I could see them, too." No one
questioned the fact that Mulder could see the faeries. "They led us to
you. We were both surprised to see you all there."

"Emma, move your hand for me, like this." Yves demonstrated a forward
and back waving motion, which required Emma to bend her wrist.

"It hurts," Emma complained.

Yves looked at Frohike. "Her wrist is swelling up. It isn't broken but
it could be sprained."

"Scully should take a look at that," Mulder suggested.


"Do you think she would mind?" Frohike asked.

"She's probably awake anyway and has discovered that we're gone. I
forgot to leave her a note." Mulder's face implied the dressing down
he'd get for that one.

"Can't we go back and get the painting," Emma pleaded.

Frohike shook his head. "Not tonight."

"But, Dad..." Tears threatened, he could hear it in her voice. She
hadn't cried when she got hurt but the thought of not going back
pushed her past the point of her endurance.

He pulled her all the way into a hug being careful not to get her
injured arm between their bodies. "It's all right, baby, calm down.
We've got a couple of days. We'll probably come back tomorrow."

"You will?"

"I'm hoping we can. We need to talk about it though. Don't worry.
We'll get your painting for you."

Emma smiled at that remark. "It's not my painting but I do want it go
back to where it belongs."

Frohike stood to help Emma up. "Dad, you need to apologize to Mulder,"
Emma told him privately.

"I know, honey, I will." He assured her. "Jimmy, will you take her
back to the van?"

He watched them walk off. "Mulder," Frohike called to his beleaguered
friend who was about to climb into his own car. Mulder turned to see
what he wanted. "Hey, buddy, I'm sorry about the rough treatment."

Mulder gave him a lopsided smile. "It's okay. Don't worry about it."
And he turned again to leave.

Frohike stopped him with a hand on his arm. "No, it's not okay. I was
angry enough that I could've really hurt you. I should have asked
questions first. But after what happened to her last time," a pained
expression crossed Frohike's face making him shake his head, "I wasn't
thinking very clearly."

"You were worried about your kid. Hell, even I've found out that
impedes rational thought. Besides," Mulder added, presumably as an
after thought, "I could take you in two out of three falls."

Frohike grinned at Mulder. "In your dreams, fibbie-boy, in your
dreams."

Scully pronounced Emma's arm badly strained but not broken or even
sprained. She said it would be sore for a couple of days but then
should be fine. She was more worried about the deep abrasions. "These
are going to leave some scars." After putting large gauze bandages on
the two worst scrapes, Scully wrapped Emma's wrist in an ace bandage.
"How does that feel?"

"Good, thank you."

"Not too tight."

"No, it's fine."

"Okay. Use the ace bandage for a couple of days then just be very
careful with your arm. The bandages need to stay on until the
abrasions are completely scabbed over."

Frohike took Emma back to the house. He wanted her to sleep
undisturbed by the goings on at the warehouse since it was now nearly
dawn.

Late the next morning, Frohike found Emma standing in front of the
bathroom mirror struggling with her hair. "Here, let me help you."

"No, that's all right. I can do it."

"You can't do it one handed. And where is the bandage Scully gave
you?"

"I took it off to take a shower. I'll put it back on when I'm done
here."

"Go get it. Let's do it right now."

She came back with the ace bandage and handed it to him. He put the
lid down on the toilet seat and had her sit down. He looked closely at
her arm. The abrasions were already healing but Scully was right; they
would probably leave scars. His guilt level over the whole event
increased. He wondered, and not for the first time, how much of
parenting was guilt driven. "Emma, I'm really sorry you got hurt. I
never wanted to hurt you. Ever."

"I know, Dad but if you don't stop apologizing, I'm not going to let
you play with the bandage anymore." Her arm did hurt but she blamed
her own misjudgment of the situation the previous night. She knew it
would do no good to argue with him but she wished he would stop
telling her he was sorry.

With her arm rewrapped he had her turn sideways so he could reach the
back of her head. Taking the brush, he worked on the snarls she had
missed. "Dad, really, you don't need to worry about my hair. I can
always have Langly do it for me or maybe Yves if she's around. At
least they both have long hair and might know how to put it in a pony
tail."

Frohike stopped brushing for a moment and bent forward so she could
see his face. "Who says I don't know how to put hair in a pony tail?"

"But you always keep your hair short," Emma said as he continued
brushing.

"I do now but it hasn't always been that way. I used to wear it in a
pony tail."

Emma started laughing. "Yeah, right. Sure you did."

"I did," he insisted. "Ask Byers or Langly."

"Ah, they would agree with you just to bug me."

Frohike started pulling her hair up to the spot she where she usually
put her pony tail. "Let's see. I believe the last time my hair was
that long was when we were at the convention in Vegas. That was 1999,
I think. It's been a long time. Maybe I should grow it out again." He
wrapped the elastic around her hair making it tight enough that it
wouldn't slip. He snugged it up to her head. "Tell me what you
think."

Emma got up and looked in the mirror, turning her head back and forth
to see the sides. It was perfect. "That's great. Thank you." Maybe he
was telling the truth.


Things were pretty calm at the warehouse when father and daughter
arrived. Mulder was there as well as the usual suspects but they were
still waiting for Yves to show up so they could decide on their next
move. She arrived shortly after Frohike and Emma.

As the debate started on how they should proceed, Emma decided to fade
into the background. They knew she was there but she was becoming a
little overwhelmed by the whole thing and her arm hurt. She chose to
go sit down on the couch to watch TV and let them work it out. They
would take care of it. She had faith in that fact.

Doggett and Reyes arrived in the early afternoon. Emma still kept to
herself letting the large group of adults work out the details. Monica
came to talk to her for a short time. Emma had to explain what
happened to her arm. She found it a little embarrassing to talk about
because she didn't want anyone to think ill of her father. It was an
accident after all.

Everything was finally settled. People went off to pursue their own
interests until late in the evening. They planned on meeting back at
the warehouse after dark. Emma went home with Mulder. She would stay
with Scully for the night.


Scully and Mulder worked at keeping Emma busy. While Mulder was still
there, he played computer games with her but her arm bothered her too
much to play the types of games she really enjoyed. Those required two
working arms to do a good job. Fortunately, she was right handed so
some of the internet arcade type games were doable.

William wanted to play with her but she couldn't pick him up and he
didn't understand why. She got him to play with cars on the floor with
her for a short time but Scully put an end to it when she noticed how
often Emma was wincing in pain.

Concerned, she checked the child's arm a second time and saw that it
was no worse than before. It took very little convincing to get her to
take some Advil and go sit and read for a while.

After dinner, Mulder left to join the guys and Yves at the warehouse.
Scully put William to bed. "It's movie time," she announced once the
tyke was asleep. "How does popcorn sound?"

"Something like this: pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!" Emma said with a
grin.

Scully shook her head. "Oh, you poor thing. You've been living with
the four stooges for too long."

"Ah, they're not that bad. Why, just the other day, we had a long,
intellectual discussion of the finer points of the movie
'Terminator'."

"Was that the original or the sequel?"

"Well, T2 of course. The special effects were far superior and the
bullet count is way up there!" Obviously, the Advil had helped ease
the pain in her wrist. Emma was in a much lighter mood.

"I think what you need is an evening of female influence. You go get
the nail polish, while I put the popcorn in the microwave and search
for the ultimate chick flick."

After painting each other's toenails, they sat down to eat popcorn and
watch Enchanted April on video. "Mulder hates this movie. He says
nothing happens in it."

Emma had never seen it before. "It's so beautiful. It makes me want to
go to Italy."

"Me, too. I got Langly to look on the internet for the villa they used
in the movie. It's a museum in Portofino but there are several other
places near there where you can stay."

Emma had been leaning against Scully so they could share a blanket and
the bowl of popcorn. She sat up and turned to look at Dana. "What if
you and I go there someday? When I'm old enough and my dad will
actually let me spend my money, I would like us to go to Italy
together."

Scully smiled at the girl's youthful dream of adventure thinking
wistfully of all she had given up over the years for her job and now
her family. When Emma was old enough to do as she wanted, William
would be old enough to leave for as long as such a trip would take. "I
think that sounds like a wonderful idea."

"Me, too," Emma said leaning back against her friend.


Mulder and Frohike found them in this position. The bowl of popcorn
was empty except for a few grannies. The tape in the VCR had run out,
leaving the TV nothing but snow and faint static. The light from the
screen cast flickering shadows over their sleeping forms and other
objects in the room.

"Well, so much for a sensible bedtime," Frohike said in a low voice.
"Do you want to wake them up or should I?"

"The pleasure can be all yours," Mulder said.

Frohike chuckled and whispered, "Ladies." He shook Emma's knee through
the blanket. She began to stir but just turned more towards Scully,
resting her cheek against the woman's arm. He tried again. "Emma, come
on. You either need to go to bed or get up and come home with me."

"Dad?" That was more like it. "You're here. Why are you here?" She
wasn't completely awake yet. Scully sat up straighter on the couch
trying not to jostle Emma too much.

"Frohike, where's Mulder?"

"Right here. Were you two enjoying the show?" He pointed at the TV.
Scully reached for the remote and turned it off, plunging the room
into darkness. Mulder flipped on a lamp.

Shading her eyes against the light, Emma looked up at her dad and
remembered what he had been doing that evening. Suddenly, she was
fully awake. "Dad, what happened? Did you get it? Where is it?" She
looked from one man to the other searching for some sign that they had
been successful.

Frohike put his hand on her shoulder, smiling warmly. "We did it. We
got everything we needed. The painting was there. We photographed it.
Now all I need to do is develop the pictures."

"You took pictures? You didn't leave it, did you?"

"Yes, I'm afraid we did."

"Dad! You said you were going to get it back! Not just take pictures
of it!"

"I know what I said. But after we talked about it, we decided that it
would be better to let the authorities handle it. With the evidence we
have, the cops can throw this guy in jail. If we just brought the
painting out, what would keep him from hiring someone to steal it
again?"

"Well, that's true," Emma admitted but she was still disappointed that
they did not have the painting in hand.

"The FBI will go in tomorrow, arrest the man, and return the painting
to its rightful owners." Frohike reassured her. "Now, you might as
well come home with me since you're awake and still dressed."

Frohike developed the pictures that night. Early the next morning,
Doggett came and got them. He needed them to get the search warrant.

At about 3:00 PM that afternoon, Frohike got a phone call. "You did?
That's great." Pause. "We're on our way." He turned to look at the
others. "Let's go."

Emma assumed she wasn't invited so she didn't get up from the computer
she was playing at. "Emma, are you coming or not?"

"You mean I can?"

"Yup, your expertise is needed."

"For what?"

"Oh, you'll see," Frohike told her. The others wouldn't tell her
either. Everyone piled into the VW bus.

They arrived at the house of the art collector to find the area
crawling with FBI agents, the local police and TV reporters. Each
reporter had a van with a satellite transmitter extended from its
roof. Some were giving live reports and others were just taping the
goings on. Byers got the VW bus as close to all the action as he
could. They all had to get out and walk the rest of the way.

They were stopped by yellow police tape and had to wait there for a
few minutes with the other curious onlookers. It was all very exciting
to Emma. She was happy to just stand by and watch. She had overheard
enough of the live reports going on around them, to know that the FBI
had recovered the painting. In all the excitement and confusion, she
missed the fact that her father was making a phone call.

A minute or so later, Agents Doggett and Reyes met them where they
stood waiting behind the police barrier. They were both wearing blue
windbreakers with FBI stencilled in large yellow letters on their
backs. Doggett lifted up the tape and the Gunmen and Emma walked under
it. Confused by all this, Emma decided to just wait and see what was
going to happen, just as her father had suggested.

The two FBI agents led them to a spot close to the house where a
command post had been set up. Several other agents were consulting
each other or talking on cell phones. Doggett put his hand on Emma's
shoulder separating her from the Gunmen and guiding her towards the
man who seemed to be in charge. "Assistant Director Skinner, this is
the expert we were talking about." The tall, bald man looked down at
Emma. A surprised expression flashed quickly across his face.

"Agent Doggett, is this some kind of joke?" Skinner asked. Mulder
joined the group.

"Nope, that's her all right," Mulder said. "She's the one who told me
about the faeries."

Emma stared at Mulder in disbelief. He had obviously told this man her
deepest, darkest secret. And he was an Assistant Director of the FBI,
whatever that meant, but he sounded important. He looked important.

Skinner looked down at the child standing in front of him and the four
men standing behind her. He should have known that the Lone Gunmen
would be involved in this. From what Mulder and Reyes said, she
belonged to one of them. He wasn't sure which one but right now, he
was more interested in confirming the authenticity of the most
recently stolen painting. His agents and Mulder said she could do it.
He hadn't expected her to be so young. He turned to the former FBI
agent who had made his life hell for so many years. "Mulder, take her
in. See what she says."

Mulder held out his hand to Emma. She turned to her father. He nodded,
"Go with him, honey, it's okay. Just let him know if it really is your
painting."

"It's not mine," she repeated weakly but took Mulder's offered hand
and allowed him to lead her into the house.

"Don't worry, kid. You'll be fine," he assured her. "I just want to
know what you see when you look at the painting."

Emma didn't say anything. She did cling tightly to his hand though,
accepting the comfort if offered. The two of them passed several
agents on their way through the house and down into the basement. Many
of them were carrying paintings or sculptures or other types of
artwork. Emma noticed that most of them seemed to have something to do
with the military.

The pair reached the basement vault. The thick heavy door was wide
open. Mulder asked everyone to clear out and give them some privacy.
When they were alone, Mulder led Emma into the vault. She didn't like
it in there. She felt like she couldn't breath. She took a deep breath
to check if her asthma was acting up. It wasn't. It was just
claustrophobic in the chamber.

She scanned the large, steel enforced enclosure and spotted the huge
painting leaning against one wall. Forgetting her feelings of
claustrophobia, Emma let go of Mulder's hand and walked over to the
painting. It was nearly as tall as she was. She studied it. The
Scotsmen still stood defiantly, facing death head on.

And yes, it was there: that feeling that she could step into it and
join them in their moment of victory. She smiled and turned to look up
at Mulder. Movement caught her eye, above and behind his head. She
laughed. Mulder turned to see what she was looking at. He saw them,
too. Emma laughed again and said, "You're welcome."

It was party time. Everyone went over to Emma and Frohike's house to
celebrate. The Gunmen, Mulder and Scully, Doggett and Reyes and Emma
were all in attendance. Yves was there, too. Emma asked her why she
hadn't been around earlier in the day. Yves gave some vague excuse
about her presence being required elsewhere that afternoon. Emma
didn't believe her but chose not to pursue it. She was there to
celebrate with them. That's all that mattered now.

Full of dinner and more than a little beer, the loud laughter and
excited retelling of the events that led up to the recovery of the
painting had given way to relaxed conversation. The main point of the
discussion was how best to write up the story. It would be the
headline of their next edition. It was due at the printers in the next
day or two, so they would have to put in some intense hours to get it
done on time. But with a story this big, it would nearly write itself.
Reyes offered some suggestions as to different angles they could use
for it. The others were surprised to find out that she had taken some
journalism classes in college.


Once they had exhausted that subject, Doggett decided to pose the
question uppermost in his mind. "Have you heard how much your reward
is?"

They all turned to stare at him. Byers was the first to find his
voice. "Reward? OUR reward?"

It was Doggett's turn to be surprised. "The reward you applied for.
You did apply didn't you?"

Langly shook his head. "We haven't even talked about it."


"I applied for it in all of our names," Yves said with a smile.

Frohike stared at Yves in shock. "You? In all of our names?" Then
turning to Doggett, he asked, "How much of a reward are we talking
about?"

"I'm not sure," admitted Doggett. "They're still adding it up. But
with the amount of stolen artwork that was found in that vault it
looks like it will be a considerable amount. Even after you divide it
up." He laughed at the looks on their faces. "Well, then the next
question should be what are you going to do with all of the money?"




At the very end of the summer, I went to England with a friend. But
that's another story.