You all should know by now not to tempt me! Okay, you wanted it, you got it: How Mulder and Scully got married. Don't say I never gave you anything cheek.

Disclaimer as in XA Charter.

"I'm almost ready, Mulder. Hold on a second."

"Preston's going to eat us for dinner if we keep him waiting."

"I'll just bat my eyes at him - he'll melt."

"I always do."

"Alright, got everything."

"Any reason you bring a full backpack to a stakeout. Not like this insurance salesman is going to turn cat burglar on us."

"Just wait... You'll see..."

Scully put down her high-powereds with a sigh. "Duncan is now definitely asleep."

"Aw," Mulder exclaimed sadly. "No girlfriend tonight?"

"Not a one. Must be running low on money."

Mulder laughed. He had such a sweet laugh, a laugh she had heard for years, but never enjoyed so much as now.

She hoped he wouldn't be mad. She hoped... "Oh, Mulder. The backpack."

"The backpack." His voice could be so tantalising sometimes. Rich tones, now more full of laughter than she had ever thought possible during their first years together. His quick mind could simply always find something amusing now. She knew she was part of the cause.

"It's in the back, would you get it for me?" She liked using that coy tone with him. It wasn't subterfuge on her part - he already knew what she was willing to offer. But it made him blush, and that was just too sexy.

She opened it carefully, pulling out a fine old bottle of cognac, dusty with age, and half empty from a myriad of toasts over the years. This would be her first toast with him. He would have to drink for both of them, though.

She was in no condition.

"Scully," he teased, sliding over in his seat as much as he could. "We're not supposed to drink on duty." He smiled disarmingly. "Still, it seems great minds think alike."

"How so?"

"Well," he said, fishing a box out of his trench coat pocket. "I've kind of been meaning to ask something." He stilled before the box cleared the fabric.

"I love you. I know you love me. The question now is - what are we going to do about it?"

"We are going to have to make that decision pretty quickly, Mulder."

He was puzzled. "Why pretty quickly?"

She tried to keep her voice light, hoped it didn't shake too much. God, don't let him be angry. "Because I'm going to start... showing... pretty soon."

She couldn't meet his eyes, and therefore missed one of the most amazing transformations that had ever come over the face of Fox Mulder. It was as if he dropped ten years, simply with the force of his joy.

His child. Dana Scully, his partner - his beloved - if all went well tonight, his wife, was going to have his child. He almost laughed to think she should be afraid to tell him. His hand on her chin was soft and warm and welcoming, and he saw her tears as he turned her lips up to meet his.

"Boy or girl?" he asked, that quiet joy rolling around in his voice.

She shrugged. "I don't know yet. You're happy? Really happy?"

"Scully, I couldn't be happier, honestly." He remembered the box in his pocket, pulled it out. "Makes this sort of anti-climactic, but..."

She opened the box to find matching gold bands, one for each of them: plain, simple. Very Mulder. She looked up at him.

"I know we can't wear them," he conceded, his voice dropping gently. "But, Scully... We made a commitment to the Truth so long ago. this is the Truth. I wanted..."

"To make it real somehow," she finished for him. She smiled suddenly, the stress of the last few weeks - of knowing about the child, but being unable to tell him - draining away in joy. "Mom's going to kill us."

"Why?" he asked incredulously. "She loves me."

"Doesn't mean she wants you as a son-in-law."

"Son-outlaw just now, Scully. Face it... Unless one of us resigns, we can't..."

"It's okay, Mulder," she said, a hand on his despondant arm. "It can be kept quiet... for now. But I want to know, if anything ever... I want to know that we made this commitment." She kissed him lightly. Economy of emotion - the Scully he'd grown to love. "Thank you."

He cupped her stomach gently, smiling. "What will we name him - or her."

Scully laughed. Naming children on a stakeout. Oh, well... She could think of worse things to do - and better. "Fox William Mulder, Jr." she intoned smugly.

"Never!"

"Oh, come on, Mulder. Don't you want a little Mulder-clone running around?"

"Last Mulder-clone I met had green blood, Scully. Not a father's fondest dream... I like Bill, though. Can't the kids have your name? Bill Scully was a fine man... Bill Mulder..."

"We're assuming it's a boy... What about Margaret for a girl?"

"Melissa..."

"Samantha..."

Title: Voices I. Changing of the Guard
Author: Lisdean

Okay, this one is a futuristic story - okay, not very futuristic, but four years down the line. It may become part one in another long series. sigh Enjoy it if you can! Disclaimer: These guys belong to CC et al. No copyright infringement intended.

Ancient Chinese philosophy states that the physical condition of a human body can be determined through examination of the outer ear. The ear, according to this tradition, can be envisioned as a human fetus, legs tucked up, head down - awaiting birth.

Chinese doctors, by detailed work with the ear, can diagnose a number of different ailments. It is a mirror of the body, and can be manipulated as such.

As he sat there by the warehouse, Fox Mulder had eyes only for his partner's ear, oblivious to the cacaphony around him. That ear was dying.

"Alright, let's get her shirt open and see what we've got..."

"Come on, Scully. Come on, don't die on me..."

"Dispatch, this is 356. We have a caucasian female, aged - HOW old is she?"

"Thirty-six."

"Aged thirty-six. We've got what looks like a blossom-point cop-killer lodged in the rear left of rib five."

"BP 40 over 90 - she's crashing on us-"

"Don't leave me, Scully. Come on. Come on, fight it."

"Forget the cart, she just hared out for a minute. Got a pulse now."

"Faint as Hell, though."

"Come on, Scully..."

"Evac's approaching!"

"Alright, we've got to move her..."

"Sir? Sir-"

"Come on, Scully, come on..."

"Mulder, they need-"

"Med-evac's on the ground."

"We've got to move her now!"

"Mulder, let her go, they have to-"

"Scully, don't-"

Jamie Barrons ripped him away. "Mulder!"

"Leave me alone!"

The young agent's voice was intense in his ear. "Mulder, if they don't move her she's going to bleed to death right here! *Let her go*!" He watched the older man's eyes as they wheeled his partner toward the helicopter.

"Come on, Mulder, I'll drive you to the hospital."

The older man just stood and watched as they wisked her away from him.

7:45 pm
George Washington Medical Center

The chaos was lost on them both, as they waited for word. Barrons watched his companion, wondering what it must be like to be faced with losing her.

He'd never had a partner long enough to miss him or her, but Mulder and Scully had been together seven years. They were more than partners - more than lovers, Barrons often assumed.

The romance that had developed between the two over the past few years had been ignored by their superiors. Her first tragic pregnancy had been swallowed as a breakdown in birth control measures - the unfortunate outcome of a one-night stand. All people in the Bullpen would say was that it was so horrible to lose your first child - even an unplanned child - to spina bifida at fifteen weeks. By the time her only daughter - healthy and happy - had been born, the question of what a single FBI agent thought she was doing going to a sperm bank for artificial insemination was not even entertained as a plausible joke.

Still, they were efficient. They watched each other's backs. They did at least make a pretense of not living together - he kept up rent on an apartment, though he was rarely seen there. And if Scully's daughter Sami called Mulder "Daddy" - well, she had no real father, right? It was good of Mulder to provide her with a father figure.

Jamie wondered if they had ever bothered to get married. It would have been as secret as everything else about their love-life, but he wondered if they had. Probably. Under that scientific exterior, Scully really was a good little Catholic girl.

He looked up sharply at a quietly aging woman who had just stepped into the room. "I'm looking for my daughter? There was a shooting at-"

"Mom?" Fox Mulder's voice was husky, as he looked at his (for all intents and purposes) mother-in-law, cradling his only child in her arms.

"Fox?" She let him wrap her in his arms, holding the child close, offering her to her father as they sat. "What happened?"

"Drug bust," Mulder said quietly, running a quiet hand over his sleeping daughter's hair. He had hoped she'd be a redhead, like her mother - like her older sister had been. Instead, her hair was thick and dark and silky, making her look more and more like her namesake every day.

"I don't think-"

"Agent Fox Mulder?" Mulder shot to his feet, followed closely by Mrs. Scully.

"Yes?"

The young doctor looked tired. Her eyes were almost bruised by the eighteen hours she had already put in, and it looked - at least with this case - as though she'd be putting in many more. "I'm Kristan Wilthorn. I'm taking care of your partner's case." She looked at the sleeping girl, curious.

"Scully's daughter," Mulder explained briefly. "How is she?"

Wilthorn shook her head. "That bullet did a lot of damage, Mr. Mulder. Blossom-points will shatter as they pass through tissue. She was lucky she was wearing the flak jacket - probably half of that bullet is still in there. We managed to clean all of the fragments out of her lung, but it's going to be a very long road."

"Is she conscious?" her mother asked quietly. "Can we see her?"

Wilthorn shook her head. "She isn't conscious, but you're welcome to go up and sit with her, Mrs. Scully. " She stopped Mulder as he went to follow the older woman. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but only family members are allowed in ICU."

"She's my wife," he said quietly, walking past her to where Margaret Scully waited for him.

Wilthorn had followed them up, knowing that they would want explanations when they got there. "Her left lung has been pretty badly damaged. We're giving it a chance to heal."

Still Mulder thought it looked awfully painful as Scully took tiny half breaths with her damaged lung, while the breath support filled her right lung to capacity.

"She'll have limited breath support on the one side, and her heart was caught by one of the fragments - glancing - but she's going to take a long time to recover."

The doctor didn't have to say that she would never be going back to active duty in the FBI. Mulder had seen lesser damage bench agents for life. He turned to the young doctor. "But she'll live?"

Wilthorn was guarded. "What we have to worry about now, Mr. Mulder, is any secondary infections that might crop up because of the fragmentation."

She ran a hand through her silvery-blonde hair. "Your... wife... will be in a lot of danger for a while."

Mulder might have smiled at her disbelief some other time. If what he believed was true, there was little use in hiding the marriage any longer.

No one ever said he couldn't be married to his *ex*-partner. Now he turned to his wife, their two-year-old daughter still in his arms, and realized he had some hard decisions to make.

"Thank you, Dr. Wilthorn," he said quietly, handing his daughter off to her grandmother, who stood quiescent at her daughter's bedside. "Can I use a phone? I have to call in to the office."

Skinner looked older than his fifty-some years. In the last five years, he had seen more Hell, gone through more danger, than he had ever thought possible after Vietnam. He settled tiredly in his chair, gazing across the desk at one of his most trusted agents. "How is she?"

The younger man sighed tiredly. "She's not good, but the doctors seem to think she'll get better."

Skinner breathed a sigh of relief. "Have you had any sleep?"

Mulder shrugged. "Sami takes a lot of work."

The older man nodded. "I see from the medical report that she won't be coming back to the FBI."

"No, Sir."

"So you can make your marriage official?" Skinner mustered up a smile from somewhere in that hidden well of comfort.

Mulder just stared at him, not bothering to be surprised. "I have my own sources, Mulder," he said quietly. "I've known since the honeymoon."

"Why didn't you...?"

"Separate you?" Skinner almost laughed. "I like my arrest rate right where it is, thank you."

That finally made Mulder smile. "Sir, I need to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"If I... If I wanted to resign my post here, what options would be open to me?"

"Regarding Samantha?"

Mulder nodded. "And The X-Files, yes, Sir."

Skinner watched the younger man. He was serious, and Skinner was beginning to think that it was about time. A wife and daughter made it difficult to do what this man did - especially when his wife would no longer be able to travel with him. "We'll need to discuss that at some other time, Agent Mulder," he said quietly, handing the younger man a piece of paper. "Right now, I'm giving you two weeks mandatory leave, effective immediately."

"Sir...?"

"You can't take care of your wife, your child, and The X-Files, Mulder," Skinner said gently, rising to show the man out. "I have someone in mind to help out in that division." He held the door open, his voice lowering as he caught sight of his secretary. "Keep me updated on how she's doing."

"Yes, Sir."

Skinner leaned toward the woman at the reception desk as he watched Mulder leave. "I need to see Jamie Barrons as soon as possible."

"Dana, Honey," her mother said softly. "Dana, I'm here."

She tried to repeat her request.

"Fox." Her mother's voice was turning away from her. "Fox, she's awake."

He swam into view, a look on his face she'd seen too many times before - sorrow, guilt, worry, and something she had always seen but had taken years to acknowledge - love. "Hi, Scully. "

She hissed sharply as she tried to take a deep breath.

"Watch it," he warned. "Let the machines do it for you for now. You'll be off the respirator in a few days, but for now you're just going to have to relax and take it easy."

She let the respirator inflate her right lung and nodded, eyes closed against the pain.

She knew it would be hard to read her lips around the breathing tube, but she had to ask. "Where's Sami?"

"She's right here, Honey," her mom said quietly, and if she listened, Scully could hear their daughter somewhere toward the foot of her bed. She was in a private room, she saw, which meant she probably wasn't nearly as bad off as she felt. God, but she was tired, though.

His hands ran through her hair, and she spotted a glint of gold there. she raised a tired hand to stop him, noticing the band that encircled her own finger. She looked up at his guilty face questioningly.

"You can't come back to the Bureau, Scully," he said quietly, watching the anger build in her eyes. "There was a lot of damage to your heart and lung, and they've made the medical decision already." His hand went back to her hair. "I'm sorry, Honey."

They wanted him to take The X-Files.

Once Mulder had a good chance to discuss it all with his wife - that still felt strange to say, he thought, Mulder's wife, Scully - and they had made their decision, one of two things would happen: He would become division supervisor for a section of one, or he would become Mulder's partner. Neither he nor Mulder was really thrilled with that second choice, but Skinner had told them sternly that he trusted no one else with the files.

This time Jamie Barrons did laugh. When he had started with the bureau eight years ago, Skinner had told him about Mulder and his files - "a brilliant profiler who spends his time hunting down crop circles and little green men."

Jamie was well aware - more aware than Skinner probably wanted to know - of the events that had made the old man a believer. Jamie had always been one, which was why Palladin had pegged him in the first place.

He thought about her for a while, wondered how long it would take her to contact him about this. It would be a perfect opportunity for her and her "conspiracy." Mulder had been so compromised over the years, that he was hardly worth the effort anymore. The information he uncovered was valid - frighteningly valid, in most cases - but he was too easy to manipulate. There were too many people they could use again him.

And Jamie? Well, Jamie had himself... and his cat, though he hardly thought the syndicate would think Lear worth the trouble. No parents, no love interest, no partner. And they still thought he was, at least marginally, on their side. It gave Palladin a spy, and, if he did say so himself, a good one.

That he had managed to keep his triple allegiance secret for going on seven years was remarkable to him. Of course, now, it would be harder - if he took the Files, they'd all be keeping a closer eye on him. Being Skinner's spy had made him well aware of just how much the old man looked out for Mulder and Scully.

How much would he look out for him?

She sat up tenderly. "Hi, yourself."

Mulder put the books he carried on her bedside table, in close reach.

As tender as she still was, it amazed him that she could reach that far.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like someone keeps kicking me in the chest when I'm not looking." She shrugged a little painfully. "Still, I guess I'm getting better. How's Sami?"

"She's fine."

"She doesn't understand what's going on, does she?"

He smiled gently. "Scully, she's two years old. All she understands right now is that Daddy doesn't have as nice a singing voice as Mommy does." He sat quietly beside her. "You're really feeling better?"

She nodded. "a little bit." She waited out the silence for a moment, read his mind the way he always hated. "Do you want to talk about this now?"

He nodded quietly, taking her hand in his. "Do you want me to stay?"

"I don't know, Mulder," she said, lying back a bit, trying to get comfortable. "If you left the Bureau, you couldn't keep looking. I mean, the Lone Gunmen could help, but..."

"Skinner and I have been talking about that," he said, watching her as she breathed shallowly. "He thinks he can help." He stood up, reaching for the water pitcher and pouring himself a glass. "I have to talk to Jamie some more before I'm sure."

She looked at him quizically. "Why Jamie?"

"Because," he said, smiling wryly. "If I leave, Jamie Barrons is taking over The X-Files."

She just stared for a moment. "*Jamie

Mulder shrugged. "He's a believer. Skinner trusts him. He knows all the players."

Scully digested that. "Are you sure he should be trusted?"

He thought. "Scully, I can't live like this anymore," he admitted quietly, looking into her eyes. "It was fine when it was just me, but with you... and Sami..." he shrugged.

"What about Samantha?"

"Skinner wants me to go on retainer for the Bureau - as an analyst. That way I could still get access to the Files."

"But you couldn't follow them up."

He shook his head. "No, I couldn't. Byers and the boys could, though... or Barrons."

She took his hand back. "Mulder, I don't think you've really thought this out. You could stay, you know?" she asked tenderly. "We'll make it work out if that's what you want to do."

He stared at her, eyes noncommittal.

After a moment, she rubbed his hand thoughtfully. " Dr. Bremen came by today."

"Your old friend from JH? What did he have to say?"

"He heard I was out of the Bureau - you can guess who he heard that from-"

"You're not going to kill Sal, are you?"

She smiled. "No, not today. Actually," she continued quietly, "He just wanted to let me know that if I don't take the position Quantico offered, he'd like to have me at Johns Hopkins."

"Scully," he said warily. "You're not really thinking of taking it, are you?"

Scully cocked her head. "It's a nice safe job, Mulder. Stable hours, good healthcare..."

Mulder sighed. "Jesus, Scully, when did we become a safe old married couple?"

"Obviously a while ago, and thank you for not bothering to tell the rest of us." They looked up startled as Jamie Barrons stepped in from the door.

"I just like to see you sweat, Jamie," Mulder said wryly. "I liked watching you squirm when you thought you had a chance with Scully here."

"You two are *married*," Jamie said, exasperated. "Can't you call each other by your first names?"

Scully shook her head, smiling. "Nope. Included in the vows: 'I will love, honor, cherish, and call you Mulder for the rest of my life.'"

"Yeah," Mulder agreed. "It'll be on our tombstones 'Scully: devoted wife and mother.'" He smiled tenderly. "It'll give the undertakers fits."

"So I hear you're taking over for me with The X-Files," Scully stated, an open smile for the nervous man before her.

He was suddenly shy. He didn't think he'd ever get over his crush on her. "Maybe. All depends on Mulder there."

"There are a few things you need to know, Jamie," Mulder said seriously, sliding onto the bed and waving the young agent into the seat he'd vacated. "Especially if I do decide to leave."

"Mulder, I know more about those Files than you think."

"I'm sure you do," Mulder replied, his penetrating gaze withering the boy a little. "You know about Paper Clip... You know about the files on my wife - my sister..."

Barrons nodded. There was a file on him, another on his daughter, but Jamie didn't think he needed to know that. He had enough to worry about, and if the time ever came when the information was necessary...

"I want constant updates on those files - Skinner will talk to you about clearance." His voice became hard. "And any word on Cancerman-"

"There won't be any more word on Cancerman," Barrons said quietly.

"He's dead."

"How?"

The younger man's smile was bleak. "Unfortunately, God got to him before the rest of us could. Lung cancer... very ugly death, I understand."

Mulder stared at him, disbelieving. If Cancerman was truly dead...

"You're hardly safe, Mulder," Jamie said, making Mulder wonder if the agent had Scully's knack for mind-reading. "They're always out there. They just have to change the guard every few decades." His face burst into a very young smile. "Or, in your case, every few *years*."

End

Title: Voices II. Billy This is a sequel to Changing of the Guard, and is the second story in what has now become a series called Voices. I didn't think I was going to write this whole series, but once the idea started, I couldn't stop it. So, here's part two. Oh, and get used to the fact that you'll have no idea what's going on for the first little bit cheek.

Disclaimer as stated in XA Charter.

The child was often regarded as different, singled out as a person of uncommon, often frightening, ability. These magical orphans were often taken by competing tribes, as a way of stealing the power of their opponents.

Sacrifice of these children was common.

"We've got a pulse on him."

"What's going on? What's wrong?"

"Dana... Dana, can you hear me? It's Dr. Phelan. Okay, Dana, we talked about this before-"

"Blood pressure's dropping."

"- your body can't take the stress."

"Let him out... Don't let him die... Don't let him die..."

"Okay. It's okay. He'll be just fine, Dana."

"Is she going to make it?"

"We're going to put her under. You'll have to leave."

"Prep her for C-section."

"Mr. Mulder..."

"Is she going to be all right?"

"Don't let him die..."

"Get him out of here now."

"Dana, he'll be fine. He's going to make it."

"We just want to make sure his mother lives to see him."

She felt no pain - no physical pain - but her heart ached. Opening her eyes to the room, she took in the bright sunshine, the pastel colors, with desolate eyes. Her husband floated into view, a smile on his face that eased her heartache. They hadn't let her baby die.

"Hey. Glad to have you back."

She was vague - drugged, she realized. "Is he okay?"

Mulder's grin got wider. "He's beautiful. Full head of hair - red, like yours."

Scully swallowed tiredly. "Good. Wouldn't want another Mulder clone running around."

Mulder hesitated. "We've been waiting the birth certificate for you. We discussed this before but-"

"Fox William Mulder, Jr," she stated, as clearly as her drugged tongue would allow.

"Honey..."

"We'll call him Billy. I promise."

Mulder smiled indulgently. He was going to have to live with the name.

She'd given him rights on naming the girls. He kissed his wife's forehead. "Good. Cause if we called him Fox, Jr., I'd have to kill you."

She swallowed again, her mouth dry and pasty. "How is he? Did I hurt him?"

Mulder gazed at her fondly, running a tired hand through her hair. "He's *fine*, Scully. " His eyes darkened slightly. "You scared me, though."

"I didn't - " She took a painful breath. "I didn't think it would be so hard. Missy and Sam weren't this hard."

"You didn't have a busted lung with Missy and Sam." He smiled quietly. She closed her eyes, exhausted, and his eyes closed in sympathy. "Get some rest," he told her gently. "When you wake up, I'll have Billy here to see you."

Mulder walked slowly toward the nursery, breathing out sigh after sigh of relief. He'd almost lost her. For the sake of their child, he'd almost lost her.

And there could be no others, he realized sadly. The damage that bullet had done two years ago had simply made it too dangerous to try again. He couldn't stand to lose another child - not after Missy. And he would die if he lost her. Hospital nurseries always manage to strike an absurd balance between homey and sterile. Billy Mulder lay with twenty other children in a pastel-painted room. His red hair - and there was so much of it - was a shock against the soothing blue of his blanket. His proud father tapped on the glass, summoning one of the nurses inside.

"Can I take him up to see his mom?" he asked eagerly.

The nurse looked up at him happily. As all nursery attendants do, she knew as much about the parents as she did the children. "She's awake?"

Mulder smiled. "On and off."

"Three days is a long time not to see your baby," she said quietly. "Tell you what, I have to take some blood right now - routine screening and such - but I'll send him up to you in a few minutes, and you can have your class in premie care. If your wife's awake, she can sit in - or lie in," she added with cheek.

So Mulder made his way back upstairs, secure in the knowledge that he had a healthy baby boy and a weak, but recovering, wife.

The nurse he had spoken to was named Amy Derrott, and she went beyond knowing as much about these two parents as she did about their new son. As she had four years before, with this child's darling older sister, she stretched out his arm to draw a little blood. A convient slip of the needle allowed a strip of skin for a tissue sample.

These two samples, she slipped carefully into a chilled thermos, for delivery to her superiors. She wrote out another little chart to be sent along with them: Fox William Mulder, Jr.
DOB: 11/16/01
Birth Weight: 4 lbs., 5 oz.
Birth Length: 15 inches Three weeks premature, showing near-normal birth weight and strong constitution. Long and thin, with strong, though soft, bones.

Typical phase two child.

She glared at him. "I'm tired, Mulder, not incapacitated."

"You were out for three days. That's pretty tired."

"There, you see? I'm sitting up."

"Good," Mulder said, his voice falling from sarcastic to tender as he reached over to the plastic crib beside him, "Because I thought you'd like to hold our son."

Scully looked at the tiny thing carefully. He was longer than Sam had been, though he was awfully thin for a newborn. His hair was indeed red - though more her father's red than her own. He had his father's hazel eyes. He was small, but a bit bigger than she'd hoped he would be when she went into labor almost a month before her time.

"Are his lungs okay?"

Mulder smiled tenderly as he slid up onto the bed with her. "Better than his mom's are."

"Mulder..."

"He's fine, Scully. Do you want me to record that phrase, so you can replay it at your leisure? You've asked me that four times now. *He's

Scully shook her head. All she could remember now was that little Missy had had red hair, too. Had been long and thin. Had died far too early.

Mulder could read her face. "He's fine, Scully. He's a normal, healthy little boy. Even if he does have a name like Fox."

"Billy," Scully corrected tenderly. "Billy."

Mulder still wasn't sure the world needed another Bill Mulder walking around on it, but...

"Mommy!"

"Samantha, you stay away from that bed! Your mother's tired - and sore."

"I know, Granmie, but I want to see him."

Mulder scooped his daughter up onto his lap, thinking about how much like a Rockwell print this must look, and let her see her brother. She wrinkled her nose. "You named him Fox?"

"How did you know that, Honey?"

"Well, Mommy said you were going to name him Fox."

Mulder leaned into his wife. "Mommy *says* far too much." He smiled back down at Sam. "Yes, we named him after me."

Sam looked suspicious. "Your name's not Fox."

Mulder grinned. "Yes it is." He loved this game.

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes it is-"

Margaret Scully advanced on them from her place at the door. "Fox, Sami, stop it right now. You're going to give Dana a headache. You've *already* given me one."

Mulder leaned in to his daughter. "See, told you my name was Fox."

Sam giggled.

Title: Voices III. In the Genes
by Lisdean Warner Here's the third in the Voices series.

Disclaimer: As stated in the Xangst Anonymous Charter

"I'll be there in a minute, Sam!"

"Fox William Mulder!"

She sounded so like her mother that Fox Mulder had to laugh as he walked in the door. His daughter ran in from the back porch, cuddling in his arms.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Hey, Sam."

Her face took on such a pout that his mind flew back to his own childhood. She looked so like her missing aunt. "Billy doesn't want to come in. He's too busy playing with his trucks." She eyed him suspiciously. "Why did you ever give him those antiques anyway?"

"Hey," her father said defensively. "They were antiques when I was a kid," he explained as they walked back to the kitchen. "I played with them."

She put her hands on her hips. "You know I don't mean it that way, Daddy. Not antique like *'old*,' antique like 'Billy's really clumsy and he's going to break them.'"

Mulder smiled.

"If he breaks them, we'll just make him our slave until he pays them off," her mother said quietly.

"Make him my slave," Sami said fiercely, a twinkle in her eye. "You'll get more out of him that way."

Her father smiled indulgently.

"You gonna play chess with me after dinner?" she asked.

"Have you finished your homework?" he smiled at her evasiveness. "Then I'm not going to play chess with you after dinner."

"Mom," she asked plaintively. "How much longer till dinner's ready?"

"About fifteen minutes."

Sam looked back up at her father, her best let's-make-a-deal face on. "How about if I finish my math homework before dinner? I'll finish my English after the game." She frowned at his suspiciousness. "And no, Daddy, I won't forget the geography, either."

Mulder smiled. "Okay, but if you don't have it done by bedtime..."

"I will," she said, smiling sweetly as she exited, running for her schoolbag.

"She'll get past you again, Mulder," his wife said with a smile.

Mulder shrugged. "She gets straight a's anyway, Scully. What's it going to hurt?" he looked speculatively out the way their daughter had run. "You know, sometimes I think Sami's telepathic. She just always seems to know what I'm thinking."

Scully shrugged in turn. "All kids are, to some extent." She smiled at his disbelief. "Didn't you ever look at Sam and know exactly what she was thinking? Missy and I used to do it all the time."

"Yeah, but Missy really was psychic."

"Mulder..."

Mulder looked over at his wife. "Ten years old, and she already beats the pants off me!"

Scully smiled smugly. "She never beats me."

"She lets you win, don't you, Sami?"

"Yup," she agreed shamelessly.

"Okay," her father said, trying to be stern. "Go do your homework."

"Dad..." She tried to pout for him, but he wasn't buying it tonight.

"Upstairs. I'll check it before you go to sleep."

"Oh, Dad," she huffed, heading toward her bedroom.

"Did we mean to do this?" he asked, scooting across the floor to lean against her chair, as they finally got the living room to themselves.

Scully smiled. "Actually, no. Just sort of happened." She looked down at him. "I hear Jamie called today. Anything?"

Mulder shook his head. "Nothing, really. Call about a woman they found in Arkansas. Dead about a month. Showed signs of bone deterioration that the coroner said could only be from prolonged weightlessness. Doesn't match Sam, though."

Scully ran a hand through his hair, her voice quiet. "Are you sorry now that you left the FBI?"

He smiled up at her from his spot on the floor. "Do you plan when you ask me that?"

"It's her birthday, Mulder," she said defensively. "You're always like this today."

He sighed. "I know." The night that fell before them was clear and cold.

"I just keep hoping..."

She nodded. "And you won't stop. She's out there, Mulder. Someday, you'll find her."

He hung his head. "Will I? I thought... I thought with you, and the kids... You know," he said suddenly, turning toward her chair with shining eyes. "Sami really does look just like her."

Scully smiled indulgently. "Yes she does. Is that hard for you?"

He waited a minute, shrugged. "Probably be easier if she looked like you."

Scully looked down at his gentle smile. He wanted more children, she knew - she did as well - and it hurt her that she couldn't give them to him.

But that shooting, just before she left the bureau, had done more damage than they had thought. She almost hadn't survived having Billy. "Ready to go to sleep yet, 'Dad'?"

"Sleep, no," he said, a randy smile on his face as he pulled her to her feet. "Bed, *yes*."

Billy was fine, sleeping contentedly with his trucks, but it was as Mulder neared his daughter's room that he realized what he had heard. Sami was crying.

"Sami? Honey?" he slipped in quietly, sitting beside her on the bed. "You okay? Did you have a bad dream?"

She looked up at him miserably. "No, but you did."

He hugged her gently. She'd woken to some of his louder nightmares before.

"Sami... We've talked about this before, right?"

"What was the light, Daddy?"

Mulder froze. "What light?"

She sniffled up at him. "The light in your dream. It was so bright. Is that what made Aunty Sam go away?"

He watched his daughter carefully. "Sami, honey... What did you see?"

"You were playing that game - with all the scouts and spies and everything - and she wanted to watch a movie, but you wanted to watch a Musician, and then the lights went out, and the other lights came, and... and she went away."

Mulder sighed painfully. He didn't want this for her. He had seen what it did to people too often in his work for the Bureau. "Sami, do you know what Mommy's dreaming right now?"

"No," she shook her head. "Mommy's not dreaming right now, but yesterday, she had a dream about you in the ice, and your eyes were all puffy, and you... you died." She looked up at him desperate. "But you didn't die, right, Daddy? You didn't die?"

He hugged her to him desperately. "No, Honey, I didn't die. I'm right here. And I'll be right here forever, okay? I promise."

He sat with her in his arms for a while before asking the next question. "Samantha? How long have you been able to see what Mommy and I dream?"

She wiped an arm under her nose. "a while. Like, weeks. But I always know what Mommy's thinking." She scooted away from him slightly. "She was really sad today... cause it was Aunty Sam's birthday, and she was afraid you'd be sad, too." She looked at him, tears forming again. "But you're sad now, aren't you? You're sad cause I know what you're dreaming." She wrapped herself tight. "I'm sorry, Daddy. I'll never never never listen to you when you dream again. I'm sorry!"

He bundled his daughter into his arms. "Honey," he said quietly, "I'm not mad at you. It's okay. It's okay... Sami," he said after a few moments of comfort, "you know what genetics is, right?"

She looked up at him. "Yup. Mommy told me it's what makes me look like Aunty Sam."

He nodded. "That's right... Well," God, how do you tell this to a ten-year-old kid? "When your Mommy was young, she was very sick. She was so sick she almost died."

Sami nodded tearfully. "She told me that. She told me that was why Missy died, cause Mommy's genes were sick."

Mulder was a little amazed - and more than a little angry - that Scully had explained their first child's death that way. "Right... sort of. See... Mommy's genes are different - not sick, really - just different. I guess mine probably are, too." He took a deep breath. "I think maybe you can see my dreams because of Mommy's genes."

He looked down at her, brushing the curly mass of her dark hair away from her eyes. "You remember my friend at the University? Dr. Jeldin?"

"Uh-huh. He gave me those games to play so you could find out if I was like you - indetic."

"Eidetic," he corrected, though he didn't know why it mattered. "Right. Do you want to go with me to see him tomorrow, after school? He has some other games I want you to play with him."

She frowned up at him, catching on. "Mommy's not going to like this," she told him sternly.

He smiled. Having a psychic for a kid was going to have some major drawbacks. "I know, Honey. And I'll make sure I'm the one she gets mad at."

"Hello, Dr. Jeldin." She threw her little braids to the back of her neck and sat down to play while her father and the doctor talked.

"Are you sure, Mulder?"

"Of course, not, Peter. That's why we're here."

Peter looked a little aprehensive. "Does Dana know you're doing this?"

"No," Sami piped up from her space on the floor. "But he's gonna make sure she gets mad at him instead of me."

Jeldin laughed. "Okay, Sami. Then I guess it's alright. Will you come over to this table with me, Honey?"

"Sure."

He lead her to a table with a tall black divider. When she sat down, she couldn't see him on the other side. He peeked his head back around. "Okay, now I have a bunch of cards over here, and I'm going to pick one out. Tell me if you can see what the card is, okay?"

She frowned at him, looking so much like her mother - ever the skeptic.

"How can I see what the cards are if they're over there?"

It was getting late for dinner by the time they were done, and Mulder called the house.

"Hi, Scully. "

"Hi, where are you two? Your message said you'd be home by six."

"I know, and I'm sorry. We're nearly finished now. We'll be home in about half an hour. I'll pick up dinner on the way home."

"What did you do?" She was angry already, and he hadn't even said anything. "You always offer to bring dinner home when you've messed up. Now what did you do?"

He looked over at Sami and Dr. Jeldin, watched the last battery of tests. "I'll tell you when I get home, Scully. I *promise*." He sighed. "Dana, we've got something we need to talk about..."

"Okay," she asked coldly. "So what happened?"

Mulder ran a hand through his hair, looked at both of their kids. "Kids, why don't you start eating while Mommy and I have a talk in the other room."

Not like Sami wasn't going to be able to recite what they said word for word when it was all over. "Scully," he began tentatively. "Last night I had a nightmare, and... and I woke up, and..."

When he was finished, Scully didn't want to eat. "I thought they'd be normal, Mulder," she said, dumbfounded. "I thought they'd be normal little kids. They *seem* normal."

"She is normal-"

"She's psychic!"

Mulder shook his head. "Yes, you're right, she's psychic. But other than that, she's a normal kid. Look Jeldin said that there's a woman he knows who can teach her - " he broke off at the look on her face.

She sat shocked for a moment, then barked out a laugh. "Psychic school?"

He smiled. She never ceased to amaze him. "She can hear *everything*, Dana," he said quietly. "Think of how that must be for her. She didn't want to hear my nightmare... But she had no choice."

Scully nodded, her disbelief crumbling yet again in the face of extreme possibilities. "What about Billy?"

Mulder sighed. "I have no idea. Jeldin seems to think that Sami's was a natural part of her development. Something in her biology started the ball rolling as she neared puberty. Maybe Billy..."

Scully sighed deeply. "Why is life never easy?"

He hugged her to him. "Cause you're a Mulder now, Dana."

"Lucky me," she smiled.

Title: Voices IV. Visions

Here's Part four of Voices.

Requests came down for a timeline on this one, so here goes (Please note that there are overlaps with my other series. This one is purely on its own, so the fact that M&S have shown no signs of getting together in the Solitary chain matters not a bit.): 0. Naming Children on a Stakeout: takes place in mid 1996
Six months before the birth of their first child, Melissa Anne Mulder, who dies fifteen weeks after birth from spina bifida complications. Samantha Lyn Mulder is born some ten months after, in 1997.

1. Changing of the Guard: October 1999
2. Billy: Fox William Mulder is born 11/16/01
3. In the Genes: 2007
4. Visions: 2010
5. Curing a Foundling: 2012
6. Chasing Shadows: 2012
7. Mater noster: 2020.

Okay, everybody straight? Good, cause you won't be for long grin.

It is said that a lynx person is quiet, keeping the secrets of all for the good of all. It is difficult to pry information out of a lynx person, but when it does come out, you can be sure that the truths revealed will change your life.

Take care of your little sister, Fox. You're in charge. "Yes."

"My name is Sarah Nillran. I work with your daughter on-"

Scout "Yes, I know who you are."

Fox, do we have to watch this? "I'd like you to come down to my office..."

Mom and Dad said I could watch the movie... "Is Sami okay?"

"Yes, she's fine, but-"

I'm watching the Magician. "..and I'm not sure what she's seeing. She just keeps..."

Now look. The fuse has blown. "All right. Give me a minute. I'll be over there right away."

Fox! "Thank you, Dr. Scully. "

Samantha! "Do you understand what she saw, Dr. Scully?" Sarah looked over at the spare thirteen-year-old who sat curled into a tired old chair. The girl was still shaking, oblivious to their conversation.

Scully ran a hand through her hair. "Her father's little sister - Samantha - was abducted when they were children. According to what he's told me of the experience, Sami seems to be seeing that night."

"Has your husband ever talked to her about that night?"

Scully smiled wryly. "He hasn't really had to. He has recurrent nightmares about it, and..."

Nillran nodded. "I think maybe you and your husband need to sit down and talk about it with her. She's very disturbed by these images, and I think, in a way, she feels they're about *her*, not her aunt."

Scully nodded soberly, watching her daughter shake. "Can I use your phone?"

"Professor Mulder's office."

"Hi, Crista, it's Dana. Is he around?"

"He's in class right now... Should be out in about half and hour."

Scully sighed. "Okay. Do me a favor and make sure he calls me as soon as he's out. Don't freak him out, but he really needs to call me."

"Okay. Is there a problem?"

"I don't know, Crista. I honestly don't know."

Sami sat quietly, trying to concentrate on her homework. It was a losing battle. All she could think about was the visions in her head. She'd seen them before, in her dad's head, but she'd never felt them quite as strongly before. She was so afraid when the light came. She knew it was coming for her.

But that's silly, she told herself, using her mom's best skeptical voice.

Aunt Sam was taken away. I'm right here...

Still, she shivered.

She listened carefully - with her ears today - she was too tired to hear them the other way - as her father walked in.

"What's going on?" he sounded worried.

Her mother echoed the sentiment, telling him about her trip to see Mrs. Nillran, telling him about the visions.

He was silent a long time. Probably trying not to cry, she thought.

"How can we...? What should we say?"

"I don't know, Mulder, but we need to do something. She's... feeling it..."

Her father surely sighed, though the walls weren't quite thin enough for her to hear him. She caused him so much trouble. He'd call her down soon...

"Samantha?" he sounded tired, but he wasn't angry. She was glad. He was hardly ever angry, but when he was, it hurt her head to hear him.

"Coming, Dad."

He stared at her, a little glimpse of sadness in his eyes. "Sami, honey... We have to talk."

She sat down, a serious expression on her face. "Dad, I know what happened, but it doesn't bother me... really."

He grinned suddenly, sharing another one of his secret jokes with his wife. "Sound like anyone you know, Scully. "

Sami's mother ignored him, sitting beside her daughter. "Sami... what happened when your dad was a kid... It was awful, but you mustn't let it affect you... It's so far in the past, honey..."

"I know."

"Sami?" her dad sat quietly on her other side. "What do you see about that night?"

Sami sighed mightily. It wasn't like her mother hadn't already heard this story. She could tell him, couldn't she? "Mom and Dad go off to the neighbors' for a party-"

Her father's eyes became concerned. "My Mom and Dad."

Sami shook her head irritably. "Yeah, your mom and dad... Anyway, they go to the neighbors', and you and Aunty Sam are playing Stratego, and you're watching something she just hates." She took a little breath, then continued. "You have a big fight about who wants to watch what - and you were really mean to use being tall against her, Daddy."

Mulder looked over his daughter's head at his wife, pain in his eyes. "I know I was, Honey. Go on."

"Then she went to the TV, and the lights went out, and..." She started to shake. "And then they came, and..."

Her father held her close, stroking that fine long hair of hers, whispering. "It's okay, Sami. It's okay, I know... shh..."

It was some time before she stopped shaking. She looked up at him then, a penetrating look in her eyes. "What happened to her?"

"We don't know, Honey."

She pulled away. "Yes, you do! You think you do! I can see it, I just don't *understand* it."

Her mother ran a soothing hand over her head, spoke in a quiet voice, her eyes always on her husband's. "When we worked together, your dad and I found evidence that... that Sam might have been taken by a group of... by a group, for testing."

Somehow, the word testing set off another set of shivers in their daughter. Scully held her tight, looking to her husband for some kind of explanation. He had none.

"Sami," he asked quietly, when she seemed to have calmed down a bit. "What are you seeing, Honey?"

Her voice coming in painful gasps, Sami told them. "I can see... men... all in white, with... with little masks on their faces... And they're using knives and needles... I don't want them to cut into me, Daddy. Please... please don't let them... please?"

Scully's eyes flew wide. They'd been able to hide little from their far-seeing daughter, and she knew more about them than they probably knew themselves. But Scully knew that what Sami was saying had not been her own experience in the hands of those secret doctors. She was seeing something which neither she nor her husband knew.

She quieted her daughter slowly, with whispered assurances that they would never cut into her, that nothing would happen to her. Her husband simply sat and stared, a stricken look on his face.

"She's finally asleep," Scully said, loping exhaustedly down the stairs. "How long she'll stay that way...?" She sighed, ruffling her brooding husband's hair. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said distractedly. He looked up at her. "Glad Billy's over at John's for the night."

She nodded. "This is difficult enough."

"What is she seeing, Scully?" he asked, a futility in his voice that disturbed her. "Is she somehow seeing what Sam went through? Is she linked to her somehow?"

Scully sighed. "I don't know, Mulder. Whatever she's seeing, though... It's not something she can deal with." She took a deep breath, got ready for the explosion. "I spoke to Mrs. Nillran about this. She said if Sami seems too... attached... to the visions, there's a-"

"Drug," Mulder finished, head in his hands. "It's new, but it seems to work. Psypran."

Scully nodded gently. "It suppresses the..."

"It's worse than putting your kid on Prozac, Scully. "

"Would you rather she lost her mind?"

Mulder turned to face her. "Scully... If - *somehow* - she's connected to Sam, then she might still be alive. We might be able to find her."

Scully's eyes burned cold. "I willnot sacrifice my daughter's sanity on that slim a chance, Mulder."

"But, Scully-"

"NO."

Sami heard her mother reach for the phone, heard the discussion of medication. She wouldn't take it. She didn't know how she would prevent it happening, but she wouldn't lose half her world - not when her father was right.

Her Aunt Samantha was alive. She knew it. She could feel it, feel her.

All these years searching, and he hadn't found anything. Now his daughter, whose abilities had caused him so much trouble, had given him so much grief, now she would find his sister.

She didn't know how, but somehow, she'd do it.

Title: Voices V. Curing a Foundling

From: Lisdxphile@aol.com Date: Tue, 2 January 1996 09:49:02 -0500 Subject: NF Voices V: Curing a Foundling 1/2 You knew I couldn't stick to one-parters for long! smirk Here's part five of Voices. Nearing the end now. Get ready...

Disclaimer as stated in the XA Charter.

Wild children rarely survive their first few months away from the protection of their parents, but isolated cases have been found of children, above the age of reason, surviving for years in the wilderness by learning the customs and patterns of those not of their own kind. While language is difficult for them, once recovered, many have been taught successfully to speak their native tongue and blend back in with society.

occasionally, these wild children will be unable, through trauma or simple lack of ability, to conform to society. They remain under supervisory care for much of their lives, never to experience either their wilderness homes, or the comfort of human civilisation.

- "Freaks of Nature": The Treatment of the Other in Twentieth-Century Culture
2009, HC Scholastic
A. Warner, Ph.D., Central University, USA

"Sam, are you ready, yet?"

"Just a minute."

"Mom, she's gonna make us late again."

"It's your father who'll make you late, Billy. Mulder! Are you coming down here?"

"Coming. Just have to get my tests in order."

"Well, you're going to make the kids late."

"We have plenty of time."

"No we don't, Dad! Johnny's going show me his new video game before school starts."

"All right, Mom. I told you I was going to Sara's after school, right?"

"Yes, Sam. Did you take your pill?"

"Aw, I hate those things, Mom. They're even stronger than the other ones."

"I know, Honey, but-"

"'They're for my own good.' I know... See. I took it. Satisfied?"

"Always. When will you be home?"

"I don't know. Six-thirty?"

"Okay. Mulder! Come on!"

"I'm ready."

"Finally, Dad. Let's go."

"Scully, the exam should be over by twelve. Want to do lunch?"

"Sure. I'll be here."

"Bye."

"Bye." Dana Scully finally sank quietly into a chair, craddling a cup of tea in her cold hands. She shouldn't have started her family so late. At forty-eight, she was much too old to be running around after teenagers.

She smiled fondly. And what beautiful kids they had turned out to be.

Samantha, a demure and stately fifteen-year-old, had all the grace and height Scully would have expected from her husband's daughter. Her long, curly hair had changed to a sort of chocolate auburn over the years, and she had the most enchanting face imaginable.

Billy was shaping up to be her own father's spitting image. Tall and broad, with thick red hair and clear blue eyes, he was bigger than many boys two grades above him. And smart. And, above all, normal.

Scully had been terrified some five years earlier, when she discovered that, whatever had been done to her when she was taken, nearly twenty years ago, had affected her children. She'd always assumed that Missy's... deformations... were a result of that testing. She'd been terrified to try again, but Mulder had convinced her. He'd told her they'd be normal. Missy had been a tragedy, but not one that was likely to be repeated. But now...

She gazed across the table at a non-descript prescription bottle. Now she had a daughter who had seen what others could not, and who had almost gone crazy from it. The Halopran she had been moved to in the last few months supressed the disturbing visions better than the Psypran she had begun taking at thirteen.

Somewhere in the back of her head, Dana Scully felt that she had let her daughter down by insisting on the medication. But there was another voice, stronger, which told her the pain Sam might have gone through if she hadn't.

She was pulled out of her reverie by the ringing phone.

"Mulder residence."

"Dana?"

"Hi, Jamie. What's going on?"

"Is Mulder there?"

"No... What's wrong, Jamie."

"I'm on my way over, now. I have a lead on Samantha. But you're not going to like it."

"A mental institution?" Scully sipped at her tea, amazed.

"According to the files."

"But why, Jamie?" She stood, restless energy making her pace. "How long has she been there?"

"I haven't been able to figure that out." Jamie Barrons ran a hand through his softly greying hair. After years of searching, he had finally found something. Something that could tear his friends' worlds apart. "They kept moving her and changing her name. The files I recieved only cover the last three institutions. But it looks like she's been moved around for years. Most of her life."

Scully's eyes closed painfully. "What's the diagnosis on her?"

"She's diagnosed as scizophrenic, possibly autistic as well. According to her file, she's only remotely aware of her surroundings. All the therapy in the world doesn't seem to have helped her."

Scully turned to face him. "Do you think it's really her?"

Jamie shrugged, a little angry. "After seventeen years of dealing with these people, I don't know what to think. They may have leaked the information to get us off track... Though the track we were on wasn't really leading to anything."

"Where is she now?"

"At a place called Cullview in Maryland." Jamie stood, resisting the urge to take her hands. "Scully, it may not even be her. Would you know her?"

Scully shook her head. "Neither would Mulder, really. It's been forty-one years." She sat abruptly. "I don't even know if we should tell him until we're sure."

"How can we not?"

"Jamie, if it's her, we'll know soon. If it's not... I just can't put him through that. Just another dead end."

"I'll see what I can find, Dana."

She stood again, hugging him lightly. "Thank you, Jamie. If this really is her..."

"Are you sure, Sam," Sara asked, sitting comfortably against the headrest of her queen-sized bed. "Your parents are gonna freak."

"I can't take them anymore. It's not natural."

Sara shrugged philosophically. "a lot of people would say that hearing other people's thoughts is pretty unnatural."

"That's just it, though. It's perfectly natural... For me, anyway."

"But won't they notice?"

"I think I can probably control it. And I have to find her."

"Sam," Sara warned. "You don't even know that she's still alive."

"She's alive," Sam countered. "Even doped up, I can feel her. But she's...I don't know... distant."

"What do you mean?" her friend asked, leaning forward.

"It's like... I don't know. I don't know if it's the drug, or her, but..."

She sighed. "When I was younger, I thought it was just me. I just couldn't focus enough to hear her."

"But you could hear your parents."

"Yeah, but that's different. I'm around them all the time. She just seems so far away."

"What do you think happened?"

"I don't know. Mom thinks she was taken by a group of doctors for testing or something."

"And your dad?"

Sam's eyes grew far away. "I don't think he knows what to think. He's always missing her, Sara. It's so sad. She's been gone for so long." She hugged the pillow at her chest even tighter. "I wonder what he'd do if he found her after all these years."

It all came back so slowly. Sam sat quietly in her bed, unable to sleep. She wondered vaguely if insomnia was hereditary. Though her dad slept better lately. She hoped he hadn't finally given up on his little sister. Sam herself never would.

She calmed herself, relaxed back, and tried to reach out. Once she had stopped taking the medication, she had set about rebuilding her abilities. It had been hard for that first week - she could barely hear her parents two rooms down, but now it was getting stronger. She could feel it.

And she could hear her. She tried to see what she saw, to get any sense of where she was. But her aunt was dreaming. She dreamed with her.

Mulder slid quietly out of the bed. There was a sound. A sound he knew. A sound he remembered only with terror. Unlocking the drawer silently, he took his gun out and made his way downstairs.

The light was blinding, that red and blue shot through with piercing white that he remembered. And in the middle of it, he saw his daughter, and his heart stopped.

"Samantha!"

Her head swung painfully toward him, suspended with her body feet off the ground. The sight of him seemed to shake her tongue into action. "Daddy! Please... Help me!"

He froze for a moment - but only for a moment. He wasn't a child anymore.

He was a grown man. And they *would not take his daughter from him as well.

He ignored the searing lights, reaching for his daughter, trying to pull her from them. The light brightened suddenly, and he felt himself flung across the room, the pain blotting out everything but his daughter, as she resumed her stately procession toward the open window.

"NO!" He couldn't move, couldn't even cry. "NO! Samantha!"

Mulder rolled out of bed, momentarily disoriented. Scully jerked upright beside him as their daughter called to him again. She shed the bedclothes and ran, Mulder befuddled seconds behind.

"Daddy! Please!"

Mulder was halfway to the stairs before he noticed that his wife had turned the other way, had made for their daughter's bedroom, not the living room, where his dream had ended.

Billy stood in the doorway of Sam's room, as Scully wrapped comforting hands around her daughter.

"Shhh... It's okay, Sami. It's just a nightmare... It's okay..."

"Where's Dad?" Sam's voice was no longer hysterical, but just as insistent. "Where is he?"

Mulder slid onto the bed, craddling her other side. "I'm right here, Honey. I'm right here... It's okay..."

"I saw her, Dad." Sam's voice was a mere whisper now. "I saw her. She's alive... But she's so alone, Daddy. She's all alone, and she can't..."

"Shhh..." Scully caressed her daughter's hair, willing her husband silent with her eyes.

Mulder looked away suddenly, focussing on his son, tears streaming down his young face. "Billy, come here."

The tall adolescent came, curling up on his father's inadequate lap. He watched his sister fearfully, and she hadn't even the presence of mind to comfort him. "Sami..."

She looked up at him, his young blue eyes soothing her in an indefinable way - a way her parents' hands couldn't. "I saw her..."

Mulder almost jumped as Scully asked a question. "Where is she, Honey?"

Sam shook her head. "I don't know. Somewhere close. But it's bare, and cold, and she's so alone."

Scully slid her daughter down in the bed, motioned for Mulder to get Billy settled.

"It's okay, Sami," Scully whispered quietly, urging her daughter to sleep.

"We have to find her, Mom..." Sam's eyes closed slowly, only to snap open again as her mind heard something. "Do you know where she is?" She sat up, her voice rising. "You do, don't you! You know where she is, and you never told us!"

"Shhh." Scully was more insistent now. She didn't want Mulder to hear. "I wasn't sure, Honey. But now... Now you can tell us for sure. Now calm down, please. I'm going to get your medicine."

Sam was up again, angry. "NO! I don't want those any more! I won't take it!"

"Sami, Honey... Please," Scully pleaded gently with her, tamping down her own fear. "Please. Just tonight. You won't have to take them anymore. But just tonight. So you can sleep."

Sam could feel her mother's worry - her fear. She didn't know what was happening, only that her daughter was terrified and hurting and angry... Sam sighed deeply, and nodded.

"I'll be right back, Honey," Scully promised, pulling the covers over her daughter and turning to leave. She stopped dead as she saw Mulder in the doorway, eyes burning with betrayal.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mulder tried to keep his voice down, sensitive to his daughter who had finally fallen asleep.

"We didn't know for sure, Mulder," Scully said tiredly. She swirled her tea in its cup, not bothering to drink it before it cooled. "I didn't want to tell you until we were-"

"She's my *sister*, Scully!" He lowered his voice immediately. "I had a right to know."

Scully looked over at him. He was furious with her, breathing hard, trying not to cry. "I'm so sorry, Mulder. I'm sorry. I know I should have told you, but..."

"How long have you known... suspected?" he asked finally.

She breathed deeply, her lung still protesting after all these years. "a couple of weeks."

He held his breath until the urge to scream passed. "Where," he managed, barely a whisper.

"Maryland." She curled a shaking hand in his. "Mulder, I didn't think it was her, honestly..." She relaxed slightly as he squeezed her hand in absolution. "She's..." Scully sighed, ready to tell him everything. "She's in a mental institution. Appearantly..."

Sam wouldn't let them go without her, and, on reflection, Scully wasn't sure they should have tried to stop her. If it was really Samantha - if Mulder's sister really was alive - Sami was the one who'd know for sure. Billy just bundled himself into the car with them, and no one tried to stop him.

The children sat side by side during the long drive, neither bothering to speak. Scully's heart sank each time she looked at her husband. When he felt her eyes on him, he continually froze her out.

The institution was cold and bare, just as Sami had said it would be. She started shaking the moment they stopped the car, until Billy reached over and took her hand. He didn't let it go until they left again.

The woman that Cullview's files said was named 'sarah Kilmore' was tall. Her dark hair floated down her back in a riot of curls. Her eyes were clouded, but she looked so like she had when she was young that Mulder knew her at a glance.

"Samantha?"

"She's non-responsive, sir," the nurse started quietly. Seeing her husband tense, Scully gently but firmly forced the woman out.

"Samantha?" Mulder asked again, kneeling next to her chair, trying desperately to catch those wandering eyes.

Scully stayed back, letting Mulder try to connect with her. He made little progress, and her eyes teared in response as her mind flew back to a time, sixteen years ago, when she had tried to get him to connect. When two months of loneliness had closed him off from the world. Samantha had had a great deal longer to build her defenses.

Jamie had finally come up with clearer information. According to his source, Samantha had been placed in her first institution at the age of nineteen. He assumed that they had kept her away for the full eleven years.

What tests they had done on her, he couldn't say, but her mental history hinted at some horrible trauma.

Scully, who still dealt with the trauma of three months in their "care," could not imagine just how horrible it had been.

Mulder sat still suddenly, as Samantha's dim eyes searched his face. She tried to see him, tried to connect, and finally, finally, saw him. "Fox?"

He couldn't move, could only whisper, "yes."

It seemed all she was able to say, but she looked up with incomplete interest at the people around her, her eyes coming to rest on the fifteen-year-old who reminded her of someone.

"That's Sami," Mulder said gently, still frozen in his crouch by her side.

"She's my daughter."

Samantha gazed at her namesake, searching the face for something to hold onto. Their eyes held for a moment, and Sami smiled. "I knew we'd find you," she said gently, moving forward, little brother in tow, to touch her aunt's arm. "I knew it."

Samantha's eyes slid from the girl, and fixed on the tall boy next to her.

He reminded her of someone, too, though the colors were all wrong. "Who...?"

His eyes smiled, and she smiled with them, comforted by him; healed, perhaps. "My name is Billy - well, Fox Mulder, junior, but-"

Samantha laughed suddenly, spurring her brother to a fresh spate of tears. "Why?" she asked, turning to him.

"Why what?" Mulder croaked tearfully.

"You hated Fox."

Mulder looked up at her finally, a small grin daring to work its way onto his lips. He pointed to the doorway. "She named him. It wasn't my fault." Samantha followed his gesture, her grasp tightening on the armrests as she pulled herself to her feet. "You're pretty," she observed.

Scully looked at the woman, no younger than she, who spoke in a child's tone, with a child's innocence. "So are you," she said, tears loosening quietly.

Samantha sat again as Scully approached, blushing happily as she watched her brother bury his head in his wife's hair. "That's cute," she said quietly, starting slightly as Billy laughed.

Mulder joined him - the first real laugh he felt he'd ever had in his life.

He prayed it was true - that this wasn't just a dream. If it was, he never wanted to wake up.

And Samantha Mulder, daughter of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, smiled brightly at her aunt, connecting with her more and more strongly as the minutes past. She had found her. She could feel the joy in her father - more strongly than she had ever felt anything before.

But somewhere, somewhere deep in the back of her mind, a little voice of warning began to sound. A little voice that said "This can't last. Soon it will all be taken away from you."

Samantha laughed, and failed to hear it.

Voices VI: Chasing Shadows

Nothing comes for nothing.
A depressing axiom, but true all the same.

12:45 pm
June 14, 2012

"Why did God create Summer holidays?"

"He didn't, Mulder. That was Man's doing."

"Billy, leave it alone! That's so gross!"

"It's only a grasshopper, Sam."

"it's Alive!"

"So? Mom ate a live grasshopper once."

"She did not!"

"Mulder..."

"Dad told me. He was right there when she did it."

"Mulder..."

"Scully, I was only-"

"Mom! You never ate a grasshopper, did you?"

"No, Sam. That's disgusting. Billy let the thing go."

"Oh, Mom..."

"William..."

"Okay, okay..."

"Hey, Dad," Sam ran in to the kitchen breathlessly, glaring at her father.

"Why'd you ever tell him that?"

Mulder hedged. "Well, ..."

"Yes, Mulder," Scully asked, a creul smirk on her face. "Why?"

"It was just a joke, Scully. "

"Some joke," Sam said disapprovingly.

Scully laughed at her husband's discomfort as her daughter grabbed a soda from the fridge.

"Are we going to see Aunt Sam tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Mulder agreed, watching Samantha down an entire can at one go. "You know, Sam, you're going to burst if you drink that fast."

"Right." Sam went back outside to see what other trouble her brother might manage to find.

"No respect from my children," Mulder sighed.

"So Jack wanted to know if I could go." Sam sipped carefully at her iced tea, trying not to listen to what her parents were thinking.

Her mother's eyes were thoughtful. "You're a little young yet, to be going camping with a bunch of guys."

"There'll be two tents, Mom. And Sara's going." She tried to look innocent.

"Yes," her father said sternly. "But *Jack* asked you."

"If you think I'm going to sleep in a tent with Jack and four other guys, you've got another thing coming."

Mulder laughed, shooting his wife a look that said, "She's got me - you try."

"Okay, exactly who is going?"

"Jack, Sara, Brian, Jenny, Rachel, Calvin, Barry, and Jim." She counted them off on her fingers.

Scully shook her head. "Didn't Jim get suspended last month?"

"He was beating up a guy for dealing to little kids, Mom," Billy said suddenly, leaping unexpectedly to his sister's defense. "I don't think that counts."

Their mother tried to think of real reasons why her daughter couldn't go camping that weekend. Not a single defensible argument came to mind. "Take a cellphone."

"Yes, Ma'am," Sam said cheerfully.

3:45 pm
June 15, 2012

Saint Catherine's was a small hospital - more a halfway house, really. The monthly cost was truly outrageous, but Mulder was hardly concerned by that.

What concerned him was that his sister was getting better care than she would have anywhere else, that it was nearby, and that she was protected. He was well past being naive enough to think that the syndicate would just let him have her.

She was sitting in a sunroom toward the back of the old house, working on a needlework project that Billy had bought her. Billy surprised his father - *often*. He was a normal kid, but now and then, he acted like a man years beyond his age. And he treated his aunt like a queen. Mulder wondered if her remarkable recovery was due more to her nephew than to anyone else.

"Hi, Aunt Sam."

"Hey, Billy. How are you?" She gave her brother a light smile, the kind that still made his heart jump - if only to remind him that she was really there.

"Good," the young boy replied. "What's going on?"

"Not much." She shrugged. "We got a new pool table, though," she said, standing quietly as a doctor approached them. "You want to go play? You, too, Sam." She smiled slyly at her brother. "I think Dr. Meyers wants to talk to your mom and dad."

Mulder looked after them as they quitted the room, while Scully turned to the doctor.

"Let's go to my office," he said, just that little edge of professional mystery that made Mulder worry.

"Your sister's ready to leave, Mr. Mulder." "Excuse me?"

Meyers spread his hands wide. "Don't ask me how it happened. We're good, but not that good. She's spent at least the last thirty years in institutions, and I can't find a thing wrong. Well," he amended, "Nothing abnormal, anyway."

"But three months ago," Mulder said, disbelieving, "she... she wasn't talking - couldn't write, read. She barely knew who she was." He got the feeling that this was all just too good to be true.

"That's not really true, Mr. Mulder," Meyers disagreed. "True, she *didn't* write, or read, but she was always capable of it. She'll never be a scholar, true, but she tests at an acceptable high school level for reading, and is actually quite a good writer." He stood, walked around to sit on the edge of his desk.

"She's still learning, Mr. Mulder," he said, watching the man's face, "but she's pretty normal. Not forty-eight-year-old normal, but normal-person normal."

Mulder just sat for a minute. It had taken him a long time to come to terms with the fact that his sister would probably never progress enough to be able to make it in society. Now it seemed it was just as difficult to accept that she would - indeed, already *had*. "So," he said cautiously. "We could take her home?"

"That's precisely what I was hoping you'd suggest," Meyers said, watching the couple before him exchange startled glances. "One of Samantha's major problems is still her agoraphobia. I think she'd have a hard time living on her own - having to go out and shop, that sort of thing." He smiled at Scully.

"But she feels very comfortable with you. She's told me that you work at home?"

Scully nodded. "I edit a medical journal."

"Look," Meyers said carefully. "I'm not saying this is going to be easy. She still hares out occasionally... But I've talked to her. She thinks she's ready - she's even ready to move out on her own, if this won't work for you - and I think she's right."

Mulder ducked his head slightly, trying not to let Scully see his eagerness. This was a big decision, and she had to make it with him. "We'll have to discuss this, doctor-"

"No, we won't," Scully said, wondering that he would feel this needed discussing. "Can she be released today?"

Meyers smiled at the shocked look her husband shot her. "Yes, Dr. Scully. As a matter of fact," he said, stepping around his desk to present Mulder with a sheaf of papers, "the paperwork's already done. As her... legal guardian, of sorts, Mr. Mulder, you'll have to sign them." Mulder read through the papers for a moment, looking up as he set them down. "So what happens?"

"What happens is that your sister goes to therapy once a week. She'll be on anti-depressants for the first few weeks - as much time as she's spent institutionalised, the transition is going to be stressful." He handed another stack of papers to Scully, as the recognized medical expert of the pair. "She still has violent nightmares occasionally, so there's a sedative.

Don't let her take it often, though." Scully nodded. "She's got a real problem with sleeping alone in the dark, so..." he trailed off as Scully shot her husband an amused look. "I'm sorry?"

"Nothing," Scully smiled apologetically, "it just seems to run in the family. We can cope with that."

Meyers went on for a few minutes. Mulder had to admit, it wasn't a long list. Not the kind he had assumed. He leaned forward. "You said when she was tested at admittance that she seemed to have considerable memory loss. Has any of that been dealt with?"

Meyers hedged slightly. "To be truthful, Mr. Mulder, we've come to the conclusion that Samantha has lost that time completely. Her nightmares don't even deal with it. It seems the first thing she remembers after her abduction is the institution she was placed in when she was nineteen."

"Just as well, probably," Mulder whispered.

Scully squeezed his hand in agreement.

7:05 am
June 17, 2012
Mountains of Virginia

"Okay, Dad," Sam rolled her eyes at her friends, who tried not to laugh loud enough to be heard through the cellphone speaker. "Yeah, we'll be back on Monday." She sighed, making impatient motions with her hands. "No, not really. We just hiked until we found a likely place... It's just as safe, Dad... Yes, sir... Yes, Dad... Okay... Bye."

"God, Sam," Brian said with a laugh. "What's the problem? You'd think you were on one of his old secret missions!"

"Once an agent, always an agent, I guess." She waved it off. "Are we gonna fish, or what? I intend to eat tonight."

"Hey, Sam! I got one!"

"Great," Sam said, netting Sara's fish. "Looks like at least *you'll* be having dinner tonight." No one else had had the least luck.

"Why don't we order Chinese?" Jack asked with a gesture to Sam's bag.

"Sure," Sam laughed, pulling her cellphone out and pretending to dial.

"Hello, Tra Ling? Yes, I'd like three egg foo yungs and a pepper steak... Oh, just go out into the woods and holler. We'll find you."

Their collective laughter was shattered by a gunshot onshore. Sam turned to stare, feeling... something... from the men in black who ringed the dock. They were there for her, and something told her they wouldn't hestiate to kill her friends to get her.

"Sam, what are you doing?" Sara asked, scared, as her friend stood carefully, presenting them with a perfect target before she plunged into the freezing water, swimming strongly for the dock.

"SAM!"

7:45 am
FBI Headquarters

Jamie Barrons sighed as his intercom beeped. "Yes?"

"Agent Tarrat is here, sir."

"Send her in," he said, rubbing lightly as his eyes. Just what he needed today - more conspiracy.

"Sir," Agent Tarrat walked in and sat down. Uninvited, as always.

"What is it, Melanie?"

"Sir, I've had word of something... disturbing."

*Life* was disturbing these days. "What?"

"Well, sir," she began, "the information is a bit sketchy, but it refers to something called a phase two generation retrieval..." she trailed off as he stiffened.

"Did it give a name?"

"No sir. The communication just said, 'Phase two generation retrieval, person one, unit fifteen.' Does that mean anything to you, sir?"

"Yes," he whispered painfully. Old problems, home to roost. Dammit! He had thought they'd decided to leave it alone! It had been more than ten years, for God's sake. "All right, Tarrat, you can go. Thank you."

He dialed the phone, forming those long-rehearsed words - the words he had hoped never to have to say. "Hello, Mulder?"

"Jamie! Hi..." Mulder suddenly caught his tone of voice. "What's wrong?"

"Is Sami around?"

"Sami? No. She went camping with her friends."

"Do you know where?"

"dammit, Jamie, what's going on?"

Barrons took a deep breath. "They're coming after her."

"Who?"

"A retrieval team..." he clenched his teeth. "Mulder... Sam, Billy...

They're test subjects."

"What!"

"Phase two generation, Mulder. All the tests on Dana... They were... When she survived, they hoped she'd procreate. They needed to know the long-term ramifications of their genetic tinkering."

Mulder's voice alone could have killed. "How long have you known this, Barrons?"

"It doesn't matter, Mulder," he said tiredly. "Look, where is she?"

"Up in the mountains." Mulder's head was spinning, and he sat heavily. "I just spoke with her. She's got a cellphone with her."

"Call her back. Tell her to get to the nearest ranger station now. I don't know how old my information is. They may be out there already, looking for her. I'll get a team-"

"No." Mulder's voice was ice cold as he stood calmly, watching his wife as she entered the room. "I don't think so, Jamie. I'll deal with it myself."

But, first, he thought, he had to explain it to his wife.

"There's the trail head." Scully pulled off the road, parking next to a beat-up old Ranger 4x4.

"That's Brian's car," Billy confirmed. No one had argued when he tried to come. It seemed no one ever argued with him at all. He just got his way. Like Samantha, who was pulling her long legs out of the other back door.

"God, Mulder, how are we going to find them?"

"They just followed the trail," Samantha said quietly.

Mulder turned on her. "How do you know?"

"I don't know, Fox, I just..." She spread her hands helplessly. "They just followed it."

Mulder stared at her a moment more. "Okay, let's go."

He fumed as they ran along. She hadn't answered the phone when he'd called her back. It couldn't have been more than forty minutes - an hour, tops.

Something had happened in that forty minutes. Something that made his stomach turn.

Test subjects. And Barrons had known it! He wondered how long it had been.

Had he known when Mulder left the bureau? Before that? dammit, how could he not have told them! Samantha gave a cry from behind him, falling heavily.

Scully skidded to a halt next to her. "What happened?"

Samantha shook her head, tears already forming. "I don't know. I don't know. She's hurt."

"What?" Mulder walked back to her slowly, and she turned her face up to meet his. Her right eye was already swelling shut.

"They hurt her."

"Where is she, Samantha?"

Samantha took a deep breath, trying to focus. Finally her head snapped up.

"North."

"How *far* north?"

She shook her head, pulling herself to her feet, and forsaking the path to plough through the trees, heading north.

Sam took a deep breath. She could already feel her eyes swelling shut under the bruise his rifle had left. Why did he bother? Did he think she swam all the way over here to resist them? "I'll come with you," she said quietly.

"Just leave my friends alone."

The man shook his head. She could see her friends' boats, could see them making for shore. The man gestured, and two of his men raised their rifles.

"NO!" Sam jumped in front of them. She could tell that their orders were to bring her in alive. They wouldn't shoot her. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when the leader waived them off.

"Sara! Jack!" She raised her voice, heard it roll out over the water.

"Stay back! I'm okay!"

"Sam, what's going on?" Sara sounded close to tears.

"Don't worry," Sam told her. "Just don't come any closer! Don't come ashore until we're gone."

"Sam-"

"dammit, Sara! They'll Kill you! Stay on the lake until we leave. Please."

"They'll Kill you!"

It was Sam. Mulder quickened his pace.

"Stay on the lake until we leave. Please!"

Suddenly, he slammed to a halt, causing Samantha to slide into him. Bill and Scully stopped just behind them. Mulder nodded to his wife, and both drew their weapons, gesturing for the others to stay back.

Sam had turned back to the leader now. "Will you leave them? I told you I'd come with you."

He seemed to consider it, shrugged finally, a little smile for the girl's courage. He'd worked against her mother once. Like mother like daughter, obviously. "Come on, Ms. Mulder," he said, according her that little respect as he gestured to the 4x4 behind him.

Six soldiers. Damn. He looked to his wife.

"We're not FBI anymore, Mulder," she whispered fiercely. "Shoot first, ask questions later."

He nodded slightly, took aim at the nearest soldier, and fired.

They each scored one soldier before the others even had a chance to raise their guns. Sam, still some way from the leader's grasp, bolted for the woods.

Mulder was on his back before he felt the bullet. He remembered words from many years before. "a bullet wound to the stomach is one of the most painful ways to die."

He knew it for a fact now. Still, he brought one more down, shooting carefully from his place on the forest floor.

Scully tried to block out the sight of her husband falling. They were all dead if she didn't get this right. Everyone. She faced the two remaining Mibs, a fire in her eyes that reminded the younger of the two of a wild dog he'd once chanced upon, who had tried to take out his throat for coming too close to her pups. He raised his gun for another shot, but was dead before he ever would have cleared the barrel.

Samantha looked up, shocked. In the split second it had taken for them to take out most of the team, she had realized that her brother had fallen. She bolted for him, unaware of the one remaining MIB, unaware of her nephew trying desperately to drag her back, unaware of anything, save the fact that her brother was dying. "Fox!"

"Samantha, NO!" Scully turned for the briefest second, but it was enough.

The MIB trained his gun, not on Scully herself, but on Samantha. The bullet threw her away from her brother. Scully drilled the soldier once, and ran for her family.

"Billy, come here!" She ripped her husband's shirt off, balling it, and pressing it against his stomach, trying to staunch the blood flow. "Billy, hold this against his stomach. Hard." She ran a hand through her husband's hair, watched his eyes fight to open. "You'll be okay, Mulder. It'll be all right."

"Sam?" he asked weakly.

"It'll be all right," she repeated.

Samantha was, however, far from all right. The bullet had caught her full in the chest, and Scully could almost see her breathing as it slowed. She just sat for a minute, stunned. God, she'd lose both of them today. Mulder's wound... She couldn't fix him here, and getting him elsewhere... She sat for a moment and cried.

"MOM!" Sam's scream held both surprise and joy, and Scully turned, almost angry, until she saw her husband and son.

Billy looked... transfigured. His face glowed with a love and care, the love and care she had seen many times in her sensitive son's eyes, but never like this. Never so intense.

She couldn't move, could barely breathe, as she watched him place a strong, sure hand on his father's wound. Mulder doubled around it in pain, but as the pain receded, she could see him start to relax. She waited, watching her son slump back, exhausted, and seeing, as if in a dream, her husband pull himself up on his elbows weakly.

Billy smiled quietly at his father for a moment, ignoring the man's astonished look, and ran suddenly to his mother's side. Again, his face glowed with power, and he set a tender hand on his aunt's chest.

But it was too hard this time, Scully could see. His face began to turn red with effort, and his breathing became labored.

"You can't help her, Billy," she said quietly, trying to pull him away, frightened when he wouldn't move. "Billy? Billy, don't, please!"

He slumped over, finally, sobbing. "Aunty Sam... Sam..." Scully stroked his hair, held him as he sobbed. He finally turned a gray, exhausted face to her. "Mom, why...?"

She had no answer.

Mulder came up behind her suddenly, supported by their tall daughter. He knelt with difficulty, craddling his sister's head gently in his lap. And cried. Cried as his wife had never seen him cry before - as he probably had never cried before. As he should have cried when she disappeared as a child.

3:30 pm
June 21, 2012

The funeral had been a small, solemn gathering. Mulder had been all his sister had had, and he stood with his wife and their children, and watched the last of his family buried. He looked up, as his son slipped a hand into his. No, not the last of his family. His family was around him. Would be around him for a long time, if he had his way. He allowed his son, whose talents had been so unexpected, so precious, so powerful in their innocence, to lead him away from the grave site.

The knock at the door took Scully by surprise. She stood from her seat in the living room, and quietly opened the front door. She nearly slammed it again.

"Dana, please," Jamie Barrons begged. "Hang on a minute."

"Go *away*, Jamie," she said coldly. "You're lucky Mulder's asleep. He would have shot you if he had opened the door. Be thankful for small favours and leave."

"Dana, please let me explain. They told me a decade ago that they had discontinued the project - that it had been one of Cancerman's babies, and they had chosen not to pursue it."

"And you *believed* them!" Scully let him in - if only to give him a piece of her mind. "How could you not tell us, Jamie! These are our children! You cost Samantha her *life*!"

He looked sick. "I know, Scully! God, don't you think I know that!" He wrung his hands. "Please, Dana, believe me. I'd never have kept it from you if I thought they were going to go through with it all."

She glared at him, as close to hateful as he had ever seen her. He bowed his head, made for the door.

"I'm sorry, Dana, I'll leave-"

"Don't, please." They both whirled to see Sam standing on the stairs. Her face red from crying, she came all the way down and crossed to them. "Mom, he's telling the truth," she said quietly. "And he loves you." She quelled the man's shy smile with an absolutely adult hardness in her eyes. "And he can help make sure we're safe."

"How?" Jamie looked from mother to daughter, uncomprehending.

"You can make us disappear."

He stared.

"You've done it before, Mr. Barrons," she said coldly. She felt her mother's surprise at her behavior, but she had to continue. She had to be sure no one else ever died to protect her. "We just disappear, and your stupid little syndicate gets nothing."

Barrons looked at her for a moment. Yes. Yes. It could work. If he could make it believable.

"Scully, your mother couldn't know."

She looked pained, until her daughter spoke up. "No. Granmie comes with us."

"But how am I going to...?" he thought. "Okay, okay, we can, maybe..."

Alexandria Gazette

a powerful house fire, appearantly started by a young boy playing with
matches, destroyed a family's home and lives today. The house, at
423 West Dale Street, was home to 51 year-old Fox Mulder, and his
family; wife Dana, aged 48; daughter Samantha, aged fifteen; and son
Bill, aged 11. His wife's mother was visiting, and, tragically, died as well.

First, though, a little catch up on what's been happening the past eight years in the family.

William Callahan (Aka Billy Mulder) graduated high school in 2019. He's been staying at home this year to help out (you'll find out why in a bit), but plans to go to university next year to study - with his healing touch, no big surprise - medicine.

Samanatha Callahan, lovely woman that she is, was snatched up by a fine young man and whisked off to Quebec, where she's currently working on her third child.

Dana Callahan was working for the me's office in Vancouver, B.C. until 2019.

John Callahan is finally able to have a normal first name (Fox was just too risky - and he never liked it anyway), and worked for a Canadian-based UFO journal, until his eyesight failed. It happened quite rapidly, and was appearantly a genetic problem. Even lens transplants failed to help. He retired in 2017 and putters around the house happily, though his sister's loss still manages to affect him deeply.

I'm sorry to report that Margaret Palmer (aka Scully), died peacefully in her sleep on August 18, 2017, two months after the birth of her first great-grandchild.

Okay, now that you're caught up, here's the end.

Voices VII: Mater Noster

5:56 pm
February 27, 2020
Vancouver Municipal Hospital

"Hi. How you feeling?"

"Better, I think."

"Sam called."

"How is she?"

"Great - Great and big, according to Gerry. Maggs said 'Daddy' yesterday."

"How wonderful! I wish I could see them."

"Me, too. Why don't we go over there? The doctor's said you'd be out of here again in a few days. We could go and visit."

"Get me a wig, and I'll consider it."

"I like you like that. It's good to know I'm not the only one whose hair is thinning."

"Mulder..."

"Scully..."

He ran his hands through her hair, feeling the chemotherapy-thinned locks that had only started to turn gray when last he saw them. He wondered what she looked like now, could imagine it dimly. Thin gray hair, sunken eyes, wrinkles on wrinkles. He wouldn't have cared, even if he could see her. She was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever known.

"Where's Billy? I'm assuming he brought you."

"Nah, drove myself."

Scully smiled up at his unfocussed eyes. "You've done stupider things."

"He's talking to that surgeon friend of his... Sally."

She smiled indulgently. "He's quite the ladies man."

"Just like his father."

"That's debatable."

"Ouch... You sit here and think those up?"

She sighed. "Not much else to do. Though I did read a great article on the net today about American government conspiracies." She smiled wide. "Some guy named Langly."

"God, I can't believe they're still at it after all these years."

She grinned as the door opened and their son walked in. "Some people never grow up."

"I hope you're not talking about me, Mom." He was a stunning boy - tall like his father, red hair that tended toward brown, deep eyes that had changed over the years until they could match sky or earth, depending on his mood.

As always, they darkened slightly as he kissed his mother hello. That he could do nothing to help her cut him every time he saw her. She smiled reassurance, grasping his hand lightly. "Never. Just some friends of your dad's."

Bill took a seat, moved one over so his father could sit down. "So you're out of here tomorrow?"

"Day after, probably."

"Oh," Bill debated how to ask this. He had stayed at home quite happily since his graduation, but the letter he'd recieved today made him think. "So what do they say?"

Scully shrugged. "Same thing they've been saying for the past year. 'Wait and see.'" She sat up a bit more. "Still, if nothing else, at least I'll be thin."

Bill forbore to mention that she was thin already. Frighteningly so, in fact. He wondered sadly how much longer she'd last. He took a deep breath.

Now was the time to tell them. There wouldn't be a better one.

"I, ah... I got a letter today. From Georgetown." He ducked his head. "They want me for the fall semester. Pre-med and chemistry."

Scully's face brightened to the point where she almost looked well. Bill's father looked pleased, if restrained.

"Oh, Bill, that's wonderful. You're going, of course?"

"It's expensive, Mom," he hedged.

His father turned to him a wry smile on his face. "Your trust fund could pay for a Ph.D., Bill. I'm sure it could handle undergrad at Georgetown. You should go."

Bill shook his head. "I don't know, Dad. Going back to the States, after all these years?" he leaned forward, worried. "Do you think it's safe?"

"You're William Perry Callahan," Scully said simply. "Not Fox Mulder, Jr. Nobody would know. Possibly, no one would *care*." She caught his eyes, held them. "Go, Bill. You should be a doctor."

He hung his head. Some doctor. With the... "touch"... that he had, he should be able to do something for his mother. But all attempts had failed.

It seemed he could do gunshot wounds, but cancer was beyond him.

Of course, part of his mind mused, as they talked of other things, this cancer seemed to be beyond everyone. It wasn't like cancer was incurable. Oh, sure, fifteen or twenty years ago, people died of it all the time, but few ever had fatal cancers now. He knew his parents' past, and wondered what had been done to her to make her die this way.

"I'm going to bed, Dad," Bill stood up and yawned, putting the remote down.

"The remote is on the left armrest."

"Thanks, Bill." Mulder stopped him suddenly. "Bill?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"You're going to go, aren't you?"

Bill sat down again, fiddled with his fingers. "I don't know, Dad. I mean, with Mom as sick as she is, and-"

"She won't be alive by September, Bill. You already know that." His tone was one of sorrow and resignation. He'd known she was dying for a long time now. "You need to go."

"But what about you?"

Mulder laughed. "Bill, this house has absolutely *every* convienence. I could stay in this room, on this couch, and live off of my pension for the rest of my life. You should go."

"I'll think about it some more, Dad," Bill said quietly. "Night." Why did he get the idea that when his father said "the rest of his life," he wasn't thinking about a very long time?

Life seemed awfully creul lately, Mulder thought as he jolted awake on the couch. In his nightmares, he could still see everything. Awake, he didn't even have the shadows.

He pushed himself up, sitting tiredly on the edge of the cushions. The television was still going, replaying an old film. He listened for a moment.

*Lethal Weapon*, maybe? He smiled. Far cry from the old Vincent Prices he used to wake up to. But that had been before his family... Before his life had begun again.

He often thought of it that way. His life had ended the day Samantha had disappeared, and had begun again when he met Scully. And it would end again when she died.

No, he told himself firmly. He had children - grandchildren. She had been his whole life once, but as the years went on, he realized that his life had become so much more - more than he'd ever thought possible.

But she was dying. The worst part of it was that he knew exactly why.

Tragedies, hardships, seemed easier when there was no reason for them. They hadn't known why his eyes had failed, and so had simply lived with it. But her death... He knew the people responsible, knew he would never catch them.

"They're getting away with it, Scully. "

"They have gotten away with it."

And they've gotten away with killing you, he thought bitterly. He felt old suddenly. He rarely felt like that, even at his age. She had always kept him young. Soon, he really would be old.

He jumped as the phone rang. No one would call him this late unless...

"Callahan residence."

"Hi, Mulder."

He melted at her voice. "Hi, yourself. What are you doing calling this late?"

She was silent a moment. "I've been thinking a lot lately. I want to come home."

"The doctors said you'd-"

"Screw the doctors, Mulder," she snapped suddenly. "I want to spend all my time with you. Especially with Bill leaving in the fall. They can't help me here."

His tears welled up - the one thing his eyes could still accomplish. "I'll come get you in the morning, Honey."

"Make it early, Mulder. Very early." She smiled over the phone. "If you're quick enough, I'll describe the sunrise to you."

He grinned through his tears. "As early as I can."

He remembered the first time she had described a sunrise to him. Those first few months had been so difficult. At first, he had just needed thicker glasses. It had gotten rapidly worse, and by the third surgery, they declared there was nothing they could do for him. He had never thought losing his eyesight could cause him such pain.

She had shaken him awake. It must have been very early. The floors were still cold from the Summer night. "Come on, Mulder," she'd whispered, the vixen in her voice. "Come with me, I have to show you something."

"Good luck," he had snapped. He'd poured so much bitterness on her in those weeks of transition. Had been so creul.

"Just come with me," she'd said, helping him bundle himself into his robe, throwing on her own.

She had led him out to the back porch, sat him on the swing, and sat before him.

"What did you want to 'show' me?" he had asked coldly.

"Just a minute more, Fox," she'd said quietly. "You'll see."

He had winced at the word, but her soft hand on his arm comforted him.

After a moment, he could feel the warmth of the sun, hearing the birds step-up their morning chorus. She laid a hand on his face, carefully tracing a half circle from one edge of his eyebrows to the other. "The sun's coming up," she'd whispered quietly.

Her hand ran a soft line down his cheek. "And the trees are blocking some of it," she spread both hands across his cheeks, "but your face is all orange and warm."

Her left hand moved to his chest, tracing the outline of his exposed flesh above the robe. "Your chest is warm," she went on, tracing along an area of coolness that he was just learning to distinguish as his skin in shadow. "But I'm casting a shadow right here."

He had brought his own hand up to cover hers, and her right hand finally followed her left to sandwich his between them. He could feel the wrinkles, the papering of her skin. He had seen it before, but never taken the time to notice its feel.

For the first time in weeks, he hadn't tried to imagine what her eyes were saying, had only listened to her voice to guide him. He leaned in and kissed her deeply.

"This is a really gorgeous sunrise," he commented softly.

Her voice enveloped him as she hugged him tight. "I thought you'd like it."

5:45 am
Vancouver Muncipal Hospital

"Mr. Callahan, I can't emphasise strongly enough-"

"How little you've been able to help my wife?" he ran a tired hand through thinning hair. "She doesn't want to stay here anymore."

"Mrs. Callahan... Dana... please. I know this is difficlt for you, but-"

"It isn't as if I haven't known this was terminal for a long time, Dr. Brighton," she said quietly, packing her books away. "I want to spend time with my husband, my children... My granddaughter has finally said her first words. I want to see her."

"I just feel you'd be more comfortable-"

"I'd be more comfortable at home. With my family." She zipped her bag shut with a finality that brooked no argument.

Brighton spread his hands helplessly. "I just don't think this is a good idea, Dana. You may need more help than your family can give you."

She laid a gentle hand on his arm, her smile warm. "It's okay, doctor.

They'll give me all the help I need."

3:45 pm
August 14, 2020

Mulder let the voices roll around him, holding her hand for the last time.

His son was on the phone.

"She went peacefully, Sam... I know... No, he's all right... What time will your flight be in? ...Okay, I'll pick you up."

"We'll need to know a time of death, sir... It doesn't have to be exact, but..."

"Dad came in about an hour ago. She... she was still warm, so..." he could hear his son begin to cry. "I think about 2:30."

"Thank you, sir. I'm really very sorry..."

"It's been... coming for a while now... Thank you."

"Have any funeral plans been made? Can we... We have to take her to the hospital first, of course, but..."

Bill sniffled, a sound his father remembered from his son's childhood. "We made arrangements last month... I have the paperwork somewhere..."

They left the room, and again, he was left alone with her. He could feel her hand getting colder. "I love you, Dana," he said quietly, reaching a hand up to find her face, placing a tender kiss under her closed eye. "I love you."

He rose, cleared his throat, and followed the voices.

Vancouver
Old cemetery
August 14, 2025

He sat quietly, tracing the lettering on the gravestone. He pictured it in his mind:

Dana Callahan
"Scully"
devoted wife
And mother

He could hear the birds step up their songs, felt the warmth on his back. He slid to one side, tracing a gentle half circle above her name on the slowly warming marble, his voice gentle, loving.

"The sun's coming up..."

The End