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Title: Recovering Gemini
Summary: Five years later, the child Scully gave up for adoption is alone in the world. Staged Duplicity sequel. Author's note: this is a work in progress. (part three posted 8/26/09) The first year after Mulder and I took our son back from my brother Charlie had been difficult. Even though we'd escaped and gotten our son back, we still were looking over our shoulders at every moment. It took us a year of reassurances from Skinner that they were truly not looking for us any longer. Mulder didn't trust that entirely, but having some old friends of the gunmen surreptitiously bug key offices in the Hoover building did a lot to put his mind at ease. Looking back, that hard anxious year was just a blur. It seemed as though we had long since settled into the white picket fence dream that my mother projected onto both Missy and I all our lives with a waxing sense of despair. I don�t think anyone was happier than her when Mulder and I walked down the aisle four years ago. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much. I liked our life together, which Mulder had jokingly dubbed "Life 2.0" and it did seem like we'd rebooted our existence almost entirely. Life had settled into ordinary and predictable, with me being a doctor at last at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, and Mulder heading off four and a half days a week to work with homeless folks with treatable mental conditions. His practice was proud of every person they were able to help find a more stable life. Medicine and social work weren't what we planned on, but we were soon to discover that there are many things you can't plan on. The most important of these things all started on what seemed like an average May afternoon. Mulder-Scully Home
I watched as my almost six-year-old son laboriously filled in a math worksheet at the kitchen table. His brow was furrowed, and the tip of his tongue poked out between his lips, but after a moment he wrote down the correct answer. I wanted to congratulate him, but it would break his concentration. Instead, I busied myself with the salad I was making to go with dinner. As I was chopping tomatoes, I heard William say, "I'm all done." "Good. Put it in your backpack. Then go wash up for dinner." "Okay." He slid off his chair, and ran off. "Will! Walk!" "Okay, Mom!" He called back without slowing down. I sighed. Mulder kept telling me that he was just being a boy, but I was still dumbfounded by the amount of energy that child had. The phone rang, and the first words I heard were, "Dana, are you sitting down?" "No, Mom. Should I be?" I asked warily. My mother wasn't the type of overly dramatic person who often told people to sit down to hear something. "Yes." She said firmly. "And send William out to play so he doesn't overhear our conversation." "You're scaring me, Mom." I complained nervously. "I'm sorry, but please. Do it." She insisted. I put her on hold, and found William in the bathroom still washing his hands. He was pleased when I suggested that he ask Mulder to play catch, though Mulder himself looked full of questions. With a look I promised to tell him everything, and they were soon outside with their baseball gloves. "What�s wrong?" I asked as soon as I picked the phone up again. She took a shuddery breath that could clearly be heard despite the miles between us. "Something happened today, and I have no idea what to do." I was about to ask her what, but she went on. "It's about that little boy you gave up for adoption." Instantly anxious, my fingers tangled in the phone cord. "Did something happen to Joey?" I demanded to know. All sorts of terrible images went through my head, making me fear desperately for the little boy who had allowed me to effortlessly send William into hiding when they were infants. Up until he crash landed in my life, I was going to have to admit to having sent William away, but his presence allowed me to keep it a secret. She responded to the urgency in my tone. "He's okay, Dana." She soothed. "But there's been a terrible tragedy in his family this week. His father is in jail and his mother committed suicide." "What happened??" I immediately pictured a half finished murder-suicide, and in this macabre mental picture, poor Joey saw everything. "Oh God, Dana, it's such an awful thing." I could hear her voice change, as if she was suddenly on the verge of tears. "How much of the news have you caught over the last three days?" "Not much. Mom, tell me what happened." "Joey's parents adopted another baby three months ago. A little girl almost a year and a half old. Three days ago the husband was supposed to have dropped her off at daycare on the way to work, but...he forgot." At first I wondered what was so tragic about forgetting to bring a baby to daycare, when I suddenly remembered a news story I'd only half paid attention to. "Oh no. He left her in the car." As much as I wanted my mother to say no, of course not, she said, "He did. When he got out of work there was a cop breaking the window of his car, but it was already much, much too late. The baby was long dead." "Poor little thing." I muttered absently, horrified that Joey had lost his little sister that way. It seemed a cruel thing to think considering what had happened to the little girl, but I was also happy that if the man was destined to do this, it hadn�t been Joey who�d been forgotten in a car. "Usually they chalk this sort of thing up to a terrible accident, but they've arrested Joey's father. Because the baby was special needs the state has decided to prosecute, apparently thinking that it wasn't an accident." "God. I guess they assumed that he decided that she was too much trouble and used the accident to get rid of her." "Yes. His wife thought so too. She said so in her suicide note." "Was Joey home when all of this happened?" I asked, and then stopped to wonder about something. "Mom, how do you know all these details? Was all this on the news?" "No, Joey goes to a boarding school, so he wasn�t around to see...what happened. As for your second question, a social worker came to the house to see me. She said her name was Carlie Thomas. Does that sound familiar?" As she named her visitor, my mind summoned up a memory of the woman's sympathetic expression when I cried giving Joey to her. "Yes, that was her name. Why did she come to you, though?" "She couldn't find you, so she came to me. She... she promised Joey�s father that she would ask me if I thought you would take the boy back now." "Back?" I asked senselessly. Of course the Thomas woman thought Joey was my son, given that we'd said he was William. William Joseph Scully, answers to Joey. The baby son of a single mother who just couldn't keep him. In reality, he'd been the motherless child of woman who abandoned him on my doorstep just before managing to get herself killed. Joey had only lived with me three months after his mother's body was discovered. Only up until Mulder's lunatic half-brother injected him with metal and told me that aliens would always be looking for him. Worried about his safety, I'd given him to an anonymous family, repaying him for his role in keeping my son safe too. "Both his father and the social worker think Joey is your son." My mother pointed out, unaware that I�d just concluded that on my own. "So of course his wanted to know if you'd want him back." "He must think he�s going to jail, if he�s even thinking of Joey returning to me." The memory of Mulder behind bars, looking hopeless, sprang to mind, and I quickly banished the thought. "Apparently." My mother agreed. "Even if he didn�t do it on purpose, he might think that it�s a fitting punishment. So naturally his thoughts would be on making arrangements for the boy � while he still has any say in the matter." If they convicted him, he could lose his right to keep Joey, I realized. Even if he didn�t go to jail, would he want to raise a child on his own, one that wasn�t even his flesh and blood? A lot of men wouldn�t. "Me getting Joey, is that even a possibility?" I asked, not really thinking about whether or not it was a good idea. Yet. "Apparently. Neither he nor his wife have any living relatives, so his father's thoughts naturally turned to you. I told the Thomas woman I'd ask you about it." My mother said neutrally, not trying to bend me towards one decision or the other. "Oh. And if we didn't take him? Did she say what would happen to him?" "I asked her that. She said it's hard to place six-year-olds. Joey would probably end up in a group home until they can find a foster family. Group home is a modern way of saying orphanage." A bit of heat seeped into my mother's voice, and though she had not said anything to pressure me, I could tell what she thought I should do. "If his father goes to jail, a foster family might be able to adopt him, not that their parent going to jail automatically makes the state release a child for adoption." That's all it took to send my mind racing in ten directions, trying to sort out the pros and cons of bringing Joey home to us, and how on earth Mulder and I would decide on the best course of action. My mother's next words stalled all of those thoughts. "Sweetheart, there's something you should know. I saw a picture of him..." "Mom?" "He looks just like William still. He...looks like you, Dana." My mother's voice dropped to a whisper. "He looks just like you. Even more than William does." For a moment I was struck with a numb horror - had I accidentally given away the wrong baby? But after a moment I was able to quell the fluttery panic. The boys had looked enough alike to fool people who didn�t see them every day, but not that much alike. Not to mention that William had a coffee stain on one hip, and Joey didn�t have any birthmarks. I�d seen the familiar smudge on my son�s skin often over the past few years. "Dana," My mother said, intruding on my thoughts. "Why does he look like you?" "I don�t know." I was willing to chalk it up to coincidence when she asked me something that my mind had already shied away from. "What if your doctor was wrong about how many embryos were viable, and Joey is also yours?" "I think I would have noticed if I�d given birth to twins, Mom." "Damn it, Dana," She snapped back. "You of all people should know that you don�t need to carry a child for it to be yours. That little girl..." She trailed off, leaving both of us to think about my doomed daughter. "I want to know something. Did you ever do a DNA test on Joey?" "No. Why would I have? His mother dropped him off, which proved that he had one." Not that I'd ever seen the woman who left Joey on my welcome mat. "It didn't occur to you to wonder why he looked so much like William when they were babies?" "Babies often look alike." I said defensively. In truth, now that she asked, I don�t know why it hadn�t occurred to me to wonder about that very thing. "You're going to talk about this with Fox, aren't you?" "Of course!" "Tonight?" She prompted. "All right." I paused after letting her think she'd convinced me to do something, thinking. "Did you give the social worker my number?" It seemed unlikely, considering my mother was the one calling. "No. I told her that I'd try to get in touch with you by tomorrow, and have you call her." "Okay, I'll talk to Mulder." She gave me Carlie Thomas' number, and we said goodbye. Mulder must've been watching me through the window, because he and William reappeared a few minutes later. "What's up?" He asked with a deliberate casualness. "I'll explain after dinner." This response seemed to frustrate him, but it wasn't a conversation we should rush through, and dinner would be ready in five minutes. Not to mention that I was sure that neither of us really want William there to hear it. Dinner was subdued. If not for William chattering about his day, there might have been no conversation at all. "Mom, can I play video games?" William wheedled as soon as his plate was in the dishwasher. "Sure." He looked surprised that it hadn't taken more argument, but didn't waste any time scampering off before I could change my mind. When I turned to Mulder, he was already staring at me. "Scully, are you going to tell me what's going on?" I gave him a faint smile. "In our room." The living room where William would be playing and our bedroom were at opposite ends of the house. "So?" Mulder asked after closing our door. "That was my mom. Social services contacted her today about the baby I said was William. Joey's mother is dead, and his father is in jail." "What the hell happened?" He looked shocked. "Is little boy okay?" "That story on the news, about the baby dying after being left in the car?" He nodded, obviously having listened to the news. "The baby was Joey's little sister. They arrested his father, and his mother killed herself. The father had the social worker I gave Joey to get in touch with Mom. They wanted her to ask us if we'd take him back." I explained. "You gave him up because you thought we couldn't protect them both. Has that changed?" Mulder asked carefully. "I gave him up because I thought I couldn't protect him. When I gave him up, I had no idea if you and I would ever be reunited again. I couldn't bear to be apart from William much longer at that point, and if I was going to be raising him alone, I didn't think that I was up for protecting two helpless babies. If I had known that you would be back six weeks later... I would've toughed it out." "You wanted to keep him." Mulder said softly. "Of course I did. You don't take care of a baby that sweet for three months without wanting to keep him." I confessed. "Up until Spender gave him that shot, I thought I was going to. You'd come home, we'd go get William at my brother's, and we'd raise them as twins." "I got the sense that might be the case, but you never told me." Mulder said. I looked up at him with stinging eyes. "If I hadn't been sure that his new family would have demanded a paternity test, I would've begged you to contest the adoption on the grounds it was illegal because no one had notified you. I would have asked you to get him back for me because between the two of us, we could've kept them both safe." "Scully..." his sympathetic look loosened the first tear to roll down my cheek. "Now I wish I had, and let them do a paternity test." "Why?" He asked curiously. "The social worker showed Mom Joey's picture. She's convinced that Joey is ours because he looks like me. What if he is ours, Mulder? No matter how hard it would have been, I wouldn't have given him up if I had known he was ours. Like I said, I thought we'd raise them as twins. But I had no idea that they might actually be twins." "How likely is that?" Mulder asked gently. "I think you might have noticed giving birth twins. We could call Monica Reyes-" I smirked at him. "I unwisely said the same thing to Mom. She was quick to remind me that I hadn't given birth to Emily. Mulder, what if she's right and we were lied to about how many ova were viable? Or embryos? It wouldn't be the first pre-birth kidnapping..." Not even the first in the family, I thought with a pang. He looked lost in thought for a moment. "It doesn't matter if he's yours, though, does it? You want him back either way, don't you?" That shut me up. Would bringing Joey into our lives be the best thing for him? For us? My mind summoned up the helplessness that I felt at the hospital after Jeffrey Spender injected Joey with magnetite. At that moment I didn't know if he would live, and I had never felt less capable of protecting anyone. He was completely dependent on me, and I let him down. Worse, I felt like I had been entirely responsible for putting him into danger in the first place. But if Joy's mother was right, if Joey's birth mother had been right, then these children had already been in constant danger before I met either of them. Alone I hadn't been able to protect Joey. I wasn't alone now. "Scully?" "Yes, Mulder. Even if he is not mine - ours - if he can't stay with the man who has raised him, he needs to be cared for by someone who understands what he might be. I spent the past five years regretting that I allowed him to be given to a family who had no idea what he was. I don't know how I'll live with myself for the next 12 years if I repeat that mistake." "All right. We'll call that social worker and see if we can have him." Mulder said, as if the matter was settled. "Don't we need to discuss this more? This not a puppy I saw the pet store and just had to have. Were talking about raising another child, don't you need more time to think about this?" "If I hadn't left you and William, odds are that Joey would be living with us already." He pointed out. "So you're agreeing with me because you feel guilty?" My voice rose, and I hated it. "I'm agreeing because I want to make things right." He put his hand over mine. "Let's talk to social services and express our interest in Joey." "Okay." I felt the fight go out of me. "But let's not tell William before we talk to them." Mulder paused and gave me a long look. "Scully...if it turns out that he's not our biological son, I don't think we should take him back unless the plan is that we're taking him back permanently. All right?" "All right." I agreed, wondering how long it would take to do a DNA test, and how we could do one secretly. "Good." Mulder said softly. "It doesn't matter to me whose son he is if we can keep him, but I don't want to get attached if he's just going to be returned to his father in a few weeks or months." "I understand that." It had only taken me three months to get attached the first time.
Washington, DC Twenty hours later, Mulder and I found ourselves sitting in front of Carlie Thomas, the social worker for the private adoption agency I'd used to give up Joey five years earlier. She was the last person I thought I'd ever see again, but she welcomed us with a smile. "You look well." She told me, probably thinking of the last time I'd seen her. Blotchy-faced and crying, I'd probably looked pathetic. I'd felt pathetic. "Thank you." "Why don't you each take a seat?" She invited, and we sat in the chairs she indicated. Glancing at Mulder, she turned to me and asked, "Is this William's father?" I must have looked surprised, because she quickly added, "Sorry, I know everyone calls him Joey." Mulder gave her a charming smile. "That's right. I'm Joey's father." He touched my arm. "Dana and I were reunited quite a while back." "That's lovely." Thomas said warmly, but a business-like demeanor soon took her over. "I was hoping that I could convince you to come with me this afternoon to speak to Mister Van de Kamp before we get into the legalities of Joey's situation." She paused a moment, letting the request sink in. "He wants to speak to us?" Mulder asked after a moment. Ms. Thomas nodded. "He wanted to speak to you about dissolving the adoption." "So he doesn't want to keep Joey even if he's not convicted." I said, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. On one hand knowing that taking Joey in would be permanent was a relief, because we wouldn't have to worry about giving him up later. But on the other, how would Joey feel about the man he considered to be his father not wanting to keep him? I suppose she read the mixed emotions on my face, because she gave me a wan smile. "The jail is less than an hour from here, and I've called ahead to tell them that we may be coming, so a meeting has already been approved." "Let's go." Mulder said, starting to stand. He took my arm and we followed Thomas out to the parking lot. As Mulder followed Thomas' car to the jail, I couldn't help but be glad that the Van de Kamp family had relocated on the east coast after Joey's adoption, because that made it possible for us to speak to the man without having to fly. Over the phone Thomas had said the couple raising Joey had originally lived in Wyoming, but had come to Maryland three years before when they decided to give up raising livestock for tobacco. That bit of information was startling in a way, because we'd had no idea that the boy was so close. During the drive I wished that we'd taken one car so we could talk to the social worker, but I had a feeling that she'd taken her own car to prevent that. I got the sense that she thought that the answers to our questions would be better received from Joey's soon-to-be erstwhile adoptive father. Realizing this left me feeling uneasy, and wondering why she thought that a hard sell from him would be necessary. After what seemed like an eternity, a blocky gray building loomed into view, and Thomas put on her turn signal. Mulder followed suit, muttering, "I guess we're here." Thomas was already standing beside her car by the time Mulder and I got out of ours. She looked at us and said, "I think your willingness to speak to him will mean a lot to Mister Van de Kamp." I shrugged internally. What did it matter to us that it would make him happy? I trusted him with Joey's future, and over the course of one day he'd managed to turn the child's life upside down. To say that making him happy wasn't one of my priorities was a massive understatement. A staff person met us at the door, and after a brief conversation with Thomas, led us to one of the visitors' rooms. As soon as we stepped inside, I noted that this would not be a conversation behind a thick pane of glass, and I couldn't decide what if that was a good thing or not. After a three minute delay, a guard led the prisoner into the room. This was the first look I'd ever gotten of the man who'd spent the last five years raising Joey. Though Jonathan Van de Kamp clearly had been a man who'd spent much of his adult life doing hard work, his shoulders slumped in a defeated way, making him look smaller than he surely was. What hair he had left was disheveled, and I shot Mulder a glance � the fact that he hadn't bothered to brush his hair before meeting expected visitors didn't seem to speak well of his mind state. Mulder nodded minutely. Van de Kamp then sat at the metal table across from us and put up no fight as he was shackled to the concrete floor. I glanced briefly at the guard who had immediately retired to the doorway. Did Van de Kamp seem like a man who might bolt? The guard, his arms crossed sternly over his chest, didn't seem inclined to discount the possibility, no matter how small. "You look just like him." Van de Kamp said, barely able to bring himself to look me in the eye. He didn't even seem to notice that Mulder and Thomas were sitting on either side of me. "When he asked us about his birth parents, we told him that he looked like his mother. It was just a guess, but it's true." I thought about saying that William had my eyes too, but bringing him up seemed only likely to confuse the father and the social worker both, so I didn't. Instead I nodded. I didn't know what to say to this man, a man who was obviously broken, but had pasted on a hopeful look when he'd spotted me at the table. "Ms. Thomas tells us that you want to dissolve the adoption." Mulder said. "And want us to consider taking Joey back." "Yes." Van de Kamp sounded almost scared to admit it. He didn't look at either of us as he spoke. "What if you're found not guilty?" I asked, thinking of Mulder's caveat about taking Joey in, if he's not ours biologically. "We don't want to take him back, only to have you trying to regain custody a few months from now." We'd fight him for it, if he turned out that he was ours was something that went without saying, but at the moment, it wasn't an "if" I wanted to focus the conversation on. Bringing up the fact that he might not be our biological son would only make things more difficult. "I am guilty." Joey's father said, sighing heavily. "It doesn't matter what the judge and jury decide, I did it. I didn't mean to-" He looked up at us with eyes full of unshed tears, "-but Ava is dead because of me. I don�t deserve to be in another's child's life. Michelle said as much herself in the note she left..." I was about to reply with a polite lie, but I noticed Mulder nodding his head. "So you want to give him up no matter what the outcome of your trial." "I do. If you can take care of him now, he should be with you." "We can." I said softly, and Mulder reached for my hand. "We want him back." The expression on Van de Kamp's face was a bitter mixture of relief and regret. I wonder if it's what Thomas had seen on my face the day I put Joey in her arms. He cleared his throat before saying "Thank you" in a mechanical tone. "We need to know what Joey knows about the situation." Mulder said, making us all focus again. "Ms. Thomas said that he attends a boarding school?" "In Delaware." "Why?" I wanted to know. It made little sense to me that people who desperately wanted a child would then turn around and send him off to boarding school for kindergarten. "He's so bright. The regular school system admitted that they didn't know what to do with kids like Joey. So they recommended a boarding school for exceptionally bright children. It was hard to let him go, but Michelle and I thought that it was the best thing for him. Even if it wasn't necessarily for us." "Hmm." I muttered, trying to appear understanding. I was just glad that the school system in Carter was able to handle exceptionally bright children like William, and apparently Joey. However, if the local school system wasn't up to the task of supplying gifted education, Mulder and I would have taken on the task of supplementing William's education rather than sending him away. "Does he..." I leaned forward in my chair, trying to find the words. "Does he know your wife and daughter have passed away?" Van de Kamp nodded briefly, looking sad. "The headmaster told him immediately. He's taking it about as well as expected, real broken up about Michelle." He sighed. "I guess it's a minor blessing that he didn't spend much time at home since we adopted Ava..." It was startling to think that not having the chance to become attached to a sibling could be a blessing, but in this case it was hard to deny that it was probably true. If Joey had spent every day of the past few months getting to know his sister, he would be even more grief-stricken. "Does anyone at the school know that you intend to give him up?" Mulder asked. "Does Joey?" I added. Van de Kamp hung his head. "The headmaster does, but I haven't let anyone tell Joey." "Why not?" Mulder demanded to know. "It's not going to be any easier on him if we show up to get him and catch him completely unaware." "I'll...I'll have my attorney give them a call after you leave and have someone tell Joey that he's not going to be living with me any more." "Well, good." Mulder said grudgingly. "There's just one thing, though. Do we need to tell him that giving him up is my choice?" "Who do you propose take the blame instead?" I demanded to know. "We're not about to tell him that we're taking him away from you. That wouldn't do anything positive to help him learn to live with the situation and trust us." "Oh no, of course not." Van de Kamp said quickly. "I, um...he's not quite six. Can't you just let him believe that the people who arrested me won't let me have him any more because I've been in jail?" "I guess so." Mulder answered for both of us. I shot him a look. I hadn't decided yet how I felt about lying to the boy. He shrugged. "Thank you." Van de Kamp's eyes were decidedly watery. "If you tell him that you talked to me, can you tell him that I love him? That I always will?" "Why don't you tell him yourself?" I suggested. "Don't you want to keep in contact with him?" I'd already been envisioning walking into this place with Joey holding my hand. "No." "No?" Mulder frowned at the other man. "It would make me feel better to talk to him, or even see him, but how is it fair to him? If he and I keep in touch, won't he be thinking about living with me again?" Van de Kamp said, and I couldn't help but agree with him. "I'd appreciate it if you'd give me updates on him from time to time, but I think we all need to agree that a clean break is better for him." "And if he wants to contact you?" Mulder asked. Van de Kamp sighed. "Tell him that 'they' won't let me talk to him or have letters from him, or vise versa." When I glanced at Mulder, he looked as tense as I knew he would. Without asking him, I knew that his mind was on giving Joey a good start on distrusting authority. We, of course, distrusted authority quite a bit ourselves, but it was hardly an indiscriminant distrust. "All right." I said after a moment. I knew that a time would come when we'd tell Joey the truth. I wondered if Van de Kamp knew it was true. "Are we done here?" "You're really going to keep him?" The prisoner looked a bit desperate around the eyes suddenly, as if he thought we'd just been humoring him. "We keep our word." Mulder said shortly before standing up. Neither of us offered him any wishes of good luck as we parted company with him. Joey's father was too thoroughly resigned to his fate for that. Just as she had when we entered the prison, Carlie Thomas led the way out. "Now what happens?" I asked as soon as the door swung behind us. Instead of answering, she asked a question of her own. "Do you have a lawyer?" "We can get one." Mulder told her. "Why, do we need to have a court hearing?" Thomas shook her head. "If you can get a lawyer to file a motion asking that Jonathan's wishes be enforced, it may well just require a judge signing a desk order to transfer custody to you." "And if it doesn't?" I asked. Thomas' shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "We'll have to go through another adoption. It occasionally happens when all parties agree that a child should be raised by their birth parents." "How long will it take to know one way or the other?" Mulder asked. "It depends on how soon you engage a lawyer." We drove home that afternoon racking our brains to think of who we trusted to lend legal council for us. Carter, West Virginia
To our utter shock, the lawyer we hired was easily able to follow through on Carlie's desk order suggestion. When my mother first suggested that it might be possible for us to have Joey, my mind spun out an involved courtroom battle, where Mulder and my's character were put on the stand, and we'd have to defend the decision to give the baby up in the first place. Instead, within 48 hours of meeting the lawyer, we had custody papers signed by a judge in our hands. That behind us surprisingly quick, we had the next hurtle to jump over: telling William. Mulder decided to kill two birds with one stone, which is why we put William in the car and headed to the mall the next morning. William didn't ask why until we were standing in the bedding department of one of the stores. "What are we buying?" "What do you think of these sheets?" Mulder asked him instead of answering. "Do you think a boy your age might like them?" "I guess. The blue ones you're holding, or maybe the green ones next to them." William didn't seem to really care, but I didn't think nearly six-year-old boys usually care about bedding. Mulder threw both sheet sets into the cart, before turning to the comforters. "What about these?" William picked one up and handed it to him. "Why? Who are you buying stuff for?" "Your brother." I said softly. His eyes widened. "My brother?! I don't have a brother." Mulder shot me a warning look to remind me that we weren't going to mention the possibility of them being twins until after we did a DNA test. "Will, remember how we told you another baby came to live with me and you for a little while before he got a new family?" "Yeah. You said his name is Joey." William said, surprising me by remembering that detail. I must have talked to him about Joey more than I thought. "Right. Well, Joey's family had something terrible happen a few days ago. His mom and little sister died, and his father can't keep him." Mulder didn't mention that Jonathan Van de Kamp was in jail, but I'm sure it would come up in the future. "Oh, man! He must be so upset! What happens to him-" William stopped short, and looked at us and the bedding piling up in the shopping cart. "Is he going to live with us again?" "Yes." Mulder told him. "We're going to get him tomorrow." "For how long, this time?" William asked. "Forever." I replied. "A judge said that he belongs to your dad and me now." "So I'm going to have a brother." "You sure are." Mulder said carefully. "And since he's the same age as me he isn't going to cry, sleep all the time, or wear diapers." William added. I wondered for a moment if he felt cheated, but he then said, "A new brother without him having to be a stupid baby first. Cool!" "Babies aren't stupid-" I started to protest, but Mulder squeezed my shoulder. "Let it go, Scully." He leaned down and whispered in my ear, "If we ever manage another miracle baby, we'll work on changing his mind then." I relaxed. The possibility of a baby was so remote that it wasn't worth worrying about. "Dad, what about this?" William asked, handing his father a boxed lamp. It was filled with fake jellyfish that were supposed to swim when the light was on. "Can we each get one of these?" "Sure." Mulder told him, and they added a pair of them to the cart. Monroe, Delaware
Amesbury Academy sat on several acres of precisely manicured lawn. It was a large imposing building, and it instantly made me feel as though Mulder and I ought to have changed into more formal clothing. We timidly knocked on the door, and were soon led to an office that had the words "Thaddeus Crane, Headmaster" painted upon it in thick definitive lettering. After a moment a stern-faced man walked over to us. "Hi, we're-" He cut me off with a look. "I know who you are." "You do?" Mulder asked, and I could detect his faint amusement. "Yes. You're Joseph Van de Kamp's biological parents." Crane said abruptly. "I take it then that custody of the child has been transferred back to you after the tragedy in his family." "Yes." I admitted. "Do you intend to have him finish the semester, or take him home with you today?" "I think we'll be bringing him home with us today." Mulder said, sounding uncertain. I didn't blame him. Crane was hard to read, so it was not easy to tell which answer the man wanted to hear. "That's probably for the best. If he's to be integrated into your family, it should probably be sooner than later. I'll have someone pack up his belongings so they can be shipped to your home." "Great, we'll just-" I started to say, but Crane's eyes cut towards the door. For a second my heart jack-hammered, and I was sure that I was staring at a ghost. When we were growing up, Charlie resented people telling him that he looked just like me, but he had. And this little boy could be him, thirty-odd years ago. Thick red hair framed his face, and wide blue eyes regarded us suspiciously. Something about seeing a kindergartener wearing a tie and blazer made my heart ache, maybe because he was immaculately dressed, and I didn't expect that. Mulder turned towards me and mouthed "He looks like Will." And I realized then that he did. William's colorless baby fuzz had darkened as a toddler and his hair now was as brown as Mulder's. But apart from that, they looked a lot alike. It left me vaguely wondering why I'd never realized that William looked like my brother too. "Don't just stand there, Joseph." Crane admonished the little boy. "Come say hello to your parents." "I can't." Joey said in a strained voice. "My parents aren't here." "Don't be silly." Crane's lips thinned to a thin line. "You know I meant your biological parents." |
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