Classification: TRHA

Rating: R for sexual situations, religious issues that might be negatively interpreted.

Summary:

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not going to be. Just taking them out and having fun. Property of 1013 Productions and Fox Television.

"I wish I was the warrior king
In every language that I speak..."

"Warrior King" by Lou Reed Copyright 1992 Metal Machine Music/Used without permission.
 

O Theos Kai E Phusis Ouden Maten Poiousin

Saturday, July 10, 1999
Allison's bedroom

Langly had taken off on Thursday. I didn't see him again until Saturday morning around 3:00 a.m.; apparently Mulder needed them to do some digging, about what I wasn't sure.

I had fallen asleep on the sofa reading a trashy romance novel that I had borrowed from Dana sometime back and had never gotten the chance to read. The last thing I remembered before fading to black was a lame joke on Jay Leno. The exhaustion of the week caught up with me, and I was out cold. So I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the bell.

Having pulled out my contacts hours before, I was still groping for my glasses when I heard a familiar, mildly whining voice that begged entry.

"Ally, it's me! Open up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I groaned in my semicomatose state. But I really was thrilled that he was there.

"Hey, you." I reached out and grabbed him around the middle, and he kissed me on top of my hair.

"So I woke you up."

"Hey, I don't mind. It's not every night a girl gets to be roused by some mythical sex god."

"Is that all you want me for, my body?"

"That, and everything else. But hey, I'm not greedy." I yawned and pushed my glasses up my nose. "You hungry?"

"You offering to cook at this hour? God, I died and went to heaven," he smiled. "Yeah, actually.

"I didn't say you were getting it free," I reminded him.

"Hey, I'll pay up. Want me to make the coffee?"

"Langly, you may touch any part of my body your heart desires, but go near my coffeemaker, and you're a dead man."

He laughed. "You got omelet stuff?"

"Cheese and eggs. Maybe some onions and peppers."

"Cool."

"Tell you what. I know you make the world's most horrible coffee, but I assume you can toast bread competently."

"Toast I can do."

"Okay, you just got toast detail." I pulled a loaf of seven-grain from the freezer and tossed it to him.

"So what sort of grunt work did Mulder have you doing?"

Langly continued to drop bread slices into the toaster as he spoke. "Well, it's sort of weird, but then, anything Mulder asks us to look into is weird. We were checking out this temple--"

"What sort of temple?"

"A Lubovich temple. It's some kind of really conservative bizarre Jewish sect."

"I'm not terribly familiar with the Luboviches, but I've heard of them. Go on."

Anyway, it's not like a normal type synagogue. I mean, the one you went to in L.A. was a big, nice place, building endowment fund--"

"How do you know about the temple I went to in L.A.?"

"Oh, we investigated that, too, before you came out here. Wanted to make sure--"

I turned from where I was mixing eggs with peppers and onions. "Was there anything about my life that you didn't nose around in before I got here?" I knew I had been subject to a pretty extensive background check, and it had been a real source of shock and dismay when I first arrived in DC, but it had been a long time since the subject had been brought up.

"Wanted to make sure what?" I think I came off a bit sharper than I intended to, because he actually flinched a bit.

"Well, you know how paranoid Mulder gets--"

"Yeah, I know, I know."

"Ally, we did this at Mulder's request. I mean, I didn't know jack about you, and I really didn't care until I met you. But now that I do, I can just ask you stuff. I mean, I don't need to go around snooping and stuff on you." He sounded mildly affronted.

"Hey, I'm not getting down on you, Langly. But if I ever find out that you--or Frohike or Byers--are keeping up any kind of surveillance on me, I'm gonna be majorly pissed off. I like to think of myself as trustworthy, and I try to be truthful. Seems to me that truth and trust are getting to be pretty rare commodities."

"Rarer than you think."

"Hey, Langly, I'm not trying to jump all over your case. I'm just not...used to this. I mean, I'm not from that kind of world. My parents may have been alcoholics. My father was always busy and my mother is half insane. But they didn't lie to me. Not about themselves, and not about anything. My husband didn't lie to me. My friends didn't. My daughter doesn't. And don't even think about trying it."

"Hey, Ally, I do trust you. I trust you more than anyone in the world. You're a straight up lady."

"And I intend to stay that way," I reminded him. "And I don't care how many conspiracies you discover. I don't care how many webs of lies you get trapped in in your work. Just don't pull that shit on me. I'm not going to appreciate it." The omelets were beginning to take shape, and they smelled pretty tasty. We set the table with salt and pepper and jam and dishes.

"I won't." And I believed him.

"Fair enough. Omelets are ready. Sit."

"Thanks, I was starving."

"Langly babe, you're always starving."

"Good thing you're a Jewish mother."

"Yeah, that I am," I laughed. "Speaking of which, tell me more about what's going on with this temple."

"Okay, this temple, it's in Roanoke."

"Didn't know Roanoke had a large Jewish population."

"It doesn't. But this little community sort of sprang up there a few years ago. Anyway, it's pretty small, had about 40 families in this temple."

"40 families and 2,000 kids between them probably."

"Did appear that there were a lot of little kids in the congregation. But that's not what was weird."

"So what was it?"

"Well, the women in the temple--the adult women, and the teenage girls, it's like, they're perfectly healthy one day, and a bunch of them just suddenly died."

"Okay, that's bizarre. But it could have been any number of things."

"We checked on that stuff."

"Did you think to check the mikvah?"

"What's that?"

"The ritual cleansing that religious Jewish women go when they finish menstruating each month. They have a bathhouse for it."

"Oh, yeah, Mulder had Scully take water samples and stuff from there. Not as clean as we'd like to have seen, but nothing deadly."

"Ventilation in the temple?"

"Not up to code apparently, but nothing that would knock somebody dead in a hurry. Besides, the men and the kids aren't affected."

"What about in the women's section of the temple? The sexes sit separately in Orthodox groups."

"Nothing weird checked out there."

"That's pretty strange, but there's got to be a some explanation."

"Oh, there's an explanation. We're just not there yet. Hey, this is decent," he complimented me on the omelet. "So Ally, you're a Jewish woman. Why would someone target Jewish women?"

"Hey, targeting Jews is nothing new. Check your history, boy."

"Mulder wants to know why this particular group, and why just the women."

"So the first thing you do is look into the people in this temple."

"Yep."

"How's Mulder on Jewish history?"

"From what I can tell, not bad. Probably could use some help, so we're doing some checking. How're you in that area?"

"I suck really badly, thank you."

"You know Hebrew, though."

"So does Mulder. We probably went through about the same amount of Hebrew school, although I did take some in connection with my college minor. Mostly I did Latin and Greek, though. I picked up a touch of Aramaic, which is about all anybody knows anymore."

"Seems odd that a bio major would minor in dead languages."

"Hebrew is not a dead language. And anyway, Latin is recommended for science majors, and I just really enjoyed it. Had it been offered as a major, I'd probably have switched. Which really would have thrilled my parents." I gave a snide grin on that one. "Not." I sipped my coffee. "Did you minor in anything?"

"Anthropology."

"Now that seems an odd choice for an applied math major." I laughed.

"Hey, we had a shortage of good looking women in the math department, and there was a surplus in anthropology. I was hoping to get at least some of the runoff."

"You are so bad."

"Any good-looking guys in the classics department?"

"A few."

"Go out with any of them?"

"One of my TA's for a short time. After his section was over." More coffee. "How about you?"

"Nope. I think I was too young and too geeky for them."

"That's true. You got there early and raced right through. I meant the too young, not the too geeky part."

"So you don't think I'm too much of a geek? You're the first."

"Hey, give me a geek over a jerk in the business department any day of the week." I smiled at him. I had lit the candles and dimmed the kitchen lights, and he looked very soft, innocent, like a Botticelli angel. I reached out and touched the incandescent hair. I loved his hair.

"Do you know you're the only blonde I've ever had?"

"Seriously."

"Well, it's not like I've had a huge mass of experiences, but I always went for brunettes."

"Yeah, even if I hadn't seen pictures of him, I'd have to guess from Miranda that he was the dark one. She looks dead on for him."

"That she does. She always has."

"Is that hard for you?"

"You would think, but no, it's like part of him lives on in her."

"23 chromosomes part, to be exact."

"She did get my blue eyes, but at least she got a better shade."

"Nothing wrong with the color you have. Sort of blue-grey. Like slate. I like it." He placed his elbow on the table, and leaned his head on it and studied me. "God, you're pretty."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," I assured him.

"It's not flattery. You wanted me to be straight up with you. I am."

"Thank you." And I blushed. I was doing more of that lately.

"And you're the only redhead I've ever had."

"So help me with the dishes, and then you can have me again."

"There's a plan."

***

Not that I had a huge basis for comparison, but that night was the nicest lovemaking we had done. It was very slow and very tender, lots of exploring. I had no complaints about our first few encounters, but it was really great to not come in the first few minutes. We were getting more comfortable with the sight and feel and smell of one another. I wanted to taste every inch of him, and I did.

As a result, we got to sleep long after it was light outside. I was blissfully comatose when I dreamed I heard a familiar voice.

"Mom!" It was Miranda's voice. I was dreaming. I buried my face in Langly's chest, and he drowsily draped and arm over me. She wouldn't be back until tomorrow, and I could just relax and enjoy...

"Mom!" The dream was getting more insistent. I opened my eyes a bit.

"Mom, I'm home!" Oh shit. This was not a dream. "Mom, where are you?" She sounded a bit panicked.

I raised myself up quickly and pulled on the first thing I found, which was my shorts and Langly's Soup Dragons T-shirt. It's not as if I had planned to lie to my daughter, but I did prefer that she not find us in flagrante.

Too late. She was on her way up the stairs.

"Hi, sweetheart!"

"Mom, you scared me. Why--" She had already opened the bedroom door. "I should have guessed."

"Hey, Miranda."

"Hi, Langly." She did not sound terribly enthusiastic.

"We thought you were coming back tomorrow, honey, or I don't think you'd have found us in our current state."

"We were coming back tomorrow. But they were tired and wanted to leave this morning, so here I am."

"Well, I'm glad you're home, honey. I missed you."

"Gee, did you have time?" She asked acerbically. Miranda can be pretty wickedly sarcastic. Much more so than her age would indicate.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did," I reminded her, a bit hotly. "Look, why don't you give me five minutes to take a shower and get something on, and then we can talk. A lot happened while you were away."

"I'd say so."

I closed the bedroom door. "She okay?" Langly asked.

"I think so. But I don't think I should keep her waiting. Let me in the shower really fast, and then it's all yours."

"You mean I have to do it myself?" He was teasing, but I was not quite up for it.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of parenting, Langly.    If this scares you, it's your last chance to scream and run."

"Nah. She'll be okay. I'll talk to her too."

"Okay, but let me talk to her first. Which should be easy, because you take a lot longer in the shower than I do."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen you."

"Only together, and let's face it, we were doing other things."

"I bet you'll take longer than me."

"Bet I won't."

"We'll see."

***

My hair was still wet when I found my daughter on the sofa, stretched out and watching one of the illegal satellite channels we had courtesy of our affiliation with Langly, Byers and Frohike.

I ran over to give her a hug. "So how're you doing?"

"I'm okay."

"Did you enjoy your vacation?"

"It was pretty cool, but I'm sort of glad we came home early. We were all starting to get on each other's nerves."

"That happens on vacations."

"You certainly got more tanned."

"And you got roasted. What the hell were you doing?"

"Well, it's like--let me start at the beginning, okay?"

"Beginning of what?"

"The week, okay? It's been unusual."

"Not half as unusual as finding my mother in bed with a guy."

I let that one slide. "I'm getting to that. After you took off, I went back to work on Tuesday, and when I got there, I found out I didn't have a job anymore."

That got her attention. "You're kidding. What happened?"

"Dana and Mulder are going back...to another division. She isn't going to need my assistance in her position."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I have an interview at Catholic University on Monday."

"Well, that's pretty cool. I really hated you working at the FBI."

"I know. I think this job will involve a lot fewer hours."

"That would be good. I was worried you were going to say we were going back to California."

"Worried?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I loved living there and all. But I...it's like, things are different here in my school. I'm considered pretty cool here, and I wasn't back in L.A. And Daddy's not there. If I went there again, I'd miss my friends and I'd feel bad about Daddy all the time." She studied her hands for a moment. "But I really hated your job. It seemed like Dana and Mulder were taking all your time."

"I thought you liked them."

"I do. But God, sometimes they act like the world revolves around them!"

I had to laugh. "They do, don't they?"

"Yeah. And if you go back to working at college, like you used to, that would be a lot better, because then we could be together more. I wouldn't have to always ask Langly to help me with my homework. I mean, I like him a lot. He's cool. But you're my mom, and I want you to help me."

 "And I will. It is going to mean a lot less money, though. And I ended up giving some of it to Grandpa--Miranda, Grandpa died last week."

"Big surprise there."

"Miranda!" I was appalled at her caustic tone.

"Mom, I love Grandpa, you know I do. But I'm sick of funerals and dead people, and anyway, you knew he was going to die after Grandma died."

"Well, we need to say Kaddish for him at temple sometime."

"Yeah." She began to cry. "I'm sorry. I just don't want anybody else to die. I'm only 13. All these people around me die. It's not fair!"

"I have to agree. Actually, Aunt Emma didn't tell me until after the funeral."

"So you didn't go to California again?"

"Not this time, no."

"So what's Aunt Emma gonna do?"

"Good question. She's not sure right now."

"So what else happened?"

"Well, Langly and I are sleeping together."

"I figured that was gonna happen sooner or later. It's just so weird, Mom. I mean, you were always with Daddy. And now you're with this whole other guy. It's freaky."

"Does this bother you?"

"It'd bother me less if you guys bothered to be decent when I'm around." She was still sniffling, but she was looking better. "I mean, it's really embarrassing, Mom."

"Okay, how about if we agree to some propriety."

"Well, it'd make it easier. I mean, you wanna sleep with him, cool, but do you have to be so obvious about it?"

"We weren't planning to be."

"Well, that's good. Because finding you guys like that, I feel really weird being around him right now."

"Well, when he comes down, he'll be dressed."

"Not totally. You have his shirt on."

Ah. I still had the Soup Dragons on.

"He's probably got something in the laundry room."

"Mom, this is just so so weird for me."

"Weird for us, too."

"What's weird for us?" Langly wandered down the stairs, clad in only a pair of jeans. "Where's my shirt?"

"Mom has it on," Miranda told him.

"I think you have stuff in the laundry room."

"Hope so."

He wandered back to the kitchen-laundry area, and Miranda shook her head.

"He's got sunburn too."

"Well--"

"Don't tell me, you two went out in the sun and had a boinkfest." She looked mildly disgusted. "This is what I mean, Mom. You guys are acting like idiots."

"I think not."

"Well, you're adults, you're not supposed to act like teenagers."

"And why the hell not?" I demanded. Now I was annoyed with her. I understood her position. Now she was going to understand mine.

"Listen to me, Miranda. I've always been an adult for you. I've had to be both adults for almost the past year. And it's been pretty damn hard. It's not getting any easier. And I don't particularly feel like going through my life alone."

"You're not alone. You have me."

"Yes, and I am glad I do. But Miranda, you have your own life, too. And I really don't think I want to spend all the rest of my life alone. I mean, you'll grow up, move on, do adult things of your own. And I want to be part of your adult life, but that means not hanging on you for everything. I know this is really bizarre for you, but I'm not going to apologize because I have someone I love in my life."

"Do you love him more than Daddy?"

"No. I love him differently."

"How?"

"Because he's a different person."

"So you don't miss Daddy anymore."

"Au contraire. I still miss him terribly. I will always miss him. But life is fuller this way. And I'm not sorry it happened."

She turned that over in her mind for a while. Then she raised her eyes up to me and gave me a severe look.

"Your mother's gonna have a cow. He's not even Jewish."

***

"Whose mother is having a cow?" Langly had located a Truncheon Scars T-shirt that looked like it had at least a decade on it.

"My Grandma will hate you," Miranda assured him.

"Sounds like your grandma hates a lot of people."

"That's true."

"Doesn't seem to stop your mom from doing what she likes."

"No, nothing stops my mom from doing what she likes," Miranda sighed.

"Hey, stop making me out to be evil here." I was absolutely not in the mood.

"I didn't say that." Miranda got very defensive.

"She really didn't, Ally, and besides, she's right."

"Oh, great. I get to run the gauntlet here."

"Mom, just because you do what you like doesn't make it bad." Pretty heavy stuff from a 13-year-old.

"I think it's more your mom does what she thinks is right. And she's usually pretty dead on."

"I'm taking a shower," Miranda announced abruptly.

"And we all appreciate that," Langly assured her.

She responded to that by sticking her tongue out at him before she darted up the stairs. He returned the gesture. Kids.

"I think this may be hard for her," I warned him.

"Hey, it's probably pretty strange. But at least she's dealing better than Frohike."
 

END OF PART 11