Classification: TRHA

Rating: PG

Summary: Adventures in child rearing and new discoveries.

Spoilers: None.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. But they should be. Property of 1013 Productions and Fox Television.
 

"My adversary glares at me.
They have gaped at me with their mouth,
They have slapped me on the cheek with contempt."

Job 16:9-10, New American Standard Version.

Katadunasteuo
 

August 10, 1999

I wondered if I could ever have a normal response to a ringing telephone again. Every time it went off, my heart rate went up about 20 beats and my palms went cold. I began to seriously consider not having one in my home...

"You get it. Please." I waved at Langly.

"Yeah? Hey Mulder. You on the west coast still? Uh-huh. Yeah. So Scully filled you in. No, we haven't. No, don't worry, we're not gonna drag her into this. Yeah, it was really weird. Yeah, the kids are fine." He put his hand over the speaker. "Hey, what're the names of the drones they sent out here?"

"Lowry and...I think it's Carnesale. Yeah."

"Lowry and Carnesale. How should I know? Couldn't get much on them, so maybe they don't make a lifestyle out of screwing things up the way you do. Course, I didn't go nuts checking 'em out, either. But they seem reasonably clean, considering where they come from. No, I didn't. No, he didn't. Maybe I'm not his type. Mulder, you are so weird sometimes. So what if he's a cake boy? I don't give a fuck. Can he do the work? Okay, so what's your problem? So what's your take on this?"

A long interval of silence prevailed on our end, punctuated only with the occasional 'uh-huh' from Langly.

"No, definitely not Pennsylvania. I can check it out, but I definitely don't think so. I mean, how stupid do you think they are? How the hell should I know? Whaddya mean...Mulder, whaddya want me to do? Frohike's way better at that. And maybe Byers could do that. He seems to inspire confidence. Maybe it's the suit. Personally, I'd never trust anyone who wore suits like that. So? He doesn't ruin as many as you. You would, but you're a lousy shot. Here, talk to Ally. She knows her a lot better."

He stuck the phone in my face. "It's for you. Avon calling."

"Hey there Mulder."

"Allison, how're you hanging?"

"By a thread. And a pretty shredded one. How's it going in Fremont?"

"Don't ask. I feel like we're getting nowhere. I have Scully doing some research, but can't really make the connection. This is gonna be a tough one to throw together."

"Mulder, what time is it there?"

"3:10. Why?"

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Not without my Scully around. God, I'm having a hard time without her. I mean, she's helping, but I really need her here. I'm really not sure how much more of this I can do without her."

"How're Ellen and Mark?"

"Working their butts off. They're good."

"So why'd you go with them?"

"I just...I don't know. Maybe it's a control thing."

"And maybe Dana threatened to kill you if you didn't leave her alone for a while."

"That, too," he laughed weakly. "Allison. I need you to recall as much of what Lydia told you as possible. And write it down, if you can."

"I'll try."

"Good. When you've done that, have Langly encrypt it and e-mail it to me."

"Mulder, this might take a while."

"C'mon, Allison. You can do 250 words a minute dead tired."

"Yeah, but I don't know that my brain is working that fast."

"Time's of the essence here. I mean it. Longer it goes, the colder things get."

"Okay, I'll do it today."

"Good."

"Don't you have enough to do where you're at?"

"Allison, can you just do it?"

"Sure. And thanks for everything."

"One more thing. Can you check up on Scully today? Make sure she doesn't need anything?"

"Isn't your mother-in-law there?"

"Well, yeah, she is."

"Then your cupboards runneth over. But I'll call her and see if she wants company."

"Thanks. I'm just worried about her. I think being in the house doing nothing is driving her nuts."

"As it would any human. Sane or otherwise. Speaking of leaving the house, we need to get out and do stuff today. Think it's all right?"

"Yeah, I'd go ahead and make a pretense at normalcy. Only don't leave the kids by themselves."

"God, I had no idea my parenting skills were so heavily in doubt."

"They're not. But just to be safe, don't leave them."

"I wasn't going to."

"How was Vegas?"

"It was fun until Sunday afternoon."

"Hey, by the way, congratulations to you and Langly. I'm just curious about something, though."

"What's that?"

"Why didn't you take advantage of being in Vegas and do the deed there?"

"Because I refuse to get married by an Elvis impersonator."

"What? And miss the wedding every girl dreams of?"

"Mulder, I'm hanging up now." He actually had me laughing.

"Try to get that to me ASAP. And don't forget to call Scully."

"Mulder, did anyone ever tell you you're majorly obsessive-compulsive?"

"Hey, it's my secret to success."

"Bye, Mulder. Thanks a lot. I mean it." We cut the connection.

I turned to Langly. "Mulder wants me to transcribe everything I remember Lydia saying. Today."

"That's Mulder. The impossible becomes routine."

"What's he want from you?"

"Same as from you. Three weeks' worth of work in 24 hours."

"So what should we do?"

"Well, seeing as we have a vested interest in Lydia's return, I suggest we move on it. Besides, it's what time?"

"Around 6:30."

"It's not like we can get anything done right now. Nothing's open."

"The Safeway's open."

"Yeah, but we can't leave the kids."

"I can go to the Safeway by myself. I've been doing it for years."

He shook his head in the negative. "No. I don't think you oughta be traveling alone in places like that."

"Look, I know that Lydia was at a shopping center when this...happened. And trust me, I'll be careful. And I don't think this has anything to do with me, anyway."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Look, I'll take the cell phone."

"Did you get it back from Byers?"

"Shit. I didn't."

He shook his head slowly. "No."

"Langly, allow me to point out something critical here."

"I'm listening."

"She who shops fastest shops alone. And she who shops alone doesn't get pissed off at people, because she doesn't have any with her. Get it?"

"So help in the market is not welcome, I gather?"

"He can be taught!"

"Too bad. We'll all go."

"Langly, sometimes when Miranda was little, the only time I could be alone was when I was marketing. And I really hate it when people try to shop with me. I end up spending too much money and I end up with a lot of crap I didn't plan to buy."

"God, you never take Miranda with you?"

"Every time I take Miranda, we end up fighting about something. She just throws stuff in, and she takes too damn much time."

"So you guys have a low shopping compatibility quotient."

"You could say that."

"Sorry. I think we should take 'em. And I really don't think you oughta go alone right now."

"You just went to the 7-11 by yourself."

"And you almost freaked."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"I'm just feeling...insecure right now."

"But you're willing to do the Safeway on your own."

"Because as nervous as going out myself might make me right now, the thought of marketing en masse is enough to give me hives."

He shook his blonde mane slowly and winced hard. "I. Do. Not. Understand. Women."

"Langly, do you really think anything is going to happen to me a brightly lit, densely populated Safeway?"

He looked at me hard. "I'd like to point out that in all likelihood, Lydia was in a brightly lit, densely populated parking lot when she vanished from sight."

"Langly, I have to start work again in less than two weeks. What're you going to do, shepherd me to and from the job?"

"If I have to, yeah."

I sat down and sipped my coffee. "I can't live like this."

"You haven't got a choice right now."

"What the hell are we supposed to do, then?"

He walked over to the coffee pot and poured another cup. "Pot's empty."

"I'll put on some more." God, we were all going to die of caffeine poisoning.

He sat at the table and tapped his long slender fingers against the tabletop. Langly was not a person who could think without extraneous motion of some sort.

"Tell me this, babe. Do you think Shelby's at any risk?"

"Doubt it."

"How about Miranda?"

"Not quite so sure on that one." That was not the answer I wanted to hear, and it chilled me.

"What about yourself?"

He shrugged. "Hard to say. Hard to say about everything right now. Depends on why Lydia got snatched. If she got snatched."

"Langly, according to the police report, her car was in the lot, with a takeout order from Ming Yuan, and three videos from Blockbuster. If Lydia were going to bail-and I don't think she would ever bail on Miranda-she wouldn't have left her car there." The car, the videos, and the now-rancid Chinese food had been confiscated as evidence.

"Mulder's going to want your transcript. He's obviously trying to profile this."

"I thought that was already being done."

"Mulder's gifted in that arena." True. The man was something of a legend in ISU.

We were silent for a time. The coffee finished, and Langly poured us both another cup. I lit a cigarette and promptly dropped it on the carpet.

"Right. You're gonna go to the Safeway alone. Jesus Ally. Did you see how bad your hands are shaking?"

I looked down, and I noticed that my normally steady fingers had taken on a life of their own. For someone whose hands are their means to their income, this was not heartwarming.

He reached out from across the table and took my right hand in his, giving it a small squeeze. I squeezed back and I think I nearly cut off his circulation, but he didn't flinch.

"Work time, girl. Let's go." We headed back upstairs.
 

It was difficult to reproduce the conversations Lydia and I had had, both in fact and in emotion. I'm accustomed to taking things verbatim and either translating or transliterating them on the spot. Recall was significantly more difficult. Mulder, I thought, you may consider your eidetic memory to be a curse, but right now it would be tremendously helpful for me to be in
possession of.

I was working at the desktop and Langly was sprawled on the bed, giving the laptop a workout. Thanks to the three Gunmen, we had plenty of phone lines, and Bell Atlantic was none the wiser for it.

"This is really difficult," I commented, after wrestling with one page of text for what had seemed to be a decade or so.

"Hey, you're paid to listen. Figured you'd be able to bring it all back."

"Actually, when I'm working, I'm listening, and sometimes I'm not even aware that I am. Most of the time it just happens automatically."

"Sorta like playing music."

"Yeah. Like that. Not that I was ever much of a musician."

"Really." He looked up for a moment. "What'd you play?"

"Oboe. School orchestra."

"I'm impressed."

"You shouldn't be. I was never very good."

"Were you first chair?"

"Yeah, but I was also the only oboist in the orchestra."

"Why'd you say you weren't very good?"

"I could play the notes and put it together, but I was basically just an adequate...technician."

"Hmm. You sing?"

"Sang in the choir all through 12th grade."

"What range?"

"Soprano. And as a singer I was even more marginal than as an oboist."

"Bet you could still carry a tune."

"I could. But I think all my years of smoking destroyed whatever range I had."

"Big surprise there. When'd you start smoking?"

"When I was thirteen."

"Jesus fuck. That's over 30 years."

"I did take a few years off here and there, like when I had Miranda."

"Good thing."

"Yeah, maybe it was a good thing I was so sick I couldn't tolerate the smell."

"You're a real barfer, girl."

"Thank you for your support, Langly."

He laughed. "You still have your oboe?"

"Packed away. I don't think it's been out of its case in aeons."

"But you brought it with you."

"Didn't get rid of it, so I assume it's in storage. Why? Do you play?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Played alto sax. Then I learned guitar when I was fourteen."

"So you've got musical talent in there."

"Some. Had a few bands I played out with. Mostly we sucked."

"Did you write any material?"

"Tried to. After my first few attempts, my friends told me I could continue to write music, but if I got anywhere near a set of lyrics, I'd be shot on sight."

"Were they that bad?"

He laughed. "Well, I'd write whatever came into my head at the time. So I ended up with weird things about skateboards and pizza delivery people and things like that. I think it was the one about the cockroaches that finally made my friends threaten me with death."

That made me laugh. "Cockroaches? You are one sick pup, Langly."

"And proud of it."

"Did you sing?"

"Tried to."

"Still have your sax and your guitar?"

"Nope. Sold 'em. Kind of miss the guitars, though."

"How many'd you have?"

"Three. They were nice, too."

"Think you could still play?"

"I'm pretty rusty. I suppose it'd come back."

"Y'know, Eric had a twelve-string. It's over in Public Storage. I don't play, so it's not like it's getting much use."

"Was he any good?"

"No." I smiled. Truthfully, Eric had been a terrible guitarist and an even worse singer.

"Hmm. Maybe I should give it a workout. Keep it happy."

"We can do that." The idea of crawling through my storage compartment on a hot day did not exactly thrill me, but if he wanted the guitar, I didn't think Eric would mind.

"Yeah, that'd be cool. God, it's sort of freaky, though, going through another guy's stuff sometimes."

"I don't think he's using it much these days."

"Yeah, that's true. And he did leave a really cool CD collection." Langly had fallen in love with a number of Eric's blues CDs and had been gradually bringing more and more of them into the house. Like we needed more stuff in here.

"So tell me. Can you sing?" I looked at him, smiling.

"Well...I never made anybody scream and run, if that's what you mean."

"So sing something," I challenged him.

"What? Right now?" He looked horrified.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not." He put his head back down and went to the keyboard, which was his language for 'this discussion is over.'"

"Okay, but someday, you have to demonstrate," I reminded him.

"Because I'm not." He put his head back down and went to the keyboard, which was his language for 'this discussion is over.'"

"Okay, but someday, you have to demonstrate," I reminded him.

"Uh-huh." He was trying to ignore me now. And succeeding.
 

I recalled what I could of my conversations with Lydia, and finished typing them some 200 years later. I had Langly encrypt the file as per Mulder's instructions and he e-mailed it off to him.

"I think we gotta get a move on," he announced after sending the e-mail.

"Yeah, we have a lot to do."

"Kids still sleeping?"

"Yeah."

"Guess we better get 'em up."

"They're not going to like this."

He looked at me and gave an exaggerated shrug, eyes wide and mouth mocking.

"Oh, well."

Miranda reacted poorly to being aroused at what she considered to be the ungodly hour of 9:45 a.m., and we were treated to a hissy fit in the grand tradition of spoiled bratdom.

"Why do we have to go?" She demanded. "I hate that shit. It's gonna take forever."

"Look, you can't stay here alone. Not right now."

"Mom, in case you forgot, Aunt Lydia was out, not in, when it happened!"

"That argument's not going to work right now."

"Why can't we just go to Shelby's?"

"Did you ask Shelby's mother?" Who was notably inhospitable.

Shelby looked over at Miranda. "I'd rather just go with them."

"Well, I wouldn't! And I'm not. So stuff it."

"Miranda, I'm not tolerating that. You are not going to address me that way."

"Oh, what am I supposed to do? Bow down to you?"

"No, you're supposed to do as I ask you."

"You're not asking. You're ordering!"

"Then you have to do what I order."

"What is this shit? All of a sudden you think you're just gonna start pushing me around like I was some kind of slave? I don't think so!" She spat out her sentence at me.

"I do think so, and you're going to get ready, and we're going to go. And you're not going to spend the day giving me shit because of it!"

"I'm not going!"

"You are."

"No, I'm not. Why don't you just go and do what you have to do? You don't give a fuck about me, anyway!"

Okay, now my buttons were pushed. "No, I don't give a fuck about you. That's why I'm insisting you don't stay alone in the house right now, in the wake of what happened to your aunt!"

"Well, maybe if you didn't HAVE to go to Vegas, none of this would have happened!"

"Miranda, we discussed this-"

"Whoa. What the hell's going on?" Langly appeared from downstairs.

"Miranda doesn't want to go out and do errands," Shelby stated flatly.

"And I'm not going!" Miranda shot in.

"Hate to bust your bubble, your Highness, but you're going." Langly informed her in an emotionless voice.

"And who the fuck are you to tell me what to do? Think you're my dad or something? I've got news for you! You're not, and I don't have to listen to you!"

I saw a reaction I hadn't seen in him before, and it terrified me.

Cold fury. He walked slowly towards her. "I'm not your dad. But I'm gonna be your mom's husband. That makes me responsible for you." His voice was softening as opposed to increasing in volume. "And if I ever hear you diss your mom like that again, so help me, you will pay." He glared at her. "Any questions?" He stalked off.

Miranda was momentarily speechless, but it's not a condition that ever affects her for long. I heard a hissed "bastard" under her breath.

"Excuse me, what did you say?" I demanded.

"I didn't say anything!"

"I heard you." My own voice had turned hard. "And it won't be tolerated."

"Oh, you think you can just say something and make it so!" She was mocking.

"Yes, I do. Because you're my daughter, and once in a while, you're going to listen to me."

"I do listen to you! That's why my life is such shit right now!"

"Miranda, I'm not having this discussion with you."

"Yeah, that's it, Mom! Run off like a chickenshit!"

A tall, silent presence appeared behind me, and he glared at the scowling teenager in front of me.

"Hey, Miranda. Did you hear what I said before? Which word did you have trouble with?"

"Fuck you, Langly!"

"Okay, have it your way." He shrugged. "But you just gave up your video privileges for a week. And your chat room privileges."

"You can't do it." She was challenging him.

"I just did." He walked off again.

I was utterly ground down now. "Miranda, get moving. We have to go."

"You're just gonna let him do this."

"I am. Don't push me, Miranda. I'm running pretty close to empty right now. I'll take help where I can get it."

"Let's see him keep me off the computer."

I walked back to our room. Keep her off the computer, indeed.

She obviously didn't realize it was one piece of leverage he could employ with ease.
 

"Where can I get my eyes done?" Langly asked as he typed at the desktop.

"Shit. I don't know. I haven't had mine done since I left LA. Frohike's probably got somebody, and Byers has glasses. Ask them."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

"I'd do it soon if you expect anybody to be able to take you today."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm moving." His earlier good humor had departed.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're full of shit."

He stared up at me. "So this is parenting."

"This is parenting, babe. Fun, ain't it?"

"No." He was clicking the mouse and sulking. "Y'know, I know she's your kid and you love her, but sometimes she just pisses me off so bad."

"She pisses me off sometimes, too. Just in case you hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, I know, you get mad at her and stuff, but she knows you love her, and she gets over it."

"She'll get over this, too." Miranda was not one to hang on to a grudge.

"She's probably thinking, my dad wouldn't do this to me, and here comes this asshole-"

"Langly, she and Eric argued. Frequently. And when they didn't argue, they were each bitching to me about the other one, which, by the way, just about made me insane. They adored each other, but I can remember some real dissension between them. Believe me, she pissed Eric off, too. And I'll back you on her punishment."

"I don't like the way she talks to you."

"Sometimes I don't, either."

"Well, sometimes you let her get away with it. And that pisses me off, too."

"Langly, she's 13 going on 14. She's been through hell-"

"And you haven't?"

"I'm not saying I haven't. I'm just saying, she's been through just as much hell, and she doesn't have the same skills or experience we do in dealing with stuff. She's really a good kid."

"I know she's a good kid. It's just-"

"What?"

"Y'know, I know she's been through shit, but at least she's got people around her that give a fuck about her. I'd have been happy at her age to have one person who cared about me."

"There had to be someone."

"No. There wasn't. My dad was dead. My mom made it clear that she was not happy with me, whom she referred to as her mid-life crisis, and Joanie was gone by then. Scott didn't give a fuck. My teachers hated me."

"Why'd your teachers hate you?"

"'Cause I had a nasty mouth and I just didn't feel like putting up with shit. So I'd say whatever I thought."

"I see nothing much has changed."

"No, everything's changed. Ally, do you realize that except for Byers and Frohike, before you, I had nobody? I don't think you realize what it's like to be alone."

"I guess I never have been truly alone. I always had people around me."

"And maybe they weren't perfect, and maybe they made you feel like hell sometimes. I mean, Eleanor, she could piss Mother Teresa off."

"Mother Teresa's dead, babe."

"Eleanor could piss off the living and the dead before breakfast. But at least she shows up once in a while, and she does love the kid."

"It's her one saving grace."

He stopped typing for a moment. "Think Eleanor would take Miranda until school started? I mean, give her a chance to get away from all this for a while."

"Langly, there's one small problem. My mother is almost never home. She's not exactly prime babysitting material."

"She's on tour every week?"

"Well, no, she's not. But she does go out all the time."

"She wouldn't hang out with her granddaughter as a favor to you guys?"

"Langly, she offered a down payment on a house. I'm not going to push my luck with her. Besides, if I ask her, she's going to ask me why. My mother may be a pain in the ass, but she is anything but stupid, and she's bound to know something's up. Bad plan."

"I think she'd do it."

"Langly, you barely know the woman."

"I know she likes her granddaughter."

"Liking her granddaughter and offering to take her for several weeks are two different things."

"I think you should ask her."

"Me?" I barked a harsh laugh.

"What's the worst she could say?"

"This is my mother we're talking about! The possibilities are endless."

"I think the worst she'd say is no."

"She might. Or she might launch into a tirade at me."

"Ally, I said it before: you're 44 years old. Quit letting her knock you around like some stupid little kid. Just ask her!"

"Miranda's not going to want to leave Shelby. And Shelby just about lives here."

"You ever wonder why Shelby never seems to go home?"

"Yeah, I do. But she's a nice kid and I'm happy she likes it here."

"Ally, get the net, okay? Shelby gets the crap kicked out of her at home."

"I've never seen any bruises on her."

"There's more than one way to knock a kid around, and you oughta know that."

"Has she said something to you?"

"No. But I know the drill way too well."

"You think it's that bad?"

He looked at me as if I were on drugs. "Why the hell else would she be here all the time? I mean, yeah, she and Miranda, they're best buds and all. And she likes us a lot. But she stays here for days on end, and she's never in a rush to get back. And she always seems sorta nervous when she's gotta go home. I bet she's got about half her clothes in Miranda's closet."

"I never check anything in Miranda's room if I can help it." Mostly because I feared becoming crippled in any attempt to navigate through the perpetual mess.

"Yeah, well, think about it. Shelby's here the time that Auntie vanishes off the face of the earth, or so it seems. You'd think any kid with any kind of normal life would want to get the hell out of here and back where she's safe. But Shelby's like, she'd rather put up with all the crap going down here than go home and face her own folks. What's wrong with this picture, folks?"

"I don't know. I've told Shelby that she's welcome here anytime."

"Good call, because if you didn't, maybe she'd be hooked up with someone who didn't care about her so much, and then she'd be a real mess."

"Shelby doesn't seem like a mess to me."

"I think she feels like things are marginally sane around here."

I had to laugh. Sane? Around our house? At this point? Not!

"Ironic, isn't it?"

"Did you have anybody who looked after you?"

"For a while. My best friend Matt's family would let me hang out all I wanted. It was really cool, but then they moved to Florida, and that was that."

"When did they move away?"

"About a year after my dad died. I was about Miranda's age. Really shitty time."

"I'll bet."

"Matt and me, we used to have a blast together. His folks treated me more like one of their own kids than my own family did. Even his kid sister liked me. They had a dog and a cat, and they were just real people."

"But then they left."

"Yeah. Matt's dad got transferred to a base in Florida. I kept wishing they'd take me with them."

"There's a lot involved in that. And I'll bet your mother wouldn't have put up with it."

"Actually, I think she would. She couldn't stand me."

"Why? I'll bet you were adorable."

"Didn't matter. By the time I came along, she hated her life. And everything I did made it worse. At least according to her."

"I can't imagine you were THAT awful."

"I was kind of a pest. I was sort of hyperactive and I'd drive her nuts."

"Hardly grounds for hating your kid."

"Tell it to her. Except you can't, because she's like so dead now."

"I'm sorry." I said it very softly, and I meant it.

"So maybe now you can understand why I get so pissed at Miranda sometimes. 'Cause no matter how bad it gets, nobody's gonna leave her to swing. She's got a mom who's totally committed to her. And if I'm gonna live with you and her, I am too."

"You're pretty amazing," I whispered to him.

"Maybe I didn't have the shittiest childhood on the planet. But I don't think it's one that bears repeating."

"Well, Langly, you're certainly unique in one way."

"And that would be?"

"You seem to learn from history."

"Fuck learning from it. I'm trying to change it. Any way I can."

END OF PART 26