Rating: PG

Summary: There's good news, and there's bad news.

Spoilers: "The Thinker" was mentioned in "One Breath," so if that's a spoiler, so be it.
 

ALLY:

February 9, 2001

The fucking phone is ringing. What the hell time is it?

7:08 a.m.

Jesus, this better be good.

"H'llo?" I mumble into the phone.

"Hey, guess what? I'm a dad again!"

"Huh? What? Oh, Mulder, hi-you're a dad again, did you say?"

"Sarah Meighan Mulder has arrived, and she is beautiful!" He's gushing now.

"Oh, wow, that's great! Isn't she a bit early?"

"Only two and a half weeks. Six pounds, one ounce, healthy as a horse. And she looks more like Scully than me."

"Well, that's an asset right there!" I'm just teasing; Rebecca is the spitting image of him, and she is a total heartbreaker.

"I thought so, too. At least she didn't get my nose."

Count that child lucky.

"What the fuck's going on?" Langly's muttering next to me, rubbing his eyes.

I cover the mouthpiece. "Sarah Mulder's in the world, and she's in great shape."

Langly grabs the cordless from me. "Mulder, you lucky fuckrag! Another gorgeous girl, eh? How's Scully doing?"

I elbow him. "Well, how is she?"

He looks over at me. "Doing pretty good. So this kid, no problems this time? Awesome. Red hair? Reddish brown. Cool. Hope she didn't get your nose. Good thing. Yeah, we'll come by and see the rugrat, sure. And Mulder? You're damn lucky this is about your kid, or I'd fucking kill you for calling at this hour, and on the house phone. Yeah, nobody's probably in the office yet. Awesome. Later, dude. Congrats big time." He clicks off.

He rolls over into the pillow. "Lucky asshole."

"Yeah, they both are."

He's just staring at me, still about 80 percent asleep. He's not smiling.

"What's wrong?" I play with a few strands of his hair, shorter, but still plenty to roam around in.

"Nothing." He pulls the covers up over his shoulders. "I just wanna go back to sleep, that's all."

Understandable at this hour of the morning, and on a Saturday...but a bit disconcerting when he turns his back against me, not something he usually does.

I'll ask him later. In the meantime, I'm awake.
 

As soon as I pour my first cup of coffee, the phone rings again. Probably more news about new Mulder. I hope.

It's Frohike.

"Good morning, my dear...I suppose Mulder has already spread the word?"

"He did. It's great, isn't it?"

"Wonderful. Jo and I will probably stop by later on. By the way, have you seen my son?"

"He came here last night to work, but I haven't seen him since. Why?"

"Well, he didn't come home last night."

"You tried the office phones, I presume."

"You presume correctly. No one's there, at least nobody that's answering."

"I see. He's not on the sofa."

"I suggest you check your young boarder's room," he says dryly.

"Hold on." I creep down into the dungeon so as not to wake the dead.

I try to open the door quietly, trying not to disturb Kelly as I do it, and there, underneath one of the Sherpa blankets, on Kelly's bed, are Michael and Kelly, curled up around each other, looking totally young and utterly content.

I go back to the phone. "He's here. He's asleep."

"I see." Frohike does not sound pleased. "With his young lady, I presume."

"Well, maybe they worked late. Langly and I went to bed around one, they were still outside, as far as I know. They probably got tired."

"Michael knows he's supposed to call. And you allow this to go on under your roof."

"Frohike, you know I love you dearly, right? And Michael, too. But Michael's almost 25, and I can't monitor his behavior. And he and Kelly, in my opinion, are both adults. I'm not getting involved in this."

Frohike's silent at the other end. I think I might have hurt his feelings, but I really have enough in my life without looking after his adult son.

"Have him call me when he wakes up." The voice is weary, abrupt.

"I will."

God, no wonder this guy's ulcer is bugging him. He worries too much.
 

MICHAEL:

Did it again!

Forgot to take my lenses out-my eyes are paying big time for my stupidity.

My stuff's in my backpack. My backpack's in the offices.

Ally's got stuff upstairs.

I squint at the clock. 10:13 a.m.

Kelly's still sleeping, but she wakes up when I mutter 'oh fuck."

"What's wrong?" Her voice is real sleepy.

And she's got bedhead.

But bedhead on her looks cute. I think. Right now, I'm pretty blinded.

"Fell asleep with my lenses in. I'm gonna go upstairs and borrow some of Ally's saline and stuff."

She wraps the blanket over her shoulders and stands up in front of me. "First things first."

And she kisses me, real nice.

I can get used to starting off like that.
 

"Ally, can I use your lens stuff?" She's in the kitchen, and she's got wet hair, so she's probably been up for a while.

She blinks up at me, she's still got her glasses on. "Sure, go ahead. But first the news...Sarah Mulder is out and about."

Sarah, Sarah. "Ah, the new Mulderette! How's it doing?"

"She's healthy, thankfully, and apparently the mom's doing okay, too."

"When'd you find out?"

"Mulder roused us from the dead about three hours ago. Or rather, roused me. Langly's still asleep."

"Cool. Bet Mulder's a happy duck this morning."

"To say the least. I don't think this would ever get old for him." Of course, if Dana has her way, this child is IT. "And by the way, your dad's looking for you. I said you'd call him when you woke up."

"Well, I gotta get these out of my eyes first, before I go blind."

"Fall asleep with them in? Been there, done that. No fun."

Painless compared to getting my ass kicked by my dad.

But I have to go home, anyway.

There's stuff I need to talk to him about.
 

I get my lenses out. I hope I remembered to stick my glasses in my backpack, or I'm not gonna be able to drive.

Okay, time to face the music.

"Yes?" It's Dad, and he sounds, well, not happy.

"It's me."

"Nice of you to call." He's oozing sarcasm this morning.

I hate it when he gets like this.

"Well, you asked me to."

"I would have preferred one earlier as opposed to later."

"Well, I'm sorry! Anyway, I'm gonna be home in a little while...and I got some stuff I need to talk to you about."

"You certainly do, dear boy."

"No, Dad...I have stuff."

"What kind of 'stuff'?"

Whoa, he is pissy this morning.

"Look, I'll show you when I get there, okay?"

"Fine." He clicks off.

Oh man. When he gets in a mood...
 

"Kel, I gotta go," I'm knocking on her door.

"Just a minute. I'm not dressed."

Oh damn.

She opens the door a crack, and unfortunately, she's got clothes on. "Do you want to skate later, maybe?"

"Lemme see what happens with this stuff...I gotta talk to my dad about it. Call you later, okay?"

"I'll be studying."

We kiss, and it's getting to be quite a kiss...

And then Princess Miranda comes storming out of her room, and slams the bathroom door.

Somebody needs to teach that girl some subtlety.
 

ALLY:

Langly finally stumbles out for coffee. I say hi to him, he just sort of grunts, sits down at the table, and doesn't even look at me. He grabs one of my Marlboro lights and ignites it, coughing furiously as he takes too hard a drag.

"Something wrong?" I ask. Duh!

He shakes his head. No verbal response.

"Excuse me, did I do something here?" If I did, I'd like to know.

Another negative headshake.

"Have you lost the capacity for speech?" I'm teasing, but he's not in the mood to be teased, so as soon as I open my mouth, I know I've jammed my feet in it again.

"Don't appreciate people waking me up so early," he finally mutters.

"Langly, it's not like it was the middle of the night! And besides, it was good news, for a change, and God knows there's been little enough of that lately!"

"Good news for who?" He stares at me, expressionless.

"Excuse me?" I'm lost here.

"For Mulder, maybe."

"What's this about?"

He doesn't say anything for a long time. Finally, I give up, grab my chem text, and start drawing Newman diagrams-which I hate, since I don't visualize well in three dimensions. All the more reason to practice them.

He hasn't left the table yet, and he's lit up ANOTHER cigarette.

Jesus, what is wrong with him this morning?

Joan is better. She's not out of the woods, but she continues to improve. So it's not her.

There is the issue of nuisance nephew, but we mostly avoid him.

He and Miranda haven't had an argument in at least 48 hours, which may be a new land speed record here.

I know work sucks for him...but he's been quite verbal about it. (Tell us how you really feel, babe).

"Taking a shower," he grumbles finally, after stubbing the second cigarette and dosing himself with a third cup of coffee.

And doesn't ask me to join him, which, on the weekends, is unusual.

What the fuck did I do?
 

MICHAEL:

Dad's at the computer, presumably doing work. I think he saves his 'adult' entertainment for when the children-i.e., me-are in bed.

"Nice of you to show up," his voice is real hard.

"Need to talk to you."

He turns around in a hurry. "Good idea. You start."

Not friendly.

Too bad. I got to tell him.

Because I don't have a clue what to do with this one.

"Um...well, last night...me and Kelly, we were studying...well, Kelly was studying, and I was working on my article..."

"Uh-huh."

"And I wanted to go in and catch a flick, and Kelly says she wants to study some more, so I decide I'm gonna do a hack."

"All right."

I hand him two zip disks. "Download these."

He looks at them, shrugs, and doesn't say anything.

"I'm gonna take a shower."

He can read while I'm getting gorgeous (ha!), and make up his own mind.
 

Who knows, maybe he already knows this stuff. I don't know what he knows-he's not a big talker.

But I'm still freaked.

I bet Langly doesn't know all this stuff. Or maybe he does, and I'm freaking over nothing. Langly IS a big talker, but about his family...well, not usually.

Whatever. It was WEIRD.

I don't know what I need right now.

Maybe just for my dad to tell me everything's okay.

It's a lie. But I'd like to hear it.
 

Dad's still at the computer when I come back out.

And he's not looking too good.

Shit. Please don't have another fucking heart attack on me.

He's reading for a long time, I see him highlighting stuff, and he doesn't say a word.

I don't know why this bothers me right now, because that's how he is when he's working.

Finally he turns around.

"Michael, how did you get this far in? Into the lab notes and personal files? Even the Thinker can't do that."

"Byers gave me some hints." True, but the hack was mine. "I thought I might find some stuff for Dr. Scully's data, and support for the article."

He looks about a hundred years old right now, sitting there, his face buried in his hands. He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes.

"Hell of a hack," he concedes.

That's as much of a compliment as I'm ever gonna get from him, so I'll take what I can get.

"Uh, Dad? The stuff that's there. Did you know any of this?"

He's silent, keeps his eyes closed for a long time. "Most of it." His voice is real soft. "But nothing substantive...in terms of documentation, that is. Lots of rumor and speculation. But...oh God, it is true."

"Pretty terrible stuff."

"Really terrible stuff, Michael."

"So what are we gonna do?"

He looks totally unhappy and confused. "I don't know. I don't want Langly to see this...but he's going to have to if we run this...and if we don't run it, he's going to demand to know why...I have no idea."

"Think Joan knows about it?"

"Joan? She might. She probably knows more than he does, being substantially older than he is."

"Maybe we oughta talk to Joan."

He shakes his head. "I really hate to disturb her when her condition is still so tentative. If she were well, it would still be difficult to broach the subject, but with her illness, it seems downright cruel."

"Langly says she's better."

"She has a long way to go, and she's not strong. And what if she doesn't know all of this? Who knows how this will affect her. And there's the issue of her children-they find this out, you can probably be certain that that son of hers, abomination that he is, will do everything he can to put distance between her and her brother. I can't do that to Langly. And I won't." That much he's sure of.

"Could we use the information still?"

"We can. But we need to be judicious...are these files still on your hard drive in the office?"

"Yeah."

"Get rid of them. Make three more backups, and I'll put them in the safe deposit boxes. One copy in Byers's, one in mine, and one in the one we keep for the magazine."

"Okay."

"I suggest you do that as soon as possible."

"I got to go back over there, then."

"I'll be leaving shortly-I have a grandchild to see, of sorts." First time I've seen a hint of a smile. "You've heard the news, I presume?"

"Yeah, the world's got another Mulder in it."

"Just what we need." But he's smiling finally. "He's a lucky sonofabitch. Two beautiful kids. I remember how lucky I felt when you kids were born."

Seriously?

"I remember feeling like, Melvin J. Frohike, you are the luckiest man in the world. You guys were so beautiful and so perfect."

Please. I'm getting embarrassed here.

"New kids...you've got so many dreams for them. You want everything for them, you hope for so much."

He points to the zip disks. "This is not what we dream about when our kids are born." And his voice is bitter and sad.

"Well, I guess you've been pretty let down over the years." I mean, as kids go, I turned out to be no prize.

He shakes his head. "No. I still have lots of hopes and dreams for you. I want you to find things in this world that bring you happiness, not sorrow." He studies his hands-it occurs to me, I have those very same hands. Short, with thick fingers. "I hope you're not thinking of making this a career, Michael."

"Whaddya mean?"

"Doing what we do, Langly and Byers and myself."

"What's wrong with it?"

"I think you saw that for yourself last night."

And it dawns on me.

The real misery this government brings on people is, it tears them apart. Rips families to shreds and leaves friends in the dust. Separates us from those who are important.

I'm not gonna let that happen.

I owe my dad this much.

END OF PART 67