"Hear me, o lords, I have a thing to say."

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 20, Line 121. Used without permission.
 

MICHAEL:

What am I doing here? I'm out of my mind.

It's midday. For all I know, Mulder could have patients. Or be busy with the kiddies. Or have a fucking migraine. In which case he'll want ME to hang with the kiddies, and let me tell you, I am not in the mood to be around the kiddies right now.

Nothing against the kiddies, mind you. Just a little too close to the nerves right now.

Plus, I got no idea if my car can make it back from Silver Springs, Maryland to Alexandria, Virginia (distance: 17 miles, which feels like 17,000 when it's always an adventure to see what your car does today).

Course, I could always ask him if I could borrow the minivan...

Oh God no. Anything but that. Besides, it's got baby seats in it.

I ring the bell, and nobody answers, which is weird because the Voyager's right in the driveway. I try it again. No answer. I wait a few minutes.

I'll give it one more try. Maybe he's asleep...

No way. This is Mulder. Sleep? I think not.

Finally, he comes to the door, hauling Sarah with him.

"Frohike Junior, is this an emergency?"

"Well...uh...no..."

He hisses at me. "Frohike. Say it's an emergency, goddammit! Carry on or threaten suicide or something!"

What the fuck? He's totally gone over the edge...

"I got this patient I really gotta get rid of," he whispers.

"Oh. Okay." I suck in my breath-I'm a real lousy actor, by the way. "Mulder, you fuckrag, you don't see me this minute, I'm gonna blow your fucking brains out!"

He jumps back. "A little overdone, but should work. Wait here." He shuts the door and comes back about three minutes later. "Okay, come on in. What brings you out to the wilds of Maryland, Junior?"

"I dunno. Didn't have to work today."

"You must have no life, Junior. What the fuck would you be coming to see me for?"

"Who said I came to see you?"

"You did. You just threatened to blow my fucking brains out, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. I did. Want me to make good on that?"

He laughs. "You'll have to get in line behind everyone else that wants to."

"God, and I thought I was the guy that everyone hates."

"Frohike, you're a rank amateur next to me."

"Thanks a lot, Mulder."

"Hey, nobody ever nicknamed you Spooky, did they?" He grins.

"Nope. Other things which I probably shouldn't repeat in front of the kiddies."

"Becca's sleeping, believe-"

We hear this ear-piercing wail from upstairs.

"Spoke too soon. Wait here, hold Sarah." He hands me the little girl with the pretty red-brown hair and big green eyes. She coos a little, she likes me.

They're about the only ones right now.

She's a nice baby. I mean, Becca's kind of my girl and I got a soft spot for her and all, but Sarah's a nice kid. She's a lot calmer than Becca. Becca's always kicking and screaming about something, this one, she's just sort of a philosopher baby. She smiles like Dr. Scully but she looks like Mulder around the eyes.

Wonder what Kelly's and mine would look like...better look like her if it wants half a fighting chance...

Don't go there, Frohike.

I'm dead now. Becca sees me and she's just shrieking and squealing and tries to push her little sister off my lap.

"Becca, that's not going to work," Mulder tells her. "You don't push Sarah like that."

"Do too!"

"You don't. And if you want to see Michael, you'd better be nice to Sarah."

I guess being nice to me is more important than hassling Sarah, because she kind of loses interest in her baby sister. I don't think Becca's thrilled with the concept she's got to share center of the universe with what she probably considers an undeserving party.

Which is what Les thinks of me. Add another person who hates me to the list.

"How's your dad?" Mulder asks.

"Being a first-class bastard."

"So he's feeling normal again?"

"He's got that...that...that WOMAN with him."

"Martha, I think Byers said her name is? He sent me some e-mail about it, but I haven't heard anything else from him or Langly. So I didn't think a whole lot about it-I mean, if it's juicy, they're pretty likely to share it." Byers and Langly can be real secretive about lots of things, but they are both like totally addicted to gossip. You don't believe me? They both get National Enquirer and Weekly World News-by subscription. And the prof will deny it, but there's issues of People in his and J's apartment.

And not just celebrity gossip-I think that's just a lame substitute for when they don't have anything local to munch on. Don't kid yourself. Hackers are a nosy lot. If we weren't, we wouldn't be hackers.

"She's got no right."

"No right to do what? Seduce your dad?"

"Among other things."

He laughs-can you believe this, I'm fucking miserable and he's laughing. "She's got every right to seduce him...now her desire to do it, that could really make me wonder about her."

"She's gonna be taking care of him when he gets released."

"Well, better than you having to do it...although I might wanna take bets about who would kill whom first."

"Mulder, you think this is all a big fucking joke, don't you?" I'm not in the mood for this. I wasted my gas coming out here.

"Oh, Frohike, sit down and shut up! So your dad's lusting after a woman...nice to see him going for a flesh and blood one for a change."

"Yeah, it's different."

"Maybe he'll stop being such a hemorrhoid, did you ever think of that?"

"Mulder, I'm his kid, he's never gonna stop being a pain in the ass to me!"

"Probably not. But hey, might be good for him. Get him to leave the rest of us alone."

"Fuck you, Mulder."

"Nope, only Scully gets to do that...wish she was feeling better. And no cyberbabes to fill in the gaps these days."

"She still sick?"

"Yeah, she's got the flu and can't kick it. Think she's working too hard."

"So tell her to stay home and get better."

He looks at me like I'm the insane one.

"Junior, you ever tried to tell Scully to do something? Particularly something she's not interested in doing?"

"Nope, she scares me that way."

He laughs. "Well, she should. Scares me, too."

"Thing that scares me most about her is she's crazy for you."

He pretends to look mystified. "Now why does everyone say that?"

"Because it's true?"

"Probably. Not that I give a damn-Becca, please, not the tape recorder, it's not a toy, put it down."

"Want to hear it!"

"No, you don't." He rolls his eyes. "My last patient. Believe me, you don't want to hear it."

"Don'you tell me wha' I wanna hear!" Becca yells at him.

"Don't you tell me what I'm not going to tell you," he retorts back. Watching them is actually sort of fun...sort of like watching mirror images fighting with each other.

"Don' you tell me wha' you gonna tell me I don't wanna!" she's gotten a lot more long sentences in her repertoire. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them.

"Becca. Time out."

"No time out!"

"Yes, time out."

"No!"

"Becca, do you want me to tell Mommy you were a bad girl?"

Becca kind of mellows here. "No." She looks worried.

"Then behave."

Mulder grins at me. "Works like a charm."

"Yeah, my dad has the same effect on me."

"Well, he's your dad. Seems reasonable."

"What? Being afraid of him?"

"Junior, you're taller than he is...and anyway, Langly'd take him down if he got too far out of line."

"No, he wouldn't. Langly's chickenshit around him, too. He doesn't bash up against him much, and neither does the prof."

"I've seen Byers go head to head with him. And win."

"I'd like to see that."

"No, you wouldn't. It's not pretty. So your dad's really bugging you."

Uh-oh. He's in therapist mode.

Well, isn't that what you came for, Frohike?

Isn't it?

"Not half as much as his...girlfriend!"

"Junior, why can't he have one? You have one!"

"Yeah."

"Uh-oh. Do I sense trouble in paradise here?"

"Uh...you could say that."

He doesn't say anything...I think this is another shrink tactic...

And goddammit, it works! I should kill this bastard.

"Kelly and me...well...we were, like, you know..."

"Uh-huh." Shrinkology 101. I hate it he can do this to me. But I guess I need him to, or it wouldn't work...

"We sort of had some...spillage...you know what I mean?"

"As in, the condom broke?"

"Micah bwoke a codmon?" Becca looks puzzled.

Mulder shoots her a hard look. "Rebecca Eileen Mulder, go and play with your toys, or I'll tell Mommy who I found coloring in her pathology journals this morning!"

Worked. Kid's off like a shot.

He groans. "Eidetic memory. Curse of the Mulders. She's got it."

"A curse for her, or you?"

"Right now, us. Later on...God, I hope not."

Great. Now I got a not-quite-2-year-old who'll probably tell everyone she sees that Michael broke a condom.

"Think Sarah got it?"

"Only if God really wants to fuck with us."

"Seems to be how he gets his kicks."

"No kidding. So have you two...discussed this little problem?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"She wants to keep it if she's pregnant."

Mulder rolls his eyes. "Maybe I should talk to her."

"No, you're not, and you're not gonna blab this!"

He looks affronted. "Michael, give me a dollar."

"Huh?"

"Give me a dollar."

"Why? You have more than me."

"Just give me the damn dollar, okay?"

Whatever. I hand him over a buck.

"Okay. Fine. I'm now your therapist, and under penalty of law, I can't say a damn thing to anybody about any of this. Understood?"

"Okay."

"You were saying?"

"I dunno...I'm just...I'm not ready to have kids around yet."

"Hey, even when you are, they're a lot of work."

"Kelly thinks she can do it all."

"Superwoman, eh? Scully's rubbing off on her."

"Yeah, but Scully's not in school, and she's not broke, and she's got you."

"Well, the first two are certainly advantages...she might argue with the last one."

"Okay. But I can't even afford to get another car, which, by the way, I desperately need. I spent what I got on my books and then I gave you the last of the four bucks I had in my wallet."

"I'd say it's not very practical right now, that's true."

"So what am I gonna do if she is, and she won't get an abortion?"

He closes his eyes. "You'd have to leave the country for that right now...how'd you afford that?"

"Ally says she'd help us out."

"Okay. So you don't have to worry about the money. But you do have to worry about...what seems to be an intractable issue here...how long ago did this happen?"

"Friday night, when my dad got sick."

"So you won't know for a while yet. Does she think she was ovulating?"

"No idea. She figures about 19 days since the last one."

"Whew. Chancy."

"Daddy! Sarah's eating my kwayons!" Becca comes barging back in. They've got a playroom right off the study.

"Just a moment, domestic crisis."

He returns and throws out a few slimy, gnawed on crayons.

"So Mulder, you still want a whole ball team of 'em?"

He rolls his eyes. "Y'know, I'd still like to have a boy...but not right now. These two are a handful as it is. Maybe in a few years."

"That's kind of how I feel about it. I mean, I just...I'm not ready for this."

"Not sure any of us are. But that's beside the point."

"Be nice if I could tell my dad something without him going all ballistic on me."

"Probably not the time to work on revamping the father-son thing right now. He's not in real good shape, I gather."

"No. He's not. And it's like, I am so fucking scared, and he's like, all he does is yell at me..."

I am NOT gonna cry in front of Mulder. No way.

"He's scared, too. I'm sure of it."

"Yeah, well, why's he always screaming at me? It's like all he wants to do is be with HER. I come, and all he does is yell at me!"

"Because he's scared, and probably trying to impress the lady that he's not...and showing her that he's the dad and he's in charge."

"Just like with your kids."

He laughs. "You've noticed. I'm such a goddamn marshmallow with them, it's not even funny."

"Least you don't treat yours like shit. And you wouldn't run out on yours, either...unlike SOME people. Wonder how Miss Martha feels now that she knows that little tidbit?"

He squints at me. "You said that in front of her?"

"Yeah."

"Frohike, you're your father's son, I hate to say it. Only he and you would say something so utterly classless."

"Thanks a lot."

"Why don't you go back and see him tonight?"

"No fucking way."

"Think you should. And you should probably apologize to Martha whatever-her-name-is."

"Whose side are you on, you fuckrag?"

"Yours, Junior, believe it or not. You came to me for advice, I'm giving it. Of course, my patients that pay me a hundred and fifty an hour don't listen to me, why the hell should you?"

"Why do I have to do it all? It's not all my fault, you know!"

"Didn't say it was."

"And it's not like they don't do anything wrong!"

"I didn't say they did. Tell you what, Michael: do you want to be an adult or not? Think about that one."

I think this 'session' is over.

END OF PART 24