DEEP THROAT
Chapter One
Anne Hadrian and her stepfather were driving up to the restaurant. She was in deep dog dodo and she knew it. Not only was he late, he had to bring her, and he had to bring her because she had blown something up at school and gotten expelled. He hadn't said a word.
She studied him boldly. Agent Fox Mulder was a handsome man, dark and lean and tall and so damn cheerful and passionate. Women fell over themselves to fall over him.
They looked enough alike to pass for kin-same dark hair and eyes, a natural leanness. She kept her hair short like his. Even at twelve, she was almost up to his shoulders, and he was six foot. But she was weedier then him yet.
The passenger side window was rolled down to the April air, still a bit sharp. Anne smoked a cigarette out that window, cigarettes he had bought for her when she asked. It was a fair exchange-she cooked dinner for him, and he supplied her with cigarettes.
They were no relation. He had found her along the Potomac River, ready to dive in with bricks in her pants. He'd pulled some legal hanky-panky, and gotten custody. Now she lived behind his kitchen in her own room, cooked edible meals-and got expelled from the third middle school in a year.
She finished her cigarette and threw the butt out the window. "Are you gonna talk, or what?"
He pulled into the restaurant, parked. Then he answered.
"Think you'll like to come to Idaho with us?"
She felt her eyebrows shoot up. "Scuse?"
"Well, you don't like regular school. If you were home schooled, I'd have to take you with me in the field. Not on the FBI's tab, yeah, but I can buy plane tickets for you. "
"Um, did you miss something back there? At the school? Which has a hole in the cafeteria wall? That they want you to pay for?"
He shrugged in his happy puppy way. "You like the idea?"
"Well. If I get to help and not be baggage. Sure."
He held out his hand. "Deal. "
"Won't your partner think it's weird?"
"That you gotta come because of expulsion? Don't think so."
"You are a strange chicken, Fox Mulder."
"Just call me Dad and it'll fly."
Anne rolled her eyes as they got out of the car.
The wind caught the tie of his suit, whereas everything of Anne's began to spin-the purple peasant skirt, the jacket over the clingy top, even her short hair tipped with vermillion. It was like being caught in a wind tunnel, and not a sexy one either. She caught a whiff on one of the exiting patrons.
"Hey Dad," she enquired with a lilt.
"Hey daughter," he sang back.
"Could you buy me a shot of something? Like tequila?"
"No."
"What about a Cosmopolitan?"
"Nope."
"Beer?"
"Not happening."
The restaurant smelled of thin sheets of smoke built up in layers, overlaid with a crust of alcohol and sweat. And it was dim.
"Can I light up?" she observed the atmosphere appreciatively.
"Not until we're back in the car."
She gave him a cheeky grin. "Trying to impress Little Miss with your parenting skills?"
"What parenting skills? Go stake us a table along the wall so we have three seats and 180 degree visual coverage. Go."
She stuck her tongue out at him. And went to get a table.
Watching him carefully, she saw the woman he meant, his new partner. Dana Scully was surprisingly delicate and pretty, with a bob of red hair that was a beacon in a sea of brunette and dirty blonde and black. And in the suit, she looked like someone Mulder would go after in a heartbeat.
The waiter gave her a funny look. In the interest of not blowing anything else up, physically or otherwise, she smiled back and blew a kiss at the tightwad. He scowled further. Ass.
Mulder was back. "Anne, this is Dana Scully. Scully, this is Anne Hadrian, my stepdaughter."
She noticed that Scully needed no title in Mulder's mind, and shook her tiny hand.
"Just so you know, I'm grounded, too."
"What?"
Anne indicated Mulder. "I managed to get expelled. Again. So I'm grounded."
Scully raise one auburn brow. "I see."
They all sat down, Mulder extracting a file. "This is Colonel Robert Budahas, a military test pilot. He's been missing four months. He suffered a mental breakdown and was taken by the military for treatment. His wife now can't get any information at all, and any calls regarding Budahas are now classified. His wife filed it as a kidnapping."
Anne leaned over and read, to Scully's discomfort. "Why would the military kidnap one of their own pilots?"
"That's what you and I-and Anne, since she likes explosives so much-"
"I wasn't trying to blow the wall up, FYI," she interrupted.
"Are going to the spud state to investigate a little kidnapping," he finished.
"I don't know. I thought you only liked those paranormal-type cases."
"Let's just say this case has a distinctive smell to it. A certain," he searched for the words. "Paranormal bouquet."
"Dad?" Anne asked sweetly.
"Yes?"
"I repeat: You. Strange chicken."
Mulder shook his head. "I'll be right back. And no alcohol, Anne."
"Party pooper." And she punctuated properly with a stab of her tongue in the smoky air.
Left uncomfortably with Scully, she waited. Adults couldn't deal with kids who took initiative.
"What did you blow up?" Scully finally asked.
"It was an accident, however the lunch lady spins it," Anne began. "I was showing a couple people how you could make a rocket with basic household stuff. I only made a small one. Then one of my compadres decided to make one. Fine. Uses too much of all the secret ingredients. Blows a hole in the wall. My fault, somehow. Mainly because the little snot said I had been to one to mix the sh-stuff."
"And you were expelled based on that?"
Scully's incredulity was encouraging. "Last week I staged a meep rebellion. And before that I called a teacher on some unfair grades that favored the richer students. "
"What's a meep rebellion?"
"Where everyone in any class gets together and says 'meep' to disrupt the class. It was school wide. The word 'meep' was banned from being spoken. So I wrote it on all my homework at random places. I don't think they were amused."
Scully actually laughed. "And so that's why Mulder's bringing you?"
"Yep. A meep rebellion and an explosion. But they never had hard evidence of the meep rebellion being my idea. I was careful. But I was brought in and interrogated by a white-haired man who thought that threats of expulsion and public embarrassment actually had an effect on me. So nobody liked me."
"And the teacher gave you an unfair grade, before the meep rebellion?"
"No, I got As easy. It was Libby Montez. She had gotten a low grade and her answers were similar to mine. I called the teacher on it. She'd the one who put my name forward for the meep rebellion and lead the charge for my expulsion. Dad really doesn't seem as upset as I thought. He did threaten to home school me. I should be scared."
"I didn't know Mulder was married."
"He's not," she finally grabbed a breadstick. It had no right to sit there and look edible and not let her eat it. "Basically, long to short, he knew my mom and they dated but never married. Now she's AWOL and he has custody of me until she surfaces again, if ever. But we keep it simple and I call him Dad and it all works."
Mulder came back from the men's room with the force of lightening, looking around.
"Dad? Everything cool?"
"Yeah," he scanned the crowd. "It's nothing."
Anne rolled her eyes. And put more breadsticks in her pocket on the way out, because he'd paid for them and she could take some with her if she pleased.