EZRA'S POV

Ezra wasn't exactly a good kid. Heh. Not a good kid. Understatement of the century for sure there. He was an orphan. He was a runaway. He lived in an abandoned building in Bethesda, MD. He had been found when he was 7 by an old man with no memory of where or who he was- all he knew was his name. Ezra. No last name, either. He took on the last name of his foster family later. Ezra Golden. But that was unimportant. When he was 10, Ezra had had enough of the ridiculous family's rules and he ran. All the way to an alleyway in Bethesda. He hadn't ever been caught, despite the reputation he had gained around the area as the Silent Soldier. It was a completely pointless name. The Soldier part meant nothing. It was just a filler so they could have alliteration. Caught doing what? Stealing. Robbing a house once. All bad things. The cops had been called countless times but he never left a trace. He wasn't afraid of them, though. The only thing Ezra feared was the FBI. Not just a bunch of regular agents, but of something he had heard of from Eugene, or Tooms as most people called him. (The man had died a few years ago.) The "X-Files." A series of cases involving supernatural stuff, as Tooms had put it. Ezra wasn't that strange… was he? He could breath underwater for elongated stretches of time (the longest being 15 minutes. He hadn't tried anything longer than that.) but nobody knew about that- except Alex, his friend, who had disappeared last year when Ezra was 12 and Alex was 15. There were times where something would suddenly move when he was around. Everyone knew about that, but nobody really cared. Sure, he could be noticed easily if he was ever caught on security. Assuming they had color-a small shop? No way they had color. He had a green eye and a blue eye. In fact, just the shape of his eyes were extremely unique. He had what he called cat eyes. But that didn't mean anything… he hoped. He quickly shook it off. He checked the broken watch he had found and managed to repair. It was off by a few minutes, but it said the time was around eleven pm. He threw on his black jacket and a bandana (He never bothered with a ski mask. The bandana was his trademark.) He was running low on food and water. He had to grab some from the convenience store nearby. He swiveled his head and saw nobody. Until he was grabbed from behind. A tall, broad shouldered man with brown hair and a long black coat was holding him in the air. A smaller woman with shoulder length red hair and a similar coat was next to him. "Looks like the soldier has been caught." Said who Ezra had to presume was the man. "That ain't my name." He shot back, as he was slowly put down but still grasped tightly. The woman finally spoke. "Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, FBI." Ezra tried to play it cool with another rather rude comment. "Fox ain't a name, it's an animal."

"So I suppose you could explain why Fox is what's written on my birth certificate?" The man responded. He flicked out a pair of handcuffs and handcuffed Ezra to himself. "Don't try escaping." He added. Ezra attempted to slide his hand out of the cuff but failed. "Let's go, kiddo." Said the man. Ezra could obviously see his thinly veiled amusement. Ezra had no choice but to follow as the man led him to an old car. They put him in the back and the woman stared at him with pursed lips. "You mute or something?" Ezra growled.

The woman, Dana, chuckled and got into the passenger's seat of the car. "Don't try anything. We're armed." Warned the man. Fox, the guy with the weird-ass name.

Ezra sure feared the FBI, but he could handle these agents easy-he hoped. As they drove they missed the turn to the city. Ezra flicked up an eyebrow but said nothing. They stopped in front of an apartment building. Fox leaned his head into the back seat. "You think we're going to report you to the Bureau?" Ezra sure did, but he played it cool. "Naw. I only stole to keep alive."

Fox and Dana glanced at each other and chuckled. Dana glanced between Fox and Ezra and asked Ezra, "Soldier isn't your actual name, is it?"

Ezra snickered. "Sure is. I got a brother named corporal and a sister named private too."

Dana rolled her eyes. Fox laughed. "You remind me of myself as a boy."

"When, in the Jurassic period?"

Fox yet again chuckled while Dana seemed to have given up on convincing Ezra to talk. One down, one to go. "Kid, you tell us your name, how you never got caught, and allow us to run some tests and we do the best we can to help you out of jail or juvie."

The deal was too tempting to resist. "Name's Golden. Ezra Golden."

Dana pulled out a small laptop and began to type in his name to a program and Ezra chuckled. "You won't find me." Dana ignored him. Fox however was not satisfied. "And how you get out of the situations?"

"I'm fast and I got gloves. No fingerprints."

Not much of an explanation there.

"Must be pretty fast for you to be able to be unseen by the store clerks."

Fox turned his head towards Dana. "We need to head to an ophthalmologist in the morning."

Dana kept silent for a second. "Mulder, why are we dealing with this? This boy seems to be just another wayward teen."

"There's more to it, Scully. " Fox glanced at Ezra. "I'll show you the file." Fox had tried to make sure Ezra didn't hear that. But of course, Ezra did. "I don't trust anyone with this kid, Scully. We aren't careful we gotta find him again." Fox whispered to Dana. Ezra had leaned his head against the car and squinted his eyes so it looked as if he was asleep. Dana looked at Fox for a second and she, seemingly, just understood. "Mulder, you can't be serious!"

"I sure am."

"Mulder, you can't let a boy you literally picked up off the streets stay in your home, much less a troubled shoplifter!"

"Calm down, Scully. The kid is no more than 13. I've got an outside lock on one of the rooms, anyways."

"He could be armed!"

"I'll search him."

"Mulder, he'll escape from you just like he escaped from the shopkeepers."

"Scully, if they boy is unarmed, locked in a room, and I sleep with my gun under the pillow, I can't see what's gonna go wrong."

Scully hesitated for a moment and agreed.

Mulder leaned into the back again. "Ezra, you can open your eyes now."

Ezra opened his eyes. "Nope. Not happening. And how'd you know I was faking it?"

"I suppose an old dinosaur can learn new tricks."

Dana chuckled. Ezra was not amused. "Anyways, kid, we got you in our full custody."

"Not if I run away."

The agents glanced at each other and chuckled.

"Have fun with that." Fox got out of the car and walked around the car to the backseat door Ezra was leaning against. "Let's go."

Ezra didn't budge, until he was picked up by Fox. Ezra growled but began following the agent. Dana was already gone, left for another apartment. They entered a small apartment. The only interesting features were the nice looking TV and the pillow on the floor next to the couch. Ezra was perfectly content to stand where he was, and he did, but Fox picked him up from the arms and walked him to a small room with a mattress in it. He let go of Ezra in the room, and quickly retrieved a pillow from the room next to it. Fox closed and locked the door behind him and Ezra heard the bathroom door lock. They were connected. He was hungry and it was going to be a long night."I might as well bug Fox while I'm at it." He thought. Something Alex had taught him was to make a gunshot noise with a piece of paper and a bottle of water (A/N:no idea if this is actually possible.) he made the noise and heard rapid footsteps towards the room he was in. Fox burst into the room with a gun at the ready. "Ezra..." He growled. Ezra laughed. "I needed to get your attention. I'm hungry." Fox sighed, irritated. "That's it. Take off your jacket, I'm searching you." Ezra made no move to do so until Fox barked "Now!" Ezra slid off his jacket and tossed it to Fox, who carefully searched the jacket for a concealed weapon. Ezra was wearing a rather tight looking shirt so Fox didn't bother with anything else except Ezra's shoes. He left the worn sneakers in the corner of the room. "Come on." Ezra didn't want to follow Fox, but considering the meager amount of food he got each day Ezra would be glad to eat anything. Fox pulled a frozen pizza out of the freezer and put it into the oven. "So I gotta question." Ezra stated, breaking the ice.

"I'm listening."

"Why'm I part of the X-Files?"

Fox hesitated for a second. "We got a tip from a boy. Said his name was Alex, and he mentioned you could breathe underwater for elongated periods of time and you'd been asleep up a few times with your eyes open and an object floating over your head. Plus we already knew about all those robberies."

This couldn't be happening. Ezra couldn't believe it. Alex, the only person he had trusted had betrayed him. He had known Alex for so long, trusted him so much, and Alex betrayed him.