Author's Notes:
I am sorry I took so long to update - I ended up writing a very long chapter 3 and later deciding to actually split it into chapts. 3 and 4.
But because of that, I promise the next update will be coming up in a few days and will have some extra pages!


"Come on. Do we have to listen to this, Fox?", she asked almost in a plea. All that political nosense was making her sleepy and it wasn't even 8:30 yet.

"'The Magician' comes on at 9", her brother answered plainly.

"Mom and Dad said I could listen to the show, butt munch", she replied, annoyed.

Before they left, she had asked her parents if she could listen to "Duels of a Desert Witch", that would start at 9:15 - they usually didn't let her stay up past her bedtime at 9 but as she insisted a lot, they came to the conclusion that Samantha going to bed late just once wouldn't kill anyone, and they ended up giving her permission.

"They are next door at the Galbrand's. They left me in charge"

She simply stared at him, annoyed.

Having Fox in charge was always so boring because he liked to listen to the most yawn-inducing shows ever, at least in her opinion. Sometimes their parents would let her be in charge and she loved it - Fox could not go against that and she could listen to whatever she wanted to.

Suddenly, a blindingly white light coming from the windows illuminated the room and the entire house started to vibrate beneath them.

She looked at her brother, confused and scared. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Samantha saw Fox's scared face before he ran to a shelf and used a stool nearby to reach it. He knocked a heavy wooden box over, where their parents kept the wand of their deceased grandmother. But she had no time to see what happened next for she felt her body go limp almost as if it was melting, and felt it move against her will. The little girl could feel herself leaving the room's floor slowly and floating away towards the window. She could only stare at the ceiling and be absolutely terrified, feeling her blood running fast in her veins through her racing heart and past the scream of terror trapped in her throat.

She felt warm tears run silently down the sides of her face as she was carried into the unbearable light.

The muffled noise of an explosion filled her ears and her eyes flew open as she sat up straight so fast she immediately felt extremely dizzy. She let her body fall back on the bed.

Her heart was still painfully drumming against her chest and she felt a familiar sensation of something running down the side of her face - this time because she was sweating profusely and not because she was crying. She lifted a very shaky hand up to her warm forehead so she could wipe a bit of the sweat away.

Her breath was shallow and quick, the panic poisoning her lungs. Her sight was blurred and she lost track of time before her eyes started to focus a bit.

She saw a familiar white ceiling. But it had a crack that had never been there before.

She blinked several times, trying to make her eyes work properly again. She turned her head to the left, and saw boxes, books, newspapers and objects scattered all over a room that was not hers. Her eyes got the glimpse of something shiny on the floor close to the window and she saw black and white shards of something broken and a purple and golden wrapping paper thrown nearby.

The memories of last night peeked through the dense wall of panic in her brain. Slowly remembering where she was, the relief spreaded inside her chest as she was finally able to breathe in and out slower.

She covered her eyes with an arm, protecting them from the lights still on - she didn't want to turn them off last night - she was always kept in constant darkness except when they took her out to eat or for one of their hideous tests. A shiver ran down her body under her last thought and she tried to brush it away from her mind with all of her might.

She laid there for a couple of minutes and was able to calm herself a little bit before hearing a soft knock on the door.

"Damnit", said Langly, as the computer steamed for the millionth time, approximately.

"You should give up that stupid idea, it is not gonna work", Frohike said without taking his eyes from the table where he was almost done replicating the latest issue of The Lone Wanderers with the repetitive gesture of his wand.

"It is because of such medieval mindset like yours Muggle technology was never able to fully blend in into the wizarding world", Langly replied, annoyed. "I've already made some progress and I feel I am close now. You will see. Reparo!

The computer stopped fuming and was back to its previous good shape - also for the millionth time – and he went back to work.

The house they were in had an electric circuit Langly installed himself, but for obvious reasons it was never used except when he wanted to test his hacking experiments in Muggle objects. He had tried everything, but he noticed that imbuing the electronic parts with spells and potions to make them more resistent seemed like the right way to follow. It worked with blenders and fans he had tested with, but they were much less complex than a computer or a TV. Maybe he should concentrate the strengthening magic and even add some others he might find.

When he was about to summon a book from his other desk across the room ("Making Your Things Durable: The Manual of the Clumsy Wizard, vol I" by Midas McCallister) to research what else he could use for that and at the same time considering if he should get the other volumes of the collection, the sound of an explosion upstairs shook the entire house, making their dark magic / secret detectors shake violently on their shelves.

Frohike and Langly stood up immediately, the tension rising like someone had broke a pipe and the room was now flooding quickly with it. They stared at each other.

Frohike quickly took a small journal from his pocket and opened it on the table. He tapped it with his wand.

"Good news, she is awake. Bad news, she exploded her room. You should come ASAP.", he told the journal and the words were immediately written on the blank parchment page in brown ink by an invisible hand. He tapped it again and the ink disappeared.

"They should be here in a moment", he said after that, as Langly was already bringing down the Apparition blocking spells to let people in within the next minutes.

A few minutes later, Mulder and Byers appeared in the middle of the room.

"Close the house, Scully will come only later. She will go home first.", Mulder said, and Frohike did it right away.

"Is everything alright?", asked Byers, who was sporting the formal robes typical of someone who works at the Department for the Communication Regulations. "Are you two ok?"

"We are fine.", Frohike started. "It was only upstairs, and apparently she didn't move outside her room."

"We decided to call you before going to check on her, just in case.", Langly added.

Mulder moved towards the staircase.

"Maybe I should go in, since she claims to be or believes to be my sister. You guys can stay put outside if something goes wrong."

They nodded and followed Mulder upstairs.

Frohike undid the alarm and silence spells from the night before – they would redo them whenever she went to bed or stayed in the room, for her own protection and theirs. Mulder came closer to the door and knocked it.

"Sam? Are you in there?", he asked her, making sure to sound as gentle as possible.

"Yes", she replied, after a couple of tense seconds.

Mulder and the Wanderers breathed in deeply in relief that she didn't sound angry and didn't sound like she was in an attacking mode. But she sounded strange nonetheless, and that worried them.

"Can I go in?"

A moment of silence.

"Yes."

He opened the door slowly and saw her sitting on the bed, her back leaning on the bedframe and with her arms around her legs, pressed against her chest. However, he noticed the room was indeed kind of messy but didn't look like it had just been blowed up.

"The boys heard some noise, they were worried about you. They are just there outside, by the way. Are you alright?"

He sat at the end of the bed, in a distance she wouldn't feel uncomfortable with but close enough to make his concern evident.

"Yes, I just had some... bad dreams. The... the explosion was before I was really awake. I fixed everything after that.", she quickly added, as if she was afraid of being punished for the explosion.

"You fixed it?"

"Yes. Like he did yesterday.", she answered, pointing at the door with her eyes. "Frohike, right?"

"Oh. Yes. And yes, it was Frohike who fixed the room yesterday. You did a good job, I was actually asking myself if the noise the boys heard was really an explosion as they said it was."

Mulder took notes to himself to tell Scully that Sam had learned another spell through observation. He didn't ask about her dreams though, for she didn't seem like talking about that at all and he didn't want to distress her even more.

"By the way, you slept for nearly 16 hours straight, I hope you were able to fully rest."

"Apart from how I woke up, it was good, yes.", she answered, still holding her legs against her chest, and still tense but not as much as when they had started to talk.

"And how are your hands, your feet? Are they hurting?", he asked gently.

"Oh... no. They are fine.", she looked down to one of her hands, carefully wrapped in white linen bandages. "They are not hurting since Miss Scully took care of them."

"She has some heavy hands on her, Scully, but she is really good at healing", Mulder said with a smile, trying to break a little bit more of Sam's tension. She returned with a shy, tiny smile and agreed with a nodd.

"Are you hungry?", he knew he had made the right question when she turned her eyes up to him quickly.

"Yes, very."

He drew out his wand and pointed it at the nightstand - where before was only an empty mug (Frohike and his milk before bed, probably – he thought), a plate with bread, scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, some cookies and a tall glass of milk showed up.

She was starving.

Sam picked the plate up and using her pillow as a support, she started to eat with the spoon that was resting inside it.

Even though she remembered the food from The Purity Control being satisfying, it was very tasteless - unlike this food. She coughed a little after the first bite because the seasoning was so different and stronger from what she was used to. But she was still very hungry so she kept on eating.

In fact, after a couple of bites, she started to frown over how familiar it actually tasted.

"Is anything wrong with the food?", asked Mulder.

"This... I remember eating this before...", she frowned deeply, as if making great effort to remember. "... when I was little. We both did. Isn't it?"

Mulder smiled, more out of sadness than happiness.

Under the threat of her being an actualy Legiliment, he was shutting his mind as hard as he could since he had started talking to her through the door. But he was also doing it because he didn't want her to see (if she haven't already) his memories of one of his and his sister's most recurrent breakfasts that consisted in exactly what he had just conjured for her to eat. He wanted to see if she would remember something, anything about it.

It seemed to work as she claimed to remember it, but he wasn't sure he could believe her and he realized right there how pointless that was. He had to remember himself that Scully still had to perform her tests to fully confirm if Sam was or not Samantha, and he had to remember that really hard.

"It is just a very common kind of breakfast. Even though it is almost 8pm.", his finally replied, his soft smile still deceiving what he was really feeling.

Sam looked at him, sensing something was strange and she instinctively scryed his mind for an answer. Surprisingly, she was not being able to see the thoughts on the shallow part of his mind, where it was very easy for her to access so far.

"I see." She replied, unconvinced.

She understood he was probably closing his mind even harder because of her, she was not that clueless. They were being kind, but were still hesitating around her and what she might do for she had harmed people and Apparated in places no one was supposed to. She understood why they were so scared around her but that still upset her for she wastrying to be as honest with them as she could.

She ate one more cookie, thoughtful. She would somehow prove she was Samantha. She wasn't sure how yet, but she would.

When she had finished eating and drinking her milk as well, she placed the dishes back to the nightstand. Mulder pointed at it once more and the dishes disappeared.

"Better now, I suppose?"

"Yes, a lot better."

He felt her tone and atitude were bit dry. Maybe she got the hint he was testing her and didn't like it at all, making him see even more how that was really not the smartest decision.

"Well, I will let you be. You can come downstairs with us if you want, you are free to come and go inside the house. Just do not go outside, it can be dangerous. This place is hidden and protected, but still. Do not take unecessary risks."

"Okay.", she aknowledged, looking at him as he stood up.

"Scully will be here in a couple of hours, so we can see what she can do about you, and what evidences she will be able to gather regarding your identity."

Sam hoped that would be enough to prove she was who she said she was – even for herself. Sometimes she felt like everything she thought she remembered was indeed a lie and she was not who she thought she was.

She decided to stay in the room. She was very used to be by herself and didn't feel very comfortable with just standing donwstairs with them.

"Alright, I will be waiting here then. Just tell me when she arrives."

Around 10pm, the golden eagle Patronus crossed the wall and spoke with Scully's voice she was on her way and that they should open the house. After two years, it was still weird to Mulder to see that huge bird of light flying in whenever she wanted to send him a message through her Patronus.

It used to be a Pomeranian dog since she was fourteen, when she was able to cast it for the first time after studying by herself, but since her abduction it had changed its small but fierce form of a dog to the big and formal shape of a golden eagle, just like the Animagus form she was also able to assume since then. They had no idea why that had happened to her – until Sam came over last night, bringing a story that could explain it.

The Wanderers shut down the blocking spells and soon Dana Scully Apparated in the room, her black robes and red hair flowing around her.

"You are late to the party, Scully." Mulder said, sitting on an armchair nearby, looking very bored and the collar of his dark green Auror uniform unbuttoned.

"Sorry I've been missing all the fun", she replied with sarcasm, but the hint of amusement in her voice, characteristic of her answers to Mulder's provocations, still present. "I now have a 10 year old son in case you don't remember"

"How is the kid?", Frohike asked. "you should bring him over again sometime, he loved the tracking maps."

"He is doing fine. Going to Muggle school, eating well. No signs of wounds in his hands for months.", she answered, leaving her coat on the hanger next to the door that was never opened. "And I won't bring him over until...", she lowered her voice and pointed upstairs with her eyes. "well, until we know it is safe to."

"Seems fair.", said Langly.

"And well, safe", added Byers, with the same low voice tone.

"She is indeed upstairs, right?", Scully asked.

"Yes", said Mulder, finally standing up after shaking a leg with anticipation for around two hours while waiting for her. "She decided to wait for you upstairs."

"Did you tell her...?", she started to ask in a low voice, but Mulder answered with the same tone before she could finish.

"Oh, no. Just the same thing as yesterday, that you would somehow provide evidences and such."

"Alright. Let's do this, then. I will talk to her and let's see how she is going to react", she said.

"I will go with you.", Mulder said. "Just in case."

They took the staircase, and while they walked up towards the room Mulder filled her in through Legilimency about everything that had happened after Sam exploded the place and he got there. As expected, Scully slightly scolded him for trying to test Sam out like that with the breakfast.

Soon she was closing her mind tighter under Mulder's instructions and knocking at the door softly.

"It is me, Scully. Mulder's here too."

"Come in.", she answered right away.

They came in and found her just laying down in bed. She was once more wearing the black pants and red robes she was wearing the night before, instead of the pajamas from earlier - they were folded on top of one of the boxes at the corner.

We should get her more clothes, Mulder., commented Scully.

Sam looked at them with a bored face very similar to the one Mulder had just two minutes before, and that made Scully shiver a little.

"Hello, Samantha.", Scully greeted.

"Please, call me Sam.", she quickly replied, as she sat on the bed. Scully was so short, or Sam and the bed were so tall, or both, she barely had to look up to actually look at the Healer's face. "I know Fox doesn't like it when I am called 'Samantha'."

That was partially true - she knew Mulder wasn't completely sure of her identity and not yet accepting the idea she could finally be the sister he has been looking for since he was a kid and that this journey could finally be heading towards its end. But the truth was also the fact he started to call her "Sam" very spontaneously and she secretly admitted to herself she liked how it, being called by a name by someone.

"Oh. Alright, I am sorry.", Scully apologized. Sam couldn't read her mind as well, probably for the same reasons she still couldn't read Mulder's, but she could overall feel her intentions and she was being honest in her apology. Mulder just looked at her in silence.

"Well, Sam. As Mulder told you yesterday, I am a Healer. Which means I can heal but also investigate some other things about you – your identity as Samantha Mulder, or not, included. And I can't lie to you we've noticed your magic is very... atipical. We need to look further into that as well, to learn what you can do, how you do it, and even why. Maybe we can find a way to help you control some aspects of your powers – for what we've seen and what you've told us yesterday I understand you have some issues with that, is that right?"

"Yes.", she lowered her head, feeling embarassed about the destruction she had caused. "I don't know why it happens, it just happens. I just..."

"Yes?", asked Scully, tilting her head a little to see Sam's face.

"I don't want to hurt anyone anymore. I did it back when I ran from the Purity Control, but I didn't mean to."

"You were in a life-or-death situation, Sam. It is understandable why you would react with violence, you wanted to run away from that place and you acted in self-defense."

Sam looked up at her again, a hint of fear in her eyes.

"Yes, but I don't want to kill anyone again. I really don't."

Mulder and Scully stared at each other briefly in concern, but soon she turned back to Sam.

"We will find a way to help you with that. So far I've noticed you learn spells out of necessity or by witnessing them being performed – you have learned how to Apparate because you needeed to run away and hide; you learned how to levitate yourself and repair objects after you saw Frohike and I performing such spells. You are a fast learner and I can see you find your own solutions to get to a certain result. I am certain you can learn how to control and contain certain powers of yours like everyone else does, only in a different way."

"What do you mean by 'like everyone else'", Sam inquired.

Scully seemed to think for a minute, as if deciding what to say.

"I was born into a Muggle family. At first we all thought magic was not real, like all Muggles.", she started, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "But when I was little, my older brother used to snatch my favorite toy from me and hold it out of my reach to tease me. More than once, I watched it being ripped from his grip by some kind of invisible hand and come back to me. It happened so much he stopped doing it at some point. When I learned later I was a witch, everything made perfect sense on why I did all those things: I was doing it out of necessity or because I really wanted something. I went to a wizarding school and I was taught how to improve my magic and perform it correctly. What I mean with all of it Sam, is that like me as a child you can't control this specific part of your magic. But with some formal education, I believe you will be able to control it, and probably faster by the way you learn new spells, and because you are not a child, like I was back then."

"You really think so?", Sam's face seemed to lit up a bit under the perspective of being able to control these destructive powers she had, and that insisted to do things she didn't want to.

"Of course. We can try that, if you are willing to.", she replied.

"I am, yes."

"Good", Scully smiled a little. She then prepared to touch the delicate subject she knew it was. "There is another thing I need to talk to you about, Sam. In order to know what happened to you, if you have any health issues, and to possibly learn about your identity, I will have to perform some tests..."

Because Sam's eyes were so blue, both Scully and Mulder were able to clearly see her pupils dilate almost instantly with fear.

"N-no more tests, please.", she cut, absolutely terrified.

Scully thought quickly. She kneeled in front of Sam, her velvet robes making a black, round puddle around her. Looking up into her eyes she took one of Sam's wrapped hands between hers gently.

"Listen, Sam. These tests I mean to perform on you are nothing like the ones from the Purity Control. Nothing like it at all. I can explain in detail what I will do beforehand and I promise, they will be harmless and non-invasive; I will definitely need a sample of your blood as well, but I will only need a few drops. That's all."

Scully spoke with a gentle, understanding voice accostumed with such talks, specially with small children. The present circunstances were way different from a child scared by Healers, but the approach was pretty much the same. Even though she overflowed with powerful and often dangerous magic, Sam had very child-like behaviours in some aspects - which could confirm her story of being abducted at a very young age.

However, at the same time even though she was adopting a behaviour she would use towards children or teenagers, Scully was very aware Sam everything but one.

Sam closed her fingers in tight fists, and shut her eyes just as hard. She was breathing slightly quicker than a minute before and she seemed stiff with tension. She thought of all the tests she had to endure for years, every minute coming back to her more and more detailed now that her brain was able to work properly on its own.

"No one is ever going to hurt you again, Sam.", she heard Mulder tell her softly. "We promise you that. That's why you are here, and that's also why we need these tests to be done – we don't know how your health is going. We need to know if the Purity Control also affected you in that way."

"Yes." Added Scully, still holding her hand in hers. "Exactly. And we can't and won't do this if you don't want us to. But it is something that needs to be done and we would not be asking you this if it wasn't of great importance."

At the same time she thought of the Purity Control and its unspeakable crimes against her, Sam also thought of her breakfast with Mulder earlier; of how he and everyone else were still so skeptical about her identity and afraid of her, and of her own life as a no-one. She thought of herself as a child in her own memories, with a name and a family, happy. As nauseous and scared she felt about more tests being performed, she also wanted more than anything to restore all of what had been stolen from her.

Scully felt Sam's hand shaking a lot between hers and looked up at Mulder, who looked back at her with the same worried, sad face. The question if this was all a huge mistake and they were only tormenting the poor woman being silently asked between them with no need of their Legilimency skills.

With the corner of their eyes, they saw a movement and they looked back at Sam. She was looking back at them, shaking. Tears that were beyond her control, just like her offensive-defensive magic powers, gathered in her eyes.

"I-I want to to this", she simply answered, her tight fist opening and taking Scully's hand in hers. Scully held it back instinctively. "I want to do this, for myself. Specially because this is what the Purity Control would hate to be done. Isn't it..?.", she looked at Mulder, the gathering tears in her eyes trailing down her face when she moved it upwards. "They would hate if people knew who I am... And what I am. They wanted me to be a nobody, a secret. I refuse to keep being one. I... I want to know what happened to me, I want to know who I am..."

Mulder approached carefully and tenderly placed a hand over her bony shoulder, a soft smile on his lips. Sam could clearly feel his reassuring intent, even without being able to see what he was thinking.

"I am happy you want to fight back, Sam. I really am. We will find out more about you, all of us. We promise you that."