After Scully's failed attempt to get Kyrie to open up, the girl mostly stared sullenly out the window at the scenery as it passed by but when Scully slowed down to pull onto their road the girl finally began to perk up. Her eyes scanned the houses on that side of the street and it was easy to understand that she was wondering which of the homes would be their final destination.

"There used to be a fence here that we had to get out and open before driving up to the house," Scully commented as they drove past the posts that once supported the fence, wondering why she'd brought that up. After the final case they'd consulted on, she and Mulder had spent hours debating whether or not that sort of security measure was still needed. In the end they decided it wasn't because the FBI was no longer looking for them, and even if they ever were, they knew where they lived.

"Why'd you get rid of it?" Kyrie asked. Her eyes were peering down the driveway, apparently trying to make out the distant house.

"It was a pain to move," she explained, not really wanting to get into the whole issue of Mulder having once been on the run from the law just then. Though, she thought as she gave the girl's profile a thoughtful look, it wouldn't surprise her much if Kyrie already knew that.

"Good reason." Kyrie yawned. "I wouldn't want to move a big heavy gate every time I came home, either."

Trying not to let her surprise show, all at once the remark despite a lack of proprietary tone, reminded Scully again that this would now be Kyrie's home too. She might not have even realized it herself when she spoke, but at least until she turned eighteen, this was where everyone would expect her to live now that she'd been released into her stepmother's custody.

The sun was just coming up and the house looked different to Scully as she drove down the driveway which was longer than some roads she'd been on. Something about the edges seemed to glow in the harsh morning sunlight, and it served to be beautiful but somehow also made the house seem more shabby too. Maybe it was the way the white paint peeled along some shingles, she considered as she turned off the car. They could have invested several thousand more dollars into the property to make it seem more modern, but it was nothing she and Mulder had ever felt the need to do. Usually the house seemed cozy, but now that the girl was studying the structure Scully was feeling self-conscious about their choice to leave things "historic" as Mulder liked to put it with a wry smile whenever the topic came up between them.

Hers was the only car in the driveway and noticing this nearly made her sigh. It had probably been too much to hope that Mulder would have been able to surprise her by getting a late flight home after they spoke, but some part of her hadn't been able to shake the expectation that he'd of course be able to get home so they could go look for William together.

As soon as they got out of the house, Kyrie looked around, but Scully eventually realized that she wasn't looking at the house. Instead she seemed to be looking off towards the woods. The girl shivered a little and said, "No neighbors close by, huh?"

"No," Scully agreed. "Your dad likes it that way."

"Oh." Kyrie's instant wariness made her wonder again where the girl had been living, because it sure didn't seem likely that she'd been living in an open area like this that wasn't within shouting distance of the neighbors.

Scully was tempted again to explain why Mulder found comfort in their privacy on the property, but she decided against it. If the girl could keep secrets, so could she. On some level she realized that she was being petty, but she still couldn't help herself. "Come on, let's go in."

Kyrie's expression was unreadable. "Okay." After a beat she followed closely, not lingering to look at anything much as they made their way up the path.

As soon as the door opened, Scully stepped into the house, motioning for Kyrie to as well. She did, but now that they'd entered the building there was a decided hesitation to her movements, and Scully found herself feeling a little bad for her. Although she still didn't know the girl's previous circumstances, she had gotten the sense that they hadn't been ideal. However, even if this was an improvement, it would still be a big adjustment to suddenly find herself in another state, living in an isolated home with a father she'd never even met.

"Come on, let's go down this way," Scully invited.

Kyrie glanced down the hallway. "Lots of bedrooms," she observed, but it was nearly a question too.

One Scully chose to ignore. She couldn't really bring herself to admit that she was still fairly certain that Mulder had insisted on this house because he'd known that she'd never fully given up hope that they'd have a family to fill it. Looking at the girl from the corner of her eye, she guessed that she'd been right to hold onto it because at the bare minimum their house would now be home to three people, not just two. Maybe more, an internal voice whispered, but she shoved it down.

When the teenager's expression became more uncertain, Scully forced herself to smile. "I think I know the right room for you," she said and walked past the girl. After a couple of seconds Kyrie followed her.

That same internal voice asked Scully if there was a reason that she was showing the girl the bedroom that was the farthest from hers and Mulder's, but she told it to be quiet. The room they stopped in front of was the second largest in the whole house, which was fitting for a teenager. And besides, no seventeen-year-old would prefer to be right next to them if there was another choice. She tried not to think about other possible bedroom occupants needing to be closer to her and Mulder since that was still only a possibility, not a certainty like Kyrie's presence.

Scully pushed the bedroom door open, and nearly managed to convince herself that this was her entire reasoning, not because some part of her didn't want the girl sleeping in the next room. Even that had nothing to do with Kyrie, she reassured herself, it was just that she found it difficult to relax with people too near. This had her thinking of her high school boyfriend and the disastrous weekend she and Missy took their significant others to their grandparents' cabin for a weekend; she'd been so self-conscious that her sister might overhear that the poor guy had barely gotten a kiss.

Her thoughts returned to the present when she noticed Kyrie's dubious expression. "We'll have to furnish it, of course," Scully said, trying to imagine seeing the large empty room for the first time. It wasn't dusty or anything, but in its emptiness it probably seemed fairly stark. Unsurprisingly her thoughts circled back to wondering where Kyrie had been living most recently. This time she held her tongue, determined not to alienate her new charge. Still, it was beginning to feel like OCD's obsessional thoughts and it probably won't go away until Kyrie told her more.

Kyrie just nodded slowly.

For a moment Scully had the urge to suggest that they take the stack of catalogues from the living room with them, but it struck her a ridiculous so she restrained herself. Even though Kyrie would be a passenger, she seemed as keyed up as Scully did, so there was no way that she was in a state of mind to pick out a comforter and drapes that was to her liking.

Sighing, Scully stared at the empty room with the girl. The natural light filtering into the room was rather gloomy and she wished it wasn't December. As a kid she'd hated it every time the military moved her family, but the winter moves were the worst. Glancing at Mulder's daughter, she wondered if she was just projecting her old half-remembered disappointment on to her. It wasn't as though the kid didn't have other things to worry about.

"We'll worry about this later," Scully said, and led the way out of the room. "Let me get you set up on Mulder's computer so you can print the directions to William's house while I pack."

"Okay," Kyrie said listlessly. She seemed half awake, and Scully wondered how long it had been since the girl had been given a chance to rest.

"You seem tired."

To her surprise, this elicited a look of alarm from her. "I'm okay" Kyrie mumbled quickly.

All at once she realized that Kyrie was worried that she was going to be left behind if she showed any vulnerability. That was probably an understandable concern – Scully was capable of driving on her own and wouldn't really need a companion if she knew where she was going. Of course Kyrie worried that she'd take the directions and leave her behind. "Maybe you'll fall asleep on the drive," Scully suggested.

The tense set of the teenager's shoulders relaxed a little, and Scully suspected that her hunch was correct. Kyrie's biggest worry at that moment was that she'd immediately be abandoned while Scully raced off to play rescue ranger on her own. Looking up with a faint smile, Kyrie just said "maybe."

"Here's his office," Scully told her after they walked down the hallway. Fortunately, Mulder had been on one of his rare cleaning jags before he left for Canada, and she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just been worried she'd take his absence as an opportunity to discard his clippings if he left them everywhere like usual. Regardless, the office didn't look like the site of a small localized disaster like it usually did, which came as some relief even if Scully did think she was projecting critical-ness onto Kyrie.

"It'll take a couple of minutes to boot up," she apologized reflexively, "But it'll connect to the internet automatically, and you can use IE or Firefox, whichever you're more comfortable with – the icons for both are right on his desktop."

After Kyrie nodded to indicate her understanding, she started to leave, but Kyrie asked "that's it?" and had her eyebrows raised when Scully looked back at her.

"Oh, right," Scully reached up and turned on the printer. "Sorry about that. I forgot it doesn't power on automatically."

"No, I mean…" Kyrie paused. "Aren't you going to lecture me about not snooping on his computer or something?"

Startled, Scully blinked. "Do I need to tell you something like that? I had the sense that I didn't."

"Of course not," she replied sourly. "Most adults say things like that regardless of whether or not the kid tells them too."

"I like to think I'm not most adults." As she spoke she thought about how she'd like to think she'd already proven that too, given that most adults she knew would have been far less welcoming to the child of her husband and an old lover of his.

"You're not," Kyrie admitted. "So far as I can tell."

"That almost sounds like a compliment," Scully replied, tone as light as she could manage. "I'll leave you to this. I need to pack and call your father."

That same wariness returned to her eyes. "Oh."

"Do you want to speak to him too?" she asked, realizing that making the offer was probably the polite thing to do. Not that she thought Kyrie was eager to take her up on it.

"Um..." Kyrie looked down. "I'll talk to him if he brings it up, okay?"

"Sure."

By the time Scully left the room, Kyrie had already turned her attention to the computer screen and was typing with a speed that Mulder would admire.


Indecision followed Scully into the master bedroom. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, torn between packing what she thought she'd need for the road trip to rescue William, and calling Mulder. Neither thing seemed particularly appealing - how could she know what might be needed to rescue her long lost son from potential doom? how could she tell Mulder about all the thoughts knocking around in her skull? - but in the end she decided that packing would be the easier of the two tasks and did that as quickly and efficiently as she possibly could.

It was also in the back of her mind that she could probably find something for Kyrie to sleep in too, but as she looked at the packaged pajamas she'd gotten the Christmas before from her mother (who had good intentions but paid no attention to her taste) she realized that the girl would probably like the packaged satin outfits even less than she did.

"We'll have to stop along the way," she muttered to herself as she zipped her own suitcase closed. Of course they would, that should have occurred to her earlier because there was no way that Kyrie's backpack could possibly hold enough clothes for what would probably be a three day drive each way. If they were really really lucky, they'd see Mulder on Christmas day.

Eventually she'd put everything she could possibly need, right down to deodorant and a spare magazine for her gun, into her bag, and realized there was nothing else she could do to continue to stall.

Mulder picked up on the very first ring, and she heard a note of caution in his voice. "Hey Scully. Where are you?"

"I'm at home, Mulder," she said and it was easy to realize that there was more to his question, so she went on without making him ask. "They dropped all the charges against Kyrie, and she's here at the house with me."

"Wow, that's great," he enthused.

"Mulder, there's more. A lot more," she confessed. It seemed like a good time to sit, so she sat on the end of the bed.

"Like what?" Now he sounded concerned, which made her feel bad because nothing she said was going to make him feel less worried.

"Um…" She rolled her eyes at her lack of eloquence. She'd rehearsed this conversation in her head on the drive home, so why wasn't it coming out more easily? "Kyrie took the little ones because she was concerned for their safety. They dropped the murder charges because the coroner determined that the toddler's 'parents' had been dead for three months."

"How old is he again?" Mulder asked, sounding puzzled.

"Two and a half."

"There's no way a two-and-a-half-year-old could have taken care of himself for three months."

"I know," Scully replied, her voice dropping low without her notice. "I asked the cop…they found puddles in the house. The responding officers thought that it was anti-freeze." She swallowed hard when he said nothing. "And before I got there, before they read her her rights, Kyrie claimed she killed Nathaniel's parents by puncturing the backs of their necks."

Mulder swore softly, and Scully was fairly certain that he dropped the phone from the sound of it. After a few seconds he recovered it. "So we're talking about the alien bounty hunter, or at least his race."

"It certainly sounds like it to me."

"What motivation would they have for impersonating the little guy's parents?"

"I don't know. We may learn more."

"How?" he asked suspiciously.

"Oh, Mulder." She sighed before pulling herself back together. "That's not the half of it, and I don't know how to begin to explain this all to you."

"Just try."

"Kyrie was concerned about Nathaniel and the newborn because it's quite possible that biologically they're also yours. And mine," she added. When he didn't say anything immediately, she went on in a rush. "I'm waiting on DNA test results, and if they are ours, you should be able to take custody of them. Kyrie and I probably won't be back by then because we're going to William, who might also be in danger."

"Jesus, Scully. When you said that there was more, you weren't kidding!" He said nothing for a few seconds, obviously trying to collect his thoughts. "How does Kyrie know where William is?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I'm having trouble getting her to open up to me about things like that. So far she hasn't said much of anything about what's happened to her since Diana died."

"That's a pretty huge gap."

"I know. Honestly, at first I thought she was being stubborn, but now I think she might be afraid to talk about it." It was only as she said it that she realized it was true. "But even though I don't know how she knows, I believe she really does."

"And the two of you are planning to drive there? To William's home?"

"Yes," she said, and steeled herself for him to object.

Instead of protesting, he said, "When?"

"As soon as I get off the phone with you."

"Right." He paused. "I think I'll be able to fly home late tomorrow afternoon."

"That's great," she enthused, but she really wished that he was there then.

"I'm glad that I'm finally coming home. But you can't wait for me." It wasn't a question she realized after a beat, it was a statement of fact. It made her want to apologize. "How long did they say it would take for the DNA test results to come back?"

"They didn't, but three days is typical. While we were at the station I filled out paperwork saying that you could take them if I can't."

"You sound like you think they really are ours," he commented. His neutral tone made it impossible for her to figure out if he thought that was a good or a bad thing.

"I've seen pictures of them. They look as much like us as Kyrie does you."

This obviously threw him. "She looks like me?"

"She does, Mulder. Not your Xerox, but there's definitely a familial resemblance."

"Hope she doesn't have my nose," he predictably groused.

"No, she looks more like Diana there." Should she ask Kyrie if she could take a picture to send him, she wondered. Why hadn't she used her cell phone to take a photo of the photos she'd been shown of the boys? That probably would have led to a fight with the police station, she decided and felt a little better about not having done it. Moreover, she probably would have looked at the pictures obsessively if she could.

Mulder, at least, managed to pull his thoughts away from what he'd rather obsess on: Kyrie. "Is it okay to say that I hope that these kids are ours?" he asked. "And that we somehow get William back too – I mean, that's why you're going to him, isn't it? Not just to make sure he's safe, but to take him back if his parents have also been replaced?"

"Yes," she admitted. Her brain was buzzing by that point, though. Mulder hoped that the little boys were theirs too? "If his 'parents' aren't the people I had him placed with, I'll fight tooth and nail to get him back."

"I know," he answered. Of course he did.

"Mulder, you really would be happy if we suddenly had four kids to look after?" She felt shy asking, but she really wanted to know. "For your own sake, not just mine."

"Scully, I love you, but I'm not a saint. I've always wished that we could somehow see William again but wouldn't welcome the other boys into my life if I was only doing it for you. That would bring resentment, after all."

Resentment. That had been an entity that had slept between her and Mulder frequently during the first few weeks after they'd fled the FBI. He'd said that he understood why she'd had to give William up, and intellectually he probably had, but she could still feel it rolling off of him in waves. It had been easy for her to understand because she had regrets to match. Eventually he seemed to get past it, quicker than she had her guilt, and probably only because he still worried about what would happen in another three years. God forgive her, she had probably had made it seem like she was more in agreement with him that there was a coming danger than she really felt because it had been a way for him to feel less upset about her actions.

Trying to smile, Scully finally replied. "I'm glad to hear that, Mulder."

"Yeah?" he asked. "You sound a little surprised, Scully."

"Well, I am." She squirmed uncomfortably, and forced herself to sit stiller when she noticed that she was wrinkling the comforter on the bed. "Ever since you told me about what you found at Mount Weather, I've wondered how you'd react if…" Her voice trailed off as she thought about how she should best finish that sentence: if they somehow had gotten the adoption dissolved? If they'd gotten a call telling them that Emily's death was a lie and she was still alive? If there had been a plus on a pregnancy test? In the end she just let it all linger unsaid. Mulder was good at filling blanks on his own.

Moments before Mulder's voice had been playful, but now it was sober. "I was afraid of what might happen then. And to be honest, part of me still is. But I wouldn't trade that fear for the chance to raise a family with you, Scully. If I was willing to do that, I might as well roll over and die, because letting them dictate what we did with our lives to that degree would be worse than dying."

"Oh, Mulder," she sighed.

"Do you disagree?" he pressed.

"No. Not at all."

"Well, that's good then." After a moment he began to speak again. "Don't forget to take the phone charger kit with you, huh? We'll want to keep in touch."

"Already packed," she reassured him. Glancing at the doorway to make sure that she wouldn't be overheard, Scully mulled over Kyrie's presence in the house. So far Mulder hadn't asked to speak to her, but she could understand why he might hesitate – it was probably for the same reasons that his daughter was worried about expressing wanting to talk to him. "Hey Mulder, before we hang up, should I give Kyrie the phone?"

His hesitation had an uncomfortable edge to it, and she could practically feel him struggling to reply. "Um. That's a good idea, thank you."

"No problem."

Scully carried the phone to the office, and found Kyrie standing in front of the printer with a stack of black and white map printouts in her hand. At first the girl tentatively smiled to see her, but then her gaze landed on the phone and her expression became nervous instead.

Scully held the phone out to her, and Kyrie took it. Swallowing loud enough for Scully to hear, she said "Hello?" and Scully realized it was one of the bravest things she'd see someone do in quite a while.

She really wished that she could hear Mulder's side of the conversation too, because Kyrie's wasn't much to go on. "Yeah… Mom told me about you, before… I'm sorry she didn't… Yes… She was awesome, and I really appreciate it… Yeah, the cops didn't know what hit them… Yes… Yes… We've been e-mailing each other… Yes… Because I think that he's in danger… No, not this second, but soon… Yeah, I printed them out… Right, we'll see you then, I guess." Scully couldn't help but notice that Kyrie had begun to absently play with her hair then, as if she needed something to do to help her nerves. "I hope so to… Well, it's not exactly what expected, but I'm glad… Have a safe flight… as much as I can… Okay, I'll give her the phone."

"Thanks," Scully murmured as she took the phone back. For some reason Kyrie blushed as she nodded.

Although she desperately wanted to ask one or both of them how they felt the conversation had gone, but she couldn't. For one, Kyrie was standing just a few feet away, and it would be rude to ask about something so intimately related to her without including her in the conversation. And for another thing, the closed off look on her face all but screamed that she was still processing how she thought the conversation had gone, so no doubt Mulder felt similarly.

"Scully?" Mulder's somewhat distance voice asked, reminding her that the call hadn't yet disconnected. Her fingers were somewhat clumsy as she raised the phone back to her mouth. "You still there?"

"I'm here, Mulder."

"I… God, I don't know what to say here, Scully. Saying 'good luck' feels inadequate. But I do believe that you really do need to go to William. And right now. I was hoping that I could talk you into waiting for me, but I understand now that I can't do that. He needs you."

Scully glanced over at her new step-daughter, and then realized that she didn't really care if the girl overheard – it was something she had to tell him, because only he would understand how she felt. "I'm going to do everything I can to reach him in time," her voice broke then. "But Mulder, he doesn't know me. How am I going to convince him that I'm doing the right thing for him if he doesn't know me? Or that I'm capable of doing the right thing for him, considering…" Tears pricked in her eyes when she realized that this had been bothering her from the moment she decided that she would take up Kyrie's quest to save her last unaccounted for little brother.

Or at least the last one that we know anything about, a tiny internal voice relentlessly reminded her. Those other three, though...You don't know if they're boys, girls, alive, dead like Emily. You never bothered to look for them, so it wouldn't be surprising, would it? Maybe that's why she couldn't learn anything about them, because every one of them is d-

"You did the right thing for William then," Mulder said quietly, interrupting her thoughts. "When I couldn't help you protect him."

"Did I?" Her voice sounded harsh to her own ears, but she still felt guilt whenever she thought too long about the adoption, so it was of little wonder that she now sounded so critical of herself. Not that William was the only child she was currently feeling guilty about for that matter.

"Yes."

There was a time when that one word wouldn't have come to him so readily, she thought. "Mulder…"

"I know you beat yourself up because it was only a few weeks before you and I returned to each other, but you of all people should know how much trouble we'd repeatedly managed to pile up in just a few weeks' time," he reminded her, and she began to feel a little better.

"Well, that's for sure," she muttered, thinking instantly of several occasions when they'd defied death three times in a month. He hadn't come back for two.

"For all you know, the next bad thing could have happened during those few short weeks, and that time he would have ended up dead if he was with you," Mulder went on, not letting her have the time to dwell too long on things. "Or, what if they'd used him as leverage against me during the trial?"

The thought that they might wasn't a brand new one for her. There had been days when she imagined that the people who had wanted Mulder out of commission might have done just that… and then if anything had happened to William because of that, it would be her own resentment that they'd be dealing with instead of his, which he claimed to no longer feel. Maybe he really didn't, she mused, he was less adept at holding a grudge than any member of the Scully clan was, including her.

"I guess they might have," she reluctantly said when she sensed that he was still waiting for her to say something. "It's not outside the realm of possibility."

"Of course it isn't," he replied patiently. "And unfortunately, neither is any of this."

"I wish you were coming with me," Scully said, irritated with herself when she realized that her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. She glanced over at Kyrie, but the girl was looking away uncomfortably.

"I wish I was too," Mulder admitted. "Thank you."

"For what?" Surprise dried up her eyes a little.

"Everything. Getting Kyrie, being willing to do this without me even though it's hard- but I have every confidence that you'll make it all work out."

"That's a pretty big compliment, Mulder."

"Not big enough. I love you. Call me when you can."

"I will. Love you."

"Love you too."

Despite the fact that she was less teary, letting herself be overheard being so emotional at all left Scully feeling embarrassed, so she automatically tried to cover it up by adopting a business-like tone when she spoke to Kyrie. "What do you think of these?" she asked, holding up a pair of champagne and burgundy colored pajamas for Kyrie's inspection. She'd almost forgotten that she'd taken them with her.

It was clear from the conflicted look on her face that the teenager was trying to formulate a positive response about them despite an apparent distaste.

Scully let them drop to the seat of Mulder's chair. "I don't like them, either. There's a Target near where I work. We'll stop there on the way."

"Um, we don't have to," Kyrie protested reluctantly. "They're okay. I mean, why spend money we don't have to?"

Before she opened her mouth, Scully's brain finally honed in on the fact that Kyrie had said we rather than you. Lybecker was right when he observed that she didn't seem homeless but that hardly meant she had money to burn. If she thought Scully was going to expect her to foot the bill, no wonder she seemed nervous.

'''We' don't," she said lightly. "We'll use your dad's credit card." It was actually in both Mulder and her name, but Scully doubted Kyrie knew enough about credit to realize that the bill wouldn't just come to him.

"But-"

"Your father will be overjoyed to be able to do something for you," Scully told her and Kyrie looked both guilty and doubtful still. "Believe me, it's a lot cheaper to support a child through college than their whole life."

Something about this seemed to bother Kyrie, and she only mumbled "I guess."

"Come on," Scully invited, leading the way out of the office.

Kyrie did follow her, but then she hesitated. When Scully gave her an expectant look she asked "Before we go, can I see the bedroom across from mine?"

For half a second Scully was tempted to tell her that she wouldn't like it as much as the room she thought that they had settled on, but curiosity prompted her to hold her tongue. Instead they walked back to that end of the house, and she opened the door. This room was smaller but somehow sunnier, and Scully didn't fail to notice dust notes hanging in the air and reflecting tiny dots of light. Kyrie stared in for almost a minute and a half before turning and saying, "I think he'll like it."

"William?" Scully wondered aloud. Surely she didn't think Nathaniel or the baby would have much of an opinion about the dimensions of a bedroom... if they were even going to live in that house, of course.

"Yeah. He'll like it here once we bring him back with us."

There were a lot of things Scully might have said in response to this idea, but she was afraid that if she opened her mouth a flood of her guilt, fears, and tempered joy might flood out and drown them both in the deluge of emotion. So instead she shut the door.


a/n: So...I've been writing a lot on this story, but not all are parts are ready to post yet. But hey, this is a long chapter, right? =) And you'll like what I have been working on when we get that far, I promise.

Have I mentioned the chapters are all named after songs yet? You can probably find most of them on Youtube.

Say Hi "November Was White, December Was Grey"
Counting Crows "A Long December"
Eurithmics "Who's That Girl?"
Ken Andrews "Secret Things"
Joan Osborne "Crazy Baby"
The Animals "We Gotta Get out of This Place"
Toad The Wet Sprocket "Stories I Tell"