Chapter Nine

Scully found herself waking earlier than she had planned, but after a night of fitful sleeping, and dreams about Melissa, she wasn't surprised at all.

She quietly got out of bed, hoping not to wake Kayla, who was sound asleep, looking peaceful. Scully smiled to herself. She had to admit, Kayla was a good kid.

As Scully showered, she had an idea. As she got dressed, and left the bathroom, she made sure she was silent about leaving the hotel room, but Kayla didn't wake up. She only stirred slightly. She must be a deep sleeper. She thought to herself and wasn't surprised at all to remember Melissa had been the same way.

Glad to see a policeman already sitting outside of the hotel room, Scully headed down to the hotel gift shop, and browsed through their selection of books. Kayla had said she loved to read, and didn't like the idea of leaving Kayla alone all day with nothing to do, but she was at a loss as to what books Kayla would enjoy.

Reading the backs of nearly every book on the shelf, Scully finally settled on three books that seemed to be interesting. Her decision had been made by trying to imagine what Melissa would like to read. She chose Little Women, Lord of the Flies and Great Expectations. They were all classics, and judging by Kayla's enjoyment of Pride and Prejudice, she thought Kayla might enjoy some more.

She paid the clerk, and headed back up to their hotel room, finding Kayla no longer in bed. She heard the water going in the bathroom, and assumed Kayla was showering. Scully placed the books down on Kayla's made bed, and began to gather her things. She would be meeting Mulder in the lobby shortly, and wanted to make sure she had everything she needed for the day's investigation. Notepad, ID... Kayla suddenly walked out of the bathroom, nearly jumping out of her skin when she saw Scully there. Scully had to laugh.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She said honestly. Kayla breathed out with a shrug, and a small smile.

"I didn't know you were here." She confessed, headed back to her bed to grab her hairbrush. That was when she noticed the pile of books, and looked at them wide-eyed and smiling.

"What are these?" She asked, almost as though she didn't believe what she was seeing. Scully couldn't believe how shocked Kayla was. They were only books, it wasn't even as though they cost a lot of money. Maybe being one of many kids in the State Home, they weren't used to receiving many gifts.

"I noticed last night you were almost finished with Pride and Prejudice." Scully sat down across from Kayla, who's curious eyes looked through the three books again and again. "Mulder and I have to go out today, getting information and investigating some things." Kayla finally looked up, and seemed to perk up slightly.

"Can...can I come with you?" She asked. Scully smiled, and shook her head. She didn't want to crush the girl, but it was far too dangerous to bring her anywhere that might lead them to the truth. Kayla's face dropped.

"Sorry, Kayla, but I think it would be better if you stayed here. There will be a police officer right outside your door, and another one will be here soon to spend the day in here with you." Scully explained. Kayla sighed.

"But...it's my life you're investigating. Shouldn't...shouldn't I be allowed to, you know, find out what you find out?" She asked. Scully was surprised at Kayla's politeness. Even in the girl's disappointment, she was still polite about the whole thing. Scully still shook her head.

"This is a police matter, Kayla. And we've decided we want you to stay. You'll be safer here." She said sympathetically. "I picked up those books to keep you busy."

Kayla looked back at the books and smiled slightly. She clearly wasn't thrilled about the idea of being left behind, but she still looked up at Scully with that meek smile.

"Thank you." She said quietly. Scully smiled back and stood up.

"Don't worry, Kayla." She grabbed her purse. "We'll fill you in on anything we find out today."

Kayla didn't say anything. A knock on the door interrupted the conversation.

Scully answered it to find a police woman on the other side. She would be Kayla's guard for the day. Scully had requested a female, thinking it might make Kayla a little more comfortable. But Kayla looked anything but comfortable. She looked so nervous.

"It's okay, Kayla, we won't be gone for very long. Just, you know, be good, and have a good day." Scully tried to reassure. The officer, who was a younger woman, approached Kayla with a smile.

"I'm not here to make you scared. I'm here to protect you, and we're all doing everything we can to keep you safe, okay?" She asked calmly. Kayla hesitated, before she nodded with a nervous smile. Scully breathed out, and felt like it was a good time to head out.

She said bye to Kayla one more time before she headed down to the lobby to find Mulder, who was waiting for her. He raised an eyebrow.

"What took you so long?" He asked. Scully gave him a look that suggested he better not give her a hard time about anything.

Soon, they were driving on the highway that would take them to Mount Prospect, Illinois, the town where they would find the social services office. The drive was silent for the most part - Scully was too deep in thought and was thankful Mulder was the one driving. She couldn't wrap her mind around all of this. They were going to the social services office, where she would find out more about this girl who was supposedly her neice.

Stop saying supposedly! You have the DNA proof!

Still, she wasn't ready to accept it.

What Scully couldn't wrap her mind around was why Melissa would donate her own eggs to a laboratory anyway. Why she would do it without telling anybody. Scully sighed to herself, not being able to find an answer she could accept. There was no way Melissa would have done it for the money - she had always been well off. The only reasonable explanation she could find was that Melissa just wanted to do something good for someone less fortunate, and, being the humble woman Melissa was, didn't tell anyone.

"Scully, we're here." Mulder said suddenly. Scully snapped out of it and looked up at the building Mulder was finding a parking spot in. It was the social services office. Scully sighed.

"Okay, let's go." She said quietly, pulling out her FBI identification badge. Mulder did the same, and they entered the building.

An older woman was seated at the receptionist desk, and she eyed them waringly. Scully couldn't say she blamed the woman. They probably had the strangest people walking into this office, demanding information about the children they gave up years ago. Scully immediately pulled out her badge.

"I'm agent Scully, and this is agent Mulder." She announced. "We need to talk to somebody who would know about babies who were given up in 1981."

The receptionist inspected her badge for a few seconds, before she finally picked up the phone.

"FBI, huh? It's not very often we get you guys in here. Kind of a small county, this one. These are usually kids who get forgotten pretty quickly. But hey, glad to be of any assistance I can be. I've been here for 25 years, so I might even remember the case you need information on." An older man by the name of Edward Burns said, once he had Mulder and Scully seated at his desk at the back of the building. He was obviously a man who was dedicated to his work. On the lefthand side of his desk was a bulleton board collaged with hundreds of kids' pictures, presumebly kids he was assigned cases to. Scully wondered if Kayla's picture was among them photographs.

"Kayla Reynolds." Scully said. "She was born in '81, and given away the same year. Do you have her information here?" Burns went straight to work on his computer, searching through his archives. Scully and Mulder waited while he searched. After only a few short moments, he lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, I remember this case." He said silently.

"What can you tell us about it?" Mulder asked. Burns shrugged casually.

"Single mother, but she wasn't the baby's biological mother. See, that's why I remember this case. It's not very often you get surrogate mothers giving their babies up. Usually when you get eggs implanted, you want to keep the baby." He explained, looking back at the computer screen again. "Anyway, mother gave her up. Kayla started out in one group home from infancy until she was five, then was transferred to another home until she was thirteen, and then moved to where she is currently residing, in Deerfield. Oh, and when she was eight years old, she was staying with a foster family for a period of one week." Scully puckered her brow. Nothing was making sense in what Edward was saying. Nothing was standing out that would make Kayla a target.

"Mr. Burns, is there anything in that file that would suggest any reason that Kayla would be a target for anyone? We have reason to believe there are people after Kayla, but at this point, we don't know why." Scully explained. Burns puckered his brow, seemingly shocked by this bit of information, as he scrolled through the rest of the file. He shook his head.

"I don't see who would possibly be after this girl. The mother had no source of income, so there is no money left to Kayla. She spent her whole life in group homes, with the exception of a week-long foster care. But I'll print off her file for you, if you'd like." Burns suggested.

Mulder and Scully sat in the car, as Scully perused the rest of the file Burns had printed for them. Mulder waited patiently.

"Anything useful?" He asked after a while. Scully shook her head, feeling frustrated.

"No, this file is very limited. It just provides some information about the surrogate mother, the one who gave Kayla up. Burns pretty much told us everything. Kayla was placed in the care of the state right after she was born. The surrogate mother never even saw the baby." She sighed, leaning back. "There isn't even any information about the biological mother. The one who donated the eggs. Nothing about Melissa!" Her voice was laced with frustration. Mulder took the file from her and glanced at it.

"I guess there wouldn't be anything about Melissa. She donated her eggs to that laboratory mentioned in your file. She had nothing to do with the legal custody of Kayla, so she wouldn't be included." He explained. "I think our best bet right now would be to go check out these group homes Kayla's been in. Maybe the people working there will have some information about why Kayla could be in danger." Scully rubbed her eyes.

"Alright, we'll go to the first one today. It's already noon, and Gray's Group Home is in Chicago. I told Kayla we'd be back by dinner time." She said. Mulder nodded.

"Alright," he said, as he started up the car, "Gray's it is."

Scully felt her own heart breaking as she stood in front of Gray's Group Home in Chicago, Illinois. The place was dark, without any windows, and the kids playing in the front yard wore dirty clothing and played with nothing but a ripped up old ball. It seemed a forgotten building, with peeling paint and broken eavesdrops. It was hard for Scully to imagine Kayla spending the first five years of her life in this place.

Scully forced away her emotions, trying to remain objective, and knocked on the front door. Mulder gave her a reassuring smile, as he waved to the curious toddler's watching them from the fenced in yard. Scully wondered why they weren't being supervised.

Soon, the door opened to reveal a plump, graying woman, who had the kindest eyes Scully had ever seen. She felt reassured. Maybe the children were at least cared for emotionally.

"Can I help you folks?" The woman asked with a British accent. Mulder pulled out his badge.

"Yes, I'm agent Mulder, and this is agent Scully. We're from the FBI, and wanted to ask you a few questions about a girl who used to live here. Her name is Kayla Reynolds. She would have lived here in 19-"

"Yes, I remember Kayla." The woman smiled as she opened the door. "Please come in. My name is Dorothy Jeeves."

Mulder and Scully followed the woman down a concrete hallway, but it seemed brighter with all the colored pictures plastering the wall made by the children of the Home. Scully could hear small children laughing from somewhere within the building, and she felt comforted by that.

The FBI agents followed Dorothy into a small office which seemed cluttered, because of the size of it. Dorothy brought in a couple of chairs from the hallway, and soon, the three of them were sitting somewhat comfortably in Dorothy's office.

"Ms. Jeeves, we're investigating a situation right now, and we need to know as much about Kayla Reynolds as we can find out. Anything you can tell us would be very helpful." Mulder started. Dorothy nodded.

"Yes, well, I've been headmistress here for thirty years now. I've seen little boys and girls come and go, and only a few stand out. So many faces, you'll understand that it's easy to forget a lot of them. But Kayla, I remember her. She kept to herself, for the most part. She was an easy baby, but once she got into the toddler years, she avoided others like the plague. She spent most of her time in a corner, looking at picture books, and such. Kids tried to play with her, but Kayla just ran away.

"The strangest thing, though. She'd have...fits. We couldn't understand why, it wasn't as though any of the other children were bothering her. At first, we all thought they were just temper tantrums. She would just tune everyone out. We would all try to talk her out of them, but she just stared at the wall, rocked back and forth. We'd try everything, but she just never responded. Some of us thought she just needed attention, and that was her way of asking for it. I knew it was something more than that."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked, taking an interest.

"Well, it just seemed odd, you know? After Kayla was finished with these...zone-outs, she would begin to cry when she saw everybody standing around her. It was as though she thought she was in trouble. I thought she might be autistic, because she hardly ever spoke, so we had her tested. Academically, she was advanced for her age, so there was no evidence of any learning disabilities. We took her to a pediatrician, and none of them could find anything wrong with her either. They told us whatever it was, she would grow out of it. So we continued to keep an eye on her, but the same thing kept happening right up until she was taken to another home." Dorothy replied. Scully realized Dorothy was talking about the same thing Terri had told her about. Back then, it seemed to manifest itself differently, but it was still the same issue. The doctors couldn't figure it out. Scully couldn't figure it out. Whatever was wrong with Kayla had been a problem her entire life. Scully couldn't imagine what it must be like for Kayla, never knowing what was actually wrong.

"Ms. Jeeves, Kayla was here for five years, right? Did anything happen in that time period that would lead you to believe Kayla would be a target for someone? Did anyone ever express an interest in wanting her for anything?" Mulder asked. Dorothy looked perplexed, but shook her head.

"No. We never heard anything from her mother, well, I mean the surrogate mother. We never heard anything about the biological parents either. I mean, I suppose we wouldn't have. I gather those laboratories have rules about that sort of thing. But there were never any phone calls about Kayla, we never had any foster parents express an interest in Kayla, nothing of that sort at all." She paused, and looked from Mulder to Scully. "Is...something wrong with Kayla? Is she okay?"

Scully reassured the headmistress that Kayla was fine, and they were doing everything in their power to make sure the girl was safe. As Mulder and Scully left the building and began the drive back to Deerfield, Scully sighed to herself. Mulder looked over.

"What are you thinking?" He asked her. Scully shook her head.

"I was just thinking about how hard it must have been for Kayla. I can't imagine what it must have been like for her. From everyone we've talked to so far, it seems like Kayla was never wanted. Her mother gave her up from birth, Dorothy Jeeves said the foster families were never interested in her, and Burns at the social services office said she was in foster care for a week." She sighed, changing the subject. "It doesn't seem like anything is making any sense. From everyone we've talked to, there's no evidence as to why someone would be after her. Maybe this is just a big hoax. Maybe Kayla's not in any danger at all."

"Well, what about the phone calls the State Home have been getting about Kayla? The ones Terri told us about? Someone wants her, Scully. It all adds up. The file you got in the mail, the post-it note, the phone calls." Mulder looked over at her. "We're going to figure this out. We still have a couple of places to go to tomorrow. Maybe they'll have more answers."

Scully nodded, knowing he was right. Her hunch told her he was right - this wasn't a big hoax, but Scully wasn't sure why she wanted to believe it was. Was it because she didn't want to face the dangers that might be involved? She doubted it. She had been in far more dangerous situations before. Perhaps the real reason was that she was not ready to confront the fact that she was sharing a hotel room with her neice, a girl she was somehow responsible for. All the DNA evidence in the world couldn't make Scully grasp the fact that she was an aunt.

Mulder carried the two paper bags filled with chinese food as they headed up to the fourth floor of the hotel where they were staying. Mulder got a report from the police officer who was still seated outside, while Scully entered the hotel room. Kayla was sitting on her bed, reading one of the books Scully had picked up, while the police officer who was stationed in the room for the day, was looking through the daily newspaper. Scully thanked the officer, who headed out and said she'd be back again the next day. Kayla put her bookmark in her book as Mulder entered the room, holding up the bags with a smile.

"I hope you like chinese."

The three sat around the hotel room's table, eating chinese food silently for the most part, but Kayla was very curious about their day.

"Nothing big happened today." Mulder explained. "We visited Gray's, but that was all for today. We didn't learn anything new." Kayla puckered her brow. She seemed confused, and then she nodded.

"Gray's," she pondered, "that was where I went first. I was really little there. I don't remember much about it at all. I just remember a very big bedroom with lots of beds and lots of kids." Scully nodded.

"There were lots of kids there." She affirmed. Kayla nodded and poked at an eggroll thoughtfully.

"Did you...go to Bedford's?" She asked. Scully recognized the name, and knew Kayla was referring to the second home she went to. Scully shook her head.

"No, we didn't get a chance to go there today." She replied. "That's first on our list for tomorrow." Kayla sighed, shivering slightly as though remembering something.

"I hated it there so much." She said quietly, with a sigh. "I just wish I knew who was after me, and why? This is all so...weird." Mulder gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry Kayla," he shared a glance with Scully, "Everything is gonna work out."