Title: This Is How The World Ends

Fandom: X-Files

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I do not own The X-Files or any of its characters, and hope that the name Google Maps is under some sort of public domain grey area of copyright law where it's okay to talk about it in your fanfiction in a neutral sense even if you're not the owner.

Author's Notes: A thesis, fanfiction and school reports walk into a bar… The fanfiction gets in line, sadly. But this chapter, which blew out as most of my chapters do, is finally done. It doesn't go the way I anticipated but it serves the greater plot, in which all of these characters still have a lot to say. I hope you guys enjoy this oversized instalment! Feedback is love xx Mulder is our next POV. Leave your requests in the comments – if there's specific you want to see, I'll try to work it in where I can :)

Thanks to all those who left a feedback on the last chapter! I live for it, and it definitely contributes to my love of writing this fic. Looks like people are enjoying the flashback-style chapters filling the years between the last film and this fic? Adelled, more is on its way ;) Thanks for still loving this fic! Yazzysnazzy, your comment made my day! Outdoing that chapter for you is now my life's goal. Let me know if I ever get close. Guest, I do love those Winchester boys and have believed for a long time that it would be fun to pull them into the same universe :) I would love to read a full-blown crossover with the four of them investigating a case, but definitely do not have the time to invest in writing it myself. Keen for the job? ;P I found your discussion about the significance of the argument's finer points really insightful, especially the idea that Scully's cancer is still an issue for Mulder. When I read what you said, I thought, of course! That was traumatic for him, too. It's given me an understanding of Mulder's motives for a story element later on in the fic – I really love how dynamic fanfiction is, where the story is jointly constructed in meaning between writer and readers. Thank you! Other Guest of April 27, M & S have so much to argue about! I actually cut a lot out of that chapter because I kept thinking of more accusations for them to throw and it was getting too nasty. Their trust was all they had left in that scene under that ghost's influence, so if I'd attacked that, they would have both died :P I'm sure it's something that she's been harbouring, though. It'll be interesting to see if it comes up later in another flashback. Thanks, Rebecca! I try really hard to get the characters right – without that, this is just another dismissible fanfic contributing to our bad name! Hi again nessie6! Love seeing the same names :) The kiss was for you guys who stick it out patiently waiting for me to get MSR to happen! You guys are legends. Moon FireStar, lovely to have you here :) Thanks for the glowing feedback! I do indeed adore Scully and think Mulder would be frustrating to love and work with, but I love him as well. I enjoy analysing them both and feel that despite Mulder being the main character, we get much less insight into his motives and feelings in the show, making him harder to write. I hope I manage to transcend this, and I'm glad you love it. Guest, May 1, my interpretation of this line is that Sam and Dean have heard of the X-Files legend, and make the connection that if he's Mulder, she must be Scully. Guest, May 9, he's just glad she stayed :) Guest, May 15, you are wonderful xxx Thank you for this gorgeous feedback. I intend to write at least as much again (this is still the first half) so hope to keep you joyous and tearful for months still :) Enjoy this chapter!

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A sceptic never changes her stripes.

"What are the chances?" he made the mistake of asking her, too frustrated by her stubbornness to reflect on how fruitless arguing with her would be. She was having none of it.

"Give me a few concrete numbers and I'll calculate the odds for you," she answered peevishly, staring wilfully out the windscreen, refusing to start the car. She wasn't prepared to believe, even as the evidence he'd provided lay there on her lap in black and white. He sat impatiently beside her on the passenger side, shell-shocked by his own deduction and the possible ramifications. Scully's son. Scully's lost child, released into anonymity for his own safety, might no longer be lost. It was ridiculous. It was impossible.

About as ridiculous and impossible as an infertile woman conceiving him in the first place with her supposedly platonic best friend.

"The same birthdate, Dana," Skinner said again. He waved at the page he'd left it open to. "Look at it. May twentieth, 2001."

It's amazing, he wanted to say. It's a chance, it's hope.

"I remember the date. I was there," she replied coolly. He couldn't understand her determination not to entertain the idea and he sighed, though it came out as more of a frustrated growl. She softened, only slightly, and looked down at the page that had Van de Kamp, William Fox at the top. "There could have been ten thousand children born that day in this country, half of them boys, and there could have been several mothers who picked the same name. It's common enough."

"Fine, there could have been seven hundred Williams for all we know," Skinner acquiesced, willing to see that point, "but how many with the middle name Fox?"

Even in the fresh darkness of twilight, he caught the flash of vulnerability that crossed her familiar features. "I don't know. Maybe three?" Skinner scoffed at her overestimate and she quickly re-evaluated. "Two, I don't know. I thought it was nice, maybe a couple of other parents thought so, too. It's not implausible."

He'd forgotten until now that she'd given her son that absurd name. It certainly wasn't his namesake's idea. Mulder had spent his life hating it and would never have suggested it; why Scully would inflict it on her child, even as a middle name, Skinner would never understand. He recalled now hearing the name for the first time, and being unable to help repeating it back to her, worried she was still loopy with painkillers and hadn't considered properly how that name sounded out loud. William Fox Scully. "After good men, the kind I want my son to emulate," she'd said only, and Skinner hadn't pushed.

He pushed now.

"It's not impossible," he granted. "I think it's implausible." Because no one who wasn't in love with a charismatic idiot called Fox would ever curse their child with that name. "What is both possible and even plausible is that the William Fox you gave up for closed adoption fourteen years ago at almost a year of age to protect from a conspiracy of alien-blooded Super Soldiers is the same fifteen-year-old William Fox attached to our extremely controversial, possibly extra-terrestrial Super Soldier investigation. The boy made eye contact with Bletchley when he arrived in town," he reminded Scully, even as she squirmed with discomfort in her seat to hear it, "and minutes later, our Super Solider went berserk on the street, heading straight for him. Who's to say Bletchley didn't follow William from the main square? Who's to say your son isn't the target, Dana? Of all of this? What if?"

"It's Wyoming!" Scully exploded, her disbelief too intense to keep inside. "My son is not in Wyoming. He can't be. He just… isn't." She dropped her head into her hands and kneaded her fingers through her hair, trying to calm down, and Skinner started to see the truth of this cold façade of disbelief. She was her partner's true opposite. She so badly did not want to believe, in anything – anything that, if true, could rewrite her world. If William Fox Van de Kamp was in fact her William Fox Scully, everything would be overturned. All bets would be off. The future would go blank. The chance to see her child again was something she'd categorised as impossible. What if it wasn't?

Clearly, the temptation to believe that was too much. He tried to see it from her pessimistic, reductionist world view. What if she chose to believe… and it wasn't true? How many times had she felt that disappointment in her twenty-year internship of insanity with Mulder? He supposed she knew exactly how much she didn't want to feel that crush.

"Why not Wyoming?" Skinner asked now, trying to be gentle and logical. She shook her head, face still hidden in her hands.

"He can't be in the one town of Wyoming that I happen to visit. It's too unlikely."

"You've travelled the country," Skinner countered. "Eventually, odds being what they are, you were going to end up close by to where he was, probably without even knowing it. That must have occurred to you before."

"Of course it has!" she snapped. "In every single town and city I have visited or stopped over in or driven straight past, I've had the passing thought that maybe, that's where my son is growing up. But he can't be here." Because that would be too good to be true.

The solid logic of a denier.

"You asked the agency to place him with a loving family, in as obscure a location as they could manage." He leaned forward deliberately to make a show of looking out the window at the dead-end town they were in, even though she wasn't looking at him. "You requested a closed adoption. His surname would have been changed." He reached over and tapped the page on her knee, and he saw her split her fingers to look. "This could be him. We need to find him."

"It isn't him," she said immediately, staunchly, not moving, "and if it was him, the best thing I could do is not find him. I can only put him in danger, like I did before."

"He might already be in danger," her friend pointed out. She sat up, dropping her hands from her face. "You just autopsied a twice-dead man who looks like he was grown in a lab, who hospitalised a bunch of people in his final minutes with extreme and unnatural displays of strength, in connection with a number of highly suspicious cases, some of which were cleaned out by the same creeps who turned up to interfere with us today, and this man was shot only a second before sinking a knife into this boy William for no discernible reason. This is an X-file, Dana," he stated clearly, watching her flinch at the painful fact, "and a boy with your son's name looks to be right in the middle of it."

She sat in silent stillness for so long, staring out into the early night, that he wondered whether she would respond. He couldn't imagine the thoughts flying, haphazard and directionless, around that compartmentalised and rigorous brain. Like a wild magic spell cast in a pristine chemistry lab, pinging from surface to surface too fast to watch except for the smashing bottles and books falling from shelves as they're hit. His own brain boggled at the implications.

Finally she whispered, "What do I do, Walter?"

"You start the car, and we drive to the hospital. We talk to William's uncle, a victim in Bletchley's attack. We ask if his William is adopted. We talk to William." Every time he said the name, he saw her blink, hurt. He tried to be gentler; it was difficult, overwhelmed by incomprehensible enthusiasm. What if? What if? "The way I see it, there are only two probable targets for Bletchley's rampage – the mayor, and the Van de Kamp boy, and we've both already agreed the mayor theory is a huge stretch. If the target was your son, that changes the context of this whole investigation."

He couldn't even begin to comprehend what this would mean. A man with two death certificates was already a step outside his comfort zone, and he'd called in Scully to take the reins. For that man to turn out to probably be a new breed of Super Soldier had morphed the ordeal into something from a bad dream, but he was pretty sure he was holding it together reasonably well for a sceptic almost as severe as Scully herself. But William, after all this time? What had started out as a search for answers for Scully's-not-Mulder's case had suddenly deviated completely from Morris Bletchley and left him in the dust of forgotten details.

"And if it's not him?" Scully asked, control seeping back into her voice. This was what she was preparing for. The disappointment.

Skinner refused to let her take the coward's route and back out of this chance. "If it's not him, then another fifteen-year-old boy is the possible target of a conspiracy even you in all your secretive knowledge barely have a grasp on, and we are the only people who know and can help determine whether he's safe."

"It's not him," she maintained, aloof now, confident again. "And he's not fifteen until May."

Trust her to correct on that little detail. "Start the car, Agent Scully. I shouldn't have to make it an order."

"What about Bletchley?" She nodded at the building they were meant to be staking out. Skinner could barely feel the urgency that had made him agree when she suggested it earlier. Now all that mattered was finding this boy. William.

"Those three fake medics we saw here have had a two-hour head start on finding William, if that's what they wanted," he replied. "Nothing we learned this afternoon from that corpse is going to matter if they're here for this boy."

That did it. She did as she was told, and they quickly consulted Google Maps to find the hospital. The town was too tiny for a proper hospital and they had to drive twenty minutes out to the regional medical centre. He saw her swallow and wondered how it would feel to realise she'd maybe been twenty minutes away from her own living, breathing lost baby for the past two hours. She peeled the car out of the lot.

"Aren't you going to call Mulder?" Skinner asked when they were on the main road out of town. She cast him an irritated look that surprised him.

"No. Why would I?"

Umm… "Why wouldn't you?" he countered, just as irritated with her. To pretend at this point that Mulder was not her child's father or that Skinner was not clued into this fact was completely ludicrous. "It's William."

"Maybe."

"He'd want to know," Skinner insisted. Thoughts of the derailed former profiler rose in his mind, but most prominent was the awkward, then painful, conversation in Mulder's military prison cell where he'd had to tell the world-worn, lovelorn father that his child was gone. He'd never seen anybody so shattered, and he was glad in retrospect only that he'd faced that brokenness, because Scully mightn't have handled it alongside her own devastating guilt.

"He'd want me to do my homework before calling him in on a false alarm," she responded coolly, which Skinner couldn't deny. To fill the silence that followed, he got out his phone and thumbed through contacts, knowing already he wouldn't find what he was looking for. He hadn't seen or spoken to Mulder in four years, and even that last contact had been made by the other. He burned through disposable phones and recycled numbers now, Scully had indicated previously, making him near-impossible to find and get hold of. Which was, of course, his intention. Skinner had no number for him and no idea of where he might be.

"I'll call him, then," he offered. "Then he can blame me for any resultant disappointment. Give me the number."

"I don't have a number for him," she said airily, a well-rehearsed answer that probably fooled plenty of others. Another lie for someone she loved. "When we talk it's because he's called the office under a made-up name or he leaves a temporary number somewhere he'll know I'll find it. He has my cell but won't call it – he thinks there's spyware in it, and of course, that everyone wants to come and get him."

Skinner felt his eyebrow arch, surprised and concerned by this suggestion about the security of Bureau-issued communications hardware. "Why? Has he heard something?"

"Speculation." Her smile was too open, too quick. "He's paranoid, Walter."

She sounded so resentful and patronising, talking about Mulder this way. It made Skinner feel momentarily uncomfortable, like he was talking about Mulder to someone else. It wasn't usual to hear these judgements coming from her.

Cover, he realised, whether she realised it or not.

"I don't think that's news," Skinner pointed out, and she rolled her eyes and went to turn up the radio to shut out any of his further comments. Mature. He swatted her hand away and reiterated his argument. "You should call him. He should know what you're going into. This is big, Dana, whether it turns out to be real or not. Whatever the outcome, he's the person you'll want to talk to afterward."

He was trying to be sensitive, knowing her and what she was like, but she was determined tonight.

"He is the last person I'll want to talk to tonight," she told him firmly. "Whatever the outcome."

So. The binary pair, inseparable when caught in each other's electric orbits, had collided over something – maybe a galaxy of problems, maybe just a speck of cosmic dust, who knew – and consequently swung apart to revolve around each other at a safe, resentful distance until they inevitably fell back together. Again. God, they were exhausting. Skinner gave up.

The hospital was small compared to medical facilities in cities, only a single storey and not even taking up a whole block in the little town that housed it. Apparently it was big enough to service the surrounding little towns, which, from the size of those townships, Skinner did not doubt. The parking lot was only half full, and there was no sign of the black van from earlier. He tried to feel relieved about that and not wonder whether that meant they'd been and gone. Or whether they'd just gone back to the morgue to steal Bletchley.

The staff at the front counter looked as flustered as Dr Hornsby to be approached by the FBI.

"Assistant Director Skinner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said formally and firmly, presenting his badge in sync with his partner. He nodded his head once to the side to indicate her while the nurse on duty stared with wide eyes. "This is Special Agent Dana Scully, MD. We're here about the shooting that took place in Thayne yesterday. We understand several of the victims of that incident were treated at this hospital?"

The nurse nodded anxiously. "Uh, I mean, yes. We discharged a few today…"

"In particular we'd like to speak with a Gary Milne," Scully spoke up, just as authoritative despite her tiny size. "Torn anterior cruciate ligament. I don't imagine he would have been discharged."

She was reluctant, and tried to mention that visiting hours for the day were over, but when the nurse looked from Skinner's determined face to Scully's, which reflected the same impassive stoniness, she relented and led the way.

"He does need his rest," she made sure to say, in defence of her patient, "so if he's asleep…"

They arrived at his door, and he wasn't asleep. Gary Milne was awake, alive and present, three things Skinner hadn't been sure whether it was safe to take for granted on his way over here. He was, however, alone in the room. No teenage boy.

Scully stopped in the doorway beside him and stared into the room at this man she'd never met. Briefly, her expression was conflicted; then it was still. Skinner took lead.

"Gary Milne?"

"Yes." Milne was in his mid-forties, Caucasian, reasonably lean, though that was hard to see through the blankets covering him and the thick bandaging around his leg, raised and immobilised. His hair was dark and his eyes were almond-shaped. He looked at them with sharp curiosity.

If Skinner's instincts were correct, this was the man who was raising Scully's child. He could sense the pre-emptive judgement rolling around inside her, battling itself.

Skinner reintroduced himself and his companion. "We'd like to ask you some questions about the events of yesterday, if you've got the time."

"The FBI? When my nephew gets back from the vending machines, he'll be excited to see you." Milne smiled wryly, a nice smile, and gestured around the room, indicating his circumstances. "It seems I've got the time." His smile faltered a little. "Truth is, I'm glad you guys are here. Hopefully now we'll get some proper answers about what happened."

Skinner didn't need to glance at Scully to know she was thinking the same thing, internally wincing. The nature of an X-file was that there was no guarantee of proper answers. They entered the room and stood at the end of his hospital bed. The nurse hovered by the door.

"Hopefully we can provide you with some of those proper answers," Scully said, making an effort to be both professional and kind despite her unsettled state. It seemed to come easily to her. She nodded at the heavily bandaged leg. "Grade three sprain?"

"That's right." Milne cocked his head to the side, looking at her with interest as she demonstrated an unexpected interest in his circumstances. She met his eyes, judging.

"It's quite a serious injury. May I?" she added, lifting the medical chart off the end of the bed. Milne nodded and she started to read. "Your surgery went well."

"They said it'll be a few months before things are back to normal but I'm expected to make a full recovery."

Scully looked up at him over the top of the clipboard. "That's good to hear. Are you in any pain at the moment?"

"Nope. Practically off my face with painkillers." Milne smiled sheepishly, still gazing at Scully. "They're taking good care of me, doctor."

There was another silence, and Scully and Milne just looked at each other curiously. In the off-chance that this guy was checking her out and thinking inappropriate things that quadrupled in inappropriateness when one took into account what relationship these two possibly shared, Skinner cleared his throat.

"Mr Milne, can you start by telling us what you were doing when you first noticed the suspect?" he asked, and Scully took a little notepad from her pocket. Old-school. She also produced her little handheld recorder. "And do you mind if we record this conversation?"

Milne scoffed at the PC terminology of 'suspect', but spoke easily. "Sure, if you don't mind me slurring – as I said, pretty potent cocktail tonight. I was at the café, sitting outside, having drinks with my farmhand Tim and a representative from the bank, Ronald Edelstein. We were discussing options for my property."

"It was just the three of you there?"

"Oh, well, my nephew showed up at that point," Milne said with a shrug and a glance to the chair beside the door. Skinner looked to it. A limp backpack lay on the chair cushion, mostly unpacked. "Still don't know exactly what he was doing out of school before the first lunch bell, but I suppose I have bigger things to worry about. I'm letting him slide for now."

The backpack was here. The boy was somewhere in the hospital. Relief.

"Your nephew – William?" Scully asked, the first time she'd said the name since the morgue. It sounded different in her voice this time. Richer. So close…

"Yeah, Will Van de Kamp. You probably have a statement from him? He said he had to talk to the police."

"He did give a statement," Skinner confirmed. "He was the first person to witness our suspect arriving in town on the back of a truck, aside from the driver who picked him up on the side of the road. He was also the last person standing in the suspect's path before he was shot by the sheriff. We're very interested in getting an elaboration from him if we can."

Milne was surprised. "I didn't know Will saw the guy earlier."

"What sort of options were you discussing with Mr Edelstein?"

"Financial ones." Milne paused as the nurse finally left, appeased. "Am I under suspicion, too?"

"These are routine questions," Skinner said simply, irritated by the man's sudden balking. This was yet another reason he did not do field work. Witnesses.

Scully swooped in. "We're investigating the motive of the attacker and it's important we explore all possible explanations, even very unlikely ones. Anything you tell us could be helpful."

"Motive?" Milne frowned. "Wasn't he after the mayor? That's what everyone's told me so far."

Skinner prepared to circle around that and not answer him directly, but Scully got in first, spurred to accelerating this interview to the point where she could go and see for herself whether this nephew of his was her William. This was how her excitement was manifesting.

"We don't know. There's no solid evidence substantiating that at this time. We need to ascertain whether there might have been another target, perhaps a monetary one." Scully paused. "Could it have been you? Your banker?"

In his drug-induced state, Milne had looked quite taken in by her display of intelligent vocabulary but was startled by her suggestions at the end. "God, I hope not. Ron, he's a good guy, I can't think why anyone would come after him. And me – I've got no money." He laughed, a little bitterly. "That's why I was there. I'm a former investment banker who can't manage a single property. No one's got any reason to come after me. All I've done is farm… poorly… for the last six years."

"And your nephew?" Scully prompted, writing quick notes. She glanced up at the immobile witness to have eye contact with someone when she chanced saying the name again. Like it was sensual to get to say it again. "William?"

"A target?" Gary Milne scratched his head through his dark hair, affronted at first and then concerned. "He's just a kid."

"There's nothing about him that someone might take an interest in?" Skinner asked casually, thinking uncomfortably of Scully's early terrified claims of her infant demonstrating unexplainable abilities. Levitating objects and the like. "Nothing… unusual?"

Milne started to say no, his nephew was a perfectly normal boy, but then hesitated. "Well… I mean he's unusual in ways, you know, like everyone is in their own way."

"In what ways is he unusual?" Skinner pushed. Milne deliberated some more. "The police report places your nephew right in our suspect's path. If there's any chance this man intended to hurt him-"

"He's unusual, but not in ways that would make people want to hurt him. Not adults, anyway. I think he got in a fight yesterday at school, but he hasn't brought it up yet. I think… he struggles a bit, with friends." Gary Milne looked uncomfortable. "Small towns, you know? Small minds, narrow minds. He's outside the box. His mom wanted him raised here, and I've done that, but I don't know how much longer it'll be the right place. He's really smart. The school's accelerated him into senior classes. I can't imagine all his classmates are delighted for him. And…" He trailed off, squirming though he had nowhere to go. "I mean, you know he's an orphan, right?"

It was like he'd slapped Scully across the face. She took a full step backward, away from Milne, and hurriedly pretended to return her attention to her notes. Skinner started talking, trying to distract from her while she struggled.

"And now you're his guardian. For how long now?"

"Six years, since my sister died. I was living in Denver at the time but the lifestyle I was living was incompatible with a sudden eight-year-old." He smiled thinly. "I came here and tried to make the farming thing work. For Will."

"Not many would do that," Skinner said gravely, seeing the good in this person and hoping that this really was the man raising Scully and Mulder's son. There was no mention of adoption, though, which shook his confidence in the theory. "Your sister's death – nothing suspicious?"

"Cancer," Milne answered promptly. "Nasopharyngeal carcinoma."

It sounded familiar to Skinner but Scully looked up, startled. "I'm sorry? Can you repeat that?"

"Um, it was a tumour," Milne elaborated helpfully. "Between her sinuses and the front of her brain. It was inoperable."

"I'm sorry," Skinner said when Scully just stared. He swallowed and tried not to look at her. The same cancer that had almost killed her had taken this William's mother. Now what were the odds?

Scully flicked her notepad against her palm.

"Does the name Morris Bletchley mean anything to you?" she asked, trying again to ground herself in the conversation and ask useful questions. Milne shook his head, blinking tiredly, clearly hazy with drugs.

"Should it?"

"That's the name of our suspect. This man was from out of town. Was your nephew born in Thayne?"

The hesitation was tangible. "Will… is adopted."

Silence. There. The last piece of the puzzle fell breathlessly into place.

"Do you think that could be relevant?" Skinner asked finally, surprised to find his voice even and natural. Inside, he didn't feel even or natural. Inside, he was thinking of the corpse Scully had just autopsied and how close that brought William to the conspiracy she'd hidden him from.

"No." Milne looked embarrassed to have it thought he was making such a stupid link. A smart man, intelligence all tied up in identity. Like Scully. "I mean, maybe, but I doubt it. Sarah used to worry – she wondered why someone would give up a ten-month-old baby unless there was something terribly wrong with him. She took him for tests here at the hospital, but they found nothing wrong. Perfectly healthy, perfectly normal. She still thought someday, someone would turn up and want him from her. Nothing ever happened."

"It doesn't sound like a well-founded fear," Skinner agreed, prepared to move away from the idea for Scully's sake. A ten-month-old baby. Not adopted at birth. "Very specific but not grounded in anything concrete. I think we can safely disregard-"

"Well, it wasn't entirely unfounded. My sister was… taken… in 1994. We never knew who by, or what they did to her. She came back different, and I had to move her out of Rock Springs. She lived in terror of being taken again, or of people coming for her son."

Things had gone so far past the furthest reaches of Skinner's tolerance for weird and unlikely. Another abductee? Scully took over.

"When Sarah returned, was there something of note implanted in her neck?"

Gary Milne looked shaken. "Yes. Bits of metal. How did you know?"

"And it was after that, she learned she was infertile? That's why she adopted."

"How do you know this?" Milne looked from Scully to Skinner. "We didn't tell people about this…"

"I've dealt with cases of women kidnapped in the same time period," she said, detached as though she were not one of them. "The metal chip implants were a sort of… signature."

"I knew it was a cult," Milne said seriously, not far wrong. He tried to sit up, winced when it pulled on his damaged leg. Scully automatically laid a hand on his shin, stilling him. "They used all sorts of brainwashing techniques on her to affect her memories, even tried to teach her another language. It was ridiculous. But nobody believed us. They thought she was a runaway." He ran a hand through his hair. "Is it possible that this same cult is active again? Do you think they really sent someone after Will?"

"We don't know, Mr Milne," Skinner said. He glanced at the empty doorway. No child had appeared, and how long had they been here? It seemed a very long trip to the vending machines. "It's a long shot but maybe worth investigating, especially in absence of a more convincing motivation for the suspect's actions. Can we talk to your nephew?"

"We'd like to get a bit more detail from him anyway about the suspect's movements in the town square before the attack in the alley and on the café," Scully added when Milne hesitated. He seemed to realise they'd read his expression.

"No, that's fine," he said, shaking his head to alleviate the haze of exhaustion. "Actually, he'd be more than happy to talk to you. Loves the FBI, always Googling about you guys. I just thought… Do you think the dreadlock guy could have followed William? Down the alley?"

"We're going to find out," Skinner assured him. "Where can we find William?"

Gary Milne tried to call his nephew but the line didn't even connect. "Phone's off." They found the phone in the boy's backpack, switched off. "That's odd."

Skinner glanced ominously at Scully. This close to the boy and suddenly he wasn't returning from the vending machine and his phone was mysteriously off and left behind? The whole thing stunk of nefarious intervention. He felt under his jacket for his sidearm, thinking through what courses of action he needed to enact before he could reasonably lock this whole place down and search it for this boy. He saw Scully do the same, her shoulders tense.

"Oh!" Milne smiled and shook his head. "You know where he would have gone? Is his music in there?" They checked the bag again and found music player and headphones missing. "Oncology."

If this kid really was Mulder's son, there was no reason to question why the boy would be hanging out in the oncology ward listening to music, or why this would be the obvious answer to someone who knew him well. If this kid was Mulder's, there was no reason to apply reason ever to anything he might do.

"Thanks for your time, Mr Milne," Skinner said. The injured banker-turned-farmer smiled uncomfortably, truly tired now.

"No problem. Can you take him his bag, tell him to turn his phone on? But, hey," he said, looking between them. "Will only knows the basics of the cult stuff with Sarah, and I have never talked with him about the adoption. I'd appreciate it if you could leave it that way. His mother… she wanted him to be safe, and happy. She thought knowing might put him in danger. I don't like lying to him – well, it's not lying," Milne corrected himself, annoyed with his own lack of coherent thoughts under the influence of the painkillers. "Sarah didn't want me to tell him, though I think he's working it out anyway, so I haven't brought it up. Sometimes it feels like lying… I love that kid," he made sure to assert, and it was an entirely sincere statement. "He's my family. Sometimes, I wish I could tell him how we came to be a family, is all, and maybe one day I will…"

"But it's not our place to do that," Scully agreed, tactful. Milne nodded and exhaled, relieved to have it put in sensible terms.

"Thanks, Miss…"

"Scully," she provided, and finally offered a smile as she switched off her recorder. Milne, though falling asleep, smiled back, and held eye contact with her for just that bit too long. She rested a hand lightly on his injured knee. "Get some rest. This will heal faster if you give it the time it needs now. It was… nice to meet you." Skinner put his hand on his partner's shoulder and guided her out of the room. Too awkward. The second they stepped out, she visibly deflated. "Oh, God, oh, God…"

"Shh," Skinner urged, half-pushing her along the hall in the direction of oncology. "Now will you call Mulder?"

It was the wrong thing to say. She groaned and ran her hands hurriedly through her hair, electrified with disbelief.

"Fuck Mulder. Walter, this can't be happening," she insisted. She gestured back the way they came but he kept her marching forward. "Everything he said – it just can't be true! I can't have done everything I did to keep my baby safe, only to deliver him straight back to them. Sarah Van de Kamp," she dropped her voice when a doctor walked past with an iPad, "was an abductee. How could I have given him up and have him end up with someone else almost as dangerous as me? It's not fair!"

"I thought all the other women died," Skinner mentioned quietly. They passed doors, opened and closed, soft hospital voices coming from within.

"So did I," she admitted. "She lasted a lot longer than the others. She mustn't have found the chip until even later than I did – if you never took the chip out, presumably, you'd never develop the tumour. If she never connected with the other women…" She shook her head. "She found it eventually, obviously, and had it taken out. And died. Like I would have." She lightly fingered the scar on the back of her neck, troubled. "I gave my son away to have him orphaned by the same monsters I was hiding him from. All this time, if anyone from the conspiracy had come back for her, they would have found him. Nothing I did made a difference. Oh, God," she said again, moving her hand to cover her mouth in horror. "He lost his mom. To cancer. Cancer I could have prevented, if I'd known who she was."

"There's really no way you could have known there was another woman out there, considering you don't even remember the women present during your own abduction experience," Skinner reminded her. She wasn't listening, caught up in self-spun horror.

"I should have vetted the agency's choice, not be so determined to keep it anonymous. If I'd known… Another abductee…" She scrubbed at her face with her hand, traumatised. "It's a miracle no one found him before now. I threw him right into their path. What have I done?"

"Plenty of real cults were active at the time of your abduction and Sarah Van de Kamp really could have been taken by one of those. Let's not jump to conclusions about the nature of her disappearance," Skinner advised carefully, though he was every bit as convinced as she was on that front. He swung the near-empty schoolbag over one shoulder. "Stick to the case we're working. We'll talk to the boy-" she tensed and shifted under his hand "-and get our facts straight. We can't let on to him who you really are or what our real purpose in speaking with him is."

"What am I supposed to say to him?" she demanded softly. "How am I meant to stand in a room with him and pretend not to know him? Pretend that everything terrible that has happened to him isn't my fault."

"It's not your fault," he shot back, and she twisted away from his grip on her shoulder, physically rejecting his words. He didn't release quick enough and found his fingers clenched around the empty fabric of her jacket, which she now shrugged off to leave hanging in his hand, pretending like the action was deliberate. She was falling apart, and for someone as controlled and tightly wound as she, this was never graceful.

"I'm… going to the bathroom," she said, noticing a restroom door just up the hall and heading for it without waiting for his response. She disappeared inside, and he stood alone in the quiet hospital hall holding her jacket and her son's backpack.

He pitied her, of course he did, but her unregulated emotional responses to everything since It would require you to accept there might be a new breed of Super Soldier left him frustrated and made her challenging to help. She was his friend and he loved her dearly, but he would never know her fully, never truly understand and appreciate the deeply complex being that was Dana Scully. She was hurting and struggling, and Skinner was not the man she needed right now. He sighed, dismayed by his own ineffectiveness, and rolled up the jacket in his arms.

The pockets were not empty.

Her phone was password-protected. Four digits. He glanced up at the closed toilet door and took a chance with 1013. Incorrect. Well, there was really only one other, because she'd never be egotistical enough to use her own birthday. 0520.

The homepage opened and he wasted no time in finding her contacts list. As she'd said, she had no listing for Mulder, or even Fox, but he didn't believe for a second that she had no way at all of contacting him. He went back to M and scanned the entries.

M. F. Luder.

A pseudonym Mulder had once published under to protect the Bureau from inevitable embarrassment. Maybe using it as his cover name was Scully's own private dig, though Skinner was too caught up in the intensity of the evening to consider the joke. He looked again at the bathroom door. She was not going to make this call on her own – she'd made that clear. How long did he have?

The phone began to vibrate, and Warren Colt flashed up on the screen as the incoming contact. What did he want? Wasn't he just conducting an interview somewhere? Answering would take valuable time, seconds or even minutes. Automatically, Skinner hit the cancel button, rejecting the call. Sorry, solider boy. Bigger problems afoot here.

The screen returned to the contact details for M. F. Luder. Daring him. Like he had a choice.

He hit dial.

It didn't ring for long.

"Scully?"

It had been years since Skinner had heard that voice, and he'd never heard it directed at him with that inflection. What precious few would have? He had often reflected that every person, at some point in their life, deserved to be greeted with the same hopeful, urgent attentiveness that rose in the voices of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully when they worried for each other. It was simultaneously warming and sickening, but it had been there since the beginning: one had doted on the other from the outset, even if she couldn't see it, and one had admired her partner beyond all reason, followed him anywhere he led, even when it went thoroughly against her grain.

They were pathetically in love and no one was going to save them from it, and the tragic, hopeless whirlwind of it was inexplicably enviable.

"Mulder," a quick glance, nobody around, but voice still low anyway, "it's Assistant Director Skinner."

He expected a smartass reply about his attractiveness or his phone voice or something, but Mulder paused only a moment and his response had not a scrap of playfulness to it.

"Where's Scully? Why do you have her phone?"

There really wasn't time for this. Skinner looked around once again. The ladies' room door was closed and there was no one in sight, up or down the hall. It didn't mean there wasn't anyone listening. It didn't mean Scully's phone wasn't bugged, as she'd suggested Mulder thought.

"How quickly can you be in Wyoming?" Skinner asked quietly, but should have known that a redirect so blunt would not work on a man so sharp.

"Depends. Where is she?"

"She's here. I'm with her now at what passes for a hospital outside of Thayne."

"Thayne?" The voice on the phone was alarmed. "What happened?!"

Skinner withheld an impatient sigh. These two. "Nothing happened. She's fine. We're investigating a case and she's in the restroom, alright? She doesn't know I'm making this call."

"Then why are you?" Cool now, heartless. Mulder had no leg to stand on in pretending not to care about Scully, but he could still shut down very efficiently, especially when Agent Scully was the topic. Not together was not synonymous with not spoken for, because in the two decades of being well-and-truly spoken for, only about half of that had been together.

"We're going into an interview," Skinner confided, almost whispering now, seeing a pair of nurses step out into the hallway right down the other end, well out of earshot. He watched them; they only conferred over a clipboard and totally ignored him. Could paranoia spread through phone lines? He could swear he was worse when working with Mulder, or even Scully these days. "Agent Scully is not going to handle it well. She's already shaken. I think you should be here for her."

"I'm sure she appreciates your concern," Mulder said immediately, "but trust me, I'm the last person she wants to see."

That's what she said. "Trust me," Skinner countered. One of the nurses went back into the room. The other stood a while longer, etching notes. "You should be here."

"She doesn't want to see me," Mulder insisted firmly. His voice scratched a little, like he was outside somewhere windy. "Our last conversation was… strained."

Skinner didn't find that surprising. Mulder and Scully had been playing this dance of hearts and minds for twenty-three years, and for the last three, they'd both been missing steps, tripping over their own feet and standing on each other's toes, like they'd forgotten all the moves. He didn't need to be in touch with both to see it. But neither one had stepped off the dancefloor, and neither one had gone looking for another dance partner. The song was still playing. They would find their way back to the rhythm of their hearts and minds eventually, and fall back into their old steps.

"If she's upset by the case, there's nothing I can do to help," the disgraced freelancer said with finality. "Having me around will only make it worse."

The nurse started this way. And walked straight into the next room. Disappeared.

"Mulder, listen to me," Skinner growled through clenched teeth, irritated. It was so easy to be irritated with Fox Mulder. He was an irritating, stubborn person. "This is bigger than you two giving each other the silent treatment. Whatever you're doing, drop it. Whatever it takes you, just get here. I don't want to tell you why on the phone. I don't want anyone to overhear."

That got his attention. "Something about the case?"

The case – like Agent Scully was letting Skinner anywhere near the real case. She had learned the art of talking all around the truth from some of the very best liars and manipulators the American government had to offer in her time working the X-Files. She wasn't about to let him in on anything that could implicate him as a co-conspirator in whatever she was up to. She'd already shared so much today, and he knew for sure there was a lot she'd kept to herself.

She'd claimed not to be running errands for Mulder, but clearly he was up to speed so clearly that was a lie. Or perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps she really was running her own show, like she claimed.

With Mulder in a lead role, of course.

"Yes, but not specifically. And not something, someone. Someone I think you would very much like to see, even if you still won't admit your connection to him or his mother."

He was at risk of saying too much, so he stopped. Mulder was at no such risk. He fell thickly silent. Skinner imagined he could hear the unfathomable whir of the man's complex and unconventional brain jerking his thought train from one vaguely related concept to the next until he arrived, impossibly, at a vaguely related conclusion.

"Walter…" Mulder's voice betrayed his usual conflict: a secret scepticism that battled eternally with an idealist's desperate want to believe.

The second nurse came back out of her room and began down the hall. She was looking dead ahead, though without any particular focus on Skinner. Her stride was purposeful and he knew she did not intend on stepping into any of the other rooms. The time was up.

"You need to be here," he reiterated forcefully into the mouthpiece of the phone. "I think we found him."

He ended the call and deleted it from the phone's log. He stuffed it back inside the jacket pocket and had just arranged himself to stand casually when the restroom door swung open and Scully returned. She looked calmer, like she'd splashed water on her face and had a good talk with herself in the mirror.

"Ready?"

"Let's say yes," she suggested, taking back her jacket and walking in stride with him as they started again for the oncology ward. She angled a look up at him. "Thanks for being so patient with me."

"I don't think there's any standard etiquette on how to behave in a situation like this," Skinner responded, and she nodded, already moving on to the next thing she needed to say.

"And thanks for being here with me," she said, without any genuine feeling in her voice. "I'm glad I'm not alone."

She didn't sound grateful, but Skinner saw it in the way she directed her attention forward and exhaled shakily. She was glad he was here. She was trying not to feel anything and doing a terrible job of it, and would hate to have this struggle in front of someone she trusted less.

She was holding it together in this moment, but Skinner was already quite convinced of what they would find in oncology, and didn't expect this self-control to last. At least Mulder was on his way.

"Now, this boy," she said matter-of-factly. Not William now. "Regardless of who he might be, he did watch a stranger take a bullet through the chest yesterday, right in front of him. We should be careful bringing up this event in case we trigger a post-traumatic response."

This was why she did the field work and Skinner stayed behind his desk, because while he probably would have done this anyway in a conversation with a child, it hadn't explicitly occurred to him.

"Hopefully he's getting counselling," he offered, only thinking now how terrifying the Bletchley attack might have been for this boy. "We can recommend it if he isn't yet getting that help."

She nodded. "I might leave a note for the staff to pass to Milne."

Too weird. Milne was occupying the space in William's life that Scully, and Mulder, should have held, and instead of feeling jealous, Scully's response was one of fascination. A scientist's objective interest, because jealousy would require emotion, and she wasn't prepared to share any of that yet.

"Good idea," Skinner said simply. He turned with her around the corner at the end of the hall and saw the overhead sign for oncology. "Do you have the recorder?"

He saw her eyes cling to the sign as she went through her pockets for the device. She'd almost died in one of these wards. Now, through a strange twist of destiny, her life might start over in one.

"Yes. Here," she said, producing it. Skinner took it, glancing from side to side as they now started passing open doors. She dropped back a little to look in each empty room properly, while he felt his feet carrying him quicker. The ward only had four rooms on each side of the hall, with only three of the eight currently occupied. Somewhere here, through one of these doors, was the boy. Of all Mulder's odd qualities, the thrill of a mystery and the compulsion to chase it was one of a small few Skinner could connect with. He felt it now.

"Can I help you?" a nurse asked, poking his head out of the last room and stilling their search, Skinner in the hall and Scully in the doorway of an empty room. Skinner presented his badge, leaning to the side to see inside that last room. An elderly patient, lying in bed, clearly dying, hooked up to drips and softly beeping machines. Dismal. He glanced back at Scully, hoping she wouldn't come and look and be reminded any more vividly of her own miserable experience. He introduced himself to the nurse and mentioned who they were looking for. The nurse knew straightaway, and nodded at the closed door opposite where Scully still stood. "Nice kid. He's been in there about twenty-five minutes. Might have fallen asleep."

Skinner turned to Scully in disbelief. She was staring at the door, three feet away from her, behind which her son might be waiting. "Did he say why he wants to be in an oncology treatment room?"

"He's been here before, but not for a few years. His mother died in one of these rooms and he used to deliberately sneak onto the wrong bus after school to get out here. Hasn't done for a few years, as I say, but he's had a scare so I guess he's back, seeking the same thing as always."

"Which is?" Skinner asked, deliberately not looking at Scully. His mother died in one of these rooms was a conflicting enough comment for him to handle.

"He used to say he was looking for his mom. He's just trying to feel close with her; we never have the heart to send him away, and his uncle's on the premises so where's the harm?"

The nurse returned to his patient and Skinner looked back again at his partner. Whatever confidence she'd found in the bathroom mirror had shattered at the realisation that she was about meet her son in the place he'd lost the woman he'd called Mom.

Her son. It was unbelievable, after all this time, to think he might be so close. Even for Skinner, this was incredible. What would he look like? Almost fifteen, would he be remotely recognisable as that chubby, near-hairless, blue-eyed baby Scully had carried around on her hip in the year Mulder first went off into hiding? Maybe more to the point, who would he look like? Would Scully's fine features be visible in the boy's, or Mulder's more conventional, more masculine good looks?

Only one way to find out.

Skinner strode over and grabbed the doorknob, but hesitated on turning it when he realised his partner hadn't moved. She didn't join him at the door. She was standing frozen in place, staring at his hand. One single turn of the handle separating this lonely, lost period of her life from what might be a new, unrecognisable one. He couldn't imagine what she was feeling.

"Are you alright?" he asked, trying to be gentle. She automatically nodded.

"I'm fine."

She looked the furthest thing from fine. Her face was tight with conflict. Skinner gestured her over; she took a single clunky step and stopped herself again. He frowned, concerned.

"Are you really?"

She didn't seem to know how to answer that. "I can't…" She pressed her lips together, grasping for control as they shook slightly. "I don't…"

"You're not fine," Skinner surmised, as he'd expected from the outset, and she finally shook her head.

"No," she agreed softly. "I can't… meet him here." She met his eyes briefly, then lowered her gaze, humiliated. "I'm not his mom."

"You're his mother," Skinner assured her. She stared at the floor.

"It's not the same thing. And this place… Sarah Van de Kamp died here. It's not okay for me walk into his life here."

Skinner dropped his hand from the doorknob and sighed. Who knew where Mulder was coming from and how long he'd take to arrive? There was no point in waiting for him – he'd just have to pick up the pieces of this tumultuous reunion that Skinner's clumsy hands couldn't sweep up. Leaving this door unopened was not an option, whatever it did to her.

"We can't walk away."

"I know. I wouldn't want to. But…" She couldn't look at him. "I don't want to hurt him."

"You should probably stay out here while I conduct the interview," he said finally, reluctantly, and she looked up in surprise. "If this Van de Kamp turns out to be your child and your name is connected with the interview record, it could be viewed as a conflict of interest in your case, and anything we learn from him this evening may be inadmissible as evidence. First and foremost, we came out here to further your investigation. Any personal consequences need to still be treated like the rest of the official case – our actions here should be professional beyond question."

She leapt on it. The case was the furthest thing from her top priority, just a willing distractor. His compromise gave her the room to nod, and her next breath sounded relieved. She had let fear rule before, and it had cost her this boy in the first place. She couldn't walk away but she couldn't walk in, either, and now she didn't have to decide.

A friend doesn't let a friend make the same mistake twice.

"Good idea," she said, trying to force a quick smile that never quite eventuated. It was an attempt, at least. "Out of sight would be best, then, if we're thinking about the credibility of the case. It might not be him, but…"

It probably was. Skinner had to check himself – he was being the metaphorical Mulder to her literal Scully, making assumptions without the final evidence in front of him. He had to see this boy. See Scully in his face. See Mulder. Already, his imagination was forming false faces for him, a younger boy version of Scully with dark hair; a young version of Mulder with red hair. The superimposed false Williams were the shallowest imaginings, he was sure, but he would not know how to imagine a more authentic genetic mix of his two most eccentric friends until he actually saw it.

No time like the present. He tipped his head aside to indicate the space beside the door, and she inhaled slowly, stepping away to press her back against the wall. Terrified.

"Are you sure?"

She didn't look at him. "I'll be fine."

Whatever you say, doc. Skinner turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

The room was small, cream-walled and unattractive, a blank whiteboard pasted not-quite-level on the left wall and a higgledy-piggledy collection of unused instruments and machines – weapons in the eternal war on cancers – against the right wall. In the centre of the room was a tidy hospital bed, and on that was a teenaged boy lying upside-down, feet on the raised headrest and pillow, who sat up in alarm when Skinner walked in.

"Whoa, it's alright," Skinner assured the teen when the boy almost fell off the bed in the effort to simultaneously right himself and yank his earbuds out of his ears. His ID was already in his hand; he raised it. "William Van de Kamp?"

"We weren't trying to cause trouble," the boy said immediately, getting himself upright in a hurry as the bed rocked slightly with his motion. "It was just a joke, and we're sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

The boy got himself steady, grabbing the edge of the hospital bed, and finally faced Skinner properly. His face was unknown, not a match to his poorly conceptualised ideals of a Mulder-Scully blend. Skinner felt disappointment.

"Depends who's asking." The blue eyes, overlarge and overbright, were sharp with suspicion and mild embarrassment at being taken by surprise, but it was his face that Skinner was trying to make sense of. Obviously, this boy was totally unfamiliar – he'd never seen this face before – and yet…

And yet, the longer Skinner looked, the more features stood out, in isolation, as maybe entirely familiar.

"That's my bag," the boy noted, indicating with a quick jerk of his chin the backpack Skinner still had slung over his shoulder.

"Walter Skinner, FBI." He held the badge and bag out in offer and the boy sat forward slowly to take the badge only, something about his unwavering gaze and cautious body language eliciting an eerie sense of déjà vu. Who or what was this boy reminding him of? Mulder, Scully? Someone else entirely? Of course he expected to see similarities, but did that make them real? "I'm here about the attack yesterday that resulted in your uncle's accident. He asked me to bring your bag to you and tell you to turn your phone on."

"FBI?" the boy repeated, examining the badge in his hands with equal parts intrigue and misgiving. His hair was rusty red, his eyebrows fine and mousy brown, his complexion milky fair, exactly the colouring of the baby Scully had given away. His eyes averted down, though, clearly reading, whole physicality still and his expression alight with obvious interest, Skinner was struck by the unexpected likeness to Mulder he glimpsed. He tried to isolate what it was, exactly, but by then the boy had finished reading and startling blue eyes had flicked back up at him, and all he saw as the boy asked warily, sceptically, "They sent an Assistant Director to investigate one homeless death and a wrecked knee?" was Dana Scully.

The eyes were as distinctive as fingerprints.

That disbelieving tone of voice might have been genetic, too. Was she hearing it from outside the door, recognising herself in that voice? The accent was different, the age and gender distinctly not hers, and yet…

"I sent myself," Skinner corrected lightly, dumping the bag beside the boy and accepting the badge back and putting it away. "It's difficult sometimes to get the full story from behind a desk reading other agents' reports."

The boy regarded him with unblinking eyes and Skinner stared back, waiting him out. The eyes were Scully's but the longer he looked, the more of Mulder he saw there, in the definition of his brow, of the height and shape of his forehead, even of his hairline, though the hair was thick and wavy like his mother's.

"Yeah, I'm Will," he relented finally, relaxing slightly and crossing his feet as they dangled from the edge of the hospital bed. Skinner didn't have children so it wasn't easy to judge, especially while William remained seated and elevated, but was this boy small for his age? Dainty, almost, with frail shoulders where Mulder's were strong and broad. Built like Scully, perhaps, or perhaps just awaiting a growth spurt – he wasn't even fifteen, after all, and what did Skinner know about teenagers?

"Your uncle said I could talk to you," Skinner told the boy, who now went through his bag for his cell and switched it on. "I have some questions about the events of yesterday, if you wouldn't mind."

"I already talked to the sheriff's guys. Yesterday. They took a statement."

"I know," Skinner replied calmly. "I read it. That's why I'm here."

"To ask me more questions?" Will clarified. The phone received a few messages, intoning repeatedly, but he tucked it back inside his bag rather than sit and read them. How improbably polite for a teenager.

"That's right."

"And that's really why you're here to see me?"

"Can you think of another reason the FBI would be visiting you?"

William fixed him with a piercing, discerning Mulder look. "No, I guess not. But if I'm not in trouble, I don't have to talk to you at all, right?"

The question was surprising and left of field, but Skinner rolled with it. "No, you don't have to. Witness interviews are all provided on a voluntary basis and I can't force you to give a statement."

"And the only reason you want to talk to me," William – Will, he'd called himself – said slowly, "is my relationship to your investigation?"

"We can talk with your uncle present if you would prefer that," Skinner offered. Will shook his head.

"No, it's fine." He sounded tired all of a sudden, like the air had gone out of him. "Here's fine. I'll answer your questions."

Odd child, Skinner reflected as he withdrew the recorder from his pocket. But what had he expected would be the crossover of Mulder with Scully? Anything close to normal? The boy was lucky his chromosomes didn't just explode on initial contact in a protest against such a contradiction being created.

"Is it alright with you if I record our conversation?"

Will shrugged again. "I don't mind," he said, and Skinner started the recorder from the end of the interview with Gary Milne. He quickly spoke into the microphone – "Interview with witness William Van de Kamp, age fourteen, with consent of guardian, at nine minutes past nineteen hundred, conducted by Assistant Director Skinner, in relation to case number…" – and the boy watched him with increasing interest. When he finished his spiel, Will asked him, "Is this going to go into federal evidence? This interview?"

"Anything of use to the investigation will be compiled as evidence in making our case, yes," Skinner agreed. He placed the recorder down on the hospital bed's end beside the teen. Bright eyes followed it and eyed it with interest. The initial spark of attitude was quickly fading to reveal an intense curiosity that sung absolutely of Fox Mulder.

"And it'll be a real interview? You're not going to talk down to me and avoid questions to be sensitive just because I happen to be fifteen?"

"I'm reliably informed that you don't turn fifteen for another two months," Skinner replied, folding his arms and tolerating the too-familiar eyeroll he got in return, "but certainly, I'll be as straight with you as protocol and professionalism allows."

"Who listens to it?" the boy pressed, nodding at the recorder.

"Just those connected with the case. My partner, her team. Later on, probably their supervisors, and eventually, a court and a judge."

Will considered that. "So it's unlikely that someone working for the Bureau who wasn't directly involved with your case would stumble across it, but if they did, they'd have access to it?"

Odd question. Odd child, Skinner thought again, though the question made him uneasy. Scully had enemies within the agency, some she didn't even know about. Would those quiet adversaries seek out the details and evidence of this otherwise 'nothing' case, and potentially stumble across this interview recording with William? What incredible danger might that put him in? Maybe Skinner shouldn't be recording this. Or maybe this interview should go missing before it found its way into evidence.

"It'll be quite secure, like the rest of our investigation materials," he assured the boy, who actually looked put out by that assurance. Skinner took a chance, unsure with teenagers, knowing anything that seemed like a sure-fire establishment of trust and friendliness was just as likely to be rebuked viciously. "Your uncle said you're interested in law enforcement."

William was quick with his answer this time. "Not interested in law enforcement like on current affair specials – you know, 'his psychological profile demonstrates a long-held fascination with law enforcement'." A serious false newscaster voice took over his own, naturally entertaining though he didn't even know his audience. He dropped it as quickly as he'd adopted it. "Not a terrorist, not a serial killer, whatever Trip told you. Just, like, interested. And really only in your Bureau, not local or even state law enforcement or justice. And really only recently. I…" He hesitated, Mulder's wit replaced instantly with Scully's measuredness. He continued, more cautiously, "I like to know things."

Skinner nodded, respecting the statement, even if it sounded like a cover to explain away something he wasn't privy to.

"William, what can you tell me about the events of yesterday morning in town?" he asked, trying to keep his initial line of questioning open. The boy scratched his hairline with one fingernail, and for some reason, the gesture brought with it a strong sense of Mulder. Skinner almost turned, intending on making eye contact with Scully to check whether she saw it, too, but he made himself stay still and not give her position away outside the door. He wished she'd walk in, though. Walk in and see this for herself, this boy who every moment looked more like his father, looked more like her.

"Uh, there was an attack," Will said, looking at his shoes while he got his thoughts in order. His eyes shifted across to the device beside him and it was clear he wanted to be helpful on record. "There was some kind of… disruption?... in the crowd, and I looked over and saw that guy with the dreadlocks."

"What was he doing?"

"He had a knife," Will recalled, sounding disturbed, "but it didn't look like he was cutting anybody with it, just… grabbing people and throwing them away. Then he spotted the mayor, sitting at the eatery, and he came over. He was tossing tables aside like they were made of paper, he was so strong. Like… stupid strong. He got up close and raised the knife to slash at the mayor, and that's when the sheriff shot him."

A perfect confirmation of the sheriff's story, retold specifically for law enforcement. No mention of William's own movements, or the harm that befell Gary Milne, only what William expected Skinner wanted to hear.

"How was your uncle hurt?"

William looked surprised to be asked. "The drifter guy was heading our way and at first we didn't know the mayor was behind us, so we tried to get out of the way. Uncle Gary got pinned when the guy shoved the table over on his way past us. It caught his knee and tore his anterior cruciate ligament."

"What makes you think the attacker was a drifter?" Skinner asked, but the boy was Mulder's and Scully's, a meta-thinker, and his mind was jumping well ahead.

"You read my statement," Will quipped, "so you know I saw him arrive in town on the back of someone's pick-up. So I think he was a drifter. Plus, no one in Thayne has dreadlocks."

"You saw him in the main square, and a few minutes later, a few streets away, you saw the same man. Is there any chance he followed you?"

"I think it's more likely he happened to take the same side street I did," Will said. "The square has a limited number of exits."

Smartass. Definitely Mulder's. "Was he aware of you, when you saw him arrive in the main square?" Skinner pushed. "Did you exchange words, or even make eye contact? Did he see you?"

"I didn't talk to him." The boy shifted uncomfortably, remembering. Looking like Scully in the car half an hour ago, or Scully a hundred times in the past, trying not to have to believe something she didn't like. "We made eye contact, but only for a second, and then I kept going. I don't know what he did after that, until I saw him gunning for the mayor at the eatery."

"How do you know the mayor was the target?" Skinner asked. The boy frowned up at him, Scully's eyes darkening under Mulder's brow.

"It's obvious."

You can do better than that. "I'm not sure a judge will accept that one," Skinner countered, and Will's frown softened slightly, challenged. Skinner berated himself for expecting more from a child, yet he did, expected an answer more like Scully's; instead he felt a ghost, the familiar sense of frustration with a brilliant brain that jumped to conclusions it didn't feel like explaining. He rephrased. "Can you explain why it's obvious?"

"Tim told me that's what they're saying in town," William reasoned now. "Once he looked over our way, he just came straight over. And anyway, who else would he have been after?"

"I'm wondering that myself." Skinner paused, considering how much to say. Did a boy barely breaking free of childhood need to know he might have been the target yesterday of an attempted assassination or kidnapping? The answer depended – would he be in danger after this interview? As much as Skinner didn't want to frighten Scully's boy, he did want him to be safe and able to spot risks and avoid them if this didn't end with Bletchley. "Had you ever seen the attacker before yesterday, when he disembarked from the truck in down?"

"No. Never."

"Does the name 'Morris Bletchley' sound familiar to you?"

"Was that the drifter's name? No," Will added, noting Skinner's impassive expression, a silent refusal to acknowledge anything until he had his answer. "I don't know that name."

"Have you recently interacted with three individuals posing as CDC agents or morticians? An older man-"

"Older than you?" Cheeky, unable to resist the opportunity. "Why would someone pose as an agent?" He sighed in frustration when Skinner refused to answer. "No, no one has told me they're a CDC agent. What's that, Centre for Disease Control?"

"The group I'm referring to may be connected to the attacker," Skinner said now. "Two men and a young woman, either in her late teens or early twenties. She has blue eyes and dark hair. Caucasian. The older man has white hair and glasses. He looks like a wizard," he added reluctantly, unable to come up with a better description, because he hadn't been looking at the men and hadn't committed much more to memory. He found it even harder to describe the final member of the trio, despite that one standing there the longest. "The younger man might be almost thirty."

"I can't think of anyone matching those descriptions," Will apologised. "No wizards. Maybe some of the people in town, while I was walking…"

"William," Skinner redirected, amazed to think he was addressing the William he'd never expected to see again, "what were you doing in town, midmorning on a school day? Joining your uncle for a business meeting?"

Will winced. "I, uh, ditched school. I didn't expect to run into Uncle Gary."

"Do you ditch school often?"

"Are the FBI truant police now?" Will shot back. Skinner felt his patience flicker at the insolence and had to remind himself that this was the boy's sense of humour. He smiled, and found it came out less forced than he expected.

"Your uncle implied you were involved in a fight."

"Not so much a fight. More of a…" Will trailed off, trying to word it properly, and gave up. "More of a situation where I was accused of writing other people's senior Bio assignments for money and vividly insulted by a fellow student much too big and strong for me to take on, so I retaliated by telling the class that Jeremy masturbates in the toilets fantasising about ginger orphan midgets, after he'd just called me exactly that." There was a long silence. "He didn't think it was funny, either. He smacked my head into a desk."

"I… am not surprised he didn't appreciate the joke," Skinner said eventually, shocked by the openness because Scully would never say that. But Mulder would. And Mulder would be reckless about it, too, and accept the violent consequence of his choice to cross somebody's line as just an occupational hazard of being this kind of funny. Will looked similarly blasé, regretful of the injury he'd sustained but not regretful of the joke, and not regretful enough to not do it again. Skinner cleared his throat, embarrassed that the first conversation he'd ever held with his friends' child involved midget porn, and that the child's mother was the one listening in. Mulder would be proud. "Were you hurt?"

"A nosebleed but nothing serious. I bailed before it got worse. I'd asked for it and I was going to get it."

"What prompted your classmate to make the plagiarism accusation?" Skinner asked, thinking back on Milne's assertion that the difficulties Will faced at school were mostly small-town issues, nothing to worry about. This sounded like typical high school drama, but he had to be sure.

"I don't know why he hates me."

"So it was just a spiteful attempt to get you into trouble?" Skinner paused. "Or did you write everybody's assignments?"

"Not everybody's," Will clarified seriously, almost appealing. Skinner raised an eyebrow.

"You were paid for this? Writing assignments that are contributing to other students' senior results and may ultimately affect their college entrance?"

The boy squirmed uncomfortably. "I needed the money," he muttered, cheeks flushing, the first indication of anything short of pure confidence. He knew he'd overstepped an ethical line and he was disappointed in himself. Skinner undid the button of his jacket so he could settle his hands on his hips, not intending to look imposing but probably doing so anyway. William kept his gaze down.

Tut, tut. Dana Scully's son in the middle of a schoolyard plagiarism controversy. Could this day get any weirder?

"Alright," he sighed. "Let's move on. You're right, I'm not the truant police. I'm sure your school and uncle will have plenty to say when everything else blows over. Is it safe to say you're not usually out of school at eleven-fifteen in the morning?" Will nodded quickly, eyes still down. Skinner jumped into the main reason he was here. "I'm trying to establish whether the attacker could have reasonably anticipated you being in town or if you being there at the same time was purely coincidental."

Will looked surprised again, making connections quickly.

"I wasn't his target," he insisted, looking up. Skinner tilted his head.

"Tell me how you know that. Did you feel otherwise at any point during yesterday's attack?" Skinner pressed, fascinated by the battle between belief and scepticism behind eyes that were hers, a flashback in a new boxset. "You said the attacker came straight at you, knocking chairs, tables and customers aside, and raised his knife when he reached you. Maybe it was the mayor he was aiming for, maybe it wasn't. At that moment, what did you think?"

Will glanced yet again at the recorder. "I thought he wanted to kill me. I got a… yuck feeling about him. I thought he was looking right at me, and I thought it looked like the knife was aimed at me. But then the sheriff shot him," here Will swallowed, evidently disturbed by his up-close first experience of a shooting, "and the mayor spoke up, and I realised it was ridiculous to think the drifter guy was there for me. Maybe he was going to stab me, but only to get me out of the way." Will forced a quick smile, the dismissive smile of a wilful denier. "It all happened so fast and it was hard to pin down what was really happening for a minute there, but it's much clearer now."

Leave it long enough and the boy would rationalise the whole experience away, reprogram himself to see normality where actually there was deviation, retrain himself to ignore the true memory of this event because it was more socially acceptable to believe what everyone had told him. If he was ever in real danger, he would not see a second attempt coming.

"William," Skinner said reluctantly, making up his mind, "I'm going to be honest with you-"

"People so rarely are when they think you're a little kid."

"I can imagine that's frustrating," Skinner allowed. Like trying to get some speculative, flexible thought out of a conversation with a miniature version of Scully. Pulling teeth. He backtracked and tried to lay it out more explicitly, the way Mulder used to do with young Scully. "You're right – on the surface, a controversial mayor makes more sense as the target of a violent public attack than you do – but if you examine the evidence in front of me, you soon see that the only link we have between Mr Bletchley arriving in the main square, and where he ended up acting out, is you. So, let's be straightforward. Can you think of any reason a stranger from out of town might come to Thayne looking to hurt you?"

Will frowned. "No. I'm nobody. I'm just an orphan."

How wrong you are, boy. Skinner wondered if he'd been closer to the door, whether he'd have heard Scully's heart break to hear her child say that about himself. Either way, he heard the boy's certainty, and was grateful on behalf of past-Scully. This child had not known the life of a fugitive, which had been her fear. This child did not know his significance. He was blissfully unaware. Wasn't he?

"Think," Skinner urged. "No enemies? No previous frightening experiences that might be related?"

"The closest thing I have to an enemy is my school," Will responded, mock-seriously. "The staff colluded to accelerate my studies in science and put me in senior classes with assholes like Jeremy. Clearly, I'm a victim of my own institution, and they have it in for me. But that's all town stuff. Nobody from school would have hired an out-of-town drifter to come in on the one day I skipped school to assassinate me."

"What about from outside of town?"

"Can I see that badge again, please?" The boy extended his hand, frowning. "Assassination? I really don't think you're hearing yourself. No one, in town or out, is plotting against fourteen-year-old know-it-all kids and enlisting Morris Bletchley the Dreadlocked Derelict to butcher me in a public place on the off-chance we happen to cross paths, the one time I skip school."

It did sound stupid, laughable, but Skinner had not presided over the X-Files for all those years only to forget that such seemingly stupid things mostly happened unheard over the sound of condescending laughter. And the child of Mulder and Scully, the target for an assassination? Many times more likely than the average child.

"So you can think of absolutely no motive?" he pushed on, ignoring the dismissiveness, wanting, wanting there to be something, some explanation that was not because I may have been conceived as part of an alien plot. Will seemed to realise Skinner was serious, and, examining the badge he'd been given for a second time, he quirked a truly familiar sceptical eyebrow.

"Absolutely none," he agreed, his father's sarcasm sneaking in on his tone. Every layer that peeled away, every gesture, look, twitch, feature, revealed another clue hinting back to those two. Incredible. Of course Skinner had met and known the children of friends and family before, and seen the jigsaw puzzle of traits borrowed from each parent, but this was something he'd never expected to see – the two people most opposite in the world, seemingly incompatible, harmoniously coexisting in one form. It hardly seemed plausible. "It's not like I have anything anyone would want…" William trailed off, something occurring to him. He looked up at Skinner again, thoughts almost visibly buzzing behind his eyes. "There was… Yesterday, in the letterbox, there was a cheque."

Skinner felt his attention pique. "And this is unusual?"

"Well, yeah. My uncle probably told you, the farm isn't doing so well." William hesitated. "It's been that way for a while, just bleeding money, and I think he thought I wouldn't notice, but now it's reached the point of almost unsalvageable. So this morning he and I talked, and we agreed to try and sell the farm before he has to start subdividing just to stay afloat. But that was after I got this," he explained, coming back to the point and digging inside the schoolbag. He withdrew an envelope that had already been slit open. Skinner's badge was still clutched in his palm. "The timing was pretty cosmic, if I believed in that sort of stuff."

"A sceptic, hey?" Skinner noted, accepting with a sense of hope the folded document Will pulled from the envelope. Maybe, maybe the ulterior motive he was looking for? "You don't believe the universe works in mysterious ways?"

Like the way it brought us to you this very night?

"I believe the universe's mysterious ways are only mysterious because we haven't worked them out yet. I don't think balls of fiery gasses millions of lightyears away are arranging themselves in what we would call patterns from our particular vantage point in space and influencing the activity of a single sentient species out of the probably billions that exist out there."

Jesus, Mulder and Scully rolled into one. How had Milne coped? Skinner tried to shake away the smile that grew on his lips as he opened the page. It was indeed a cheque, made out to Mr William Van de Kamp from the estate of Doris Kearney, for eleven thousand, two hundred and thirty-eight dollars, and forty-six cents.

"What's funny?" Will asked, fidgeting with the ID. Skinner looked up, realising he'd not wiped the smile quickly enough.

"Nothing. You remind me of an old friend. This is a lot-"

"Who's your friend?" Will interrupted swiftly. "Another FBI agent?"

"Who's interviewing who here?" Skinner admonished, not too harshly, though the boy withdrew completely, stung. How much did the boy know? He tried to be gentler. "Is that why you Google the Bureau? You like investigating? Thinking about a future with the FBI?"

Will shrugged. "I like to know things," he said again. He scratched his hairline roughly.

"Give me a call when you finish school, kid. I might have a job for you. Now, this is a lot of money to come to a fourteen-year-old out of the blue," Skinner pressed on, changing tact and waving the cheque. "People have conspired to do harm for less. Do you know the sender?"

"Percy Hind. Lawyer. I've only spoken with him over the phone. He isn't trying to assassinate me, either, before you ask."

"What did you talk about?"

"Would you really hire me?" Will asked, attention splitting like the hairs that settled on his lap, displaced from his thick locks. Teenagers. His sullenness was immediately replaced with a Mulderish hopefulness. "After I finish college and stuff?"

"Not if I remember you as an unhelpful witness," Skinner replied dryly. The boy's mouth twitched in amusement.

"A few weeks ago," he recited dutifully, distractedly tugging an exercise book out of his schoolbag and a pen, "this guy Michael Kearney came to the house, looking for my mom Sarah. He was an ex-boyfriend of hers from way back, before she met my dad, and his mom had really loved her. Uncle Gary had to tell him she's dead. Apparently, his mom had left my mom money in her will, that money," he nodded at the cheque, arranging the book on his lap and pulling his knees up to make a table, "and he was trying to track her down to settle the account. But then he and Uncle Gary got into an argument, and he left, and later on, I got a call from this lawyer," he turned the envelope over to show the sender's address, "to say the money was owed to me as Sarah's heir. Mr Kearney wasn't happy about it but the lawyer said it wasn't his call to make. I'd kind of forgotten about it until I saw the cheque in the mail."

"Why was Mr Kearney unhappy to part with the money, if he was willing to physically drive to your house to find your mother?" It was strange to verbally be calling Sarah Van de Kamp your mother while thinking of Scully as your mother. "He started off alright with it."

William chewed the inside of his cheek and looked down at the recorder, tapping the pen against his leg, silent for a long time as he thought over his response.

"It was when I said I'm Sarah's kid," Will admitted slowly. "He said I couldn't be. He said, she couldn't have children." He looked up now at Skinner, eyes bright with challenge. "I'm adopted. My uncle doesn't know I know… but you don't look surprised."

Out of nowhere, a left hook. What was he insinuating? That he knew his adoptedness was relevant, that he knew Skinner was connected with Scully, that he knew Mulder and Scully were his parents? Or did he in fact know very little, and just want to trick someone into sharing what they thought he already knew? The boy was an unpredictable player. Skinner, a boxer, appreciated the amateur skill, though wondered whether, outside the door, Scully had taken the blow full-force.

"I had considered that you don't look much like your uncle," he replied easily, ducking below the strike and avoiding that whole can of worms. Milne had asked them not to talk about this. Scully had agreed. End of story. They were the decision-makers here. "Was Mr Kearney bothered by the concept that you may not be the beneficiary's natural child?"

William stared at him for a beat, impassive expression hiding any multitude of thoughts. Had his assertion been a less-than-subtle hint at knowing that Skinner had just brushed aside, or was he hinting at something else even more subtle that Skinner had simply not picked up on? Or was it blunt, just, I think you know I'm adopted because my uncle probably told you? Blunt wasn't usually the Mulder or the Scully way, but this boy wasn't raised by them, so who knew? In any case, Will had to take a moment to reroute his thoughts, his adoption revelation not taking this discussion in the direction he'd anticipated. He flipped open the book and started drawing.

"He was bothered by the concept that I might get my hands on his mother's money and I was the nephew of the guy he'd just had a screaming fit at and who'd knocked him on his ass in the mud. He was humiliated. I think that was the extent of it."

"Your uncle and Mr Kearney had a physical altercation?" Skinner clarified, starting to form a new, plausible theory. William nodded. "And Mr Kearney was reluctant to pass the inheritance on to you, but the decision was taken out of his hands?"

"Uncle Gary said he was a spoilt rich kid in an adult's body," Will said, sketching out his initial outline, though the way he'd angled the book, it was not visible to Skinner. "He said he's petty and a dickbag."

"Petty enough to pay off a drifter to retaliate on his behalf?" It wouldn't have taken much to buy someone who had nothing, and if it wasn't the money that mattered to Kearney but the principle and his pride… It was certainly worth looking into. Maybe the fact that the first homeless transient he'd happened across also happened to be some kind of Super Soldier was simple fluke. Coincidences could happen, right?

"For eleven thousand dollars? You didn't see his car. No one's that petty. He was a dick; that's all I can tell you. The rest is your own insane speculation. You can take a photo or a copy or whatever of that," Will said now, eyes on the cheque still in Skinner's hands while he sketched, "but it's not going into evidence. I've got plans for that money."

"College fund?" Of course this boy would be going to college. A lot of what he said, and the way he tried to wield power in even this conversation between a child witness and an adult Assistant Director, gave the impression of a much older person. Skinner got out his phone and photographed the document.

"Some of it. I'm giving half to this ward."

That took Skinner by surprise. "That's very generous of you."

William shrugged and looked down at his drawing. "It's not that much once you halve it. I wasn't comfortable funding my future on money from someone like Dickbag Kearney. It's dirty and insincere. But Uncle Gary said it isn't really from him, it's from his mom, who was nice. She was giving it out of compassion and love for my mom, so I prefer to think of it as being from her. Michael didn't really love my mom."

"Is that what your uncle said?"

"You're right, I didn't know them together to be able to make that comment," Will acquiesced. He looked to the door, wistful and thoughtful and dark and clouded and troubled and hurt and hopeful and sad all at once, the classic mix of Mulder. And he said, almost as if he knew she was there, though he'd been given no indication of that, "I only know that you don't abandon someone you love."

Skinner winced, sure he could hear the metaphorical knife sink into the vulnerable heart in the hall. "That's a simplistic view to take. But in the case of Mr Kearney and your mother, we've only got your uncle's word to go off," he added, stepping closer to look at the envelope the cheque had come in. He photographed the return address. Tannenbaum and Associates.

"Have you ever abandoned someone you loved?" Will challenged. "Because being abandoned sucks ass."

Skinner refused to bite, hearing the misplaced passion of both parents rising in the underage voice of their son.

"Yes, I have," he answered coolly. "And not because I didn't love them, but because I was left without other choices. But as I said, in the instance of your mother and this Kearney, your uncle's word is all we have to go off – and he's probably right." He picked up the recorder, leaving it running. "I think we're done here."

Will blushed again. "Sorry. I misunderstood what you meant." Their humility. It wasn't common in people as accomplished as they were, nor in teens. "That was inappropriate of me." He paused. "I guess I've been pushing that boundary for the duration of this interview, huh? I haven't meant any disrespect, I promise."

"Son," Skinner said honestly, "that doesn't even register on my list of inappropriate things that I've been asked. May I?" He opened his hand for his ID, which Will was still holding onto. Reluctantly, the boy handed it over, fingertips pressing it closed. Skinner tucked it into his pocket. "I'm going to look into this Kearney and any connections he might have to what happened in town yesterday. My partner, her team and I will handle the rest of the investigation from our end, and we'll get in touch if there's anything pertinent we find or need from you. But in the meantime, if you don't feel safe, we can arrange to put eyes on you-"

"Wait, eyes on me?" William was already shaking his head, laughing off the notion and going back to his drawing. "Agents spying on me going to school? Not going to happen."

"If there's a reason to believe you're in danger of another attack, you'll find it'll happen whether you like it or not," Skinner warned. "Where are you staying while your uncle is here?"

"Last night I stayed at Tim's, our farm hand, but tonight I'm sleeping here. The nurses caved when I played the 'traumatised orphan missing his injured uncle and dead mom' card." The sassy, knowing smile that flashed was one hundred percent Mulder. "If you can't play it when you need it, what's the point of it? Tim's baby cries all night."

"And you feel safe here? In the cancer ward?"

"Not here, per se. I'll sleep in the chair in Uncle Gary's room to maintain my cover."

"We can arrange alternative accommodations for you while your uncle is unable to care for you," Skinner said, no longer knowing how to enact them but knowing there were provisions in place to protect child victims in Will's position, with a possible threat still out there and no adult physically capable of protecting him. He and Scully could take him in and offer that protection. It would be highly educational for everyone involved.

"My uncle is perfectly able to care for me," Will responded, a little defensively. "That's what he's done my whole life."

Not your whole life… "I'm not insinuating otherwise. But if another attempt is made-"

"Another attempt? Implying there was a first. Your drifter's dead," Will interrupted logically. "He's not coming to get me. People don't just rise up from the dead and start walking around, finishing off what they started, and Dickbag Kearney hasn't had time to locate and conscript a new amoral drifter to take me out, if that was ever actually his goal. Plus," he added a few finishing touches to his picture, "nobody knows I'm here, and visiting hours are over. I'm perfectly safe. But you know all that."

"Knowing the risk is low doesn't eliminate the risk," Skinner countered, ignoring the irony of the boy's specific scepticism. People don't just rise up from the dead. Uh-huh. "Morris Bletchley is dead," again, "but the other three are not, and they've already made very gutsy attempts at pushing their way into this investigation."

The pen froze on the page, mid-stroke.

"I knew there was more to this than a homeless psychopath and a wrecked knee," William said, shaking his head as though annoyed. "Why else would you be here? Assistant Director of the FBI. They're the ones you want, aren't they? What have they really done?"

"I told you," Skinner answered impatiently, unable to discern the boy's irritation. "They impersonated agents and interfered with this investigation. They could be a danger to you."

"I don't think so," Will said, voice harder now than it had been since Skinner arrived. Teenagers and their unpredictable moods. "I appreciate the concern, but I'm not leaving this hospital with you. I'm not leaving my uncle. Consider this my traumatised orphan card, face down in defence mode."

Evidently, their interview was done. "You're probably right," Skinner relented, buttoning up his jacket. "This is a reasonably secure facility and no direct threats have been made against you, so the precaution is probably unnecessary. We don't know for sure whether Kearney was involved, or those other three I mentioned, or if we're completely off-base on that theory, but just in case my suspicions are correct…" He withdrew a business card. "This is my direct cell number. If you see anything, remember anything, need anything – call. Don't bother calling the landline to my desk, you'll just go on hold."

Will sat forward and took the card with tentative fingers. He read the words on the card in a flash and then just looked at it, again clearly thinking, this time looking conflicted. He had something he wanted to ask. It was obvious. But Skinner wasn't going to go there unless the boy led the way. Scully had given up fourteen years with this child to keep him from her world. If he'd stumbled his own way back into it, then Skinner had no qualm grabbing his hand and leading him safely through it, but if he wasn't in, he wasn't going to take him there.

"Thanks," Will managed finally. He looked down at his drawing. "In case my suspicions are correct, have this." He tore the page out of his book and handed it to Skinner. He took the flimsy lined paper and turned it over. The top few lines were clearly schoolwork, notes about genetic terms. How very Scully. On the lower half of the page was the drawing, a cartoon desert island complete with palm tree, bottle and crab – quite a decent hand this boy had for art. And starting from the note-taking around the middle of the page, scribbled in darker pencil, were vaguely familiar symbols Skinner could not read.

"This is Navajo," he said in surprise, and William looked just as surprised that he recognised it. "Do you learn it as a language at school?"

"Uh…" Will looked like it was hard to explain, then gave up. "Yep. But it's the drawing that's for you."

"Oh. Thanks," Skinner replied, uncertain. He'd been thinking of the boy as being very mature, very insightful and a deep thinker, but he'd never been drawn a picture by a child any older than maybe eight. He paused, not wanting to cause offence. "If you're right about what?"

"You can recycle it if you want," Will answered with a careless shrug, "but if I'm right, when the Dickbag Kearney theory amounts to nothing and nothing else happens, this street attack will eventually drop off the FBI's radar because this is Thayne and no one cares about Thayne, and you and I will probably never meet again if this investigation dries up; and one day I'll be finished school and I'll ring up this number and cheekily call on that job you fake-offered me, and you'll probably be old and retired by then, but," he raised a finger, highly animated in his storytelling, "I'll mention the island picture, and you won't have it anymore but you'll remember how weird it was to get a hand-drawn picture of an island from a teenager, and you'll recall everything about this conversation today. And you'll call your buddies at the FBI and recommend me for the job. It's a long-term investment. I'm just planting the seed."

The interview was over and though the recorder was still running, Skinner chuckled lightly. In this boy, he saw roughly equal parts Scully and Mulder – whether they were there or only imagined, he couldn't have said – but there was also more he did not recognise yet liked all the same. Gary Milne, he supposed, and Sarah Van de Kamp. And William himself. Will was a fun and unique individual, with traits all his own.

He was also right. If the Bletchley investigation blew over or was covered up, there would be no decent excuse for Skinner, or even Scully as a field agent with a little less scrutiny to fear, to fly back here to see the boy again in any official capacity. After this conversation, unless Scully did something active about reconnecting with her son, they would go their separate ways. William would resume his life, ignorant of who had stood just feet away behind a single thin hospital wall. Skinner would return to his desk and set about explaining why he ever went to Wyoming and begin deflecting unwanted attention from the child witness he'd interviewed there. Scully would… what? What would she do? Despite Skinner's certainty through observation and circumstance, they actually had no solid proof that this was her William, and for her to reach out to him now and get digging – after the attempted body-snatching of Morris Bletchley – could only serve to highlight to her enemies where he was.

"In that case, I'll hold onto it," Skinner said, folding up the page and sliding it inside his jacket. Will's eyes followed it a little more intensely than would have been expected, but he was, after all, an odd child. "We'll have to see whose suspicions pay off." Feeling torn but knowing any other action would only create disruption, Skinner switched off the recorder and extended his other hand. "I'm glad to have met you, William. I hope you're incorrect and we cross paths again before you join the Academy."

Will smiled and accepted the handshake. "Me, too."

Skinner started for the door, feeling a vague sense of pre-emptive loss to be walking away from the boy. Scully's boy. Mulder's boy. They should be here. Instead Mulder was elsewhere and Scully was in physical reach but out of sight, invisible, and still hadn't gathered up the courage to walk in. At this point, Skinner knew she wasn't going to. He looked back once, trying to soak the child's appearance into his memory in the likely case that this really was the last time they met.

"Remember," he reminded, hoping he would, nodding at the card in Will's grip. "Anything. Call. Don't think. Your safety is paramount."

"Expect post-midnight calls when I'm old enough to get underage-wrecked at parties," Will shot back, starting on a new drawing. "I'll remember anything, call, don't think when I need a lift home, and it'll do wonders for my rep to have a by-then-former FBI Assistant Director rock up as my designated D."

That reckless sense of humour again. Skinner deliberated between laughing or frowning, and in the end just stepped out of the hospital room and into the hallway, where his friend stood slumped against the wall, expression blank. Surrounding her was a tangible aura of utter desolation, and momentarily he considered throwing her into the room and closing the door behind her. From the look on her face, it was almost definitely the worst thing he could have done. She'd heard it all and felt everything. She immediately fell into step beside him as he walked away.

Her shoes and his echoed in the oncology hall.

"So?" she whispered eventually, halfway to the bend. She didn't look up at him, and he didn't look over at her. It was too weird, seeing her face so soon after familiarising himself with William's. They were her features first, but now they felt like Will's. And hers were absolutely miserable, and he felt immense guilt for bringing her here and letting her listen to that. You don't abandon someone you love. Like she'd needed to hear that.

"So what?" Skinner murmured back, determined now just to leave, to get Scully out of this place. She was barely holding it together.

"Is he?"

Is he mine? Her voice was so shaky, so very tenuously controlled. The effort of producing any more words might have cracked her.

"Next time, your partner can deal with him," Skinner muttered. "Christ knows he deserves a taste of that attitude."

They turned the corner, Scully looking dead ahead, just a ghost; but Skinner glanced back over his shoulder at the moment they turned, and glimpsed a flash of red – a young head peering around the edge of a doorway long left behind.

You don't abandon someone you love. Yet onward they walked, further and further away. There was nothing else to do. Skinner hadn't imagined what would happen after they met the boy, but it wasn't this, dejectedly, hopelessly departing with nothing.

Scully wouldn't speak, but she was also reluctant to leave. Skinner offered to accompany her back to Will, or to wait for her in the lobby while she returned to oncology, but she only shook her head and looked conflictedly back the way they'd come. In the end he just went back to the car, and she came too, and he looked up Rhonda's Cabins on his phone's maps and drove them there. She looked miserable the whole way.

"I can post a surveillance watch on him," Skinner offered.

"No." Her voice was thick, tight. Flat. "Too many questions, too many people involved. Forget it."

She was right. It was impossible to do off the books, and it only flagged Will's existence to the Bureau and beyond. Skinner tried again.

"We can go back and tell his guardian the truth." His words were punctuated by her demeaning scoff. He ignored her. "Milne will do what's necessary to protect that boy. He might agree to send him with us, for his safety."

"He's willing to believe his sister was abducted by a cult. That she was an experiment like me and that I'm…" She trailed off, struggling, breath hitching. She swallowed and gazed out the window. "The truth has never helped before, sir, and it's not going to part a family without proof we don't have. Milne has no reason to believe us. It's just as likely to turn him against us."

True again. "Then we'll tell the boy."

Scully was quiet, then said, defeatedly, "That isn't us. We said we wouldn't. And we won't. Just like we won't ruin a totally normal boy's life with stories about conspiracies and evil, and just like we won't take a child away from the only family he has."

"Milne is not the only family William has," Skinner argued, parking the rental outside the office at Rhonda's Cabins. They both got out. "He has you, he has Mulder. Why shouldn't he know that, and know you're here to protect him?"

"He's not in danger!" Scully snapped, losing patience with him again as they strode to the reception. As the sheriff had said, the institution was very nicely put-together, homely and cosy with its little row of log cabins each sporting window flowerboxes painted in bright colours. The gravelly road joining them all was wide, leaving plenty of space between buildings to ensure privacy and car slots. Opposite the cabins was a wild hedge to block the rural excuse for a main road. "The biggest danger to him is still me. I was listening to you in there playing Mulder's advocate, trying to find a convenient explanation to link everything we've found here, but you've ignored the obvious possibility – that Morris Bletchley's origins and motivation for attacking that crowd has no connection whatsoever to the Van de Kamp boy, and that this is just a giant coincidence. Rich pricks do not buy off homeless people to track down the teenage children of ex-girlfriends decades later over the eleven thousand dollar leftovers of their mother's impressive estate. And even if they did, and they were connected with the three at the morgue, and it's all another huge conspiracy: if these people were insidious enough to track the boy into town on the one day he skips school, how have they not found him at his family friend's house overnight and now at the only hospital around? They haven't found him because they aren't looking. It was a coincidence, and not even that big of one; it just seems bigger because I happen to be one of the investigators and the boy may be connected to me."

May be connected to me. "If not here for William, what was Bletchley doing in Thayne?"

"I don't know," Scully retorted. "That's why we're here, to find out, and probably that's what Lansdowne and the other two want to know. Maybe they're his handlers, maybe he's an experiment gone rogue, maybe there is more to that mayor than we've bothered to investigate, maybe maybe maybe a lot of things, Walter, but none of it is certain and I am not Mulder, so don't ask me to jump to conclusions with you."

Skinner withheld a frustrated sigh and pushed open the door to the reception cabin, a warm lodge with yellow light spilling out of its cute criss-cross windows. Mulder had always frustrated him more, but in times like this, he sympathised with the man, and appreciated that he must have felt like banging his head into a wall many times over the last twenty years. Mulder was a pain in the ass but Scully wasn't exactly a peach. And right now, she was at her worst, destroyed from the inside and building hard new walls around the ruins. There was nothing at all Skinner could do to make her feel better.

She was stony with him while they booked neighbouring cabins, and Rhonda the innkeeper was flustered to have not one but two unexpected guests.

"Here are your keys," she stressed, laying out modern keys on big old-fashioned keyrings complete with cowbell. She didn't offer them a double room. They weren't giving off friendly or companionable vibes. "The rooms are made up but I haven't yet stocked them up with the extra towels or pillow chocolates."

Scully took her key. "Don't worry about it. We'll live."

Outside, on their way over to the cabins, Skinner tried once more to bring her around. It had been a long time since he'd seen her this broken, and again, he was useless to help.

"Can we appreciate for a moment here the absolute miracle it is that we found him?" he asked. She didn't reply, kept walking. "Your son's alive, Dana, and he's healthy and well-adjusted and cared for. And now you know where he is, so this, tonight, doesn't have to be the last contact."

"Yes, it does," she answered flatly, "after what I've done to him."

Impatience flickered. "You haven't done anything to him. Life has happened, and life can be harsh. But he's flourishing, Scully, he's-"

"He's never going to look at me and see mother," Scully managed, voice shaking. "That was okay when I was never going to see him again, but I can't be Dana Scully, birth mother and abandoner, walking in where his real mom stepped out when what killed her was something I could have prevented. If I had just bothered to look for him earlier, I could have stopped her taking that chip out. He would still have his mom. Instead I let everyone lose, because I'm a coward." She stared at Skinner with those eyes her son had inherited, haunted and sick with herself. The boy's words swam uncomfortably between them. "I walked away from him fourteen years ago and tonight I did it again. I couldn't face my own child. I don't deserve to be his mother."

She walked away from Skinner before he could argue, unlocking her cabin door swiftly and disappearing inside. He heard the door lock, and saw a single light flick on. Its glow was dim and sad; it reflected how he felt as he heavily trudged up the front steps to the porch of his cabin and sat down on the soft sunchair. The night was cool but he didn't feel ready to go inside or even retrieve his bag from the car, and just sat, listening as the pipes of Scully's nearby cabin squeaked – the shower starting.

Had he made the right call, pushing her into this tonight? Skinner fished Will's drawing out of his pocket and unfolded it, viewing it again by the warm light of the porch lamp. The Navajo symbols were unexpected – what school taught Navajo, especially around here? It was a sign of progressive times, he supposed, and considered it a positive step in education. The drawing, though, was apparently the reason for the gift. A cartoon desert island. Was it a metaphor for how alone Will felt, such as in Scully's mind? Or was it really just a drawing?

He looked more closely at the details. Shells. Palm tree. Crab. Bottle. Waves lapping the shoreline. Birds overhead.

He adjusted his glasses and leaned closer to the lamp, squinting. The bottle… There was a scroll inside. Very attentive to detail, this boy, which should come as no surprise. Assuming he was their William, of course, which Skinner had just started taking for granted. There was no proof. All the similarities he'd noticed at the hospital – would he have noticed those if he hadn't already spoken to Milne and seen the name William Fox? Would he have considered the boy familiar if he hadn't spent the day with Dana Scully and just spoken to Fox Mulder on the phone for the first time in four years?

The bottle in the drawing was no more or less obvious than any other detail, but now that Skinner was looking at it, it stood eerily out to him. Message in a bottle. It was an appropriate element to have in a beach scene. Did it have writing on it? He looked as closely as he could without the image blurring, and the bottle with its little scroll was tiny and rough with blue pen ink, but he could make out two letters: I and D.

Initials? Someone's name?

Then it hit him. Message in a bottle. Skinner went back into his jacket, heart leaping to remember Will's fingers pressing the ID badge closed as he gave it back. He withdrew it and held it in his hands, and slowly let it fall open.

Tucked inside, between photo ID and badge, lay nestled a few thick red hairs. Just in case William's suspicions were correct.