Disclaimer in Part One
"I TRY TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND, BUT IT TENDS TO CLOSE MY EYES" PART (2/6)
*Camille*
Dana Scully fights her way through the crowd to the gate. She is such a strange woman. I still don't believe that she could be the Dana Scully that signed some of the best X-file cases that we have on record. There is no way. She tells me that the reason we are going out to California is to meet Fox Mulder and to figure out how and why she hasn't aged.
Scully tells me that she has all of the information in her briefcase; her whole future in one tiny case.
I barely smile at the flight attendant that takes my ticket and checks it over. She hands it back.
"Have a nice flight." I just nod, not really hearing her. My eyes are glued to the back of Dana's head.
She continues on walking fast now deep into the tunnel that will bring us to the airplane. Scully stops all of the sudden. I nearly run into her back.
"What is it?" I ask looking at her pale face.
"I'm fine," she assures me looking as if she'll be blowing chunks all over me any second.
"Are you afraid of flying?" I inquire, getting an amused tone in my voice.
This woman claims to be the one that literally slayed vampires and she's afraid of a little airplane ride. I'm sure that in her years of experience with the FBI she has encountered more vicious demons than a jet.
"I'm not afraid, it's just that I...I've had a few problems with flying," Dana Scully tells me her voice quivering.
"Like what? A plane running into an UFO?" I question, my tone dripping with sarcasm.
"There were some flights were I couldn't tell you what we flew through," she responds becoming more irritated and angry than scared.
"You aren't afraid of it crashing are you?" I ask.
"Never. I've had my life threatened one too many times."
She turns her back from me and walks onto the plane. Her body rigid, but on her face she wore a scornful angry look. Mulder must have had one hell of a time with her all of those years ago. She just seems so like the Scully that I have read about that she is almost too perfect for the role. I'm almost convinced that she is indeed a faker.
Will has pulled me into this and he's going to owe me big time if all this ends up is a coffin with a one hundred year old skeleton. I start to doze, my dreams come frequent and few. I start to dream about a life that I could have lived it I wouldn't have joined the FBI. Maybe I'd be married now with kids. I think I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't have a kid; even one would be fine.
I wonder what it's like to own a big house with a nice backyard that my husband could cook on the grill for our huge summer partiers. Where the kids could run wild. But then another vision rocks me. I see Will alone in the world just wandering. He continues to look desperately for the truth that would never be revealed to him. I start to feel sorry. I didn't want him to have a life like that.
But wait! It's only a dream.
I'm jolted out of my seat as the plane shutters.
"What was that?" I ask completely scared.
"This must be the place," Dana Scully responds giving me a huge grin. What the hell is she smiling at?
"See what I mean?" she says.
"Yeah...it's great."
*William*
"So what am I supposed to call you? Dad? Mulder? Mom said that you don't like to be called Fox," I ask staring at the man in front of me. I look for some kind of resemblance in him and see it in my eyes and stature.
"Mulder would be fine. Unless you want to call me Dad. Only a hundred years too late," he says his voice almost dripping with sarcasm.
"Okay, Mulder. I've been wondering one thing," I say trying to calm my jumpy nerves.
"Which is what? Why I wanted to believe? Or where I kept the porno tapes," Mulder says with a dry wit kind of humor about him.
"I already found the porno tapes. They were kind of dusty," I respond back in the same tone.
"What do you want to know?" He asks becoming serious.
"Why did you leave all of those years ago?" I inquire trying to keep a straight, unemotionally face.
Mulder steps back as if I had struck him. He becomes nervous looking at me, his body motions becoming jerky and he sits roughly in a wooden chair.
"I left...because I wanted you and your mom to be safe," He begins.
"Safe? I don't understand. We were perfectly safe," I stare at him confused.
Mulder sighs loudly, becoming somewhat annoyed, "Obviously Scully hasn't told you much about the life that we led. Spender was his name and the bastard was always lighting up a cigarette. We had thought that he died almost two years before, but he came back. It was a few months after you were born. I remember the day almost as if it were just yesterday."
*Flashback ~ Mulder*
May 20, 2001
Scully's Apartment
"DING DONG," the doorbell screams into the night. I rush to the door, hoping that the bell didn't wake the baby. I check in the peephole staring into the eyes of our archrival: Spender.
"What the hell do you want?" I hiss at him.
"Mulder," he says, doing his evil laugh, "You mistake me. I am a friend bringing you a warning. The child is in danger if you stay as is Scully."
"Why should I believe you? You made us walk into traps before," I glare at him spitting my words out.
William starts to cry. Scully starts to sing to him silently.
"Don't risk them, Mulder, for your own intentions. Come with my men and me and they will never be harmed. They will live lives with no fear."
Scully walks out to the door, holding William over her shoulder. "Mulder?" she questions becoming suspicious.
*William*
"He convinced me to leave and live a normal life. And now I'm sorry I missed everything. I needed to make sure that you and your mom were safe. Not in harm's way because of me," Mulder tells me almost losing his cool.
"Mom wouldn't have let you," I protest.
"I convinced her to let me leave because we had more to think about. We had you to think about."
*Scully*
I stare out the window. It's been a long time since I've been to California. When was the last time? Maybe the year I came out here with Mulder when we watched that horrible movie that was loosely based on us..."The Lazarus Bowl"...or what ever it was called. Has it really been that long?
"Dana?" Cam says breaking my thoughts of the past.
"Hmm?" I ask still not really listening. I wonder if Mulder has changed a lot. Will told me not to get my hopes up, but for some reason I have this deep feeling that Mulder is alive and well. It's hard to believe. When I was 29 and assigned to Mulder I would have never ever believed that anyone of us would still be here 100 years later. It's very hard to believe, but once I opened my mind to extreme possibilities the world became so much broader, not always under the shadow of science.
"Are you going to get out of your seat, or would you like me to have the stewardess unbolt it for you so we can bring it with?" Cam says in a mocking tone...it sounds as if I'm listening to a tape of my own...years before I would have been exactly the same. Impatient, wanting to get this case over with and write my field report trying to explain the strange things that we encountered.
"I'm coming," I say getting up quickly and grabbing my bag. She walks off the plane briskly with a kind of attitude that only comes with the best of the best in science. They think that they know everything that there is to know. They think that they can prove anything that isn't scientific wrong. Cam has a lot to learn about working on the X-Files.
We walk off the plane and I set foot on the very soil that Mulder is on...somewhere in this state.
"Do you still have those documents?" Cam inquires, stopping suddenly.
"Yeah, right here in my bag," I respond patting my bag.
"Good. Let's catch a cab," She says already heading for the door.
"Shouldn't we get our luggage first?" I question laughing to myself at her attitude. You've got to admire her work ethic, that's for sure.
She takes a sharp turn and heads for the luggage pick-up. I've never seen anyone this anxious to work when they arrive in any unfamiliar state, especially California.
Cam grabs my suitcase and then impatiently waits for her own. I break into a grin and can't help myself when I chuckle, letting her hear it.
"What do you find so amusing, Ms. Scully?" she replies in a tone that most teachers use when they are ticked off.
"Is there a fire somewhere that you forgot to tell me about?" I say laughing.
"What?" Cam asks annoyed. As she turns to stare at me her suitcase spins past her.
"There goes you suitcase."
Cam runs after her suitcase and grabs it roughly, heading for the door.
"Let's catch that cab now."
I follow. My face suddenly drops and I realize that I'm only a cab ride away from seeing Mulder. The man that I let go out of my life over 100 years ago. My Mulder, my rock, my soul mate that I haven't been able to live without. The only thing that kept me going all those years was the hope of seeing Mulder again.
The cabby looks back at us.
"Where to?"
*Cam*
"524 Brooklyn Avenue. I think it's just outside Anaheim," I tell the cabby getting annoyed with Scully. I've never seen anyone out of it like this before. I sure hope that I don't ever...ever get like that. The X-Files can't be that much of a brain washer.
"Anaheim? He's been in Anaheim all of these years?" Scully asks, looking shocked.
"We don't know that it's him. It's just a very big lead. Will hasn't answered my calls and I haven't been in contact with him since he left us in the airport," I tell her trying to stay calm in my explanation of the case.
She's got to understand that we have not confirmed or denied that the man we found is indeed her long lost Mulder. It's hard for me to even believe that this man could be 140 years old. Will was so sure and I guess I just had to follow along with it. I can't wait to see what Assistant Director Doggett has to say about this when we get back. He is John Doggett's great-grandson. The AD bears a strong resemblance to his great-grandmother; amazingly it was the AD that was assigned to John Doggett after Skinner had died suddenly. The woman was one of the best and may I add younger directors that the FBI had ever seen.
I'm sure that the AD will just scoff this case off as he does every other case that we try to explain...well I try to explain using science, Will explains it using anything, but science.
"I have a feeling that he's here. I know it," Dana tells me breaking her serious expression that had inhabited her face for almost 30 minutes.
"How?" I ask not believing in ESP or even a tiny psychic ability that so many claim to have.
"The day that I met Mulder I soon found that we had a connection that no other set of partners had had. We learned to trust and respect one another and then along the way we fell in love. We were destined to be together...not that I would have believed it then, but looking at everything we've been through if it would have been anyone else I would have left after the first case. I think that we are indeed soul mates. One can't live without the other. That's why I think that neither one of us has aged. We need one anther to grow old with," Scully tells me, meaning every single word.
I start to realize that Will and I have that same kind of connection. We've only known one another for two years, but when she said that if Mulder would have been anyone else she would have walked away after the first case. Do I have the same kind of connection to Will as Scully has to Mulder?
Wait a second! I can't have feelings for Will...it's not right. I...I, why am I fighting with my own self? The wall around my heart has been up for years, but in the two years that I've known Will he's already chipped away half of the wall.
The cab begins to slow as we reach a residential neighborhood. My thoughts of having some kind of connection to Will quickly vanish as I start to watch for the house, just as anxious as the woman that sits next to me. I realize that I miss Will. I need to see him, just as Scully needs to see her
Mulder.
"We're here, Miss."
*Mulder*
"Did you just hear that?" I ask looking at Will; question the sound that I had just heard.
"Heard what?" Will inquires...not really caring.
"It sounded like a car door slamming," I tell him.
"Are you expecting anyone?" Will questions.
I laugh at him. The last time that I had a visitor before him was...a year or two. Am I becoming popular all of the sudden?
"What does your mother have that is so ground breaking?" I ask him.
"She has files that are supposed to explain why none of us have aged."
That's easy. She was told that she was never going to die and I think that the aliens did something to us years ago. They made her immortal...letting her suffer the loss of everyone around her. Not being able to join them in the great beyond of her family members.
And me...well I was most likely experimented on too. They did something to me...made me immortal so that I'd have to live with watching her die, watching our family die, but that didn't happen. Spender was always saying that taking away the only thing that I had would turn me against him...making me want to search for the truth harder because I'd have nothing to lose.
Did they really keep her alive all these years so that I wouldn't want to fight the fight? But that can't be true because I haven't seen her in years. 100 years to be exact.
Footsteps echo outside the door. They sound like a set of high heels hitting the weathered pavement. Two sets of high heels. They sound like Scully.
Will walks over to the window and pulls up the shade a bit. His look becomes that of happiness and joy.
"Who's here?" I inquire already knowing the answer. She's here.
A knock comes at the door echo into the hollow of my head. I know that I will forever remember that sound...wood against a small fist rapping with a kind of confidence that only Scully could have.
I open the door. Staring at Scully...My Scully.
*Scully*
He stands there staring at me, his eyes trying to figure out what to do. I can't believe it. It's actually him. Mulder stands right here before me, my soul mate, the man that I thought I would never ever see again.
All is very quiet for a few moments. No words are exchanged. It is as if this moment of time has been frozen. I don't know what to do or what to say.
Mulder finally opens his mouth, "Hey," he says grinning at me. I stare into those hazel eyes and literally fall into his open arms. I hold on to him tight.
"Mulder," I say my eyes brimming with tears, "I don't want to let go."
"I know what you mean," Mulder says reassuring all of my fears and making my heartbeat like it hasn't in years.
Cam steps up next to me and stares at Will.
"Are sure this is all true?" she asks Will still not believing it. He moves closer to her nodding his head. She becomes lightheaded and her knees become weak.
"Cam!" Will cries out as he runs to her side to catch her.
Mulder stares at her and then looks back at me. "So, they still like to put skeptics down in the X-Files office."
I nod and then laugh. "Come here, Mulder, I've been waiting years to do this," I say as I pull his head towards mine.
"C'mon Scully, I don't want to wrestle," he says with the same dry wit that I let go with him all of those years ago.
"Shut-up, Mulder."
Our lips meet and it is complete bliss. All of the years of missing emotions and heartbroken, lonely nights are erased as we continue to kiss. How many years had I wanted to kiss him, to feel his lips against my own?
"Mom?" Will interrupts us.
Mulder and I pull apart starring at our son holding the limp and unconscious Cam.
"Hmm?" I ask still influenced by the high of Mulder's touch, his kiss.
"I need help here," Will urgently says.
Mulder helps Will carry her into the house, placing her on the couch. I run to get a washcloth to stick on her head trying to bring her back to the world of the living...well sort of. She's just had one hell of a day.
"Scully, Will says that you have the answer as to why we haven't aged in all of these years. Why am I still here? Why are Will and you still here, un-aged?"
*Cam*
Everything is completely dark. I've never seen the sky this dark before. I feel as though I'm floating...my body one with the sky. I hear his voice, Will's that is. I've known him for only two years and yet I could picture myself spending the rest of our lives together. He isn't like any man that I've ever met before. There's something different about him. He has seen way too much for his years. His eyes have aged too much for a man of thirty.
I start to come to. Very blurry images of three people stand over me.
"Cam? Cam, can you hear me?" Will asks, very concerned.
They become clear, all of them. Mulder and Scully stand over me, looking very concerned. You can tell that they are happy deep down to see one another again. I just happen to be the one to break up their happy reunion. I couldn't imagine the lives that each of them had to have lead up to this point or up to the point in their lives where they had to part.
Will stares at me, his face becoming relieved.
"Hey," I whisper trying to shrug off my fainting spell.
"Hey," Will says back with the same tone.
"Sorry, about that," I say, "I guess I didn't eat enough for breakfast or something."
"Oh, so is that what they call it now? When you faint? Not eating enough for breakfast," Mulder says with a sarcastic tone.
"You scared us Cam," Scully says in a doctor-ish tone.
"I'm fine," I reply trying to shake the attention off of me. I haven't felt the best in the last few days, but I'm supposing that is the flu or something. It's not normal for me to be sick...not now that I'm on this big case. But I haven't let on to Will or anyone.
"I was just about to explain to Mulder why we haven't aged," Scully says starting to pull out a file.
"Scully, why don't you let it wait until tomorrow. We've got the rest of our lives to find answers. Why don't we just spend a few days together," Mulder says, obviously suggesting that Will and I leave for the night.
"Yeah, Mom, why don't you. Cam and I are going to stay in the Lake Aire Motel. We'll come by to see you tomorrow," Will says helping me up and out of the door.
They wave good-bye as we get into the car.
"Cam, I'm taking you to the hospital," Will replies once we get in the car.
"Will, I'm completely fine," I protest, once again becoming light headed. I grab my head trying to ease the heaviness.
"I won't believe that until a doctor looks at you," Will responds pulling out of into the street and heading to the hospital. The truth that would greet me at that hospital would change everything in our lives, and lead up to a huge change in Mulder and Scully's un-aging lives.
WELCOME TO MERCY HOSPITAL screams to be read as Will pulls the car into the parking lot. My future stands ahead of me as I try to find the present that is upon us now.
*Scully*
We watch as Will and Cam leave. They pull away from the house. I watch them go, my heart beating faster as I turn back to Mulder.
"Scully, where have the years gone?" Mulder asks going over to the curtain and shutting it.
"Mulder, I can't believe that it's actually you," I say staring at him.
"Believe it. It's me in the flesh and blood," he says reaching his arms out to me.
Our lips touch again. At first the kiss is soft, but it becomes more passionate. Everything that we couldn't express with Will and Cam standing in the doorway were being expressed.
Mulder carefully guides me to the couch, lying me down gently, still attached to my lips.
"Do you know how many years I have waited to do this?" Mulder says, his voice full of lust.
I laugh thinking of the eight years that we could have done things that were about to be done on his couch. We could have on the desk full of unexplained X-Files just like the our unexplained ways of holding in our emotions. It was only in that last year that we started to express our feelings freely. That was the year that we decided that we weren't getting any younger and start a family.
Yes, start a family. I trusted my life in my doctors' hands and they assured me that I was never ever infertile. I could have had kids at any time in those years that I thought I couldn't. Mulder and I planned on having two or three kids with a short period of time, but then for some reason our lives were threatened and he had to leave, our family not ever complete.
The day that Mulder was abducted I didn't believe the doctors when they told me that I was pregnant. Deep down I didn't really believe that I was capable of having kids. I thought that I didn't deserve them. I lived a life of danger, one that couldn't be suitable to raise a child, but I managed on my own and Will is a great kid.
"Scully, what are you thinking about? You're a million miles away," Mulder says concerned, stopping his kissing.
"I was thinking about us before Will was born," I say remembering.
*Flashback ~ Scully*
Scully's apartment
March 2000
"KNOCK, KNOCK," I run to the door, hoping that it is indeed Mulder.
"Who is it?" I whisper looking through the peep whole.
"Who do you think it is?" Mulder replies.
I open the door and greet his beautiful face. He leans in for a kiss and then closes the door behind him.
"Hey," I say looking at him, my eyes turning down quickly.
"What did the doctor say?" Mulder asks concerned.
"He said...um.. He said that I was never infertile. I could have became a mother at anytime during the last three years," I tell him my eyes brimming with tears.
"That's it?" Mulder responds relieved. I start to really bawl, my body shaking with the sobs.
"What is it?" he inquires, taking me in his embrace.
"I'm too old to start having children," I say in between sobs.
"No you're not, Scully," he says reassuring. "We could start that family of three kids right now if you want," Mulder says, his voice dripping with passion and lust.
*******
*Back*
"Scully, c'mon, we aren't getting any younger," Mulder says, childishly pulling at my arm as he pulls me into the bedroom.
Our life is newly found, but a future is upon us that neither one of us ever expected. A life that all four of us...the captives of the X-Files office would never have ever thought of.
The night becomes dark as Mulder and I re-find one another after 100 years of being apart...100 years.
*Will*
They said that Cam is going to be fine, but she's been in there with the doctors for...I don't even know. It's been such a long time. I hate doctors always have hated them. They seem to take the fun out of living...always working trying to save us from the inevitable end. I'd like to see them explain my case.
I anxiously pace back and forth in the waiting room. Remembering a time when I had lost a woman...one of the few that I had ever truly learned to trust. It must have been...60 or so years ago. I was going by James Mulder at the time and I had happened to take a liking to the doctoring career...go figure that one out. It was a time before I hated the way that doctors always knew what was happening, but would never give you the whole story. I myself was like that.
She was...oh what was her name? Meg...that's it! She was a fellow doctor of mine a few years my junior (well about 47, but since I look as though I'm 30...she was only a couple of years my junior).
We weren't ever involved romantically and I didn't let her into my heart...we were just really good friends that could laugh at times when others would be passed out cold on the floor.
But I remember pacing a floor just like this years before. She hadn't been feeling good. Meg started to get nosebleeds, heavy ones where she'd wake up in the middle of the night with a blood covered pillow. She'd complain of horrible headaches and finally she passed out one day at work. I made her promise to get it checked out, but she never went in. I think she knew that her cancer was incurable.
The day that she died I was in a hospital much like this one, watching her breathe in her last breath. I don't want to do that again with Cam. She is something different. I actually love her. We...have some what of a history together...okay a five month history, but still, five months is better than none.
One day down in the X-file office it got very...boring. I was reading a file on Mulder and I came across something that he had written in long after their superior had approved the file. It was a case that Mulder had felt compelled to express his feelings...he had feelings for Scully...and she had them for him, but they had gone on five years not expressing them...it was probably a year or two before they started to become romantically involved.
I didn't want Cam and I to go on blind and dumb with our emotions...so I laid it all out on the table...my feelings for her and she became clean with her feelings for me.
We weighed all of the possibilities of becoming involved outside of work and we started. First it was just coffee after a long days work, then dinner at a fast food joint, and finally spending a ton of time at her house watching old movies and just talking into the late hours of the night.
One night we started to talk about the future and out of nowhere I leaned in and kissed her...it wasn't a friendly kiss, but that of complete passion. She returned the favor and that...was the beginning of our romantic involvement.
"Mr. Mulder?" a nurse questions breaking my daydreams.
"Yes," I say staring at her scared.
"Miss Furoro is asking for you."
I nod and follow the nurse back to Cam's room. She is sitting on the bed wide-awake looking out the window, with a tear falling down her face.
"Hey," I barely whisper.
"Hey," she responds back...not turning her head.
"How are you?" I inquire, holding my breath not wanting to hear that she has incurable cancer and that she will be leaving me in a few months.
"I'm...uh...fine," she says trying to hold back a small smile.
"Apparently you're not if you are still lying in that hospital bed," I tell her.
"They're still running some tests. But...I...uh...have something to tell you."
*Scully*
Mulder's Place
January 22, 2101
"DING DONG" screams through the house. I open my eyes slowly not wanting to wake up. This is perfect waking up in Mulder's arms. It's so warm in his bed...and I don't want to leave.
Mulder turns over and faces me. He mumbles, "Since you're wide awake thinking...would you like to get the door?"
"Sure," I say not wanting to get up. I grab Mulder's long terry cloth bathrobe and literally run to the door.
Who ever is on the other side is knocking loud and hard.
"Hold on!" I yell at the door. The pounding stops. I quickly open the door, not even thinking of looking through the peep whole.
There before me stands a man with a cigarette to his lips.
"You," I hiss knowing who he is or was or is related to.
"Now, Dana Scully, it has been quite sometime since the last time I saw you and all you have to say is 'you'?" He says in barely a whisper that sends a chill down my spine.
"What am I supposed to say? I'm not happy to see you," I spit back at him.
"How long has it been Dana? 90, no 100 years. Aren't you even wondering what I'm doing here? It must be surprising to look as if you are thirty when you are actually what is it now? 140? And I'm sure that you're wondering how you, Mulder, and your son have not aged for years," he says, his voice low and mysterious.
He takes a drag on his cigarette, blowing smoke away from me, but his eyes are so evil. The way he just stares at me. What is he doing here? And how? How are any of us here?
"I know that you've got questions. A woman of your Irish temper doesn't stay quiet for long when a man she despises stands before her...you're thinking, no wondering why I'm standing here, and why any of you are still here."
"I'm so glad that you can read minds," I reply...trying to take the shock out of my voice. How much does he actually know?
"You've got me all wrong. I never wanted to cause you or Mulder any harm," he starts.
"That a bunch of bull! You were trying a god damn experiment to see if it was true," I yell outraged.
"If what was true?" he asks playing dumb.
"Mulder and I. You did something to us years ago. I don't know how you were connected to the abductions, but you did something to us and in turn it affected Will because the genes were passed on from us to him. We were your guinea pigs, you lab rats, and guess what we're still here."
"Do you remember the disk?" he hisses.
"What disk? The one that I was nearly killed for and almost lost Mulder's trust for?"
"It made you immortal. With a simple procedure it can be reversed. You can once again age," he says offering his help.
"What about Will? It's in him forever," I say, terrified for my son.
"Will was also our experiment. He was the perfect child born of two perfect parents, genetically perfect that is. But it can be reversed. I'm almost sure of it. But if Will ever had an offspring that child would then be immortal for eternity unless the child was conceived after the genes were reversed."
"You're not making any sense. Why are you here offering us this help?" I ask becoming suspicious.
"Talk is that the two FBI agents that once inhabited the X-Files office are still alive, an X-file themselves. Years have gone by and they haven't aged. People become suspicious and they want answers," he says, still holding the cigarette gingerly between his lips.
"Why now?" I ask.
"Will is becoming interested in his partner a little too much. I fear that an offspring has already been created."
"Will and Cam? That's absurd. I know that they like one another, but to be romantically involved. They've only known one another for two years," I say laughing.
"You know most romances don't take eight years to develop like yours and Mulder's," he says. I stare at him, outraged. First he tells me that Will's future children are doomed for eternity and then he insulted Mulder and my relationship.
"Leave," I hiss.
"It's only for your own good as well as Mulder and Will's. You'll thank me someday. Just think about it," he finishes, "Here's where you can reach me if you change your mind. He hands me a piece of paper with an address on it. As quickly as he came he disappeared.
The phone begins to ring. I slowly walk to get it, still frazzled over what Spender has told me.
"Mom?" Will's voice echoes through the phone.
I listen as my son talks, quickly and excitedly. I listen shocked.
"Cam's what?" I ask completely surprised as the voice of Spender warns in my head...an offspring...a child of Will's will be doomed forever.
CONTINUED IN PART THREE:) --