624 Grant Street

Advance, Virginia

3:27 PM

After they had finished their coffee, it took only a few short phone calls to the police station and then the school (the police in the town were surprisingly ill equipped) to find Jason Smith's address. Judging by the beat up '92 Ford Tempo sitting in the yard of the otherwise excellently upkept house, it looked like he was home.

Scully rang the doorbell, and a young man opened the door. He had messy black hair, a huge metal chain around his neck, and a black T-shirt that said Slipknot across the top. He looked like he had just woken up, and he rubbed his eyes sleepily. One of them was bruised, starting to turn yellow. "Yes?" he said.

"Jason Smith?" Scully asked.

"Yes, ma'am." He could tell by her tone and the way that she was dressed that she was someone that he should call ma'am.

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully," she said flashing her badge. She began to introduce Doggett, but the boy cut her off.

"Dana Scully?" he asked, suddenly wide-awake. By the gleam in his eye, Scully could tell she had been recognized. She could not imagine how.

"Yes…?" she said, looking up at Doggett a little confused. He looked back the same way.

"The Dana Scully? The one that was in that Lazarus Bowl movie?"

Scully hung her head in shame and sighed. "Yes. I'm that Dana Scully, sadly."

"I love that movie. I must have watched it a thousand times. Too bad it's not an accurate portrayal of what you guys do, though."

"Pardon?" As surprised as she was to hear about that atrocity of a movie, the idea that this kid would know anything about the FBI took her back further.

"Oh, I read all about you and the X-Files on the Internet! You guys are like legends or something. You know, among geeks with no lives. Like me." He smiled.

"I see," Scully said.

"Oh!" Jason exclaimed, suddenly noticing Doggett. He looked like he could almost jump with joy. "If this is Agent Scully…" his voice sped up as he got more excited by the moment, "…then you must be Agent Fox Mulder! I must say, it is an honor to meet you, Mr. Mulder! An honor!" Jason exclaimed happily, extending his hand with great enthusiasm. Jason's excitement was at a fever pitch as Doggett reached out to shake the boy's hand.

"Actually," Scully said, "this isn't Agent Mulder. This is Special Agent John Doggett."

"Oh," Jason said sadly, not trying to mask his disappointment at all. His smile and eyes sunk. He was disappointed, and he pulled his hand away before Doggett could even shake it.

"Nice to meet you too," Doggett muttered under his breath as Jason told them to make themselves at home.

"Hey, who's here?" a small voice asked. The voice's owner, a boy about thirteen years old, walked into the room. He also had black hair, a metal necklace, and a Slipknot T-shirt. He looked like a small clone of Jason, and when he saw the two professional looking adults in his living room, he hung his head down sheepishly, like he had just been asked to stand up in front of a crowd of his peers.

"Hello," Scully said.

The boy said nothing. Blushing was his only reply.

"This is my little brother Bobby," Jason said, knowing how hard it was for the boy to speak to new people. "Bobby, this is Special Agents Dana Scully and John Doggett."

Bobby's eyes widened for a moment. "The Dana Scully?" he asked in a hushed awe.

"Oh yeah!" Jason said. He smiled smugly. It wasn't every day they had a celebrity in their house.

"Wow," Bobby said, again in awe. Scully suddenly felt like she was bigger than Michael Jordan, and she could not help but blush as she smiled.

Doggett, slightly irked at Scully and Mulder's fame, decided to move things along. "Do you mind if we sit down? We have some questions we'd like to ask you."

"I have a pretty good idea what this is about. It's kind of all over school," Jason said. His eyes were sad, worried, and distant, but he forced a small pathetic laugh out of his lungs. He laughed to keep his head on straight. "Go ahead and have a seat."

Bobby, Scully noticed, was standing as close to his brother as he could—too close for it just be admiration. He was trying to protect him. Bobby acted as if he wanted to grab hold of his brother and never let him out of his sight, as if that would somehow keep him from going to jail. It was obvious it was on Bobby's mind. The way he wouldn't look at her or Doggett, and the way he pushed himself as close to Jason as possible when they sat down on the couch.

"Actually," Scully said as Doggett took a seat across from Jason, "Bobby, how would you like to show me your room?"

"Uhh…?" the boy said hesitantly. He looked up at Scully, not really understanding the question.

"So Agent Doggett and your brother can talk," Scully added, realizing Bobby was too old for that trick. She wasn't use to working with children.

Bobby looked at his brother for a moment, then he glanced back at Scully. He looked to his brother again, worried about what would happen if he left Jason's side.

"It'll be all right," Scully said. "They're just going to talk, and they could use some privacy to do so. Agent Doggett doesn't bite, I promise."

Bobby still made no movement, but Jason gave him a nudge with his elbow. "Go on, Bobby. Do like the agent asks."

Bobby sighed, but he did as his brother and Agent Scully asked, and he led her to his room. The room was covered wall to wall in posters of various music groups. Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Metallica, Anthrax—those were just one wall. On a shelf, he had a collection of videotapes, including the Friday the 13th collection, several different versions of Night of the Living Dead, the Scream trilogy, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, and several other such movies. In the corner of his room he had a TV and a Playstation, and the complete Resident Evil series was spread out across the floor in front of them.

Scully blinked for a moment at how dark the room seemed. How had Doggett said the sister described Bobby and Jason? Weird?

Bobby hopped onto his bed and sat with his legs dangling over the side as he fiddled with an action figure he'd left lying there. Scully didn't recognize the figure, but it was a man dressed in all red with horns like a devil. It had DD written on its chest.

"So is Slipknot your favorite band or something?" Scully asked.

Bobby shook his head.

He was making her work for his words. "You like them a lot though, right?"

He shook his head again.

"You have their shirt and their poster, and by glancing at the dresser over there you have their CDs."

He looked up to follow her gaze to the discs and said, "Those are my brother's. I don't even like them." He hung his head down for a moment and added, "They kind of scare me."

"I see," Scully said, craftily moving in like a fox trying to wrest eggs a mother bird. "Does your brother do a lot of things that scare you?" she asked gently.

Bobby shook his head. "No. My brother doesn't do anything that scares me. It's just some of the stuff he likes. He's a good person."

"I see," Scully said. "Does your brother ever talk to you about the kids at his school?"

"Jason didn't kill anybody," Bobby said bluntly, sounding annoyed that she was beating around the bush. He hung his head down and looked away from her as soon as he said it, ashamed that he had risen his voice, but she was getting on his nerves. Why couldn't she just come out with it? "I know that's why you're here. The kids at school made fun of me today and picked on me because Caitlin Thompson told them he killed her sister. That's a lie."

"Why would Caitlin lie like that?"

"Caitlin's a bitch. She's mean, and she's a bitch to me and my friends."

"I see," Scully said and ignored the profanity. "Well, I don't think Caitlin is lying on purpose. There seems to be an awful lot of reason to suspect your brother is involved somehow, Bobby."

"Well, he didn't kill them," Bobby said, choking on his words. His shoulders heaved as he drew in a breath bigger than he was, and he looked up at her, trying to fight back tears. "Agent Scully, please, you have to believe me," his voice begged. It was connected to a string on her heart. "He didn't kill them. He would never, ever, not in a million years do something like that. Please, Agent Scully…don't send my brother to jail. Please."

Scully sighed, using the moment as time to think of what she should say. Always bright, the words came to her quickly. "Bobby, we're going to find who killed Jaime Thompson and her boyfriend, and if Jason didn't do it, then we're going to do everything in our power to prove his innocence. Is that all right?"

Bobby nodded. He sniffled as he wiped his eyes on the back of his hands. Seeing him do so, Scully pulled a tissue from her pocket. She had gotten into the habit of carrying them since her hormones tended to flare up now and then. She offered it to the boy, and he took it with a small, "Thank you."

She nodded in reply. "Well, I think I'm going to go see if Doggett is through questioning your brother. I have some questions that I'd like to ask him too."

Bobby nodded. "Don't be hard on him, all right?"

Scully smiled. "I won't be."

"Good." She started to walk away, but as she stepped foot in the hall, Bobby called her back. "Yes?" she said as she stepped back into his room.

"It's nothing really," he said. He looked smaller now for some reason, and he wiped his nose with the tissue. "I'm, uh, sorry I rose my voice at you."

* * *

"He's all yours, Agent Scully," Doggett said. Scully had timed it just right, and Doggett was done questioning Jason when she appeared in the room for the changing of the guard.

Scully nodded. "The brother's room is down the hall and the last door on the right, if you want to question him too."

"Actually," Doggett started, patting his hands on his pants, "I was wanting to check out Jason's room. You know, just sort of look around like, if that's all right, Jason. I won't touch anything. I just want a look."

"Sure," Jason said, shrugging. "That's fine, but it's a little messy. I only clean once a year."

Scully did not sit down as Doggett walked off. Before she began speaking, she watched Jason for a moment as he fidgeted nervously. He was uncomfortable, squirming—possibly from guilt, but Scully could not prove that. At least, she could not prove it just yet. "How did your talk with Agent Doggett go?" she asked.

"It went well. He's a bit hard-nosed, but he's nice."

"I see. What did he ask you?" She walked about the room, thinking over Jason's answers as he gave them.

"Oh, the usual. If I had an alibi, if I could verify it, what my relationship was to the deceased, where my parents are at…"

"Where are your parents at anyway?"

"Oh, Dad's at work still. He gets off at five. Mom's…well, she's been dead for the last thirteen years. She…she died after giving birth to Bobby."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, well, we get along all right without her."

Scully nodded. The time for small talk was over. It was now time to go to work. "Jason, you said you're familiar with the X-Files, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How familiar?"

"Not very, I guess. I mainly just heard some stories. They're just kind of urban legend type stuff. I did read about that human leach thing that lived in the sewers."

"I see. So I take it you believe in the existence of the paranormal?"

Jason chuckled. "Well…not all of it."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Well, I mean…stuff that like sucks the blood out of goats…that's crap, and so are things like vampires, but stuff like extraterrestrials or ghosts or telekinesis, even telepathy…I believe in all that."

Scully nodded. "Why telepathy?"

Jason shrugged. "I dunno. It just seems to make sense, you know?"

"I see," she said. Suddenly her face brightened as she laughed quietly. She meant only to laugh to herself, but the idea of her actually speaking these words struck her as hilarious. "So…do you have any paranormal abilities, Jason?"

Jason laughed. "No, ma'am, I don't. I wish I did, though."

"Well, now I'm curious."

"Well," he said, blushing a little. "Sometimes, you know, I wish I had just a little something to give me an edge against people."

"I see," she said. She had been looking over his face, especially the yellowing bruise. "Do you get picked on a lot at school?"

"Sometimes…"

"Is that where you got that black eye?"

"I got that today."

"How?"

"Well, it's all over school about what happened to Teddy and Jaime. Some of Teddy's football buddies jumped me in the hall. One of them worked me over while the others held me down. It wasn't a very fun time."

"Did they hurt you badly? I'm a doctor, so if there's anything you think needs to be looked at…"

"Nah, I'm okay. They just bruised a couple of ribs and an eye, that's all. The teacher put a stop to it pretty fast this time."

Scully nodded, not having anything more to say. She let her eyes wander around the room, as she had done before in Bobby's, and they fell onto a row of pictures set on top of a bookshelf. There were three pictures, each in a neat little frame. In the first one, Jason and Bobby were about ten and six, posing next to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. The second one showed the boys about two years later building a sandcastle on the beach. The last one looked faded and worn, but it was obviously the most loved. Scully picked the picture up for a closer look. There was a woman who Scully assumed was their mother, and she was holding a newborn Bobby. She looked tired, broken, and half-dead, but she was smiling. She was happy as a proud father and an equally proud Jason looked on at the miracle in her hands. Scully smiled and marveled at how a woman so close to death could be so happy just because of the tiny person in her arms. She wondered if that was how her baby would make her feel.

"I like that picture a lot too," Jason said, moving over to her side. "Mom looks really good when you consider everything that happened."

As the boy sighed sadly, Scully could feel his breath brush against her hand. She started to put the picture back, but Jason stopped her with a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Scully asked.

"It's Bobby in that picture. I mean, look at his head. It's huge."

"Yeah, it is unusually large, even for a newborn."

"I know. It's like Mom just gave birth to an alien or something."

Bang.

Gave birth to an alien. They were innocent words, a perfectly harmless comment, but they struck Dana Scully like a knife. Jason might as well have loaded a gun, put the barrel to Scully's chest, and pulled the trigger—it would have been more pleasant. Gave birth to an alien. For a moment, Dana Katherine Scully was a dead woman, not unlike Jason's mom; all the color was gone from her face, her heart stopped beating, and her body froze all over with a terrible cold. Like an icicle shattering against concrete on a miserable winter day, Dana Scully's world ceased to exist, and a paralyzing fear crept over her and welled, especially in her belly, where a stranger was growing inside of her.

Gave birth to an alien. Bang.

Scully, stubborn Scully, rarely showed her true feelings even to those she trusted and cared about; once again she put on her brave mask and fooled everyone into believing nothing was wrong. "Ha, an alien," she muttered.

"Yeah, if he wasn't so much like me, I'd almost believe he was alien too. There's this field not too far out of town on Old Miller's Road where supposedly there was a crop circle several years ago. I've seen some weird lights over it once or twice too."

Scully nodded quietly, because if she spoke too much, her mask might slip off and shatter. She saw that, like a cold, lifeless statue, her partner was standing at the hallway, and Scully eagerly took any reason she could to leave. "Well, Jason, thank you for your time," she said.

"Sure," he said. "No problem."

"We'll be in touch."

With that, they said their goodbyes, told Jason they would probably question him more, and walked out to their car.

* * *

"He didn't do it," Doggett said as they started off down the road.

"I agree," Scully replied. "What's your reason?"

"Well, for starters, if you look at the picture of Jaime's neck, you see that a man with huge hands has strangled her. Jason Smith has little hands. Also, even if he had a harpoon, Jason Smith doesn't look like the type to win a struggle against anybody with an athletic background; I would say captains of the cheerleading squad and football team have athletic backgrounds."

"It also doesn't 'fit'," Scully added. "Even if Jaime did reject him and the kids at school picked on him, it's more likely that he would take those negative feelings out on himself. With a few highly covered exceptions, kids like that are rarely driven to murder because they kill themselves first."

"Basically all we have against him is motive. We don't have any hard evidence, and don't you think it's just a little suspicious?"

"As in, why would this kid commit a murder where everything points back to him and then not expect to be caught?"

"Exactly. There's too much stuff that points to him, but there's nothing concrete. You know, it's almost like somebody's trying to frame this kid."

"I got that feeling too, but why would anyone do that?"

"I'm not sure, really. Maybe there's a third boy that has the 'hots' for this Jaime girl. He sees Teddy with her and sees Jason ask her out, and it drives him over the edge. He decides that if he can't have her, no one will. So he kills Jaime and Teddy then frames up Jason to teach them all a lesson."

"That's plausible," Scully said, nodding, "but let's think about this for a moment. All that we know about this case that points to Jason as the culprit…where did it come from?"

Doggett's eyes widened as if saying 'of course!' "It came from Jaime's sister Caitlin. Why didn't I think of that?"

With a small laugh, Scully replied, "Well, John, you're no Agent Mulder."