Being awake made her feel lonely as she listened to the soft even breathing of the males in the room. Mulder still didn't snore she noted. "Dana?" a voice out of the darkness made her realize that she'd been wrong; there was someone else still awake.

"You're suppose to call me Mom." she chided. It made her little sad that he didn't naturally call her mom the way he called Mulder dad. She never should've said was okay to call her Dana.

"Mom..." his voice sounded upset, and not about the correction. "When I was a baby and all those people died... did I really do it? Did they die because of something I did?"

"You were just a tiny baby."

"So?" he asked, making her think of cases they'd had on the X-Files involving child perpetrators.

"I honestly don't know, William. You could move things with your mind, but something like that? I don't know. I wouldn't have thought so, but you were so scared... they say fear can allow people do things they normally couldn't. Who knows if that extends to things done only with their minds."

"But maybe I did." His voice was heavy. "If you don't know I didn't, then maybe I did."

That made her feel helpless, almost as helpless as the night in question when she and Reyes had frantically searched for signs of life. For him. " Yes. But it equally likely that the aliens, as your father calls them, killed those people."

She could see him nod in the dark. "I hope they are afraid of me. That they think I did it. I hope they're afraid of what I could do."

The fierceness of his voice sort of scared her- but it was assuring too; he wasn't completely cowed by the captors.

"Even if you'd been able to do things once, your uncle gave you a shot that took away... your powers and made you normal."

Nodding in the dark, William didn't feel all that normal, but he supposed he was.

The next morning they came for William and they wouldn't allow either parent to go with him. Andrew told them that he would be with William entire time, but that was nothing to lift their spirits. William's expression was more dour than that of a man walking to meet the firing squad.

He was led into a very nice office and invited to take a seat in a deep leather chair. He did so, and disliked how he sank into it. He noticed a plaque that said Emanuel Smith and assumed the man behind the desk was Emanuel. It was the man that had made the "sermon" the night before. Emanuel seemed even larger and more imposing up close, and there was something about his dark slicked-back hair that rubbed William the wrong way.

"William, you must wonder why you are here." The man stated in way of a greeting.

"Yes." William's reply was clipped as he fought the urge to guess.

"You were sent to help us-"

"Sent?" his indignation boiled over much more quickly than he hoped. "You mean kidnapped."

Emanuel ignored that comment. "-And we have been waiting since your birth for this time to come."

"How do you know I'm the one you want?" William demanded to know. "You could be looking for someone else. A whole different boy entirely."

"You are the one." Emanuel said firmly. "The son of a barren woman and the one who rose against us... there is no doubt."

William wondered about the "barren" part, since he remembered Mulder telling him about his older sister. If she was barren, something must have happened to his mother after his sister was born; he didn't know if he wanted to know what. "So what if I am the right kid, then? It's not like it can speak alien, or like I am special in any way."

The look Emanuel gave him caused the finger of discomfort to run down his spine."That's where you are wrong, William. You are special, as your mother very well knows. You have a powerful mind."

William shrugged. "That stuff was when I was a baby. I haven't been able to do any of that since I was a baby. My mom even says."

"Your mother, until very recently, had not seen you since you were a baby. How would she know what you did or didn't do when you lived with those people?"

"The Van Dekamps were all about normal. They wouldn't have kept me as long as they did if I could do any weird stuff."

"Maybe you were repressed by their lack of empathy."

"They didn't understand me." William agreed, his voice bitter-tinged. " But I don't think that has anything to do with my lack of special powers."

"William," Andrew urged. "Move this pencil on my desk."

Shooting Emanuel confused look, William stood and reached for it.

"No!" Andrew barked. "With your mind."

"I can't."

"Do it! Make the pencil move."

William felt Emanuel's eyes bore into him. After an angry few moments staring at the pencil, he darted out his hand, grabbed the pencil and threw it at Emanuel. "There, you happy?"

To William's disappointment, it did not provoke a reaction. Emanuel merely replaced the pencil on the desk and signaled to Andrew to lead William back to his waiting family.