I looked down at Markie, who was happily chewing on a set of plastic keys, then up at agent Scully. " I think I misheard you. It sounded like you said you were here because of the baby."

" You heard correctly." She acknowledged.

" Are you familiar with the concept of a changeling?" Agent Mulder asked.

" What are you ta-"

" A changeling i-"

" I know what a changeling is." I interrupted him this time. " Fairy tale creatures steal human babies out of their cribs, and leave behind one of their own sickly, whiny children to be raised in its place. They look enough like the human child to fool the parents into caring for it." I liked fairy tales and had been reading since shortly before my fourth birthday- and started on fairy tales not long after graduating from Harold and The Purple Crayon and Richard Scary's Busytown books. Of course I was familiar with the concept. " What I want to know is what the hell gave you this strange idea in the first place."

I guess I sounded as angry as I felt, because Markie looked up at me with a worried expression on his little face.

" There have been several accounts in the area of people who have had babies, who turned out not to be their children at all." Agent Mulder explained in a droning monotone. " We were contacted by three families in the area who had this concern."

" But I didn't contact you." I pointed out reasonably.

The coldness returned to the female agent's eyes. " That is true, however, the babies were all born the same week as your son, and live within this town. We thought it wise to investigate all their agemates, as the fairies are said to only want children six weeks old or less, and there haven't been any cases involving of children younger than these babies, so we think they only visited the town once." She said, affecting a professional tone. Finally. She sounded more credible than when she was admiring Chase and Markie.

There was an intent look on Vynce's face. " Ok, so suppose these parents did contact you. What did they say to make you think that their babies had been swapped for supernatural infants?" See? I told you he was smart.

" The mothers reported that the babies were completely different once they got them home from the hospital. They screamed all the time. They were insatiably hungry. Some of them even changed in appearance. Those are all textbook signs of a changeling." Mulder answered oh so smugly.

I gave him a look of disbelief. " Those things are normal in newborns. Once the parents are alone with them for the first time, the babies seem much more demanding than they did while hospital staff was assisting with their care. And changes in appearance? Of course they look different from when they were born. Some babies have dark hair that falls out after a few days. Most babies lose that squashed wrinkled look after a week or two. Eye color changes in all white babies who aren't destined to have blue eyes."

" There's no way to know if their hair falling out isn't an indicator of a child being a changeling. How do we know it's normal? Maybe it only happens with changelings. " Mulder said in a tone I found laughably serious. I withheld my mirth though, he was beginning to seem less than sane.

" Well, ok. But look at Markie. He looks a lot like his newborn photos, just bigger and more mature. His hair, skin and eye colors are the same as when he was born." I tried to reason with them, for all the good it did me.

" What Agent Mulder has failed to mention is that there are many legends in which the babies are just like you said when you claimed to know what a changeling was - so alike the real child in appearance that their parents can't tell them apart." Agent Scully said. I was really beginning to dislike her.

I picked up Markie, suddenly sure that one or the other of them was going to try to grab him and run off with him. I looked at him for a moment, then something occurred to me. " Look under his right eye." I commanded them. They obliged, and even my brother took a look. " Now, look at mine." I said, pointing. Again they all looked. " Do you see it?"

" I'm not sure what you want us to look at." Agent Scully said haughtily.

" Aries. Or, at least that's how I've thought of it since learning constellations. Three freckles, the only ones on our faces, perfectly aligned in a triangle." I said triumphantly. That faded quickly, because everyone, even Vynce, was looking at me with a puzzled expression. " Don't you get it?" I asked, disappointed.

" I'm not sure what freckles prove. We've already agreed that the changeling might appear like the family's biological child." Mulder said.

" True, but you said the babies were thought to be switched as newborns, right?" They nodded. " But babies aren't born with freckles. Freckles are a sign of sun exposure, which newborns don't get any of by birth. The freckles on Markie, and probably myself, didn't show up until our first summers. How would the supernatural beings know that my baby would be likely to have the same marks as me, in the same places? I'm a light sleeper, I would have woken up if someone snuck into my room to stare at me."

" Unfortunately, that doesn't prove anything. They could have studied photos or been watching you, hidden during the day." Mulder said, sounding even more like a lunatic. Supernatural stalkers indeed.

I wasn't getting anywhere fast as the clock kept ticking. Eventually Markie was going to want to be fed, and it was closing in on dinnertime for me too. While I'd have no objections to cooking for my brother, I wasn't about to offer the agents a meal. Desperate to get rid of them, I decided to see if there was a way I could stand to cooperate. " All right. What would be proof to satisfy you that Markie is my child, the one I gave birth to?"

Agent Scully had trouble looking me in the eye suddenly. " The only way we've come up with is to do DNA testing on the babies."

I didn't know why that would make her shy. DNA tests aren't a stigma. " Ok. As long as you don't have to take blood. I don't want anyone sticking needles in either of us."

She still wouldn't look at me. " There won't be any needles. And we only need to test your son. The problem is that we need a DNA sample from birth and one from now to compare. If they're identical, we know he's not a changeling. You didn't...do a paternity test a birth, did you?"

I got the shyness then. It's hard to ask a woman that without implying that she sleeps around. " No. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Markie was my husband's son. Even if he had doubts he never shared, he died before Markie was born."

" I figured as much." She had the grace to blush. " Did you perhaps take a clipping of his hair after birth? It's harder to prove DNA from a hair sample, but-"

I snapped my fingers. " I think he had a DNA typing done at birth though."

" Oh?" Agent Mulder's intended show of interest was damped by his monotone. How did his partner stand having long conversations with him on a daily basis? Maybe she kept the radio on in the office and car.

I hated sharing personal information, but if it got them out of the house... " While I do like the idea of stem cells being used to research disease cures, I can't handle the idea of them using cells from embryos. That violates my sense of ethics, but I do still hope there will be cures found. So, not to be a hypocrite, I donated his umbilical cord blood to science so they could attempt to harvest stem cells in that manner. They're hopeful that it will prove almost as effective as cells from embryos, since the cells are very similar in structure, although not in ease of gathering. I'm sure they must have done a typing as part of the research."

" Would you be willing to sign a consent form so we can access that information if it turns out to exist?" Agent Scully asked, looking a little more relaxed.

" If it will get you to leave, sure." Vynce gave me a worried look, I guess he thought I was out of line. But what were they going to do, arrest me for being rude?

While I signed the form, Agent Scully- who assured me that she was a doctor- used a cotton swab to get some cells from the inside of Markie's cheek. He didn't even cry, so at least she was gentle. As soon as she was done she put the swab into a sterile container and handed the baby over to my brother.

Five minutes later, I closed the door behind them with a relieved sigh.