July 10th, Present Day, Mulder Residence...
"Mulder! I've gotta go!"
"Yeah I'm coming!"
Dana was in the kitchen holding a crying Jack in her arms whilst William sat quietly eating his breakfast. Dana was concerned at how quiet her eldest son had become. He was never a loud or particularly outgoing boy, but since John had died he had become even more withdrawn and liked to be alone.
He was eight years old; he should be spending the holidays in the sun playing with his toys and his friends. She knew that he held a great deal of affection for Monica and Anna; she was worried that he was spending too much time thinking about them.
As Jack squirmed in her arms she looked at the clock and realised that she really was
going to be late. Mulder finally appeared in the kitchen and tried to smile as a way of making up for sleeping in leaving Dana to get ready for work and get the kids up.
"Hey Jacky, come here kiddo."
He took Jack from Dana and kissed her melting away her frustration with him.
"I'll be home early if I can ok?"
"Ok, we'll be here." Dana kissed Jack and walked over to William.
"You ok William?"
"Yeah. Have a good day at work mom."
She kissed him goodbye and gave him a hug. Mulder followed her to the door with Jack who had now stopped crying and was trying to pull out his father's hair. Dana tried to help by holding down his hands but that only made him more likely to cry again.
"I'm worried about William."
"I know. I'll talk to him."
"He's so quiet all the time."
"Stop worrying, I'll talk to him and make sure he's ok. Now go, one of us has gotta bring in the big bucks."
Dana smiled and kissed Mulder before finally turning to get into her car. She waved at Jack as his face scrunched up ready to cry again and she drove off to work still worrying about William.
Mulder walked into the kitchen with a screaming Jack in his arms and was struggling to
think of something to calm the small boy down. He very rarely threw tantrums like this, and usually there was a good reason, but Mulder couldn't help feeling that his youngest son was just trying to be a pain in his ass.
"Hey William could you grab me those building blocks over there and help me entertain your brother?"
William got out of his chair and did as his father requested. William had a lot of respect for his father as well as loving him more than anything. He knew that his parents thought he didn't understand about what happened when he was a baby, and the terrible things
that his father had endured, but now they were a family and William couldn't have been happier.
"Here you go dad."
"Thanks buddy, so how you doin' today? What do you wanna do?"
"Can we go see Aunt Monica?" Mulder smiled and nodded his head slightly.
"If you want to, but we should call first, she might wanna be alone, she's had a lot of people around her this past week."
"She shouldn't be alone. And I like playing with Anna."
"I know you do William, is that why you're being a little quiet at home lately?"
William looked at his father and was half irritated that he could read him so well, but on the other hand it was kind of cool that they knew each other so well.
"It isn't fair that Uncle John had to die."
"I know. But sometimes things happen that we just can't control."
"But why? At school our teacher says that we're all responsible for our actions, and for taking care of the people that we love. John was a good man."
Mulder looked at his eight year old and was astonished at how grown up he was. Here he was saying that John had been a 'good man', any other kid would have been more interested in playing in the garden, but not William, he wanted to think about his family, and the friends they had that needed their help.
"Sometimes we don't understand why things happen William, but I've learnt that there is always a reason behind them. There is some master plan that we're all a part of, and I know that might seem like I'm making excuses, but it'll work out, I promise."
William smiled at his dad and walked over to him for a hug. Mulder juggled his two boys and for the first time realised how lucky he really was. He shared these boys with his wife, Monica was alone, and Anna had no father. Maybe it was a good idea to go and see how they were doing.
June 26th, Silver Spring Maryland...
It took a couple of hours to track down Daniel Gooding. He had gone to play at the park with Lucy Collier and Michael Dyson, a family reunion of sorts. When Monica saw that the three children were together she didn't know if it was a good thing or not, would they all have pre arranged to not cooperate with any of the authorities? Or would they do whatever they could to help them get to the bottom of this?
"Hi, I'm Monica Reyes, this is John Doggett, we're from the FBI, do you think we could talk to you for a second?"
The three children looked at each other before nodding and walking over to a bench across the park. They all sat down and Monica looked at John before she began to ask any questions. He could see that she was finding this case difficult, and he didn't know what to do to help, she wanted to run it so he couldn't interfere in anyway. He'd do whatever he could.
"So you must be Daniel? I met Michael yesterday, and you're Lucy right?"
"You're here about my parents aren't you?"
"Yeah. But there are some other questions that I have for you if you wouldn't mind answering them?"
Daniel nodded his head and Monica couldn't help noticing how tightly he was holding onto his ball, something for him to be able to hold close and make him feel secure.
"You must have all been pretty close to each other, you must miss living in the same house now?"
"Yeah."
"Did you spend a lot of time together, all of you together? Family trips that kind of thing?"
"Not really. My mom took care of the house and was happy to just sit in front of the TV with my dad at night when he got in from work. We pretty much entertained ourselves during the evening after dinner." Monica smiled.
"So you must have fought too yeah? I mean all kids fight, brothers and sisters on top of each other all the time."
Daniel smiled and nodded. Michael and Lucy smiled too.
"There was always a fight for the bathroom in the morning. Casey always got there first and said it was because she was the oldest."
"Yeah? Well what about Adam Davies? He and your sister are the same age right? I mean he's still living in your parents house."
Daniel's smile faded and he looked at Michael and Lucy. They both tried to avoid looking at him and Monica felt bad for making them all feel so uncomfortable.
"My sister and Adam were always together. One time I saw them in bed together and Casey hurt my arm and made me promise not to tell my dad. But my dad found out that they were dating and he wanted Adam to find somewhere else to live, he said it wasn't right for Adam to be our brother I the house anymore. But Casey said that if he went she'd go with him, so my mom talked my dad into letting him stay and just trying to keep them apart. But it didn't work. It just made them think that they could get away with it under their noses because they knew they wouldn't get thrown out of the house like they'd been afraid of."
Daniel looked upset and Monica suddenly saw that she was pushing the twelve year old too hard. He just wanted to play with the kids he'd grown to love as his family; she shouldn't have been doing this. And she had the information she needed now anyway.
"Well, thank you for talking with us Daniel, it was very nice meeting you all."
Monica stood up and the three children managed to smile at her before running back over to the other side of the park. She turned around to John and was about to say something as his cell phone rang.
"John Doggett... Yeah... Ok, I'll tell her... We'll get right over there... Thanks..."
"Who was that?"
"Dana, it seems the evidence just keeps pouring in against Mia Dukes. She visited her mom the day before the Gooding's were killed, there was an incident with one of the patients and they lost some medication when a manic patient tipped a trolley. Guess what one of the things was that went missing?"
"Insulin."
"Yeah, we should get over there."
"No you go, talk to Katha Dukes' doctor, and find out what happened that day."
"What are you gonna do?"
"I wanna talk to Adam Davies."