PART 9

"I think that you should call your mother back and tell her that they should spend New Year here." Doggett's face adopted a look of shock.

"Are you crazy! My ma' would drive you insane with questions about me, and our relationship."

Reyes laughed and got up to go into the kitchen, they were in her apartment and were both going to be incredibly late to work.

"I think you're just scared she'll bring some hideous old family photo album with her."

"What are you talking about hideous? I was a cute kid!"

"I have no doubt about it. But we do have a problem."

"I know. We're late for work, it's almost eight thirty."

Doggett stood up to get dressed but Reyes held him back and turned him to face her. To further distract her from talking about their families he began to kiss her and she found it incredibly hard to resist his charms but finally pulled away and smiled at him.

"You're parents want to see you for either Christmas or New Year, as do mine, so if we spend Christmas together, and then have our parents here for New Year, yours can stay at your place and mine can stay here."

"You mean we'd have to spend New Years sleeping apart?"

"It's only one night."

"Hell it is, I'm not letting that happen."

"So what do you suggest?"

"Well, we can have them booked into a hotel."

"John!"

"Oh come on, I can't not be with you to go to sleep on the first day of the New Year."

"Well, we've got a few more days to think about it. We'll think of something. But we really should get to work."

Doggett started kissing her again and she laughed as a device to try and stop enjoying his touch on her.

"John..."

"So we're late..."

"Again?"

"Again..."

Doggett walked into the bedroom pulling Reyes with him as they carried on kissing. They were definitely going to be late to work again.

As soon as Scully had left the apartment after reluctantly leaving Mulder at the door as

he kissed her goodbye, he took out the telephone book and looked for law firms. Somebody somewhere had to have the answers for them. If he could give Scully one gift this Christmas it would be that they never had to spend another without William. After hours of calls he found someone that was prepared to see him and talk about their case.

He made an appointment for the next day at ten thirty and called Scully to tell her straight away. He could hear the overwhelming sense of hope overcome her as she tried to talk to him through her tears of joy. If someone was willing to talk to them, then they must have a chance, even if it was just a small one.

Mulder didn't know what to do with himself after he had made the appointment. It had been his job for the day and it was only just after lunch. He made himself something to eat and glanced at the door of William's nursery. He stood up and walked over to it. After at least ten minutes of just standing there considering what effect going inside may have on him, he opened the door and stepped in. He looked around and couldn't stop himself from crying.

The tiny crib, the bright warmth emitted through the entire room, the toys, the books on the shelves, he opened a drawer and took out some of William's clothes. They were tiny, and he couldn't grasp the notion that his son wasn't that small anymore. He would be wearing clothes with 'age 2' printed in the label, not '0-6 months'. He put the clothes back and walked over to the crib. He took out the teddy bear sitting at the bottom and held it close to him. It smelled just like him. He knew it was just a baby smell that all babies had when they were small, but he was sure that it was William scent he was holding close to him, not just any old baby's scent. Still holding the teddy bear he walked over to a cupboard and opened it to a box of photographs falling out and spilling all over the floor.

He sat down with them and William was on every single photo. Smiling, laughing, crying. There were some with Scully on too, he could see in her eyes the hunger to be a good mother to this boy, and thanks to him she had had to let him go. As he scooped the photographs together to put them in the box he came across one with Reyes on it holding William. He looked as if he was about six months or so, and he was so content sitting in Reyes arms. As he looked at the picture Mulder began to think about Reyes and her own adoption again, he wanted to find her parents for her, he couldn't explain the compulsion

to do so, but as he looked at this woman with his son he knew that he had to help her, and he was sure that it was the right thing to do.

Mulder spent the entire afternoon on the phone, but he stayed in William's nursery. He called every agency he could think of that might be able to help him locate Reyes parents. He was having difficulties getting a hold of any information because of the fact she was raised in New Mexico. There were not many officials willing to help him out at all.

All he managed to find out was a name of somebody who worked at the adoption agency in New Mexico where Reyes was taken. He spent all afternoon trying to call her and then he finally got through to her house in California.

"Mrs Roseanne Gregson?"

"Yeah, who is this?"

"Mrs Gregson, my name is Fox Mulder... I work for the FBI and I was wondering if you could help me out with some information."

"What kind of information?"

"Do you remember working at an adoption agency in New Mexico about thirty-one years ago?"

"Yes I do, I worked there for forty-five years before they finally made me retire three years ago and I moved out here to California. Beautiful place, have you ever been?"

"Yes I have..."

"Well where are you living at the moment?"

"Washington."

"Oh, Washington DC, so you work in the J. Edgar Hoover building?"

"Yes ma'am, look, I'm trying to track down some information on a four year old that you would have seen thirty-one years ago."

"Thirty-one years ago? That's going back a little, I'm seventy-three years old, and I don't

know that I'll be able to help you much."

"This girl was adopted and raised as Monica Reyes, she was found in a field and you met her from the hospital after she was treated for her injuries..."

"Oh sure, I remember her, real shaken up she was, but I didn't really see that much of her, she was snapped up real quick by the Reyes family. Seemed happy with them too. It was December '73 if I remember correctly."

"Do you know what date exactly?"

"No sorry, but if you call the agency and give them your badge number I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help you out, or get the Reyes girl, well woman now I assume, to call them. They'll give her any information you want to get."

"Ok. Well thank you for your time Mrs Gregson."

"Anytime Agent Mulder."

Mulder hung up the phone and called the hospital that Reyes had been taken to at four years old and was lucky enough to speak to someone who didn't ask for a badge number as he gave Mulder the exact date that she was admitted, and he was faxed a copy of her

medical examination. As he took the piece of paper from the machine he sat back down in William's nursery to look at everything he had found so far:

Reyes was admitted to the hospital on December 10th 1973.

She was four years old and taken home with her adoptive parents five days later.

Roseanne Gregson dealt with her case at the adoption agency.

A Dr. Ross treated her at the hospital but had left six years ago.

As he looked at the dates and names in front of him something that he hadn't noticed before jumped out to his attention. There were striking resemblances here to his own sister's disappearance. He read and re-read all the information he had and he picked up the copy of Reyes medical exam to look closer at what was written. He felt a lump appear in his throat and his heart began to race as he read what he knew so well to be tell tale signs of abductions.

Reyes had been abducted. Two weeks before she turned up in New Mexico his sister had been taken, and never found, Reyes was adopted so fast that there was no chance anybody looking for her in Massachusetts, where his sister had been taken, was going to find her. He couldn't believe it. He was so shocked by it that he couldn't move or even begin to think about what this all meant. It didn't matter to him that Monica had been only four and his sister eight, Monica was abandoned, it was entirely plausible that they had been mistaken in how old Monica really was, she could have been a young looking eight year old.

But it made sense to him, and he could now answer the question that had been driving him crazy for six months, why he and Scully had been safe to come back. And now he knew the answer. He and Scully were safe now because there was another member of the Mulder family working on the x-files.