"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, I have to do something or God knows what he'll start doing poking around in my personal life."
"Ok. Well I'll follow up the lead on that case we were lookin' at, and I'll leave you to talk to him."
"You're not staying?"
"In all honesty if I did I don't think I could keep my hands to myself, and I don't mean that in the way that I usually can't keep my hands to myself when we're at work."
Reyes laughed and kissed Doggett before they opened their office door and walked inside. They were both surprised to see Mulder standing waiting for them both. He smiled when he saw them and Doggett felt his blood boil. He handed Reyes his cup of coffee and tried to make excuses to leave.
"Actually I wanted to talk to you both."
"About what?"
"Well Scully and me have got a lawyer and we're fighting the adoption of William."
The last thing Doggett and Reyes wanted was to spoil hearing great news like that, but Mulder still needed bringing down a peg or two.
"And I was hoping that when we eventually get to court the two of you would be character witnesses? We're gonna need all the help we can get, and you both helped with William so much before, I know it'd do our case the world of good if you'd be there."
"I don't believe this."
Doggett turned and walked out without saying another word and Reyes looked over at Mulder who looked confused as to why Doggett was being more unreceptive towards
him than usual. Reyes sat down behind her desk and also didn't talk to Mulder. He started to feel paranoid, which was a feeling he knew all to well from being in this office.
"Did I say something wrong?"
"I don't think so."
"So why do I get the feeling that something isn't quite right here?"
"Maybe because you're intuitive."
"So there is a problem?"
Reyes looked up from the office mail she was opening and looked at Mulder.
"Yeah, there's a problem. Does the name Roseanne Gregson mean anything to you?"
Mulder knew the name right away, what he was afraid of finding out was how Reyes knew he'd know who she was.
"Yeah I know the name..."
"And why is that exactly?"
"I called her, she was helping me out with something."
"The something where you think you have the right to interfere in my life?"
"I wasn't interfering, I was trying to help."
"How exactly? You had no right to poke around in my private life, I told you about my adoption in the hope that it would convince you to fight for William, and I am so glad that it has done that, but why did you have to sneak around and look into my personal history like that? It's none of your God damn business."
"I know, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."
"Do you know how uncomfortable I get about this? Do you have any idea? No, you don't. Because little Fox Mulder was brought up by his mom and dad and had the upbringing that any kid would jump at the chance of. Don't suddenly assume that you're an expert on adoption and adopted kids just because your own son was adopted. He's two years old, he wont even recognise you when he sees you and maybe not even Scully, why don't you try focusing your time on that rather than thinking you can do me some great favour."
"I just don't understand how you can live not knowing who you are or where you come from."
"I'm Monica Reyes, and I grew up New Mexico with two loving parents who are still married and still live in my home town in the house I grew up in, I know who I am and I know exactly where I come from. Now get the hell out of my office and don't show your face down here again or I'll have security throw your ass out so fast you wont know you've hit the ground."
Reyes stared at Mulder with a glare that was so fierce he could feel the daggers hitting him and he slowly turned to leave. Before he did he put an envelope down on her desk and looked at her.
"Just look at them."
Mulder walked out and as he opened the door Doggett was stood on the other side. He tried to act as if he had just arrived and hadn't been listening but he didn't even convince himself let alone anybody else. Mulder left and Doggett walked inside and straight over to Reyes as she cried again and held onto Doggett who had become her security blanket. She looked at the envelope Mulder had left and she threw it in the bin.
Scully opened the front door and called out for Mulder but there was no reply. She un-packed the shopping she had done into the cupboards in the kitchen and decided to run herself a bath. It was the first time in months that she had been home from work before seven and she was hoping that Mulder would have been in so they could spend the evening together. She also wanted to try and think of a way to contact Reyes and Doggett.
She had stayed away from them because they reminded her of all the bad things that she had to get through over the past few years, but now that things were looking up she owed them both an apology for letting herself get so wrapped up in the past that she forgot she could make herself the future she chose to have. She knew that Doggett and Reyes had been dating for a while and she hadn't even congratulated them on that or told them how happy she was for them. Doggett was a sweetheart, and always a gentleman, and Reyes was perfect for him.
She suddenly wished that Mulder were home so that they could maybe call and ask Doggett and Reyes to come round. Maybe they could arrange for them to come over at the weekend for dinner.
What alarmed Scully the most about herself was that even if she didn't win custody of
William with Mulder, she did have other reasons to live, and she couldn't continuously dwell on everything that had happened to her that made her feel as if she had nothing to live for. If they lost William for good she would have to face the reality that she would possibly never see her son ever again, but she had been away from him for over a year already, and it had got a little easier. She just had to be strong; she always had to be strong.
Mulder walked into the apartment and wanted so badly to talk to Scully about what he'd found out about Reyes' past. But he didn't know how she'd react to it. He knew she understood what his sister meant to him, but over three years ago he had told her that he believed Samantha was dead and he was prepared to believe that this was true, he had finally been free of the constant questions and the wondering. Not knowing had always been harder than finding her dead or alive, but now there were more questions.
He had left some pictures with Reyes of the house he and Samantha had been in the night she was taken, he had hoped that she would look at them and that they might make her remember something or that they might look familiar to her, but he had heard nothing from her since she threw him out of the office that morning. He
wasn't holding much hope of anything coming from this. Maybe he would just have to let it go; maybe he was completely out of line and just clutching at straws. It could quite easily be made to look like he was afraid of not getting William back so he was looking for the other person he loved and lost. Whatever the reasons were for what he had found and what he now believed he had to either let it go or find concrete evidence to prove what he was saying.
Mulder didn't talk to Scully about what he had found. They talked about William again and Scully told him about her lunch with her mother. He felt bad because he was only half listening but he hadn't seen Scully this animated about her life in years, it was a glorious sight to see, he wasn't going to do anything to jeopardise that.