August 5, 2008
Melissa Krycek smiles at the ruckus her children and Dana's children are making. Yeah, smiles, because those over-sugared boys will be going back to their mother's in less than an hour. A pair of strong arms wrap around her waist, and she presses back against a familiar body.
"You're thinking evil thoughts, aren't you?" her husband's voice rasps in her ear. "Because of the noise, or something else?"
She chuckles. "I'm thinking once the would-be Coen Brothers finish their masterpiece for the time being, their parents will have the joy of trying to calm them down for a good few hours." Then she twists to look up at her dark-haired husband. "And how could you tell I was thinking evil thoughts?"
Alex Krycek smirks. "One, you weren't yelling at the kids. Two, you've got that smug look on your face that doesn't go with the chaos. And three, I've been thinking the same thing."
Now the redhead laughs, leaning against him again. "I knew I married the right man."
"After all these years, I hope so." He smiles as the Mulder boys do their level best to catch up with the Krycek girls, who are flitting around in what they must think are fight scenes. It makes him think that maybe, perhaps in a few years, he'll teach the girls how to actually fight to win, rather than fight for the camera. Fortunately for him and Missy, Ryan is sleeping over at a friend's house that night, so there's one less kid in the house yelling. Not that Ryan's the yelling type, but they thought the same about the Mulder boys, and look at them now.
"Shut up." Missy makes a face, but doesn't protest as he snuggles against her. Rather, she puts her arms over his, and they watch the madness, er, genius of their two little girls pretending to be superheroes being filmed by two little boys and their would-be director, who also happens to be their oldest brother. The fun part is watching how the twin boys are also directing the action via their cameras, versus Sammy, who has something of a plot in his head. The key words being "in his head", which makes the whole venture less like a well-oiled Hong Kong movie machine and more like, well, chaos.
And then there are Emily and Addy, who, while they are willing to put up with a lot, especially when it comes to their "art," are also adamant about certain things which they say they know better than the newcomers, that is, the Mulder boys. Things like acting AND directing, so their input gets thrown into the madness.
Jared and David argue back that they know more about camera shots and filming than the girls do, so could they just focus on acting, puh-LEEZE? And Sammy butts in and says that they have to start over from a different scene, which at this point, nobody (except maybe Sammy, and maybe not even him) knows where they are in the plot, period, so the whole directing-versus-acting-versus-filming argument begins again, with random demonstrations, lots of yelling and hand waving, and some running around and jumping.
"Maybe we should just film this to use as blackmail for posterity," Krycek muses.
"Or scare off would-be boyfriends," Missy adds.
He pulls away from her a bit. "That's my job," he grumbles.
"Of course it is," she soothes him, smiling a little when the pouting eases up a bit. Men. She'll have to teach her daughters how to work with them, but maybe when the boys are gone. It's much easier to be friends when they're not there, she supposes, thinking of her older brother. "Just make sure you have a current license for your gun when you're pointing it at future suitors."
He growls, and she laughs. The couple notices a brief pause in the noise and look up.
All the kids are looking at them, the boys with wrinkled noses and the girls giggling. "Ewwwww," the twin boys chorus, their cameras down and off, for the time being.
Sammy rolls his eyes. "Aw man, I thought we got away from that mushy stuff at home."
Krycek smirks at him, rubbing his hands possessively on his wife's arms. "Can't help it, little man. You see, when a handsome Russian specialist and a smokin' hot mama love each other–"
"La la la, I can't hear you!" Sammy frowns but their twin nephews stick their fingers in their ears, their eyes scrunching up tightly.
"Alex, no traumatizing your nephews. That's Dana and Fox's job," Missy scolds Krycek.
"Sad, but true." Sammy makes a face. Then he looks at his younger brothers. "Don't tell Mom and Dad. They're gonna do more kissy stuff."
Alex and Missy don't bother to stifle their snorts at the twin boys shaking their heads as fast as they can.
Their daughters, on the other hand, groan. "You mean they're worse than this?" Addy sighs, overly-long suffering for a little girl. She ignores her parents' cutting their eyes at her.
"Yeah," Sammy answers. There's a knock at the door. He looks at his younger brothers. "Remember!" he hisses at them, and they nod quickly.
For some reason, the girls scramble to the sofa and pose themselves angelically, as if they haven't been jumping around, yelling and knocking things down for the last few hours. The boys follow their lead, Sammy sitting on a chair, while David and Jared hold their video cameras like altar boys holding sacred implements. Or, that's where Missy's imagination takes her when Mulder opens the door.
"Hey, how's the movie coming along?" he asks, then looks around at the strange tableau. He pauses. "Seriously, what's going on?"
The Kryceks, still holding each other, look at each other and laugh. "Should we tell him?"
"NO!" the Mulder boys yell.
The Krycek girls only laugh.
Mulder, for his part, guesses the touchy-feely couple has had something to do with the kids looking awkward. Brother. Now he and Scully will have to step up their game so his bro-in-law doesn't show him up. He glares at Krycek, who glares back, while Missy rolls her eyes between them.
"Come on, guys," he says, in as fake a cheerful voice as the kids are angelic, "let's go home."
The boys leave the Krycek house with an alacrity that makes Mulder and the Kryceks laugh. "Thanks, I might have to totally make out with my wife to beat that." Mulder shakes his head.
Krycek snorts. "Like that's gonna be a hardship. Go home, traumatize your kids."
Mulder grins. "I'll tell Scully you gave us the go-ahead! Score!"
The Krycek girls look at their parents with a parental look that puts their own to shame. "What?" Krycek shrugs. "It's all good."
Two Days Later
Doggett has taken Gibson, Hannah, and Rebecca out to do back to school shopping. Luke has his own to do, but he doesn't go with them because it just doesn't feel up to it. This leaves Luke home alone with Monica and Jon-Jon. The three of them are in the living room, and Luke watches with interest as his brother clings to furniture and uses it to lean on in order to get from one place to another. The dark-haired baby is much quicker on all fours at this point, but the little guy is still determined to be up on his feet anyway.
Monica notices where he's looking, and gives him a small smile. "I actually sort of love this cruising stage, but it won't be long before he gets brave enough to let go and takes a few steps on his own."
"Dad said that I was almost exactly a year old when I took my first step," Luke offers. Jon-Jon is eleven months old.
"It's nice to know that sort of thing about your own history," Monica says, her tone musing. "Not everyone has people around to tell them."
"Yeah…" Luke takes a deep breath, and finally asks something that's been on his mind for weeks since her comment actually provides a segue into a topic that's been on his mind for days. "Monica… How do you feel about being adopted?"
It's something he would be more comfortable talking to Gibson about, but he knows from past conversations that Gibson strongly believes that there's a world of difference between being adopted as a baby, and being adopted after spending the first several years of your life living with your birth parents. This is something that Luke has grudgingly come to accept given that Adrianna's mother was more or less adopted the same way Gibson was, and obviously doesn't have any sort of residual angst related to her birth parents that would sway her to the side of thinking the adoption is a bad idea. He thinks that's too bad, actually. As it is, Gibson can't offer him any insights about what's worrying him, but Monica might.
If his almost-stepmother is surprised by the question, she doesn't let on. "As opposed to languishing in some children's home on one side of the border or the other?"
With a small start he remembers that despite her youthfulness compared to his father she is actually old enough that being put in an orphanage instead of a foster home was a real possibility. He thinks he's read that orphanages still exist, but they haven't been common in his entire life, so most of his familiarity with them comes from movies and books that Hannah liked when she was little, like Annie and Madeleine.
Eventually he shakes his head. "As opposed to… I don't know. Do you resent the fact that your parents gave you away?" He'd like to ask her if she has any idea how she ended up being adopted in Mexico when she was an American citizen, but that is a digression that'll have to wait for another day.
Because she is a live and let live type, he expects her to immediately say no. But she doesn't. "On some level," she allows. "I'm sure that they did the best by me that they could, but still–" She doesn't finish the thought.
Luke sighs, and looks out the window. It's still sunny and bright out. Soon enough though, the days will be getting shorter, and he and Gibson will be packing up to start grad school. "I don't want him to feel that way."
For second he hopes that she will say that his little boy won't, but instead she says, "I'm sorry."
Cocking his head, he asks, "Did you ever look for them?"
"My parents?" Monica's expression suggests that she's not sure she should give him a straight answer. "I did find them."
His eyes widen in surprise. "You did?"
One of her hands flutters up as she tries to explain. "My mother, anyway."
"So, did you meet her?"
Monica shakes her head, and he feels an uncomfortable jolt of disappointment, mostly for her but not only. "No. The first time I ever dealt with a private detective was when I looked for her. I was a little bit younger than you, still in college myself. At the time it seemed important to me to find out who my parents were, where I came from. You understand. It just seemed important then, since I figured that I would eventually grow up enough to get married and have a few kids, and knowing things about medical history and such would be important at that point."
Luke tries not to smirk. She might have 'a few' kids now if you count him, Hannah, and Gibson too in addition to the two she gave birth to, but she still has never been married. His father has mostly come to accept that, but Luke remembers worrying that her refusal to accept a ring would mean that they would break up. Fortunately they didn't, or otherwise Rebecca and Jon-Jon wouldn't exist.
"What happened?" he asks when she doesn't seem inclined to go on without prompting.
"I wrote her a letter, telling her who I was and that I wanted to meet her. I got a letter back from her lawyer, informing me that she did not wish to open communications between us. And that was that."
Luke thinks about this for a minute. "Do you think you would feel differently about your adoption if she had been receptive to meeting you?"
She doesn't answer immediately, and that's answer enough for him.
One afternoon in August Luke is moping in his room, ostensibly looking for things he will need to pack to take with him in a few weeks, but really, he just wants to be alone. Although he is diligently looking under his bed for a couple of textbooks it would be better to find than by new copies of, his mind isn't really on going back to school. Because when he goes back to school…
A small cold hand reaches out and touches Luke on the back where his shirt has ridden up, making him jump. "Argh!" he yelps.
When he looks down, Rebecca is staring at him with very wide eyes. "Wow, you jumped big," she praises him.
"You have super cold hands, kiddo," he complains, and his sister just smiles unrepentantly. "What have you been up to?"
"Lookin' for a ghost," she says, startling him.
Luke gives his youngest sister a long look. He and Gibson have each seen the ghosts at the Mulders' house, but he doesn't think that even Hannah has. And as far as he knows, this house isn't haunted. Well, there was that incident when they first moved in, but Monica insists that the things that Hannah occasionally feeds aren't ghosts but something else. So there should be no ghosts in their house to look for. He hopes. "Why?" he finally asks.
The raven-haired preschooler just shrugs. "I just want to find one."
"Okay, but why?" Luke asks. He picks her up and sets her on his bed, which makes her giggle. "Why would you want to find a ghost?"
"Well... Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let me have a real pirate live in the house, but if I found a pirate ghost I think they'd let me keep it," Rebecca explains earnestly. "Do you think they would?"
"Uh..." Luke thinks about his almost-stepmother's hunt for a house like the Mulders'. "Maybe."
"I think that mommy would like the ghost," Rebecca tells him. "But I don't think that daddy would."
"Oh? Why not?" Luke asks, trying not to grin. He knows for a fact that his sister is right. Their father would like less than anything for there to be a ghost in their house.
The little girl tilts her head. "Daddy said that there are no monsters under our beds. But I heard one! So I think he just doesn't like monsters and ghosts," she decides.
"Well, dad always has had less of an open mind about spooky stuff than Monica."
"It's silly that you call her Monica," Rebecca says, and he remembers that she has been using the word silly quite often lately. Hannah loved that word at about the same age. "I know that you have a different mommy 'fore, but she's still your mommy too."
"I guess so, yeah."
"If I find a ghost, I think he has to live under the bed."
"Because dad doesn't believe that anything is under there already?" Luke guesses. The thought of being able to hide a ghost underneath one's bed almost makes him laugh out loud. To be four, and have that sort of imagination is something else.
"Yup," Rebecca says, looking at him like he's a genius.
As much fun as talking to his baby sister is, all of a sudden Luke finds himself getting sad. He knows that Rebecca speaks this way to both Monica and his father, and then when he was little, he had similar conversations with his father and his mother. But somebody else will have those conversations with his baby boy.
He's never going to have his son look at him like he's so smart when he figures out his childish logic. He's not going to sit with them and talk about silly things like ghosts and pirates and stepparents.
To his surprise, his little sister reaches out and pats him on the arm. "Why are you sad?"
"I look sad?" he asks, genuinely surprised that she notices.
Her big brown eyes are sympathetic. "Unh huh."
It's only as he looks at her and thinks about how much she looks like her mother, that he realizes she doesn't know. Somehow, he's fairly certain she doesn't even know that she's going to become an aunt in a few weeks, because the tense discussions about the baby – even before Adrianna made her disastrous decision – weren't in front of her; they never did seem to speak calmly about the baby at all. She definitely doesn't know that she will never see her nephew.
When he notices that Rebecca is still giving him concerned looks, he sits down on the bed beside her. "You know how when you do something wrong it makes you sad because you disappoint dad and your mom?"
Rebecca nods her hair vigorously, making the pigtails that she begged for that morning bounce. "Yeah."
"Well, when you get to be more grown up, you get disappointed that you did bad things too. Not just because they make mom or dad upset. But you feel bad for them because you did the wrong thing."
"Oh…" she says, although it's obvious she has no idea what he's talking about.
"I did something wrong, and I'm pretty sad about it."
"Are you going to be sad about it forever?" Rebecca asks.
Luke is pretty sure that his heart skips a beat. It's such an innocent question, but…. "I don't know of, I really don't."
Rebecca scrambles off the bed, and gives him an expectant look. "We should asked mommy to make cookies. Cookies make things better."
He really does wish he himself was still that young and innocent, he reflects. But he does get off the bed. "Yeah, cookies do make things better, don't they?"
Two Days Later
The building that Luke pulls up in front in of in a borrowed car seems very bureaucratic. Despite this, he pulls out a scrap of paper and checks the address. The last thing he wants to do is to end up in the wrong place and make a fool of himself. Which wouldn't be difficult, because he is already feeling foolish.
Still, his conversation earlier in the week with Rebecca has been the final push he needs to wade out of self-pity and into action. Someday, once she is old enough to understand, maybe he'll explain it all to her. Right now, the explanation would be meaningless to a four-year-old. Even if it was important to him.
Feeling more than a little anxious, Luke gets out of the car and walks up to the door. Nobody in his family knows where he is. He told them that he was going back to school shopping, but this trip he is taking has nothing to do with school.
He feels a little better when he is greeted by a smiling face at the reception desk. The woman smile doesn't falter as he hesitantly explains why he's there, and asks if he is in the right place. In fact, she seems quite eager and willing to help him, and notes that it's always nice to see someone come in on the errand that brought him to the building.
Luke tries to smile back when she hands him the stack of paperwork to fill out. He sure hopes that his family will understand, and find his choice more noble than idiotic. These thoughts meander through his mind as he provides the information the form requires.
About Week Later
Since they are still at home, Gibson and Luke had been tasked with going to get groceries for the family. They sort of enjoy borrowing the car and it's a lot easier for the two of them to do it than it would be for Monica to pack up two small children and try to do it herself.
Gibson is driving because it's his turn to, and he's finding that trying to get Luke to talk this morning is like pulling teeth. He doesn't want to contend with silence or Luke's choice of radio stations so he keeps trying to engage him.
"I talked to Katie this morning," Gibson tells Luke. "She reminded me that we're going to have to make a decision about whether or not we all get an apartment together soon."
Luke looks out the window. "You know, I think that you and Katie should get one together."
"Without you?" His brother sounds uncertain, as if he's not sure he understands what he's saying.
"Yes."
"I thought you and Katie got along pretty well," Gibson objects, but he can understand his brother not actually wanting to feel like a third wheel. It's just too bad that a lot of things didn't work out differently, so that there isn't any possibility now of them sharing an apartment with four of them instead of three. Back before she got pregnant, Luke had been encouraging Adrianna to consider going to college in Boston too…
"We do get along," Luke quickly reassures him. "I just think it would be better. You know that dad's not going to like it if the two of you are living together without even being engaged, but what can he say? You're almost twenty-two." And it's not like you're going to immediately get her pregnant, not with me as a glaring example of why that's not a good idea, Luke thinks too loudly for Gibson to ignore. Katie's a lot older than Adrianna, though, so even if they did manage to make the same mistake...
"So… You'd live by yourself?" Gibson asks slowly, trying to puzzle out what Luke intends to do instead of share an apartment with them.
Despite overhearing that last thought the last thing that Gibson expects is to next see a clear image of what Luke thinks in response to this: Luke imagines a studio apartment with the crib in it. Then Luke thinks of what he had gone out to do on his own a few days earlier. It hadn't been back to school shopping like said.
When Gibson overhears Luke's thought he jams his foot on the brake too hard as they approach a red light. His brother gives him a dirty look, at least until he says, "Oh my God. Luke, do dad and Monica have any idea what you've done?"
Luke looks uncomfortable. "I thought you weren't going to read my-"
Gibson just glares at him, and then glances back at the cars stopped ahead of them. "We've talked about loud thoughts before. And seriously, do they know?"
"Not yet," Luke admits. "But obviously they're going to."
"And soon," Gibson says sharply. Luke hasn't mentioned Adrianna's due date in quite a while, but he hasn't forgotten that the girl is going to have the baby in about a month. "Are you just planning to spring it on them? You know, show up at the house with him?"
Luke squirms. "I'm going to tell them. I'm just going to..." Luke sighs in defeat. "Once I have an apartment, and a crib-"
"It's going to take a lot more than a crib in an apartment to make them think you're ready for this." Gibson wants to punch him, not because he intends to go through with his plans – those he can actually sympathize with – but because carrying things out in secret just not the right way to do it. Luke is going to need a lot of support now, and this is exactly the opposite of how he should behave to acknowledge that.
Slumping back against the passenger seat, Luke just says "I know."
Sneaking a look at his face, Gibson supposes he does. He wants to ask him if he sure, but even though Luke looks tired, he looks resolved too. Somehow, he can't quite find it in himself to blame him. If it had been him and Katie… But it wouldn't be, he tells himself firmly. Still.
Several Days Before the School Year Starts
When Mulder next speaks to his sister, she is furious; it takes him a few minutes to even understand what the issue is. It's just clear to him that she's in a lather when he opens the door and leads her into the kitchen after she knocks.
"He won't sign the papers," Samantha says, confusing him by jumping right into a subject that she has clearly been thinking about and he hasn't.
"Who won't? What papers?" Mulder asks blankly. He barely has time to worry that his sister has abruptly asked Scott for a divorce when to his surprise, Samantha's response to the question is to slam her fist on the table. Two drinking glasses jump up and he holds his breath until they both land safely back on that surface of the table. "You know damn well who I mean. Luke f'n Doggett," his sister snarls.
Mulder blinks. "He won't sign the adoption papers?" he asks, figuring that must be what she's talking about. It's good that she's not getting a divorce, he thinks, given that his parents' own made him miserable and he wouldn't wish that on his nieces and nephew.
Samantha snaps out a one-word answer. "Yes."
"I didn't know that you were talking to him, or that Adrianna was."
"We're not," his sister says flatly.
"Then…" Somehow, Luke doesn't strike him as the letter writing type, but maybe a lawyer is involved.
"When we went to file papers with the adoption agency, they discovered that he has registered with the punitive paternity register in Virginia."
"Oh," Mulder says, privately impressed that Luke had the wherewithal to understand that he might have to register in the state that Adrianna and her family live in if he wants to protest the adoption of his son.
"Yes, oh."
"What does–" Mulder waves a hand helplessly, wishing he could better articulate his question. "- that mean?" He's pretty sure that filing with the registry doesn't make anything official, but it certainly suggests that Luke is not going to let the adoption proceed. He can't imagine that Luke would have registered if he intends to sign away his legal rights to his son.
"If he refuses to sign the adoption papers, the baby can't be adopted," Samantha says impatiently.
Mulder tries to puzzle this out. It can't mean that Adrianna will be forced to keep the baby, so… "Then he would get custody?"
"Yes," Samantha says through gritted teeth. "That's the law."
"Wow," he comments, wondering if he supposed to say something different. When he heard from Adrianna that she was giving up the baby, he hadn't really considered the fact that most states require the father to agree to an adoption as well, although he should have. In his previous life it was actually the fact that he hadn't consented to William's adoption that had allowed them to pursue regaining custody after the adoption in the first place. Not that they had gotten custody back.
"Is that all you have to say?" Samantha snaps.
Mulder gives his sister a mild look. He doesn't think she'll appreciate it if he expresses his admiration of Luke's actions. "What do you want me to say?"
"That you'll try to talk some sense into him!"
"No."
Samantha blinks. "No?" There's a dangerous edge to her voice as she repeats the word.
"Correct. This is something Adrianna and Luke have to work out themselves," he answers evenly.
"They're not going to work it out, Fox!" his sister shouts.
Mulder folds his arms across his chest. "If somebody's going to be speaking to the Doggetts about this, it's going to have to be Adrianna. Or you."
Samantha looks slightly taken aback. "I don't know if it's my place to speak to them–" she break off when he gives her a skeptical look. Apparently she doesn't have to be a mind reader like Gibson to understand that he's thinking how absurd it is for her to say that after influencing her daughter's choice. Narrowing her eyes she says, "Fine. I'll talk to them myself."
"You do that," he says.
It doesn't really come as a surprise when she leaves soon after that.
The echo of a door being shut too roughly is still hanging in the air when Scully wanders into the kitchen with Isaac held against her shoulder. "Did I understand the gist of that conversation?"
Mulder looks up at her from where he sitting at the kitchen table. He wonders vaguely where she's been if she could hear them talking, but it's not important enough to ask about. "Sure sounds like Luke's going to keep the baby." To his mild surprise she sits down at the table and sighs. "What?" he asks, reaching out for her.
She shakes her head gently. "I'm glad that he's going to get to keep the baby since he seems to truly want that. I just wish that he wasn't going to be so far away from his family. I'm sure that Gibson will help as much as he can, but you can't expect a 22-year-old grad student who has priorities of his own to be able to provide all of the support that a young man taking on sole custody of a baby will need."
"I know," Mulder tells her. "I've been sitting here thinking the same things, wondering if we would have been able to help more if he was going to stay here in the area. But I'm not sure that would be the best thing even if it was possible."
Scully tilts her head, clearly confused by this line of thinking. "You don't think being able to get more help would be a good thing for him?"
"I'm not sure that us giving them more help would have been a good thing," Mulder admits. "My sister is pretty pissed at me for not immediately taking her side. And if we were to, say have him and the baby over here all of the time, or even just a few times a month, I can't help but think that she would see that as rubbing it in her face."
"Oh," Scully breathes. She gets up, and comes over to wrap an arm around him. "I'm sorry. You missed so much time with her already, and the fact that this is causing strain between you isn't fair."
He nods slightly. "It's hard not to feel like I'm somewhat responsible for what happened. I mean, I did arrange for the vacation that led to Luke and Adrianna meeting, and that of course led to everything else. But I feel like I can't justify to myself wishing that I had never done it. I mean, wishing away a baby seems immoral somehow."
Scully stares at him. He knows that she's thinking about how he had once changed the past, in huge and significant ways. He wouldn't change this past, though. Not even if Elsbeth came by and told him he could. His wife reaches for his hand and pats it. "I know exactly what you mean."
The smile he gives her is slightly bemused. Honestly, he's not entirely sure what he means, so it's surprising to him that it makes sense to her.
a/n: if anyone is reading this on my website (google "The Family G-Man: From Here to Paternity", click the first link then use the menu on the upper left of that page or scroll to the bottom) I've also added pictures "of" Isaac, Jon-Jon, and Rebecca today :) Oh, and that first page also contains a link to pictures of the older kids at the ages they were at the end of The Family G-Man too if you've never seen 'em.