Boston
November 13, 2008

Luke isn't surprised that he's one of the few men in the single parents support group, but is surprised that he doesn't seem to relate to them better. Still, the group is pretty welcoming for the most part, and the free childcare is pretty awesome, too.

After a while, he's become friendly with Beth, a single mom with two little girls, four and two years old. They share the same sense of humor, and her daughters remind him of Hannah and Rebecca with their dark hair and sweet natures. Okay, he's feeling more than friendly with her, he admits to himself he's got a small crush on an older woman. (She's older by only a year, but he's pretty sure if he said that out loud about her, he'd get his ass kicked so bad, and he'd deserve it.)

After one of the meetings, he asks her out, but she shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, "I know it's been two years, but I don't think I'm over Ben's death. I'm not sure I'll ever be, not for a while." Her eyes look elsewhere at the end, although she'd started with her eyes on his.

Luke nods. Her husband had just reenlisted for another five years in the Army when they sent him back to Afghanistan, and he was killed in action. He supposes she is doing better than that last statement, only because she was one of the first people, other than Dorothy, the group leader, to greet him with a smile, but also crack jokes with. "I get it," Luke says, "see you next week?"

She nods back. "Thanks," she says, and goes to the toddler room to get her daughters.

Once Luke is back home and washing Nicholas, he allows himself to go over some things. One, Beth is a nice woman, but she definitely doesn't sound like she is ready to move on. On that note, he's not sure he is, either. Two, he's definitely not getting back together with Adrianna, because while he's not ready to move on to dating again in general, he's pretty much moved past wanting to date her again, period.

Three, he's pretty sure the only relationship he should be focused on is the one with his son. Having a crush on someone is one thing, but he's not sure he even wants more than having warm fuzzy feelings at this point. If he started an actual relationship it wouldn't be fair to the other person if he shortchanged her for putting Nicholas first, and it wouldn't be fair to Nicholas if his daddy was acting like a brainless douchebag. And his life is already unbalanced as it is, trying to date on top of it is a little crazy. Luke chalked his initial optimism in regards to Beth as something like "same boat" syndrome, or something like that. Or maybe it's because I know Beth would be putting her girls first too, and maybe not expect as much of me, he realizes as he takes his son out of his baby bathtub.

"You've got a silly daddy," Luke grins at his still wet baby boy, who is currently sucking on his entire right fist. "But you knew that already. Who's your daddy, Nicholas? Huh? Who's your daddy?" And he smiles goofily, sticking his nose in his child's face. "It's me!" And he jutted a thumb at himself. "I am your father," he says, in the worst Darth Vader impersonation ever, and cracked himself up.

And for the first time, Nicholas lowers his fist from his mouth and smiles at him. Really, truly looks at him, rather than the unfocused infant look he'd been getting all this time, and smiles. Well, he drools onto his chest and tummy, too, but dangit, that is a smile! "Oh my God," Luke smiles back, tears pricking at his eyes, "you're smiling at me. Wow." He sniffles, then wipes at his eyes with his t-shirt sleeve. "Don't tell anyone your daddy's a big old sap, okay? You just keep being awesome, big guy." Then he holds up his hand, and moved Nicholas' chubby hand to pat it in a version of high-five. "High five! Good job! Keep smiling, Nicholas."

And then Nicholas jams his fist back into his drooling mouth, apparently his job for the day done.

Luke chuckles, but it is still a little teary. Yeah, he'll call his dad and Monica, but only when Nicholas is sleeping. "Okay, bath time over. Let's get you dried off and ready for sleeeeepy tiiiiiime," he intones like Dracula. Or like a slightly Southern, tenor-pitched kid trying to sound like Dracula.

He holds his baby against one shoulder and empties the water into the real tub, and towel dries his baby boy. "Look at you," he says, already diapering up the kid before he got any ideas about doing the peepee fountain trick, as Rebecca calls it. "So clean, and so happy. And so ready to sleep, am I right?" he says softly.

Nicholas doesn't answer him, as usual, but allowed himself to be dressed in the duck-covered onesie. His eyes start to close more often, and Luke smiles. Guess the pediatrician and Mr. Sanchez are right, setting up small rituals before bed like bathing help get his son in the mood to sleep. Luke lays him in the crib and kisses him on the forehead. "Good night, big guy," he murmurs, and turns off the main bedroom light.

He decides to text his dad and Monica, since it is pretty late and he doesn't want to wake up Jon-Jon, either. "Guess what," he types, "Nicholas smiled at me for the first time today! Focused eyes, drooly mouth and everything!"

He smiles again, then opens his laptop and plugs the headset in to watch the latest gameplay review of last year's projects. One of his professors feels that learning from other people's mistakes is just as valuable as learning from the successes, and Luke is starting to see her point.

Partway through the review, his now-silent phone flickers with Monica's text, "Your father said you haven't changed much, either" and his dad's "Ignore what she said." He grins, and went back to watching the review, making notes on where the game went right as well as wrong.

A Few Days Later

Nicholas is blessedly sleeping while Luke futzes with his computer. Eventually the Skype call connects and after a moment of distortion, he sees Hannah's image. The girl is obviously happy to see him.

"Happy birthday!" Luke tells her.

"Thanks!" she says with a grin.

"So, how is being thirteen treating you?"

"Well, it's only been 2/3rds of a day so far, but good." She moves her hand to her ear, and he's not sure why until she says, "Dad finally gave in, so Mom brought me to the mall to get my ears pierced after school."

"Oh, wow. Sounds like dad's mellowing out." He knows from several discussions over the summer that their dad thought ear-piercing wasn't a great idea, but Hannah had her heart set on it. He doesn't like to butt in too much, but he did tell their dad that it was just earrings, not a nose ring or something, much to Doggett's disgust.

"Hey, maybe a little." She smirks. "But he didn't make me keep riding in a booster seat once I hit middle school, so maybe he's been mellowing for a while," Hannah adds.

At 4'8" she is still technically both short and light enough to use one, but one of the few times Luke had ever seen her throw a tantrum past toddlerhood was when their dad had made no immediate plans to remove her booster seat from the car by her first day of sixth grade last year.

"That's true."

"Mom said she took a long time to grow too," Hannah says hesitantly, and he finally realizes she's talking about Barbara, not Monica, which makes sense considering which woman she inherited genes from. "And she's not short now."

"I didn't know you were talking to her," Luke says carefully.

"Uh, just e-mail once in a while," she replies quickly. They both know he's not in touch with their biological mother. "She, um, said to tell you congrats on the baby."

For one second he's mad, and almost asks if Barbara has seen pictures of Nicholas, but he forces himself to calm down. Barbara is in Europe, and he can't picture her wanting to be any more actively involved in her grandson's life than in her kids'. Forcing himself to keep his voice light, he just says "Oh. Tell her I said thanks when you e-mail her next."

All of the sudden Hannah looks less worried, and he feels a little bad that she's obviously been concerned about how he'd react to that revelation. "I will."

"Thanks."

"Hey Luke, are you doing okay today?" Hannah asks.

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" he asks blankly.

Hannah looks a little confused. "It's Adrianna's birthday too. I didn't know if that'd bother you."

"Um, nope." In all honesty, he's somehow forgotten that his ex and his little sister were born on the same day. It's not as though he ever got to spend Adrianna's birthday with her in person, so not having to juggle a family party vs. seeing his girlfriend didn't happen to cement the idea in his head. And he's been so busy lately...

"Oh, that's good. You know something weird I thought of?" Hannah asks, and he hopes she's changing gears.

"What?"

"Dad and Mr. Mulder have been friends since before I was even born, and now we're really related, kinda." Hannah grins. "Well, I mean he's Nicholas's uncle, and...you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. It is funny how it all worked out," Luke muses.

"Why is it funny?" Hannah asks, his tone clearly having made her suspicious.

"Well, I figured, since way before I ever met Adrianna, if anyone was going to make the 'by marriage' thing happen between our families, it'd be you and Sammy," he teases.

"What?!" Hannah squawks on cue.

"Well, I mean, the oldest son and the oldest daughter of two venerable families...come on, Hannah, I know you've read books like that," Luke continues with a straight face.

"No, no, no. Ew!" she moans. "Luke, I still wore pull-ups at night when he and me met," she says, referencing when they'd stayed with the Mulders and apparently unaware that the two families had spent the 4th together when she was a few months old. "We couldn't...oh... yuck."

"I know, I'm kidding," Luke admits, earning a glare. "It'd be like dating a cousin."

"Yeah. And I'm not dating anyone," Hannah declares. "Not now, anyway."

"Good for you. Hey, did my present make it there okay?"

"Yup." Hannah looks like she already forgives him for teasing her. "And I really like it. I can't wait to read it." He'd sent her an illustrated version of Grimm's fairytales, and at the moment Luke wonders when she'd stopped thinking of herself as possibly having a fairytale ending of her own. Or maybe she hasn't, he wonders, and Sammy's just not prince Charming material. Poor guy.

"Well, I hope you like it. The person at the bookstore said it was the best version."

Hannah gives him a sly look. "Was she cute?"

"I guess if you're into late thirty-something hipster guys, he was probably very cute," Luke says in an exaggeratedly dignified tone. Of course she immediately cracks up.

"Luke–" Hannah pauses, then looks over her shoulder. "Okay" she calls to someone before looking back at him. "I'm sorry, I've gotta go. We're going out to dinner."

"Well, I hope the rest of your birthday goes really nice," Luke tells her. "Love ya."

"Love ya too," Hannah tells him and ends the call.

For a moment Luke sits there and is happy that things are going well back home, but then he frowns when he thinks about Hannah being in touch with their real mother. It's never occurred to him before, but he wonders now if part of the reason he's had so much trouble accepting Adrianna's unwillingness to be a part of their son's life is because he's been that son whose mother wants nothing to do with him.

Sure, it's a little different because Barbara had changed course in the middle, but he's never really forgiven her for giving him her love and then taking it away. Maybe that's worse, he thinks unhappily. Maybe it's better to know where you stand from the word go. It might even be possible that Adrianna is doing better by Nicholas by not trying when it's not all going to work out rather than giving up halfway through his childhood to pursue something she cares about more, Luke thinks, but begins to make his head ache to try to puzzle that out.

It had stung when Barbara had left him and Hannah in favor of her job, but at least he was pretty sure it wasn't...personal? She hadn't not wanted to be their mother specifically. Barbara and the boyfriend she'd left dad for and still was with had never had a child of their own, which would've proven it was Luke and Hannah she'd found lacking, and he supposes that he's glad that hadn't happened to complicate his feelings about her even further.

A snuffling noise alerts Luke that Nicholas is awake, so he pads over to the crib. His son looks up at him, and seems to be trying to make up his mind about whether or not he still needs to cry, but he doesn't when Luke picks him up.

"Dad did okay," he tells the baby. A quick check of his diaper proves him dry, so maybe he just wants to be held. "My mom checked out, but dad did good. I'm going to do good too, I promise."

And I will, he promises himself too.

November 22, 2008

Gibson is trying to work out a problem he's having on designing a level of his new game – an idiot NPC keeps getting caught down a dead-end corridor in the game, walking into the wall over and over again – when Katie hands him the phone. "Your mom."

"Thanks," Gibson tells her, taking time to kiss her on the cheek before saying "Hello?" into the receiver.

"Hey Gibson," Reyes replies. "I was able to get some information for you on that woman's granddaughters."

"Great," he says, but his stomach doesn't agree that it's wonderful. He's taken on the "case" out of necessity, not because he's actually eager to learn the awful truth about the sisters. And he really does suspect that the truth is going to be quite bad.

"Alice and Jessica-"

"Charlotte," Gibson reflexively corrects her.

There's a pause and he's pretty sure that she's reading a printout because paper rustles. "Jessica Charlotte," she says calmly. "I guess she goes by her middle name. They were adopted by an uncle a few years ago after their parents died in a car accident one wintery night."

Jessica? Gibson finds himself thinking. He remembers the odd moment at the Mulder's house a couple of years earlier, when Emily's dad looked at the photos on his screen from the website update they were doing for the afterschool program and thought "Jessie." Could Mr. Krycek have met her before? He's going to have to find a way to get in touch with him.

"I'm not sure what happened when the girls were little, but they'd apparently been in foster care before their parents regained custody of them."

"When was that?" Gibson asks.

Reyes pauses for a moment. "Actually, from what I'm reading here, it sounds like Alice never actually lived with her biological parents."

Gibson looks out the window for a second. "Are you saying she was taken away from them at birth?"

"Looks like."

"I wonder what they did wrong," he comments. Reyes doesn't enlighten him, so he suspects that she doesn't know. Not for the first time he wishes he could read people's minds over the phone… Not that he would. That would be something Alice would really do, he reminds himself darkly. "Did Charlotte get taken away at the same time?"

"You know, I think she was in foster care all that time too. Since she was a baby as well."

"They must've had wonderful parents," he says sarcastically. Somehow, this reminds him of his own parents, but he tries not to think too hard about that. Maybe he's being uncharitable, he decides. Maybe Alice and Charlotte's parents had done the best they could by them too.

"Or it's possible that their biological parents never knew them," Reyes responds.

From what he knew of the conspiracy, that is very possible, too. "Dammit," Gibson sighs. "This is gonna be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, isn't it?"

"Not quite. How many needles do you know that can read minds or move objects without touching them?" she jokes.

Gibson groans. "Ha, ha." He rolls his eyes. "Hey, Monica?"

"Yes?"

"Could you give me Mr. Krycek's number? It's just a hunch, but I think he knows something about the girls."

There's a pause. "If that's the case, I could talk to him, you know."

This is one of those times Gibson is both glad and mildly irritated that Monica Reyes is a better parent than his actual parents were. "It's just a phone call," he says, "and I'm closer to the situation. I think he'd be more inclined to talk to me, is all. But thanks," he says.

She sighs, then paused to look up the former double agent's number. Once she rattles it off, she asks, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Thanks, Monica."

Even though he can't read her mind from this distance, he's fairly sure she's making a face in lieu of grumbling like Doggett would. "Gibson?" she says, after a beat.

"Yeah?"

"How are Nicholas and Luke doing?"

He is about to retort something to the effect of "Hasn't he spammed you with enough baby pictures to make a film yet?" when he realizes she isn't asking after their physical health. "Luke's wiped, but he's hanging in there," he says. "I try to help out over the weekends, and I've been donating some funds for the occasional babysitter. Other than that, he's been both the stressing grad student and the over-the-moon dad. It's really weird to see him make the same faces Dad did to Jon-Jon without realizing it."

Reyes chuckles. "That's good to know," she says. "I'm glad he's getting better about asking for help, too. Sometimes I wish I was closer, to help out in some way."

"Same here," Gibson says, "and I live in the same city. Hey, did you know Mr. Sanchez invited him over for Thanksgiving?"

"Yes, I heard and I was extremely jealous for all that good food he'll be enjoying," Reyes says. "I wish he could make it here, but at least we'll see him for Christmas."

"Yeah, can't forget that." Gibson half-smiles. "Give Rebecca and Hannah big hugs for me, okay?"

"Will do," Reyes says, "good night, Gibson."

The next morning, Gibson calls Krycek up, deciding not to waste any time, especially if Reyes takes it into her head to call him first. "Hi, Mr. Krycek? This is Gibson Praise," he says when the other man picked up.

"Gibson Praise?" Krycek sounds surprised. Guess he beat Reyes to the punch, or the guy's a really, really good actor. And, for the second time in as many days, he wishes he could read the guy's mind over the phone. "What's going on?" he asks, in a more alert tone for an early morning call.

"I know this is totally out of the blue, but I need your help," Gibson says. "I've met someone like Emily who needs shots that aren't for 'allergies.' Someone you may have helped a long time ago."

"You – what?" Krycek frowns, then pulls the phone away from his ear. "How do you know about that?" He's thankful that Missy and the kids are with his mother-in-law at church for one of their sporadic visits, because this doesn't sound like the kind of conversation he wants to be having in front of his wife or kids.

"That was an X-File, and the paperwork went through my parents," the younger man answers. "But I'm hazy on some details, especially since this was a case regarding minors and juvenile records have been locked in regards to names, ages, et cetera. According to the reports, the younger children, the ones who were definitely marked as 'psychic' were listed as toddlers," he says, "and the older ones were in high school. I was wondering, exactly how old were those listed as toddlers, and about how old would they be now?"

There's a pause. "They ranged from infants to about two years old," Krycek answers. "This was about seven years ago, so they'd be about seven to nine now."

Alice's age, then, the younger man's eyes narrow behind his glasses. "And the older ones. How old were they?" Gibson presses on, feeling his heart rate pick up as Krycek confirms his uneasy suspicions.

"The oldest was sixteen. He'd be about twenty-three now."

He, Gibson noted the pronoun. Not Charlotte, then, but that age would be in her ballpark. Aloud, he asks, "Did you and Mr. Mulder ever think about the idea that the older and younger children might be related?"

"No," Krycek says, sounding chagrined. "Mulder and I had some genetic tests done to see if any of the kids were related to either of us, especially considering how Emily came into my and Missy's lives, and Mulder's dad had told us about the tests done on the Scully girls when they were younger. But honestly, I don't think it crossed either of our minds to wonder if the two groups of children were related to each other."

I wonder what tests were done on Ms. Scully and her sister, Gibson thinks, but he decides that it's not the time to ask. "The thing is, I think you know someone I know," Gibson says. "I know her as Charlotte, but according to her adoption records, she was called Jessica Charlotte and adopted by her uncle. You know her as Jessie, I think."

"The telepath?" Krycek says instantly. "You know her?"

What the hell? "I think so," Gibson says, trying not to sound shocked but failing. She's never given any indication that she can read minds like her younger sister, but then again, he can't read her mind, either.

"If this is the same girl we're talking about," Krycek says slowly, "Jessie was in high school. Officially, she was in foster care, but she and a few other kids her age were sent to 'summer camp' to be tested on. She was one of the few who had any psychic ability, and because of that, she got in deep enough to point out the ringleaders of the operation as well as the head of the conspiracy, the Smoking Man himself."

"Holy crap." Gibson frowns. Sure, she is a perceptive gamer, but it doesn't seem her abilities translated to a better-paying job. Then again, if she went through what Krycek had termed "tests," she sure as hell would want to lay low, especially if she had a sister even more powerful than herself. She would not want any attention drawn to a little girl who had even more talent than Gibson himself, and Gibson (and likely Charlotte) had had enough dealings with the consortium to not want that for anyone else with his abilities. "Mr. Krycek, did you help facilitate Charlotte, I mean, Jessie's, adoption?"

"Yeah, yeah," Krycek agrees. "Once everything went down with the consortium, we were able to find family who wanted to take her in, her grandmother and an uncle. He was

some kind of military man, seemed capable, and the type we thought could protect a teen girl if anything should happen. Sounds like maybe he later got custody of the younger kid too, huh? Or the grandmother did."

"I guess so."

"Mulder told me a few of the little ones were placed with foster families with experience with medically fragile kids, so maybe he or the grandmother tracked her down after that. But the uncle..." Krycek says slowly. "Something happen to him?"

"I don't know," Gibson says soberly. "I've only met him once, and as far as I could tell, he didn't have any psychic abilities. And as far as I can tell, Charlotte's been on her own ever since we graduated from college, and maybe looking after Alice too, so I'm not sure if he's still Alice's legal guardian or even cares enough to look after her. The problem is, if she's still a telepath, she's been very good about hiding her tracks. And from what you've told me, it sounds like she's had lots of good reasons to."

'Shit," Krycek mutters. Gibson doesn't need to read his mind over the phone to realize that their conversation is making him paranoid enough to want to check on the other kids now, and see how they're doing. "Is she okay?" he asks.

"From what I know, she's working as a secretary for some low-level gamer company, and she's still gainfully employed there," Gibson says. "I also know that the address she gave for her contact information is fake. Searching the white pages and Google turns up nothing. Do you know her uncle's address? Can you give it to me?"

Krycek hesitates. "She's had practice with hiding from the regular authorities, but not the illegal ones," he mutters. "Sure, I remember his address. If she's still there, tell her I'm sorry." And then he rattles it off from memory, one of the few skills from his former profession that he's apparently never shaken. "And Gibson?"

"Yeah?"

"Get yourself a pair of brass knuckles, so when you see that pathetic loser of an uncle, you punch him out for me."

Gibson hopes it won't come to that, but he nods. "Okay."