Thank you to those of you who reviewed, alerted, favorited and most importantly read. :)

So it's one of those days where I hate everything I touch so I'm not fond of this - nor am feeling slightly nice towards the start of the next chapter. But, anyway you're the judges not me. I'm off to the pool the only thing I can't possibly hate (all that much as everything else) I am to avoid the two weeks worth of homework that's due on Monday - I need to stop digging this hole. But it's Friday here, and an update is up so at least this is getting done on time no matter the quality.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything but Danica, that kiddo's mine.

Part 14
Truth about Russia

It only took ten minutes to ruin a life, to destroy one person and everything they ever built up for themselves. Fox Mulder had known what that was like; he'd experienced it several times. Everything he'd ever known, ever cared for had been ripped away, crushed, bruised and broken. Danica had been taken, and Scully lay ill and dying in a hospital bed, her cancer was developing at a rate much faster than they would have liked and thus he found himself grasping straws. He hated himself for what was happening; Danica knew what an easy life was because he'd shown it to her ruined innocence. Scully knew the dangerous life, a life that held on by a singular thread. He'd shown both of them those completely parallel lives, made them love those lives and now each was suffering because of the worlds' secrets he had desired to share.

He was grasping at straws, chasing echoes in the dark, scraping at the bottom of the barrel. Each of those things seemed so much simpler than that of what he was actually doing. This was worse, holding counsel with the enemy was something one always desired but never actually would do, and it was a last resort a pleading cry for help. Yet, it wasn't Mulder who'd reached out to the grey haired man who was never without a cigarette in-between his fingers, of the smoke looming ever present around his beings and those that conversed with him. Mulder hadn't wanted to reach to that resort; he wanted a cure for Scully even though he would just as easily admit that there was going to be no such thing. But Danica, he'd never suspected the man had information on the little girl he had so easily started to call his daughter. The girl he couldn't live without, like he couldn't live without air, or Scully.

The unnamed elder had denied in his usual way any participation in Scully's ill health but had asked towards the health of a certain three-year-old Mulder had let go of, with no choice on his behalf. He couldn't afford to put up the fight, he couldn't risk the chance of losing his job, Danica and Scully all in one blow.

At least now he still had his life's work, not that he was torn to caring much in these hours anyway. "I had nothing to do with that child, Agent Mulder." The older man tried to assure him. He still held the same sinister look in his eye, the one that made babies cry and men like Mulder want to punch him in the face. He knew something if not everything and yet he was unwilling to unhand the information.

"Someone lead me out there. Someone gave me coordinates for that area. You must know something!" The smoking man shook his head. A knowing smile played across his face as he watched Mulder's urgency, his desire and utmost need to get to the bottom of everything.

His laugh was rough as he sat down at the park bench they had stopped in front of, nothing like a public place for trading government information. "Mr. Mulder, I can assure you I have no idea what it is that you're talking about." A grin spread across the mans' tobacco stained lips. "There was certainly a bout of unfair treatment happening to these people and it was and further still is, unjust. Their fathers and grandfathers should be the ones playing the price of life. Not young and innocent children. Whomever it was that gave you those coordinates had a great reason to do so, and they still believe in that. Yet, they never suspected you'd bring back a child from those grounds with the reasoning that you wanted to give her "the good life" and take her from the horrors that were granted to her family name before even her own mother was born. Although, I do see that as a great strike of your bravery, but Agent Mulder, I never intended that for the plans. And now it is up to you choose; your daughter or your dying partners life." Mulder stopped the pacing he had started in front of the old and weathered man.

The look on his face told Mulder that he knew of the slip he'd made and that perhaps it was done on purpose. He also held the smug look of a man who had given another his biggest ultimatum. Mulder stopped to breathe a little, his breath had shortened as his heart pounded. Save Scully or save Danica? He wanted both so badly, he couldn't spare one for the other, the guilt would live with him forever and that was what the smoking man had wanted from him, regret and guilt for the rest of his life.

He looked up from the dirt at his feet, his hands on his hips, his entire body wishing to collapse with defeat and fatigue. "So you're behind this all. You're doing this to those people." The man shook his head.

"Quite the opposite Mulder, the men behind this belong to Russia, only one within your own workplace, the rest veterans and their families from World War two. Your Danica, her grandfather was a German prisoner to the Russians, whichever camp it was that they'd pulled him from he was an SS, someone who made Jewish lives hell, and ended quite a few simply because he could. But this man was a coward. Begged for something else to happen rather than his life being taken, so, the Russians compromised. They wanted these men to feel the pain the Jewish did, the mentally ill, the gypsies, everyone they'd hurt. Given time, when these men moved off and had families, the Russians said they would wait, they would then return to the men after they had grandchild and one by one would be taken, slaughtered, tortured in front of their grandfathers.

"From what I've seen they've set up their own mock ghetto. Their own silent war grounds. No one, but those involved knows it's out there. As you can tell, these men have taken it upon themselves to deal with ex-SS officers that they captured after the war. These men just want to forget about the war, Agent Mulder. They are aware that there were promises made, but they have been living with guilt all their lives. They don't want their innocent grandchildren to pay for it, not anymore." Mulder watched the man his melancholy genuine.

"Why do you care so much?" He hissed down at him, for some reason he couldn't feel sympathetic towards the man. He couldn't see where he was getting any benefits from it.

The man lowered his head slowly. "I have seen some of those children die. I have known their fathers, their suffering grandfathers and at a time where they begged me for help I did nothing to save the innocence of those children. Now I'm trying to do something, through you. I wanted you to spy on their set up, to become intrigued, fascinated. I wanted you to want to expose it all."

"I do, I want to expose it."

"Never, did I mean for you to find a child alive and pull her away from it all. I never imagined you'd do that, it was a greater risk than you think. There is a man working within the FBI who is involved in all of this Mulder, he very much wanted you and the young girl enlisted upon that 'program' so you could watch her die. You meddled."

Mulder wasn't going to back down, he had to stand his ground, uncover the truth as the smoking man threw a handful of dirt over the top. "You sent me out there."

His voice was a whisper, broken and tired. "Not to save her."

"Who is she?" Mulder demanded, he quickly gained a look from a woman passing them by and smiled meekly at her as she scowled. The smoking man shook his head, simply telling Mulder, "no one."

"She is but a child Agent Mulder, no one. Her father is someone who wishes he could forget what he'd done because the lives he once took were now being taken from him while he watched. You gave him hope when you took her, you also had him killed." Mulder shook his head, he wasn't going to believe it, he shouldn't have too.

If Danica was no one, why did it matter that he took her? The man that was usually a foe had said it over and over again, it was because he took her. No matter what, he took someone from this "program" There was evidence walking the streets of Washington D.C that was damning to someone in the FBI and Mulder was a threat now because of it. He could have helped anyone out and this would have happened, that didn't derail him – he would do it again if the decent back in time beckoned.

"I can't choose." He muttered, not allowing for the defeat to fill his voice, not in front of this man. "I can't choose between Danica and Scully. I can't be asked to picked which I care for more, which I would choose over the other." He sighed as he took a seat next to the old man on the park bench, a spring breeze passed their faces as the trees let the wind play a song in their leaves. "At least tell me that if I choose Scully and I fight for Danica, there might be a chance I can have both."

The older man stood, collecting his long coat around himself he watched Mulder softly another May breeze flying over his face. "The people who picked her up yesterday were not her parents. Her parents and her sister are dead." Mulder nodded, he'd already known that. He stood; ready to follow the smoking man if he didn't give him the answers he wanted. Just as Mulder was about to speak the older man cut him off. "They're still in America, fight while you can." With that the man was walking away, and although Mulder wished so badly to follow him to demand more than that, he knew already that he'd received far too much information that day begging for more would only make him seem ungrateful.

Turning in the opposite direction Mulder left, a new spirit on his shoulder and a little more pride back in his step. He was going to fight for Danica and somehow, someway he was going to find a cure for Scully, he was going to save her.

His grin was broad as he sat by her bedside, her hand held tightly in his own. "I'm going to fight for her, Scully. I think I could have a chance at this." She sighed, never taking her now grey and tired eyes from his face, he was so hopeful in his endeavors. Something about his quests for the truth made him seem so boyish and charming, so hopeful in that childlike way. And now he had a new quest, a second to accompany the first, to take over the first.

Scully had wondered how much he thought about Samantha now than what he ever did. Danica seemed to take up all of his time, his energy and his thoughts. But maybe he was seeing Danica as a way to repay for what happened to Samantha, another little girl under his charge and this time he was catching on as soon as sometime tried and prevailed to take her away. "Why don't you stop, do the noble thing, take your place as Uncle Fox?" She was only teasing, making a jab to see if she could get the real reason all of this was going on for to come out and face the daylight.

But he didn't flinch like she wanted him to, Mulder just shrugged and told her that would never be an option with Danica. She was his chance to have a family, a happy one, his chance to not screw it up. But the bricks were falling; his world was crumbling and even though he didn't want to tell her he realized that if he couldn't get Danica back there were a great number of people he had to explain himself to. His mother being the first.

"So that's what you've been doing all day," She smiled as he watched his thumb rub circles across her frail hand. "Plotting to get her back?" When he looked up at her his eyes were filled with sorrow and his lips covered in humor.

He shook his head, letting his finger combed hair fall in front of his eyes. He was glad for the shield as he was more than ready to lie to her about his die. "A bit of this, a bit of that." He shrugged nonchalant, "I moved a few things into the house. It's so, it's so quiet in there Scully."

She dropped her bottom lip, her mouth forming a circle in mock surprise. "Whatever will you do?"

He couldn't retort to her statement as someone had knocked softly on the door before they pushed it open allowing the occupants to know that company was awaiting. "Mom?" Scully whispered as he face dropped, she was happy to see her mother just not under these circumstances.

She offered her daughter a comforting smile, the one only a mother knew how to use. Noticing Mulder sitting in a stray chair that was pressed as tightly as he could get it to her daughters' bed, her hand held tightly and the smile still on his face from their teasing banter Mrs. Scully couldn't help but to greet him warmly. Her daughter may have been on her deathbed, but her partner was keeping her tied down. "Fox!" She greeted with a cheery smile as she leant down to hug him. "Where is that gorgeous little girl of yours?" Mulder stared at her for a brief moment, before he noticed a man standing behind the woman who had always been so kind to him.

"I, um." He stammered, his attempt to catch his words in order to prove himself worthy to both women in the presence of a man he was yet to be introduced to had failed him.

Scully sighed softly; her shoulders slumped in defeat as she squeezed his hand in attempts to give him strength. Each of her moves was clearly visible to each individual in the room, exactly the way she intended it. "Her mother has come back, she's looking for custody and in the meantime Danica is to reside with her." Maggie's face fell as she sat on the edge of her daughters' bed, her hand covering her shocked face.

"Oh," She sighed. "I'm so sorry, Fox. You'll get her back. I'm sure of it." He smiled at her, his eyes conveying a message for Scully, his sneaky little actress. He was ready to tell her mother the truth and she sensed that, but if he was so sure that he was going to get her back, then what was the point in break it to them until everything was set in stone. He thanked her softly before shaking his head and telling them all that it wasn't about him.

Instant attention was on her, but Scully quickly pulled it off, "Mulder this is my brother Bill, Bill this is my partner Mulder." She told the two men who'd been avoiding looking at the other since Bill walked in the room.

Bill Scully was a tall man, he was bulky, built for the navy. His face was rough and stern it seemed to Mulder that the look of wanting to grind someone's bones to ash was a constant look upon the oldest Scully's face. Or perhaps that was just the look he had around his sisters and men they were far too close to. They shook hands with small hellos, Bill's hand trying to crush Mulders with his strength in a hope to scare off the "spooky" agent. It hadn't worked at all, Scully was stuck with Mulder by her side no matter who liked it or not.

Mulder wasn't lying when he told Scully earlier that day that he'd moved a few boxes into the new house, to be exact he'd moved all of his belongings from his apartment to the Alexandria home. He was regretful that he'd moved everything that night as he walked through the large front door into the large and empty house. He was already starting to miss the cramped surroundings of the apartment that was only a few blocks away. Mulder had the intention to stay cramped in a hospital chair all night by Scully's bedside but she'd forced him home, her mother was with her and Bill dropped in every few hours just waiting for Mulder to leave.

The home he bought with Danica, for Danica was eerily quiet and far too large for his being. Mulder's mind mentally scolded himself for divulging in the little girl, in believing she'd be around together and that they would need space as big as this. No, he was divulging himself not only in Danica but in the prospect of filling the other bedrooms and the empty space in his bed. But that was a long gone dream, he wouldn't have a family, he wouldn't settle down without Danica and Scully. Not that he'd ever admit that to his partner, but he couldn't if he lost one of them not to mention both of them, that was it for him he'd plant his feet in concrete and stand his ground and that is how he would forever stay.

Be it strength, be it passion, or be it intelligence – man is measured by his greatness in an abundance of ways; the way his foes bring him down yet can never defeat that everlasting piece of damaged marble. Yet take away a man's love and it makes him stronger, kill his love and there's a chance the villain has prevailed and made the day as dark as night.

I should print this out for the sole purpose of watching it burn, right?

Until next week,
Annaliese