TITLE: The Chilmark Project V - Family Matters AUTHOR: Wylfcynne and Ravenwald DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere; just please ask; that way we'll know where it all goes, so we can visit. SPOILERS: Does this really matter anymore? This is a post-ep for Demons, carrying on (and on, and on...) into an AU where some of the episodes beyond that happen, and others do not. This is the divergence point from the canon, but some episodes after that are included in our warped little world. Specifically, Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction and Amor Fati do NOT happen here! Neither do several other episodes. Basically, we picked and chose what we want to have happened in our universe. Also, we reserve the right to kill off the Fowl One OUR way! RATING: R for adult concepts; chapters with NC-17 segments will be labeled. CLASSIFICATION: post-ep, MT, MSR, AU, Crossover(Highlander, The Sentinel, F/X: The Series) SUMMARY: Post-Ep for DEMONS; did you ever wonder why Mulder let that quack drill holes in his skull and shoot him full of Ketamine? TWICE? We figured it out, and things started to snowball... The Chilmark Project is a Consortium sideshow, one of the little jobs they had running while everyone's attention was on the Big Show. Six children born in Chilmark, Massachusetts between 1961 and 1966 were the original subjects... DISCLAIMER: They certainly aren't ours; if they were, they'd be having more fun, and we wouldn't be saving up for new cars! Thank you, Mr. Carter, for creating the show, and thank you, Mr. Duchovny, and you, Miss Anderson, and you, Mr. Pileggi, for creating the people. We're just borrowing Fox, Dana, Walter and the others for some fun and games. We promise we'll bring them back on time and unharmed, and they won't remember a thing. Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Kim Cook and Walter Skinner belong to Chris Carter, Fox and 1013. Jim Ellison, Blair Sandburg and Simon Banks belong to Pet Fly. Rollie Tyler and Angie Ramirez belong to Fireworks/Rysher. Duncan MacLeod, Amanda, Methos/Adam Pierson, Joe Dawson, Anne Lindsey and Matt McCormick belong to Panzer/Davis Productions. Anyone else belongs to us. XFC-FDBK: Yes!! AUTHORS' NOTES: at the end. This is the fifth installment in The Chilmark Project, a cross-universe story. We've included The X-Files, Highlander: The Series, The Sentinel and X/F: the Series and a lot of it won't make a damned bit of sense if you haven't read the previous chapters. =-=-=-=-= The Chilmark Project V: Family Matters Wylfcynne & Ravenwald =-=-=-=-= Kasteel deKuiper, Kuipersveer, The Netherlands 10/02/2000 "Ian?" Ian Chantry looked up from the laptop computer at which he had been silently cursing. Vos had just backed out of the small but very sophisticated safe where he had stored the contents of the desk. "Yes, sir?" "Don't call me 'sir'!" the other man growled. "It would be improper for me to call you by your first name, sir, now that you've inherited," he pointed out reasonably. "You're my assignment and my employer." "Is that all?" Ian frowned. That plaintive, almost fragile tone of voice was not characteristic. He stood up and went to stand beside his friend. "You know it's not, Vos," he spoke in tones so low that no one standing more than arm's-length away would have been able to hear him. "But this is not the apartment or the university and we don't know how much privacy we have, here." His voice carried a warning tone and Vos shot him a puzzled look. Vos Andreassen Johannes Martijn deKuiper, PhD Biochemistry, the Sorbonne 1991, PhD Virology, Stanford 1993, newly inherited Graf deKuiper and now Chairman of the Board of The deKuiper Group, sighed heavily. It had been a very difficult summer. "Why don't you call to have the car brought around. I want time for lunch on the way to the airport." Ian frowned; he had lost track of time while working on the mess that had been left with the deaths of Vos's older brother and grandfather. They had finally started to check through the private journal that had been left on Johannes's computer just that morning. Weeks earlier, before Constanjin's funeral, Vos had given up after working on it for two hours, telling Ian that since he was the MBA and computer wizard it would be better for him to try to make any sense of the accounts, papers, notes and computer files that had been left behind. While Ian tackled that, Vos spent his time visiting arranging for the funeral, sitting with and comforting his grandmother Sofie and arranging for proper care and a new residence for her. The fact that she was pathetically glad to see someone from the family, told him just how neglected she had been. He pensioned off retainers who were far too old to continue their work and hired new staff with an eye to selling the pile of rocks that he hated so very much. Family tradition or not, the castle was old, cold, dank and dark and held no fond memories for the new head of the family. He was arranging to move Corporate HQ to a new facility that he had acquired near Stanford University back in California so that he could continue his *real* work. Everything was in place so it was time to return home. To his *real* home. Grandmother would be transported next week to a house he had bought near the university so he could visit her regularly and make sure that she would be comfortable without having to rely totally on strangers. (*Besides,*) Vos thought, (*it would be nice to have a home.*) The board had not liked his plans, but as he held the chairmanship, as well as controlling interest in the company, there was nothing they could do about it. He finally could do what he wanted and turn the deKuiper Group's resources to do some good in the world and there was no one that could stop him. "Yes, sir." Ian went to the house phone discreetly hidden beside the arras near the door, and called the garage. When at the castle, Vos generally let Ian handle all his communication with the staff because they did not expect the any of the family to do things for themselves. "Fouad. Bring the Mercedes around." "Does the Graf want the convertible?" Ian glanced at his employer and found him busily packing the contents of the desk into his attache. "No, the sedan will do fine. And make sure that our luggage has been brought down as well." "Very well." Ian hung up the phone and packed up the laptop into the aluminum hard case. It did not take long; nor did the walk down to the porte-cochere where the car waited. "Drive us into town, Fouad. We'll be stopping for lunch on the way to the airport." The ride into town was occupied with idle conversation; Vos's half-hearted attempt to ask what was bothering Ian was aborted before he finished the first syllable when Ian shook his head. Vos made Fouad drive past several restaurants before he was satisfied with the prospects. Once again Ian regretted that he had no partner. It was almost impossible to effectively function as a bodyguard without a partner. Fortunately, Vos had grown up being ordered around by his grandfather's staff and later his bodyguard. He rarely so much as demurred, much less argued any more. When Vos was satisfied with the restaurant, Fouad pulled up by the front door and stopped. "Be back to pick us up at 3:30, Fouad," Ian told him. "Very good, Sir." Ian handed Vos the laptop carrier and got out first and quickly checked the area, including rooftops. Then he held the door open for Vos. Ian refused to act as a porter when he had no backup as bodyguard, so Vos carried the laptop. He led Vos inside quickly and asked for a booth in the back. They were quickly accommodated; Vos was well known in town, both from his family's centuries-long residence and from his own recent re-occupation of the family castle. Plus, the staff had found out in the past few weeks that the new Graf deKuiper was a generous tipper. They ordered BLTs and chocolate milkshakes; they had given the chef the instructions for making both American items the first time they had come in after the funeral of Vos's grandfather. The chef, a Belgian named Henri, had even done some of his own research and learned how to make other American favorites. He was still trying to perfect the kettle-style potato chip. Once the meal was ordered, Ian unpacked the laptop and booted it up. "Hear. Most of your grandfather's personal notes are in Friesian; a good proportion of them are actually scanned copies of the handwritten notes he took during meetings and phone calls. But this set was encrypted as well. I had just broken into them when you reminded me it was time to leave. Order me a beer. I'm curious to find out what your Grandfather thought was so damned important that he encrypted notes in a language that's all but dead." Vos chuckled and did so. Then he settled back to watch his best friend work. =-=-=-=-= Several minutes later, Ian looked up. "What is it?" Vos asked. "It's notes on a Board meeting, but not of the deKuiper Group. There are a few names I recognize; Strughold of Algeria, for one. But they aren't discussing deKuiper business. What the hell could your grandfather been into?" There was silence for several more minutes as Ian continued to read the computer entries. The food came and Ian ate absently with one hand while he scrolled through the entries. Finally, he turned the laptop toward Vos. Vos glanced up from his meal at the movement and noted how pale his friend had turned. Ian motioned for him to read what he had found. Vos read it with his finger pressed on the scroll down control, processing as fast as the text moved. After a few pages, he was shaking his head in amazement. "This reads like a really bad sci-fi-slash-conspiracy theory novel. There isn't any way to clone humans; every time they've tried on lower primates, it's failed. Besides, it's illegal to experiment with human embryos. At least, it's illegal in most civilized countries..." But Ian was shaking his head. "As insane as it sounds, I don't think it's fiction, Vos. Keep reading. No fiction writer could know that your Grandfather knew Strughold. And I seriously doubt that your Grandfather wrote bad conspiracy novels in his spare time. Besides, Strughold is a non-person. He doesn't have a public persona. He's officially dead." "What!?" Ian nodded. "I've quietly checked into it but haven't said anything. Strughold is just a bit too vicious for my tastes. I've noticed that at least once, he traveled with a passport and papers under another name. I hate to think it, but its real, Vos. It has to be real. Keep reading. You haven't gotten to the nightmare part." Feeling a creeping sense of trepidation, Vos kept reading. Then he saw what Ian had read, and slumped against the fake leather back of the booth. "It can't be true, Ian. It can't. You're a man. You're real." Ian squared his shoulders. "According to this," he said woodenly, "I was cloned from cells taken from a torture victim and at the age of four I was handed over to the Graf as proof that the cloning project worked. They even suggested that I could be a whipping boy for you till I was old enough to really train, and then I could be your bodyguard." "And Grandfather accepted the gift and guaranteed their funding for another ten years," Vos finished, his tone gone hollow. "You're my bodyguard now, but when we were little, you *were* my whipping boy." Their eyes met as they remembered the first time Ian had been beaten for something that Vos had done. At the huge reception thrown to commemorate Vos's First Communion, the family's chef had created a huge fantasy, a cake that was carved and iced and decorated to look like a reclining unicorn, with a rose gold and diamond rosary, a gift for Vos, dangling off a horn carved of real ivory and inlaid with 24 carat gold. Vos had willingly accepted the rosary and offered formal thanks, but when asked to cut the cake so his guests could be served dessert, the overtired seven-year-old had shrieked in horror, thrown the knife away from him and fled for his room. That evening, after all the guests had departed, the pair of them had been summoned before the Graf, who had calmly told them that Vos's behavior had been unacceptable and therefore punishment was warranted. He had gestured briefly and one of the grooms had grabbed Ian's wrists, then sat down straddling the back of a tall-backed wooden chair. Ian had been held against the back of the chair by the groom's grip on his wrists and the man's heavy boots pinning his feet to the floor. The horsemaster, Gisbert, stepped up then, with a stirrup strap in his hand. He looked up at Graf deKuiper, who nodded, dispassionately. Gisbert had proceeded to whip Ian until the welts on his back bled. Finally, the Graf nodded again and the beating stopped. Released, Ian had collapsed, unconscious. Vos, released from his grandfather's hold, had sunk to his knees in horror next to his friend. The old man had calmly walked away, the servants following him, leaving the two children alone the room. It had been Vos's governess, moments later, who had come into the room and picked up the unconscious Ian and taken him to the children's wing, doctored his injuries, and explained to Vos what a whipping boy was. "Your grandfather, the Graf, loves you too much to punish you himself, Master Vos," she had said quietly, her soft Friesian accent making her words sound even more gentle. "And your rank is such that no servant could be allowed to do so. However, you are no longer a child, to be cosseted and excused. From now on when you misbehave or disobey, the beatings will be given to Ian. Do you understand?" Vos had nodded silently, too smart even at seven, to voice the outrage in his heart. Ian shuddered in remembrance of the pain and Vos looked away. "I'm sorry, Ian," he whispered. "You didn't do it, Vos," Ian said quietly. "Besides, I'm only a clone..." "We don't know that for sure," Vos said fiercely, turning back toward him. "We are not accepting this as anything like the truth without some kind of corroboration." "Who could corroborate this?" Ian demanded, suddenly angry. "Even if someone else knew, they would never admit it!" There was a moment of silence as Vos considered their options. Suddenly he grinned widely. "I know just the man to help us!" "Who?" Ian snarled. "My cousin, Fox. Not only is he enough older than me that he might actually remember some of this stuff, but he's an FBI agent; what he doesn't know, he can investigate for us!" Ian smiled slowly. He had briefly met Vos's American cousin on several occasions; first at that ill-fated First Communion party and then, years later at Vos's graduation from Stanford. "That'll work. We should get going if we're going to have timed for a quick snack before the 6:20 pm flight. The food they serve onboard is getting dreadful." =-=-=-=-= Later, Kasteel deKuiper, Kuipersveer "Well, did you get the papers?" "No, the damned lab rat isn't as naive as we thought. As soon as Constanjin managed to off himself, he took over. I couldn't get at it as long as the old man was still alive because that damned lackey of his was around. When the doctor informed Vos that his grandfather had died, the first thing that damned bodyguard of his did was to lock up the entire contents of the old man's office and change the combination on the safe. Then Vos fired the old man's secretary." "Well, something is going to have to be done to inform the new Graf that he isn't in control... Blow up the castle." "Blow up...!" "Yes," Strughold told him. "And make sure that no one gets out." "This may take a bit of time." "I want it done tonight. I want the damned lab rat, as you so aptly called him, to know that he isn't in charge and never will be." "As you wish." =-=-=-=-= Seacouver airport They had finally thanked all their new friends in Seacouver, formally taken their leave of Chazz and the dogs, and had been dropped off at the airport by Jim and Blair who were on their way back to Cascade. Nick Lermontov was hesitant about going through airport security, but Mulder and Scully were firmly reassuring. "C'mon, Nick. It's a domestic flight. It'll be easy." "But what if my ID isn't good enough?" he hissed. "Frohike will be mortally insulted that you doubted his work," Scully chuckled. "It'll be fine, Nick. Relax!" He followed her lead, and made it through security and up the jetway without much trouble. When they got to the plane, he headed for coach automatically. "Nick, up here. " ("Nick.") Fox called softly, using a mental echo to emphasize his name.. Nick turned and was surprised to see Mulder and Scully settling into the larger seats forward. "Wow. First class?" Mulder shrugged and grinned at him. "I splurged. Pick a seat. I bought the row." "You're going to destroy your reputation as a skinflint," Scully teased him. Chuckling, they settled down. It seemed like a long flight because they all found it impossible to rest; whenever one started to relax, someone else's nervousness would batter their shields aside and shatter their peace. By the time the plane landed in DC it was all they could do to stumble as far as the cab stand and get a taxi to Scully's apartment. Once there they all took showers to wash off the stink of re-processed air and crashed: Mulder and Scully in her bed and Lermontov on the other side of the bathroom in the guest room. They were all too tired to do anything but sleep. Late the next morning, after a sparse breakfast of the last of the frozen waffles --Scully had been gone for some time, and her refrigerator was harboring little more than the semi-sentient life-forms that had evolved from her leftovers-- Mulder announced that he wanted to go to his apartment. Scully frowned at him. "Why?" "Fish?" he cocked his head to one side. She spread her hands helplessly. "They were alive when I left for Seacouver. I can't promise anything; it's been weeks. I don't know if the guys remembered to feed them after I left or not. I asked them to, but then they came out to Seacouver, so it's been a while." "Let's go see. Besides..." He looked away, then, and she found herself straining to understand what he was feeling. "What?" She had to ask; he was shielding. "I... I want... I need to go home, Scully." He still would not look at her; he did not want to hurt her feelings, but, for the first time in a long time, he felt uncomfortable and awkward in her pastel and feminine apartment. She walked over and hugged him. "Don't be ashamed of that, Mulder. I understand. Let's go." =-=-=-=-= Scully used her key to unlock Mulder's apartment door, but stood aside to let him actually open it and go inside first. He walked into the middle of the room, and then stood still, just appreciating that he was home. Then he turned to the aquarium. The lights were off; that was correct. He had taught Scully to leave the lights off; they just encouraged algae to grow and cloud the water. He reached up to the switch and turned on the light. Then he grinned. "All fine, Scully." He retrieved the fish food and began to feed them tiny pinches, watching how eagerly they surfaced for it. "The guys must have remembered them." "Good." She sat down on the couch and put her feet up on his coffee table, content to watch him settle down as he reestablished his connection with his home. He watched the fish eat for a while, and then wandered aimlessly from the living room to the bedroom, back through the living room to the foyer, then into the kitchen, and, eventually, back to the living room. Lermontov was hovering near the door, leaning against the wall, hand in his pocket, trying to disguise how uncomfortable he felt. The apartment was disturbingly familiar, yet unfamiliar at the same time. Mulder finally came back to him, hugged him. "What's buggin' you, Nick?" Lermontov shrugged. "Deja vu, I guess. Have I been here before?" Mulder grinned. "Several times. I have to admit, you would usually break in when I was out and I'd find you here when I get home." Lermontov grinned wanly. "I wish I remembered this stuff..." Mulder's smile vanished. "No. Don't even think about that, Nick. I don't want to lose you again." Lermontov leaned forward and hugged Mulder again. "I'm okay. Really." "You're sure?" "I'm sure." Scully stretched luxuriously, and sighed. "Are you done communing with the fish, Mulder? I'm hungry." "Hungry...?" He turned to look at her. "Now *that* I can fix." Instead of heading for the kitchen, he went to his desk, and picked up the phone. He checked for a dial tone, grinned at her, and dialed. "Joanne?" he said when the call was picked up, "Mulder." He had to wait again. "Yeah, I missed you, too," he said with a fond tone. "Yes, I'm back, now." Scully, listening, felt herself getting a little angry: he was flirting with another woman right in front of her! She was tempted to use their bond to castigate him for that, but she was afraid to try it and fail. She was very uncomfortable with this entire situation. When Mulder started talking, again, she focused on his words and tone. "Is the kitchen open? I haven't had any real food in months. Send me dinner for four with all the extras, will you? You know what I like... No, I'm not going to eat it all myself! I've got company. Okay; how long? Thanks." He hung up the phone and turned to find Scully and Lermontov both staring at him. He spread his hands helplessly. "I ordered dinner. What...?" Scully stared at him for a moment, and then relented; there was no guile in him. "All right. Thanks. What did you order?" "It'll be a surprise," he shrugged. "Joanne's a CIA-trained chef; everything's always good." Scully grinned at him then. "I always thought they named it the Culinary Institute of America just so they could use that acronym." Both men joined her in laughter. =-=-=-=-= While they were waiting, Mulder started going through the mountain of mail that had accumulated during his absence. Even though his bills were on auto-pay, there was a substantial amount he had to handle himself. He noticed that the expected issues of Celebrity Skin were missing and figured that Frohike had appropriated them for his collection. Mulder shrugged. It did not matter anymore. Now that he had Scully, he did not need the two dimensional stimulation. He mentally reminded himself to change the subscriptions for *those magazines* over to Frohike and to pack-up *those* videos. He would not be needing them any more. Quickly sorting out magazines and junk mail, he was left with a small pile that consisted of his bank and financial statements and several letters with European postmarks. Opening the earliest post-marked one first, he read the contents quickly and grunted at the news it contained. He quickly read the remaining messages. "Here's two good things that happened while I was gone." he told Scully, "My Grandfather Johannes had a stroke and died three months later. Soon after he had the stroke my Cousin Connie managed to kill himself driving while stupid. There is a God, after all." "That's good news?" Scully asked, somewhat shocked at Mulder's cavalier attitude towards his family. "Yeah. Johannes was a wretched old bastard. He pretty much ignored me after I entered the Academy; it simply was not appropriate for a member of the deKuiper family to be a policeman, even one not carrying the family name. He thought I should have joined the family business." "What business is that?" "You name it, they're into it. Mostly banking and finance. But they've got their fingers in a lot of pies. They even have their own Formula One racing team. My cousin Constantijn didn't ever do much of anything that involved work... but then, he was The Heir. His younger brother Vos is a virologist at Stanford. He's about the only member of that branch of the family that's worth a damn." "You know, I never knew you had cousins, Mulder. You never mentioned these people before." "It's not like I ever associated that much with them," he shrugged. "When I was at Oxford, I visited the family castle couple of times: just after I got to Oxford I attended Vos's First Communion and once, a couple of years later, I was invited for Christmas. The place is terribly feudal; dozens of servants to take care of four people: my grandparents, Vos and Connie. Their parents died in a car crash when Vos was two. Vos was a cute kid, and it was funny, he reminded me a lot of myself at that age but he was pretty much kept in the background. Even then, though, Connie was a prick. He was sent away to military school not long after because he raped one of the maids, then, when she turned up pregnant, he beat her a bit too publically. Nobody was sorry to see him gone." "What happened to the maid?" "She miscarried and was paid off. Actually, I tried to introduce you to Vos once. I invited you to come to Vos's graduation from Stanford with Mom and me but you declined." "Mulder, that was years ago, we'd only just been assigned as partners!" Scully reminded him indignantly. Mulder grinned wanly. "This means that Grandfather's worst nightmare has come to pass; I'm the heir presumptive. There's never been any news that Vos had married or had any children." "Well, I hope Vos marries soon, has lots of kids, and lives a good long time," Scully replied. "Amen," Mulder agreed, then grinned at her. "At least now I'll have someone to attend the family functions with me. How many cousins do you have?" "Between the Scullys and the O'Briens there have to be something like forty kids just in my generation, plus there are several second cousins from the older first cousins." "Forty?!" Lermontov, listening, was shocked. "Actually, if you count the second cousins, it's probably closer to sixty. My Aunt Olive alone has nine kids from her first marriage and three from her second. Granted there were a couple of sets of twins in there and the three from her second marriage were a set of triplets. She had six grandkids last I heard." "Go forth and multiply, I guess!" Mulder chuckled. "Dad was an only child and Mom only had the one brother, Vos's dad. Vos and I are it for the deKuiper side. That side of the family has pretty much always run to small families. I sometimes wondered if it was something that the elders plotted to keep the money close." Mulder grinned at the thought of this sort of plotting down through the centuries. "There must be some third or fourth cousins I don't know about, though." "Tell me more about Vos," Scully asked. "Well, for one thing, we're both named Fox; Vos is the Dutch version. It's a family name. He's ten years younger than me and was brought up with all the privileges that the deKuiper wealth can bring. When he turned fifteen he informed Johannes that he refused to be a drain on society and that he was going to school. Up till then he'd been home-tutored like a Hapsburg prince. They sent him to a Swiss boarding school that he picked himself, for its high academic standards. He got a PhD in Biochemistry from The Sorbonne in '91 and second one in Virology from Stanford in '93. "Since then, he's been working on a contract with the World Health Organization to find economically feasible ways to immunize the Third World against the endemics that make life so hard: Dengue fever, Marburg, ebola, HIV and malaria. Last I heard, Grandfather was still harassing him about working for the UN when he could have been working for one of the family's pharmaceutical companies and making the family money. "Vos pretty much told him where to go. I think, secretly, that Vos was trying to get himself disinherited, though I seriously doubt Grandfather would have ever done that, especially considering that would have made me next in line." There was a knock on the door and Mulder got up to answer it. To Scully's surprise, he actually looked through the peephole before he opened it. Scully and Lermontov saw him smile and exchange a few pleasantries with the delivery guy. Then he accepted two large carrier bags emblazoned with a multicolored "Enjoyment from Joanne!" logo, and came back inside, smacking the door with his hip to close it. "Dinner time!" Tantalizing odors drifted across the apartment as he headed for the kitchen, drawing his bond-mates after him. "Sit down and I'll serve," he instructed, setting the bags on the counter and beginning to unload them. "C'mon, Mulder; it smells wonderful; what is it?" "Not telling. I want you to eat it, first." "That's not fair," Lermontov growled. "What if it's something nasty...?" Mulder stopped and turned to look at his bond-sib. "Nick. Would I feed you offal?" "Even some vegetarian stuff is pretty awful," Nick grumbled. "This is all vegetarian," Mulder went back to opening plastic containers and lining them up on the counter. "Except this one; this is my favorite fish and spinach rolls. But I'll share." He took down three plates and spooned up three meals with a taste from each of the many containers. He handed one to Scully and one to Lermontov, picked up the third and sat down with them. Scully stared at the assortment of oddnesses on her plate. "All right: who are you and what have you done with my partner? Should I start looking for pods?" Mulder frowned. "I don't know what you mean." "I have known you for what... eight years, Mulder. I have never seen you voluntarily eat any vegetable unless it was buried under gravy or cheese or, preferably, both. You have subsisted on pizza, chicken-fried steak and Western omelets with grits and sausage gravy. What's going on?" Mulder chuckled. "Scully, you're a doctor. You know very well that if that was all I ever ate, I'd weigh three hundred pounds, my cholesterol level would be through the roof and I'd be working wiretap in White Collar Crime, having long since lost my field status due to ill health." "And this is how you've compensated?" she asked dubiously, "with fried seaweed and tofu?" "And arame, mochi, udon, nori, lentils, tempeh, natto, and wasabi," was his answer. "It really is good, Scully, though I can't live on it all the time." "The protein count is too low?" she speculated. He nodded. "Not enough energy to fuel running after bad guys or dodging UFOs," he agreed. "But plenty for paper pushing and meetings. So when we're here and I'm alone I eat macrobiotic. I discovered this place soon after I moved in... it was the closest restaurant. I almost walked out of the place when I saw the menu, but Joanne convinced me that she could find something I'd be willing to eat," "You always do things by extremes, Mulder." Nick shuddered theatrically. "Someone once defined tofu as sixteen hundred soybeans beaten beyond all recognition." Mulder and Scully chuckled. "I've had tofu lots of ways," Scully admitted, "even ice cream. It can be disguised and it absorbs the flavor of whatever it's cooked with." "Roast beef and gravy?" Nick said hopefully. Mulder grinned and gestured toward Lermontov's plate. "Try the udon. I had to be coaxed, too; this was the dish that Joanne convinced me with." "What's udon?" Lermontov asked curiously. "Whole wheat noodles. No vegetables you won't recognize, and enough ginger and hot pepper sauce to please any man." Lermontov picked up his spoon and maneuvered a forkful of the indicated thick pasta and a few bits of chopped onions and sweet peppers. He sniffed it warily, "C'mon, Nick. It's great stuff." Lermontov took the entire forkful at once. His eyes widened as he chewed and swallowed quickly. "Good?" Mulder prodded. "Hot!" Lermontov gasped, getting up and going to the sink. "Wimp." Lermontov drank down an entire glass of water, then turned. "Damn, Fox, you're insane! How can you eat that?! It's like swallowing lumpy napalm! And of course, we don't have any milk or anything to cut it!" "You're a wimp," Mulder asserted again but handed him a piece of the flat bread that Joanne had included with the meal. "Mulder," Scully's tone was reproving. "I think that's hotter than I'd prefer, too." "That's fine," Mulder was still cheerful. "I'll eat the udon. You guys can eat the other stuff. Nothing else is as hot as this." Scully and Lermontov picked their way through the many dishes, each finding enough that they liked to make a full meal. Scully tasted the udon in ginger sauce and pronounced it far too hot to use as anything but a palette cleanser, but she liked the arame and sunflower seeds, and Nick pronounced the lentil stew with vegetables mostly edible. The meal finished and the leftovers stowed away in the refrigerator, Mulder found himself wandering over to stare at the aquarium, still disturbed by how alien he felt in his own home. The goldfish began to rise to the surface, ever hopeful that they would be fed again. Absently he dropped a little more into the tank, talking to them. "Hey, Scully, don't be a pig..." "I beg your pardon?" she asked. She had just been debating whether she should put the last slice of the ginger-tofu cheesecake into the refrigerator for later or finish it off now. He flinched; he had not realized he was speaking out loud. "I wasn't talking to you." "I distinctly heard my name." He turned away again and mumbled: "I was talking to the fish." Lermontov chuckled. "You named your fish?! That's hard up, Fox. Really hard up." Mulder refused to be harassed. "That's Skinner," he pointed to a big silver fish with huge sacs of fluid bobbing underneath each upward-looking eye. "The black one is Cancerman. The little red ryukin with the long fins is Scully. That catfish is Alex." Lermontov stared at him. Even after all the wrong done to him by Alex Krycek, Mulder had named one of his fish Alex...?! Nick started to choke up, and Mulder slid an arm around him. They leaned on one another until Lermontov could get control of himself. "Remember, though, catfish are scum-sucking bottom-feeders," Mulder told him with a grin as he tightened his arm around his bondmate. Scully, having finally decided to leave the cheesecake as a midnight snack, came back out. She took in their shared calm the bond between the three of them felt as smooth and sweet as freshly-pulled taffy. She smiled indulgently and squeezed into the hug. ("Me, too...") Mulder grinned at Lermontov, then let go of him to enfold Scully in a firm embrace that led, inevitably, to a deep and very intense kiss. Scully closed her eyes and abandoned herself to his touch. Mulder's mind entwined with hers, and his lust fueled her desire. Hands helped her undress, and she helped him out of those snug jeans. His hands and then his mouth were on her breasts; she threw her head back and panted, pushing her breast deeper into his mouth. They maneuvered awkwardly as he sat down on the couch and she straddled his lap. He held her as she lowered herself, and she moaned ecstatically as he filled her. She kept her eyes closed, concentrating on the physical sensations and the mental counterpoint. She was whimpering from the sheer overload and began moving against him. He held her tightly, his mouth was hot on her breasts and then he was kissing her... She could not sort out how she felt, or what she was feeling, so she just let it wash over her. She never noticed when Mulder rolled her off the couch and pinned her on the floor. She could not feel the carpet beneath her; she was being cradled in a warm and loving embrace, and her climax caught her by surprise. She clutched at him desperately as her body exploded in ecstasy. Mulder waited her out and then went for his own, and all was accomplished without any words or coherent thoughts. Scully came again when he did, and they relaxed in one another's arms. Gentle fingers brushed the sweat-dampened hair away from her mouth and kissed her lightly on the temple. She smiled absently, stroking Mulder's hair back tiredly. His head was pillowed on her breast, his ragged breath hot on her belly. She frowned, puzzled. (*How did he do that?*) She opened her eyes and found that she was lying in Nick's gentle grasp, while Mulder was still lying on top of her. "What's th !" But the enervation of her own post-coital bliss, entwined with Mulder's, kept her from actually moving. "Shh... it's all right, Dana," Nick whispered. "I love you, too... Shh... You're still his... I love Fox, too..." Mulder gathered himself, got up onto all fours and bent to kiss her. ("Beloved.") She sat up away from Nick's hold, mortification setting in. She grabbed at the afghan on the couch and wrapped herself in it. ("Dana?") She shivered and looked up at Mulder, needing succor. What she saw in his eyes was puzzlement. He reached for her, and as Mulder took her weight, Lermontov scooted backward and away. He got up and disappeared into the bathroom. "What's the matter?" Mulder asked her, distressed because she obviously was. She shivered again. "I... I'm committed to you. But he was fondling me, I think... There were a few times when I thought I was dreaming about extra hands..." "...and you enjoyed it," he reminded her calmly. "Are you freaked by your reaction or my lack of one?" "I... I... I never..." "I know," he said gently. "But Nick isn't a stranger, and he can't hurt you or me: it would kill him. There can't be jealousy within the bondmate circle; we are all parts of a single organism." "I will not share you!" she flared at him. "I can't!" He nodded slowly. "And you're hurt that I'm willing to share you that much with Nick?" "I thought you loved me," she snarled, substituting anger for what she was really feeling. "I love you more than living, Dana. You know that." "Then how could you let him do that to me?!" "You liked it. And we could feel what he did; he could feel what we did. It wouldn't have mattered if he'd gone outside to wait he'd've still felt it. He's part of the bond we share. As long as we're all alive, he'll be able to tell when we make love." Scully stared at him in absolute horror. She groped for words, but her emotions were so tangled up she could not articulate any of them. Mulder was watching her, trying to judge how she was dealing with this issue, which should have come up earlier, when searing pain suddenly lanced up his arm from wrist to elbow. Scully stared at him; she had felt the pain and shock from him. Then realization flared, and Mulder wheeled to dash to the bathroom. The door was locked. "Nickie! Dammit " Mulder backed up and hit the door with the heel of his foot beside the knob. The door popped open easily. Mulder froze, immobilized by all the blood. Scully, right behind him, darted around her and pulled the razor blade out of Nickie's mouth, not caring when it cut her fingers. Nickie stared at her, confused. "What are you doing? I thought you'd be happy to be rid of me..." The despair radiating off of him was painful, and she had to fight it back. "Just because I don't want to have sex with you doesn't mean I hate you or want you dead!" she snapped impatiently. Her hands were busy: one hand gripped him tightly above the cut to impede the flow of blood from Nick's slashed wrist, and the other using a towel, blotting up the blood so she could evaluate the wound. "How bad is it?" Mulder asked. He wanted to hug Nick, to reassure him, but he was afraid of how Scully would react. "Bad enough," Scully growled. "Mulder, get me the first aid kit, would you?" He complied, reaching into the linen cupboard, and in a few minutes Scully had cleaned, stitched up and bandaged the eight-inch cut. The bleeding had stopped, and she had found some Percocet tabs in a sample envelope in one of the compartments, and encouraged Lermontov to take one. Once he was settled comfortably on the couch, with Scully at the other end, her feet tucked up underneath her, Mulder approached, dropped gracefully to the floor and sat cross-legged facing them both. "All right," he started, "let's get to the bottom of this. Correct me if I'm wrong anywhere in this summation, all right? Both of you?" He waited until they both nodded, and only then went on. "Okay. We're in a three-way mental and emotional bond that includes telepathy between you and me, Scully, and empathy between all three of us. You, Scully, are having some trouble adapting to it because you're new at this sort of relationship. Nick and I remember growing up with it; you didn't get that early acclimatization. So when you and I were making love, neither of us initially had a problem with Nick being there. Sidebar: why didn't you object when we started, Scully? You can't deny that you knew he was there." Scully blushed. "I forgot. He feels like you in my head. I still can't look at the memory of that... encounter... without wondering which hands were his and whether I was kissing you or him." "If you couldn't tell the difference, why does it make such an important difference to you?" Nick asked quietly, sadly. Lermontov's distress was still undermining his bondmates' calm. Mulder swallowed hard. "Two reasons, I think. One is that she's still new at this so maybe we should cut her a break on this one..." Nick nodded slowly. Scully was staring blindly out the window. "Second," Mulder went on, "she's Catholic, and that means one man to one woman, period, mutually exclusive. And she was brought up to believe that any third party participation is a sin." She shuddered. Nick looked confused. "By their precepts your current relationship is sinful you're not married. How is me being there so much more heinous?" "Because it's depraved behavior!" she snarled. "Dana, I love you," Nick said helplessly. She choked and started to cry. "I...I know you do. And Mulder loves you. But I've always been taught, and always believed, that sex is appropriate only within a committed relationship between one man and one woman. I can't fit you into that, Nick. I can't." "Dana. Dana, stop. We aren't angry..." She forced herself to stop, sniffling and wiping away her tears with the heels of her hands. Nick was on the brink of tears; Mulder's face was wet. "Dana, you don't have to have sex with him." "You said he'd know whenever we have sex," she snapped. Mulder and Lermontov both nodded. "So when you find Samantha, she gets to share, too? That's sick, Mulder!" He felt her anger as an ache blossoming in his chest, but he hid it from her. His vulnerability would just muddy the waters of this conversation. "We never had to really deal with that issue," Nick admitted quietly. "Sam and Kyle disappeared too soon." "Annie and I talked about it," Mulder volunteered, his eyes focused on something they could not see. "We weren't sexually active as teens; what could be more intimate than telepathy? But we rarely even experimented with physical affection, because whenever we did, you and Molly felt it. We were thirteen the first time we kissed..." His voice trailed away. Nick shuddered at the memory. "Molly and I were ten-and-a-half," he recalled. "When Molly's mom found us in a clinch, kissing so intensely we hadn't heard her come in, she lost it, big time." Scully frowned. "What did she do?" Scully asked, curious. "She beat the crap out of both of us," Nick said quietly. "And that sure ruined it for Annie and me," Mulder nodded. "It was years before we were willing to risk it happening again." "Did the people running the experiments ever figure it out?" Scully wanted to know. Mulder and Lermontov exchanged grim expressions. "They knew. The next set of tests separated us into various arrangements of two-and-two and then did... things... to one pair while monitoring the others. They wanted a grasp of how connected we all are." Scully shuddered; she could well imagine what had happened to the children then. "So you and I will never have a moment's real privacy," she concluded. "And Nick is doomed to a solitary life or to using some ordinary woman like a sex doll? This is AWFUL!" She was crying again. Nick went to her, then, and knelt in front of her. "Dana, no. Don't feel like that. This isn't all bad. When I feel your love through the bond, it just reminds me that I'm NOT alone anymore, that both of you are here for me. And if Mulder gets himself killed, you won't be alone; you'll still have me. I can be your little brother." "I have a little brother," she growled, trying to regain her composure. "Besides, if you're always there, hearing, commenting, making snarky remarks, you're the ultimate Big Brother." Even Mulder chuckled at that. The tension was beginning to ease. "You have a big brother, too," he pointed out. "And I don't think he's going to want to adopt my bondmate." "I don't think I'll consult him," Scully grinned wickedly. Then she looked around, confused. "What just happened? How did we just make everything all right? Why is everything suddenly all okay." "I think, while we talk, the bond flexs itself, reshaping itself around us, around you," Mulder said slowly. "When we were kids, there were fights, disputes, disagreements, spats... They never lasted more than an hour or so. The bond protects itself, and all of us, by keeping us comfortable and content with one another." Scully swallowed hard. "Surely not..." Mulder spread his hands helplessly. "I don't know how else to express it. Can you come up with something better?" "Not on the spur of the moment," she admitted. Her attention went inward for a moment as she tried to assess the mechanism. With a shudder, she had to stop. "It feels so weird to remember what I was so very upset about, and why, and to still understand the intellectual argument, with an absolute absence of that emotion and disgust." Mulder and Lermontov both nodded. "When I woke up in the lab this last time, I knew Nick was somewhere around, because I could feel him. But when I turned my head and saw Alex Krycek where Nick was saying he was, the dichotomy was so emotional it damn near shut me down completely. But he needed me functional, and after a few minutes, all the confusion and fear were gone." "So, you're telling me that whenever we argue about something, the bond will find a meeting point for us." "That's what it seems like," Lermontov answered. "In the past, how many times were you absolutely blazing mad at Mulder, only to forgive him in just about the next breath?" "Too many times to count. I could never figure out why I did that. I'd be pissed off at him for ditching me or something, but the next day, he'd offer pizza and a movie and I'd accept as if there had never been anything wrong." "Even then, before Anni died, the bond was flexing to keep the two of you together." "And every time they wanted you to do something to Mulder, it wouldn't let you." "And I could never figure out why I kept helping him, even though I knew it could eventually get him or me or the both of us killed." "Look, I suggest that we go back to Scully's and get some sleep," Mulder sighed. "You've got to be hurting, and I know she's going to think up a zillion questions to ask us by morning. I'll be lucky to get any sleep with the things that will be going through her brain at warp speed." Nickie yawned and stretched, but flinched as he stressed the stitches in his arm. "Yeah, I think we can all use more sleep. It's been a very intense day on top of a very, very intense summer." They each checked around to be sure they were not leaving any property behind. Mulder bundled up his mail and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. "Mulder?" Scully spoke up from the kitchen as she packed up the leftovers to take back to her place. She was *not* going to abandon that last piece of cheese cake! He turned. "Hm?" "Why don't you pack a bag or two, so you can have some of your own clothes and toiletries?" She did not add that she understood that he would be more comfortable and feel more at home wearing his own clothes and using his own soap and shampoo. After years of travel at a moment's notice, packing was quickly and efficiently accomplished. Scully laid out a suit, shirt and tie on his bed, and went back into his closet for his garment bag. Mulder frowned at her. "Scully?" She shrugged. "You never know when you might need to look professional," she said defensively. They were all shocked when the phone rang: the sound echoed from the extension in the bedroom and the main phone with the answering machine in the living room. The answering machine was on speaker. "Fox? It's Vos. I've got to talk to you ASAP. I'm in New York at a WHO conference, but I'm not staying in the hotel. I'm at the family's place on Central Park West; I expect you're... " Mulder picked up the phone. "Vos?" "Fox!" There was audible relief in the younger man's voice. "After I heard the message on your office line, I was worried! Are you all right?" "Ninety percent, or so," he replied warily. "I'm not back to work, yet." "Thank God! I was so scared..." "Vos, what's wrong?" "I found some awful things in Grandfather's files while we were going through them. Things I need you to talk to you about and maybe investigate for me, because I'm afraid to believe that they're real." Mulder frowned, puzzled. "What kind of things, Vos?" "Clones, Fox. Human clones. Human experimentation. People being referred to as 'merchandise', for God's sake! And..." Mulder swallowed hard. "And what?" "I found this material yesterday, in Grandfather's laptop, in encrypted files. This trip to New York had been planned months ago; I presented a paper this afternoon. There was a message waiting for me when I finished the lecture. The castle in Kuipersveer exploded and burned last night. Fox, I think Grandmother Sofia is almost certainly dead; she was asleep in her rooms when we left. I don't know about any casualties among the staff. There hasn't been enough time for a real search of the ruins. Fox, it wasn't an accident; the authorities believe it was done deliberately. But clearly the perpetrators didn't want to kill me; they had to know that I wasn't there... right? That I had already left?" Vos begged, wanting some sort of reassurance. Mulder sucked in air, realizing that he had been holding his breath while Vos talked. "Get out of that apartment, Vos," he said harshly. "Take the subway to Penn Station. Get a map, plot a random route, but get to DC." "I've got a car, Fox..." "No! If it's got a GPS navigation system or Onstar you can be tracked. Take public transportation and stay in crowded places where there are lots of witnesses and if you've got one, turn off your cell phone. Oh, God, Vos, tell me you aren't alone." Mulder had visions of his naive cousin wandering the street of Manhattan alone and unprotected. "No, of course not; Ian's here." "Thank God for small favors! Look, you have to assume you're being followed and your rank might not protect you. Put Ian on the phone." Mulder listened to the rustling on the far end, and then a deeper voice spoke. "This is Ian, Mr. Mulder." "Just Mulder. I know this is going to sound paranoid, but imagine what could happen if it's engineered by people who would blow up the family home and possibly kill Grandma Sofia just to warn Vos that he should keep what he's learned quiet." "I... I'm not sure I can imagine that kind of depravity," Ian admitted, clearly shaken. "Good. Keep him in public places, Ian, and don't let anyone near him or you. Not even if it's someone from back home; actually, especially if it's someone from back home. You remember that Double-Oh-Seven style assassination that's in all the text books: ricin on the point of an umbrella?" "Yes. My instructors mentioned it as a classic." "It is. It's also forty-odd years old, Ian. The creative assassination squads are much more subtle, nowadays. Do not let anyone, and I mean anyone at all, anywhere near Vos or yourself, not even uniformed police officers. Get here as quickly as you can." "Your apartment?" "No. I'll tell you where to meet us when you call me in the morning." "I have no idea how long it will take," Ian admitted, "especially with the misdirection I'll have to invent." "Stay in touch. Use pay phones or get a pay-as-you-go phone at one of the little places, not a national chain. Pay cash and use an alias." Mulder rattled off a number from memory from one of the untraceable, untrackable phones that the Gunmen had supplied them with. "We can do that. I have quite a bit of cash on me." "Vos never thinks of it, does he?" Mulder asked with a chuckle. "Nope." "Even after all those years in California?" "Even after," Ian confirmed. "We're on the way, Mulder." "Good. We'll be waiting for your call." The line disconnected, and Mulder hung up. He turned around to find Scully and Lermontov staring at him. "Who was that?" Scully asked. Mulder sighed, scrubbing wearily at his face. "My cousin Vos deKuiper." "The one you mentioned earlier? The heir to the family fortune?" "Yes." "What did he want? Where is he?" He related the conversation to them. Scully was so shocked she could not even come up with a question. They had always suspected Mulder's father of being part of the Consortium, but to have this kind of evidence that his mother's family was also involved was horribly unsettling. They picked up all their stuff and headed for the parking lot. Mulder was the last one out, and he paused to make sure the door was locked. When he turned to walk down the corridor, he had the oddest sensation that he was walking out of an old phase of his life and into an entirely new one. ("You're only just now realizing that?") Scully's chuckle sang in his mind. ("A little slow on the uptake, aren't you?") ("I'm out of practice. I'll be better soon.") ("We're holding the elevator,") she grinned. ("Pick up your feet.") They talked long into the night, until Scully decreed that fruitless speculation was just wearing them all out. Both men chuckled but did not contest her decision. =-=-=-=-= They were all awakened the next morning by the phone. Mulder had left it on Scully's side of the bed, so she was the one who answered. "Scully." "This is Ian Chantry. May I speak to Mulder, please?" Still sleepy, she rolled over to drop the phone on his chest and got out of bed. "It's for you." Blinking his eyes into focus, Mulder fumbled the small phone. "Hello?" "Fox, it's Ian. We're on a Greyhound bus headed into DC. The last stop, I'm told, is DC Union Station." Mulder sat up and hung his bare feet off the edge of the bed. "That's good, Ian. Any problems? You guys made pretty good time." He walked into the bathroom where Scully was taking a shower. He hoped it would mask their conversation if there were any bugs in the apartment. "Would have made better time if we hadn't come via Silver Spring, Maryland. We had to spend half the night in the bus station there because we took the first bus out of New York in your direction." Ian sighed. "We just left Silver Spring and I'm told it's about two hours to the DC station." "Got the local, did you? Okay. Take the Metro red line to the Dupont Circle Station when you get to DC. Get off and walk to the Marriot Residence Inn, it's right on the circle, you can't miss it. Call me when you get there. Grab a cab from the cab stand but not the first one; wait for the second or third one. Do *not* get one off the street and do *not* call for one. Then come straight here. The address is apt 35, 1419 Colony Road, Georgetown." "Will do. Thanks, Mulder." "You're welcome." They stumbled quickly through their morning routines, finding a way to manage showers, getting dressed, and tending to injuries. While Mulder was deciding what to wear, Sully checked her kitchen and realized that they had forgotten to go grocery shopping. "I guess we're going out for breakfast. We finished all the leftovers for dinner last night." Mulder came out of the bedroom pulling an old grey tee shirt down over his head, mussing his still-damp hair. "It'll have to be fast. Vos and Ian should be here in a couple of hours." "There's nothing to eat," she repeated. "We'll need to go grocery shopping." The three of them left the apartment and took the stairs. Once outside, they continued their conversation. "I anticipate hearing from Vos and Ian any time after eleven; if they're being careful, they should be here in about three hours. But if we are going to find out what Vos learned, we're going to need privacy. I was thinking of holing up here while we debrief him." "And we need to get the Gunmen over here to sweep the place. It's been empty too long." Lermontov cocked his head to one side. "Are they even back yet?" he wondered. "They were driving that bucket of bolts..." "They left two weeks ahead of us; unless they detoured down to Area 51 or Roswell, I imagine they're home." Mulder pulled out the phone and dialed from memory. "Frohike?" "Yepper. What's up, Mulder?" "We need Scully's place swept. We're going to be meeting with my cousin and he's got information for us." Frohike laughed. "You're entertaining Vos deKuiper? Can you afford that?" "I'm his heir... apparently," Mulder drawled with a slight grin in his voice. He never could resist a good pun, or a bad one for that matter. He did not even blink that Frohike knew who his cousin was. "But he's found some dirt on our grandfather: do the words 'human cloning' and 'merchandise' ring a bell with you?" Frohike gasped. "You're not saying..." "I'm not saying anything. He's bringing his company database and other information, which, I anticipate, will tell us things we've wanted to know for a long time. You in?" "Absolutely! With that kind of information and the stuff we already have, it'll make it easier to figure out what exactly is going on." "Don't rush too hard; we've got to go grocery shopping. Scully's fridge and pantry are tapped out, and the three of us are here now." "Tell you what," Frohike's voice turned thoughtful. "I'll be coming alone; Langly's at a Worlds of Warcraft tournament in Hagerstown and Byers is at the day spa. I'll cook so you guys can talk. I'll eavesdrop." "A day spa?!" Mulder was incredulous. "Why?" "His monthly trim, hot stone massage, manicure and pedicure," Frohike answered. "He gets back spasms when he works at a keyboard for long, and you know how highly he values good grooming..." "Okayyy..." Frohike chuckled. "I've told him that as long as he doesn't come back with ghetto claws I don't care what he does on his own time." Mulder laughed. "He wouldn't do that; you can't type with fingernails like that." "I suppose not." "So, what can you cook?" "Huevos rancheros work for you?" "Sure. You bringing your own supplies?" "Yeah. And don't worry if you aren't there when I arrive; I can get inside." "I am *so* not informing Scully of that! We're on our way to breakfast, now. See you soon, Fro'. Thanks." "No problema." =-=-=-=-= Since they were having eggs for lunch, Mulder directed Scully to a diner a couple of streets away where they indulged themselves with Belgian waffles slathered with whipped cream and fruit-filled crepes. Grocery shopping afterward did not take long because Scully was, as usual, extremely organized. The shopping list she had made during breakfast was arranged to follow the aisles of the local Safeway, and they were all finished and in line for the cashier in less than half an hour. She even had her coupons with her which made Mulder grin. In less than two hours from when they left for breakfast they were home. Scully was pleased to realize that they had made it back to the house before Frohike had arrived and let himself in. It wasn't that she didn't trust the man, but the idea of him wandering through her home while she wasn't there was a bit unnerving. ("You know he has,") Mulder pointed out from her pantry, where he was putting the frozen food away in her small freezer. ("They've been sweeping your apartment regularly for years now.") She sighed. ("And I'm glad they do. I just don't like the idea that people were in my home. If I don't see evidence that they were in the apartment, I can ignore it.") He slipped up behind her and hugged her. "I know." She turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck so she could kiss him. Nick leaned out of the kitchen. "Break it up, you two. That disgusting bucket-of-bolts van just rattled its way into the parking lot." The bondmates let go of one another. "Here we go," Scully sighed. It was only a few minutes later when there was a polite knock on the door. Scully let him in herself. "Come in, Frohike. It's so nice of you to help out like this," Scully told him when she opened the door for him." He grinned at her. "And I clean up, too. I won't leave you a kitchen disaster." "I didn't think you would," she smiled back. "I've seen how clean you keep yours." He came inside with three boxes on a hand truck behind him. "What've you got, Fro'?" Mulder asked, eyeing the boxes. "All kinds of cool toys... and all the ingredients I need for huevos rancheros for ten. And clean cell phones for all of you." Nick frowned. "The four of us, plus Vos and Ian, is only six." Frohike showed his teeth. "You forget, Nick, I've seen you eat. Besides, everyone always wants seconds of my huevos rancheros!" Mulder laughed and went to sprawl on the couch. The tension they had been experiencing since he had answered Vos's phone call, plus the shopping expedition, had exhausted him. His plan was to laze around until his cousin arrived, but he fell asleep before he managed to toe off both shoes. Scully was watching, and when his presence in her mind sank down into real sleep, she went to him, pulled off his other shoe, and covered him with the afghan that lay across the back of the couch. Then she went to Frohike, busy in the kitchen. "Fro'?" "Yeah?" "Mulder's asleep; let's let him sleep till his cousin gets here. Please?" Frohike glanced into the other room and lowered his voice. "Will do, Scully." He looked around a little. "Where'd Nick go?" "He's in the guest room; he's asleep, too." "So, we'll keep it quiet till the Prince shows up." Scully frowned at him. "'Prince'?" Frohike shrugged as he ran the radio sensor along her baseboards. "As good as," was his answer. "Born into money beyond the dreams of avarice, home-schooled by a governess and tutors until he was sent to a Swiss boarding school. University studies at The Sorbonne and more graduate work at Stanford. He's been doing post-doctoral research there for the World Health Organization since he graduated. The deKuiper family has been wealthy for centuries; they're like the Rothschilds, Scully, just not as high-profile." She glanced at her partner, sprawled in innocent elegance on her couch. "And apparently part of the Consortium," she sighed, "though we don't know how deeply they're involved." "Vos deKuiper is a very well-respected virologist, Scully," Frohike said very quietly. "He's been doing research on retroviruses, lately; his PhD work at Stanford was on a vaccine for dengue fever that is being tested; they anticipate commercial release in three to five years." "Wow." "Yeah." Frohike's voice was cool. Scully froze, and when Frohike looked up she was staring at him. "What if he already is?" "Is what?" "A Consortium researcher?" Frohike shivered. "We won't know till he gets here. And maybe not then." =-=-=-=-= Frohike finished sweeping the house for surveillance equipment, surprisingly finding none, put his electronics away and started chopping vegetables for the ranchero sauce. When Scully offered to help he turned her down. "I'm here to do this, Scully. Just relax." She could not stay still, though, so she occupied herself with setting the table and going back into her linen closet for some silk flowers for a centerpiece. She was fussing over them when there was a soft knock on the door. Frohike turned from the stove to watch. She paused and glanced at him, then gestured toward the guest room door. Frohike nodded and went to awaken Lermontov. She went to Mulder and shook him lightly. "Mulder, wake up." He awoke slowly; as he blinked at her, there was another knock on the door. ("If that's your cousin, only you can recognize him,") she whispered in his mind. Nick emerged from the spare room, frowning and rubbing his temples. Mulder swung his feet to the floor and stood up. It was only a few steps to the door; he checked through the peephole and saw a young man who resembled his own younger self, but with sun-bleached hair much longer than FBI regulations would allow. There was another man behind him, but Mulder could only see his back. That had to be Ian, the bodyguard. Mulder had seen Ian from a distance a few times but until last night, they had never actually spoken. On the occasions when Vos had had a layover in DC and they had met for dinner, Ian had not joined them, but had stood guard, several tables away instead. It had been an odd experience. Mulder reached for the doorknob and opened it. "Vos..." "Fox!" There was clear relief in his cousin's voice. "It's really good to see you!" "C'mon in. You, too, Ian; you can guard him from inside." "I figured," came the low quiet voice he remembered from the phone call the night before. But when the young man turned, Mulder gasped in shock and backed up involuntarily. Ian followed him inside, shut the door and locked it. When he turned to face the room he saw four people staring at him, clearly shocked. He was concentrating on scanning the room as the people were far enough away from Vos for him to be comfortable with where everyone was. "What? Did I forget to put on pants this morning?" It was Vos who spoke first. "Fox? Is your friend another clone?" he asked, polite out of ingrained training, though his voice was shaking badly. Scully gasped in sudden understanding. Though blond, Ian look like the young Alex Krycek who had been assigned as Mulder's partner all those years ago. "Oh, my God..." Mulder watched how Ian and Nick stared at one another, and sent out a tendril of inquiry. He heard Nick respond... and heard an echo that was not quite identical. "Nick, if he's a clone, he's a clone of you. I can feel him and he feels just like you." Vos took a step back toward his bodyguard. "What are you talking about?" Mulder was nodding. "C'mon in, sit down, relax. You came to talk; we're going to talk... and listen." Warily, their guests found seats at the dining table. Ian was clearly uneasy sitting as an equal with Vos and his cousin. Nick walked around to sit next to him. Mulder compared them, side by side, and shook his head in amazement. "Well, Nick, it looks like you've got a little brother, too." "Sure looks that way, doesn't it?" Ian looked at the man sitting beside him, automatically assessing the threat. "The papers we found said that the original DNA came from a torture victim." Ian's eyes flicked down to Nick's empty sleeve. Nick snorted. "Yeah, well, they got that right." Vos shivered, sitting hunched in his chair, his head in his hands. "This is all such a nightmare..." "Why don't you tell us what you found and how you found it, Vos?" Mulder asked quietly. Vos forced himself to sit up straight and square his shoulders. "Ian found it, really, on Grandfather's computer. We called you, Fox," he began, "because what we'd found was so horrifying I was afraid to seek corroboration outside the family." "Horrifying how?" "The notes talk of experimentation on unwilling human test subjects, Fox. Cloning experiments among others, and not all the others were as successful as the cloning was. We didn't want to believe it." Mulder scrubbed at his face. "It's true," he said harshly. "We don't know enough about their techniques to replicate it or explain, but I've met at least four other clones: the Curts, the Gregors, who were all abortion providers. Guess what they did with their medical waste?" Ian shivered. "And they cloned my sister Samantha twice: once as an adult and once in child-form, as a mute drone." Ian stared at him, shocked. "What...?" The word was voiceless, his horror all the more plain because of it. "What is going on?" Vos asked. "Alien invasion," Mulder answered starkly. Vos looked as if he was going to faint. =-=-=-=-= Frohike served lunch to a very subdued group and took his place at the table along with the others. They spoke for several hours, most of the conversation consisting of Mulder filling Vos and Ian in on what he knew of what was going on. Finally, Scully stood up. "Look, it's getting late. I take it we're all staying here tonight? If so, Mulder can you get out the air beds for Vos and Ian." "If we're staying here, I'll take the couch. Just in case," Ian commented. "We should really get a hotel room," Vos answered, though weariness was evident in his voice. "I don't want to put you out, Miss Scully." "Dana." "No, I think we should all stay together tonight until we can find someplace safe for the two of you to stay. What they did to the castle was a warning, and now that you've contacted me, I'm sure it's not safe for you, Vos," Mulder commented. "But from what we've read so far, the deKuipers have been funding them for years. It was the only way you were protected, Fox. I think that's why they dared to take you... Grandfather had the stroke several months ago and Connie took over the management of the Group. The stroke was the day before you were kidnapped. Connie, idiot that he was, managed to kill himself a couple weeks after that. Then Grandfather died about six weeks later." "You know, Fox," Nickie said thoughtfully, "that just about coincides with when Fowley played that tape for you." "So all along it hasn't been Cancerman protecting me like he claims, but Grandfather's money." "That seems likely. Even though he didn't approve of what you did, Fox, Grandfather would never let one of the male heirs suffer such indignities. That's probably why they took Samantha instead of you; I'd bet money on it." "What I'd like to do is contact whoever it is that's looking into what happened at the castle, Vos." "Why? What good can it do?" "Well, we can find out if they found Grandmother Sofie, for one thing." Vos collapsed back onto the couch and buried his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking and they could hear his sobs. "She was the only person that was ever kind to me and I haven't even thought to find out if she's dead or alive!" "Vos, they told us that she's almost certainly dead," Ian said, trying to comfort him. "You're still in shock. Cut yourself a break." "They hadn't gone through the entire castle when we talked to them. Someone might have gotten her out. If not, why was I paying all those professionals I hired?" Scully could hear the whisper of hope in his voice at that thought. Scully sat down next to the distraught man. "We'll find out. Fro, can I have one of those cells you brought?" "Is the pope Polish?" "Melvin!" Scully scolded. "I'll put the call through and one of you can talk to them... though calling them in the middle of the night is not going to win you any friends. Look, why don't you guys go out and pick up some dinner and a couple movies and I'll clean up here. "That way, we can call bright and early tomorrow morning their time and there may be someone there who can answer our questions. "And I promise, I'll stay out of your bedroom," Fro told her with a grin, forestalling the comment Scully was about to utter. Scully laughed. "Damn straight you will. And thanks for cooking and cleaning up." Everyone got ready and the door closed behind them. Frohike got busy and loaded the dishwasher. Just as he was leaning forward to figure out the controls, he heard a car screech to a halt in the parking lot followed closely by a single gun shot. "That doesn't sound good..." He ran to the window in the bathroom and gasped at what he saw, sped to the front door, pulling it shut behind him, all the while dialing 911 on his cellphone as he ran. "Officers in trouble! Two Federal Agents and three civilians in the parking lot of 1419 Colony Road, Georgetown. Send help. There are at least five armed attackers!" He hung up and pocketed the phone as soon as he was sure that an actual human had heard his message, concentrating on speed. (*I've got to get back in shape,*) he thought to himself. The scene that greeted him when he came out of the building was bad. There were no police, yet, though he could hear distant sirens. Each one of his friends was fighting with an attacker. He launched himself at the back of the goon who had engaged Ian, as he was closest and figuring if he could stop that attack then Ian could help him clean up the rest. Ian saw Frohike coming at his attacker and was prepared for the impact, rolling clear and to his feet. He did not know Frohike's intentions. What he was not prepared for was the vicious kick that the smaller man launched at the side of his target's knee. He heard the pop of the joint and winced. He was more surprised when Frohike continued the attack and reached down to snapped the man's neck without a moment's hesitation. "Hey!" Frohike ignored him, turning to go after the man who had Scully down on the ground. He was attempting to inject her with something from a hypodermic he held in his right hand. That thug had not seen Frohike take out Ian's attacker and so paid little attention to the short man running at him. When he noticed he tried to get up in time to meet the attack, but that split second's inattention gave Scully the opportunity to demonstrate her training and moved decisively to free herself of the behemoth's weight. Her assailant doubled over as she attempted to emasculate him with her bare hands, but before he could channel pain into rage and hurt her, Frohike was on his back. A knife she had not known the little man carried had materialized in his hand and he stabbed down once, precisely, into the man's neck between the first and second vertebra. The body went limp and Frohike shifted his weight to keep the body from crushing Scully. She pulled her legs out from underneath the man and automatically checked his throat for a pulse. There was none and, surprised, she glanced up at the back of the little man she had thought she knew. He had already turned to the man wrestling with Mulder. Ian got there first; he had efficiently disabled the man who had targeted Vos and had turned to assist Vos's cousin, though Vos was obviously unconscious, he knew that any of the attackers left standing were a threat to them all. Frohike turned at once and went to help Nick, who was being dragged into the back of a dark van. Frohike had almost reached them, when, suddenly the parking lot was full of flashing lights and shouting men in uniforms. Outnumbered, the man released Nick and put up his hands. Scully, who found that she needed to be with her partner, managed to refrain from desperately hugging him when she reached his side. He was on his knees, panting, and his sleeve was blood-stained. ("Are you hurt?!") He shook his head. ("I think I ripped a few stitches, that's all.") She straightened and shook back her hair. "Lieutenant Jaeger!" she called as she pulled out her ID. "Agent Scully." The familiar officer approached. "I thought I recognized the address. Are all of you okay?" Both agents nodded wearily. "Yeah... maybe," Mulder sighed. "Damn, it's been a long summer, though..." Jaeger studied Mulder, who was still on his knees. "You look like hell, Mulder. I heard that you'd escaped; I didn't expect to see you back here so soon, though." "Well, you know how managed care is these days." The Lieutenant nodded with a grim look on his face. His partner had been let go from the hospital way too soon and was now on permanent disability because of 'managed care'. "So, who are these guys?" "Not a clue. Maybe some playmates of the guys that grabbed me?" Ian interrupted, holding out the identification he had taken from the man that had attacked him. "I don't think so. The one that your friend took out first was a member of the deKuiper Group security force here in the States. Maybe someone doesn't like the idea that the 'lab rat' inherited everything." The Lieutenant looked pale. Even he had heard of the deKuiper Group. This could be an international incident and he really did not want to have to deal with that sort of paperwork. But Mulder and Scully were fellow officers and the now identified target was obviously some sort of relation. "I'll call central and have CSI come now." "Get some extra men down here, too. These guys probably have backup somewhere. And call our labs. I know how hopelessly backed up yours always are." "I'll ask the Captain for the extra men, but you know how he is." Mulder nodded. Jaeger was a good guy but his Captain was a idiot who did well on tests but lacked everything else but political connections. "These guys play dirty, very dirty. I don't suppose we could get the Captain to take care of them personally?" "Yeah, I wish." "Well, if you end up with the detail, be very careful. I'd hate to lose a good cop." "Will do. You look like you could use some doctoring. Come on." He led Mulder over to the second ambulance. While Mulder and the Lieutenant were speaking, Scully had gone to the first ambulance where Nickie was being treated. The EMT there, an acquaintance of long-standing named Mic Mulligan, had dealt with the dislocated elbow and was now checking out the cut where Nickie's head had impacted with the edge of the curb. Scully had picked up the hypodermic that her attacker had dropped. "I want to take him in to have his head X-rayed... he doesn't seem to be regaining consciousness." "This might be the reason," she suggested, showing him the syringe. "They were trying to inject us with this. I guess they succeeded with Nick and Vos. Mulder needs to be checked out, too." "He looks it. He looks like crap." "It's been a long summer, Mic. We'll all be going. I want everyone checked out," she commented. She winced as she moved her shoulder the wrong way. Yeah, she was going to be sore in the morning. "What happened, Dana?" "Mugging? Wrong place, wrong time? Possibly a retaliatory attack for something? Not a clue. We'll be trying to figure that out. How's your baby?" "She's gained ten pounds since you saw her last," he told her, pulling out a picture. "She's going to be a heartbreaker with those eyes." "Yup, looks exactly like her mom did at her age. I was amazed how alike they look when Jenny's mom pulled out her baby pictures." Their conversation was interrupted when Ian walked up, carrying an unconscious Vos. "Would you take a look at him, please?" While Scully had been talking to Mic, his partner had been checking out the attackers under the watchful eye of the two uniformed officers. None of the three who had survived the attack, except the one that had surrendered, were in any shape to cause trouble, but the Lieutenant was not taking any chances. "Put him on the gurney," Mic indicated after he shoved the gurney with Nickie on it into the ambulance. "Does it hurt anywhere?" "No. Take care of Vos, first. I'll be okay. It's just an adrenalin reaction. Things like this aren't supposed to happen to the Graf deKuiper." "Things like this shouldn't happen to anyone," Mic told him. "But they do," Scully added, placing her hand on his arm. The bond that she held with Nickie obviously extended to Ian and the man calmed slightly. He blinked at her, suddenly startled. "What did you just do?" Scully checked and saw that Mic was still busy taking Vos's blood pressure and checking his heart. "Ian, what's going on is connected to was done to Nickie and Fox. Because you're who you are, you're part of that, too." ("Ian.") she said silently, testing out the bond. "What the hell...?" He had heard her call his name but her lips never moved. "That's part of what we were trying to get you to understand at lunch. We really need to go somewhere safe to really talk." Frohike came up, having finished, at least temporarily, with the police on scene. "The other EMT wants to take Mulder back to have the stitches checked out. He's pulled more than just a few." "Fro, can you take Ian with you in Mulder's car and I'll go with Mulder. And can you get one of your cohorts to bring a second car to the hospital? We're going to need transportation after we're done with the police." "Lieutenant Jaeger said he was going to come along with us to the hospital to take our statements. He said it would be quicker and easier on all concerned." "Carl is a good guy," Scully commented. "Still, we're going to need another car once we're done." "I'll bring Ian with me in the van if he doesn't mind riding in her," Fro commented with a grin as he walked away to get the van. Scully laughed, the first real bright spot of the day as she thought about Ian's reaction to the Gunmen's van. "Ian, I know that you have been living here for years so I hope you take the transport in the spirit that it's offered." "Why do I get the feeling that I'm being set up?" "Well, you tell me," she told him as the Gunman's van pulled up along side them. "What is *that*?" Scully just grinned and motioned to the side door which Fro had come around and opened. "Your chariot awaits." Ian shook his head slowly then realized the truth that they were both at the mercy of Mulder's friends. (*And that's not really a bad place to be,*) he mused as he remembered how the little man had not hesitated to help him and the others and just how efficiently he had done it. (*There's more to all of them than meets the eye.*) =-=-=-=-= The group started to gather in the ER waiting room after being attended to. A clearly tired Scully walked up to Frohike. "Thank you. You saved us," she told him, kissing him on the forehead. He actually blushed a little. "I'm just glad I was there." "So am I. And, I have to admit, I was quite surprised to see that you were armed." "I'm always armed," he told her grimly. "Always. I haven't been without a blade since January 30, 1968." Understanding cleared the slight frown from her face. "Tet." He nodded. "Yep. When I first got to 'Nam, even though I was supposed to be a radioman, I was assigned as a tunnel rat. Do you know what that was?" "Yeah, Fro, I do." She chuckled, uncomfortable. "I feel like I should salute or something." "Don't you dare." He stared at her, equally discomfited. "But I wouldn't say no to another kiss..." Mulder's good arm dropped across her shoulders and she leaned on him a little. "This little troll bothering you?" "Mulder!" Scully scolded. "I know, Scully. We've been friends for years. I've heard his stories. You're right, he is a hero." Vos emerged from the rear of the ER clearly shaken and looking for a familiar face. He was rubbing his upper arms when he came to stand near his cousin, his shoulders hunched. "Vos? You okay?" Mulder was suddenly concerned. "Yes. I'm not hurt," Vos said quietly. "They just used a sedative. They administered the antagonist and I woke up fairly easily. Fox, that wasn't an assassination attempt. Those men wanted to abduct us. Why?" Mulder and Scully did not need to look at one another. ("How much more should we tell them?") ("Everything, but not right this second. I don't know much more he can take right now.") Mulder said calmly. ("He already knows most of it; there's no point in trying to protect him from the rest. He's part of it. He became part of it the moment he was born because his older brother was such an idiot.") He met Vos's worried gaze. "The Consortium, of course." "But why?" "Because you're talking to me," Mulder said calmly. "I've sworn to destroy them and I will. And they know it." Vos's eyes went blank for a moment as his mind raced, his intellect taking over. "Fox, who's your heir?" Fox blinked, startled by the non-sequitur. "Scully." "If you both die in a common disaster, who inherits?" "I've never thought about it. Her family, probably, depending on her will. Why?" "You're my heir until I have kids. That's part of the reason I came to see you. There are legal things that have to be settled. But if the Consortium kills or disappears us both, who would inherit control of the Family Business?" Scully frowned. "Is it that large?" she asked, still not realizing the extent of the deKuiper holdings even with what she had already been told. Vos opened his mouth to answer but Frohike cut him off. "He's Chairman of the Board and major stockholder of deKuiper Industries. It's a holding company. At the close of business yesterday, the company was worth 127.7 billion dollars US. And he controls and owns something like 65% and Mulder owns another 10%. They gained voting control of it when they turned 30." Scully's jaw dropped. ("And you never told me this because?") ("I just don't ever think about it. It might be family business, but until this summer I was three people away from ever having to think about it.") She was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it. "Family business...?" "Since 1397," Vos said proudly. "Omigod, Mulder!" she turned wide eyes on her partner. Your family are Bilder-Burghers!" Frohike yelped in delight. "My very favorite conspiracy theory!" Lieutenant Jaeger came over, obviously shaken about something. "Mulder, you were right." Mulder's expression turned grim at the Lieutenant's tone. "What happened, Carl?" "The transport wagon was flanked by two blacked-out SUVs and riddled with automatic weapons'-fire. When the wagon careened off the road someone from one of the SUVs lobbed an anti-personnel grenade in through one of the broken windows. All three prisoners and all four escort officers are dead." "God, I'm so sorry," Mulder shook his head. "They aren't the first casualties in this war, and they won't be the last." "Who are these people?" Jaeger demanded. "This department just lost four of its best officers. The department and the community both will want resolution. What can I do to help?" Mulder stopped, gobsmacked. "You know, in all the years we've been fighting these people, no one has ever been willing to give us any assistance, except, occasionally, Skinner and some of the lab guys. The FBI as a whole, won't help no matter what happens because they've been infiltrated at very high levels. You'd just lose more men, Jaeger if you push it. Please don't go after these guys on your own." "We're cops, Mulder," Jaeger growled. "This is our job." "Arresting these guys is futile, Jaeger," Mulder explained. "Scully arrested the one who was assigned to kill her but killed her sister, Melissa, by mistake." He reminded the man of the case where they had first met. "Scully finally got him when he tried to take out our supervisor. The hitter didn't last the night in our holding cells at the Hoover; he was poisoned and then hanged in his cell." Jaeger could only stare. "Inside the FBI Building?!" Mulder nodded. "Yeah. I don't want to make you too paranoid, Jaeger, but you're a good man and you deserve to know the consequences of trying to help us. Scully lives in your jurisdiction; I'd bet that means that there is at least one mole in your department. It's not necessarily a sworn officer; it might be a clerk or secretary. They pass on appropriate information about Scully and suspicious activities in this area. You'll likely get a memo about letting this go; to leave it to the Feds. Don't argue more than you need to so they think you're outraged but be obedient to orders." "Or what?" "Or they'll kill you and replace you with someone more amenable to instruction," Scully said calmly. "Please believe us." "Who are these people?!" the cop asked again. "They're shadows, haunting the halls of power, nameless if not faceless, manipulating and quite ruthlessly eliminating anyone who stands in their way. They are a multi-generational, international criminal conspiracy, rather like the Mafia always wanted people to think that they were." "I can't just abandon this investigation," Jaeger told Mulder, sounding rather desperate. "The law enforcement community would notice!" "No, don't quit," Mulder said quickly agreed. "Do your usual thorough job. I'll be willing to bet, though, that you'll find the vehicles with some convenient bodies inside, and not a single clue to tell you who killed them, though the forensics will prove that the dead are the ones who killed your guys." "And we should settle for that?" "Complain about it like any of us would," Scully nodded. "Then let it go when the order comes down to close the case. If you don't, you'll be found dead in your basement, your own weapon in your mouth. Or they'll take out you and your family in some equally nasty way." Jaeger backed suddenly. "If these guys are so formidable, why are you both still alive?" Mulder and Scully traded glances. Mulder sighed. "Because, unfortunately, I was born as part of that conspiracy and I've got family at the highest levels. They aren't, apparently, allowed to kill me, no matter how much I fight them. Anything up to that point seems to be acceptable, though." Scully put her hand on his uninjured wrist. "Relax, Mulder. Carl, if we need some help someday, may we call on you? It would be nice to have an honest law enforcement officer available for backup..." "Dana, you know you can. And if you ever decide to come to your senses, my brother still wants that date he asked for." Mulder grinned. "Not a chance!" The Lieutenant grinned back. "So you finally pulled your head out of your ass?" "You could say that. Let's say that I finally realized just what it is I have and I'm not letting go." "You know that's going to break Tris's heart." "Too bad. Like I said, I'm not going to let her go." "Good for you! Dana, congratulations. Let me know if there's anything I can do." "Thanks. I will." The Lieutenant left and very soon after. Nickie came out of the examining room, his arm in a sling. He looked very uncomfortable. "I really need to see those prosthetic people that Rollie told us about. I'm helpless." Vos looked at the older man who looked so much like his friend. "We'll be around for a while, it looks like. Ian and I will help out. I want to destroy what Grandfather supported!" Ian stared at his friend, then remembered a quote he had read somewhere: 'Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books for to you kingdoms and their armies are mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.' "Look, we've got to arrange things so this will stop! I'm in agreement with Fox. We're going to burn them to the ground." Epilogue Date: 11/22/2001 To: Fox@TrustNoOne.org From: Vos@TrustNoOne.org Subject: Happy Thanksgiving Happy Turkey Day, Cousin. We're just about all settled in here. Mr Frohike and his friends left on Tuesday after setting up the security system for us. Tell them 'thanks again' for me. I feel much better knowing that no one can bribe them to give up the schematics. The house I acquired here is in a gated community. I know it's sometimes a false sense of security, but for us it's just one more level of security. Everyone I hired in Europe has been vetted by the Gunmen. Surprisingly, all of them passed. While we were waiting for the security check to be done, I kept expecting to be attacked from within. Nick has been working with Ian and they're turning into one hell of a team. Their bond allows them to work in tandem amazingly well; they're even developing some telepathy between them. Nick thinks it's because they're *twins*. Strangely, none of this makes me feel any more safe. This bothers me because I never used to think about it, at all. At least now, thinking about it, means I'm taking steps to minimize risk. You and your friends are a good influence on me. Grandmother has settled in. She actually went for a walk yesterday! Granted, it was only across the room, but she was up out of her bed! It seems as if Grandpere had been keeping her drugged so she couldn't tell anyone what was going on or cause any trouble. Once the drugs were all cleared out of her system and got her through detox, we got quite an earful! It's a wonder she isn't dead. He'd been keeping her drugged for years! Frankly, I'm surprised that he didn't kill her outright! Grandmother loves that it's warm here, though I wonder how she'll like it next summer with the heat and humidity we get here. She spends every day outside at least for a little while. We hired (vetted by the Gunmen, of course) a Rehab Therapist for her. We can see the improvement in her condition daily. I look forward to having her with us for many years to come! I don't mind telling you that I sincerely hope Grandfather burns in hell for what he did to her! We'll all be coming back East for Christmas. Would you find us some place nice and safe to stay? Buy it if necessary; the American Express card will work for that. We'll be arriving on the fifteenth. There will be thirteen of us: Ian, Nick, Grandmother, myself and nine staff. Nick has an appointment with the Limb Institute for the sixteenth to have the final fitting for his new arm. He's functioning okay with the temporary arm but he's looking forward to the final product. Ian's been calling him the Bionic Man. I'm finally beginning to enjoy having money. It's amazing how money can smooth the way and speed things up. I never appreciated it before now. Sincerely, Vos =-=-=-=-= Ravenwald's notes: For those of you who question it... who aren't old enough to remember 'Nam... Yeah there were soldiers the size of Frohike in 'Nam who did what he did. So, this section is dedicated to 'those who shall remain nameless'. The men who fought in the shadows and fought the shadows themselves so others could come home alive. We salute you and your brethren. In the words of Gordon Dickson: Shai Dorsai! The next segment: Tat Collector, will be posted much faster than this last one. All we can plead is Real Life bit us on the ass... HARD! (Archivist's note: The next part was never written, and now never will be.)