~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ LAWS OF MOTION ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Chapter Five: Baby Steps Mulder and Scully sat on opposite sides of a red plastic booth, sipping coffee and waiting for George Fussy to arrive. Scully kept eyeing the cherry pie that sat under protective glass on the countertop by the register. "Scully, if you keep making moony faces at that pie, it might get the wrong idea. The next thing you know, it will be ordering you a beer and asking you to dance. 'I thought we had something special,' it will say, 'but then she never called me again.'" Scully frowned and forced her gaze away from the pie. "Where is this guy, anyway?" she asked as she checked her watch. "He'll be here." Mulder twisted in his seat and signaled their waitress. "What are you doing?" Scully asked. "Consummating your relationship with the pastry." He smiled at the big-haired woman in the apron. "Two orders of pie, please." Scully leaned across the table as the waitress went to fill their order. "Mulder, it's not even eleven in the morning." "So? Think of it as a really late dinner dessert." Scully couldn't argue as the gooey concoction of golden crust and oozing cherries was placed in front of her. She had just split off a piece when her fork when Mulder glanced at the front door. "I think this is our boy," he said. The cop entered in full uniform, including the hat. He wore dark sunglasses and tight-fitting pants. Wavy blond hair stuck out from under his cap, and he sported a tan despite the January weather. Scully half-expected him to start a strip-o-gram as he approached the table. "Are you Agent Mulder?" he asked. Mulder half rose behind the table. "That's me, and this is Agent Scully. Thanks for agreeing to meet us. You want some coffee?" The man slid in next to Scully and took a look at her pie. "What you're having looks just great." Mulder flagged down the waitress and ordered another round. Fussy's leather jacket creaked as he shifted to look at Scully. "So you want to tell me why the FBI is looking into Melinda's death?" "It's not an official investigation," Scully answered. "We're just helping a friend." "Friend?" "Ethan Minette," said Scully, and Fussy froze with his big hands wrapped around the coffee mug. "That's the bastard who killed her." "He says he's innocent," Mulder said. "The hell he is. I heard what happened. They found her cut up on the floor of his apartment with one of his own knives. If you think I'm going to help you get him off, you've got another thing coming." He moved to slide out of the booth and Scully bristled. "You don't have all the facts," she protested. Mulder reached across the table and grabbed Fussy's arm. "We want to talk to you about Ryerson," he said, and Fussy stopped. Wariness flickered in his eyes but he eased himself back down beside Scully once more. "Ryerson, he's another sonofabitch. Makes me sick watching him on TV crying over that poor girl." "We heard you contacted Melinda with some information about him." Fussy looked from Mulder to Scully as if trying to gage their intentions. "I've got a cousin on the job in Winnetka, where Ryerson lives half the time. He's told me stories for years about that family. The one son, Connor? He wrapped a Lexus around a tree and Joe told me they were all supposed to keep it hush-hush. There was a rumor the other kid fathered a baby by some underage girl, but I never heard anything more about that one. But Ryerson, man, he's the biggest shit-head of all. Joe said they responded to a nine eleven call a few years ago. They found Mrs. Ryerson with a black eye and the old Senator acting all squirrelly, if you know what I mean. But no one would talk and the wife made up some stupid accident story, like they always do. That's what I wanted to tell Melinda. I figured if he likes to pound on his women, maybe it's not such a big leap to murder." "Why go to Melinda?" Scully asked. "Why not tell the detectives who are investigating Rachel's murder?" Fussy shot her a disgusted look. "You think they don't know? But knowing and proving are different things, and Ryerson, he's got an army of lawyers around him lined up six deep. I thought maybe if Melinda could do a story, public pressure might force Ryerson into saying something." "Did you tell anyone that you had contacted Melinda with what you knew?" Mulder asked. Fussy looked confused. "I don't know. I might've mentioned it to a buddy or two. We were all pissed off with the way Ryerson was acting. It's not like Ryerson's dirty laundry was some huge secret." "Maybe someone believed it was," Mulder murmured to Scully. "Melinda's dead. Ethan's in jail. They certainly won't be doing any reporting," Scully agreed. "Wait a second here," Fussy broke in. "Are you saying you think the murders are connected? I thought that was just a bunch of B.S. Ryerson was selling." Mulder gulped the last of his coffee and signaled for the check. "I think maybe it's time we heard his B.S. in person," he told Scully. ~*~ Their FBI badges got them as far as Senator Ryerson's front office, where his assistant, a young man wearing a suit that was disturbingly similar to Mulder's, stonewalled them. "Absolutely no one sees the Senator without an appointment," he said. "How soon could we get an appointment?" Mulder asked. The man consulted his computer. "I'm afraid the earliest I have would be two weeks from Friday. I can pencil you in for that time if you like, but his schedule is always subject to change." "Then maybe you could change it so we can see him right now," Mulder replied, leaning over the desk. "We won't take very long." "That's not possible." Mulder had opened his mouth to argue some more, when the door behind them opened and Ryerson himself emerged. "Gary, I thought you were going to print out the draft of the..." He trailed off as he saw Mulder and Scully standing there. "Sir, these are agents from the FBI," Gary said quickly. "I was just explaining how busy you are right now." "That so." Ryerson leaned back and peered through his glasses at Mulder and Scully. "What does the FBI want with me?" "If we could speak privately," Mulder began. "I'm afraid not," Ryerson interrupted. He handed a file to his assistant. "I have a meeting in ten minutes." "So we'll only take nine," Mulder said. "Do you want me to call security, sir?" Gary asked. "We can leave," Scully said, "but then we'd just have to come back." "Back and back again," Mulder agreed. The Senator sighed and made a show of checking his watch. "Eight minutes," he said. "That's all you get." Mulder and Scully followed him to his spacious office, where he offered them two low-backed leather arm chairs. Ryerson took his place behind the desk and gave them his full attention. "Now then, what can I do for you?" "We saw in the papers that you believe that Rachel Campenella and Melinda McKenn's murders are related," Mulder said. "I don't believe I'm alone in that assumption. The man they have in prison for that young camera woman's murder also knew Rachel, and the crimes appear to be remarkably similar. But I wasn't aware that the FBI was investigating either of these cases. Last I checked, these were simple, if horrific homicides, and the likely killer is already behind bars. I suppose we can all be grateful for that small favor." "We were just curious," Scully said, "since you knew Rachel so well, if you knew of any reason why Ethan Minette would have wanted to hurt her." "You're asking me about the motives of a madman?" "It just seems a little thin," Mulder explained. "If he was, as you say, a madman, why target a woman he barely knew first and then go after someone close to him?" "How on earth should I know? He was irrational. Traditional rules of logic don't apply. But I don't think it can be co-incidental that two women were brutally stabbed to death and he knew them both." Mulder sat forward. "Now, that's interesting. Not coincidental, you say. I'd be inclined to agree, except that you yourself knew both women." Ryerson frowned and folded his hands in front of him. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't know that camera woman." "Sure you did," Mulder replied easily. "We can pull the tapes from the station's library, if you like," Scully added. Ryerson looked annoyed. "Do you know how many cameras follow me around, day in and day out?" "More now than usual," Mulder guessed. "All I see is the lens and a bright light. I don't pay any attention to who is behind the camera." "Melinda was kind of hard to miss," Scully remarked. "Maybe for others, but not for me. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I really must be getting back to work now." He rose behind the desk, but Mulder and Scully did not get up. "The thing is," Mulder said, "and we wouldn't expect you to know this, so you'll have to trust our expertise on this point -- people don't tend to suddenly snap and become violent killers without some sort of previous history of violence." "Yes, well, as you say, you are the experts in this area." He moved toward the door, but again Mulder and Scully did not move to follow. "Maybe he had a temper no one knew about." "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, sir?" Scully asked. "I'm quite sure I don't. And I'm quite sure we're out of time." "How about your wife?" Mulder asked as they got up from their chairs. "Would she know anything about violent tempers?" For a brief moment, Ryerson's carefully controlled mask slipped and rage glinted in his eyes. "You stay the hell away from my wife." Mulder paused on his way out the door. "So long as you do the same," he said softly. Scully leaned into him as they hurried from the office and back down the hall. "He'll try to have us fired for that, you know," she muttered. Mulder hit the button to summon the elevator. "If he is what we think he is, we'll be lucky if our jobs is all he wants." ~*~*~*~ That Saturday morning, Mulder parked his car outside Scully's building and sat there as if on surveillance. But the only thing he was surveying was the slim folder in his lap. He bounced it with his knee as far as the steering wheel permitted and glanced repeatedly at the front door. Scully had not mentioned Emily since their return from San Diego, and part of Mulder was loath to bring the whole mess up again. The other part of him wondered why he had even felt the need to muck around further, given that each new piece of the reproductive puzzle seemed to bring more heartache for them both. But it was too late now. He had the information burning in his lap and it was time to play hot potato with Scully. With a deep breath, he got out of the car and took the folder up to her apartment. "Coming," she called from the other side when he knocked. A moment later, the door opened to reveal Scully, who was dressed in jeans, a faded flannel shirt and a bandana around her head. She wore one yellow rubber glove and the room behind her smelled of carpet cleaner. "Mulder," she said with some surprise. "What's up?" Mulder had the folder behind his back. "Can I come in for a minute?" "Of course. I was just doing some cleaning." She wiped her nose on her forearm as she swung the door open to admit him. "Is something wrong?" Inside, Mulder noticed she had her curtains down and her books removed from their shelves. "You're really going all out here, huh?" "I'm home for the first weekend in a month. It seemed like a good time to get things in order." Watching her attempt to regain some control over her life by rearranging the furniture about broke his heart. "What do you have there?" she asked, pointing behind his back to the folder. Mulder brought it in front of him as if he had never seen it before. "Oh, this?" "That." Mulder tapped it against his palm a few times. "Why don't we sit down for a minute?" Scully gave him a curious look, but she pulled off her rubber glove and joined him on the striped sofa. "You remember we had that conversation about Emily, and you told me it was genetically possible to eliminate the male DNA, that you could create a child with two mothers." "Yes," Scully said slowly. "In principle." "But that would apply only to girls, right?" "The father typically determines sex, yes. Two mothers could produce only female offspring. Why?" "One of the surrogate mothers from the old age home was Evelyn Burmeister. The records showed her as delivering a healthy baby boy. If I recall my high school biology correctly, it would mean that at least this one child had a father." Scully swallowed visibly. "We--we know they've taken men, too. Duane Barry, for example. It's possible they're harvesting sperm as well as ova." "Frohike helped me dig around a little. The other name on Evelyn's file was Gail Neely. I brought along a copy of her medical records." He handed her the file, and Scully flipped open the cover. "Missing for eight weeks, she reappeared seven years ago in a New York hospital," Scully read. "Tachycarida, electrolyte imbalances, no evidence of conscious awareness." She looked up. "Mulder, this file, it's like a carbon copy of mine." "I know. She recovered after two weeks and no underlying cause of her condition was ever determined." Scully looked at the papers for another minute before shutting the folder and handing it back to him. "No evidence of cancer. She seems to be in good health." She shoved herself from the couch and returned to her rubber gloves. "That's it?" Mulder asked as he turned on the couch. "That's all you have to say?" "What would you like me to say, Mulder? We've seen this before. We both know I'm not the only one." "Gail Neely lives in Baltimore now. I thought you might want to go talk to her." "Talk to her? Why on earth would I want to do that?" Scully picked up a sponge and headed for the kitchen. Mulder followed. "She could have information," he started, but Scully cut him off. "She's a lab rat, Mulder, not the mastermind. Sure, we could go up there and grill her about her missing time. Maybe she'll remember some lights in the sky or a drill or vague memories of pain. Then we can tell her she might have a child out there, a child she never knew about and who is probably either dying or dead already." Scully was viciously scrubbing the sink. "If she's really lucky, maybe she can find the child just in time to watch the last of his suffering. I'm sure she would give us a big thank-you for that." "Okay, maybe you're right." Mulder looked down at the folder in his hands. Scully laughed darkly and continued her scrubbing. "You don't believe that." "I don't know what to believe." The fight left Scully and her shoulders slumped. She turned and looked at him for more explanation, but Mulder just shrugged. "You have a point," he said to her. "Who are we to turn this woman's life upside down? If you really think that talking to her would do more harm than good..." Scully straightened again. "Don't you dare put this off on me." "I'm not putting anything anywhere," he said as she resumed her cleaning. Scully did not seem to believe him. She lathered the sink in silence, not looking at him, and Mulder turned to go. He made it as far as the kitchen door before returning to her side. "Scully," he said, touching he arm. She shook him off. "You come in here and dump this in my lap, and then you blame me when I don't jump up and down the way you do. This is not some game of 'Clue' to me, Mulder. This is my life." "I know that," he said, his throat aching. Tears were running down her face but she just kept cleaning. "Scully..." "What?" she demanded, but it came out all watery and heartbroken. "I need to tell you something." "God, there's more?" Mulder reached over her to turn off the water. Scully still wasn't looking at him. "I found Samantha," he said to the top of her head. Startled, she tried to turn and face him, but space only permitted her to move halfway. She looked at him with wide, wet eyes. "What did you say?" He nodded at her to show she'd heard correctly. "A few months ago, when you were in the hospital. Our friend Cancer Man arranged for a little meeting in this diner after hours. She showed up with him and called him her father." He moved to the kitchen table and sank into a chair. Scully pulled out the one next to him and sat down as well. "What happened?" "We talked for a few minutes. She seemed to remember me, at least a little." He smiled painfully and stared at his hands. "I tried to get her to come with me, but she was scared. She begged me to let her go." Scully reached over and covered his fingers with her cold, gloved hand. Mulder shrugged. "What could I do?" he asked. "I had to let go." "He's been hiding her all this time?" Mulder took a deep, shuddering breath and made himself look at her. "Who knows? I mean, who the hell knows anything anymore? Sometimes I think I hallucinated the whole encounter. Was it her? Was it some sort of clone? Was it some actress he hired for the night just to yank my chain?" Scully squeezed him. "Why didn't you tell me?" He gave a half-shrug. "I couldn't figure out why I let her go. Why I didn't try harder to hang on, or to follow them, or find out more about her. I still don't know." "If she's out there, you'll find her, Mulder." "I'm not so sure she wants to be found," he answered quietly, and met her eyes. "I just wanted you to know that I do understand. Sometimes you just can't bring yourself to ask the questions because the answer may be even worse." Scully's mouth twitched as she struggled not to cry again. Instead she reached over and hugged him. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Mulder ran his hand down her back. "You don't have anything to be sorry for." Scully sniffed and pulled away. "This woman, Gail Neely, what answers do you think we can possibly get from her?" "I really don't know. The only thing I do know is that she was the only name on that list with a baby boy. I'd like to know why." Scully drew off her gloves, revealing red and raw hands. She covered her face and was silent for a long minute. "Okay," she said at last, "so would I." ~*~ Scully's small breakfast of toasted bagel, cream cheese and coffee was doing the hula in her stomach by the time they reached Baltimore. She gripped the inside door handle with all five fingers and willed herself not to be sick. Even when she thought she controlled these type of encounters, the women always ended up surprising her with some unwanted bit of information, be it cancer, implants or just the sense that they recognized her when she hadn't the faintest idea who they were. "We can still turn around," said Mulder as he steered them onto Gail Neely's street. "No, it's fine. But Mulder -- I think I should talk to her alone." He shot her a look that was a mixture of hurt and concern. "Are you sure?" "I'm sure." She squinted out the window at the sunshine- washed street. "I think this is it, number sixteen." The small house sat on a postage-stamp lot. There were no trees, and the grass was a winter brown, but the house itself was a cheery yellow. A fading Christmas wreath still hung on the front door. "I guess I'll wait at the end of the block for you then," Mulder said. "Call if you want backup." Backup, Scully thought, as though we're busting in on a felon and not some poor unsuspecting woman. She squared her shoulders and marched up the front walk to the door. After she knocked, the door swung open with a small boy hanging like a monkey from the inside doorknob. Scully adjusted her gaze downward and smiled at him. "Hi," she said. "I'm looking for Gail Neely." The boy did not smile back. "Mom!" he hollered. "There's a lady here to see you!" A slender woman appeared behind him with a wooden spoon in one hand and a baby on her hip. "Hello," she said, gently pushing the boy aside. "May I help you?" "My name is Dana Scully. I work for the FBI." Scully showed her ID even though her business wasn't especially FBI- related. She wanted the woman to understand she wasn't a crackpot, a veneer she expected to maintain just long enough to get inside the house. "FBI," said the woman uncertainly. "My goodness." "Do you have a gun?" the boy demanded as he hung on his mother's leg. Scully opened her overcoat to show him, and his eyes went round. "Wow," he said. "A real gun. Is it loaded?" "Ryan, go run and play," his mother said as she tried to open the screen door and keep the baby away from the spoon at the same time. Scully reached to take the door. "You're Gail Neely?" she asked as she entered. "That's right. Is something wrong? Is Steven okay?" "Everything's fine," Scully said. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute about something that happened years ago, if that's all right." "Um, I guess so. Can we talk in the kitchen?" "Of course." Scully followed her through a toy-cluttered living room into a crowded, narrow kitchen. Gail put the baby into a high chair and scattered some cheerios in front of her. Scully admired the array of plants in the large window. The fridge was covered in magnetic letters and children's drawings. Scully took a seat at the round table while Gail tended the pot on the stove; it smelled like vegetable soup. "So what did you need to talk to me about?" she asked Scully. Scully hesitated, trying to figure where to begin. "It's about what happened to you eight years ago in New York." Gail stopped stirring the pot and closed her eyes. "That was another lifetime. I haven't thought about it in years." Scully knew a lie when she heard one. "Do you recall what you were doing before you disappeared?" "The last thing I remember, I was unloading groceries from my car. I wanted to put the ice cream away before it melted. Chocolate chip." She gave Scully a half-smile. "It used to be my favorite." "I'm partial to vanilla swirl," Scully answered. "The cops say they have no idea what happened," said Gail as she returned to chopping celery. "No idea who abducted me. No idea what happened to me while I was gone, and no idea who brought me back. For weeks afterward, I didn't leave the house. I was sure whoever it was would just grab me again." She looked suddenly alarmed. "Is that why you're here? You know who did it?" "I wish I did." "Then I don't understand. What does the FBI care about what happened to me a zillion years ago?" "The FBI doesn't," Scully said softly. "I do. Because it happened to me too." "What?" The knife sagged in her hand. "Oh, my God." "And there are others," Scully told her. "Mostly women, many with the same story." Gail covered her mouth with one hand. "I don't know what to say." "Why don't you sit down," Scully said as she pulled out a second chair from the table. "Ma-ma-ma-ma," said the baby. Gail touched her head on the way past and sat down next to Scully. Scully smiled. "You have beautiful children." "Thank you," Gail said as she wiped her eyes. "Ryan's five and Gabby here is almost a year now. They drive me crazy half the time, but I love them more than anything in the world. What about you? You have any kids?" Scully took a deep breath and put her palms flat on the table. "I can't have children," she said. "Because of what happened." "Oh, my God," Gail said again. "Me either. Ryan and Gabby are adopted. The doctors said that my infertility might have been related to what happened to me, but they thought it could have been on account of my miscarriage." "Miscarriage?" "I was pregnant back then. When it happened, I mean. But I guess I lost the baby." Her eyes welled up once more. "When I woke up in the hospital, I wasn't pregnant anymore. The doctors said they found signs of scarring inside me." "You were pregnant at the time of your abduction?" Scully tried to absorb this new piece of information. "Fourteen weeks. We were hoping for a boy." As if on cue, Ryan came charging into the room with a plastic water gun. He trained it at Scully and his mother and let loose with a string of machine gun noises. "I got you! I got you!" he said. "Ryan, that's enough. Take it outside now." "Aw, Mom, it's not even loaded." "Now!" Ryan heaved an exaggerated sigh and left through the back door. "Steven's been a saint through everything," Gail told Scully. "He said that even though we couldn't have kids of our own, that didn't mean we couldn't have our own kids." "They're great kids," Scully said, and Gabby agreed with a shriek of delight. "Do you think it matters that I was pregnant?" Gail asked, her expression worried. "I mean, was that why they picked me? We hadn't told anyone but family. I wasn't showing or anything." "No," Scully said uncertainly. "I don't think they could have known." "I thought maybe they were picking on pregnant women or something." She got up and scooped Gabby from her highchair. "You said there were others. How many of us are there?" "Too many," Scully said. "I don't understand how you found me." Scully looked around at the little handprint paintings, the pre-packaged plaid curtains, and the pot of soup simmering on the stove. "Old medical records," she hedged, because it was not really a lie. This woman had two whole, healthy children to raise. Scully would not give her nightmares about the one that got away. Later, Scully found Mulder at the end of the block. He had parked the car and found a small park with a bench, where he sat eating sunflower seeds and watching the kids chase each other around the slide. Scully sat next to him. "I couldn't tell her," she said. "She has a happy life, Mulder. Who am I to take that away? And what could I say for sure? That maybe she has a baby boy out there somewhere, but we don't know where?" Mulder sat forward, his gaze still on the kids playing tag. "Samantha and I used to have contests on the swings," he said. "Who could go higher, who could jump farther. I can still remember that moment, just as you let go and the seat falls away. For a second you know what it's like to fly." He turned at smiled at Scully. "She never could beat me." Scully said nothing. She reached over and put her hand in his. They sat there like that for the better part of an hour, just another old couple in the park on a sunny Saturday afternoon. ~*~ That night, Scully curled on her sofa in front of the flickering light of the TV, but she wasn't paying attention to the program. The conversation with Gail Neely haunted her. They couldn't have known, Scully had told her, but now she wasn't so sure. It was a question they had never thought to ask. They had always focused on what happened to the women after their abductions. What if it were possible that the men behind the tests had some way of identifying pregnant women ahead of time? Scully raised her shirt a few inches and touched her own belly. She had pregnancy dreams from time to time. Nearly all women did. "No," she told herself, pulling her shirt back down. "Not possible." She had been taking birth control pills back then; she was sure of this. She recollected taking them, and she had found the half-empty package in her medicine cabinet when she had returned home. Ethan had wanted children, as she had, but that was always down the road sometime, and sometime never happened. *There is one way to know for sure* said the voice in her head. Scully got up from the couch to take her empty tea mug to the kitchen. Some questions you don't want the answer to, Mulder had said. Scully leaned against the sink. She saw her reflection in the black window and remembered the times she had looked up and seen Ethan reflected behind her. Another lifetime, as Gail told her. Another life. Scully now carried Emily's picture inside her wallet. Maybe she had carried her inside her body too. She wanted this answer. Scully grabbed her purse and her coat and ran out the door. She did not stop to think of what would happen at the prison; she had muscled her way past tougher security in the past. Heart pounding, she retrieved the sample collection from the trunk of her car. A harmless cheek swab from Ethan and she would have her answer. God help them all if it was yes. ~*~*~ End chapter five. Continued in chapter six. Beta purple heart for Amanda who serves even when she is mortally wounded! Well, okay, just feeling really crappy. But still a valorous effort! Mulder clothing update: y'all, I have to say you guys have a one track mind. Poor Mulder is 100% dressed except for his pants! *g* Feedback rocks the house: syn_tax6@yahoo.com Cheers, syn