Retam Sullet - Part Twelve

By the time Mulder, Langly, Thea, five children ranging in age from infancy to seven, and one very hungry Scully tracked John, Amanda, Frohike, and Cindy from Lambert's to the Taos court house, the general level of irritation had reached near-fevered pitch. Mulder told them all he was considering painting 'WILD GOOSE CHASES ARE US' on the side of the minivan.

Langly headed up the parade, baby carrier in hand, barreling into the judges' chambers, ready and willing to throw one of his patented hissy-fits. He stopped short, though, when he saw John in a suit for the first time since they'd come to New Mexico. Amanda stood beside him, wearing a dress, hothouse flowers tucked in her wild halo of blonde hair. She appeared to have a death- grip on a bouquet.

Langly's mouth fell open. "Wha?"

"I believe the phrase is 'Gotcha!'" Byers beamed.

"We had to," Amanda grinned, "so why not make it fun?"

"You had to?" Langly repeated as Thea and Scully flanked him, trading raised eyebrows.

"Yup." Byers's smile stretched wider.

Thea gestured to her wedding ring with the one hand that was not lugging a baby. Scully nodded. AND PREGNANT, she signed.

GOOD, Thea signed small, setting down the carrier in her own right hand. I THOUGHT MAYBE SHE WAS TOO OLD.

She received glares from half the wedding party for her trouble.

Ringo was busy looking Amanda up and down. She looked the same. The silvery grey sweater dress didn't hide anything and she looked the same. But then, she was built about as different from Thea as she could be. And there was probably only one. But still...

Ringo stared harder.

Mulder leaned in the doorway, holding his children by the hands, smiling as if he'd known from the start. He probably did, Langly thought; the guy had voodoo.

Langly recovered from his surprise enough to swallow and notice Frohike smirking at him.

"Copy cat," Ringo accused John.

"You're smart, Ringo, but you didn't invent human reproduction," Scully reminded him.

"Yeah," Frohike chimed in. "If you two came up with the idea," signing with his short fingers as he spoke, "you'd need a surge protector and forty feet of coax."

YOU DON'T? Thea deadpanned.

Mulder coughed.

The Judge cleared his throat. "Can we start now?"

"Please," Amanda said with a nervous laugh. "If I have to wait much longer, I'm eating my bouquet."

"Do you, John Fitzgerald Wilson, take this woman, Amanda Lynn Wilde to be your lawfully married wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer for poorer, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, from this day forward forsaking all others as long as you both shall live?"

John's eyes were shining and his smile was ever-widening. "I do."

Langly wondered how Byers managed to remain calm enough to be so happy at his own wedding. Amanda, at least, displayed a normal human amount of anxiety. She shifted from foot to foot, played with her bouquet, accidentally scattering lavender on the floor but the delight never left her eyes.

The judge asked Amanda the same questions he'd asked John.

"I do?" The way she said it sounded like a question and her voice had a distinct quaver all of a sudden. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"By the power vested in me by the state of New Mexico I now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss your bride. Now get out of here so I can have lunch."

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Thea sat in Lamberts and looked down the long table at her family. Her mother was eating eagerly, and didn't seem to have eyes for anything other than her lunch. Thea found something comfortingly familiar in the woman's stiff intensity, something that drew her like a magnet. She could feel a bond between them.

Her father, on the other hand, was speaking and signing animatedly to a rapt audience. He was so cool, so human. It was like he had that 'something' she was missing, something she wanted for herself. She'd known him less than 24 hours, but she felt a strange twinge whenever she looked at him. She frowned. She thought maybe she should despise him, but it was impossible: no one had ever tried so hard to win her approval in her life.

Danny and Sylvie were arguing, but she realized it was meaningless, like the fights Ritchie and Shortman were always having. They were so funny, her brother and sister, so animated and interesting, and it was peculiar to see her own face reflected back at her in miniature.

Her eye followed the line of the table. Frohike had something with mole sauce, by the smell of it, and Cindy had salmon. Cindy was laughing, as usual, and playing with the hair at Frohike's nape. Fro was grinning and giving Cindy the half-hearted pretense of annoyance and struggle, but his eyes never left Fox Mulder.

John and Amanda weren't taking much interest in anything but each other, though. Their hands laid on the table intertwined. Amanda's finger rubbed John's ring. He smiled at her, his eyes wide and sparkling, and plucked a stray flower from her hair. They looked perfectly happy. More than that they seemed content. Generally, Thea didn't believe the universe owed anyone anything, but in this case she was willing to make an exception. Really, all the guys deserved whatever kind of happy they wanted.

The young mother turned both her brain and her eyes back to Frohike. He said neither he nor Cindy wanted to be together full time, but he might have lied to make her happy. He had it in him.

Thea waved across the table.

YOU GOING TO JUMP SHIP NEXT, SHORTMAN? Thea signed.

Frohike chuckled. YEAH RIGHT. AND LEAVE YOU TWO WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION? NOT WHILE THERE IS BREATH IN MY BODY, SWEETHEART. He seemed to sense something because he added soberly, BESIDES I HAVE WHAT I NEED RIGHT WHERE I AM.

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Beyond anyone's control, the chain of events that had been set into motion when a dying Gibson Praise sent his faithful friend, the biological daughter of the two FBI agents, to Takoma Park, was playing itself out.

John Byers was no longer pining for someone he barely knew. He had found a woman he not only loved and cherished, but genuinely liked, and was looking forward to spending a deliriously happy life with her. Melvin had his virtual son, his Goldilocks, who fought him at every turn, and who he wouldn't trade the world for, even if he'd never admit it to his face. What was more, he had three loud, demanding baby boys who were both an irritant and a comfort in his old age, not unlike their parents. He had a woman he enjoyed immensely, who had as much interest in matrimony as he did, meaning none. Ringo Langly had finally become a man, even in his own scathing estimation, and he would never be lonely again. Thea Fidelis, lab project and granddaughter of CGB Spender, had fulfilled every imperative that was seeded in her branched DNA by her makers, yet managed to do it all in ways they would never have approved of.

Sad tales have definite ends; death, loss, breaking apart. Those events are linear in nature and make for good story-telling, affording the narrator a clear stopping point. In telling her teenaged sons the whole true story of how they not only came to be, but how they came to be in a village of three hundred souls in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Thea was at a loss for a proper conclusion.

She felt she should draw in some thread the boys were well-acquainted with. Like the way their grandparents, along with their young aunt and uncle, returned to El Rito twice a year, every year, after that, like a small flock of over-achieving migratory birds.

Or should she end with the birth, that second June in New Mexico, of John and Amanda's daughter, Rachel Elizabeth? Or even with the addition, 13 months later, of Rebecca Ann?

Should she make their decided differentness part of the story, too? How, as soon as they could crawl, they developed what would become a disturbing life-long delight in receiving large electric jolts, apparently because it tickled? How they walked at six months and produced their first stumbling words and signs just days later? How at 3 they were mistaken for 6, and at 6 for 10 or 11?

In their small village, they were little remarked upon. It was Thea's observation that it was difficult to find people odd when you saw them on a daily basis. She and Ritchie had tried to do the best they could for their sons. Sure, they kept them away from crowds and strangers because the risks were too great. But if the boys watched mournfully as the yellow school bus stopped and picked up passengers every morning, at least they weren't alone - most of the kids in El Rito were home-schooled.

Despite their needle-sharp intellects and unnatural strength, they were in many ways like other children: they cried pitifully the first time they watched Dumbo; they nagged their parents for a puppy; they went through long periods of studiously mimicking their father's behavior down to the smallest nuance; they often attempted to bypass their parents, when a negative answer seemed likely, by asking Frohike's permission instead. Fortunately, that never worked.

There were, however, moments that were not so normal. Once, during a game of tickling, Joey separated Ritchie's shoulder and cracked three of his ribs, and while Ritchie had recovered quickly enough, Thea wasn't sure if, ten years later, Joey was entirely over it. At six, Kenny had accidentally severed his right had at the wrist; it had reattached itself in seconds. Teddy and Joey had, out of curiosity, engaged in a bout of mutual dismemberment a few days later, with identical results.

At 18, the boys were six-and-a-half-foot tall, handsome, intelligent, and kind. But they were still babies. Her babies. And so much younger than she'd been at that age.

Kenny never knew when to shut up. Joey never knew when to assert himself. Teddy? Well, Teddy was the worst of all. Something - anything - would pique his interest and he would follow it half way to Albuquerque before you even realized he was gone. They were good boys, if by 'good' you meant 'wouldn't hurt a fly,' much less eat meat once they realized what it was, but not so good that they were above sneaking out of the house after curfew and taking Ringo's truck to meet their friends out on the Gorge Bridge.

Her concern was that they were unprepared. Sheltered. She didn't care what their father said; they were too young to go away to college.

She looked at them lined up across from her on a ratty old couch. They seemed to be all lemon-blond hair and sharp knees and elbows. Her eyes turned from face to face to identical face. The features that were quirky on their progenitors combining to form a face that looked like it came from a recruiting poster for the Aryan Super Man - Spender's wet dream, multiplied by three. And no more soldiers than Ringo was. Nothing would have upset the old man more. In a real sense, she had won her struggle to be free of Spender, not by fighting, but by loving. By loving Ritchie.

The boys were still staring at her, and her story had just sort of petered out.

She did not exactly believe that she and Ringo had done a bad job with them because she couldn't think of anything she would have done differently, but there were some issues she still didn't know how to resolve. Neither she nor Ringo had been exactly smothered by a surplus of attention as children, never mind affection. The awkward, unsubtle pair of them had striven to cherish their sons and perhaps they had gone too far. Teddy, Kenny, and Joey had grown up so buffered that, for them, evil was mostly hypothetical.

They had no idea they were brilliant or chillingly handsome. Ringo had drilled them on the notion that they were to avoid sports at all costs. Their advantage would be striking and ridiculous, not to mention as fair as shooting Vikings in a barrel.

Ritchie's myriad warnings about sex made the sports speech seem mild in comparison, but she didn't know what other options he had. It would be so easy for them to hurt a girl, maybe even kill her. And what if there was a pregnancy?

What would happen when they realized how extraordinary they were? How could Ritchie want to let them go when the stakes were so high? Ritchie was deluded to think they were ready to be on their own in a dorm bigger than the entire village they called home. How dare he tell her that? Where did he get off?

Joey was blinking rapidly, running one hand through his long hair. Kenny leaned forward, his much shorter locks still managing to fall in his face somehow. Then he squinted, giving her that look, that pissy Ringo look, and said, IS THERE A POINT TO THIS STORY, MOM?

IS THERE A POINT? Thea signed, dumbfounded.

Kenny nodded. APART FROM YOU USED TO BE A NYMPHOMANIAC AND DAD WAS KIND OF...

KIND OF A PERVERT, Teddy supplied.

SO YOU, RIGHT NOW, TODAY, ARE YOUNGER THAN DAD WAS WHEN WE WERE BORN? Joey signed.

THAT IS IMMATERIAL, she brushed off the question.

SEEMS PRETTY MATERIAL TO ME. MR. ETHICS, MR. DON'T-THINK-WITH- YOUR-DICK, MR. WHAT-WOULD-NOAM-CHOMSKI-DO WASN'T TOO GOOD TO STICK IT TO HIS BUDDY'S TEENAGED DAUGHTER? YOU WERE YOUNGER THAN WE ARE NOW? Teddy signed, aghast.

SO OUR NAME ISN'T TORVALD? Joey continued on in the vein that interested him. IT'S REALLY LANGLY? AND GRANDPA'S NAME IS MULDER? GRANDMA AND GRANDPA WERE COPS AND YOU GUYS HAD A NEWSPAPER?

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? IT SEEMS KIND OF DULL, Kenny blustered, making it perfectly clear how much he was rattled.

"Except for the gratuitous sex," Teddy added, talking.

DULL? Thea repeated in amazement. YOUR DAD HAS AN ARREST RECORD A MILE LONG. AND THERE IS NO GRATUITOUS SEX IN THIS STORY.

AIN'T LIP READING A BITCH? Kenny signed

"Clueless," Kenny belatedly corrected his brother, out of the corner of his mouth. "I was going to say clueless."

THE WAY YOU TELL THIS STORY, YOU AND DAD SOUND LIKE A COUPLE OF TRUE NIMRODS, he signed.

HOW COME ALL YOU EVER TOLD US ABOUT BEFORE WAS THE LAB? Joey asked.

AND NEVER ANY OF THIS SECRET IDENTITY CRAP? Teddy went on. THERE'S MORE TO THIS STORY, ISN'T THERE? MORE YOU AREN'T TELLING?

She let that question slide unanswered. There were many things they still didn't need to know, as far as she was concerned, even though she suspected they had known about their parent's 'secret' hacking for years.

Kenny took up the thread. THE GUY THAT RAN THE PROJECT WAS YOUR GRANDFATHER? GRANDPA MARTY'S DAD? THAT'S COLD.

"Kinda like callin' your dad a Nimrod." Their father's voice shot out across the room.

"Sorry," Kenny called back.

Their mother turned around. HE MEANS HE'S SORRY HE DIDN'T REALIZE YOU WERE BACK.

THAT'S WHAT I FIGURED, Ringo signed back to her.

"What did she tell you?" Ringo asked. WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM? he signed at her.

She shrugged. ABOUT THE PAPER.

"And how you popped her cherry," Kenny offered. "In detail."

"You really set the hotel room on fire on your wedding night?" Joey asked.

"Dude, if I did a tenth of what Mom says you did, you'd ream my ass into next week." Teddy couldn't help calling his father on the things his mother had said. "'Today on 'Who's a Hypocrite,' our special guest is Ringo Torvald!'"

"Make that 'Richard Langly,'" Joey corrected.

THERE'S A LOT MORE TO THIS THAN YOU ARE TELLING, ISN'T THERE? Kenny signed again at both of them, but he got no reply.

Their father pushed up his glasses with his thumb and forefinger and sighed long and deep. "Scram, guys."

"Huh?" they replied low and nasal and in unison.

"You heard me, scram, I got nothin' to say on the subject. I know your mom isn't gonna lie to you, and some things I got nothin' to say about. This is one of 'em," Ritchie explained.

"That's your comment?" Kenny was incredulous.

"No comment?" Teddy added.

"That and, you know, real life usually doesn't have a point." Ringo walked over to the sink, ran himself a glass of water. He nodded at the door. "Now, scram."

Suddenly stirred into action, Kenny and Teddy raced each other to the exit. Joey hung back. "Where are we 'sposed to go, Dad?"

"Why don't you go to Taos, pick up some dinner?" He fished his keys out of his pocket.

CHINESE? GARLIC FRIED CHICKEN FOR ME? Thea signed.

SURE MOM, Joey signed. IT WAS A COOL STORY, BY THE WAY.

As he shut the door behind him Ringo signed, WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM, T?

Thea shrugged, closely examining a thread hanging loose from the bottom of her shirt.

SOME THINGS A KID DOESN'T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR PARENTS. PROBABLY DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW, he signed slowly, holding her eye.

I STARTED WITH HOW I STOLE A SPOON AND TOOK OFF FROM THERE. She forced a smile. WANT TO DO A RE-ENACTMENT?

AM I GOING TO NEED TO WEAR AN OVEN MITT? The corner of Ringo's mouth twitched while he signed.

Thea uncrossed her legs and leaning forward, signing. HOW ABOUT THE PART WHERE YOU ASK ME IF I KNOW WHERE BABIES COMES FROM?

That was it. The grin broke through despite his best efforts. I THINK WE KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT ONE

Thea's reply was to strip off her t-shirt and sign CARE TO REMINISCE?

COME HERE, YOU, he smirked. Although it was he who took her in his arms, it was she who led him to the couch, walking backwards until they were twined together there.

Her hands slipped to the buttons of his jeans.

Hands. Faces. Bodies. Their personal language.

Of course, Ringo had neglected to give his sons so much as a dime for their foray in search of dinner, and of course, they chose that moment to tumble back through the door.

SHIT!! Thea signed, bare-chested.

Ringo covered his face with his hands.

So did his sons.

Thea folded her arms across her breasts. Ringo, realizing his jeans were still half-undone, tossed his wallet to the boys.

"Thanks, Dad. We're all gonna hafta g-gouge out our eyes now," Teddy stuttered in the doorway. "Would it be too much to ask you two to get a room?"

The door slammed behind him.

DID YOU SEE THAT? THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO LEAVE HOME, she signed. IT'S NOT LIKE WHEN YOU LEFT NEBRASKA, RITCHIE. THEY'RE HAPPY AT HOME WITH US.

MAMA, he signed, reaching out and touching her face, HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU WERE ON YOUR OWN?

She glared at him. 11, 12, SOMETHING LIKE THAT. BUT I HAD GIBSON. IT'S NOT THE SAME.

NO, IT'S NOT THE SAME, he agreed. THEY AREN'T GOING TO BE PICKING POCKETS AND EATING OUT OF DUMPSTERS. THEY'LL BE HOME AT CHRISTMAS AND IN THE SUMMER. YOU CAN WRITE THEM WHENEVER YOU WANT. THEY CAN CALL OR EMAIL IF THEY NEED ANYTHING, OR IF THEY GET LONESOME. HELL, WE COULD GO CHECK ON THEM IF WE FELT LIKE IT, BUT THEY'D PROBABLY GET EMBARRASSED.

I DON'T KNOW. Thea, still bare-chested, scowled. WHAT IF I SAY I JUST DON'T WANT THEM TO GO?

Ringo looked at her over the tops of his glasses. THEY AREN'T GOING TO GROW UP HANGING AROUND THE HOUSE, SPENDING THEIR LIVES JERKING OFF AND TRYING TO BEAT EACH OTHER'S HIGH SCORES ON WHATEVER NEW GAME THEY GOT THIS WEEK. TRUST ME, IT DOESN'T WORK.

Thea looked away.

Ringo stepped gently on the toe of her tennis shoe to get her attention. She looked up sadly.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE TO MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS, he signed patiently. THEY'RE AS CLOSE TO GROWN-UP AS WE CAN MAKE THEM. THEY HAVE TO DO THE REST THEMSELVES.

Suddenly, Ringo's expression changed. YOU'VE SPENT HALF YOUR LIFE BEING A MOM, HAVEN'T YOU?

Thea frowned. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?

I DON'T KNOW. He shrugged. BUT WHATEVER IT IS, DO IT WITH ME?

Thea smiled a crooked smile. She pressed one hand against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her palm. ALWAYS, she signed one handed. ALWAYS.

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End 12/12

End Retam Sullet

THANKS FOR READING!