Title: Tellus Mater (07/07)
(Sequel to Pater Familias)

Author: OneMillionAndNine

Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com

http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine/

See 01/07 for detailed headers. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I didn't want to look dumb, but it was dark and it was 
raining and there were an awful lot of trees.  Mom caught 
up to me, but went in circles and then we went in more 
circles. Every time a twig snapped Mom had me follow it. 
Half the time, you could tell just by listening it was a 
rabbit or rain or something and no way big enough to be 
that girl. Mom never would have made it in the Indian 
Guides. But I didn't want to think about what Mom would do 
if I didn't' find the Subject, so I kept looking.  

Then I found her. 

Tripped over her really. She was sort of squatting down in 
this little valley kind of place. I saw a flutter of brown 
and it was the edge of her muddy dress in the wind.

I grabbed her by the cuffs and pulled her up. She didn't 
fight me - I think the drugs were making her really dopey - 
but she was harder to move than before.

"Got her!" I yelled over the wind.

"Bring her back here." Mom's voice was clear even over the 
rain and a sudden crack of lightning.

I tried to get her to Mom as fast as I could. Something 
about how she looked was starting to scare me. Her knees 
kept buckling. She was crying now, but it sounded weird, 
not like normal crying, and that scared me more.  I had to 
almost drag her the last part of the way, but I got her to 
Mom.

"Do you want me to take her back to the van, Ma'am?" 

Mom unlocked her just long enough to cuff her to the 
nearest tree.  "No. Run back to the van and get the 
blankets and the body bag. I'm going to need you to cover 
me, so be quick." Then, with one really smooth move, she 
kicked the girl's legs out from under her.

I ran as fast as I could. This was no time to piss her off.

That must have been when I did it. I was just trying to 
hurry.

When I got back with the things Mom wanted, she had pulled 
the girl's dress up over her head so it hung on her arms 
beside the tree. Her gloves were stuffed in the  girl's 
mouth and she was dipping into the top of her belly with 
the scalpel she had stuck in the pocket of her wind 
breaker. I guess it didn't matter if it was sterile any 
more.

Then I heard a shaky man's voice. "Drop the knife, Miss  
Covarrubias."

I looked around in the darkness until I saw him. A man with 
a  beard in a trench coat was pointing a gun at Mom.
 
Oh god. I felt in my pocket. No gun. He had my dad's gun 
and it was pointed at my Mom.

"And how many do you think are pointed at you right now, 
Mr. Byers? Would you like to take a guess?" Her voice was 
silky, just like it got right before she was about to reach 
out to smack you. That man, he should have been very 
afraid. 

"I'll shoot if I have to." He sounded like he was about to 
cry.

"I think I'll keep to my own agenda, thank you."  Mom said 
and she started to drag the scalpel back down into the cut. 

And just like that, "Bang!" 

Mom fell over backwards.  In the moonlight, I could see the 
blood on her chest. 

For a second, the man and I just stood there looking at 
each other. 

"Who are you?" the man asked. "Junior, is that-?"    

But then he seemed to change his mind.  He ran over to the 
gir- the Subject.  He put the gun down and took off his 
coat and started pressing it into the girl's belly. "I need 
help over here," he shouted. "I found her and I need help 
NOW!" 

Then all of the sudden I realized she was dead. Mom was 
dead. He'd killed her. I was alone. I had nobody. I didn't 
even know my real name.

He yelled again. "I need help, guys! Over here!"

The man looked at me. "I need your help, son," he said. "I 
need your help or this woman and her babies are going to 
die. Help me." 

She wasn't a woman. Couldn't he see that? "She must be 
special to you." My voice sounded kind of weird. 

"She is," the man answered. "She's very special."   

It seemed really obvious then what I had to do. I felt calm 
for the first time in about a million years. "Okay," I 
said. "Okay.  I'll help you." 

"Good," the man said. "Come over here."  

So I did. I walked over to him, stood behind him. Blood was 
pouring out of the Subject, running out from under the 
man's coat. 

I thought about Dad telling me once that when you got blood 
on your clothes, you had to burn them right away, because 
no matter what you did, no matter how many times you washed 
those clothes, that blood would never go away. That blood 
was with you forever.   

I looked at Mom. She was dead. She was dead and her suit 
and her shoes were ruined. 

She might not have been a very good Mom, but she was all I 
had.

"I'll help you," I said again. 

"Good," he said. "Good. Hang on, Thea. Hang on." 

I picked the gun up off the ground, and I shot him. 

I don't know why I didn't expect him to have as much blood 
as my Mom. I didn't expect it to come out of his mouth. I 
didn't expect him to try to turn around, to slump back over 
mom's dead body and her ruined suit and die.  

But he did. 

They both smelled like shit.

I threw up.

I heard running.  So I ran, and I kept running. Someone 
tall flashed past without even seeing me, but I didn't stop 
until I got to the van. The keys to the van were still in 
my pocket. 

I didn't know where I was going, but I turned the ignition 
and stepped on the gas. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

How Langly managed to find her, and find her quickly, in 
the middle of nowhere, I do not know. But I do know that 
mere feet from the corpses of his best friend and the woman 
who had attempted to murder Thea, Langly managed to deliver 
his sons.

Thea was both hypothermic and in shock, as well as rapidly 
losing blood. Langly managed to skewer himself pretty 
effectively through the palm while sawing through her 
handcuffs with a pair of wire cutters. His injury didn't 
deter him from untangling cords and babies in a vaginal 
delivery a skilled obstetrician wouldn't have dared.

In the one act that was pure Ringo Langly, he tied off 
their cords with bits of coated wire he just happened to 
have in his pockets. As each baby was delivered, he 
stripped off a layer of clothing and swaddled the 
newborns - the first son was in his leather jacket, the 
second in flannel, the third in a black short sleeve t-
shirt that read 'Animal Boy.' They were his from the second 
they came into the world.

When we found them, the blow flies had started to gather 
around Byers and Covarrubias. The living were bloodier than 
the dead, and a half-naked Langly was huddled together with 
his children and their delirious mother, trying desperately 
to shield them from the rain. Thea didn't come anywhere 
close to coherence until she was in the ambulance half an 
hour later. It was clear he had saved her life.

Amid the screaming and flashing lights, Vern Collins handed 
us a key piece to the puzzle of our lives that we hadn't 
even been searching for. He put his arm around Mulder and 
very quietly said, "Marty, Walter told me before you two 
even got to Delphi that you were in some kind of 
trouble, but believe you me, I never saw anything like this 
coming." 

Mulder started, aghast. "Before? You mean you-"

Vernon put a finger to his lips. "Don't worry about any of 
this. It's taken care of." He headed back toward the 
cruiser, then turned back to us. "And congratulations on 
the grand babies.  Fine looking boys."

The next afternoon, we made a somber trio in the small 
hospital neonatal lounge, Frohike, Mulder and I, each of us 
exhausted, each of us with a healthy, bright-eyed baby in 
our arms. 

I scrutinized the child I was holding. He had a 
startled pink face with a tiny cleft chin, and a heavy 
thatch of white hair, which no amount of smoothing could 
subdue, stood out on the top of his head. He was 
indistinguishable from his brothers and they were, without 
question, Langly's. 

Still, there were signs of the rest of us in them. Their 
long thin bodies reminded me of my own children and their 
eyes looked exactly as Daniel and Sylvie's had when they 
were born. They had their grandfather's eyes, and 
although Mulder maintained there was no way I could have 
known at that point, my nose. What would become their broad 
faces and sharp cheek bones were an interesting amalgam of 
Richard Langly and Fox Mulder. The round mouths were like 
Thea's and mine.The raised area near the top of their 
little spines were Spender's legacy. And underneath the 
skin what appeared to be a small metal vertebrae. Bantam 
Supermen with iron some how woven into their very DNA, 
newborns of steel. Sweet smelling and gorgeous.

Despite my conversation with Thea earlier in the day, 
I knew she'd come around.  She would hold them in her arms 
and everything would be fine.  It was just the drugs 
talking.

I was surprised by my own reaction to them. I never 
expected to fall in love with someone else's children. I 
found myself kissing his little fingers. For the moment, 
they were just babies. My flesh and blood. Mulder's. 
Langly's. Thea's. Ours. With luck, they would never have to 
be soldiers of any kind. I crossed my fingers, hoping that 
they would grow up to be SuperDoctors, ImmortalAccountants, 
anything else.  If they had to, they would fight on the 
side of right, of justice.  They'd be the good guys. I knew 
it. 

"Hey champ, try keeping those little feet in the blanket, 
will you?" Mulder rewrapped the squirming infant on his 
lap. "Actually, they aren't that little, are they?" He held 
one ink stained foot against his palm. I could see the 
Delphi basketball ball team of 2022 taking shape in his 
head. Well, there went all his big talk of early 
retirement.

It was patently unfair, that there we were with family and 
plans and these beautiful new lives, when John Byers, the 
man who both desired and deserved love and security as much 
as any of us, was dead. What would he want? I tried to 
imagine.

I had always gotten the impression that what he truly would 
have wanted was Susanne Modeski and a family of his own. I 
fought back an onslaught of tears. That day would never 
come.

I tried to focus. The John Byers I knew would want us to 
cherish Thea and her children. Teach them to believe in the 
things that meant so much to him; democracy, truth, 
justice, kindness, compassion. I looked at Mulder murmuring 
kisses in the Red Wire Boy's ear. We could handle that.

I looked at Frohike. Mulder had once told me, after  
swearing me to secrecy, that Frohike had two daughters 
around Langly's age living in Florida. They chose not to 
see him. Apparently his break-up with their mother had been 
less than amiable. It was entirely likely that he had 
grandchildren he had never seen. Might never see.

I had never heard Langly once, in the time I had known him, 
mention his own father. For better or worse, it looked to 
me like Frohike filled that role for him. I wondered if 
Melvin ever noticed how much his approval, his simple 
acknowledgment meant to Ringo. If Mulder was one 
grandfather, then Frohike was, for all practical purposes, 
the other. 

The little man was stroking Green Wire Boy's head.

"Hey, Sunshine," he cooed. Who would have imagined Melvin 
Frohike could coo? "Are you happy, little guy? Well, you 
oughta be. Don't let Grandma and Grandpa fool you; we're 
all so happy we're about to bust." He made clucking noises 
through his tears. 

He was right. It was true. I was startled to find myself 
deliriously happy and completely heartbroken at the same 
time. It was a distant but familiar feeling.
 
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I woke up in hospital bed with my hand so damn bandaged it 
looked bigger than my fucking head. Everything I had hurt. 
It was like some kind of hangoverzilla.

Owwww, fuck!

 I turned, and on reflex, grabbed my head with my hurt 
hand. Shit, that smarted. If I squinted, I could see there 
was someone in the other bed. It took a minute and I had to 
drag my IV stand along side, but I got to the other bed.  

It was empty. Damn.

I hobbled to the doorway and looked both ways.  She was 
either one way or the other. I knew for a fact when we got 
there she was in worse shape than I was, so it would stand 
to reason she was closer to the nurse's station. Right? 

My hand hurt like hell. Throb did not even begin to cover 
it. And I'd have given anything for my glasses. 

The hall opened up onto a lounge area where I could see 
vague shapes and hear Mulder and Fro and some little baby 
noises.

I turned and headed the other way.

Thea was in the next room over. She was laying in the bed, 
the pillow over her face. 

As soon as I sat on the edge of her mattress, she waved me 
off. I guess the nurses had been hassling her.

I drew a T in the hollow of her throat. She raised her 
pillow and turned her face to me in one motion. Her face 
was pale, almost grey, but her eyes and lips were red and 
swollen from crying. 

"I'm sorry," she signed and sniffed, trying to suck it up.

WHAT FOR? I spelled before I wiped her face with the hem of 
my hospital gown.

"The monsters. I had monsters." She shut her eyes for the 
count of ten but kept signing. "I thought,  I thought I 
could give you, I thought I could make something good, like 
you see sometimes, you know, two people with some babies. 
Danny and Sylvie and Marty and Laura.  Like that."

A. FAMILY, I spelled

"Yeah, a family."  Her shoulders were starting to shake. "I 
thought I was going to give you babies, but they're 
monsters. All I can give you is monsters." She was making 
that terrible honking noise and her face was shining wet.

YOU SEE THEM? I asked patting her tears with my bandaged 
hand, but soft enough so I didn't start crying, too

"In the ambulance." She shook her head. "But my mother told 
me," she sniffed again, "about how they have 
the...place...the bump on the backs of their necks."

"SHE TOLD YOU THEY ARE PERFECT TOO."

Thea just shrugged. 

THEY LOOK LIKE ME, I spelled

Must have been the wrong thing to say because she started 
crying even harder after that. That's when I noticed her 
tits looked uncomfortably hard and full underneath her 
gown. It had to hurt.

HOW ARE YOUR TITS? I asked in my own stupid spelling. I 
should have known better than to ask her, she hated to 
admit she was anything less than ten feet tall and bullet-
proof.

"Like tits." She frowned.

SORE?

She just scowled at that.  

I wasn't quite sure how to ask. CAN I SEE THEM? 

She grinned, wiping her tears. "Sure, my glands are your 
glands. You like them big like this?" she signed before she 
raised her gown up over her chest.

I saw the black sutured scalpel cut down the top of where 
her pregnant belly used to be and winced. I nodded at her, 
reaching out to feel them.

Just like I thought;  rock hard and hot. I breathed in 
pretty deep - I felt like I might faint for a minute.

LOOKS LIKE YOUR MILK CAME IN I spelled.

 She stared, stunned.

I KNOW WHAT TO DO, I told her.

She tried to sit up and watch me, but it must have been too 
much for her. She gave up and used the button on the bed 
rail.

Getting all the towels in her room hot and wet in the 
little sink one-handed turned out to be a good chance to 
rest my forehead against the wall.

I laid the steamy towels on her chest and petted her head 
while they cooled.

After the third time I reheated them, she signed, "Thank 
you."

I nodded at her. I didn't know what else to do. Except - 
well I remembered better than I thought I would. I wrung 
out the towels the best I could with the unbandaged hand 
and sat down on the side of her bed.

I kissed her forehead.

I put my palm on the underside of her left breast and 
rolled my fingers toward her nipple squeezing into a towel. 
The technique wasn't hard to adapt to a human. Actually, I 
was probably much better at it like this. 

Her face was starting to look a lot softer by the time I 
got up to wring the milk out of the towel. She was still 
really full, but at least she wasn't impacted anymore.

"Ritchie," she signed, patting the empty side of the bed 
for me to lay next to her.

Good thing too, since I was this close to falling over.

We laid there for awhile, all scrapes and IVs and stitches. 
This was a juncture I never imagined my life reaching. Fuck 
me if I knew what to do. 

I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. It didn't work.

I needed to tell her then and there. I had reached some 
kind of high water mark of purpose and clarity, freezing to 
death in the woods with my hand inside her, trying to 
untangle babies and cords. I thought about my dad. What 
ever else I had to say about him, he was there. I had to 
tell her.

I poked Thea in the side. I WANT THEM, I spelled. I WANT 
THE BOYS.

"How can you?" she signed, her jaw flexing.

THEY'RE MINE. OURS.  IS IT A CRIME TO WANT MY OWN KIDS? I 
shifted onto my side trying not to crimp the IV.

She didn't sign a word.

JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT DOESN'T MEAN THEY HAVE TO BE 
BAD, I spelled.

Her jaw was set and she was squinting. "I wanted them to be 
like you. Not the Babies from the Black Lagoon."

ARE YOU A MONSTER? DO YOU THINK YOU'RE A MONSTER? My 
fingers were cramping.

"The shoe fits," she answered in terse sign

 BECAUSE OF HOW YOU WERE MADE? I asked.

 She nodded.  

I felt really shy, all of the sudden. I wanted to remind 
her how we made those babies in my messy bed, not in some 
lab, but I couldn't say it. YOU, MULDER, SCULLY, DANNY, THE 
BABIES. I GUESS I LIKE MONSTERS. I tried to make myself 
smile but it didn't work.

She turned her head away. 

I didn't mean to, but I couldn't help it. I started to cry. 
I grabbed her face with my good hand and pulled it toward 
me. "No, nuh uh," I said, wishing I had a pen. I wiped my 
face on my arm and started to finger spell. NO. DON'T DO 
THIS TO ME.

"This isn't about you," she signed, looking mad.

I CAN'T TAKE IT, OKAY?  That was when I realized she didn't 
know about Byers. 

She knew something was up, well more was up than she 
already knew about. She pursed her lips and cocked her 
head. "Tell," she signed.

BYERS, I spelled and stopped.

"What? Byers what?" She started to look more afraid than 
mad. "Is he hurt? Can I see him?"

DEAD. I spelled.

I'd never seen her look like that before. Her mouth flew 
open and her eyes went wide and she made this sound half 
way between a bark and a squeak. She went straight into 
sobbing, every breath squeaking out of her lungs. 

I couldn't hold back then.  It really hit me. Like somebody 
scooped out my guts with a shovel. My tears started to 
spill onto my hospital gown and I didn't even try to stop.

All of a sudden ,she started to sign. "That stupid son of a 
bitch. He died to save babies that can't be hurt."

I don't know what came over me but I could have strangled 
her when she said that.  I grabbed her wrist. "No," I 
mouthed deliberately and in her face "No.  He died to save 
you."

She jerked her hand out of mine and covered her face with 
both arms. We both laid there and bawled, even after we'd 
run out of tears. If anyone was worth it, Byers was.

"He, he, he," she signed over and over. "I loved him, like 
Sylvie and Danny."  She stopped and wiped her face on her 
gown. "Like they love Scully and Mulder. He was good, a 
good person. I wish he was my Dad."

DON'T BE HARD ON MULDER. NOT EVERYBODY CAN BE JOHN BYERS, I 
spelled at her.

"I know. I like Mulder. I just, I could have been Byers', I 
could have been his and Susanne's," she signed. 

I looked at her and wondered what the hell Byers had said 
to her about Modeski. 
She didn't have a clue. She couldn't 
have been theirs in a million years. She was Mulder and 
Scully's to the core.

HE LOVED YOU LIKE THAT. YOU WERE IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO DIE 
FOR, TO KILL SOMEBODY OVER. I didn't have to tell her that 
John Byers being willing to kill was a lot more shocking 
than him being willing to die. FRO LOVES YOU TOO, YOU KNOW, 
NOT JUST ME I MEAN -  My fingers were starting to cramp up. 
I DON'T KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

"I hope you people are right. I hope I'm worth it," she 
signed.

A second later it sounded like the freaking Orc Army was at 
the door.

"We've got some hungry little guys here,  so Dad, get your 
hand out of her shirt," I heard Frohike yell through the 
door right before he opened it.

He looked bad. His eyes were red and swollen. To tell the 
truth, I bet we all looked that way  -  red eyes and runny 
noses but smiling.

The babies looked even better now, wrapped tight in their 
little blankets. 

Thea looked afraid. "Well?" she signed at Frohike, 
swallowing. "Who do you think is hungriest?"

"This little guy started complaining first," he signed with 
the baby over his shoulder. As Fro passed him to Thea, it 
was plain to see the baby could hold up his wobbly head. He 
hunched his little shoulders, finally worming his arms out 
of the blanket, then he started to flail.

LET ME, I told her

With my good hand, I helped him get the nipple into his 
mouth. "Here have a little mama ta ta," I whispered and he 
calmed down right away, turning his head enough to look at 
me. His eyes were clear and focused. He knew the sound of 
my voice. He recognized me. I put my hand on his head and 
touched his bristly white hair. "You know your old man, 
don't you?" I felt hot and cold in my chest and tried to 
suck back whatever it was that was trying to start up all 
over again. I leaned in and touched the back of his head 
while he nursed.

"If you moved to a chair I could nurse two at once," Thea 
signed to me repositioning the baby first over her 
shoulder, then under her arm, like a football, his head at 
her tit. 

Her face was changing. It was hard to explain, but she 
looked softer, more relaxed. Endorphins, maybe?

Scully helped her get another boy latched on. They sounded 
like a couple of puppies, squirming and sucking. I could 
hear them swallowing, I could hear the milk going down 
their throats.

Shit, my hand hurt.

Mulder stepped up to me with a baby, and I was almost 
surprised.  I was so wiped out I forgot for a minute how 
many there were. That was less than encouraging. 

I looked over at Thea.  She had a sad smile on her face and 
was touching their little faces her finger tips. She raised 
her hands at the wrists.slightly

"Mother " she looked at Scully and signed, restraining her 
movement just enough to keep from disturbing my feeding 
babies. "Are babies always this soft? Their skin, I mean?"

"They smell good, too," Scully signed and nodded. "When  
Danny and --  when  your brother and sister were born, I 
used to just sit and sniff them."

Thea bit her lip. "I wish," she signed but Scully cut her 
off her jaw clenched.

"There's no point wishing to change what's already done," 
Scully signed quickly.

One of Thea's hands clenched.

"Thea," she signed at her stepping closer. "You should 
know. When your father and I were still working for the 
FBI, I found a girl. She would have been your sister. She 
was your sister." 

"What happened to her?" Thea asked tight and close to her 
chest.

"I tried to get custody of her from the state, but I was 
denied. It turned out the manipulations they tried to make 
to her DNA were too radical. She developed a rare blood 
condition and she died." She looked cold, stony even, as 
she gave Thea the facts. "Her body disappeared from the 
hospital almost immediately afterwards." 

"She was younger than me, right?" Thea continued to sign 
small as Mulder and Frohike got busy entertaining the last 
baby who was starting to get hungry. We were going to have 
to name them soon.

"She was born November 2, 1994," Scully signed, beginning, 
against her will, to show more feeling. "She was one of 
their failures."

"Why did you want her?"

"She was my daughter. Just like you are."

That was when Thea started nodding to herself. She looked 
just like Mulder does when he's working up his courage. 
"Like these are mine, mine and Ritchie's, right?" She 
looked down at the one who had stopped sucking to look 
around. Gently, she lifted him in one arm his head in her 
palm. Scully leaned forward and took him.

"Hey Gramps, looks like there's a feeding station open," I 
interrupted whatever negotiations Mulder and Fro were 
having with the baby on the edge of crying. Scully operated 
the baby exchange. I wound up with the full one on my lap.

"You know, we need to name them," I said out loud, because 
my one good hand was occupied.

"What?" Thea asked, before Scully could sign it to her.

"That's easy," Thea answered.  "Primus, Secondus, Tertius "

I gave her the look.

"Larry, Curly, and Moe?"

My expression didn't change.

"Manny, Moe and Jack? I really like the name Moe. It looks 
funny when hearing people say it." She made an O with her 
mouth.

"John Fitzgerald," Frohike croaked as he signed. 

Thea and I nodded. When Fro was right, man,  he was right.

"This one seems most like him." She kind of pointed at the 
one on her left side and started to cry again.

"What ever you do, don't name any of them Melvin," Frohike 
volunteered, signing and talking at the same time, choking 
back what looked like tears even though he was trying to 
cheer everybody up.

"The dog is already Melvin," Thea signed.

"Or Fox," Mulder chimed in, sniffling.

"William is a nice name," Scully offered.  My father and 
Muld- Marty's father were both called William." 

"For the record, I'd like to cross Charles Gordon Byron off 
the list," Thea signed.

The rest of us looked confused for a minute.

"You know, CGB? Grampa Caligula?" She looked expectant, 
waiting for us to laugh.

"That was his name?" Mulder asked soberly

"You didn't know?"

We all shook our heads.

"We always called him The Smoking Man," Frohike signed.

"Kenneth," I said.  "This one should be Kenneth."

Mulder signed to Thea for me, and asked, "After The 
Thinker?" and Thea signed " Like the guy who broke into the 
MJ files?"

I nodded at both of them.

"I'd like to name one after Thea - you know, Theodore - 
Ted," I said.  Scully signed for me that time.

Thea wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

I turned my head so she could read my lips. I knew she was 
better at it than she'd always let on. "You got something 
else?"

"Beautiful," she signed then spelled it out. "Name him 
BEAUTIFUL."

 GIMME A BREAK, T,  I spelled, the baby cradled in my bad 
arm. Man, he was heavy.

Fro stepped forward and wiped Thea's hair out of her eyes 
with his hand. "Why do you want to name the boy BEAUTIFUL, 
sweetheart?"

Her hands were shaky. "After his- "she had that looking for 
a word expression on her face,"-his DADDY." 

Everybody seemed to hold their breath. Personally, I was 
waiting for someone to point out that my looks aren't 
exactly my strong suit.

Hickey leaned closer and kissed her cheek. "I think that 
would be a fine middle name.  Go with Ringo on the Ted, 
though."  He signed to her, his elbows on the bed rail. 
"For me? Please? And you," he pointed at me. "I don't want 
to hear you give her any shit about this. Capice?" 

I nodded.

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "Teddy, Kenny, and John. 
Jesus, sounds like they're gonna summer at damn Hyannis 
Port."

Mulder made a noise behind him.

"Huh? What did you say?" I asked.

"Oy," Mulder said again, but a little more clearly.

"Oy," Fro repeated rubbing his eyes. "You may be a shiksa, 
Farmboy, but you're our shiksa."

Scully hhhhmphed at them, crossing her arms across her 
chest and sniffling. "Well, what can I say about modern 
children? You two going to sing Hava Nagila now or the 
Fiddler on the Roof medley?"

Mulder actually stuck out his tongue at her.

For the first time, I knew we were gonna be 
alright.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My first cogent memory is from the morning of my third 
birthday. Before that, there are snatches, sounds, seconds 
of silent motion, but the earliest complete memory I have 
is searching the house for an adult. I woke up as usual in 
my parents' bed with my brothers. Someone was kicking me.

I went downstairs to the kitchen.

No, Uncle Mel wasn't standing there making breakfast, like 
he was supposed to be. And the floor was cold on the one 
foot that had lost its sock in the night.

Maybe it was Saturday. I went up to his room and looked 
under his bed for his going-to-temple shoes. They were gone 
and his one suit wasn't on the door knob. He had gone to 
morning services with Grandma and Grandpa in Birmingham. I 
was slightly put out, as usual, that I had not been 
invited. It wasn't my fault my brothers couldn't sit still. 
Sylvie was nine years old and she didn't sit still any 
better than Kenny and she got to go.  

I stamped my cold foot. I'd bet anything they went to the 
electronics store afterwards.

I checked both bathrooms. No Mom. No Dad.

I went back downstairs and checked the living room again.

They were on the couch. Asleep. Together. Dad's face 
pressed was against Mom's neck. I figured if I lifted up 
the quilt carefully enough I could slip in there without 
either of them noticing.

They were naked. 

"You're naked!" I signed at them. I'd seen them both in the 
shower before but naked, asleep, on the couch, was 
confusing. Of course, signing to sleeping people was fairly 
useless and neither of them noticed.

I looked at them a little longer. It occurred to me this 
probably had something to do with what my grandfather 
called his romance. Did my parents have a romance? I felt 
almost certain they did, and it was something they had been 
leaving my brothers and I out of for years. I wanted to 
cry. So I did.

"I want to be part of your romance!" I yelled it three or 
four times before Dad sat up and put his glasses on, 
jolting Mom awake. I remembered he seemed especially 
embarrassed to not be dressed. Mom didn't particularly 
care. She wrapped the quilt around him.

"I want to be part of your romance!" I tried to sign my 
frustration but I didn't know the sign for what I was 
trying to say. Dad filled it in for me.

Mom scooped me up into her arms and kissed the side of my 
face.

"Hey, Beautiful, you've always been part of our romance. 
You came from our romance. You are made of pure romance," 
she signed slowly

"But but but," I signed knowing she was 
side-stepping the real issue.

Dad, of course, knew just how to snap both of us out of our 
oedipal quagmire.

"Anybody want to go out for breakfast? I think I got some 
early birthday presents around here some place."

I also remember eating waffles in Debbie's Delphi Diner.

As usual, Dad had finished first and fallen asleep with his 
head on our mother's shoulder and the newspaper he 
pretended to read in his syrup. Mom was dunking her waffles 
in her side of cream gravy and eyeing the three of us.

Kenny kept sticking his red birthday car in his milk and 
sucking it clean. John was driving his car one complete 
circuit around his plate rim for every bite he took. My car 
was still secure in my pocket while I worked on poking my 
index finger through all the squares in my birthday waffle.

I had a question for mom. I tried to sign, forgetting the 
waffle stuck on the end of my finger.

She raised her eye brow. I laid the waffle on the table.

"Why are we here?"

Her long hands signed lazily, still holding her waffle 
between two fingers. "Dad doesn't know how to make 
waffles."

"No, no, no. No, I mean here, in this life?"

"You're here," she bit her lip, "because Dad and I made 
you." She looked mischievously at my brothers. "Sometimes 
we get carried away with a good thing."

"No I mean, I mean people. Why are humans, you know, people 
here, on this planet, alive?"

She laid her waffle on top of her coffee cup. "Be 
specific."

"What's the reason? Is there a reason? You know, why?"

She squinted. "Your grandmother says the reason we are here 
is to find a reason." The way she signed it was tentative.

"I want to know, I want to know what you think," I signed.

She looked at me and then at my brothers who were watching 
closely. "To build. I think the purpose of life is to 
build."

I thought about that. 

I was still thinking about it when Kenny held up his milky 
Volkswagen. "Mom, you think there's any chance I could 
trade this for a cow?"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
End 07/07
End Tellus Mater
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