The Lambs: Part 2 (16/21)     
by Lamia (AKA so kiss me goodbye) 
                                        
Rating: PG-13 (violence, strong language)
Category: S                             
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9, Fight the Future           
Keywords: William; Colonization              
Summary: Liam van de Kamp's life changes the day two 
FBI agents kidnap him and his parents.
                                   
Author's Note: The Lambs is a three-part story (with prologue).
 

Chapter 26 

April 9, 2012 
New Mexico 

The morning after Easter Sunday a queue stretched along 
the hallway outside the infirmary. There was no 
shortage of volunteers to receive the vaccine. 

Liam didn't know if the volunteers were there because 
they'd been inspired by Major Drummond's speech or if 
they'd already decided the risk was worth it. 

Pride swelled in Liam's chest as he stood by his dad. 
Despite an intense discussion the night before (in 
which both his parents had expressed concern about the 
injection), Liam's father was at the head of the line. 

Liam's conversation with Toby had dampened his 
excitement about the vaccine, but Toby had admitted it 
was better than nothing. 

Liam's mother would not receive the shot for a month 
and no date was set for children to be vaccinated, but 
that didn't stop Liam and Marie joining Harry as he 
waited for Dr. Scully to start the rollout. 

Vaccinations were done in order of priority; anyone who 
patrolled the camp and beyond or made supply treks 
topped the list. Couriers were also important; these 
were the people who were going to smuggle the vaccine 
to labs around the country (and the world) where it 
could be reproduced. Abductees' families were more 
at-risk than the abductees themselves (who had their 
own natural vaccination when Jeremiah Smith healed 
them). 

Few adults would forgo the shot, but when it came to 
the children the reluctance was clear. Even Dr. Scully, 
who had the benefit of knowing Liam had been unharmed 
by his dose, was happy for any inoculation date to be 
pushed back. 

"She's all set for you, Harry." Mrs. Scully, acting as 
her daughter's assistant, ushered the van de Kamps into 
the infirmary. 

Dr. Scully had set up at the back of the room. 

"Last chance to back out," she said, needle in hand. 
Her voice was cheerful but the deep shadows under her 
eyes were worrying. She had arranged a tray of needles 
and vials next to a chair, into which she motioned 
Liam's dad. 

He pushed up a sleeve."Nope. We'll see this to the 
end." 

Liam's mother nodded. "We've come this far." 

With a quick movement, the needle sank into his arm and 
then Dr. Scully was wiping the prick mark. That was all 
there was to it. 

Liam's dad bounded from the chair and thanked the 
doctor. "That wasn't so bad." 

"If you notice anything -" 

"Don't worry, Doc - I'll be back quicker than a moose 
on hot sauce." 

Liam followed his parents to the door when Mrs. Scully 
called to him. 

"Liam, will you tell the next person to wait, please." 
She was at Dr. Scully's side, offering her a glass of 
water. Dr. Scully had pressed her thumb into her eye 
socket. 

"Yes, ma'am." 

His dad had been her first patient, but Dr. Scully 
already looked as though she'd been on her feet all 
day. Sympathy pain developed in his head. How much 
longer would everyone go on pretending everything was 
fine? 

By lunchtime the day had settled back into a normal 
Monday. 

"Guess what I saw?" Ellie took a mouthful of sandwich. 

Liam hated these sorts of questions. "I dunno. Major 
Drummond pick his nose and eat it?" 

Ellie was withering. "No, stupid. That's disgusting! I 
saw Gibson yelling at Mulder." 

"Really?" That *was* interesting - not that he'd never 
seen them argue. "What were they fighting about." 

"They were outside the infirmary. I was waiting inside 
for Mom - she was the last person to get her shot today 
and she was talking to Dr. Scully. I opened the door and 
walked into Mulder. I think Gibson was trying to barge 
in, but Mulder was blocking the way. I don't know what 
they were fighting over. Mulder told Gibson he was 
making a mistake. 

"I suppose it wasn't really yelling," she said, "but 
Gibson looked angry. He stalked off and Mulder followed 
him." 

Liam watched out for both men all afternoon, but 
despite the renewed bustle about the camp he crossed 
paths with neither. He struggled to think why the pair 
would be at odds. Mulder hadn't been on any mystery 
trips for weeks - not since February - and Gibson had 
been getting on with everyone. 

Camp was buzzing because the first courier trek was 
about to set off - Liam heard five adults were going 
that evening. They were leaving together but heading to 
different destinations. Now that the weather was 
warming, his mother and the Scullys had taken to having 
afternoon drinks outside. Liam was with his mother, 
about to join his friends for a game of baseball, when 
Mrs. Scully arrived alone. 

"Your kids are never too old to be ordered around," she 
said to Mrs. van de Kamp as she settled down at the 
picnic table. "I sent Dana to bed with a migraine. I 
have no idea how she stayed on her feet today." 

Liam hadn't had a bad headache in months - not since 
Jeremiah escaped with the artifact - but he remembered 
what they were like. 

"Will she be okay?" Marie asked. 

Mrs. Scully rubbed her temple. "She'll be fine after a 
rest." 

Liam excused himself and hurried downstairs. 

He shouldn't disturb the doctor, but a compulsion he 
didn't understand made him seek her out. He couldn't 
stop himself; maybe he could do something. 

Voices booming through the corridor made him slow when 
he neared her quarters. 

"You're making a mistake, Gibson. It's a trap and you 
know it." 

Gibson had Mulder bailed against his door - the same 
way Ellie had described. 

"*I'm* making a mistake? The vaccine isn't enough - you 
know that!" 

Mulder's arms were crossed. "I can't keep leaving 
Scully. Not this time." 

Gibson wasn't as tall as Mulder but he was broad and he 
was pushing into Mulder's space. 

"At the expense of everyone else? You know this is a 
good idea - the best, in fact. Have you even discussed 
it with Scully?" 

"I don't -" Mulder's eyes locked with Liam's. 

"I *know* you haven't -" Gibson's glower deepened when 
he too caught sight of Liam. He took a step back but he 
didn't leave. 

Mulder straightened. "She doesn't need this." 

Liam shifted on his feet, studying the pattern on the 
floor. Gibson didn't give him a chance to leave 
politely. He went on as if Liam wasn't there - or he 
didn't care what Liam heard. 

"Have some more faith in her. She's not strong enough. 
She's suffered enough. That's your fallback excuse now. 
Scully doesn't give a shit. She keeps going because 
that's what Scully does." Anger radiated from both men. 

"You can be extremely obnoxious sometimes." 

Gibson flicked his hand like he was waving off a 
mosquito. "Because you don't like hearing the truth? 
Remember years ago? You thought Scully was in trouble? 
I told you not to go back. It wasn't her in danger. You 
didn't listen to me then and - you nearly got killed. 
You make mistakes, Mulder. Stupid, stupid mistakes. 
Ignore this information and you'll make another one. 
And it'll probably be your last. And if it's your last, 
you can damn well bet it'll be our last too." 

Mulder sagged. "Sometimes *you* put too much faith in 
me." 

He was caving - but not without resistance. "It's 
risky, Gibson. It might expose us too much - and for 
what? Nothing. If they discover how we've been hiding 
out here, that's our best protection gone. They're 
already suspicious." 

Shaking his head, Gibson caught Liam's eye again. 

"We have a powerful weapon. A game changer - you know 
that. Marita's help could be just what we need to use 
her." 

"Listen to yourself, Gibson. Have you thought this 
through? What would this make us? Fight genocide with 
genocide? That's your solution? Have we all gone so mad 
that we can accept this idea without considering the 
consequences?" 

Gibson's lip curled. "Bullshit. You're lying to 
yourself and you know it. If saving Scully meant wiping 
out the Grays, you'd do it in a heartbeat - don't kid 
yourself. Leave the sermonizing to the experts. "Anyway 
- who made it your right to get to decide what we do or 
don't do? If they found out you were deliberately 
keeping this from them, this place would explode." 

"We agreed some things had to remain secret." 

"Sure, I agreed," Gibson said, "some things *need* to 
stay secret, but Marita's message - what she can do for 
us - shouldn't be one of those things. 

"You're worried about Scully and you're trying to do 
the right thing - but now is not the time to get all 
responsible and shit. Besides. She's forgiven you every 
other time you ditched her." 

*She forgave you for not telling her about seeing dead 
people.* 

"Call it a hunch, but I think Scully is going to be 
alright. After everything you've endured. You almost 
believe it yourself." 

Not for the first time Liam wished he knew more about 
Mulder and Dr. Scully's adventures at the FBI. 

"What if that old guy is right - Scully doesn't die. 
Maybe if you stopped spending so much time feeling 
guilty about her, you'd see you're wasting time and 
energy." 

He had one final arrow to fire. "You know, Mulder, 
maybe if you invested a bit more in faith, you'd be 
free from some of that self-delusion which makes you 
such a miserable bastard." 

Mulder raised a brow. "This is a new tune for you, 
Gibson. I never took you for a risk-taker - you've 
never needed to be. Your chess career was built not on 
your ability to take chances but on your absolute 
command of the battlefield. There wasn't a step any 
opponent could make that you weren't prepared for. 
Where is this sudden love of chance coming from?" 

Liam watched Gibson strain to control himself. His face 
had gone scarlet and his mouth puckered as he held in a 
retort. "Fine. You're not interested. Others will be!" 

He brushed past Liam as he stomped down the corridor. 

They watched Gibson disappear around a corner, then 
Mulder gave Liam a querying look. "I came by to see if 
Dr. Scully was alright," Liam said, feeling his cheeks 
burn. It had been uncomfortable seeing them fight. 

"She's sleeping." 

"That's good." 

"Yes." 

"I suppose you don't want me telling anyone about ...?" 

"I appreciate your discretion although it looks like 
Gibson's going to give it all away anyway." 

Liam scuffed a foot against a crack in the flooring. 
"It's cancer, isn't it?" 

"Yes." Mulder pressed the palms of his hands into his 
eyes. "Probably. Without proper equipment -" 

"Can I see her?" 

"I don't think that's a good idea - not just now." 

Liam didn't know what to feel or what to do. He ended 
up in his room. He talked to Jerry, he flicked through 
a book, he lay on his bed. He stared so hard at the 
cinder blocks in the wall the lines blurred and he told 
himself if he could just look beyond, he could see into 
Dr. Scully herself and hunt down the cancer. Send his 
medic molecules in to find the cancer and destroy it. 
Stupid. He didn't even know where the cancer was. And 
medicine, sadly, didn't work that way. 

-o0o- 

Liam pretended nothing was wrong that night when his 
parents collected him for dinner. He wasn't sure how to 
raise the subject - and he wasn't sure if he *should* 
raise it. 

He was shoveling mashed potato into his mouth when his 
dad was tapped on the shoulder. 

Major Drummond bent between Liam's parents. "Can I 
trust you two to be in the meeting room in an hour?" 

"Of course." Harry put his fork down. "There hasn't 
been a breach, has there? Not Doggett?" 

Despite the supersoldier's inability to escape his 
prison (and his lack of effort to do so), a twenty-four 
hour watch was still kept on the pit. Liam's dad had 
been spending long hours on duty near the hole. 

"No breach," the Major said. "Gibson has put a proposal 
before us which needs immediate consideration." 

Major Drummond eased himself around tables, stopping to 
speak to several other diners. "What do you think it 
is?" Liam asked. 

His dad shrugged. "Who knows? Could be anything. Can't 
be that serious - not if he didn't mind you listening 
in." 

There had been a lot of that happening lately. Toby had 
talked openly about his concerns the day before; Gibson 
and Mulder hadn't shooed him away this afternoon. 
Perhaps the grownups had realized the more effort you 
made to keep a secret, the harder that secret strived 
to free itself. There was a lesson in it for him. 

-o0o- 

Liam mucked around doing homework that evening. His 
books were spread over the little table and he opened a 
few (and moved others around) to feign interest. 

His parents' voices echoed in the hall before the door 
swung. 

"-can understand his concern but it isn't his decision 
to make." Liam's mother slipped inside, removing her 
coat. 

"If not his, then whose?" Liam's dad shut the door and 
pulled out a chair opposite Liam. Neither seemed 
surprised to see him. "You not finished yet, Lee?" 

"I was waiting for you guys." 

His parents shared a look. 

"Nice to see he's still got a healthy respect for 
honesty," Harry said. 

There was no point lying. "Are you going to tell me the 
latest?" 

Liam was half-expecting one or both of his parents to 
hurry him off to bed. His dad's answer took him back. 

"I don't see why not - you'd find out anyway. Gibson 
wants Mulder to track down a woman in New York about a 
device which may give us access to technology which 
might give us another way of protecting ourselves." 

Liam closed his books and piled them. "What kind of 
technology?" 

Harry grinned. "This is where it gets weird." 

"I love weird. Bring on the weird," Liam said. 

"Nanobots - microscopic robots." 

Alarm bells rang. He replayed the previous day's 
conversation around the picnic table. It *could* be 
coincidence. "Seriously?" 

"Gibson believes this woman has tried to make contact 
with Mulder." 

"How?" 

"He says it's taken him a month to work it out because 
the message wasn't delivered directly, and the 
messenger didn't know he was a messenger." 

Liam made a face. "Sounds complicated." 

"That it does. I almost agree with Mulder on that 
basis." 

"What does Mulder say?" 

"Thinks it's a trap." 

Liam's mother, who had gone into her bedroom, returned 
in her dressing gown with a comb in hand. "I know he 
said it was a trap, Harry, but I got the impression he 
wants to go. It was like he was using the trap 
explanation to justify to himself why he couldn't go." 

Mr. van de Kamp, hands laced behind his head, tilted 
back in his chair. "I was thinking along the same 
lines. He hasn't left the camp for weeks." 

"Did something happen on his last trip?" 

"I don't think so - he was only gone a little over a 
week." Liam's dad concentrated on the ceiling. "Slipped 
back into camp looking reasonably pleased with 
himself." 

Liam knew why Mulder was reluctant to leave. *Should I 
say something?* The room slipped into quiet, broken 
only by the elastic snap of the comb through his 
mother's hair. 

"At some point they're going to have to come clean with 
us," Marie said. 

Liam felt her hand and the tingle of the comb against 
his head. "Sit still, Liam. Let me do something with 
this rat's nest." 

"Why the secrecy, do you think?" his dad asked. 

"Habit?" 

Liam twisted to confront his mother. "*You* know Dr. 
Scully's sick, don't you?" 

The comb paused, mid-snag. "What do *you* know, Liam?" 

"Mulder thinks she has cancer." Saying the word felt 
strange. 

The comb continued its path through a particularly 
tangled thicket of hair. "It's unnerving how much you 
ferret out, Liam. We don't know anything official. It's 
hard to get Dana to admit to much and I don't like to 
push." 

"Gibson must know. Calling a meeting was a dirty trick. 
It's unfair to expect Mulder to leave now." Blood shot 
to his scalp when his mother hit another snaggle. 

His dad leaned back. "I presume he wanted to force 
Mulder's hand. Gibson said he'd go but doubted how 
successful he'd be finding the woman by himself. He was 
certain about one thing - the woman wouldn't trust 
anyone but Mulder." 

"Are they going to make him go?" 

"Major Drummond wants Mulder to go - he doesn't want 
Gibson to leave camp. He was livid when he found out 
about this woman; he seemed to think Mulder had 
withheld valuable information on purpose." 

"And Mulder doesn't want to leave Dr. Scully." Liam 
frowned. "What does she say?" 

Marie paused combing. "Mulder doesn't want her to know. 
She wasn't there tonight." 

Mulder was delaying the inevitable if he thought he 
could keep this from her. "He doesn't want her to know 
because she'll tell him to go." 

His mother's rested on his shoulder. "I imagine that's 
true, Liam." 

-o0o- 

Dr. Scully stayed in her room the following day and 
Mulder refused to leave her side. Gibson made no effort 
to hide his rotten temper. Once upon a time he would 
have taken himself away to brood in private, but these 
days he didn't seem to mind being around people whether 
he was in a good mood or not. No one was spared. 

He barked at grownups and children. Only Skinner was 
able to calm him, and only then on occasion. 

"Would you get that fucking cough seen to," he said to 
one victim as they waited in line for dinner. The 
recipient of the attack - the accountant - recoiled, 
pressing his tray against his chest. "It's nothing - 
just a spring cold." 

Gibson glared at him. "The last thing we need is some 
virulent strain of the flu going through here. Only a 
few people escaped a nasty outbreak last year." 

Mr. Skinner, who had been behind Gibson, looked in 
another direction. 

"Fine. I'll get it checked." 

"You do that," Gibson said before he leaned around and 
yelled to the head of the line. "Think you can move a 
bit faster? Some of us would like to eat before the 
next apocalypse." 

"Was that necessary?" Liam heard Mr. Skinner say. 

Liam's fears over Dr. Scully's health were assuaged a 
day later when Mulder told him she was feeling better. 
She had gone topside for air. Liam rushed upstairs 
after school but by then she had gone. 

On the fourth day it was as if there was nothing wrong 
with her, and she resumed her lab and medical duties 
(despite a protest from Mulder that she should minimize 
her exposure to any sort of virus). 

By the pack on Mulder's back a day later Liam knew 
Gibson (and possibly Dr. Scully) had won. Liam joined 
Mulder on his trek to the mess hall for an early 
breakfast. 

"I know where you're going - Mom and Dad told me." 

Mulder squinted at him. "How much did they tell you?" 

"Everything, I think. You don't have to ask - I'll look 
after Dr. Scully." 

"Scully's going to be just fine," Mulder said more to 
himself than to Liam. 

"How is she today?" 

"Healthy enough to tell me where to go. She was up at 
the crack of dawn - not that you can tell when dawn is 
in this place." 

"Are you sure it's -" Liam didn't want to say it. 

"Cancer? I hope not." Again, Mulder seemed to be 
talking to himself more than Liam. 

-o0o- 

"I feel fine, Mulder. Really." 

Liam found it hard to disagree. Her cheeks were a 
healthy pink in the sunshine. She had Mulder's backpack 
on - she had grabbed it from him and charged upstairs. 
There was no trace of the pinched look she got about 
her eyes. 

She challenged those who filed through the door after 
her - Mulder, Mr. Skinner, Gibson, her mother - to 
argue. As far as Liam knew she had not made any 
announcement about her (possible) condition. He doubted 
anyone other than his parents and the people standing 
with him knew. 

No one mentioned her health again. 

Their goodbyes were not drawn out. Mulder and Mr. 
Skinner hoped to cross the rock range in time to 
rendezvous with a vehicle they'd arranged near Old 
Hachita. 

Dr. Scully and Liam watched Mulder and Skinner retreat 
into the desert mirage. 

"Do you really feel okay?" Liam asked. 

Her smile grew wide. "Not you, too. Actually - yes, I 
do feel fine. As well as I've felt in a long time." 

She descended the stairs with pep, but Liam saw a 
puzzled look on her face when she reached the bottom 
and he caught her surreptitiously pinching her nose.