Hole in the Black
by PD

ARCHIVAL:  Gossamer, no thanks. Stories will be housed at 
my site only. If you'd like to link, I'd love it, but 
please drop me note with a heads up.

DISCLAIMER:  Can I borrow the keys to the franchise, Chris? 
I won't go to any FBI balls, I promise to make a full stop 
at most clichés, and I will try not to dangle my 
participles at the nice couple in the unremarkable house.

CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR, IWTB, TMI, ASAP

RATING:  R

SPOILERS:  Through The X Files: I Want To Believe

SUMMARY:  "I wasn't in the group, Mr. Mulder. I was a 
tangential part of the project - in league with those few 
who were adamant on the subject of developing an antidote 
and a vaccine. He was our man on the inside, but we were 
not on the side of complicity with the colonists and that 
meant we were on the outside. Fringe element. We were not 
highly regarded. We weren't even invited to the group 
barbecues." He caught himself and smiled. "Ah. No pun 
intended."


~ Chapter 8 ~
 
A sudden pounding at the door to their room made them both 
jump, wrenching them from their afternoon dreams.

"Jesus," Scully said. "Mulder -"

"Yeah," he said. They both got up and moved to the door. 
Mulder pulled back the edge of the curtains and peered out 
the window. 

"Oh," Mulder said, but it was more a slight and involuntary 
sound than an acknowledgement. "He's not a fed, Scully. 
He's a little too short." Mulder pulled the door open so 
they could both see. 

William stood outside the door, ramrod straight, his 
sneakered feet together. He was tall for his age, and 
Scully imagined he could easily pass for eight. 

William looked back and forth between the two faces before 
him, mouth agape, eyes wide. His light brown hair was a 
little too long and a little too messy, but his eyes were 
clear and blue and in a matter of moments, his mouth 
closed, and he seemed to gather his wits. He offered them a 
lopsided smile.

"Hi," the boy said. "I didn't know what you looked like."

"We," Mulder started and cleared his throat. "We didn't 
know what you looked like either."

William eyed them both again and finally settled on Mulder. 
"I look like you," he said matter-of-factly.

Mulder had to work at it not to burst into tears. He smiled 
and nodded at his son.

Scully was having no trouble covering her emotions since 
she wasn't really trying. Fortunately for everyone 
involved, she was not sobbing uncontrollably, and she 
thanked whatever inner strength she had left for that. 
Still, her eyes welled and a tear spilled over. Maybe two. 
A smile on her face, she kneeled down to look him in the 
eye.

William started to take a step toward her and stopped 
himself. "Um," he said and looked up at Mulder, including 
him in the exchange. "Can I," he started and turned to 
Scully, "hug you?"

Her language skills apparently gone, Scully just nodded her 
head again. William stepped forward and tentatively, 
loosely, put his arms around her neck. She held him 
lightly, letting him control it.

It was brief, too brief, and Scully already missed him when 
he pushed back from her. William glanced up at Mulder. 
Mulder, unsure of himself, opened his hands in invitation. 
Clearly embarrassed, the boy nodded and stepped into 
Mulder's arms. Again, it was brief, unsure. Not 
perfunctory, but more the actions of a young boy being 
introduced to the aunt and uncle he's never met.

William pulled away from Mulder and stuck his hands deep 
into the pockets of his jeans. He cocked his head and 
grinned at them. "That wasn't as hard as I thought," he 
said.

"Look at you." Scully was marveling at him. "I can't 
believe it." 

Clearly embarrassed at being the object of their adoration, 
William fidgeted and glanced at the surroundings. 

Mulder finally peered out beyond William. "Where is the man 
we've been talking to, William?"

William swung his head around to look behind him and in the 
distance, a man leaning against a car pushed forward and 
started toward them. He didn't look like a fed - at least 
not a typical one. Mulder was often told he didn't look 
like a fed either which he usually took as a compliment. 

"Mr. Mulder," the man said as he approached. "Dr. Scully. 
Nice to finally meet you. We're in Navajo Nation so we 
can't have a drink, but perhaps a lemonade, and we can 
talk."

The man blithely dropped his hand on William's shoulder and 
Mulder was instantly jealous with his ease. "Maybe Dana 
will buy you that chocolate shake you've been wanting, 
William," he said and winked at Scully. Had the man 
projected an air of oiliness about him, Scully would have 
grabbed William right there and run, but it was a friendly 
wink, and the hand on William's shoulder seemed protective, 
not threatening. 

William's eyes lit up at the prospect of a chocolate shake 
and he looked hopefully at Scully who smiled and for the 
first time since they opened the door, felt herself 
breathe.

~:~:~

They sat in the back of the little dining room - Mulder and 
Scully on one side of the table, William and the man on the 
other. Other than ordering their drinks, they'd said 
nothing. Mulder wasn't sure who was waiting for whom, 
though William seemed content to just drink his milkshake. 

He sat opposite Scully, hands in his lap, leaning over the 
table and slowly extracting the thick, chocolaty shake 
through his straw. In a show of solidarity, Scully happily 
got a milkshake, too, while Mulder and the man both drank 
tart, icy lemonade.

"Anything you want to say," the man said suddenly, "you can 
say in front of William. He's unusually smart, and he knows 
more than you think he does."

Mulder considered this for a moment. He nudged Scully under 
the table with his knee. "First thing, William," he started 
and glanced at the man. "Have you called your parents yet? 
They need to know that you're okay."

"I told you," the man said. "They don't need to know yet - "

"They do!" Scully said suddenly and, with a glance around 
the table, apologized for raising her voice. "You know that 
they do." Not interested in making eye contact with anyone, 
she looked up at the ceiling. "They must be going out of 
their minds..."

"They're not," William said. "I mean, they don't go out of 
their minds." Off Mulder's puzzled look, William continued. 
"I've kinda run away before."

Scully frowned. "William. Why? Are you -" She wanted to ask 
it more than anything. She wanted a reason. Any reason. 
"Are you unhappy at home?"

William didn't appear offended. He simply shrugged it off. 
"Naw. I just - go places. I never went this far though. 
Usually, it's just to my Uncle Mike's in Green River." He 
shrugged again. "It's not very far."

Mulder smiled at him. "William, when they call your Uncle 
to ask if you're there and you're not, they will be 
worried. We have to call them."

William nodded in resignation. "I guess they'll be mad."

"Oh, I think they'll be really happy to hear from you," 
Scully said. "Not mad."

"Think so?"

Scully nodded and reached out to briefly touch William's 
hand. "If I - " she started and realized how hard it would 
be to say: *If I were your mother...* She soldiered on, but 
altered her words so it wouldn't hurt as much. "If you had 
run away from me, left home without telling me, I would be 
very worried and not mad and very, very happy to hear from 
you. Wherever you were." 

William nodded again. 

"Okay," the man suddenly said, a bit impatient with the 
parental concern. He glanced at his watch. "Let's move on, 
shall we?"

Mulder nodded contemplatively and folded his hands in front 
of him on the table. "How, did you know, William," he asked 
without specifying a reference. He wondered how and what 
William would glean from his question.

His feet were swinging and his tennis shoes hit the table 
leg again and again. Thud, thud. He shrugged, and pushed 
the straw to one corner of his mouth. "I dunno." He looked 
up at Mulder and then swung his gaze over to Scully. "You 
mean, how did I know about you?" Scully nodded. "I just 
knew," he said.

Mulder and Scully processed this as the boy returned to his 
shake. After a another pull at the straw, he looked up at 
them again. "I knew to come here. Something - I dunno - it 
made me look at a map and find this place." He took another 
sip, satisfied he could do so without losing his place in 
the conversation. "I know things just by thinking about 
them, sometimes. That's how I knew about you. I know Mom 
and Dad adopted me; they told me that. When I wondered - 
thought about who my real mom and dad might be, I knew it 
would be you. I didn't know your names for a long time or 
what you looked like - I dunno, it's hard to explain."

"That's okay," Mulder said.

"I know about the gray guys."

Scully lifted a brow and waited for him to finish.

"The aliens. The gray guys and the goopy stuff. And I know 
there's something I have that everybody needs. Before they 
get here for good." He looked at Scully, obviously needing 
a confirmation. "I never talked about this with anybody. Is 
that right?"

She could only answer him honestly. "I don't know, 
William."

William took another sip of his shake and shrugged again. 
"I think it's right." He looked at Mulder. "But that's why 
you're here. To help me figure it out - right?"

"We'll help you," Mulder said.

"I have a computer at home," William blurted out of the 
blue. "I use it to look up stuff."

"Oh. We brought a laptop you can use," Mulder said.

"Cool," said William. He looked at Scully. "Yours is in 
your neck, right?"

Scully was taken aback. She swallowed and managed to hide 
her shock. "Sort of," she said smiling.

William nodded. "There's a better kind," he said. "For 
you."

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other. "Not where you 
found hers," William said to Mulder. He shook his head, 
obviously trying to come up with the answers to all the 
questions flooding his brain. "I dunno - I think it might 
be where we're going."

"Where are we going, William?" Scully asked.

William had reached the bottom of his shake evidenced by 
the pocket of air he hit and sucked through his straw. "Mm. 
I'm not sure what it's called. I think I can show you on a 
map, though." William seemed to be growing more relaxed and 
comfortable in Mulder's and Scully's presence as each 
moment went by. Suddenly out of left field: "Do you know 
about the supersoldiers?"

The man glanced at William, a puzzled look on his face. 
Mulder caught the look. *Interesting...* "What about them?" 
Mulder asked.

"Supersoldier?" the man asked. He looked at Scully. "What 
the hell's a supersoldier? What is that - like a 
Transformer?"

"Oh, let's not go there," Scully said.

"How did you find Mister...?" Mulder nodded in the man's 
direction, maneuvering the conversation. 

"Roy," the man said. "I think it's in his DNA," the man 
said, doing his own maneuvering.

Scully scoffed, shaking her head. "What?" 

"Yeah, like birds flying south and salmon swimming 
upstream."

William looked at Roy. "And baby turtles going into the 
ocean?" Roy nodded and William looked at Mulder. "I saw 
that on Nat Geo - National Geographic channel. It was 
really neat. Or like that movie about the penguins."

Mulder grinned at him and glanced at Scully's incredulous 
look. "In a sense, right? I mean instinct and reflexes, the 
collective memories of all who've gone before us - if 
William just knows, isn't that instinct? Isn't that genetic 
memory? Is it so implausible, knowing what we know, Scully, 
that he was just born with this information?"

Scully thought about this, weighing. "What if it's just," 
Scully sighed, not quite believing this was her alternative 
theory, "information via telepathic communication?"

Mulder grinned and sipped at his lemonade. "Telepathic from 
whom?"

"Does it really matter?" Roy asked. "Isn't it enough to 
know that he knows?"

Scully smiled at William. "I think maybe William 
understands that it's nice to know why something is the way 
it is."

William smiled and nodded at her. "I like the Science 
channel, too" William offered. 

"Me, too," Mulder said. "I also like cheeseburgers."

William's eyes doubled in size as he shared a smile with 
his father.