#and i got a bunch of fucked up teens who need therapy but instead get groomed

[almond-tofu-chan]

chainsaw man makes you think its a sick action anime where a horny guy made of chainsaws murders a bunch of guys and gets a sorta fucked up found family along the way, but then you watch it and its actually about a 15 year old boy getting groomed and everybody hates everyone else but theyre mostly busy hating themselves and then everyone dies

[polar534]

Hockey Injury Pt. 1

So Hockey AU was... surprisingly more popular then I thought. Which is good, because I still have ALOT written down about it, and I intend to add more. (It's become a bit of a coping mechanism to write about.) So, in the set-up post I warned that I had a bunch of notes regarding Amity's hockey injury. Well, welcome to a 3-parter folks! That's right. I've got that much written.

Anyways, this first part will be a general text-dump summary of events, the second will be a Luz centered more detailed 'story' about what happened on the ice. And the third will be focused on both girl's healing after the fact.

So vague explanations and warnings aside. Have part 1. Under the cut cause I have ~problems~

In essence. Amity gets like... really injured. It's bad. Like she is laid up in a hospital bad. They don't even have time to get her to the demon dimension where they usually take her when she gets injured (because different biologies and hiding her witchiness), so she gets taken specifically in Camilla's hospital.

They were only barely able to sneak her away from the emt's on duty at the game.

The team becomes immediately suspicious and HIGHLY concerned but they can't do anything because Amity is hurriedly rushed out of the place and to the hospital. Camilla is completely freaked but she also knows this could be much more serious then anyone realizes, because if they take Amity to get the help she needs right now, they'll find out she is a witch. She barges into the hospital first and pulls aside the doctor she works for and explains, completely deadpanned, that the other girl who lives with them is a witch from a different dimension but there's no other place to take her.

Luz is in the hallway with Amity, and is completely shutting down. She is barely holding it together. She knows it's bad because she's only ever seen her mom like this once. And that was when Luz got deathly ill with the flu one year. Amity is barely conscious so there's no need for Luz to be brave.

Luz is alone and terrified. She's spiraling.

The doctor, having worked with and been taken care of by Camilla for years agrees in a heartbeat to not only treat Amity but to make sure the entire treatment is confidential. They get the xray's back and its serious. The broken bone has cut a major vein inside Amity's shoulder. She's bleeding out. They don't have time to worry about the different make up. They rush her into surgery and Camilla needs to be a part of it.

Luz is alone. Waiting.

She knows there's a chance Amity... is just not coming back.

She knows there's a chance of losing her.

And Luz completely shuts down.

During this time, the team secretly tracks down where the family went. As soon as someone pulls it up on their phone, they ditch all of their equipment and leave immediately, mid-match, much to the other's teams confusion.

They crash into the hospital, rushing past the nurses and security trying to stop them. They find Luz out in the hallway from the surgery room, and she's fully awake, but she's unresponsive. They can't get an answer out of her. So they sit there with her. Completely silent. Waiting.

The staff eventually catches up with the teens, but where they expect to find a bunch of rowdy teenagers, instead they find deathly quiet kids, all quiet in fear, they know there was warning put out to all the staff about privacy regarding this emergency surgery. So they buzz off and leave the teens be.

Nobody speaks a word, nobody moves a muscle until Camilla pokes her head out of the room, a couple of hours later. The team all become responsive and alert but Luz doesn't budge.

Camilla understands immediately. Knowing too many people will be overwhelming for Amity while she recovers she beckons Luz in first.

Luz, moves slowly, like a zombie. The team being extremely concerned about both girls but they have each other.

Amity is awake when Luz comes in.

Luz stiffly walks over to her and Amity knows something's wrong. Something broke her girlfriend.

"So. This is where your mother works right? It's so much more clean then the hospitals in the Isles." Amity points out, completely seriously.

Luz cracks. She is so incredibly relieved that she sobs, with a massive smile on her face.

"That's... that's not good Amity!"

It breaks both of the girls and they both laugh and cry as they have a soft moment. Luz updates her on everything that happened after she fell unconscious.

Camilla on the other hand is informing Eda and Lilith what has happened. Some members of the team leave the hallways to find some food and overhear their conversation. Specifically the frequent use of the word: Witch.

***

The next couple of days are spent with Amity being laid up in bed at home, with Luz absolutely spoiling her and fussing over her to the point of annoyance.

King, Eda and Lilith all go to the human realm to check up on their Blight child the night of the injury, Eda and Lilith are concerned but they also know Camilla has an absolute handle on the situation. They trust her to take care of Amity and promise to visit daily until she's better, warning the poor witch that they'll be telling the twins and Willow and Gus first thing in the morning. (Which was a whole thing) King... dallies at the portal to go home that night. Luz picks up on the little guy's worry immediately and knows he won't just admit to wanting to stay with the girls.

So she insists on stealing him for the night, for therapy of course and King takes the hint and runs with it. Insisting that his subjects NEED him.

This makes Luz feel much better because Camilla insists that Luz cannot miss classes despite her girlfriend being bedridden. So she entrusts King to take care of Amity. Which is a relief to King and Amity, because Amity is kinda tired of being babied and King isn't one to baby. He'll take care of her, but they mostly just chill out together and complain. King curling up on Amity's stomach while they both rest.

Meanwhile the team is concerned as well. They discuss the idea of Luz at first being the witch the mother was talking about, because it just kinda fits with her being quirky and an outsider to most everyone else.

So they confront her on it one day when they go to check on Amity, as she's walking them out.

Luz. Finds. This. Hilarious.

She loves it and is so incredibly excited because 1. They know now. And 2. They aren't afraid!! They aren't mad, just worried as to why the girls would keep it a secret.

However they got something wrong. And that's who the biological witch is. Luz points out the teeth and the ears and it suddenly clicks.

Amity is a witch.

Cue that night, Luz getting chewed out by Amity for telling them, but the girls both really giddy that they now have another place they don't have to hide in. They make a plan to have a serious discussion with the team about the need for secrecy.

But more angst. Back to the days immediately following the injury, Camilla comes in one night while Luz is visiting Eda and Amity is alone.

She has a serious talk with Amity about the danger she was in, and just how hurt she had gotten. Camilla wants to be honest and straightforward with her. Amity could've died that night. She brings up the idea that maybe the witch may want to reconsider her decision to continue next year. Just that Camilla will never stop worrying about her. Its soft and gentle and Camilla really is just concerned about her.  

Amity is quiet that night when Luz comes home. (She can't spend the night anywhere without her girlfriend, no matter how much she loves Eda) Quieter then Luz has seen her in a long time.

It worries Luz, but she just holds her girlfriend extra tight, knowing that Amity will talk to her when she's ready. That's their agreement.

The next day, Amity tells Luz she is quitting Hockey.

The witch is in tears and its incredibly obvious that she doesn't actually want to quit the sport. Luz begs her to explain and Amity breaks down and tells her that its her fault, and that she's been so selfish to worry Camilla like this. That she needs to quit. She fucked up. She got hurt and it made Camilla, Luz and everyone so incredibly worried.

Her toxic upbringing is coming back, the damage her parents did on her not quite leaving, Amity truly believes that she has deeply upset and offended Camilla and then that worry stetches into her team and Luz. That she needs to correct the problem that she made for other people.

Luz takes her by the shoulders, very seriously and tells her that Camilla loves her. Unconditionally. That worry comes not from a place of inconvenience, but out of care. That her mother would be 100x more upset if Amity sacrificed something she cared about, just to make Camilla feel more comfortable.

Luz admits to worrying about losing her, but she also gushes about just how HAPPY hockey has made Amity and how she loves seeing that happiness on Amity.

How incredible it looks on her.

Luz then proceeds to get Willow and Gus to come crashing through the portal to which they explain, Gus methodically and scientifically, and Willow from the heart, that Amity is doing wonderful and its clear that she is enjoying herself.

They original squad all have a night of support for Amity. Because that's just what a family does. Camilla overhears most of what Amity fears and let's her daughter and her friends handle it. Though she feels awful about how she made the girl feel like that worry was because Amity did something wrong. She takes a field trip to the demon dimension to talk with Lilith and Eda who explain that she's doing wonderfully. That not every parent is perfect or can be. They tell her everything that night about Amity's parents. Most of which Camilla has pieced together from the time Amity had been living with her, but alot of it is still shocking. Horrifying.

Its a night of healing and learning all around.

[probablynotsamantha]

My god it's just dawning on me how badly I've fucked up. I know that there are tons of people who go through community college and I'm going to a pretty good one and this doesn't reflect badly on me as a person or anything, and of course my situation could always be worse, but damn I have fucked myself. I have no friends here, making friends has always been kinda hard for me, and it's sure as hell not helping that all of my interaction is going to be happening via Zoom. If I'd just been able to make myself do the fucking work I'd have much better grades and could probably have gotten in just about anywhere I wanted. If I'd just done more applications and college research I wouldn't have relied on two schools I probably didn't have the grades for. If I'd just made sure to send my SAT score to UMD instead of assuming that the form where they ask you to self-report your SAT score was good enough, maybe they'd have been willing to look past my GPA. If I'd just fucking done anything even remotely approaching the bare minimum I'd be going to college with friends. Instead I'm alone. All my friends are posting on their instagrams about how excited they are to go off to college and be with their friends and peers and I'm stuck living in this shitty household where I get no acceptance and have basically been forced back into the closet and I just feel so lost and hopeless. I had my early teen years taken away by depression and anxiety so bad I would just refuse to go to school and I don't even know why. Now for my late teens I get all that plus the consequences of my own actions and my parents not accepting me being trans.

Why didn't I just stop being such a lazy piece of shit and just do the work like everyone else. Sure, I spent all my time watching YouTube because life was intolerable when I wasn't distracting myself, but even that felt empty. I needed help so badly and I just never got any. It wasn't available. All I got at Norwood was being yelled at for not doing the work, and at Blair I got that and also some "well I understand it's hard but there's really nothing I can do about it, I'm sorry". I clearly needed help but there just wasn't any help available. Of course my parents were just find sending me to a class designed to help develop my social skills when I was 5 (being 5 i didn't really understand it and I have very few memories of it but I do remember it being stressful at times and looking back on it it seems kinda like a "here's how to speak neurotypical" class, which while helpful for the world we live in it doesn't make it any less disgusting that I was taught helpful strategies to make eye contact with people (take a step back if you're uncomfortable) instead of respecting the fact that eye contact made (and still often does make) me uncomfortable. That was just fine, but both I and my psychiatrist had to pester my parents for several years before I finally was able to get into therapy again, i had tried therapy before once but did not have a good experience, how much of that was me being like 10-12 and how much of that was actual issues idk, also they had some sort of diagnostic process also which I think is how I got my autism diagnosis which I don't even really know if I have because my parents didn't explain anything of what was going on to me, just that I was to talk to this doctory person every week (I knew vaguely it was therapy but nothing beyond that) and the only reason I know of that diagnosis is because it was on a piece of paper I saw my psychiatrist holding that appeared to be a list of my diagnoses (at least I can't think what else a piece of paper with my name on it and a few other things I knew I had could be), which of course means I constantly doubt that I actually saw that because surely they would've told me, and surely it would show up on my Sibley portal under diagnoses (even though that doesn't show several other things I know I have been diagnosed with), and also I'm nervous I would get in trouble for reading that because it wasn't at all clear it was something I was allowed to read (though it did have my name at the top so I assumed it was fine). But recently my parents were talking about going through that testing I did when I was 10 or whatever again (they gave a reason that wasn't entirely clear), and they said something about not entirely believing the results and so now I'm fairly convinced that I did indeed get diagnosed but my parents just refused to believe it because there's no way their child could be autistic, just like there's no way their child could be trans. But yeah, even despite all of that I should've just done the work instead of feeling sorry for myself, and then I'd be ready to go off to college with friends instead of being stuck alone. The thing that really gets me is that I might never fucking see these people again. I can't stand that. I never got to spend enough time with them while I had it because I was always busy or unable to make plans or couldn't do something because my parents wouldn't let me and now that opportunity might be gone forever. Except for the bunch that are at UMD (and even that isn't exactly close), the closest friend I have is in Princeton. They're people I would gladly spend the rest of my life with, and now some of them are over TWO FUCKING THOUSAND miles away. I don't know that I can cope with that. I just... my heart is broken. I remember not really understanding why it's called a broken heart either, but holy shit my chest hurts so fucking badly it does kinda feel like my heart is broken. The idea of never seeing the people who I care about the most again feels just terrible. There's also the whole problem with classes at MC, like there just

aren't really that many classes that interest me, and the fastest way to get me to not do work is to have me be bored out of my mind. All of that isn't even counting all the struggles I have with being trans and having my parents be unaccepting and my sister not being great either and neither are neighborhood friends tbh (though the latter two may be because we are often around parents who are shitty).

Oh and just to make everything worse my bed is full of ants because I'm a fucking slob and can't be bothered to keep my bed clean (the fact that I left half a pizza crust there in my haste to leave for vacation a week ago probably didn't help).

Earlier I was genuinely contemplating just packing a bag and leaving. Problem is, I have nowhere to go. Part of me wants to just hop on a plane somewhere and get a shitty job and start a new shitty life. Another part of me just wants it all to end. It's not like there's really any difference to anyone if I'm dead if we weren't ever gonna speak again. I wouldn't ever actually kill myself, but just the fact that it occurred to me is terrifying. I just don't see any way the future could possibly be even remotely enjoyable.

I need to live in a world that has help for people like me and I just don't.

[threadsketchier]

you're the only blog i follow that seems to know about the EU/Legends stuff, so what was Luke's Jedi school like? asking for Fic Purposes

ahahahahaha ‘twas The Hottest of Messes™

(and I have plenty more peeps who are Legends EU hoes who would be even more knowledgable than me because these old-ass books are getting fuzzy in my cobweb-laden brain and these heroes masochistically still review these dumpster fires on a regular basis for Fic Purposes™ so shout-out to @atamascolily @jedimordsith @klcthebookworm @celinamarniss @myevilmouse @jadelotusflower @jadedjo )

but the TL;DR is that Luke was flying by the seat of his very tight pants - there’s a reason my tag for it is #JEDI JUNGLE FRIENDSHIP CAMP because it was...pretty hippy-dippy.  XD  There wasn’t any rigid curriculum and no therapy because that would make things easier haha.  It was mostly “hey let’s meditate a lot sometimes naked in the not-so-safe hot springs under the temple and wave some glowsticks around and listen to Jedi folk songs, kumbayahhhhh.”

Ok, more seriously, there was a shitload of missed opportunity (WHERE WASN’T THERE A SHITLOAD OF MISSED OPPORTUNITY IN LEGENDS EU???) because while the Jedi Academy Trilogy was too busy writing about Mara squeezing herself into a sexy holographic-silver flightsuit and Lando being a fuckboy and SO MANY WEIRD RELATIONSHIPS like Winter and Ackbar maybe having a thing?? and Wedge with a blue bird-lady scientist???? and Mon Mothma almost dying from nanotech that got thrown in her face from a drink and a literal toddler being possessed by Luke’s disembodied spirit to fight flying two-headed hydra monsters I CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP AAAAAAAAAAA -

- it had potential.  It had interesting characters.  Luke’s Island of Misfit Jedi first group of Jedi students came from vastly different backgrounds and were all adults, except for Kyp (pretty sure he was still like a teen or quite young), many of which had deeply rooted issues.  That doesn’t make for a great bunch to start with at all, especially with a guy who barely knew what he was doing, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Honestly, we really didn’t need so much of this external conflict with more over-the-top Imperial shenanigans AND a Sith Lord spirit conveniently hanging around the ruins of the ancient temple the Rebels had used as their base in ANH.  That’s a lot on top of the already complex nature of Luke and his students’ relationships with him and each other.  It would have been great to slow down and spend more time focusing on the pressure that Luke was under (especially since in the Legends timeline this came right on the heels of him having “turned” to the Dark Side to serve clone Sheev-O 2.0 in Dark Empire, and he’d still be reeling from that), him grappling with self-doubt, second-guessing himself, etc.  This did factor into the books a little, but I would have loved to see even more exploration of Luke Skywalker, savior of Anakin Skywalker, missing those warning signs in his students who were tempted by the Dark Side because that wonderful attitude of his, that hope and faith in everyone, isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

And not everything had to be doom & gloom either, there were plenty of things about the new bunch we could have spent more time with too.  GIVE TIONNE A LAST NAME, FOR STARTERS.  See more about her culture and how she composes music.  How Streen has to slowly learn to integrate back into existing around others.  More about how Kirana Ti feels as a Dathomir witch learning from a male Jai.  Down-to-earth stuff like that.  I would have liked to see more of that awkward family bonding between Luke and these people, because we know Luke would have formed that kind of intense closeness with them as his inaugural class.  And SPEAKING OF INTENSE CLOSENESS, I would have LOVED to see the early days of Luke and Kam Solusar’s relationship as Jedi bros, not to mention the first tentative sparks between Kam and Tionne (because they went on to get married later).  Shit, Kam would have been a fantastic mentor for Kyp as someone who had been saved from the Dark Side and could relate to the kid somewhat as a person who had also suffered slavery and abuse under the Reborn Emperor.  One of Luke’s biggest problems in running the academy at first was the lack of delegation, and Kam, as a mature Force user, could’ve stepped up immediately to help him out.  We could’ve also dwelled more on Mara’s disgruntled feelings about being sidelined when she showed up, instead of her popping in and out briefly and us having to catch up on her sentiments in later books.

BUT I FUCKING DIGRESS, I know this wasn’t really what you asked about...lol, mention the JAT and I just start foaming at the mouth about everything it didn’t do.  I guess if you gave me some more specific questions about certain aspects I might be more helpful and less “bitchy fangirl mouthing off again.”  XD

TL;DR again, Luke’s early Jedi Jungle Friendship Camp wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst either, it just had a rough start, to say the least.

[briefololtragedy]

A small light in the darkness

Oneshot that popped into my head.

Pairing: Sakura x Shisui

Rating T, mentions of war and PTSD

Summary: Shisui couldn’t recognize himself anymore. What was the point anymore. After a night of poor sleep Shisui decides to go to a local coffee shop, meeting a certain pink haired student for the first time.

Word count: 1971

His heart started to race, flashes crossing his mind, he could feel the sweat starting to cover his body. Shisui shot straight up from his slumber.

“It was just a dream. Not real. I’m back home. I’m safe. My family is safe.” Shisui kept repeating to himself. He was no longer deployed, he had come back home a few months ago. Shisui was supposed to be deployed for 6 more months, but he ended up taking shrapnel to his eyes in an explosion.  Thankfully he didn’t loose his eyesight, he was told he was lucky. Shisui didn’t feel lucky, like his sight his life was blurry. Shisui had spent almost a month in the hospital following multiple surgeries. Even there some of the noises triggered memories that were not pleasant. Dr. Tsunade had seen the signs he was exhibiting and placed him into therapy.

He felt like a shell of what he used to be. Shisui couldn’t bring himself to joke, when he did he would remember the faces of the men who didn’t survive the explosion. They were all gathered around one of the fire pits they set up outside, the men had gotten letters from home. One of them was showing off pictures of his new daughter, a bright smile on his face. The solider was due to go back home in a few weeks. Instead of being hugged by his adoring wife and getting to hold his daughter for the first time, he went home in a body bag instead. No cute video to be taken of him seeing his family. Instead she would stand on the tarmac with the other wives. Dark thoughts were overtaking Shisui. He would have traded places with …Asuma, that was his name, in a heart beat.

What did Shisui have to go home to? An empty one bedroom apartment. His cousin Itachi was preparing to get married to his high school sweetheart. Shisui felt his hands begin to shake. Venturing out to his balcony he reached inside the potted plant to grab his pack of cigarettes. It was a bad habit he picked up during one of his deployments. It was still dark out, around 2am. The lighter providing a hypnotic glow as he went to light the cigarette. It burned as he inhaled the first drag, but it reminded him he was alive. As he looked around it was blurry, he forgot his fucking glasses. The blurriness of his surroundings started to take him back. The yelling, the smell of everything burning, how he couldn’t see. It was a surprise attack, no warning.

He let out a yell. Hopelessness overcame him. Before he knew it he was on the floor rocking back and forth. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Why couldn’t he do anything right. Why couldn’t he protect his men. All he wanted was to make sure his family remained safe. That his cousin didn’t have to worry, he deserved to live a life with his loving sweetheart as his younger brother tried to best him. He didn’t want anyone to suffer, he would take all the suffering if it meant others could be happy.

Shisui had to take calming breaths. His heart rate was slowing down. The shaking slowing down. He still could feel the unexplained worry. Was Itachi alright? Shisui grabbed his phone looking at the last message Itachi sent.

‘Just got home from the office. Izumi is making dinner. She says I can’t have any more sweets before the wedding. Stay safe and don’t forget your therapy appointment in the morning.’

Itachi was safe. He was where he is supposed to be. Shisui looked at the time, it was almost 5am. His attack took 3 hours from him. It wasn’t the longest attack, but also not the shortest he has had. Shisui decided to change into sweatpants, a simple T-shirt, and his running shoes. He hoped a run would help clear his mind.

10 miles. Shisui had run 10 miles. His legs ached, his chest was tight, but it was a good feeling. The tingling of his muscles was a welcome feel. He felt more in control of his body. Jumping into the shower to get ready for the day it was like washing some of the memories away. He knew he couldn’t wash them away for good, but even a few moments would suffice. Brushing his teeth he cleaned the mirror and looked at his reflection. He could barely recognize the person staring back at him. He felt older than 33, he could see his scares around his eyes, so faint, but a reminder of his failures. ‘Don’t go there Shisui, don’t ruin your work this morning.’

After getting dressed Shisui looked at the time it was almost 8. He had plenty of time to get some coffee before his therapy session. It had been a while since he last sat in a coffee shop drinking a cup of coffee, watching people hustle and bustle with the start of their day. Mind made up he grabbed his keys and headed out.

Leaf Coffee and Tea was a local shop Downtown, close to his apartment and his therapist’s office wasn’t too far either. Ordering a simple black coffee Shisui settled down into the worn leather chairs by the large windows. He was able to see the pedestrians walking down the street along with everyone in the shop. Men and women in suits came in ordered their drinks and then looked impatient as they waited for their orders. Feet tapping on the floor and occasionally glancing at their watches. He heard a bunch of giggling high school students at one of the large tables in the center of the coffee shop. It was hilarious to see some of the college students glare at the group as they studied.

Shisui reclined his head back, taking a moment to close his eyes and take everything in. The noises around him were almost comforting. He could hear odd bits of conversations. Then he felt it. A pressure on his shoulder. He jolted up, on high alert.

“Excuse me sir. I didn’t mean to startle you. Is there anyone sitting in this chair?” The voice was soft. He looked to his right and paused. The sight before him was familiar for some reason. He had gotten use to the desert that surrounded him, the lack of color. However, it seemed there was no lack of color with the person standing before him. She had navy stockings on, a grey skirt that came mid thigh, her blouse was a dark forest green. But it wasn’t her outfit that packed the color punch, but the girl herself. Her eyes could put a forest to shame with how green they were. Did trees weep, jealous of the emerald color. Her hair was gathered in a braid it looked like, but he had no clue what type, small pieces framed her face, he wondered if she dyed it that pink. When he went to look at her face again and noticed the pink eyebrows and eyelashes he had no doubt her color was natural. She looked like a nature spirt walking around disguised as a person.

“Uh… sorry I didn’t catch that.” Shisui felt like he wanted to kick himself.

“I wanted to know if this seat was taken. There are no more open places to sit. Are you waiting for anyone?” She didn’t look annoyed. She had removed her hand from his shoulder. He then noticed that she carried her own cup of coffee, but also a really heavy looking book.

“No. I’m not saving the seat, please sit down.” She moved like a ballerina, so graceful. Graceful until she flopped herself in the seat.

“Thanks! I got here later than I expected and my usual seat was gone. This coffee shop tends to get pretty busy. I blame my idiot roommate, she silenced my alarm, said I needed to stop studying for a moment. I adore her like a sister, but we have different priorities….” She kept talking and then trialed off.

 “I’m so sorry! I started to ramble, don’t mind me sir.” A blush spread across her cheeks. Good she looked so young, maybe late teens early twenties. He felt like a perv.

 “No problem, it’s nice to have some company. “ Smooth, very smooth. She relaxed at his words. Shisui hadn’t felt this relaxed in…well he couldn’t remember when.

 “Did you just move to the area? I haven’t seen you here before.” She didn’t look up from her textbook as she spoke.

 “No I’ve lived here for some time. This coffee place is new to me. I haven’t been here before. “ his coffee was almost gone as he looked into his cup. He wanted to savor these last few sips and the company he was with. Here he was just a man, talking to a woman (hoping she was closer to the early twenties mark).  

 Before she could ask more questions he spoke. “What are you studying for? That is quite the book you got.” Man could he sound more like an old man.

 “Oh this is just a review book. I’m in my last year of medical school and have to take test before applying to residency. I like to come here and study for a change of scenery.”  She started to pull out a bag full of highlighters, pens, and post its. How could one person need so many pens.

 He didn’t know how to respond. His people skills were getting to almost Sasuke level bad it seemed. He could hear a ringing and then realized it was his phone.

 “Hey Itachi. Yes I’m fine, I went to get coffee this morning. Yes I won’t forget. I have 30 minutes before I have to be there. Who died and made you my mother?” God why was Itachi such a mother hen! Well Shisui knew why and appreciated it most of the time. In all honesty he almost forgot he had a therapy session soon.

 “Yes I can come over for dinner tonight. Do you need me to bring anything? Got it. “ Shisui realized that the woman’s eyes were on him.

 “Sorry about that. That was my cousin. I should probably get going soon.” He looked at his coffee, it was empty. Disappointment filling his cup instead of coffee.

 “Your cousin Itachi, he wouldn’t happen to have a brother named Sasuke would he? “ Don’t freak out Shisui, don’t freak out. She doesn’t look like a stalker.

 “Yes he has a younger brother named Sasuke.” His voice was full of apprehension.

 “Oh my! You must be Shisui! I have been friends with Sasuke since college, well more like Naruto initially dragged him to all of our group gatherings. “ She knew Sasuke and was friends with him, yep he felt like a pervert. However, that meant she was more around 25 and not as young as she appeared.

 “I should let you go to your meeting. I’m Sakura by the way.” She held her hand out. His heart started to race again, but this time it wasn’t surrounding unpleasant flashbacks, but nerves. God his hands were sweaty. The moment their hands touched, everything melted away.

 “ I guess that means I’ll be seeing you around.” Shisui had hope for the first time surfacing. A small light was starting to break through all of the darkness.

 As Shisui walked out of the shop he couldn’t help but look back. She was sitting with her legs folded under her engrossed in her studies. The way to his therapists office wasn’t the heavy march it has been in the past. Maybe he could see if Itachi and Izumi would have Sasuke and his friends join for one of their dinners.

[what-a-messsss]

1x10 rewatch

Ok, let’s get back to Walt Longmire: Disaster Boi of S1 and finish this season off with a...something.  Pleading look to the heavens, maybe?  

How do I keep forgetting that Lizzie is a thing, even after our decision to find her some nice Smitten Cowboy to be with?  Holy hell, but why are you still keeping your dead wife’s ashes in the kitchen?  At least you kept Lucian in your fucking truck.  In a coffee can.  What is with you and breakfast beverages??  We all know you need lots of therapy, but this seems like a kind of niche issue.

“Trust me, you don’t, uh, you don’t want that tea.”  Buddy.  

Poor Lizzie.  She really is so nice.  And he’s such a fucking disaster.  “You seem weird,” she says, in reaction to him going bug eyed from having to convince her not to drink his dead wife without her realizing that’s what he was doing.  Sweetie, you have no idea.  And she really does like him.  

This is.  So.  Gloriously awkward.  And Lizzie’s there in her bare feet.  And all we need is for Branch to show up and we’ll have a full house, and aaaaahahaha, Walt is so trying to freeze time with the power of his brain.  Staring off into the Not Here place with his mouth pressed just so...  Awwwww, suffer.

I had forgotten that Ferg was the one who actually did the body work on the Bronco!  Even did the paint work, because that old truck has never looked so good.  I know Omar loaned Walt his truck while the Bronco was “in the shop,” but I like that the writers gave Ferg the skills to do that.

“If anybody... has something they want to say, I suggest you think twice about it.”  We don’t need to say anything; we’re too busy laughing at you.

Oof, and then Lizzie hearing Martha’s voice still on the message greeting.  She’s really quite a good actress.  Lizzie isn’t a terribly subtle character generally, but she gives her these really fine microexpressions that give you occasional glimpses that there is more going on under the surface, and she’s not just an open book.  : (  Making me actually like her and feel bad, not just cringe when she comes on.  Dang iiiiiiiit.

Ok, that does NOT look like Sharpie.  I’m sorry, but that looks like a paint pen or lipstick more than it looks like a Shapie on the dead kid’s forehead.  Even if it were one of the jumbo Sharpies, they don’t write like that, they aren’t that colour on skin, and the thickness of the lines are all off.  Which is not really relevant, but it buuuuugs meeeee.  Pedantic little shit that I am.

Ope, Branch is basically past the angst about Walt not liking him and straight into just giving him nothing but attitude.  Which, while I can hardly blame anyone for giving Walt shit, does get old pretty fast.

Walt, you are So Bad at talking to people, even when it’s for the damn job!  Yeah, it’s fine to have Ferg fill Vic in, but at least acknowledge that she’s there, damn.  Honestly it would have been good for both Vic and Ferg for Walt to tell her to follow Ferg’s lead on this one.  He knows the case, the local history, the players, the situation, and probably more about archery than her, and she could stand to take the reminder that working 5 years in big city homicide still doesn’t make her the senior deputy and that she needs to be ok learning from even Ferg.  Shit, I keep finding more and more reasons to be annoyed at Walt.  Is he even really that good of a sheriff?  I’m shaking the ol’ Magic 8 Ball here, and signs point to frickin’ NO.  Ugh.

Five HUNDRED dollars says that he didn’t check with Mathias before going on the Rez for official police business again.  Jackass.

Can’t really blame Viho for being super bitter.  And Ayasha is so sweet.  This whole family dynamic is so well done.

Aw, Ferg is so excited about the gum wrapper.  “Still minty!”  How are you such a sparklebunny?  Bless.

Detective Falessssss.  His opening line is so great, but uuuuuuuhg, he’s as bad as Walt with his singlemindedness about the case.  

“Talk to Ruby.  She runs my life.”  She runs the department, bucko, and you’d be lost without her!  Lost, I say!  But you treat her like your personal social secretary, and that’s crap.

In Fales’ dubious defense, you were just super weird about that whole encounter.  

Omar!  You creepy little lecherous jackass.  Why am I still fond of you?  It’s really rather galling that I enjoy your character at all, but I doooo.  Thank gods he has the beard now; cleanshaven was just wigging me out.  “Vickie’s never shot before--”  “That is the second-to-last time you will ever call me that.”  And I chortle myself to distraction to the point that I have to rewind to catch the lines that I missed.  With her horrible plans when she gets drunk (I’m still cringing at that flashback of her with Travis) and her obvious thing for older men, I’m honestly kind of surprised she didn’t end up having a deeply regretted something with Omar at some point.  They do have good chemistry in an antagonistic way.  And he does so enjoy tugging her pigtails.  ...ew.  Why is my brain like this?  

“A little bit of practice, even a girl can make that shot.”  Aaaaaaand we’re back to kick him in the nuts.  Not that we ever really left there.  Such a butthead.

Boy oh boy, it sure is great the tone that all these shitty rich white people take saying “Indian.”

“That is what a normal person would do in your situation.”  Henryyyyyy, I love you so much.  Why can’t we spend more time with him in the early seasons?  Why are you drinking a Rainier?  Nooooo, please have better taste in beer than your boyfriend!  You have expensive tastes in bourbon, why can’t you have decent taste in beeeer?

Walt, what is the point of practicing darts when you are FIVE FEET from the board?  Seriously, you’re supposed to be like...  (a google later)  7 feet 9.25 inches away!  That’s...  That’s an oddly specific measurement.  Wtf.  No quickly apparent reason for that specific measure.  Resisting the pull of this particular rabbit hole to continue the ep.  

Aaaah, that’s right, this is still when Walt thinks that Henry may have killed the guy for him.  And BestDad Henry talked to Cady after the blow up about Branch, and he is a wonderful human being.  “It’s really none of your concern.”  Hoooooow dare you.  It is clearly a function of being bffs with that butthead that Henry just smiles (somewhat bitterly) at this instead of tripping him into the bar or shoving his head into the cigarette machine.  (Is that a cigarette machine?  Wtf is that thing with the yellow lit up portion towards the top? [14:05])  

“What a rich inner life you must lead.  From time to time, you should consider sharing some of it with the rest of us.”  The sass!  Swoon.  Henry.  Marry me.  

“I’ve got other problems.”  Buddy, you are other problems.

I wonder how many people/places Ruby just has on speed dial so that she can zoom through her list of “Where the hell is Walt now” to get in touch with him.

Aaaaand we’re back to Branch getting a bit big for his britches.  Whee.  Better fight about it like Big Boys.  Ffs.  “Go ahead.  Give me your best shot.”  ::Pat Benatar starts playing in the background::  Oh holy shit, I wish so damn much that I had any know-how about making vids.  I would be beyond amused by a spoofy hate vid of Walt and Branch being assholes to “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”  Ooo, oo, or “Hit Me Baby One More Time!”  Aaaahahaha, these fucking losers and their fragile masculinity.  Get rekt.

Children.  Childreeeeen.  Stop it, or you can’t go to Timmy’s birthday party next week.

The irony of Vic being the one who is actually calling them on their shit and getting to do their damn jobs.  Well shit, they actually have a warrant this time.  Will wonders never cease.

Damn, Viho is smart.  Politically savy, pointing out the election coming up.  He’s got the wrong end of the stick this time, but the fact that he’s seen these angles and considered a bunch of things about the consequences already is telling about how smart he is.

Ruby is so pleased to see Henry.  She sounds tired (dealing with Walt and Branch and the sheer volume of bs that is accumulating in that office, no wonder) but still fond.  And the look she gives him.  I love her so much.  She puts up with so much.  And I love Henry continually calling Walt and the department on their shit and just being a dedicated activist for his community.

Fuck right off, Branch.  “Woah.  I know you’re Walt’s friend, Henry, but you don’t have any particular rights here.”  You are sliding into being a full on trashbag of a human being so fast, Brancheroo.  Reminding a young man of his rights and helping him avoid getting railroaded by your biased ass isn’t a bad thing, you rusty wingnut.

Ok, it might not be Glasses!Henry, but cowboy boots!Henry with the glow of righteousness upon him is also quite A Look.

Aaaaahahaha, for once Vic’s unholy yelling saves the day.  Being able to shout over a mass of raucous teens is usually reserved for teachers, camp counselors, and stage managers.  Looool and using detention as the threat.  And then jail.  Heeeh.

This is soooo weeeeeird: I’m starting to genuinely like Lizzie.  She just showed up and I remembered that it’s for dropping off that present, and then Vic is such a butt about it, and this poor lady is just trying to date a guy that she really likes and even gave him about 5 different outs that morning and he pointedly didn’t take any of them and dammit, Lizzie deserves better, too.  Fuck, Walt, you are such a disaster zone.  And Vic is a whole other disaster area that’s looking to, uhhhh, share a border.  Yike.

The present is definitely more Lizzie than it is Walt, with the wrapping and everything, but it’s still a sweet impulse.  AND THEN VIC, who told Walt how many times that he should call her?? gets all up in her business?  Poor Lizzie trying to figure out what the fuck this has to do with Vic or how it is even on the same planet as any of her business.  She does have some issues from her previous marriage, but she owns them.  And her BS meter is actually pretty finely tuned.  Sure picks up on Vic’s awkward boner for Walt in no time flat.  Not that it’s particularly well hidden, damn.

This kid is a rapist and a murderer and The Bad Guy, but at the same time, he is a high school kid, chances are he’s a minor, and Walt is talking to him alone in his office without any parent, much less a lawyer.  What the fuck.  

“Because Ayasha Roundstone told me so,” is a good line, solidly so.  And Walt’s all in The Righteous Hand of Justice mode or whatever, with the gravelly voice and standing over the kid, staring him down.  Effective.  (But where are that kid’s parents?)  Ah, that’s right, his dad is taking a shot at whatshisnoodle to make it look like he’s the killer.

Awww, Cady.  Honey, how long have you been waiting for you FailDad to show up?  Fuck.  Right.  This was how she found out that Martha was murdered.  He lies to her so much.  He manipulates her so much.  He passes all of this off on it being Martha’s wish, but he even acknowledges that Cady had a right to know and he chose not to tell her.  He denies Cady her own agency again and again.  He makes decisions for her without ever giving her a chance to choose for herself, and punishes her when she makes a choice that he doesn’t agree with.

It’s not “protecting” her from the pain.  “Protecting you from the pain,” is not a father’s job; it’s to teach their child how to manage it, help them live through it, and how to grow past it.  You’re damaging her.  Into the suuuuuuun, Walt!  Into the fucking SUN.

But fuuuuuuuuuuuck, her delivery of that same line, “Well, let me relieve you of that burden,” is sooo good.  You done fucked up, buster.  And you just keep fucking up.  I would say in new and exciting ways, but it’s generally in the SAME DAMN WAYS, dammit Walt.

This flashback is really difficult.  

They’re right about that technically being kidnapping, too.  Wyoming  § 6-2-201 specifically includes defining kidnapping as unlawfully confining another person, with the intent to “facilitate the commission of a felony; or Inflict bodily injury on or to terrorize the victim or another,” with unlawful confinement defined as “accomplished (i)  By force, threat or deception; or (ii)  Without the consent of a parent, guardian or other person responsible for the general supervision of an individual who is under the age of fourteen (14) or who is adjudicated incompetent.”  Meaning that not only could Walt charge Jake with the kidnapping of Rich, but also probably of Ayasha, since she was ruled an unreliable witness and would more than likely be legally considered a “mentally incompetent person” according to the states’ legal definitions.  

Not... that I have the Wyoming State Criminal Code downloaded on my computer.  >_> Certainly haven’t skimmed about 80% of it trying to figure out what charges would most make sense to be levied against Jacob at the end so that I don’t have to deal with him going in to a Federal prison on RICO charges.  <_<  Or what Cady probably should have been charged with after that mess with Tate and Catori.  Nnnnnnope.  Sure don’t, didn’t, haven’t. o_o

This is about the only time I can remember there being a legitimate reason for Walt not to have backup.  Since they’re off checking other locations.  Also, damn, that was some classic Old West quickdraw shit, Walt!  Noice!

“Why did you stop me?”  Because you have to testify, you little shit.  HE is not terribly bright.

Ooooooo, somehow I forgot that it was Branch who went to Jacob.  But that makes total sense; I can’t really see Jacob seeking Branch out, but once he walks himself into his office, Jacob will certainly play those new cards for all they’re worth.  Ooooooooo, and the Hotamétaneo’o headdress!  I’d forgotten about Branch seeing it, too!  Nice call back and foreshadowing to finish off S1!

“You will not find a chili cheeseburger of this caliber anywhere in Colorado.”  And now it’s 4:30 in the morning and I want a chili cheeseburger.  Thanks, babe.   Some daaaaaay, I will figure out which is my favourite Henry, but it is not this day, because godsdaaaaamn, the red checked shirt with that vessssst, is *chef kiss* a wonderful thing.   And the director knoooooows it = that pan down Henry’s back as he turns after saying, “I said nothing,” for noooo reason other than to have Henry’s ass on screen.  Seriously.  He says his line, it pans down, we get a primo shot of his jeans, and then it cuts away.  Solely a pan for Henry Butt.  Who directed this, and where do I send the fruit basket?  Dang, it was Nelson McCormick, and this was the only ep of Longmire he directed.  Huh.  In S1, there’s only one repeat director, who did eps 1, 3, and 7.  Interesting.

Focus, kid.  You are less than 3 minutes from the end and you’ve had it paused for over 5 minutes to wander around IMDb.  No wonder it takes you three flipping hours to watch one of these episodes.  What a mess, indeed.

“We all process grief in our own way.”  Buddy.  You have not processed.  You are a human <BUFFERING> screen.  You’re a walking loading symbol.  Walt, he gives you some basic vital statistics on the guy, but...  You haven’t even asked who it was.  Walt, you are so bad at this.  Fffffffff---  And there’s season 1.  lawd.

[ziracona]

Anytime I see the legion im picturing urs so now in a trial im like "fukn idiot loser babies" *pallet smacks*. Reading ur meta(is that the term??) on Julie just now I'm like. So mad for her!! Get them kids some therapy!! How could the adults in their lives let them get to such a shitty point.. >:( Also, another thought I had with Adiris. The buzzfeed video is more her holding a bunch of cats. Because the survivors are like herding cats. Chaos children they are (im looking at you meg.)

Hahdjsdk god what a mood. Every time I see an Anna I’m just like “!!! MOM?” And get a hatchet between the eyes rip. And yeah! Meta is right.

For real, for real. Julie and all the Legion kids had some real shit going on. Joey by far had the best home life and family, but even he had a bunch of struggles in school because his family didn’t have time or in many cases experience to help him study, and it was crowded and poor, and because he had no help most kids got, he got treated like he was stupider, and even when he had skills in other areas, everyone at school expected him to perform well at sports and not much else like that was fine & he was meant to be valuable exclusively as an athlete, when he much preferred and actually really liked things like shop and ceramics and building/making stuff. But most people treat trade classes like easy As dumb kids pick (back when shop was still a thing), and like it was a worthless skill, and like. That doesn’t sound as bad as like, being bounced through foster homes as Frank, but pain is relative, you know? Bad is just bad. And things grind on you. It was hard to be taught constantly he was only worth something as a skill he didn’t even really care about, and get treated like he was dumb just because he had less help built in to school than most kids there did. People don’t talk about this much but like, having parents or sibs who help with homework? It’s a huge factor. So is just having family who are college graduates (if you go to college), because first gen student means walking in blind & alone & accountable to no one but bills, and like, college is initially overwhelming with two parents with Masters who are helpful. Any time what you value about you and what you love doesn’t match up with what people who have more power than you tell you is valuable about you/should be your goal, it’s hard. Especially as a teen still trying to like hack out an identity. Overly enthusiastic and impulsive, and has been mocked and hurt and turned on for it, but can’t shut it off. Big heart, but the luck to stand up usually just in time to get laid flat again.

And then Susie, with the parents who don’t care for her or pay her much mind other than disappointed looks and an occasional snap or suggestion or urging to try something different that what she’s doing. Bullied for her sexuality, nervous, and in a small town in the late 90s, probably the only lesbian (at least that she’s aware of existing) in that entire like couple hundred people mountain town, and sort of unbearably alone and misunderstood and isolated feeling. God, feeling like there’s just no one like you are out there is one of the worst feelings, isn’t it? Buried in the things she knows people whisper about her and a thousand tiny microinteractions a day that drain her armor. Loves Julie, but is so isolated Julie is her entire world to an unhealthy, co-dependant, and worryingly usable/manipulatable and non-independent nature for Susie. Because she’s so desperate to keep her she’d do anything not to be alone. But the struggle to never be alone by chasing Julie’s shadow means there’s no time for Susie and her own hopes and dreams and choices and developing personhood. But the worst part is that she’s genuinely happy this way, trailing after the girl she loves, which makes it so hard for either of them to confront and stop even enough to just make it healthy again. But she’s built her whole identity on one person like a precarious janga tower that could fall any second if the wrong piece goes, and that can’t be sustained forever, and who is she when it does crumble?

Then you got Julie, hot, popular, ignored personality disorder, proud parents who want her to keep being ideal and their little princess, than can’t handle her as a teen when she’s not in the box they expected anymore and they can’t just live and be proud vicariously through her all the time. Hit puberty early & dated way too physically way too young with way too much older men. Hit on by teachers, by men three times her age in parking lots. Quickly taught it’s safer to say yes than no and sex and love are a battlefield where you use the other as a stepping stone & the trick is to manurver so you’re okay once it’s over and got something while it went on. Had fun being hot and physically developed young because she suddenly had admirers and people were nice, then realized way too late that it came with constantly being in danger and under pressure to keep performing sexiness, and there wasn’t a livable choice to back out and fail those expectations anymore & be okay in her social circles. Knows she’s not emotional or loving in the way her loved ones are distressed about it, but can’t tell why, and gives up trying to ‘fix it’ and just pretends she doesn’t care and leans into being the sexy bitch and the power that comes with it. Doesn’t even know who she is herself beneath any of the ways she lives anymore, maybe she just is the act, maybe that’s fine. Trusts no one and that’s fine it’s just smart. Caught between liking the power of sex and intelligence and coldness, and the emptiness of not really being somebody. Needs to be loved and idolised and eternally aware how much people would hate her for that if they knew it was the truth, so she just keeps it to herself and makes herself someone they have no choice but to love and adore, so it’ll all be okay. Caught between worried she is cold and unfeeling and selfish and proud, and liking the power that goes with that, and the lack of desire to change, and the fear she doesn’t know how to do it. So she mostly just doesn’t think about any of the turmoil anymore and lives Julie instead of being her.

Then you got Frank, tossed around a myriad of foster homes, stolen by the government from the only one he ever was loved in over race, abused in every way foster parents have learned to abuse the kids they were supposed to love, and convinced since he was a kid that he’s a bad seed and a monster at heart, until he leaned into the violence of that to protect himself when no one else did. Harsh and strong and a fighter, a survivor, lonely and a loner, too much past, no future, not much present. Angry, god, so angry, and nothing to do with it. No skills, or money, or future, or any of it. No love, no family. Just the things he taught himself to survive. Just a good liar, a good fighter, adaptable, fast, tactical, enduring. Knows how to pick locks and lift wallets and hoard food that is least likely to be noticed. How to vanish, how to look real scary and real big, how to get stabbed and get back up, and take a fall, and bide his time. How to find north. Which makes for a good what? A thug, a conman, a drug runner, a loan shark or a hitter or a bouncer maybe? A guard, a killer, a thief? No love, no ties, no one. And only a borrowed, angry, violent sense of self, and all the other versions that didn’t live to adulthood but aren’t quiet dead yet buried beneath it.

God, the opening line to the original lore for Darkness Among Us really was beautiful and memorable. The kind of first line you hope for. “Frank Morrison was ninteen, and had little to show for it.” Like, fuck. It’s so understated, and common, and painfully mundane, but that’s it, that’s his whole life. And how fucking painful that is. To be the end of teenagehood, stepping into adult life alone, and be able to be summed up in just eleven words, as a marker of your lived timespan up to now, and the annotation that you from all of it have gained almost nothing that could be worth any note. I fucking love that line. God. It’s so empty, and cruelly mundane and undramatic and unimportantly scored and marked, like it doesn’t even matter that he’s down nearly two decades of life with nothing worth taking into the next two.

Lord, all the Legion kids really do need help, and therapy, and like, one decent parental figure. Thank god for Jeff. He really is out here doing the real work. Love that man. TuT

And you’re right w Adiris lol. 🤣 It’s a mix of cats and dogs, magbe even. Some of them aren’t trouble, but oh, oh some most definitely are. Side note: I fkn just reallly love cats. Poor Adiris out here tryin her best, and I’m sure she does too.

[ellstersmash]

Three: Fifteen

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan (Modern!AU)

Rating: overall E for Explicit | this chapter T for Teen

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--

    [  Results were inconclusive. Again. Any last-minute suggestions?  ]

Athi reads the message from Solas, then reads it again. Is ready to send back [???] but her phone buzzes again before she has the chance.

    [  Apologies. That was not intended for you.   ]

She smirks—

no shit

—deletes her question, taps out a response.

    [  :* i miss u too   ]

    [  oop sry. wrong #   ]

    [  Ha Ha.   ]

    [  sry bout ur results :(   ]

    [  Thank you. What are you doing today?  ]

“That Solas?” Sera says, not bothering to look up from her unbroken line of yellow glitter glue. “Tell him to suck it.”

    [  arts n crafts   ]

Athi snaps a quick picture of the mess they’ve made in their living room and sends it to him.

    [  sera says suck it   ]

    [  Of course she does.  ]

“He says hi.”

Sera gags dramatically. “Thought you wanted to help with all this, not flirt with your boyfriend.”

A snotty retort itches behind Athi’s teeth but she stifles it. Rolls her eyes instead and tosses her phone aside, the device bouncing once to rest face-down on the sofa cushion. She picks up a thick black marker with pungent permanent ink, and gets back to work filling in the block letters Sera lined earlier.

Her boyfriend. Gods, but that sounds strange. Childish. Like they go on dates behind the primary school, or pretend not to be having sex in the room down the hall from someone's parents’. And yet she finds herself giddy at the thought. To be fair, it’s all she has for the moment. The thought. He's off on some adventure, and she's stuck here. Again. They'd only had that one perfect day, breakfast and window shopping and holding hands like real life lovers under trees full of dry rainbow leaves fluttering their applause. And then he took a phone call and went home to pack and left first thing in the morning.

She wonders just how often this happens.

How important could it be? Not like a bunch of ancient artifacts are going to up and wander off if he can’t go poke at them right away. A mental note to ask him later, and she moves this poster to the pile of finished ones and exchanges it for another that says “YOUR VILLAGE —> OUR CITY.” Cute, though maybe a smidge too reliant on humans knowing their history.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” Sera asks.

“That’s not—” Athi sighs. “I told you, I have work.”

“Yeah, but isn’t this more important?”

“I don’t know. Do you want rent paid?”

Sera quiets, kicking her legs back and forth as she works. Her glue bottle sputters, spits shimmer all over. A frustrated grunt and she tosses it aside, rolls onto her back.

“I’m just saying you should care is all. ‘S not going to get any better if nobody makes noise, and nobody’s making it for us.”

“Us?" Athi scoffs. "When we met, you said—and I quote—‘So glad you’re not one of those elfy elves.’”

“Yeah, well, therapy’s all right. Besides, it’s not for elves, or not just. It’s for whoever gets stepped on. That means us.”

“I didn’t know you were in therapy.” 

“Maybe I don’t tell you everything," Sera mutters. “Thought of that?”

Athi caps her marker and lays it down. It’s just a feeling, but it's nagging. Persistent. Like and yet unlike the one she still gets when her papae calls her by her full name. Isalathena Sulahnera Lavellan, come here this instant, and it’s heavy on her chest, sitting right on top of her breastbone. Guilty, but she's not.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. Throws it out there before the feeling gets stale and she decides it's something she can live with.

“Nothing.”

“Right, ok, except for it’s not, so come on. Let's get it out and over with.”

Sera sits up, blonde hair sticking out in a couple new directions. “What’s your problem?”

“You! You’ve been acting weird all week, Ser. Haven’t come in for lunch or been home at night, responded to texts—”

“If you think I want to be in the next room while you and—”

“Oh, so you have a problem with Solas? That was one—”

“No!” Sera groans in frustration. “I mean, yeah, he is kind of old, and talks about old stuff a lot, and he’s all”—she straightens her spine into an uncomfortable posture, then slouches again—“but I like him well enough.”

"Then what?"

Sera stares at her hands for a while. Then out the window. Then at the wall. Then back at her hands. Athi’s patience is thin on a good day, and it takes a lot of willpower to keep quiet as Sera opens her mouth and closes it again, false start after false start.

Finally, Sera blurts out: “I want to ask Dagna to move in.”

Athi has no idea what she was expecting, but not that. Searching for some way to relate it to her own behavior, to justify her feeling or shove it aside, she takes so long to form a response that Sera begins to fidget.

“You what?” she asks at last, thoroughly stumped.

“I want to ask Dagna—”

“Yeah, I…” Athi tries to catch up, shuffles through the past month as best as she can in the pause between. “Here?”

Sera squints at her like she's stupid, but that's fair. It was a stupid thing to say. 

“No, my mother's. Yes here!” 

“I’m sorry, I didn't realize you two were dating again. What’s it been, a year since you broke up?” 

“Yeah. You were out at your friend’s place. Better you missed the makeup sex, though, yeah? More room for fun.” 

At first Sera’s cheeky grin has Athi smiling too. It’s a relief to talk about someone else’s shit instead of her own, but then Sera glances toward the couch and—

Oh.

Oh gods, she wouldn’t have . . . would she?

Athi gets up for a glass of water, makes it two at Sera’s request. Sits cross-legged on the coffee table when she comes back. Just to be safe.

“Isn’t it a bit fast?” she asks.

“Maybe. Doesn’t feel fast, though. If you add 'em all up it's been like, a few years or something, so it sort of works out to normal. If you think about it.”

“I guess.”

Sera empties her glass in one go. “Her lease is up next month,” she says.

Athi nods. “Right. So soon, then. Um… and if it doesn’t work out?” She leaves out the again, but it’s implied.

“But that’s why I should do it! See, I keep losing her because I’m not in. She was serious about us, but I kept messing around. Don’t even know why, really.” She looks on the edge of losing her momentum, halfway to introspection, then snaps back into the room. “But therapy! So this time, like Wicked Grace, right? I’m all in and she’ll see I mean it. And then it’ll work out.”

Her logic isn’t quite flawed but it’s far from perfect. Still, friends don't tell friends to be afraid. Especially when those friends have clearly put a lot of thought into their dynamic-altering life-changing decisions. So Athi drops the questions.

“Wow,” she says instead. “I didn’t know you felt that way about her.”

Sera shifts into soft focus and smiles, a faraway look in her eyes. “Me either.”

She seems so certain. Satisfied, and happy. Really, truly happy. And it’s kind of fucking beautiful.

Feeling overcome for no good reason, Athi goes back to her task. Long thick careful black lines, then short ones. She marks a pattern with them to make it less work and more play. Not that anyone will see unless they’re trying. And as she makes the spaces solid, a thought occurs to her.

“So,” she says, bright. Like it’s no big deal. “Do you want me to move out?”

“What? No! Course not. Why would you say that?”

There’s no time to answer. After so much silence, Sera bubbles over with unused conversation. 

“I mean, do you want to move out? You’re not moving in with Solas are you? Gross. Definitely too fast for that one. Bet he wants to get married first, in a chantry and everything. Is he Andrastian, do you know? Where is he, anyway? He travels a lot for work, right? Must be nice. Wonder if his job pays for it. Is he gone now?”

Too many questions, so Athi answers the last one.

“Yeah. Flies in late tonight. He’s picking me up after work.”

Sera snorts. “What, picking you up? So you wouldn’t get up to take him in, huh? Good girl. Stay strong. Trust me, you drive him once and you're in for forever.”

“No, he didn’t even ask. Figured he’d take a cab or something, but I guess he drove himself.”

“And paid for parking? What’s he, loaded?”

Athi grins and crosses her fingers.

“Real nice. I’m serious, Ath, that’s some weird psychopath shit. Nobody drives their own self to the airport. No one who has friends, anyway.”

"I think he's just used to being alone.”

“Way to make it sad.”

"Alone doesn't mean sad."

"It kind of is though. But then, he’s got people, right? Like Varric, and, well... I don’t know. People.”

Athi shrugs. “Habits can be hard to break, especially when you’re not trying.”

“Ooh. Very wise today."

"Shut up."

"I mean it!"

She doesn’t tell Sera about the other things. The books covering all his furniture. The busted bathroom door that he removed rather than replaced. The singular coaster on his side table. The way he forgets to be hospitable, then overcorrects, asks her if she needs anything three times in a row. His house, his life, is not prepared for the presence of others. Not meant to host company or take in strays or accommodate a lover, meant for him and his needs and his convenience and no more.

And she’s honestly not sure if that makes her an exception or an intruder.

--

“Woah.”

The door slams shut behind her. Very nearly catches her in the ass but she happened to freeze just beyond its reach.

The place is gutted. Or maybe it's not? Ceiling and walls are fine and nothing she can place is missing, tables and chairs and bottles of booze all present and accounted for, but it looks fucking empty. And clean, though she can’t tell if that’s real or just the lack of tasteless decor.

“I know, right?” Tali dumps a bucket of ice in the bin with the rest. “It was like this when I showed up today.”

Athi drifts in slow, perturbed by the smell of cleaning solution and the lack of clutter. Hangs her purse on the coat rack just inside the office, her jacket on top of that. Pulls her hair back, ties her apron, washes her hands.

“Were we robbed?” she asks, only half joking.

“Technically, that would be a burglary.”

“Were we burglarized?”

“You know,” Tali says, “If someone broke in just to take those awful knick-knacks and creepy pictures Seggrit had up, I say more power to ‘em. Enjoy your ghosts, thief!"

Athi giggles. “Worst was the cabin.”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t even look at that family one. The kid’s vacant stare, blessed Andraste, I wanted to flip it around every time I walked in that door. And you know that cat had seen things. I mean, did Seggrit know them? Why were they on our wall?”

"Somebody had to keep an eye on us."

"And make sure we weren't flirting with tall handsome customers in the back alley?" Tali grins, tongue stuck out between her teeth.

"Why? You make that a habit too?"

Tali wrings out and refolds her bar towel. “Ok, sweetie. Keep your secrets. I'll get my details one day."

"Anyway." Athi gestures at the naked walls. "Change!"

"Right. It was Seggie for sure. He was here when I came in. Must have dealt with all that crap this morning, though I couldn't say what he did with all of it. Or why. Oh! And he left that.”

Tali reaches back and raps a knuckle on the fridge where a sheet of paper hangs. Athi slides it out from under the magnet. Scans its contents. Flips it writing-side-out toward Tali.

“The fuck is this?”

“A cleaning list.”

“I can see that. Seggrit made it?”

“Either that or your writer pal is moving in for real.”

“And that’s not strange to you? That he cares?”

Tali shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe he’s decided to rejuvenate this place. You know? Spruce it up, invest a little time, maybe hire some better bartenders.”

“Hey, don't sell yourself short."

"Bold of you to assume I meant myself."

“This is weird, though. Right?" She reads off the paper. "Sweep out back? Deep-clean the office? Dust the brick wall? Tali, most of these have nothing to do with anything. Where are the temp checks? Or the fucking tap lines? Or, you know, any of the shit we should actually be doing?"

“Beats me, babe. I'm just glad he's getting involved. You should’ve seen him whirling around here earlier. Something seems to have lit a fire under his rear-end.”

Another feeling, but she can't place this one. It all fits together somehow, or should. The list and the bare walls and the lack of fire hazards. Chewing on the puzzle, Athi picks a task at random, takes a spray bottle and a coffee filter to the windows. Even free of five years’ grime and in full sun, they don’t illuminate much. But that’s all right. The list says clean, and they are definitely that.

[ocular-intercourse]

@mangosandchili and number 3, teddy

🌲 What is the kindest thing your OC has ever done for someone? What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for them? On the flip side, what is the worst thing your OC has done to another person?

This question is hard to answer for Teddy for exactly the opposite reason that I had for Ace. Cause his base mode is being kind, oozing kindness all over the place to people deserving and undeserving, so it’s hard to pick something that stands out. The kindest thing he has done is probably allowing his brother to profit from his life experiences, writing books ‘about’ him, without getting anything from it. The kindest thing someone has done for him was his father’s wife accepting him into their family, raising him, though he was not her child. He is still very much in awe by her doing that. The worst thing he has done to people probably depends on who you ask or what you consider bad. Maybe it’s making his family worry that one time he tried to run away while they were on vacation. He has a homophobic grandmother he cut out of his life, she most definitely thinks he did something cruel to her, both by being gay, non-christian and avoiding her, telling her she is the bad one?? He himself would probably answer that killing someone, even in self-defense, was the worst thing he ever did. You can’t convince him otherwise.

🌳 What does your OC do when they see others upset or in pain? An upset friend? A stranger?

He is another one of those who will always help as best he can. With him that even extends to people he actively dislikes. He can’t help it. Ted is the emotional sponge of his friend group, the go-to for non-official therapy, he overextends himself and let’s people step over his boundaries more often than he should. To him seeing somebody else suffer feels very much like he’s suffering himself, he’s hyper empathic in some ways, so helping them feels like helping himself, cause he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it till it’s solved anyways.

🌿 What is something true about your OC that they refuse to admit about themselves? Is there any reason to this besides embarrassment?

It’s probably a form of refusing to admit it, more like refusing to see it, not actively I might add. If you’d ask people around him to put down some words to describe him and ask teddy to do the same, there’s one word that would appear a bunch of times on their list but never on his, it would be bossy. In his mind he’s this gentle submissive guy that more often than not gets walked over by others and pushed around.. it’s not really true though. Not always at least. It’s probably him trying to steer against not being taken seriously. He has no problem speaking out, putting his opinion out there, letting people know what he needs.. He would absolutely be embarrassed about being considered bossy, cause it fits into his self-image so little.

🍃 Describe a regular day for your OC. What is their schedule (if they have one).          

He’s not a schedule kind of guy, more of a head-in-the-clouds let’s see what happens today kind of person. The only strict routine he has is about eating, as a tool of keeping tabs on his eating disorder. He’ll also try and spend as much time as he gets in nature or at least surrounded by plants, alternatively animals. There’s a massive greenhouse on the academy grounds and him and his siblings take care of the plants, if you ever try to find him it’s probably there. Before the attack you might have gone looking for him in the woods, but he’s been avoiding them ever since.

🍁 What is your OC’s most traumatic experience? (If they don’t have just one traumatic experience either pick one or describe them all!)

There’s some that come to mind. I have talked about the academy attack before, and how he had to fight and unwillingly kill. It’s definitely something he’s struggling with, especially since there’s not really a way to deal with it, in the real world, and not really a support system of sorts at the academy. The students are more or less left to deal with the aftermath alone, some guidance maybe from the teachers, but they are not equipped to handle something like that.

Another one is when it was revealed to him that he is a demi-god and his mother is not his biological mother. His whole world view turned upside down, he felt like a stranger in his family and like a constant source of pain for his mother. That’s when he tried to run away, since he was not one of them anyways, why not spare them the trouble of having him around. That’s part of what lead to him developing the eating disorder. He felt like he had no control over anything, but he could at least control very strictly what he ate and when he ate and that mostly made him forbid himself from eating entirely, for as long as he could get himself to, then binging, purging, repeating. His parents picked up on that quite fast and got him help though, but it’s still something that resurfaces a bit when he feels like things are out of control.

Something else that happened when he was absolutely too young for it, maybe 15, being the gay kid in school and bullied for it, getting the attention from one of his friend’s older brothers, starting to hang around with his friend group, going to parties, doing drugs, all under the cover of being accepted there and wanting to belong and seem cool, waking up drugged in positions he did not want to be in, touched by people he did not know, all somewhat orchestrated or at least permitted, tolerated, by said older brother. He got the fuck out of there before anything too bad could happen (as far as he remembers) and is very very thankful for having been lucky, conscious and responsive enough to be able to pull the breaks and protect himself. But it definitely put a spin on his ability to trust people for a long time, and made it hard for a while to come to terms with his identity cause if the only other interaction you had with gay people was /that/ it does not exactly make you want to belong to the community.

🍄 How would your OC react to the death of a friend/family member/loved one? Is there anyone they can confide in?

He would definitely be devastated. But he also has a very good support system, a lot of people around to catch him and lead him through his grief. It’s not out of the ordinary, something that happens to people in life, that is painful, but part of it. He tries to see it kinda holistically, it’s just part of the universe, neither good nor bad, and tries to focus on the joy of having known a person rather than the pain of losing them. He also holds on to the hope of seeing them again.

🌾 What would your OC be like if they were evil. Or if they’re already evil what would they be like as the good guy?

Evil Teddy is cliché eco-terrorist. If people have to die so the planet can survive then it’s justified to let them die, or even our mission to kill them ourselves. Picture James Bond villain Teddy. Bad guy with flair and ideals and a bigger picture plan.

💐 How would your OC react to somebody telling them that they love them? (+ bonus give another characters/OC name!)

Teddy is in love with love, romantically, platonically, he does not care, he loves people and he lets them know, constantly, which mostly inspires people to respond often. So it’s not irregular for him to hear his friends and family telling him that they love him. With Zeke that a whole other thing. Hearing it would make him extremely happy, cause he wants to be loves by Zeke. But since he tends to not show it in actions I think Teddy would, in the worst phases of this behavior, just react bitterly to being told ‘I love you’. Cause he just wouldn’t believe it. It would make it angry, even. If you love me than show it goddamit, what the fuck am I supposed to do with some hollow words..

🌷 What does your OC hate about themself? What lies about themself do they believe? On the flip side, What does your OC love about themself?

Teddy has been on a long journey of self-acceptance ever since he was litte. From learning to deal with his ancestry, to being bullied practically everywhere, to this very shitty introduction to dating, if you want to call it that, hating himself for being different. But he has always had his family and friends who helped him see what was right and what were wrong assumptions, he always had help working through his issues. He went to therapy early, since he developed his eating disorder. He just always had a really really good safety net, that made it possible for him to look at his problems and deal with them head-on. He loves himself; he loves that he is kind and gentle and loving and, well, good. There is honestly not a lot about himself that he would straight up hate. Maybe some things he’d like to change, but he always tries to see the positives even in them. What he definitely does hate though, is that his experience with Zeke is kinda starting to make him doubt again, to have to hide parts of himself that he fought very hard to be proud for. He hates that he let himself get caught in this regressive mindset, straight back to his insecure teens, all because he can’t stop himself from feeling these things for this boy who is not ready for them at all. He’s not entirely sure if he should be mad at himself, at Zeke or at the universe for this unfortunate timing. But that’s all part of the one thing he’d like to change about himself the most, being able to face injustices, especially those directed at himself, a little better. They often just make him hopeless and unable to act cause he does not know what to do, so he just does nothing instead.

🥀 What is something your OC blames themselves for and is it really their fault? Does it keep them up at night and is there any lingering trauma?

Mhmmm, again I think Teddy is not really the person to dwell on these negative things, at least not in regards to him. Like, yeah, he can’t quite deal with having killed a guy, he wished it would not have happened, but he can also see that in that situation there was not a lot of other things he could have done, it was a reaction, he did not mean to do it, but that was a bad guy that very much wanted to kill him and others, so he can see that is was justified somehow. So he suffers, for having done that, but he does not blame himself all that much, personally, cause it was out of his control. Maybe you will find him thinking about what could have gone differently here and there, but those moments are rare, cause he can’t do anything about it anyways. Things he feels guilty about are mostly related to his family, feeling like he burdened them with things one way or another. He can’t quite 100 % believe his mother really accepts him as hers, no hard feelings for his dad’s affair or one-night-stand or whatever, he feels bad about being a reminder of that, he feels undeserving of her love. He feels guilty about worrying others.

🌺 In what situation would your OC be pushed to commit an act of violence? Would they go as far to kill someone if they had to? How would this affect them and their relationships with others?

The answer is usually never. If you would put him in that same situation again, where he’s surrounded by bad guys and he just tries to keep them from being able to hurt anyone and one of them happens to die during that.. that’s not really something he chose to do. If he had known that it would happen he might have not intervened in the same way. He is a pacifist first, always. The attack made him reevaluate some things though, like the necessity of learning how to fight, if only to be able to act more controlled the next time, truly keeping everybody on both sides from dying unnecessarily. He’s the kind of person that wants to believe that everything can be solved by conversations, so he’d never see killing people as a solution. He would kill only if forced to, not by somebody holding a gun to his head and making him do it, but in a situation where the result of the other person not dying would be something he couldn’t live with.

Having killed somebody definitely made Teddy retreat a bit, he hardened a little, did not want people to see him go through that, be a different him. Eventually he did allow himself to share about it more, the easiest with his ex-nemesis who had been there when it happened and who went through the same shit.

Oh, actually, he is a bit more loose about physical violence that won’t leave permanent damage. He’d surprise people with it but he’d absolutely deck a guy in the face if he was being harmful to others.

🌸 What would your OC do if they were given god-like powers or the ability to change anything about the world for a whole day?

Teddy would try and figure out the best way to help as many people in the long run as possible. He would probably come to the conclusion that it would help if you made people understand other people’s struggles and experiences. Maybe a bit of a just dessert kind of solution. He’d put powerful assholes in the shoes of the people they suppress, hoping to make them understand even after that day and maybe change their stances, be nicer.

🌼 Describe one of your OC’s worst nightmares.

Losing hope in the world, in the inherent goodness that he believes in. He’s seen many people, even optimistic ones, become cynical and hopeless considering the state of things. And he understands their reactions, they are probably justified. But he himself just does not want to lose hope, he always wants to believe that people are good and the world is good, and things will end well. But understanding why others become pessimists is just one step too close to following in their footsteps. He refuses to let that happen, he wants to at least, but he is a little scared of failing to keep it up indefinitely, of being proven wrong.

🌻 What advice would your OC give to their younger self? What advice does your OC need now?

Be yourself always. If you feel bad about something it’s probably the right feeling to have. Trust your instincts. Only you can know what’s right for you, the opinions of others might sound nice but that does not make them true. Right now he could probably be reminded that there is strength in kindness and that the cost of it is worth it, always. Also somebody tell him to dump Zeke.

[secondgenerationnerd]

Legacy

Author’s note: So I started this a while ago, but made a few changes. I will ship my soft bois in this fic, fight me and look out for more fics with them! Enjoy!

           The world’s ending again and it’s up to a bunch of teenagers to save it. They’d been going nonstop for two days, watching family and friends die from an unknown alien menace. 17-year-old Luca Gordon-Grayson and his team had been hiding in an old Cadmus Lab, gathering whatever information he could hack from the computers.

           Luca looks at his team. Jania West swears as her older brother, Matt West, unwraps a bandage on her arm to check a bullet wound, both their bows abandoned on the ground beside them. Ceridian sits on some old crates, carefully balanced as he reviews footage from around the world. He has all the calm grace of his father, Kaldur, at that age.

           All three of them are exhausted, but ready to continue the fight. Ready for what comes next. Why isn’t he?

           “I think we need to find a new hiding place.” Ceridan says, rising to his feet, “We can’t hide out here forever.”

           “We can’t let the bad guys find this place either.” Jania points out, wincing as Matt rewraps the wound. “Half the files here could destroy the world.”

           “I can destroy it.” Luca offers. “I have a few things I need to gather still, but you all should start heading out. I’ll meet you 4 kilometers southeast, at the old burger joint on 5th.”

           “Are you sure you’ll be safe? This place is still booby-trapped.”

           “I’ll be fine. I’m Robin after all.” He offers them the trademark Robin smile and none of them question it. They never do. While Ceridan and Jania gather their stuff, Matt pulls him to the side.

“Babe, you sure you’re ok?” Luca tries to meet the speedster’s gray eyes, but he stops short. He knows that compassion in them will break him.

“Yeah. Just tired.”

“Are you sure? I can stay with you if you—”

Luca smiles softly and holds his hand, “I’ll be fine. Promise.”

The lie’s bitter in his mouth, but his boyfriend doesn’t question it. Matt takes a second to press a soft kiss to his lips. Luca kisses him back before looking up at him. “See you on the other side.”

After taking any supplies they can, he watches them head out. Luca lets his smile fall and hooks his gloves up to the cables in the wall. It’s easy for him to watch his friends’ blips make it out of the building safely and send all the files to them. Once his work is done, he activates some security measures.

“Robin?” Matt’s voice in his ear throws him off a bit. He can’t do this with them listening. “Rob, what’s your ETA?”

No answer.

“Robin?” It’s Jania’s voice this time.

“I have a plan. I promise.” He watches the numbers on his screen as they count down. “You all have what you need for the mission.”

“Robin. What’s your ETA?” Matt’s voice is serious now. Sharp and hard to hide the fear behind it. “Luca? Luca!”

“It’s gonna be ok.” 30 seconds now. He lets his head fall back against the wall, staring up at the hole in the ceiling. At least he gets to see the stars. “It’s going to be ok. I promise. I promise. You all don’t need me for this part.”

They understand too late.

“LUCA!”

10 seconds…

“I’m coming for you, Luca! I’m going to save you—”

5 seconds. He closes his eyes.

“I don’t want to be saved.”

The world erupts in flames around him. He doesn’t even scream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

It’s been a week since their training simulation. Their failsafe, which went better than the first one their parents were in. The others failed soon after him. Luca had disappeared before anyone could confront him about his actions. A week in Gotham locked in his room, only coming out for food when he knew his parents were gone. He couldn’t avoid it forever which is how he ended up here, in the therapy room, face to face with Dinah Lance.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Luca glares at the ground.

“Alright, we don’t have to talk about—”

“Don’t bullshit me. We both know the League protocol. I can’t go back in the field until you clear me. Given your record, you won’t clear me until I talk.”

“You seem to have it all figured out.”

“Comes with the territory.”

“What’s does that mean?” Dinah leans forward.

“I’m Robin, part of the infamous Batfamily. I always have a backup plan, I always know what to do, I always have an answer.” Luca chews on his tongue.

“That sounds lonely.” Dinah says. “Is it?”

“The title alone? Yeah, it is. But try being the son of the OG Robin and OG Batgirl. Try being the grandson of Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon.” The tightness in his chest gets worse and worse the longer he talks. “Try never getting to be a teen and fuck up. Because everyone is looking at you for the answers. Everyone expects you to have a plan even though you just watched your entire family be eviscerated, but you’re a Bat so it’s not like you feel anything, right?”

“I can’t imagine—”

“No. You can’t. No one can. Ceridian gets to stop being Aqualad and just be Ceridian. Matt and Jania stop being Impulse and Velocity. They get to be teenagers. They get to go home and go to school and do what they want. They haven’t been in the media’s eye since birth. They never had to learn how to carefully word things, so you don’t create a scandal at 5. They might have expectations in the hero world, but they get to be civilians!” He’s crying. When did that happen? Why can’t he stop? “They don’t have tabloids filled with homophobic bullshit about them because they’re GAY!”

“Luca—”

“No, Dinah! I’m done! You got me to talk! And you know what?! I hate it! I hate this feeling! I’m done!” Luca storms to the door.

“Luca, if you leave, I can’t help you—”

“I don’t want help! I don’t need to be saved!” He slams the door behind him. His ears ring. He needs to think. Somehow, he ends up on the beach. The League rebuilding Mount Justice for the new generation was supposed to give them hope. Instead, Luca wants nothing more than to run into the ocean and never stop.

“Hey.” The boy wonder whips around to see his boyfriend walking up to him. Matt sits on the sand, not saying anything. Luca sits next to him. They watch the ocean in silence for a while. Matt, of course, breaks the quiet. “You know what sucked the most about the failsafe?”

“What?”

“Not being fast enough. After you…did what you did… we kept moving. Training kicked in and we all just…shut down. Focused on the mission. Jania went next. I was right next to her. I should have seen that fucking bullet. I should have saved her…” Matt keeps his eyes on the ocean, red hair seeming to catch fire as the sun starts setting. “Ceridian and I…We just wanted to take as many of the fuckers out as possible. And we did. And we died.”

“Matt—”

“I don’t know why you did what you did. I don’t.” Matt finally looks at Luca. “But I wanted to tell you something.”

You’re breaking up with me. Luca steals his heart.

“I’ve got your back.”

“Wait…What?”

“Look, I know better than anyone what it feels like to have a shitty legacy.”

“How do you know about that?”

“You told me before we were together. Remember? We were talking about our initiation day. I was so excited to be Velocity. You were proud to take the mantle of Robin, but you told me you were scared. I’ve seen it beat you down over the years. If I’ve contributed to that, I’m sorry.”

“Matt. You don’t have to apologize. I should have told someone I was struggling sooner. This is on me.” Luca can’t stand the hurt in Matt’s eyes. Matt gives him a small smile and takes his hand.

“How about this? It doesn’t matter if it was anyone’s fault. What matters is what we do moving forward. I’m not sure what you want to do, but I have some appointments set up with Aunt Dinah.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I need help figuring out some other stuff that failsafe made me go through.”

“I… I don’t know if I’m ready to talk to her.”

“That’s fine too. She’s always around. Hey.” Matt makes Luca look at him. “Talking about what hurts doesn’t make you any less of a man. It doesn’t make you weak or unworthy of being Robin. It makes you strong.”

“Why are you so fucking smart?”

“My mom’s been reading me Poe and Dickson since birth. Comes with the territory.” Matt kisses Luca’s forehead. Luca’s never let Matt kiss in out in the open. Failsafe was an exception, but the thought of someone seeing them petrified him. So why is he pulling Matt closer? Why are his lips brushing against the speedster’s as the setting sun sets the world on fire? Just one last goodbye in case Matt suggests a break?

Matt kisses him back, his hand holding the back of Luca’s neck. Luca grips the front of his boyfriend’s shirt, scared to let go. Eventually, they need air, reluctantly breaking apart. Matt stands up and offers Luca his hand. They walk to the cave together.

“Matt, when you said you understood a shitty legacy…”

“I’m talking about my grandparents. Lian has it worse with Aunt Jade’s past, but yeah.” Matt shrugs. “We’ve made our place in the team on who we are. Not our parents’ merits.”

“One day, you’re going to talk like a normal 17-year-old.”

Matt gives that bright laugh that Luca fell in love with “Not likely.”

------------------------------------------

Luca arrives home in Gotham a few hours later. He’d spent most of the evening just thinking while he and Matt watched mindless sitcoms. Luca can still feel the warmth of his boyfriend’s arms around him, his much longer body encasing him. Luca could have lived there for the rest of his life. But he has things he needs to do.

His parents are at the dinner table. Dick rises as his son comes in.

“Luca John. We need to talk—” Dick doesn’t get much farther than that. Luca’s already crying before he reaches his father, throwing his arms around him. Dick looks at his wife before hugging his son as tightly as possible. “Hey, bud. It’s ok. I’m here. Your mom and I are both here for you.”

“I know, Dad. I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

[tessatechaitea]

Anima #1

Oh, the sweet memories of actuallying anybody in range of me buying this comic book as I discussed Jung's concept of the anima.

At first glance, you might think I, a 22 year old male, purchased this comic book for the titties. But I totally purchased this comic book because I wanted to fuck Carl Jung. I'd like to say it's a coin toss as to which guy is more annoying (the sexist or the Jung enthusiast) but I absolutely fucking know. It's not like I was one of those philosophy turds that has to turn every discussion into an ever aggressive series of the question "But how do you know?!" I was just into literary theory and psychoanalysis was a huge part of that entire scene. Another huge part of my life at the time was my friend Soy Rakelson and I walking out of our Critical Literary Theory class after learning a new and conflicting theory while Soy's head turned red and he exploded, "Why doesn't he just teach us which theory is correct!" Also, I mean, her tits are pretty nice. Anima was one of those characters that came out of Bloodlines. I'm always pointing out how Hitman was the only one that every took off and made any money. I can say that because most of what I write is hyperbolic and factually inaccurate. I think there were a couple of others that took off a little bit. But none the way Hitman did! Maybe all of the other Bloodlines heroes should have been more interesting while refusing to use their powers. Not that Hitman completely abstained from using his powers. Occasionally he had to look at Wonder Woman's boobs through her top. I don't remember what Anima's powers were but it always struck me as odd (remember me being that actually nerd) that Anima wasn't a male hero. I suppose the trick was how she was in contact with her animus. Maybe she was the manifestation of the Animus personality inside her subconscious? So the real character was Animus and she was just a projection? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! It will all probably be explained in this series! Although if it isn't explained in Issue #1, I'm never going to learn it. The issue begins with Anima sleeping on the streets of Gotham City on Christmas Eve. Her name is Courtney Mason and, for some reason (probably something to do with her meta(l)gene being activated by the Bloodlines crossover), she's been separated from her hippie family. Her brother and father are celebrating Christmas and crying because they miss her. Anima's mother is being experimented on at a dream clinic.

I don't know why her suit had to have breasts built into it nor do I know why there is a tube sticking into the left cup. Do boobs dream?

Courntey's dad is sad and wants to get the feds involved in searching for her. Hopefully that ends the "What is the situation with Courtney and her family?" part of the comic book so we can learn all about Anima and her powers and what her favorite track on L7's "Bricks are Heavy" album. It's a good bet that "Pretend We're Dead" is her favorite but it's got some competition with "Shitlist," "Monster," and "Mister Integrity." Although it's not my favorite song, "Scrap" has the great line about a skinhead huffer who has a brief foray into Christianity before returning to huffing: "He dug Metallic Gold more than Luke and John." Doesn't all philosophy come down to just that? Simply put: what do I dig more?!

At the risk of becoming a total mansplainer, I'm pretty sure that the flannel shirt you have wrapped around your waist could act as a lightweight coat!

Anima heads to a Xmas Rave in the hopes of getting something to eat. That's usually at the bottom of my list of things I hope to find at a rave. At the top of the list are acid, mushrooms, MDMA, acid, acid, more acid, mushrooms, water, and instructions on how to untie a flannel at my waist so I can wear it. Outside the rave, she meets "Judy", Alison Hell, Liv, and Slam Shiner. They're probably in a band called "Judy" and the Jerks. Oh wait! Obviously they're "Boojum" because that was the name of the band on the rave flyer. At the rave, an initiate of a gang called The Scorpions tries to rape Anima. But she has super powers so she doesn't get raped. Also, a bunch of people at the rave have Professor Dred Brand Stun Guns. Those are to show that people who don't have super powers can also protect themselves from rapists because Batman can't be everywhere. Also, I don't know if Batman prioritizes saving people from being raped. He is kind of a huge patriarch. Shit. Now I'm wondering what kind of a huge monster Batman would be if his mother and father had been raped in Crime Alley. I'm sure he'd be more like the Punisher in that case if the Punisher decided to dress as a scary bat instead of as a go-go dancer with a skull t-shirt. The Scorpions raid Boojum's squat but Anima summons Animus, her asshole male counterpart, who throws a few of them out of the window. Boojum chant, "One of us! One of us!" and ask her to go on tour with them. She's hesitant because she's so dangerous but what else is she going to do? At least being part of a band on the road gives the series some movement. They'll be like The Lone Ranger if The Lone Ranger were a riot grrrl band. Anima #1 Rating: C. An average grade for what I feel was an average plot for a young teen suddenly turned hero story. Just like every member of the Titans, her parents will wind up being a large part of the conflicts in her life. Her father wants to find her because he misses her but he approaches his employer, Dayton Industries, to help with the job. And we know how terrible those guys can be! Meanwhile her mom's coworker wants to exploit the unconscious connection Anima has with her mother for their dream therapy experiments. I figure that's why I didn't pick up Issue #2, seeing as how I'd already read that plot too many times in the pages of Wolfman's New Titans. Plus she has one of those powers that she can't really control so she's reluctant to use her powers. That means she and her friends are just going to keep getting caught up in dangerous situations where she has to use her powers to save herself and her friends. Again, more of the same Teen Titans' crap I was sick of by 1994. Maybe I'd rather see a young kid who realized she hurt people she loved with her powers and then decided to make amends by using those powers to help others. Too goody two shoes, right? Although with her reluctance to use her powers and her finding a large cast of oddball characters, it does seem she was trying to replicate Hitman's success (which wouldn't have even started for another two years. So maybe Garth Ennis read this and thought, "Hey! Hitman could work with this plot! But a goofier cast of characters and a more cynical reluctance to use his powers because who needs them when you're already the best fucking hitman in the world?!).

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Free! S3

I will never get tired of Makoto offering Haru a hand out of the water

OMG I guess some things do change Makoto’s been dunked and I kinda love it

“I’m never gonna be a normal person” wow who is this this Goth Diet Haru

I love the phrase “hot minute” actually thank u for ur teen slang Asahi

Offering people his lecture notes and texting back right away will anyone ever be as good as Makoto? Trick question no

“I’m still young and innocent” “That’s a weird thing to say” I love that Haru’s meeting a bunch of people who aren’t used to his antics

This flashback seems to indicate that Haru felt Some Kinda Way about Ikuya which is weird because they look almost the same

“Don’t worry too much about the family” LMAO Sosuke has received a blessing from his cousin to follow Rin to Australia 

“Just inferior copies of Ikuya” that’d be more meaningful if Ikuya had done anything other than stare broodingly

It’s telling that the Iwatobi team is dressed like the Wiggles in this outro

All this outro really told me is that they aren’t really that good at differentiating main character design

“We have to try not to spoil them too much” I approve of Ikuya’s brother and his co-parenting buddy

“I’m not going to move ever again,” said Asahi, with the full confidence of a twelve-year-old boy who knows absolutely nothing about anything

Okay but for real Ikuya and Haru straight up look like siblings this weird rivalry energy on top of that fact is a little bit Much

[Rose and Rosie voice] It’ll never work out their hair is the same colour  

“Is Haru the guy who was all dressed up and riding a camel in the recruiting video we saw?” UNBELIEVABLE their Arabian Nights outro from S1 was actually their recruitment video Iwatobi do u take constructive criticism

“I’ll even be good enough to compete against you” how many rivals does one young man really need my god

Hey Trenchcoat Man maybe introduce yourself before telling these teens how to live their lives

Dude you’re so controlling trying to prevent Ikuya from seeing his friends

Ahhhhh I love Haru being in touch with his emotions and apologizing to Ikuya tbh I give Makoto and Rin a lot of the credit for his ability to communicate lmao 

“I’d prefer you didn’t keep him too long” listen I get where you might be coming from since Haru hurt Ikuya’s feelings but also stop that

“Thought I’d give you a wake-up call” I really don’t like the vibe of Hiyori

“Japanese guy! Friend of yours, maybe?” An accurate representation of what it’s like to hang out with white people lmao

There’s a different vibe from a teenager who giggles about swimmers’ muscles to an adult swim coach who is coaching swimming at a university giggling about swimmers’ muscles put that away Mikhail

Hiyori gives me the straight up heebie jeebies every time he opens his mouth

I can’t read Japanese but I have to assume Rin was gonna call Haru and reminisce about their bed sharing night lmao

Natsuya is some kinda Swimming Capitalist Nomad I’m not mad about it

“How many of these dreams do you have?” that’s valid lmao Rin has #calledout for being a rival slut

“His face told me that what matters most to him is not here” I can’t tell if this is a reference to Ikuya or to Natsuya’s white-haired rival-friend-boyfriend-probably

You know what, in the context of this show: Boyfriend 

“Hey, calm down. Listen, Archerfish--” HARU PLS

I don’t know Misae but the fact she calls her boyfriend Archerfish has already won me over

Hiyori would you fucking stop interfering this isn’t fair to Ikuya

“Ikuya’s too busy to waste his time reminiscing on childish things” well that should be Ikuya’s decision shouldn’t it like not 2 get 2 real but this is all the markers of an abusive relationship if someone does this to you please tell someone

God this stubbly weird man and his ominous advice STILL without any introduction 

“I’m getting sick of hearing you speak for Ikuya like you’re his damn boss” ME TOO ASAHI

YOU CANNOT DECIDE WHO IKUYA’S FRIENDS ARE HIYORI YOU ABSOLUTE SHITPRETZEL 

HA Ikuya knows you’ve been giving the boys the runaround fuckweasel

“If I swim with Tono, maybe it’ll help me understand him” Makoto coming after jerks with his best weapon: empathy <3

“People you swim with all seem to end up suffering, don’t they” LISTEN YOU ASSBANANA IT’S NOT HARU’S FAULT THAT PEOPLE GET OBSESSED WITH HIM HE’S JUST A GOOD SWIMMER

Omg I enjoy the drama of Sosuke interacting with the one (1) person in Japan who has seen Rin lately 

“I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed there isn’t a single pudgy person here” like I know this is probably gonna be a running gag for their opposite body preferences but it’s also a self-burn for the creators of this show only drawing different scales of one body type

I really do love that Rei is swim team captain now my boy has come so far

Oh Romio is there anyone in this swim universe that doesn’t have some kind of Traumatizing Swim Experience 

“Think about what your reason for jumping in is” Sosuke’s advice sounds like beautiful nonsense I don’t know how that’s supposed to help him concentrate on start times

Lmao I love this Overbearing Friend Gesture of Shizuru and Nagisa putting seaweed on Romio and Rei’s plates without asking kjhfkghfghfk

“Actually, if you don’t mind, we have a proposition” $500 says that Nagisa and Rei are about to propose a relay race

Update from 8 minutes later: Someone owes me $500

“Can you tell how proud I am?” Natsuya is such a good big brother <3

 Hahahaha “a guy he wants to swim with again some day” Natsuya is also a good wingman for Rin lmao

Based on his inner monologue Sosuke should also be a swimming coach except in the vein of Cryptic Trench Coat Stubble Man who just offers random unsolicited advice to any teenage swimmer he passes by in the street 

“I’m so proud of you” jgjhgjhg Shizuru I love you and your tears for Romio

What kind of child welfare laws are there in Japan that Hiyori’s parents were allowed to just leave him alone in the park

“When I saw [Haru] again, the weakness I thought I left behind came flooding back to me” the moral of this story is that competitive swimming makes you gay

Ikuya used to be fun and sweet lmao what made you so broody my dude

Lmao @ Hiyori being mad that Ikuya thinks of Haru as his Prince Eric instead of him 

Wow I love Nao being a guiding force for this group of nerds

“I’m not hearting anything for you” Asahi understands Stranger Danger

It took Ryuji a solid six eps to even get a name u’d expect him to have a more important character connection than Rin’s Swim Coach’s Rival

“Then you should start swimming other stuff” I Love Misaki, Adopted Child of Haru and Makoto 

Well this wistful playground vibe has taken a strange turn

“It’s none of your damn business okay!!” TONO JUST GOT DUMPED HA

KJGHKJGH THE RAGE IN HARU’S VOICE ABOUT THE MACKEREL

Ryuji: He can just buy me dinner or something. I’m not picky. As long as it’s not mackerel

Haru [through gritted teeth]: I’m ready when you are

AH I LOVE KISUMI AND ASAHI BABYSITTING TSUKUSHI

“After all we’ve been through, why does it have to be like this?” U MADE IT LIKE THIS HIYORI

HAHAHAHAH Makoto and Ryuji had a standoff of wills and Ryuji lost

“Maybe it’s time for you to approach things more seriously” Nao has declared it’s time to stop sowing your wild oats and settle down Natsuya

Kazuma only shows up to remind Sosuke he is free to run away to swim whenever

“Hope you’re well” “Hey relax I’m not your dad” [Natsuya immediately begins acting like their dad]

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH GO HARU LEADING HIS CATEGORY

“I don’t think he’s all that bad of a guy” that’s Stockholm Syndrome Ikuya

I’m glad Ikuya is finally fucking having a meaningful conversation with his friends

“In the water I’m alone. No one’s gonna save me” Get therapy Ikuya!!!

Wow Haru joining a race purely to have an Emotional Confrontation with Ikuya is some kinda growth I’m just not sure what exactly

“That guy’s the only one anyone ever talks about” to be fair if your sample size is Iwatobi swimmers they are all a little in love with him

“That’s our BOYYYYYYYYYY” Aw Asahi <3 

Ghjkghk I love Makoto teasing Haru for being Ikuya’s hero

“Oh, you’re wise now?” AWWWW Ikuya is fun again good for him

 I know that Ikuya reaching out in friendship to Hiyori is supposed to be a sign of emotional security but I haven’t forgiven him for the way he’s manipulated Ikuya!!! Ur a seawitch not a Prince Eric!!! >:((((

I’m super thrown about them going straight from the qualifiers to the next race what will the last four episodes of this season be about

“I’ve been giving myself pep talks in the mirror. ‘I am a genius. I am a genius.’” HAHAHAHA I LIKE FUN IKUYA

“Looks like you beat me” “Just in free” Haru has released Ikuya into the universe for Hiyori and I don’t like it (for Ikuya’s sake) but that’s how it be I guess

How many siblings are there in the Mikoshiba family lmao there’s a new one every season 

“But gender doesn’t mean anything in a competition” I like u Lady Mikoshiba

“You mean you were Russian this whole time??” this is a lot to digest

I LOVE RIN’S PUDGY CAT STEVE LOL IS IT THE SAME IN JAPANESE

“The water likes you. I can tell” ALBERT PLS, Haru is already FULL-UP on homoerotic swim relationships

It’s killing me that they keep cutting to Makoto like Haru’s cheating on him though

Not to undermine the subplot of these last three episodes but hasn’t Haru... lost races before hgkjhgk

“I thought something soft and cute would help balance out that scary face of yours” omg STOP this cuteness 

Gghkhgk these flashbacks and Rin crying over Sosuke’s surgery are SO cute I never thought I would feel so proud of Rin way back in S1 he’s grown so much!!

Makoto being surrounded by ladybugs and butterflies like a wholeass Disney Prince

WHY are ALL of these swimming weirdos SOMEONE’S UNCLE

“You’re still as weird as ever, Haru’s the exact same way” I should start tracking how long in a conversation it takes characters to bring up Haru

Gnjghkjhg Makoto gets through to Haru in 0.5 seconds after two weeks of him ignoring his own coach. The power of fish metaphors and Love™

Kinda seems like they are setting it up like Makoto will also get to travel the world for swimming and let me say... I’m not mad about it

Update from like 2 minutes later: I WAS RIGHT

“That’s the evil king who wanted the magic lamp” the Arabian Nights references kill me every time 

Djkhdkjhd Ryuji labelling Mikhail in his phone as “Muscle Freak” that’s tru friendship

“You should say, ‘I’m totes hip with the kids, yo’” Ryuji pls 

“You’re so cute, you must be Iwatobi’s famous Kou” KHGKHGKJHKJ 3/3 MIKOSHIBA KNOCKOUT KOU

Awwwww Rei is so nervous for nationals my sweet baby boy

I ADORE that Rin and Haru are literally running across the city right before their most important meet bc they want to see their friends swim 

Rrgjhgr the one and only backstory in this show is former childhood friends and it applies to every single character

OMG Rei get his own flashback but with his boy Nagisa I love it

“I think he’d make a good rival for you actually” Makoto Tachibana: Rival Matchmaker

GOOD JOB BOYS U DID GOOD (ALSO TEAM PHOTO I WEEP)

“Try not to cry when I beat you” SOSUKEEEEEEEEEE

Wow this final episode is already clutching at my heart right out of the gate baby Haru 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Makoto letting four more boys pile into his one bedroom for the night bc he’s the Best Boy Alive

HJGHJKGH THIS EXCHANGE 

Mikhail: That’s what I call ‘totes hip with the kids’

Nearby youths: [Giggling]

Mikhail: [Soft indignant gasp] Ryuji!!

Natsuya and Ikuya have the cutest sibling relationship gjkghk THEY

The theme of this season is people hugging each other and crying over the lanes and I LOVE THAT 4 THEM

Rin and Haru and Makoto........... are good boys

“What is this, some kind of teen drama” that is exactly it, Rin

“He won’t stop talking about stupid crap like friendship and bonds” I love three (3) boys

Bonus: Out of Order Liveblog of Free! Take Your Marks + S3E0

Haru dropping his pants in Makoto’s apartment without the immediate context of them being near water was the most high stakes moment in this entire anime I had no idea where that was going

Haru leaving his apartment hunting until the day before he moves: Mood

Sidenote: Makoto and Haru going apartment hunting is domestic as HELL I love it

“The two of you are inseparable, huh?” “We’re friends, deal with it.” Let people be gay Kisumi 

Lmao @ Nagisa and Rei’s yoga pose video Iwatobi is the cutest swim team in the world 

“Then one day even those tears will dry out in the Tokyo desert” who hurt you, Ms. Amakata 

“Allow me to welcome you to Tokyo, the city where love and lust intertwine” Free! Love and Lust could really be a subtitle of this anime lmao

“I’m talking about the whole bunkbed situation, you know, top and bottom” lmao shout-out to Sloane for that one art

I love the wordless communication between Makoto and Haru (and for that matter, Sosuke and Rin) I’m so glad they worked things out

I’m also happy Rin and Kou are cool now they used to have quite a gap

“Rin wasn’t that honest with himself” rjghg Rin and Haru miss each other

“This is the one,” said Haru, next to Makoto, His Completely Platonic Best Friend Who Dreams About Them Sharing An Apartment and Dropping Trou

I LOVE STEVE THE FAT CAT. AN ICON. A BEAUTY. CHUNKY BABY

“The treasure is inside the red shark’s mouth” there is DEFINITELY a Rin joke to be made here and the writers knew it

I don’t know what I love about this more that Aii and Momo are TERRIBLE at scheming or that that they are throwing Rin and Sosuke together on White Day lmao

This team vacation... Sosuke giggling bc he was tickled... !!!!!!! THANKS

I’m loving all these teams getting presents for each other jkhgkjg

Oh am I finally going to understand this Momo and Capybara backstory

Lol @ Natsuya pouring his heart abt Nao to Sosuke wholly unsolicited

“What were you about to ask” “Oh, not anything important (I’ll wait for you Sosuke)”

OHHHHHHHHHH THE CHARM BACKSTORY SOSUKEEEEEEEEEE

Oh Christ alive am I about to watch the Arabian Nights recruitment film

Hhhgjgjhg I gather the only reason Haru got his license was to compete with Rin

“I’m the evil king who is after the lamp for his own selfish reasons” I hate this... but also... I love this???

“I am a mysterious peddler. I travel carrying mysterious bundles. While riding atop of my mysterious partner Chappy the Camel” HARU STOP

OH MAKOTO HONEY U POOR SOUL JHGKHFKJGH 

“Makoto. When I’m nervous I think about mackerel” I am going to expire

“I think the three of you should implement your own version of it” Fhjkhgk Haru is telling them to exploit their bodies for school recruitment but also that’s not really anything new so fair enough

Nagisa: Rei is Perfect Killer Muscles Handsome in my heart!!!!!!

“Maybe I’m never going to understand him” Omg @ The Jilted Middle School Exes of Haru Club

“How David had to give up his love.... And then Veronica, knowing they couldn’t see each other anymore” call me crazy but I think Rin is projecting his own issues onto A Rat’s Life LMAO

Tjehjkhkje Sosuke needing to call Rin bc he got lost on his way to the bathroom... Useless Husband Energy

HAHAH Rin is so upset thinking Momo and Kou are dating

At least Rin recognizes that he doesn’t get to decide who Kou dates he can only express his approval or disapproval

“Momotaru Mikoshiba is a man who lives by passion” gjhgjhg stop this

“Rin would never lose to a persimmon, ever!” MAKOTO R U OK

“You are not less than a persimmon!” THESE BOYS. U R SO DUMB BUT ALSO GET U A FRIEND LIKE THE IWATOBI SWIM CLUB

“It’s cool if you need to cry” “If you stay in the pool no one will ever notice your tears” I LOVE SOSUKE AND HARU TEAMING UP TO TEASE RIN

I also deeply appreciate that even though I’ve never heard their Japanese voices I know exactly who is saying what line in this outro just by dialogue and tone of voice

+

“I have a crippling fear of mascot costumes” “Then why did you take this job” kjhgkjhgkjh if that isn’t a work mood 

Wait... if Makoto is going to be the substitute wrestler... WILL HARU BE THE SUBSTITUTE MASCOT AHHHHHHHH

WAIT NO I HAVE GRAVELY AND HILARIOUSLY MISUNDERSTOOD MAKOTO IS GOING TO BE BOTH MASCOT AND WRESTLER

“Iwa means ‘boulder’ and ‘tobi’ means ‘black kite’ so it’s a boulder-headed bird!!” Well that’s more of an explanation for the appearance of the Iwatobi mascot than I ever expected, Nagisa

“You don’t have a crippling fear of mascot costumes, do you?” No but I have feeling Makoto is about to develop one

Oh it’s THIS FUCKPUDDLE who asked u to be here Hiyori

“I don’t exactly hate it” high praise Ikuya lmao

Thkjhtkjh I love Natsuya’s long distance relationship it’s sweet 

HAHAHA is the beak thing supposed to be a ploy so people see Makoto’s face

“I cannot let Haru see me like this” “Hi Makoto” HAHAHAHAH I LOVE THIS WHOLE INTERACTION AND ALSO HOW HARU JUST GOES ALONG WITH ALL OF IT

Also I don’t know how Makoto was planning to hide his identity after he was addressed as “Mr. Tachibana”

LMAO @ MAKOTO BEING RECOGNIZED BY HIS LEG MUSCLES I’M SCREAMING

“Hey Makoto, use a backstroke!!” HARU PLEASE

“Well done, you’ll be a great mascot someday” “Thanks? I think?” This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and I loved it

Oh my goooood Haru bringing Makoto presents for his siblings.... they have ascended to the college relationship levels of Natsuya and Nao

Man Ikuya could not radiate stronger “leave me alone” vibes 

“Wow you boys make a dashing pair” you said it Suit Lady not me 

[purplebenjy]

2005-Part 1

“I’m not going to know how to talk to them.”

He’s pacing in front of the couch, Darling following his every turn. Benjy’s been muttering to himself on and off in Gujarti for the past ten minutes or so, meaning Cass could still continue to read whatever incredibly thick and dense book he was reading. It was supposedly fiction, and not assigned reading and therefore ‘for fun’ and Benjy didn’t understand how he was able to fit that in on top of grad school work, nor what the hell the story was supposed to be about even though Cass had patiently explained it at least three times.

Saying something in English, however, gains his boyfriend’s attention. Benjy hears the book thud close but he doesn’t stop moving.

“I’m not gonna go.”

“You are gonna go. You’ve been talking about this and been so excited for the past two weeks.”

Benjy stops to face Cass, taking a moment to let himself admire the view. His hair was short enough that it was curling around his forehead and over the tops of his ears-he needed a hair cut, but he was letting it go back to his natural color, which Benjy loved almost as much as he loved Cass. His newly acquired wire glasses were perched on the end of his nose and they magnified his eyes-Benjy could see the little crease when he smiled. He was wearing a white and blue striped shirt that Benjy had bought him cause he thought it made him look like a pirate with black jeans. He’d painted his nails yellow the night before, but, as usual, all Benjy can do is stare at his lip piercing.

“Benj.”

He looks into his boyfriend’s eyes and sighs.

“Don’t give me that sexy professor look, you know it works on me.”

Cass raises his eyebrows at him.

“The disappointed ‘I can’t believe you’re joking about that’ look works on me too, Cassie.”

“You’re deflecting.”

Benjy whines closes the short distance to the couch, replacing the book with himself on Cass’s lap.

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe.”

He presses his face into the front of Cass’s shoulder and sighs.

“What if they don’t like me?”

“Wanna try that again and look at me? Perhaps looking at me and not muffled?”

“No.”

“Benj.”

“Don’t Benj me.” He says, sitting up and tracing the shell of his ear.

“It worked.”

“Didn’t.”

Cass catches his hand and pulls Benjy into a kiss. He feels himself relax against Cass’s touch, letting out a sigh.

“What if they don’t like me?”

Cass smiles at him softly.

“I don’t think that’s humanly possible.”

“I’m being serious.”

Cass shifts on the beanbag, causing them both to sink in more.

“I am too. Speaking as a former teen admitted against his will in a psych ward, I would’ve liked you.”

Benjy smiles. He’d been feeling stuck the past couple of months since graduation-the agents who had shown interest in his work at his showcase hadn’t had time to meet with him yet-though he had a few voicemails insisting they’d make some time for him in the next couple of months. He’d vented about it at group, talked about how he was trying not to be so hard on himself and not let this be any sort of ‘proof’ to what Forest had said about Benjy not being able to find success on his own. Bernie, their facilitator, had pulled him aside after to tell him about the art therapy volunteer program at the same hospital that ran their program. After a background check that was shockingly clean, he was all set up to teach patients painting skills, giving them something to do while in recovery, a positive outlet. His first session was today, and he’d specifically requested teenagers, for a lot of reasons but the main one was currently wrapping his arms around Benjy’s waist.

“What if I don’t know what to say?”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

Benjy laughs softly and brings their lips together for another kiss. He doesn’t have to leave for another hour and he’s had his stuff packed since he’d woken up that morning. He presses himself against Cass’s chest and closes his eyes, only opening them when he hears the sound of a page turning.

“Are you reading right now? While I’m moping?”

“You’re not moping out loud.”

“Hmm.”

He tries and fails to glare at Cass’s smile.

“Can I uh, ask you one more question and then I’ll leave you alone?”

Cass pushes his glasses up on his nose and Benjy reaches up for another kiss before he responds.

“That’s not true, but sure.”

He looks away from his boyfriend, his attention drawn to the faint scars he can see at the top of Cass’s forearms.

“It’s pretty stupid-”

“I guarantee it’s not.”

“Is it scary? To be there?”

Cass nods slowly, his eyes looking up and away like he always did when he was thinking.

“Like to visit? Or to be there?”

“Both, I guess.” Benjy says, shifting so he can properly trace the lines on Cass’s arms. “I feel like a coward for even asking.”

“Benj.”

He doesn’t have to say anything else, he rarely does.

“Okay, not a coward just...I don’t know. I wanna be prepared, I guess.”

Cass nods again.

“Yes, it’s scary. Not like those movies I make you watch it’s more...jarring I think would be the better word. Cause there’s sick people all around you and they’ll all kind of look like it. With the scrubs or gowns or sweats they’ve got on. And it was scary to be there, obviously but…” He taps lightly three times on the back of Benjy’s hand.

“It’s also a place that makes people better. And it’s obviously a good one if they’re doing something like this-once I realized that, at least kind of, it made it a little less scary. Some of the kids you’re gonna be with might be there, some of them might be scared--and some of them probably aren’t gonna care. That’s where I was for a lot of it, Benj. Just kind of...there, I guess, until they got me talking to Kevin and stuff…”

Cass trails off and Benjy bends forward to kiss some of the scars on his left arm.

“I’m glad you’re here, baby.”

Cass smiles at him, lifting his head slightly and cupping his face with his right hand.

“Me too. “

~

The staff had been almost too friendly and enthusiastic, chattering away about how they’ve been trying to find someone who fit to do this for a long time. Benjy made small talk easily, but couldn’t really focus, a little too worried about how it was going to go.

“And I’ll be in there, just in case anyone needs assistance-and truthfully because I’d like to pick up a thing or two, too.” Benjy smiles at that, reading the name ‘Dorcas’ on the nurse’s ID tag. She leaves him to set up, telling him he’s going to have three patients plus herself. He puts a few pieces of the weird paperboard canvas they’d told him to buy (no staples) and a bunch of non toxic paints at each of the little tables they’d set out. He smiles to himself at the rickety old easel someone (probably Dorcas) had put out for him, and decides to use it instead of his travel one. He puts his bags in the corner of the room closest to him and waits, rocking back and forth on his heels. He’d turned in his cellphone at the front desk, and he was too jittery to try to text right now anyway. He grabs one of the soft lead pencils he’d set out and starts sketching, instantly relaxing and almost calm by the time Dorcas and her patients came in. The first was a teenage girl with long, dirty, blonde hair, so thin Benjy could see her ribs through her grey sweatshirt. She shot him a shakey smile and sat down at the first table, right beside Dorcas who reached over and gave her a hand a squeeze as soon as she sat down herself. The second was a boy who was only a little taller than Benjy with very dark circles under his eyes and a weird sort of shuffle walk, he didn’t look up when he entered the room and sat at the middle table. The third was a girl who looked absolutely and totally average-a big shock of curly brown hair that went down to her shoulders-frizzy but well cared for. She had poked thumb holes through her sweatshirt sleeves and had them pulled up to her knuckles-she already looked bored and raised her eyebrows skeptically at Benjy’s set up before sliding into a seat at the back table. Four pairs of eyes were on him now, and Benjy takes a breath before grinning at them.

“Hi, uh, you probably already know why you’re here, but-I’m Benjy. I...Bernie, who i think some of you know, he’s helped me to get better, he’s helped me a lot, but um, nothing’s really helped me feel better like painting has.”

“Not even meds?”

The girl in the back has a glint in her eyes that makes Dorcas frown and turn around, but Benjy laughs.

“Fair enough. Almost nothing has made me better than painting. That work for you?”

She shrugs. Benjy continues.

“Art uh, it’s actually helped a lot of people for a long time. Which sounds like I’m making it up, but I promise I’m not. I’m not really good at talking in front of people really but…”

He shuffles some stuff around on his easel and turns it to them, showing them a print of Starry Night.

“Vincent Van Gogh was an impressionist painter--that was a period of art in the 1870s and 1880s-a fucking long time ago-I probably shouldn’t swear, huh?”

Dorcas kind of shrugs and Benjy laughs.

“Well anyway, Vincent struggled for a really long time but there’s evidence through letters and stuff that he wrote when he was around that painting made him feel better. He’s considered one of the best artists ever, and he did a lot of his work when he was in hospitals to get better. I don’t know if any of you guys care about that, but I thought it was pretty neat. So-uh, one of the styles in Vincent’s time period was to like, make a bigger picture out of little shapes. Like dots or squares. That’s what I thought we could try to today but uh, for me, the best part of painting is you can do whatever you want. So let’s just go-”

He catches himself before he says ‘go nuts’. Nice one, Benjy.

“Let’s just go-”

“Van Gogh?” The girl in the back pipes up. Benjy laughs.

“Sure. Paint whatever you want. Just kind of...let it out, you know? You can paint what you’re feeling, you can paint something you want, something you think is cool, something you hate...it’s literally always up to you, you know? You’re in control of what you make. I always liked that.”

He pulls his own table over to everyone else’s and starts setting up.

“I think we’ll just kind of sit here and make shit-if that’s okay with you guys?”

Dorcas, the boy and the blonde girl both nod and Benjy smiles. The girl in back already has a paint brush out and is getting to work.

“I’m gonna do that impressionist thing I was talking about, if anyone wants to do it with me.If you have any questions just ask.”

“I have one.”

Curly girl dips her brush into the black and makes eye contact with him.

“Shoot.”

“What fucked you up?”

“Deena!” Dorcas turns around in her chair, obviously pissed, but Benjy laughs, dipping his brush into the blue and speaking as he starts to do a background wash.

“No, no, it’s okay. Really. I was in a very emotionally and physically abusive relationship when I was nineteen. I was able to get out-which I’m very grateful for-but the person I was involved with was in a position of authority over me and it was incredibly damaging and stressful.”

Benjy starts mixing a purple and glances up at Deena. She addresses her canvas as she speaks.

“So you got beaten up by a girl?”

“Sorry about her.” The blonde girl speaks in an impossibly soft yet somehow fierce voice. “She’s attention starved.”

“You’re not supposed to bring up shit we talk about in group, Katie.”

“You’re also not supposed to make someone else share their story if they don’t want to.” Katie retorts, a flash of fire appearing in her expression. She holds up her canvas to show Benjy, she’s made a tiny sun out of yellow dots.

“Is that okay?”

He smiles.

“That’s great, Katie. But you don’t have to show me, I’m not grading you or anything-if you like it then it’s perfect.”

She nods, her lips tight as she scruntizes her work and then dips her brush back into the yellow.

“And to answer your question, Deena. No, I wasn’t beaten up by a girl-though that does happen, anyone can be abusive. But my abuser was in fact another man.”

“It was?”

The boy looks up for the first time really, his whole demeanor changing and making Benjy’s heart break in half at the wonder in his voice. Benjy nods.

“Yeah. He wasn’t great, but my new boyfriend is.”

“And your parents are cool with it?”

Benjy bites on the inside of his cheek and takes a breath, looking down at the paint so he doesn’t have the wrong reaction.

“Mine are but...Cass’s weren’t as cool. My mom’s the coolest person in the world, actually, so pretty hard to beat. But, you know, Cass and I kind of made our own family. It was hard for him for a little bit but he’s uh-I mean not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty amazing and I think I make him happy.”

He glances over at Dorcas, who seems only to be concerned with the boy, not reacting at all to Benjy outing himself. He should’ve figured as much given that he knew Bernie from a support group for LGBTQA victims of partner violence, but still. It was nice to know he could be as much as himself as he wanted to.

“That’s good.” The boy says quietly, picking up his paintbrush for the first time. They play with the paint for another fifteen minutes or so, just making small talk which mostly consisted of Deena asking a variety of personal and art related questions.

“Okay I’m gonna come around and see if I can give you any tips. I’m hardly an expert-”

“Whoa.” The boy, who Benjy knew was named RJ, was staring at the painting on Benjy’s table. It was a portrait loosely based on Cass, per usual, but he was all different shades of purple triangles. “You didn’t tell us you were good.”

Benjy laughs.

“Good is relative.”

“I’m not impressed.”

“Thanks, Deena.”

He encourages Katie to be a little looser with her strokes, guiding her hand into a more flowing motion as she paints a sea scape. Dorcas had a canvas completely covered in red spots that she told Benjy was either a fire or a tomato fight. He showed her how to try to make shading. RJ had just painted a bunch of triangles fitting together, all impossibly small and not colored in. Benj had given him a half assed explanation of color theory and moved back to Deena. He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Her entire canvas was covered in penises with angel wings on them. When she glances up, a big grin on her face, Benjy tries to keep his face neutral.

“You said to paint what we wanted.”

“Interesting interpretation. Are you going for a realistic rendering or do you want it to be more cartoonish?”

He sees surprise cross her face. Benjy guessed she was waiting for him to lose his patience, to tell her she was being innapropriate, get mad at her for not taking it seriously. He smiles pleasantly at her-waiting for her response.

“Um...what do you think?”

Benjy shrugs. “Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not my painting. I can show you how to do both.”

Deena blinks down at them.

“I say cartoony cause it’s a little-”

“Ridiculous?” Benjy says, his smile growing. Deena laughs for the first time, and Benjy almost thinks he hears embarrassment in her voice.

“Yeah.”

“I like it, it’s hilarious. And even if it’s ridiculous, if it makes you feel good to paint it, who gives a shit, right? If you make the lines a little bolder on one end and then have it taper off towards the other, you can kind of give them a little like, comic book-y effect, do you wanna try?”

He watches her try and nods.

“Good, now do that however many times you’ve uh, made one of those.”

“There’s sixty-nine of them.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

Deena laughs again. Benjy glances up at Dorcas and finds actual surprise on her face which leads him to believe that this isn’t a side to Deena seen all of the time.

“Don’t get paint on your sleeves, or I mean do. Everything I own is covered in paint.”

“I don’t think I technically own this.”

Deena rolls up her sleeves and Benjy is glad she’s focused on her painting so she can’t see the change in his face he knows is there. The bandages up her arms are white save for almost perfect lines of rust red at three places on her wrists.

“You’re doing great, D.” Benjy says, keeping his voice even as he swallows against the emotion in his throat. Deena whips her head up at him.

“Did you just call me D?”

“Oh-yeah, sorry. I won’t if you don’t want me to. My family has a thing with nicknames-”

She smiles at him, a real smile. A sad smile. A scared smile.

“No, it’s ok. My family does too. That’s what my parents call me. I like it.”

“It suits you.” Benjy says, watching her work.

“Cause I’m a dick?”

Benjy laughs.

“Not what I was going for, but sure. Sure.”

Their hour passes quickly, and when they’re done, Dorcas promises to be right back after she takes Katie to her room. Rj nods at him, holding his painting close to his chest. Deena pulls her sweatshirt sleeves down and marches to the front of the room, presenting Benjy with the flying dicks.

“Here. Something to remember me by.”

Benjy laughs.

“Well first of all, you’re fairly unforgettable. Second of all, I’m coming back next week.”

Deena’s face lights up.

“Really?”

“Yeah I mean if y’all want me back-”

“We do.” Deena actually blushes, realizing how quickly she’d spoken. She pushes the painting at him again.

“I still want you to have it.”

“I can’t take it until you sign it, dude. A true artist always signs it.”

“Oh good call, it’s gonna be worth millions some day.”

Deena takes the pencil Benjy’s holding and scribbles something in the corner before pressing the painting and pencil back into his hands.

“See you next week.”

She smiles at him again before stomping out of the room, picking at the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Benjy looks down at the hastily scribbled “D” with a little heart next to it and smiles.

“I’m really glad you were here, Deena.”

He’s not sure if she hears him at first, until she turns around and flips him the bird. Benjy watches her dissapear down the hall and then waits for Dorcas, looking down at the flying dicks and very glad he was there too.

[54fangirl]

Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Pt. 3)

Sweet Pea X OC

Summary:  Danika and her younger brother, Anthony, are abandoned by their mother. She can’t handle her daughter’s mental state anymore so she leaves the siblings with her mother back in Riverdale, both kids assuring their grandmother that she’s not coming back. Tony is a genius at only 10 and back in their hometown, he was in a promising education program, on the road to an ivy league school with a full scholarship, but in the southside? Danika just needs to keep him away from gang activity, which is hard when she herself gets a little too close.

Pairings: Sweet Pea x Female!OC

Words: 1381

Warnings: swearing, talk of suicide/drug use/alcoholism, allusions to some past trauma, (Future Warning) Mentions of and references to suicide and self-harm

A/N: O M F G I am the worst at updating. So much has been going on- too much. And everything got really out of hand and the world was kind of against me. Anyway, I’m sorry again.

Disclaimers: I own nothing but the plot and the OC’s

Part 1 | Part 2

Danika slammed the door shut when she got home.

“I can see you’re in a great mood.” Her grandmother commented, flipping through a magazine.

“What the hell did my mom tell you and what the hell did you tell the school?”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“I mean I got called into the counselor's office because ‘my grandmother stated some concerns about me’ and now everyone I know there thinks I’m a fucking nutjob.”

“You watch your tone, missy-”

“No! I don’t know what you think you know but I assure you it’s wrong!”

“Really? So you didn’t try to end your life? You didn’t stay in the hospital for over two months because they were concerned you’d try and do it again? None of that happened? How about the drugs? The drinking? Was that fake too?” Her mom really went all out to ensure her grandmother didn’t trust her.

“You don’t know the whole story-”

“I don’t need to! Your mother told me to keep you safe! I will do that, no matter what! You are the most important thing, I’m sorry if you feel wronged but you are everything in this situation-”

“I’m not going to have any friends because of this! I need friends to feel sane for christ sake-”

“Watch it! You’re on thin ice young lady!”

Danika wanted to scream and rip her hair out, she wanted to go back. She wanted to destroy everything she worked so hard to achieve.

“There’s going to be some changes in your life and you’re just going to have to deal with them.”

At this point, not even her pills could give her the energy to deal with this argument so she nodded for her grandmother to continue.

“For starters, you’re going to start coming to church with me and Abuelo on Sundays.” Danika only nodded, “I gave you the summer to adjust to living here but now you’re going back to your routine which means therapy.”

“Abuela! No!”

“I’m not arguing about it, you’re going. It’s a group at the hospitals that meets Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.”

“So I have to go to church and group therapy every Sunday?”

“Yup. And you’re not getting out of it. You also have private sessions on Thursdays.”

“So I won’t be having a social life at all then?”

“Did you really expect one?”

No, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You’re also not allowed to date and you will stay away from any and all gangs.” That one was going to be hard considering that the only people she went to school with were gang members and she was pretty sure one of them had a crush on her.

Her grandmother continued listing off rules that just brought her down, they only stopped because Abuelo was home and with him was Anthony.

“Antonio, my boy, how was school?” Maya squished his face together.

“Good, boring though. My teacher wouldn’t let me do my Algebra at recess, she took my book and said I should go play with the other kids.”

“You should, Tony. Make some friends, algebra is not as exciting as you think.” Danika told her brother.

“But I already finished the medical textbook, I wanna learn math.”

“You can do math instead of watching cartoons then, but you need to interact with kids your own age so you don’t dissociate yourself from the population, get it?” He hated it when she talked to him like he was ten, so she tried to use bigger words so he could expand his vocabulary as they had regular conversations.

“Fine, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Good, now go get started on your homework and you can read mine with me.”

He ran upstairs happily, followed by their grandfather. Abuela looked back at Danika.

“He’s smart, so I know he knows something but I know he doesn’t know everything because I know you. And you may treat him like your peer but he’s still your baby brother.”

“He knows I went to the hospital for a while because mom told him I was sick. That’s why he had the medical textbooks. He wanted to fix me when she said the doctors couldn’t.”

It broke her heart everytime he visted her and told her he found something new in his book. After a while their mom stopped bringing him, per her doctors orders it wasn’t helping her recovery to lie to him.

xxx

The next day at school, Sweet Pea intercepted her before she saw anyone else.

“So, what the hell happened yesterday?”

“What do you mean?” She kept her head down, not trying to break her grandmothers rules  less than twenty-four hours after she’d given them.

“I mean Toni said you left class and she didn’t see you for the rest of the day.”

“Oh, the office had some issues with my paperwork from my old school and I guess I just don’t have any other classes with her.” She lied easily.

“No, but you do have two more with me at the end of the day...” He said with a slight smirk.

“Oh, I uh left a little early. I needed to check on my brother.” She lied again.

“Ah, yes, the little medical expert.”

“Uh, yeah. He’s like an actual genius- reads the textbooks for fun.”

“Huh, he seems kinda young.”

“Yeah, he’s only ten.”

“Christ, I’m pretty sure at ten I was just annoying the girls on the playground.”

She let out and awkward laugh, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

The two continued to their first shared class but said no more words. When the bell rang Danika ran out of the class before he could even call after her.

Going through her normal day, turns out every class that she didn’t share with Sweet Pea, she shared with either Fangs or Toni.

xxx

Three weeks had passed. Therapy was boring as it always, chruch made her want to die on a whole new level, and group was just a bunch of other teens who didn’t want to be there, same as her.

Three weeks passed and every other day Toni invited her to hang out, maybe she found someone who didn’t think she was crazy. Or someone who just didn’t care.

It was Monday night of the fourth week that her brother finally spoke up.

“You’re never home but you never talk about hanaging out with your friends.”

“Uh, yeah I don’t really have friends.” Her grandparents looked up at her from their dinners.

“If I have to make friends, why don’t you?”

“Um...”

“I find it hard to believe that you haven’t made a single friend since you showed up,” Abuelo speaks.

Danika coughs, “Um, actually there’s this girl- she’s in a bunch of my classes, she wanted to hang out after school tomorrow.”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

“And you said you had no friends. If you had no friends, then who would ask you to hang out. Of course you can go! Just be home by a reasonable time.” Her grandmother spoke quickly, not letting anyone say anything to contradict her. She changed the subject quick too.

The next day when Toni asked if she wanted to come over, she agreed.

“Wait- really?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve said no for like a month straight, why now?”

“Uh, I don’t know. My grandma is still not used to teenagers so she was being pretty strict about me going places.”

“Oh, well cool. We need to stop by my work before we go to my place but after that we’ll have fun.”

“Okay, sounds great, I’ll meet you...”

“By my bike. Sweet Pea can show you.”

Sweet Pea. She hadn’t wanted to, but they became so close so fast. She wanted him to know eveything about her and she wanted to know everything about him. But they weren’t close to that yet.

She wanted him to be everything to her, but knew that wasn’t a smart move. It wouldn’t only break several of her grandmothers rules, but a few of her own as well. Number one being, don’t let anyone get close enough to push her over the edge again. He was right on the border of that and it was an unsettling feeling, one she hadn’t felt in a long time.

[timeisacephalopod]

4, 6, 9, 10, 12: Rhodey and Bucky, 15, 16, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 43, 46, 50, 54: Tony

You know that meme where the white woman is looking at the math overlaying the picture in confusion? That was me when I got this ask because instead of reading the fucking questions on the ask meme I put up I decided ‘Rhodey and Bucky’ were some other thing? Long story short I’m a moron lmao.

4- Favorite actress

Tbh I don’t pay much attention to the actresses and thus I almost missed out of saying Tessa Thompson like some kind of savage. I appreciate how hard she worked to try and make Valkyrie bisexual and also her character was basically the only thing I liked about Thor: Ragnarok (controversial opinion, I know).

6- Favorite quote

“Trust my rage” from Thor The Dark World. This line is so visceral and poetic. Like shit son, the rest of the movie was eh, but that line? Fucking amazing, and Hiddleston’s delivery of it is top tier bois.

9- BROTP

Pepper and Tony. I’ve never seen the romance between them, and in my opinion it was there because it seems movies are fucking incapable of not having a romance subplot (no hate to pepperony shippers either, everyone likes what they like and the entire point of fic is to circumvent canon anyways). But as a friendship pairing these two are excellent- they’re a great team, they understand each other on a fundamental level, and their friendship dynamic is interesting. Also, to me, I think their relationship is more compelling without the romance.

10- How did I discovered Marvel?

I’ve mentioned this in other asks but I had a friend make me watch Avengers and I didn’t like it lmao. I only gave it another show two years later and started from the beginning with CA:TFA and then I got into it. I’m not sure what changed or why I took to it later, especially when I found the later half of TFA to be kind of boring (I love Skinny!Steve ok) but it happened and when WS came out I saw it in theaters. From then I was hooked.

12- Make me choose between two characters: Rhodey and Bucky

Damn, I’d rather not have to choose, you suck! But, for the sake of the ask, Rhodey. As a character he’s better constructed, has his own story and motivation outside Tony, he’s funny, and while he has his moments (that I mostly blame on shit writing) he’s a great friend. I honestly wish that we could get a whole movie about him doing things but I did hear some rumors not long ago about Marvel looking into making Iron Man 4 an Ironheart movie and the only thing that would make that better is if Rhodey were her mentor (I literally wrote a story about this once).

Anyways, although I write Bucky a lot more than I do Rhodey I do prefer his character in a more fundamental way simply because he’s more fleshed out. Plus I love male friendships that are actually good and James Rhodey Rhodes is the God Tier of friends. The man spent 3 fucking months combing the desert for his disaster friend and that’s some damn dedication. Especially when you know people must have gotten real damn annoyed with him using resources and shit. But that action alone tells you everything you need to know about him and none of it is bad. I love Rhodey, seriously.

15- Top 5 ships

Tony/T’Challa

Tony/ Bucky

Tony/ Stephen

Tony/Rhodey

And, because I feel compelled to put a ship that doesn’t have Tony in it Steve/Howard

Honorable Mentions: Tony/ Peter Q

16- Top 5 villains

THANOS

Erik Killmonger

Loki

Justin Hammer (he’s just so absurd)

Ghost (from Ant Man and The Wasp)

Seriously, this was hard because Marvel’s villains are shit. They’re all the same one dimensional ‘they’re evil’ type characters.

21- Dream crossover

Basically any urban fantasy world I loved in my teens and the MCU. I’ve written a Vampire Academy/ MCU crossover but I’d love to write a House of Night crossover (I hate the characters in HoN, but love the world ok don’t judge), and a Shadowhunters crossover. I’ve seen some cool stuff with Teen Wolf being crossed over too though.

23- Most layered character

Tony fucking easily. His arcs are always the most compelling (or close to it), he’s had the most character development, and his trauma plays out so beautifully on screen. I’d argue Steve is a close second post WS, but the MCU will never let his character play out the development he’s gotten because they’ll never let Steve be less than perfect, which pisses me off. Otherwise his transition from a solider who wants to do right by his country to a cynical man who doesn’t know how to process the new world he’s been tossed into or how to handle a situation in which the morally correct solution isn’t abundantly obvious would be a compelling watch. But its been consistently proven that Steve will never get a real realization of his new characterization because ~~perfection~~.

27- Favorite moment

Shiiiit. That’s a lot of material and because I have a bad memory I’m going to go with ‘don’t call us plucky, we don’t know what it means’ because that was hilarious lmao.

29- Saddest moment

Shit boi, probs a toss up between Peter P’s death and Bucky’s. Peter’s is obvious but Bucky fucking dusting in front of the dude who spent so long trying to find him again in an effort to feel, even if its just for a moment, like he’s home again? Sad af. I felt awful for Steve there.

30- Most beautiful scene

Pretty much all of Black Panther is a visual treat, but I’m especially fond of T’Challa in the dream world with his father. That scene was so beautiful, and all the colors? Amazing. Only Guardians of the Galaxy even compares visually and even then Wakanda’s beauty has something else to offer that space doesn’t.

32- Actor/Actress I’d like to be cast by Marvel

As mentioned above I pay literally zero attention to actors- its a personal choice not to spend time being a voyeur into other people’s lives and treat them like commodities to consume because I loath celebrity culture (and this isn’t a slam to anyone who enjoys it, its more a slam to people who over engage in it- ie people who care enough to send death threats or paps basically). Anyways that’s an opinion you didn’t ask for, but because of that personal opinion I have no real cast choice lmao.

35- Most boring plotline?

I love Thor but all his movies. The first movie had good personal growth but eh. The second was an ok movie but forgettable (aside from my fav line from Loki in it), and unpopular opinion I hated Thor Ragarok. I mean it was funny. That’s all the good I have to say about it really. Though I have no idea why every comedy writers room is not leaping at a chance to get Taikia on their staff because the man is a comedic genius and that’s honestly being impolite to his comedy skill. Still, as much as I like Thor I didn’t really love any of his movies and all his villains were so fucking boring, even Loki wasn’t that interesting till Avengers. Poor Thor, MCU did him dirty :(

37- Most well done character death

Peter P. I give this to him over Bucky because apparently most of that scene was improv? I cried over my spider son ok. There’s someone who was in that theater with me who heard me sob out ‘my spider son’ and went home to tell people about it. That shit was heartbreaking. Second runner up goes to T’Challa but I didn’t think it was well done, I just thought it was sad as shit for Okoye and I love her so it was upsetting to see her lose her king :(

43- Characters I wish they’ve met

I don’t understand the question :( I think it’s supposed to be ‘characters you wish would met’ but all my wishes were granted in IW. Tony and Stephen met and so did Tony and Quill. I shipped Tony with both characters before they’d interacted on screen so it was nice to see :) Rhodey and Quill would be a fucking hoot together though, throw in Okoye and Valkyrie and you’ve got a bunch of drunk overpowered people telling war stories or, in Quill’s case, stories about that time he stole some shit.

46- What characters outside of the Mcu I’d like to see in a Marvel movie?

Ironheart, but I heard rumors they might do a movie with her. I think it’d be fun to have Riri in screen, especially since Peter is around her age. I’d also love to see a Young Avengers movie or a Kamala Khan/ Ms. Marvel movie though apparently there’s rumors of that too.

50- Characters that deserved better

Tony, Bucky, and Steve but all for different reasons. Steve deserves his fall from grace and not because I think he should suffer, but because keeping him on his pedestal means he’ll never be able to fully process his trauma and move on. Allow him to fall, allow him to know he isn’t perfect, then allow him to know that that’s ok, he doesn’t need to be, he just needs to do the best he can and then allow him a proper chance to move on.

Bucky because he deserves to be a character outside of Steve and, to a much smaller extent, Tony. Let the man have a movie about self actualization after trauma, let him figure out he isn’t Steve Roger’s best friend anymore (and that Steve isn’t really Steve anymore) and that that’s ok, they can both accept themselves as they exist now and still be friends. Let him develop hobbies outside of Steve, have him bond with Rhodey, he needs a good friend. Shit, let him bond with Sam too. Give me a buddy movie where Sam lowkey therapies Bucky into being a fuckin person again and Bucky finds some way to repay him. He can go beat up Scott for that time he kicked Sam’s ass lol.

And Tony because the MCU makes fuckin everything his fault, even stuff that only somewhat involves him. They drive him to an absolute breaking point and then have the characters get pissed that he broke? The only one that I found acceptable was Pepper and that’s mostly because I understand why she’d be freaked out both by Tony’s obsessive behavior and by nearly being eaten by one of his suits. She had her own shit she was dealing with post Mandarin so her I understand. Everyone else though? Mostly makes no sense. Why are you surprised that a person snaps when they’re pushed to the limit? That’s how people work lmao but that’s also because the writers make an active, and completely senseless, choice to have the characters react like Tony’s mental health problems are a choice he made and now he has to suffer because he has PTSD or some shit. Idk, but AoU was the worst for it, and, to a lesser extend IM3 but I refuse to believe Rhodey would really tell Tony to get over himself after a panic attack- the man is emotionally intelligent ok, IM3 did Rhodey dirty.

54- 5 things I love most about: Tony

Tony’s sheer level of wonder at the world around him- the look on his face in IM2 when he rediscovers that element perfectly encapsulates how he feels about learning and moving forward. (Flipside is that sometimes he has trouble staying in the present and that causes problems).

The way he tries no matter how badly he fails. Bih, if my random tests on a rock nearly ended the world I’d out and out throw myself off a cliff. Instead he accepts his part in it (and more) and chooses to try and make the best of it. He’s done that from the moment he got snatched by terrorists in Afghanistan. That in itself is basically a superpower.

His humor. I, too, hide my emotional distress under jokes so I can relate to being a lil bit of an asshole to hide how I feel. (Flipside: people don’t think he takes stuff seriously- hence Steve in the Avengers).

His mental health problems. Ok this one is weird, but I can appreciate that someone drew up a hero that isn’t based in perfection, but who tries to get there anyways. But the dude has problems, a lot of problems, and they aren’t always pretty. But they are complicated and it is compelling to watch.

The way he builds relationships. Its unconventional- Rhodey is probably the only person he’s super close to that he met in a normal way. Happy and Pepper were both people that worked for him and instead of just being their boss he took the time to learn about them and get to know them on a personal level. Obviously he ended up engaged to Pepper, but a guy who knows what his driver’s favorite show is and why he likes it is a good dude. He’d be nice to wait staff in restaurants.

[tayrco]

Here it is! The moment you’ve all been waiting for!  Mine and @gingerstorm101‘s fic is finally done! Let us know what you think! It’s a long one, so buckle up. 

Coagmentum

A couple years have passed since that night on the docks and little has changed since then. Mulder still has his job with the X-Files, though he was given a month of unpaid suspension when Kersh got a hold of him for that apparently controversial Tad O’Mally story, where he was claimed as the source. He knew the truth, but he wasn’t telling his boss that.

But that wasn’t a problem with him at the time because Scully was pregnant. While this was truly a second miracle for them, it was still a huge risk, both medically and emotionally. In hindsight, Mulder was glad for that month of unpaid suspension because it meant he got to see firsthand what he missed out on all those years ago: Pregnant Scully.

But time has passed and their daughter, Samantha Arielle Mulder was born in the early hours of a snowy January morning via cesarean. She is just over a year old now. Mulder smiles at the framed picture of his partner and child. Seeing their smiles is contagious and he can’t help but smile as well. His second child with her — he didn’t dare agree with what she had said that night. Jackson was his son and he loved him just as much as any father would love their child, even if he wasn’t around for a most of his life, though not by choice. She had just been in shock to hear what Skinner had told her combined with finding out that she had been pregnant again. And finding out what Jackson had been up to.

His phone ringing breaks him out of his musings.

“Mulder.” He answers and waits for the response on the other end. He responds with a quick “On it, sir”, the line going out just as he says the last syllable.

He stands up, feeling his spine crack as it straightens. He takes a moment to feel insulted with every pop of joints that follows suit before making his way out of the basement. At 59, he refuses to indulge in the idea that he’s getting old.

Stepping into the AD’s office, the aging man nods to his superior. “Skinner.”

“Agent Mulder,” the salt and pepper-bearded man pauses, “I have a case for you. From the images alone, it resembles an X-File that we have on record. I need you to look into it and come up with a profile on this criminal as soon as you can.”

He nods, looking down at the file in hand not even bothering to open it. Ever since Samantha was born, Skinner has been ordering more and more profiles instead of shipping the man off to hunt down the criminals.

Sometimes it was for the best.

And sometimes it was not.

Those are the nights when Scully puts her foot down, takes the file in hand, and hits him over the head with it before pulling him into a hug and whispering to him everything he needs to hear at that moment.

Back in his office, Mulder collapses back into his chair, lifts his feet onto the desk with a small groan, and stared at the closed file in front of him. Could he get this one done before 5pm and get home to his family, or should he wait?

Glancing up at the clock and taking note of the time, he ponders again. I have over an hour before Scully expects me home. Tossing the file onto his desk, he decides to wait until the morning before starting a new case. It’s an X-File— it can wait another day. He dropped his feet to the floor and pulled his chair closer to his desk. Mulder begins to reach for another case file he was working on when something caught his eye. One of the photos had come loose and slipped out onto the desk.

It was a body that looked like it imploded and considering his line of work, there’s a good chance it did.

Instantly Mulder thinks back to that motel room, watching as four bodies around him become soup on the ground.

Jackson.

William.

Whether his hands are shaking due to old age or the information he just found out, he may never know. Either way, Mulder snatches the file from the desk and opens it to the crime scene photos.

It was the same thing that he had seen just two years ago. Entire bodies gone. Splattered everywhere.

Flipping through the file, he notices that the states where the bodies were found varies, scattered across the country and no body was found in the same state twice. That is, until the final two. Washington DC.

Mulder picks up his desk phone and he dials a number that has been imprinted in his brain for 25 years.

“Scully, it’s me. He’s here. He’s come home.”

***

Equipped with his briefcase, Mulder makes his way to the front porch of their home early that evening. He unlocks the door quietly and makes his way inside the house. “Will you ever leave the door unlocked for me?” He calls out, placing his work on the coffee table.

“I will when I can trust people to not come kill us at all hours of the day.” Scully’s voice calls from the other room. Following the sound of her voice to the kitchen, Mulder finds his what-would-be-wife in the kitchen, roast in front of her and Samantha clutching her leg like a lifesaver. “Besides the obvious, how was your day?” Her head tilted towards him, a soft smile on her face.

He smiles back, walking up close to her to lay a kiss on her cheek. “It was as expected until the last little bit.”

“Da!” Samantha’s toothless smile greets him. Squatting down, he lifts the baby into his arms and gives her, too, a kiss on the cheek. “How’s my baby girl been today?”

“Cranky.” Her mother replied, her tone implying that she is not necessarily talking about their one year old daughter.

“Well you don’t look so cranky now, do ya Sammie?” He cuddles her close, oblivious to her suggestive tone, resting his head on his daughters wispy, soft baby hair.

Scully scoffs, grabbing the vegetables from the stove. “You weren’t here for her breakdowns over her missing binky.” Mulder laughs, earning a small glare from his partner. “And now that you’re home, you can finish dinner.” She drops the utensil she’s holding onto the counter and stalks off toward the bathroom for a much needed shower.

The night passed in an uneventful fashion, and putting Samantha down was easier than it had been in the past couple weeks. She had been sick for the past week or so and she stayed up most of the night crying to make sure her parents didn’t forget.

One thing about Samantha is that at night, she is usually quick to put down and they seem to be getting back on track with that tonight. She uses up all her energy during the day, tiring her mother out.

Scully drops onto the couch in a huff, handing Mulder his beer. “Ok G-Man, show me this case file.”

Mulder clicks open his briefcase and pulls out two files, an X followed by a six-digit number printed on the front of each one. “Skinner has gathered a bunch of cases from across the country and compiled them into the single file that he handed me today. This one,” he hands her the first file, “is the file they opened two years ago when I went to go see Jackson myself.”

Scully is silent for a couple moments as she looks over the two files. “In my professional opinion, these are done by the same person.”

“The only problem is, I’ve been told to profile the case.” She sighs. “You have to get inside his head.” He didn’t say a word for what it felt like an hour, but when he went to take a swig of his beer, it was still cold. “We don’t know much about our son, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways we can find out.”

“Without Skinner and Kersh knowing?” Scully sighs. “We know that he hasn’t been taking his prescription for almost 3 years now-“

“Which makes getting inside his head all the more fun-“

“So I can find some way to get you the information from his records. For medical reasons, of course.”

The two leaf through the files in hand, marking down information on two notepads, trying to block out the information they already knew about the teen. One was for information they were to keep to themselves about Jackson, and one was to go to the higher-ups. Mulder doesn’t want Kersh to know that he knows who the suspect was. He didn’t want to ruin what little hope he had of reuniting with his son on good terms. If Kersh ever found out that he was trying to protect the suspect, their son, then he’ll have to kiss his job goodbye. Completely finished.

Glancing up at the clock, Mulder sighs when he sees it is only 11pm. Four hours and we hardly got anything, Mulder thought to himself bitterly. Taking in the information he and Scully had put together, he noticed that the notepad that was to stay at home had only the information that they already knew. I want to believe that he didn’t do it, He covers his eyes, but there is no denying the truth. Jackson did this.

“Our son is a criminal.” Scully whispers out loud. Mulder grunts in response, his mind replaying the scene from that night. “Will he ever be happy? Will he ever be at peace?”

Mulder freezes. Be at peace?

“Scully! We’ve been looking at this all wrong.”

“Pardon?”

“These case files have been calling these attacks targets on innocent people!” He stands up from the plaid couch. “When I watched him use this power, we were the ones being attacked. I was already on the ground, and we were outnumbered. He was using it in purely self defense.”

“The next morning a car was found with a body of the name case on the side of the road...” Scully remembered. “You think that man had attacked him?” He paced around the room, his thoughts coming out rapidly. “That trucker said that Jackson attacked him, thoroughly frightening him to the point he will likely need therapy, with the images of Ghouli inside the cabin.” He spun a 180, facing his partner. “I had my doubts too, I thought he was doing this on purpose.”

“But you think people are still going after him?”

“Sarah told me that his fear was being locked up and experimented on.” He was struggling to keep his voice level. The last thing he needs is to wake up their daughter. “Fuck!” He hisses, kicking the edge of the table.

Scully jumps, to her feet. “Mulder, calm down!” She whispered, her voice cracking.

Mulder tries to convince himself to sit back down, but he has too much energy to stay still. “I need The Lone Gunmen right now. I need someone to pull up all his information so I know exactly what went on in his life.”

“The Lone Gunmen aren’t just a phone call away anymore, Mulder!”

“They are the only ones who can help us right now.” He said sullenly. “They can get us the information. Might even be able to track our son down.”

She moves closer to him, lifting her hand to rest on his arm. “Pack your bags while I get Samantha ready. If we are going to look for our son, we are doing it as a family.”

***

On the road, highway I95 specifically, the small family drives to their old friends.

The car ride was short compared to how long they were used to driving, and with Samantha fast asleep in her car seat, the ride was smooth. It wasn’t until midnight when the little girl wakes up that Mulder finally pulls over at a rest stop to fill up the tank and to get a cup of coffee for him and Scully. And just in case, he grabs a bag of sunflower seeds.

With everything paid for, he makes his way back towards the car where Scully is hopping into the backseat with their daughter to give the baby her midnight bottle.

Instead of handing Scully her coffee, he places both cups in the holders in the front seat, well within her reach. “Ok Madam, where would you like to go next?” He jokes, starting the engine and buckling his seatbelt.

“Wherever is fine, maybe a nice island adventure tonight?” She says airily, placing the bottle at Samantha’s lips, who greedily gulps it down.

Mulder smirks into the rear view mirror. “As you wish.” And with that, they are back on the road.

It is 1:30am when they arrived to dock. Feeling around for the hidden button, Mulder makes his arrival known to the three men before sitting back in the car with the girls. He knows it’s going to be quite a wait.

A half an hour has passed by the time a motor boat arrives at the wooden dock.

“Anyone ask for a lift?” Langley asks, tying the boat down.

Mulder grabs Samantha and both his and Scully’s overnight bags to load into the boat, letting her lead the way. Scully climbs into the wobbly boat and takes Samantha from Mulder while he sets the bags down.

“My my, the little duchess has gotten big.” The blond man comments.

Scully smiled fondly at her daughter. “I know. Some days I wish she would stop growing. But others, not so much.” Mulder silently laughs, knowing those days. It’s the ones where he comes home from work and she hands his daughter over before collapsing on the couch face first, leaving him to fix dinner and calm their restless daughter.

“Next stop, home!” Langley shouted as he started the boat.

The last part of their trip was uneventful. Langley doesn’t ask any questions as to why they have suddenly shown up at their proverbial door in the middle of the night. But they made small talk to pass the time. Samantha slept the rest of the trip, the calm waters soothing her into a peaceful sleep.

It was nearing 3am when the family and friend finally make their way to the front door of the house. A retina, hand, and voice scan later, the door unlocked and they were welcomed in.

“New tech?”

“Got to keep up with the times.” Frohike’s voice came from inside the house. “And how is the lovely Ms. Scully today?” The elder asked, greeting the new comers. “As well as anyone with no sleep and a year and a half old baby would be.” She answers, taking her coat off and hanging it beside Byers. “How have you boys been?” She returned.

Byers spoke up, a grin on his face. “As well as the average dead guy.” She snorts, taking Samantha from her father before turning back to their old friends.

“Is there somewhere I can get some rest before we start as to what we are here to do?” Byers nods, escorting her to the spare guest room Mulder had used the last time he was visiting. “I try to keep it clean, but we don’t get many visitors.”

“We would visit more, but Sammie has been keeping us home more often than not. It’s hard to be our age and keeping up with a baby on a daily basis.” She sighed, setting the carrier down on the floor. Byers left the two in peace as Scully took Samantha out for the rest of her bed time, and to Scully, a well needed nap.

Out in the living room, Mulder takes out his briefcase and starts on explaining what has become of his son.

“No wonder the kid is running.”

“He’s not a kid anymore. If they find him, he will likely be tried as an adult.”

Mulder grunts, “It’s the worse part he’s running from.” Handing the other men the case files. “Scully and I believe he’s been doing this in self defence. Two years ago I had the privilege to witness Jackson to implode four people who were after him. And now he’s shown up again in DC.”

The guys gave each other odd expressions, commenting on the gruesome images before them.

“I want to know more about his childhood. About these abilities of his, without the government knowing. I was told to profile the person doing this, I refuse to let them know it’s William.”

Langley was the first to jump into action. “I knew that boy of yours was special.”

“He’s tall too.” Mulder throws out offhandedly.

“So what name are we searching for?” The blond asked, his fingers at the ready.

“Jackson Van de Kamp.”

“Searching… Searching… Okay, we got 5 names for the US. All with Drivers Licenses.”

Frohike leans forward. “Photo ID; got him.” Mulder stands straight, his back tense. “I need you to get me everything on him.” Running his hands threw his hair is started to walk away. “I need coffee.” And with that, he was out of the room.

The three nod, taking a double glance at the photo of the teen, before they each got to work on their separate computers.

Mulder took some time to himself while brewing the coffee. He stepped in on the girls, checking to see how they were fairing. Fast asleep, the pair of them. He stood there watching as they slept, taking in their deeps breaths. He wished he could fall asleep like that at this moment. Maybe sleep for a good 10 hours if the baby even allowed him. Getting old sucks. He admits to himself. He didn’t blame Scully for getting pregnant at such a late stage in her life, but after 20 years of being barren, it was a miracle. Even if Samantha wore them out faster than the average parent.

The ding from the coffee maker brought his attention back to the present day. Mulder straightened from his position against the door frame, and walked away from the room.

The coffee was strong; black, just as he needed it after the last few weeks of not getting much sleep. The first cup he gulped down quickly burning his throat, not even moving from his spot in the kitchen, poured himself a second cup, then made his way back to the living room. “Whatcha ya got?”

“What do you want first?” Frohike asked. “We got a medical records, school records, sealed police records, even found his birth records that were sealed by the adoption agency.”

Taking a sip of his beverage, Mulder looked over the files before him. “I’ll leave the medical records for Scully to look over. From the looks of them, they are going to be interesting, as she’s already spoken with his psychologist. But print off everything, this is going to take a while.”

“Not to mention your eyes hurts after you stare at the screen too long.”

Scully’s voice made him jump, nearly spilling the coffee on his shirt. “I thought you were asleep?”

She strolls over to him, her hand under Samantha as she held her close. The little girl’s eyes were wide as she looked around the computer filled room. “Well I was, until someone started poking my face.” Her eyes stay on the child, a small smile appearing on her face. She glanced over to him, not meeting his face, her eyes somewhere else. She walked forward. “Is that coffee?” He nodded, lifting the mug to his lips. She intersected, pulling the mug towards her, and taking a refreshing gulp of the bitter drink. Mulder thought about taking the cup away from her, telling her to get her own, but he decided against it, and handed the hot cup over to her. She needs it more.

“I’ll get another one.” Was his response of her downing the beverage. “Make that two, please.”

***

The group sat around in a circle of the dining room table, each holding their own notepad to make quick observations, while Samantha playing in a circle of toys. In the centre of the table laid the crime scene photos of the past two years.

Peeking over at what Scully was writing down, noticing a column to the side with check marks in a couple places, Mulder looked down at his own notepad. What is fact and what is fiction? He wonders, looking over the notes made by the psychologist that Jackson had seen in his teenage years. He was only twelve when he started seeing help. The same age I was when I needed to see help because of my sister’s disappearance. He remembers that age. Part of him wanted to tell exactly what he saw, but there were times when he had made up what he saw cause it’s what he thought he saw. But everything I saw was true. Every version of it.

He kept his sigh to himself, and looks over his notes again. ‘Pain and loneliness.’ Well, he's not surprised. He was still a child when his powers were growing, and a preteen when, according to his notes, they started to get stronger.

‘Jackson claims that he has always had this part of him that was different, that was the underlying cause for him to act out. But in the last year is when it’s gotten worse. Puberty?’ The notes read.

Mulder isn't surprised to learn that his son was getting out of control even at such an early age.

‘Jackson tells us that he put another boy in the hospital, says that the boy deserved it for bullying younger students. When asked about it, he just said he made the boy bleed in front of everyone.’

He thought back to that night, he’s been doing that a lot since he was handed the case file. Was that the start of it all?

‘His parents are sending him to WinGate Wilderness Therapy Program, a boarding school for the troubled kids to help him. Jackson doesn’t want to disappoint his parents, but he doesn’t want to go. He hopes this is the last school he goes to; he’s been moved around too much, he says.’

Boarding school? He takes a sip of his now cold coffee, and starred his note to cross reference with the school records Byers and Frohike were tag-teaming. His adoptive parents were troopers dealing with him.

‘Jackson claims that he started a pile-up in the middle of the intersection near his house by just using his mind. I’m baffled as to how this could happen, but he sounds serious. I hope this new medication will start working soon for his own safety, now that we have taken a PET of his brain activity. His rather high brain activity.’

Now that is something I believe he could do. Mulder quickly jots down his notes on the high brain activity, something he’s known for quite a while, and looks up to see his partner look at colourful images in her hand. He slid the doctor’s notes towards her, silently pointing to the paragraph, and had her read the connection between the two.

Her eyes only widen silently, hardly even noticeable to the average observer. But he could read her like a book. She jotted down notes of her on, only glancing at the page once more before nodding, letting him take the notes back to his side of the table.

‘Jackson changed since the men from the government showed up. He’s not as open as he use to be.’

“Byers, Frohike, which one of you has the information for WinGate Wilderness?” Mulder questioned, writing down another not he had.

“I do,” Frohike answered, “Compared to the other schools, he didn’t get in as much trouble, but he still caused a racket.” He tossed his notebook over to the centre of the table for the group to read.

‘Fights with other trouble kids.’

‘Sneaking into the Dean’s office and automating the P.A. System and bell.’

‘Destruction to school property.’

Hacking into the school’s database.

Changing half the students’ grades.

Claims all those kids had cheated on their exams.

‘Four cases of questionable and unknown situations:

Found a way to the roof with the door still locked and no ladder.

Suspected with tampering with brakes on a teacher's car. No evidence found.

A second case of fighting on school property, leads to another student hospitalized for excessive internal bleeding.

A teacher hospitalized after a disagreement with Jackson, teacher’s headache turned serious.

“These are some of the things he had done while at the school for the troubled. There was far more at his middle school before he went here.”

Mulder watched Scully’s facial expression as they listen to the man speak.  “He had been seeing his psychologist since he was was twelve.” He takes notice of the way her eyes crinkle. She made the connection too. “He hasn’t seen her in years, all documentation stops when he’s 17.”

Byers spoke up. “He must have started seeing her after he started getting into fights at school. Says here, he put another kid in the hospital by fighting in the school yard.”

Mulder nodded. “I got that same got over here from the psychologist. I presume it was the start of where he learned how to do this.” He states, pointing to pictures in the middle.

“I have notes here,” Scully started, “That Jackson was seeking help because of multiple violent episodes as a child. His parents were worried because he broke several windows during a temper tantrum.”

The woman sighs. Mulder reaches over and grabs a hold of her hand. “We wouldn’t have been able to stop it.” He reminds her. She gets up and leaves the table, picking up the happily playing child. He takes this moment to look at her note book. At the top of the single column on the side of her page was written one word: Me.

My name should be on there too. He laughs to himself.

“So what we have is a boy who was a loner and has been having behavioural problems since childhood, getting progressively worse once he hit puberty. Talking to a therapist did little to stop his behavior or help with his mental problems. He was went to a school for the troubled, where he still caused problems for the head of the school.” Mulder summarized. “And now we have a teenager out there with a body count.”

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Langley snarks.

Mulder glares at the blond man, “Now’s not the time, Ringo.” Dropping his notes to the table-top, he walked on of the room. He could feel the tension in his shoulders ready to get loose and hit something. But he wouldn’t dare to do that in front of Samantha. He made a promise to not get angry in front of her, and he doesn’t want to break it so early in her life.

He doesn’t even have the full story, but heis already putting the pieces together of his son’s life. He knows Jackson Van de Kamp was a loner. Someone who was pushed aside from his fellow classmates because he was different than them, and he knew it. He started to use these abilities to cause harm to others because he’s angry.

‘...quiet ever since those men from the government showed up.’ The psychologist had written. Maybe he knew who those men really were, and whether it was fact or fiction he was telling her, he stopped because of them.

And then shit truly hit the fan for him.

Well, I hope Skinner is happy. I got my profile. Speaking of which, he headed back inside. “Byers, can I use your phone?” With a quick call to the A.D.’s office, Mulder explained to his supervisor that he won’t be in that day, and possibly the next day. “Thanks.”

“You okay, Mulder?” Scully asked, pulling out some food for the baby.

Grunting, he nods. “I just, I got my profile for Skinner. I think I deserve a nap.”

Frohike walks passed him. “No one’s stopping you, I was thinking the same thing myself.”

“Go on, I’m going to give Samantha her mid-morning snack before the two of us head to have a nap ourselves. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, now we just got to find out who is hunting our son.” Mulder says sullenly.

***

Mulder wakes up to a small body sitting on his hip instead of between her parents. Her tiny fingers play with his nose, and the sweetest giggles coming from her lips. Moving his arm from around Scully’s waist, he uses it to pull his daughter to his chest. “And what do you think you’re doing, baby?”

“Da!” She giggles, her single word streamed by a line of baby talk and gibberish he bet even Scully doesn’t know. He peers over at his partner, taking in her features as she sleeps on, not hearing their daughter. Odd. “Let’s let Mama sleep.” He tells the small child, taking her with him as he leaves the room quietly. “What time is it?” He asks, tickling Samantha’s tummy.

“Almost noon.” Byers answers, a sandwich on the table in front of him, a tablet in his hands. His stomach growls reminding himself that he hasn’t eaten something proper since he got home from work the night before.

“I was asking the baby.” He laughs, a chain reaction as Samantha laughs with him.

“Oh.” Placing the child on the floor to go play with her toys, Mulder picks up his notepad, and glances back at the sandwich. “Where can I get one of those?”

Stopping before taking a bite, he answers. “Help yourself, supply are in the fridge. Darin just delivered our groceries yesterday, we’re freshly stocked up!”

After making his own sandwich, Mulder sits back down at the table to eat and start a rough draft of what he is going to hand in to Skinner when he gets back to work. Whenever he gets there, that is.

Thankfully Samantha lets him continue his work as she played with her toys. He was able to get the draft notes written up before the little girl walked up to him, pointing at the rest of the food. “Hungry, Sammie?” She nodded, her large blue eyes gazing up at him. Without a second wasted, Mulder pulled out the rice-puffs and the unspillable bowl, handing her the snack. She happily took her snack and went back to her toys.

“She looks a lot like her, you know.” Byers stated, his distracted gaze on the small redhead.

Mulder watched his young daughter. “I’m thankful for that. I wanted my child to always look like Scully. One out of two ain’t bad.”

“Jackson looks a lot like you, too.” “Yeah, I know. At first Scully tried to play it off as if he was only an experiment, but there are so many characteristics that he has that just screams Fox Mulder.” He sighed, looking to the man across from him. “If Emily can be Scully’s daughter, Jackson can be my son. I can’t give up on him.”

The other man nods along with him. There was a pregnant pause as the two went back to watching the tiny redhead munch on her snack. “We’re going to find him.”

I know.

Mulder makes a fresh pot of coffee for himself when Scully slips into the room, her feet barely dragging on the floor. “I don’t know how we did this 20 years ago Mulder. I’m dead on my feet.” She mumbled, accepting the large mug of coffee.

“I could tell, Samantha didn’t even wake you up.” He smiled, pressing his lips to her forehead. “But then again, she was content with waking me up instead.” She looked dead on her feet this morning – afternoon, did Byers say? – but he knew that she did most mornings now. “Are you ready to find our son?”

“Mmhmm.” Was her response behind the mug.

“Well you two were getting some sleep, we took turns in searching down Jackson.” The other man said, a cup of coffee in his own hand. “We looked at security cameras in the areas surrounding where the bodies were found.” He paused, handing the tablet to them, the screen showing face recognition of Jackson on multiple surveillance cameras, speeding through time.

“What if he hides from the cameras?” Scully asks, taking in her son’s face. Byers moved around the kitchen, putting the plates away. “He would look very suspicious to the average eye if he did. We have three views of the office of the motel alone.” Mulder looked over Scully’s shoulder, watching the screen. Suddenly, each of the motel cameras glitches, the time had jumped ahead. “Wait, what was that?” Byers was back in front of them in an instant, taking the tablet back in hand, selecting one of the cameras, and rewinding it. “There, it skipped.”

He said. Byers took to the living room, leaving the couple to grab their daughter and follow him.

“Did you know about this?”

“Does it look like we know about this?” Mulder claims, his temper starting to rise. “We’ve spent more time watching him over a camera than we have in person.”

“No,” Scully answered calmly. “We didn’t know. He probably erased them after he left.” Resting her hand on Mulder’s arm, she urged him to calm himself. “Is there a chance we can look farther out?” She asked, her eyes meeting Byers.

He nodded, pulling up the cameras on the large screen in the living room. He typed something on the keyboard, something that she didn’t catch. “We might be able to track him down from lost time.”

“You’re a genius.” Scully smiled, the light in her eyes showing up for the first time that day.

“Who’s a genius?” Frohike walked into the room. “It can’t be this guy.” He threw his thumb in Byers’ direction.

The taller of the two Lone Gunmen laughs, “Har har Melvin. But we may have found a way to track which areas of DC Jackson might be hiding.”

“The sooner we know where to look, sooner we can go looking for him.” Scully butts in.

“You mean, the sooner I can go looking for him.” Mulder stares her down.

“Mulder-”

“No. Not with Samantha. If this was before she was here, I wouldn’t have a problem. You are capable to look after yourself. But she can’t. Not with those men after Jackson.” Scully lowered her gaze, she didn’t argue any further.

She met his eyes again a moment later. “Fine, but I want to be able to have contact with you the entire time. I don’t want you going in dark, and neither will I.”

Mulder started to argue that the men that were going after their son could easily track him down with his own cell phone, but Frohike caught him beforehand. “We got just the thing. We’ve had these bad boys hanging around here for the last couple of months just waiting to be used.”

The couple gave the two men a questioning look.

“Decked out burn phones. I don’t know how we haven’t used them before. But they are untraceable, even have a feature that you can download video and image files from a few feet. No connection necessary.”

“It was my idea.” Mulder looked up to Langley walking into the room with a large mug of coffee in his hand. “You guys wouldn’t of thought about it until next year when Android came out with it.”

“That’s not important right now,” Scully spoke, “What could we possibly use that for?”

“Loads of things!” Langley defends.

“Name five.” The women demanded, switching her daughter to her other hip. The little girl nibbled on her puffs as she watched the adults talk, not even a little bit interested.

“Well, uh, I, uh, can’t name them right now. But it can do it!” He crossed his arms, balancing his mug. “We haven’t been able to do a proper test run yet. Now’s the perfect time.”

Mulder sat back and watched the women he would marry any day of the year and his long time friends argue over the new tech.

“You mean you haven’t tested it yet?” He knows Scully wants to yell at them, but she keeps her composure. “Yes we have! We have, trust me. But we haven’t went out to the city to test it. Too many eyes.” Frohike and Byers both nod along.

The room was silent for a few moments, Samantha took this time to try and free herself from her mother’s grip, slipping to the floor. Mulder watched his daughter as she walked around the room, exploring the area, but mostly keeping her hands to herself. He barely heard Scully as whispered, “Just, please find him” before collapsing into the chair nearest to her.

The day went pretty quickly for Mulder as they searched for their son. With it already being the year 2019, the Lone Gunmen were able to get most of the video surveillance footage from the comfort of their home. They were able to track Jackson’s movement, using the lost footage trail, up to the doors of the Hoover building.

It wasn’t until there was found footage of Jackson, untampered with and walking into the basement office of the X-Files with a paper badge taped to his chest that Mulder gulped. His mind went back to that unforgettable case with the Pusher. “Pull that footage. I want that erased from the system. Better yet, put it straight on the phones you’re giving us. I need this.” He was firm, strict. He didn’t want every to know he was scared shitless for his son.

From her seat with the baby falling asleep in her lap, Scully asks, “Anyway we can track where he went from there?”

Byers shakes his head. “He started avoiding cameras, erasing what he was on, and just left.”

“Honestly, I’d say your best bet is to go back to DC and we’ll guide you from here.” Langley commented. “Hate to see you go after this, but we want you to find your son.” Mulder nods without saying a word. “We have time to stay for dinner.” Scully suggested, trying to tangle herself from Samantha’s limbs, failing miserably when they ended up back where they started. “We don’t have to leave right this second. It’s still going to take us three hours to get back home.”

The four men smile. “Of course.”

***

It was nice, just sitting down and having dinner with old friends. No computers involved and no cases to work on. Just friends and stories. And of course a tiny redhead who refuses to eat her own dinner, but will gladly ask for her parents plates of food, even though it was the exact same food.

At 6pm, Mulder and Byers load the boat up to head back to the mainland, with one extra bag than when they arrived. The Gunmen hand off three phones and a laptop to the couple, explaining that anyone who tried to pinpoint their signal would get scrambled and sent to multiple locations across the world. It will never tell the tracer where the computer is.

Their goodbyes took longer than planned, the couple promising to visit once they are able to, hopefully with Jackson in tow.

This time, it was Byers who drove the motor boat to the mainland, dropping the small family off before heading back to his house with the guys. Mulder doesn’t say much as he loads the car up as Scully loads the Samantha into her carseat. When the engine roars awake, she leans herself back as far as she cad with the car seat behind her, and closes her eyes. He takes off. Next stop: home.

***

The ride home is quicker than the ride there was. But isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? At quarter after ten in the evening, Mulder pulled into their driveway, the girls still fast asleep.

He carefully lifts his sleeping daughter into his arm, resting her head on his shoulder and doing his best to let her sleep just a little bit longer than to rudely wake her up. Moving to the passengers seat, he knelt down, softly waking up his partner.

He doesn’t have to say a word. She wakes with a start, panic in her eyes for only a moment. Getting out and stretching, Mulder watched as she made herself comfortable before following her to the from door of their unremarkable house.

“I’ll unpack the car,” is all he says, handing the sleeping baby over. With everything in the house, Mulder left their luggage in the living room. He can put it away in the morning, after he’s had some shut eye. He walks into the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water, only to see his partner already had the filtered water jug in her hand, pouring a glass for herself while she heated up some formula for Samantha. Her body halted her supply long ago.

“She awake?” Mulder asked as he grabs a glass and poured some water for himself. She answers with the shake of her head. “But she will be soon.”

Finishing his drink, Mulder placed his cup in sink, kissing his partner on the head, and made his way to their bed. His head barely hit the pillow when the realm of unconsciousness overcame him. In the middle of the night, he barely registers Scully crawl into bed with him, nor did he realize his arms circling the petite woman and pulling her to his chest.

Hours later, he unconsciously hits his alarm clock, effectively stopping that awful racket.

The following morning, Mulder woke up to an empty bed and the sun shining in his eyes. Looking over to Scully’s bedside table, he read the clock: 9:25 am. Fuck I slept in. He threw the covers off, his body instantly missing the warmth, and started to get ready for the day.

With each step towards the bathroom, Mulder winced in pain. His aging body could no longer handle the all-nighters anymore, unlike it could when he was in his 30s. A lot has changed in 28 years. Sooner or later, there will be no more X-Files for him to work on. He needs a hot shower, badly.

The bathroom is filled with steam by the time he steps out of the bathtub, his skin red from the touch of the water. His morning routine pretty much over, hours later than it should of have been, but he can’t do anything after sleeping through his alarm clock.

“Morning!” Scully commented cheerfully, the bags that were under her eyes the previous day were long gone and the women he’s use to seeing everyday was once again before him. She walks up to him, pushing herself onto the tops of toes to give Mulder a kiss. He looked around the room, noticing The Wiggles were on the television and the luggage no longer where he left it the night before. He gave his partner a questioning look. “Oh, I put it all away when I got up this morning, seeing as I slept in the car on the way home last night. Besides, I was up before Samantha for the first time in forever.”

“Ah, that explains why I didn’t hear Samantha cry this morning like I usually do.”

“Are you going into work today?” She asks, her attention on the TV where The Wiggles team were dancing to an older song she recognized from when she watched the show as regularly as Samantha does now.

“Nah,” he stated, “I’ve already told Skinner that I wouldn’t be in today. I’ll just work on the write up here and when I go out, I’ll drop it off at his office.” He finishes with a yawn. “But first, coffee.” Watching his daughter bounce along to the music on the screen, laughing, Mulder took to the kitchen. The coffee pot was already full when he went to go fill it, he tested the temperature with the back of his hand. Still hot. He smiled. Now only if Scully would agree to marry him then his life would be perfect. But no matter how many times he brought up the topic, she insists that her life is almost perfect the way it is, and she wouldn’t change a thing if she could. They were partners for nearly 30 years; a marriage certificate wouldn’t change the fact that they are committed to each other.

It must have been around noon when Scully walks in on Mulder at his laptop, typing away with his index fingers. “Soup is on the stove.” Was her only comment, her upper body leaning on the door frame. He responses with a grunt, his hands taking a break from his typing to rub his eyes.

“I’m almost done, I’ll finish this before I come down.” He stretches his back, his spine popping in several places. It was about 45 minutes later when he finally made his way into the kitchen. Scully and Samantha were done eating, the little redhead playing with her toys in the living room as her mother cleaned up the mess she made. “Sorry,” He apologizes, “I didn’t mean to take that long. The profile took longer than expected.”

“You are finished, I take it.” He nodded as he placed the printed case file on the table, he went to make himself a sandwich to go along with his lunch. “I was going to take Samantha on another run to the park as it’s such a nice day out. But I won’t leave until after her nap.”

“I don’t know how you run nearly a quarter mile there and back nearly everyday, Scully. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with you anymore.” He chuckled, taking another bite of his sandwich.

She finished cleaning up the kitchen, the clean dishes being left to air dry. “I gotta to keep fit to keep with any child of yours, Mulder.” She laughed as she left the kitchen. Mulder didn’t have to watch to know that she was getting her mini me ready for her afternoon nap, the man debating on if he should have a nap as well. But he decided against it. He can sleep when he’s dead. Or at least retired.

That’s something he doesn’t want to think about. He opens the file in front of him, looking over the notes he made that he was going to hand into Skinner before he went on his search. He itches to shred the file, but he knows that he can’t get out of it. He put as much information that he cad put together for the profile, leaving out anything that is connected to his son.

He finishes his soup quicker than thought he would, sighing when his procrastination technique failed, forcing him to go into the office earlier than he would like. The house was quiet when he locked the door. Scully was in the shower, allowing herself a few moments to herself that he knows she needs, and Samantha slept on. He took his car to DC, leaving the Buick to Scully in case she decided to take their daughter to the city.

The drive from Triangle, VA to Washington was like any other day. He rocked to Prince in the car, something he does almost every day. He tried listening to new music, but he couldn’t always get into it. I must be getting old. This is something likes to Scully remind him of on a daily basis. The clear day made the drive pleasant enough to enjoy. He didn’t have to worry about anyone tailing him. Not today at least, He told himself. But nevertheless, he was thankful when he pulled into the government parking lot.

He wasted little time in stopping in on Skinner, not waiting for the Secretary to call the A.D. before barging in on the man. “Your profile.” He commented, handing the folder to the bald man.

The man in question raises his brow. “It took a bit to get inside this guy’s head, and it wasn’t pretty when I did.” He lies. Skinner opens the folder to start to read the notes, noticing a few of them. “You figure the suspect in inexperienced?” Mulder nods. “I’ll have this handed out to the teams this evening when the lead agent is done going over it.” He closed the folder, smacking it on his palm, then rested it on the desk behind him. He leaned against the desk, his arms crossed and stares the younger man down. “Care to explain where you were yesterday, Agent?”

“With all due respect, no. I had gotten in this killer’s head, and by the time I got out, I went to clear my head. But I won’t tell you where I was.” Mulder stared back, his arms, too, crossed over his chest. He moves to leave, stopping in his tracks when the other man made a sound. “I still have a life outside of this office, Walter. I need to clear my head before it hurts my family, just like any parent would do.” And with that, he left. Relieved to be done with his boss, Mulder quickly made his way to the basement to scout out anything Jackson may have taken or left behind in his office. The room was seemed untouched to the untrained eye. But Mulder has spent the last year and a half alone in this office. He knew what he left and where it was, thanks to his photographic memory.

Moving around to his chair, he got a better view of his desk, noticing instantly what had been touched.

The picture frame of Scully and Samantha.

He can’t stop the smile that grows on his face. His son got to see what his baby sister looks like. He shakes his head to remind himself what he was doing. Mulder looks around his desk to see what else was disturbed, nothing much really. The drawer to his desk was slightly opened which is usually where he keeps some of his mail from work.

With his home address on it.

He really should take it home to be filed, but he would most likely lose it that way, no matter what Scully said.

***

Scully smiles along with her baby as she loads her into the stoller. “We are going to have so much fun at the park, aren’t we Sammie?” The little girl looked up at her mother, her heavy jacket, too warm for the nice early spring weather. “We are going to have a nice jog through the park and spend some time on the swings before Dada comes home for dinner.” She says hopefully. “Yeah? Yeah.”

In Scully’s opinion, the run through the park was lovely. She saw the other, much younger mothers, walking through the park with their own children. She tried to make nice with the other women, but she found they always criticized her for having such a late pregnancy. And, of course, Mulder didn’t help when he tried to talk to the children about aliens. The lovable goof.

As she approaches the park, she notices a lonely dark figure in the shadows of a tree. Her doctor instinct told her to help the person while her FBI instinct screamed at her to investigate the person. Fearing the worst, she approached the person.

“Excuse me? Excuse me, are you okay?” When the person didn’t respond, she stepped closer, placing herself between the stranger and the stroller and crouching down to their level. The mother in her tells her to protect the helpless infant. “Excus-” Her words caught in her throat when the stranger looked up.

Jackson.

But how?

“Sc-... Mo-” The words weren’t complete, but she recognizes her name falling from his lips.

“Jackson,” She sighs his name. “What are you doing out here? In the middle of nowhere?” When he didn’t answer, she pressed on. “Yo- you live here, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call it living, exactly.” He mumbles, his gaze shifting from her to the stroller. He doesn’t move to get up, but shifts in place.

“How long have you been out here?” She asks, as she moves to sit back on her hind legs. The teen shrugged, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two redheads.

“Not long I guess. I’ve spent longer periods of time in other places worse than this.”

The pause was long, Scully fears of saying the wrong thing, fears of chasing him away. “You could have called?”

“And what? Get you all killed too?” He snarled, mostly to himself than to her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dana. That includes Mulder and Sammie. She likes to be called ‘Sammie, by the way. None of that ‘Samantha’ stuff.”

Her name on his lips shocked her, but she shouldn’t be surprised. However, it still hurt. “I can look after myself, thank you very much.” She spoke, confidence in her words. But something he said shocked her. “How do you know her name?” She whispers, almost scared of the answer.

“She told me.”

Scully looks over to her daughter, the young blue eyes on the teen. The girl looked more curious and bored than anything. She was content to play with her surroundings, which included Scully’s hair because she was kneeling a little too close to the stroller. After extracting her long hair from her daughter’s firm grasp, she looks back at her eldest.

“Please come home with me, we can protect you.” “I’ll just be putting Sammie in danger!” He stared at her, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. Those eyes, the same as his father’s, with the same intensity she is so used to staring her down.

She softens her gaze, knowing that if he’s anything like his parents, he was just as bullheaded. “Jackson, your father and I have experience with running away from the government. We even have experience hiding from them. He was a criminal once too.” Her voice was just above a whisper.

Scully raises to her feet, moving around to the back of the stroller, missing the flash of abandonment fear in his eyes. She pulls out the diaper bag from the bottom, revealing the backpack behind it. “Yesterday we went to see some friends who will do what they can to protect us. All of us.” She emphasizes.

“They don’t know anything about me.” The teen mumbles as he watches her.

She meets his gaze again. “We know quite a bit about you, actually.” He scoffs. “We know that you were sent to see help for high brain activity since you were twelve. We also know that you sent away to a school for the troubled after getting into multiple fights. We also know that you’re a hacker. Something the boys take pride in.”

He looks away from her, his eyes somewhere in the field to his left. “What are you getting at?”

“I’m just saying, yesterday we spent a whole lot of time looking to protect you from someone tracing your steps. We were able to pull up your history, including sealed police records.” She says as she walks back in front of her son, placing the backpack on the ground before him, then taking a step back. “In the bag you will find two things: A laptop that no one will be able to trace, not even our friends, and a cellphone which is just as untraceable as the computer.”

“Why are you doing this?” Jackson questions, still not fully sure of her intentions.

“Because no matter what anyone says, we still love you.” She answered, meaning every word. “Take it, use them however you want, but use them with the knowledge that we love you and your safety is always our first priority.”

Jackson pulls the backpack closer to him, his fingers barely touching the fabric. “I’ll think about it.” He finally says after a few moments silence.

Scully nods, relieved that he’s not pushing her away again.

“That’s all I ask.” She looked at her watch on her wrist, noticing the time, she made to her feet. “Our door is open to you, for if you want to come home.”

He grunts, suspicious of the bag still, examining it for anything that could get him killed.

“Listen, I have to get Saman- Sammie home. It’s almost time for dinner, and you don’t want to see the attitude she develops when she’s hungry.” Scully smiled to him. Jackson didn’t say a word to her, his attention focused on finding a tracer on the black bag before him. “I’ll see you around.” She says, the hope evident in her voice as she grasps the handles of the stroller.

As she turns to leave, she misses the young man look up at her longing for her to turn back around and force him to come with her, and the broken heart he felt when she didn’t.

The walk home was longer than what she was used to, but the talk she just had with her son took more energy out of her than the run itself did. The single car in the driveway told her that Mulder still hasn’t arrived home, giving her time to think of what to make for dinner. In the meantime, she could figure out just what to say to her partner about her trip to the park. Scully drew a blank on what she wanted to make for dinner. She thought about ordering Chinese, but thought against it when she remembered that it’s what they had last time she didn’t want to cook and left the decision up to Mulder while he was on his way home from work.

After a few minutes of pondering, she pulls out a small family lasagna form the freezer and throws it in the oven to cook. She had an hour to sort out her head. Turning on her heels, she headed straight to the living room where she left her burner phone on top of the fireplace, out of reach of her daughter’s grabby hands.

She calls the first person she could think of. “Mulder, it’s me.” She pause to take a breath. “He is here, at the park.”

***

Mulder made it home in record time after he ended the call with his partner. Jackson had went to their small town, he went and talked to his mother. He couldn’t believe it.

When Scully had told him that she had handed off her burner phone to their son, along with the laptop that was meant for them to use, he was flabbergasted. The laptop that was meant for tracking down the agents that were after Jackson is now in the hands of a teen they love but hardly know.

Over dinner, Mulder kept asking questions about what had happened, wanting to know more.

“I don’t know, Mulder. He doesn’t seem to fully trust us yet.” She scooped the warm pasta and cheese into her daughter’s mouth, encouraging her to eat her dinner. “But he’s scared that being in contact with us with cause us harm. He mostly feared for Sammie’s safety.”

“Scully, you never call her Sammie, that’s my thing.” He stated, pointing his empty fork at her.

“Jackson told me she likes it more than ‘Samantha’.” She said, not looking away from the tiny girl, not giving him the satisfaction of her admitting that he was right for once.

Mulder gives his daughter a sideways glance, questioning his partner’s sanity. So many questions, but questions he learned to stop asking a long time ago. He shakes his head, taking the last few bites of his dinner. He cleared the table and cleaned up the kitchen, using the time to spend wondering about his son. He was in the town, basically just down the street. Scully walked there. He couldn’t believe how close his son was. But he held himself back from going after them.

Instead, he calls The Lone Gunmen.

***

Jackson sits in his small tent under the canopy of the Virginia woods. The backpack he got from his birth mother sits in the middle of his makeshift bed. He has every right not to trust her, she had worked for the government, the same people who were after him.

But there was that part that hung onto every word she spoke.

He opens the bag, peeking inside. He sees no wires, and he still can’t locate a tracer chip. Either it is hidden well, or it's not there at all. He pulls out the cellphone first. It looks like any regular smartphone, doesn’t even come with a case. Cautiously, he turns it on.

The phone boots up like any regular phone, he almost believed he was holding the phone he got from his parents for his 16th birthday. But when it loaded, there was no family picture and no cute password his mom made: the day he was adopted. In fact, this phone didn’t have a password. It didn’t have anything on it. Almost everything was shut off on it. He can’t believe it. She was telling the truth, it seems. At least for the moment.

Setting the phone beside him, Jackson pulls out the laptop and the chargers for the two electronics. Unlike the phone, the computer had one piece of decoration on it: a sticker. Jackson wanted to laugh when he saw it. It was old and worn down, but it looks just like the one he had on his notebooks at school.

The same sticker that he was picked on for during elementary school. I Want to Believe, it says. Booting up the computer, he oges to investigate the older electronic, only to find that it too had been recently wiped clean. But he's not out of the woods yet; he has to test this stuff out.

He turned off the computer, having juice where he could, and went to pick up the phone when it went off. Reading the message, he read a familiar name that hasn’t popped up in recent history. In the past 18 years to be exact. ‘Welcome, Jackson, to The Lone Gunmen.’

***

Scully was taking Samantha, Sammie, she reminds herself, up to bed when Mulder declared that he was going to call the Lone Gunmen. The baby was quick to put to sleep, using their newly acquired ninja skills to leave the room without waking her up. Arriving back on the main floor, she listens to what is being said.

“What do you mean you’ve already contacted him?” Mulder asks, pacing the room. “He’s only had the phone for five hours.”

Scully can’t hear what was being said on the other end, but when she called them after she had originally called Mulder, she explained that the teen now had the burner phone that was intended for her. Because of this, she has an idea of the conversation that is currently happening.

“We are trying to get him to trust us, stalking him isn’t going to help. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ditches the stuff instantly.” He is upset, and she knows it, he was scared to lose his son again. And honestly, so was she.

She places her hand on his arm, stopping him in his place. She doesn’t have to say a word to him to get her meaning across.

“Just… just don’t blow this for us.”

Being this close, the closest they’ve been in 17 years, only to have it all ripped away from them at the last moment would quite possibly destroy them. Scully walks into Mulder’s arms and leans her head on his chest, comforting him. One of his arms made its way around her shoulders, pulling her her closer to him, his chin resting on the top of her head.

After a long silence, she hears the beep of the phone as he hangs up. “They are waiting to see if he’ll respond to their message.”

“I heard.” She mumbles into him. “I think they were too early though. Should have waited.” Her insides were crying for their son, begging him to not lose trust in them. But she knew it was no use. Jackson was pretty much an adult now, a person who is fully capable of making his own decisions, the most recent of which is being to be on the run from the government.

“We’ll just have to wait.” He says, his other hand resting on the small of her back, encircling her small form. She closes her eyes, nodding against him.

***

The wait for Jackson to message The Lone Gunmen was a long one, and Scully was growing impatient. Two weeks had passed by the time Mulder had gotten the long awaited for phone call, and she was right there with him that Wednesday evening when he answers the phone.

Abandoning her daughter to play with her toys alone, she follows Mulder to the kitchen. He doesn’t say much, just listens to what they have to say. The call is over in less than five minutes. “He wants to meet you.” Is the first thing he says. “Alone.” He ran his hands through his hair, stepping closer to the counter where he leaned against it with a heavy sigh. “I want to be there, I don’t want you to go alone.”

“Mulder, he won’t hurt me. If he wanted to, he would have done it already. Besides, he seemed scared more than anything when I met him in the park.” They has discussed this a lot over the past couple of weeks, going over the meet repeatedly.

“I’ve seen what he could do, Scully. I know what he does when he’s scared.”

She peeks into the living room, watching their daughter play for a moment before coming up behind her partner, pressing her back against his back and wrapping her around around his waist. “You won’t lose me, I promise.” She pressed her lips to his clothed back before resting her forehead on him. “I’ve dealt with your temper for all these year, I’m sure I can handle his.” She smiles, thinking of how much of her partner she sees in her son.

Mulder doesn’t move from his spot, his head down. “He wants to meet you tonight, back at the park.”

“You’ll have to stay here with Sammie, I’m going to leave after we put her to bed.” She whispers. “I’m not taking the chance with you coming.” Knowing him, he’d try to find a way in tagging alone, even it means sneaking out of the house. Giving him their daughter to watch while she was asleep was a solid way to keep him home. She hopes, at least.

“Just… be careful. I can’t lose you, not now. Not ever. Not again.” She nods again, her forehead rubbing against his back.

With hesitation, Scully breaks from her spot against her partner, returning to their daughter. “Hiya baby, are you ready for beddy-bye time?” She asks, swinging Sammie in her arms with her landing her on her hip. The baby babbles happily, looking a little bit tired. “I bet you are!” Scully coos. “Cause Mama is tired too, you wore me out real quick tonight, my sweetpea.”

It took Scully 15 minutes to get Sammie ready for bed with her bathtime routine. By the time she places her on her back in her crib, her eyes began to droop. Three… Two… One… And out like a light.

When she descended to the main floor, she notices that Mulder was sitting on the old couch, his phone in his hand. “I’m just about ready to go.” She says, heading to the front door to pull on her runners.

“I think this is a bad idea, Scully. It’s too dark.” He didn’t look up at her as she approaches him.

“Mulder, we’ve faced worst monsters in the dark. Jackson is not a monster, just a scared boy. You have to try to trust him.” Part of her was frustrated with him being so skeptical, but could she really blame him? In the last 28 years, he’s nearly lost her multiple times. And a couple of those times, he almost lost her completely cause of something she went head first on a case.

“It’s not that I don’t trust him, I want to trust him. I want to believe in him. But he’s only 19 and has a body count, and I can’t have you be one of them.” She rests her hand on his shoulder, bringing her other hand around to his jaw, she squats down, turning his head towards her. “Please come home.”

The broken look on his face breaks her heart. “I promise. You’re not going to lose me that easily.” He pressed a kiss to his lips, lingering there for a moment before parting from him. And with that, she grabs her burner phone and walks out the front.

The jog to the park was quick; she barely felt the early spring air chill on her skin. The sky was pitch black when she arrived to the park. She almost completely passed Jackson sitting under the tree where he was when she left him two weeks ago, until he rose from his spot. The look in his eyes told her he caught her flinching.

“Are you alone?” Was the first thing he asks, looking behind her and around the empty park.

She nods her head. “Your father is watching your sister.”

“I didn’t think you’d come.” He says, pulling out to look at the time on his burn phone. She could tell he was nervous, fidgeting with the hem of his worn out t-shirt. She was too, honestly. She had to stop herself from doing the same. Must be a genetic thing.

“What did you want to talk about?” She speaks up after the silence becomes unbearable.

“I don’t know. A lot of things.” He looks away from her again, watching a stray car drive down the street. “I did some research on you over the last couple of weeks. Now that I had a secured computer to do it on.” She smiled, her little hacker son wanted to know about his parents. “You… your job was to really do all of that?” He looked down to her. “

Yeah… yeah it was. Our job was...is to solve cases that cannot be explained through conventional means.”

“Like… me, you mean?” He asked, not sure if he wanted the answer. She nods, not meeting his gaze. Definitely someone like him.

“Was there really a flukeman?”

“There was. Man, that thing was creepy.” Scully laughs, remembering Mulder’s reaction to the entire thing.

Jackson took the first step forward before stopping again. “There were many cases that ended with you two in the hospital.” He frowned. Scully couldn’t help but remember how many times they were admitted back then compared to how little they were now with Sammie in their lives.

“Our job is dangerous. There’s no way around that. It always has been.” She states, watching as he took another step towards her. The several feet between then were torture.

“And the time you were missing? The report said you were abducted from your home, gone for several weeks.” An ache his her heart at the lost memory.

“Like I said, our job is dangerous.” She pauses for a minute, taking a few deep breaths of the chilled air. “Jackson, was there a reason you called me out here in the middle of the night?”

He nods, watching another car drive pass them on the street. “I want to stop running.” He says quietly.

His words shock her. Already? “Then come home.” She says before she can stop herself. The teen shakes his head.

“I can’t. I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t lose my birth mother so soon after losing my parents.” Scully nods in understanding. “The Lone Gunmen are doing their best to clear anything of me from the government’s systems. But it’s not enough. I am a danger to those around me.”

Her body shivers against her will; she should have brought a heavier coat. “You don’t have to stay for long, you can stay for just a little while.”

He shook his head. “No, not tonight.” Scully’s eyes widened, Not tonight, there is hope after all. Though she kept her thoughts to herself. “I just wanted you to know that no matter what happens, of all those I don’t trust. I trust you.” He shortened the distance between them with a few long strides, stopping right in front of her.

Then the unexpected happened. Scully finds herself engulfed in a hug. One that is so incredibly familiar. Pressed up against a hard chest, an arm wrapped around her shoulders and chin resting on the top of her head.

“No matter what happens, I don’t want to put you guys in danger.” He whispers, holding on to her for a few more moments. However, Scully notices a change. The boy suddenly became tense, letting go of her. She turns around to see a familiar car sitting in the parking lot.

“I’m going to shoot that man.” She mutters, the murder plan already forming in her head.

“I- I gotta go.” And just like that, Jackson was gone. She looks back to her car, her hands on her hips as she taps her foot at the man behind the wheel. Stalking to the car, she notices Sammie asleep in the back seat of the vehicle. “You couldn’t listen to what I had to say, and came anyways?” She whispers harshly at him.

“Would you believe me if I told you I was worried about you?” She glares even more at him as she sits into the passenger seat. “I brought your coat?”

“Fine, you get to live tonight. But this conversation isn’t over.”

“Scully, you were gone for over an hour!” He pulls the car out of the parking lot and heads towards their little unremarkable house. “When you didn’t come home, I had to come looking for you. I didn’t know if anything happened to you.” He defends himself.

She gives him a hard look. “I can take care of myself-”

“Against a supernatural powered teenage boy?” He butts in.

“And I don’t need you coming to my rescue. I had asked you to keep an eye on Sammie, so if she woke up before I got home, you could put her back to sleep. Not take her for a joyride.”

“I wouldn’t call this a ‘joyride’.” He mutters, his hands squeezing the steering wheel. “My car is a joyride. Anyways,” He starts. “Sammie did wake up. She couldn’t get back to sleep, so I loaded her in the car and went for a spin around the block. You know how car rides knock her out.”

“Your argument for coming here still isn’t valid, Mulder.” She rubbed her fingers over her eyes. She was getting more tired as the night went on, and she wanted to do nothing more than to curl up in her bed. “Besides, I was able to get somewhere with Jackson tonight. Not far, but I have gained his trust. The four of us have.”

“Four?”

“The Lone Gunmen and I.” She answers, feeling the jealousy radiate from him. “You’ll find a way to prove to him that you can be trusted too.”

“Haven’t I done enough? I killed that smoking bastard!”

“Only after he had shot Jackson. Look,” She starts. “I’m not saying you didn’t do enough, but he needs to know that you can be trusted too.” In their driveway, Scully gets out of the car and unlocks the front door, leaving it open for the rest of her family to walk in. “I’ll put a good word in for you next time I see him, okay?”

“Next time? When is this next time?”

Scully shrugs, kicking off her shoes. “Whenever he asks to meet.” She takes their daughter from him, holding the sleeping girl against her chest. “I’m going to bed, if you’re done brooding, you can come join me.”

When she finally lays down in her bed after putting Sammie back to sleep, her mind replays the conversations she had with her son, lulling her to sleep with them. She barely registers the dip the bed makes as Mulder climbs on, wrapping his arms around her middle, whispering in her ear before her world goes dark.

“I want nothing more than to trust him, my love.”

***

Jackson watches the unremarkable house from a nearby tree. He can see bodies moving through the window, mostly the tall figure of his biological father as he waits for him to leave.

He wants to talk to her, and her alone. Keeping in contact with The Lone Gunmen, they’ve been telling him stories from when his biological parents were younger, before he was born. He was skeptical in trusting either of them, but the more he talked with her the more he started to trust her. His father, on the other hand, he could tell the man was tense around him. He could feel it, making it harder to trust the man.

He didn’t expect to trust a government agent, but here he is.

When he stepped into his father’s office a couple weeks ago, he was surprised to see what looked like a mess of an office. There were files everywhere, and the wall was covered in photos and news clippings of strange events from all over North America, red yarn connecting them all. Was this really what the man’s mind was like?

On the desk in his father’s office was a picture of his mother and a baby. Jackson didn’t know who she was, but he felt an immediate connection with her. He had never felt a connection like that before, but suddenly he knew exactly who she was; his baby sister. It was erie in a way. He had pictured the girl to look more like him than like their mother. But now, knowing what the baby looks like, he couldn’t picture her any other way.

But he had gotten what he need, and left. Now he was in the little town of Triangle, waiting up a tree to make his move.

“Say bye-bye Dada.” Jackson hears with his mind, watching as the older mother takes Sammie’s hand into hers and waves goodbye. The sports car starts its engine and within seconds, his father drives away. He watched for a moment as his mother and sister walked back into the house, listening to her baby babble.

With them back in the house, he concentrates on the area, pinpointing where anyone might be watching, and created himself invisible to their mind. With his body at ease, he hops out of the tree and made his way to the house. Thinking better to go around to the back, he easily hops the fence and approaches the door. Willing his heart to slow down, he knocks.

The noise inside the house stops, and his heart rate starts to pick up again. He uses all his senses to look for the woman on the other side of the door, finding her quickly shuffling toward the door, her right arm points straight to the ground with her finger at the ready to pull the trigger of a gun. Jackson swallows, maybe he should have taken the front door.

The curtain beside the door moved, and Jackson could guess what she was doing, he had watched enough TV with his parents to fathom a guess. The door opened a touch, but he didn’t move. He didn’t feel like getting shot again, especially with his baby sister in the house.

His birth mother reveals half of her face through the open part of the window. “Jackson, what are you doing here?”

“Can I come in? Please? I don’t want to be seen.” He asks, looking over his shoulder to see no one behind him, but that didn’t stop the hairs on the back of his neck to rise, feeling that he was being watched.

“Yes, yes, of course.” She opened the door wider, her hand still secured around the glock. He watches as she watched the backyard, he suspects she expects someone to come out of the bushes. Instead she closes the door and locks it. “Now, why are you here? Why didn’t you contact me to say you were on your way?”

He can’t stop the small smile on his lips; she was worried about him. “Are you hungry? I can make you some breakfast. I’m sure your father left some bacon in the fridge from last weekend. Do you want eggs with that? Toast?”

He can’t keep up with her, she was already in the kitchen, her gun was locked and placed on the table. “Dana... Dana, you don’t have to do this. I just wanted to see you. I want to know more about you and my father. I want to know I can trust you both.”

She stopped her fretting and smiles up at him. She takes his hand in her and leads him to the kitchen table. “We’ll eat first, then we’ll talk.” Turning back to the fridge, she asks, “So, whatcha want to have?” The corners of his lips tugged upwards, but it pulled at his heart strings, he missed this feeling of being fretted over by his mom, the mom that raised him for most of his life.

“I’ll just have the bacon, and a couple pieces of toast, please and thank you.” He said, not wanting to sound impolite.

The woman hummed in approval, her head sticking inside the refrigerator. “Can you do me a favor and check on Sammie? She’s usually pretty good, but she’s still only a year old. Not the most trustworthy at that age.” Jackson nodded, forgetting that she couldn’t see him, and walked back into the living room. His baby sister was surrounded by colorful toys of different shapes and sizes. He watches her play for a few moments, his heart swelling at the thought of this little girl being related to him. He turns to leave the room when he notices a couple yellow notepads laying on the table. He walks towards them, his curiosity getting the better of him.

They were notes on the school he went to. He felt his heart squeezing together in his chest. He picks up all the notepads and takes them to the kitchen with him. His mother was standing at the stove, the burner on when he walked up behind her. “What are these?”

She jumps. “Jesus, Jackson! Didn’t your mother ever teach you to never sneak up on people?” She held her hand over her chest. “Good thing I don’t have a heart condition.” She mumbles to herself, though he could hear her.

Scully turns around, leaving the bacon on low heat so it doesn’t burn while she’s away. “These,” He hands her the notes. “What are they? Why were they on the table?” He could feel his temper starting to rise.

She glances at the notes for just a moment before she answers him. “Your father, under orders from our boss, was to create a profile for the murders of multiple men across the country who were imploded. It is his job to do this.”

“But why is my school on here? I’m sure you didn’t need that kind of information for this profile!” He didn’t shout, but he was damn near close to it.

She shakes her head. “None of this information went into the actual file that was handed to our boss. Your father did all that research on his own, because he wanted to find you. He truly cares about you, even if you don’t see or understand it yet.” She locks her gaze onto him. “He wanted to make sure none of the information about you made it into the final profile. He was trying to protect you.”

“But they will know that you opened my files.” He breathed through his nose, his breath hot on his own lips. “I know how these people work, I’ve been hunted by them for so long.” She huffs, setting the notes on counter beside the stove. “We had help from the Lone Gunmen. No one will know we looked into your files.” She pauses. “Everything we’ve ever done was to protect you. Both when you were a baby and still to this day."

Jackson turns away from her, thoughts running wild in his mind. He struggles to continue to trust her. “Then why is he so tense when it comes to me?” He needs to know what was going on in his father’s head.

“That’s something only he would be able to answer; what he’s told me wasn’t enough to give you a solid answer. In my opinion, he only got to spend a couple days with you when you were a baby and he’s still in that mindset; he doesn’t know how to act around you.” Scully explains.

Jackson struggles to process her words. Only a couple days? He remembers reading the case where one Fox Mulder had gone missing for six months, only to show up dead one night. When he remembers the dates he appeared and was found to be alive, he gasps as he realizes the dates coincide with the months just before he was born.

“I struggled a lot, ya know. Between being a single parent and with people trying to get to you, I had no choice.” He heard her sigh. “And I regretted that decision ever since.” She turned back to the stove, flipping the teen’s breakfast before putting bread in the toaster. “By the time I had your father back, it was too late. He was hiding from the government, and you were with your new parents.”

Jackson couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His father had been on the run from the same men that he was running from. When he pictured his biological parents after being informed that he was, in fact, adopted into the Van de Kamp family, he imagined that his parents were just innocent people, too young or too broke to take care of a baby. But then he learns that they were closing in on their 40’s when he was born, with a good paying job to boot too. But now he learns that his father had also been a criminal, and most importantly, he had always been a target.

“I guess some things just never change.” He mutters to himself, backing away from his mother who has turned back to the stove to finish up the bacon. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Hah! You never gave me the chance.” The toast pops and he moves to grab it, getting his breakfast together, the bacon now free of the grease it was cooked in.

Making a sandwich out of his food, Jackson ate in silence, his mother sitting across from him, her eyes fixed on her daughter in the living room. “You shouldn’t be eating that, it’s not healthy.” She comments.

“I’m 19, Dana. A little cholesterol will not kill me. Besides, this is how my Dad ate his bacon.”

“Your dad also slept on his couch for at least 10 years, despite the fact that he had a perfectly good bed. He is not the person you should look to for healthy eating and self care habits.”

“No, not my father. My Dad, the man who raised me.” Jackson comments, taking another bite of his sandwich. He watches her flinch at his words and he frowns. He wants to remind her that his parents are still dead because of him but that they were the ones who raised him and helped develop his behavior. Or some of it at least. “Every Sunday, my Mom would make sure we had bacon in the house so we could have a special brunch. For as long as I can remember, my Dad would make an egg and bacon sandwich, dip it in ketchup and everything.” He smiles at the memory, his heart aching for his parents back.

His mother looks at him with a strange look on her face. She doesn’t say much, just listening to what he was saying. He can’t see a smile on her face, but he suspects that she might have been hurt by his words. His parents were still his parents; this woman was his mother. It was different.

“As long as you were happy with them.” He smiles at her. Even with all the shit he had caused, he had been happy with his parents.

***

Mulder barely has the chance to sit down beforehis phone rings. “Yes, I’ll be right up.” Skinner wants to talk to him, it could be about anything, but he just hopes it has nothing to do with the profile to handed in a couple weeks ago. Out of anything it could be, he wishes for a new case to focus on. And with that final thought, he makes his way back out of the basement and to the office of the Assistant Director’s office.

Arriving at the secretary's office, he knocks on the door. “Good morning, Agent Mulder. A.D. Skinner is ready to see you.” He nods to the woman, walking past her and straight into the next room.

“Agent,” The grey man greets him. “Close the door behind you please, we have much to discuss.” Complying to the man’s wishes, he shuts the door. “I’ve read your profile. You could have come to me.”

“And then do what? Have them find him when they came to the same conclusion you did?” He was calmer than he expected. “I couldn’t do that to him. He’s just beginning to trust us.”

“I knew it was him the day I handed you the file, I was there, I saw what happened to those people in the hotel room. I could have given the case to anyone else, but I decided to give it to you. I had to let you in on what was happening with that case file.” Skinner’s eyes lock onto the other man down. “I know what that boy means to the two of you, I won’t become between you three. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Then what?” Mulder asks, his arms crossing over his chest.

“The results.” His boss pauses, walking around to stand in front of his desk, a file in his hand. “The agents we have working on pulled up a couple possible suspects. And your son is one of them.”

“Then why-?” He didn’t get the chance to finish.

“The federal records claim him as deceased, Agent Mulder.” His heart skips a beat hearing it. “Died over two years ago; suicide. The same M.O. from when you first found him.”

“That’s it? That’s the only thing saving him?” He asks, grabbing the file from his boss and flipping to the page with his son’s face. “Then why is he still being hunted? This is how these other cases have popped up.” He was starting to lose himself.

“Whoever is hunting him down, doesn’t work with us. There is another team out there, and we have no control over them.” The grey man sighs. “So far the agents are pushing this other boy, 24 years old Aiden Strept. There is little hope that he’s done anything, and the case ends up in your X-Files cabinet for the rest of time.”

He looks over at the picture of the other boy and his records, showing similarities between the two, noticeably, both going to the same school, just years apart from one another. Like his boss, he doesn’t want an innocent boy going to jail because of him protecting his son. His criminal son.

Mulder gets up and starts to walk towards the door, but pauses, turns back towards Skinner and says, “Thank you sir, for everything you’ve done for him.” And with that, he walks out and closes the door behind him.

***

Jackson watches from a distance as his mother plays with his baby sister. He was never around babies much while he was growing up, so he didn’t know exactly how to play with them. As he watches them, he begins to process the information he’s recently learned about his family.

Both of his parents have been criminals at one point in their lives --- does he think that makes them cool and makes him feel a little closer to them or does he think “I will never be free from this prison”

He has always been hunted, most likely to be experimented on or killed because of his powers and his connection to the invasion.

His father did tons of research on him to find him. His father is doing everything in his power to keep him away from being caught.

“I’ll be right back, I’m just going to put Sammie down for her morning nap.” Jackson was brought out of his musing by his mother’s words. He nods silently, watching as the woman swings the small girl up and balances her on her hip. “I’ll be down soon.” And with that, she left him alone.

He takes the time to scan out the front window, suspicious of anyone that could be in the area. With no one in sight, or on his radar, he walks back to the living room and sits down on the couch. Before him, the TV is still playing. He thinks he recognizes the show, but he’s not sure. He debates whether to turn it off, but he feels an uncomfortable shiver as he reaches for the remote. As if someone was telling him not to touch the TV. For a moment he thought it was Sammie who wants the television to stay on. But she’s supposed to be asleep. He stares hard at the remote, reaching for the remote again and feels the same resistance he felt before, but this time it’s accompanied by a strong “NO” in the voice of his sister. Well that settles that, he thinks as he sets the remote on the couch.

He checks his watch fifteen minutes later when his mother hasn’t returned to the main level. He got up and walks to the stairs when he hears a movement, looking up he sees his mother turn to the stairs and come down.

“Apologies, Sammie didn’t seem to want to get any sleep today. Every time I turned to leave, she’d start whimpering. I don’t know what’s up with her today. She’s usually pretty good at going down.” He nods, turning back towards the living room to sit down. The older woman grabs the remote in her hand, turning off the TV herself. She didn’t seem to get the same message he had. And if she did, she ignored it. “Are there any questions you have?” She asks once she settles herself on the couch. “Anything you’d like to know?”

“Yeah,” He looks up at her. “I want to know how it all happened.”

She smiles at him, pulling her feet up onto the couch and wrapping her arms around them. She rests her chin on her knees and starts to tell a story she’s told so many times before. “Well, it all started in 1993 when I, fresh out of medical school and one of the greenest agents on the force, was assigned to the X-Files to debunk your father’s work…”

“You mean spy on him?”

Scully just smiles.

***

Hours pass like minutes and soon enough, Mulder walks through the door to see Scully with her head in the refrigerator, apparently looking for something. When he turns to the living room to check on Sammie, he almost gasps because there on the ground playing peek a boo with his daughter in his lap is the son he hasn’t seen in two years.

He watches the moment between the siblings fondly, not daring to disturb them, before walking back into the kitchen to his is partner deciding on dinner. “I’m all up for the hamburgers if that’s what you’re stuck on.” He comments on the two meals in her hands.

“I don’t know, does Jackson even like burgers? Maybe he’s a vegetarian.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth.

“I don’t know, let’s ask him. HEY JACKSON, DO YOU LIKE BURGERS?”

“YES!” Was the response from the living room.

“See how easy that was?” Scully rolls her eyes at him and smacks his arm. “You didn’t have to do that in my ear, ya know.”

He laughs, his hand resting on the small of her back, then plants a kiss on her head. “I know.”

Scully sets the burgers down on the counter and heads to the living room. “Hey Jackson, can you put the TV on for Sammie? She usually watches some before dinner to calm her down.”

“Sure” The teen says, reaching for the remote, catching the attention of his sister. He turns it on and flips through the channels. “Oh look Sammie, Barney’s on!”

“NO!” His parents yell from the kitchen, startling him and causing him to fumble and drop the remote.

He spins around to question them. “What? I used to watch it all the time!”

“Didn’t your parents ever research what went on with the actors in this show?” “

No, doxxing the hell out of children’s show wasn’t one of their past times.”

“Sammie is never watching Barney; he’s not allowed in this house for reasons that I’ll explain when younger ears” he looks pointedly at Sammie, “aren’t around. Let’s try some Sesame Street instead.” Mulder explains. He exits the room and heads to the backyard to warm up the barbecue for dinner. He may not be the best cook, but he does make some mean burgers.

When he walks back into the house, Jackson was sitting on the floor with Sammie still in his lap, watching the show he suggested. He walks into the kitchen to find his partner in tears. “Scully,” Mulder says concerned, “What’s wrong?”

“Mulder,” She sniffles, “Do you realize that this will be the first time in 19 years that we’ve had sat down to have dinner with out son, as a family?” A fresh tear rolls down her face. He steps closer to her, his hand placed on her cheek, his thumb whipping away the tear.

“And do you realize he couldn’t exactly sit down for dinner, as he was three days old?” He quips. She laughs, leaning into his touch. “But I get what you mean; our family is together again.” He pulls her into a hug, burying his face into her long locks.

“I just hope that he can stay.” He lets out a silent prayer to whatever God would listen to him.

“He seems to be getting pretty attached to Sammie and she seems to be the same way with him. Maybe if he won’t stay for us, he’ll stay for her.” Scully observes. “I don’t care what makes him stay; I just want him back in our lives for good.” A fresh round of tears falls from her eyes and Mulder wipes them away with the pad of his thumb.

“Oh Dana.” He whispers, her first name rare on his lips as he pulls her into his arms. Neither of them notice the siblings standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Sammie in the arms of the teen. He watches them in awe, the passion and care they still have for each other after all these years makes him want to believe in something he hasn’t in a long time: love. Sammie is content to chew on her fist. He doesn’t say a word for many moments, leaving his mother and father to have their moment together.

A couple minutes had passed by the time two part because they feel like they are being watched. Sure enough they look over to the entryway to see their son standing against the wall. “Oh, Jackson, sorry. We didn’t see you there.” Scully says, trying to hide the fact that she had been crying not more than 30 seconds ago.

“Do you really mean that?” He asks, fearing the worst.

The woman nods, wrapping her arms around her middle. He let out a sign of relief. “We’ve wanted this for so long, but never had the chance to do so. Not until tonight.” He doesn’t say anything, just shifts his sister in his arms.

The family of four stood around the kitchen in silence, coming to terms with the emotions in the room.

“This isn’t going to get dinner cooked.” Mulder was the first one to speak up. “I don’t need to waste any more propane.” With that, he grabs the plate of hamburgers and walks out the back door.

Jackson watches his father leave before looking over to his looking over to his mother who was quiet. With Sammie still on his hip, he walks up to her and pulls the woman into an unexpected hug, his chin resting on her head. “I want to stay. If it’s safe, I’ll stay.” He whispers to her, holding back his own tears.

Scully relaxes into her son’s touch, her head resting against his chest. Sammie reaches over and pats her hand against her Mama’s cheek, babbling. She smiles at the little girl, content in her world. Jackson was the first to pull away from the hug, letting go of his mother’s shoulders. “Do you need help with anything? S

he shakes her head, a small smile on her face. “No, it’s ok. You can go spend some time with your sister.”

Mulder walks back into the kitchen. “I forgot the cheese. Jackson, do you like cheese on your burger?”

The teen nods eagerly. “I’m not a barbarian.” Mulder chuckles at the statement, thinking of all those people in his life who doesn’t eat cheeseburgers. Namely his ex partner, Diana. Now armed with three cheese slices, he heads back outside.

“Barbarian?” Scully asks, a smirk on her face as she pulls out the bag of french fries. Jackson just smirks in return before walking back into the living room with his sister in tow.

When Mulder walks in with the hamburgers, Jackson gets Sammie ready for dinner with his mother’s help, the girl didn’t seem to want to leave Jackson’s side. Safely secured in her highchair, the baby bangs on her tray, demanding her food. Jackson helps to quickly set the table for the three of them, pouring everyone a glass of water, along with setting the utensils beside each one of the plates.

After washing up, he sits down with his biological parents for dinner. The first of many, he promises himself. The meal is filled with laughs as Scully and Mulder regale Jackson with tales of some of their more interesting cases.

“You killed a teenager cause you thought he was a vampire?” He laughs, not believe what he was hearing.

Pointing his fork at the boy, he defends himself. “Ronnie came back to life after the M.E. took the steak out of his chest, validating my point that he was, in fact, a vampire.”

The conversations end long after their dinner had finished. No one suggests to change the topic, even when the couple starts to argue that their version of the story is the truth. Jackson couldn’t ask for better parents. His heart strings tugs when he thought about his parents, the ones that raised him. They did this too in their own way, of course it wasn’t usually about alien invasions and monster hunting. It was more on how to put something together, or his Dad telling the story of how his team won the baseball game. His mom was always there to remind him that it didn’t go like that, or that his Dad was exaggerating.

Aliens and monsters were more his kind of thing, anyways. Something he must have gotten from his father. The love of the unknown. His parents, the ones who raised him, always supported his love of space, buying him his first telescope. But when he talked about it, then were never fully into the conversation. But now, he has a father who he can talk about his interests with.

Maybe they will be able to trust each other after all.

***

Mulder gets up to pull out the pint of ice cream that his partner had stashed away in the freezer, knowing she hides it from him on purpose. “All is us being together again calls for a special treat.” He said knowing Scully can’t argue with his reasoning.

“Fine, but you’re cleaning up your daughter. You know how much of a mess she makes with that stuff.”

“Deal.” Pulling out the bowls, Mulder prepares their dessert. “We even got the good stuff today, none of that fat-free tofu stuff your mom likes.” Mulder smirks at the look of disgust on his son’s face.

“He didn’t complain whenever he would sneak some.” Scully whispers to her son, eyeing her partner. Pretending he didn’t hear her, Mulder passes out the filled dishes. This is how he pictured his nights to go 20 years ago when he found out that Scully was pregnant with his child. William. Jackson. He’ll call his son whatever he wants to be called. If he’s more comfortable with Jackson, that’s what he’ll call him. The small smiles that have been on his face throughout the night are enough to let out the tension he held in his shoulders while he is around the teen.

After dinner he’ll talk to the boy about it.

“Thank you.” Jackson and Scully say in unison. At least he has his mother’s manners, he said to himself as he sits down in his chair. He watches as Scully shares her dessert with the mini redhead, the little girl grabbing the spoon and pulling the utensil towards her face, spreading the ice cream from cheek to cheek and missing her mouth entirely.

“You’re such a sticky baby, Sammie, yes you are.” Scully coos and lightly tickles her sides. Mulder’s heart melts as he watches the interaction. He glances over to Jackson, noticing that the boy was staring at the two beside him. When the teen notices that he is being watched, he averts his gaze and looks down to his bowl in the table, a blush spreading across his fair cheeks.

“You know, your mom use to do the same thing with you.” Mulder comments on it.

“She did?”

“Mhm, Scully, and most likely your adoptive parents too.”

The blush on the boy’s face deepens, his eyes glazing over in thought. Mulder remembers when Maggie had mentioned long ago that she use to do it with all her children, and the same deep red blush that had appeared across Scully’s cheeks immediately after. His own probably did the same with him and Samantha, but after his sister’s disappearance, him and his parents grew apart and little things like that was never mentioned again.

Scully’s bowl was the first one to be finished, even with the distraction of trying to feed a one year old with an affinity for everything messy. Mulder swore that most of the ice cream had ended up on the little girl’s face and clothing rather than in her tummy, which is exactly what Scully had been warning him about earlier. He finds it rather cute. Quickly, Mulder eats the last two spoonfuls of his dessert before holding out his hand to grab hers. Looking over to Jackson, he takes notice that he was slowly working on his own.

Placing the two bowls in the sink, he wets a face cloth and goes to clean up his daughter. Scully is already taking the girl out of the high chair and hands her over to his waiting arms.

“Your job, G-Man.” She laughs, taking the tray to the sink to wash. “I’m going to take Sammie for a quick run when you’re done.” She says aloud, with a silent, to let you two talk, tailing the end of her sentence. He nods, taking the small girl up to her room to clean up and change.

He expects the girl to be much more messy than she is. Once they allow her to use her own spoon, he expects to have to give the girl a bath several baths per night. If Sammie was going to be anything like Scully as a toddler, there will be food in her hair… and other places. Unlike today. Ice cream may be messy, but it’s easier to clean off a wiggly toddler than the spaghetti they had the night before. Mulder laughs at the memory, Sammie had a saucy handprint on the side of her face. They had to skip the face cloth and pretty much drop her in the bathtub right after their meal.

Cleaned and dressed in a pair of stretchy denim leggings, an Ariel-themed t shirt, and a pair of pink fur lined boots, Mulder deems her ready to go out. He lifts the girl into his arms and blows a raspberry onto her rosy cheek, smiling when he gets a high pitched squeal in return. If everyday was like this, his life would be almost perfect.

Working the X Files without Scully is so mundane these days that he needs a truly strange case to make him interested. Other than that, his day was perfect. Descending the stairs to the main floor, he takes the girl back to the kitchen where the table was cleared and the dishes were done. I wasn’t up there that long, was I?

“Can I?” Jackson asks as he walks up to the two newcomers, his hands held out. The older man nods, handing his daughter over to her brother. Neither say anything, but Mulder needs to figure out a way to tell the boy now that he wants to talk to him without coming on too strong and scaring him away.

The little girl rests her head on the boy’s shoulder, her small hand coming around to grasp onto his shirt, and lets out a big yawn. After all these touching moments between the siblings continues, Mulder doesn’t know if his heart can take it.

“Okay,” Scully pulls him back to reality, wiping her hands on her jeans. “The dishes just need to dry, so when you get the chance, can you two put them away?” He nods, walking to dry them by hand, a habit he had picked up when he was deep in thought. As he picks up the first plate, he averts his ears to the conversation behind him. “I’m going to take her with me, are you ok watching her while I go grab a hoodie?”

He hears the bottom stair creek as she goes to put on the sweater that she has hanging on the back of their bedroom door, right where she had put it the night before.

Behind him, he could hear Jackson humming along to a familiar tune. It’s the same one that he hears when Scully is sick and she wants nothing more than to curl up with a movie that she had watched with her own dad. It’s the same one she long ago told him was the last movie she saw with him. And now, here he was, listening to his son hum Part of You World to his daughter. He wonders if Jackson even knows that Sammie’s middle name is Arielle or the intricate part that movie plays in their lives. Her bright red hair was a factor as well.

“I didn’t take you for a fan of Disney music, Jackson.” He says, not turning around from his chore.

Stopping his humming, the boy looks up from his sister. “My mom loved Disney movies, and it was something we watched together all the time. Seeing as I didn’t have any siblings, I spent a lot of time doing activities with her and my Dad, even if it was just camping out in the living room for a movie night and a bowl of popcorn.” He cuddles his drowsy sister closer to him. “Every once in a while, I’d put on a movie as a guilty pleasure. I still know most of the songs.”

Mulder opens his mouth to ask where he got the idea from to sing that particular song from, but he doesn’t get the chance. “Her shirt reminded me of the song and I couldn’t help but remember watching it some days I was kept home from school sick.” They didn’t see each other’s smiles, but the atmosphere in the room lightens.

“The only reason I bought that shirt for her was cause your mom decided that it’s what her middle name was going to be.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Scully says as she walks back into the kitchen, Mulder turns around, placing the dry plate in its cupboard. “It was the first name that came to mind the moment I saw her hair.” The woman says with a smile. “Now, I have to go before the sun starts to set.” She reaches for the little girl who buries her face into her brothers shoulder. He gives her a weird look before he tries to hand his sister over, resulting in a loud whine coming from the small girl.

“Come on Sammie, go to Mama.” Jackson encourages, shifting his body closer to his mother. Scully reaches to grab for the small girl, causing the girl to erupt in a loud scream and tighten her death grip on Jackson's shirt. Mulder and Scully give each other a questioning gaze, both wondering why their daughter refuses to go to her mother, the person she usually clings onto the most. “I can just put her in the stroller, if it makes things any easier?” The boy asks, his eyes wide. Scully nods giving her daughter a questioning glance, leading him to the back door where she kept the stroller. Jackson places his sister into it, with little difficulty and help from his mother on how to strap her in.

Mulder couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Usually his daughter didn’t like other people to be holding her, hell, even having anyone but her parents place her in the stroller has been a struggle in the past. Skinner had received an earful from the baby when he had went to put her back into her stroller one day when she was visiting FBI Headquarters to do an emergency autopsy. But here she was, holding on to her older brother, someone she’s just met, and refusing to let go. His children would have such a connection so fast baffles him.

“There, all set and ready for a run.” Jackson coos, unaware that his parents were watching with a smile on their face. Rising from his knelt position, he asks, “Do you need any help getting her outside?”

The older redhead shakes her head. "I’ve seemed to manage in the past. I’ll be back in a bit - it seems that salad wasn’t enough to fight off the cheeseburgers your father insist we have for dinner.” And with that, the two were off.

“Jackson?” Mulder ran his fingers through his hair. He didn’t know where to start. Or how to start. “I- uh… We need to talk.” God, those words hurt. It’s the same words that Scully has use on him in the past, the same words that his past relationships had used on him. But here he was, using them with his own child. Just as long as it’s not the birds and the bees, he reminds himself. He shudders at the thought.

Jackson didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to; the look on his face said it all.

When Mulder sees his face, he quickly adds, “Oh no! It’s nothing bad. I just want to talk to you for a couple minutes.” Jackson visibly relaxes and then looks to Mulder for a sign of what they’re doing next.

Mulder takes a seat on the couch then pats the cushion beside him. The boy hesitates for a moment before taking a deep breath and walking to the vacant part of the couch. “Is this about why you’re so tense… Around me that is?” He asks.

Mulder wasn’t surprised that the boy knew already why he wanted to talk, nor was he surprised that he came willingly to have this talk with him. But he was still at a loss for what to say. Eventually he decides to abandon the script he laid out in his head and spoke from the heart. “I can’t lose them.” He pauses, maybe it was for him to gather his thoughts, or maybe it was for that dramatic effect Scully always insists he does. Either way, it gave him an opportunity to slow his racing heart. “Your mom and sister, I mean. Everything I do, I do for them. Everyday I do everything within my power to keep them safe.”

Jackson stares blankly at him, and he wonders if what he’s saying is getting through to the boy at all. He just hopes so.

“And you, I can’t lose you again. There have been two times in the past couple years that I’ve seen your body in front of me, dead. One of those times it was you disguised as me, but the point still stands. I still get nightmares from that.” He drops his head into his hands, the images from that night flashing through his head at rapid speed.

“But-”

His head shot up, his eyes bore into the teen’s. “I can’t watch you die again, Jackson. I can’t lose my only son again.”

“Mulder…” He starts. “I’m a rapid healer. That’s how I survived that old fart shooting me in the head.” His face shows how serious he is, and Mulder can hardly believe him. He wanted to believe, but he couldn’t. “I’ll prove it if I have to.” The boy stands up and looks around the room.

“I swear, if you shoot yourself, I’ll kill you.” Mulder says deadpan, his brows furrowed. Jackson marches to the kitchen and comes back a minute later with a knife in his hand. “Don’t you dare!” Too late. The idiot boy- which says something about him and Scully that he’d rather not think about- has already ran the knife across the palm of his hand. Mulder’s instinct shot through him and he quickly grabs the blanket that they kept on the back of the couch before rushing to Jackson’s side. He grabs the boy’s hand and starts patting at the open wound, the material absorbing the blood.

Before he has a chance to reprimand his son for doing something so stupid and thoughtless, the wound starts to heal. Mulder swallows. It was true. The boy can heal himself. He looks from the healing cut to the boy’s eyes, and then back again.

“How?”

Jackson shrugs. “Must be a result of the experimenting they did on me.” Taking his hand out of his father’s grasp, he continues. “However it happened, it has saved my life multiple times. That’s why I knew I had to take that shot for you and in doing so, set him up to be shot. It was the only way.”

“You scared your mother and I to death that night.” He wants to yell, but he didn’t.

“I’ll do everything in my power to keep you guys safe. I won’t let any harm to Sammie, I swear on my life.” Mulder has a hard time believing him. He’s already risked it on multiple occasions, but could a boy who couldn’t die, keep him promise? But he’s only 19 and he’s their son; they shouldn’t be relying on their son to keep their family safe.

He and Scully should be able to protect their family, including their supernatural son. And they have - they’ve done an amazing job so far.

“We should be the ones protecting you. You’re still a kid.”

“I’m not a kid.” The teen raises his brow, a familiar look his mother gives him.

“Legally, you may not be a kid, but you’ll always be our kid. And that means that we will do everything within our power to keep both you and your sister safe. Especially if it means that you don’t have to go through what’s happened in the last two years again.”

“But what if I bring those people here?” Mulder can hear the panic rise in his voice. “How could they? You’ve been declared dead two years ago! Who would be tracking down a dead kid?” Mulder raises his voice, shocking the boy enough to flinch. “I’ve already been doing my best to get the FBI off your tail. They are now focused on another boy in the area who is five years older than you. And unless you are a prominent part of his memory, I don’t believe he’ll snitch on you.” The man was pacing now. His heart calms a little bit with every step.

“No one should be able to remember me. I’ve erased the memory of me from those who saw me after I died.” He said quietly, playing with the hem of his shirt. “Including my girlfriends and Maddy.”

The man nods, reminding himself to take notes later when he talks to Scully about this. He also makes a mental note to talk to his son about how having multiple girlfriends at the same time is not the best idea for many reasons. But that’s a conversation for when their lives aren’t in danger. “How long have you been able to do that?” He whispers, similar questions flying through his skull.

The boy starts to rock back and forth from his heel to the ball of his foot as he thinks. “About a year, I think? I lost track of time for a bit while I was on the run. I went to visit them while their parents were out. I just willed it to happen and it did. They were in a daze, and then I disguised myself to ask them about myself, they declared I was dead. Had been since 2018; suicide.” The boy frowns at the memory. “I did that with all of them, and then kept myself hidden from everyone since then. No one has seen my real face in over a year. But I don’t know how they keep finding me.”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the trail of bodies you’ve left behind?” Mulder says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Right…” The boy shakes his head. “I should have known better, but the fuckers were going to capture me like I was some kind of pokemon!”

Mulder tosses the blood-soaked blanket in the general direction of the laundry room. “You should have come to us sooner. We could have helped you.”

“I doubt that you could have stopped this from happening.” Jackson sighs loudly.

“We’ve been dealing with them a long time.” Mulder states, his hands gripping his biceps. “I barely had the help from The Lone Gunmen when I went into hiding the second time.”

The boy scoffs. “It was 19 years ago, it was easier to hide back then. Back in the old days.”

He did not just call 2002 ‘the old days.’ Mulder’s eyes narrow. “If your mother heard that, she’d find a way to kill you and won’t stop till she does.”

Raising his hands in defence, Jackson takes a step back. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He says quickly. “I just meant that technology has advanced rapidly in the last 20 years.”

Mulder nods, understanding his meaning. Nevertheless, he changes the topic. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“In an enclosed space by the park; I have my tent set up.”

A tent? His mouth gapes wide open. How could his son be surviving in a tent? How is he eating? Bathing? “Can’t you stay here tonight?” He pleas, hearing the back door open.

His son shakes his head sorrowfully. “Sorry, I can’t. Staying here any longer would just put you guys in danger.”

“You’re part of this family!” Mulder calls as his son heads for the back door.

“No Mulder, I’m not. Not yet.” Jackson says as he looks over his shoulder.

Scully looks up at her son as she brings a sleeping Sammie and the stroller through the door. “You’re leaving?” The boy nods, his fingers brushing Sammie’s cheek as she dozed on her mother’s shoulder. “Please return to us, we’ll find a way to protect you.” She says softly.

“I will Dana.” He pulls her into a hug and rests his chin atop of her head, listening to the soft breathing of his sister. “Take care of Sammie for me, she doesn’t want to leave your side tonight.” And with that, he leaves before either of them can convince him to stay.

***

“Come on baby, it’s time to sleep.” Scully pleads with her daughter as she tries for the tenth time to put her to bed. Each time the girl screams bloody murder the moment she’s placed into her crib. Jackson’s words echos in her head. Well, too bad. She’s not sleeping with me tonight. She needs to learn to let go, she thinks, tired of fighting with her.

Behind her, Mulder opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by Scully’s tired voice.

“Not a word. I know what you’re going to say, and I know I’ve said it to you many times, but I can’t just walk away when she’s like this.” Last time she had to walk away from her child screaming their head off, she had left William with Monica, they day she had said her goodbye to him after adopting him out. “I can’t do it again.”

She feels Mulder getting closer to her, his hand rubbing her bicep. He knows what she’s thinking of and it pains him greatly that she let’s that experience run her life. “Honey, we’ll only be in the next room. We’re not giving her up for adoption. This time you have me here with you, and I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.”

“Mulder…” She barely whispers, her voice drowned out by the baby’s cries. He guides her out of the room. She stops at the door and looks back watching as Sammie screams her little lungs out, her little hands reaching for anyone who will hold her. An internal war takes place in her head as she fightst to not go back to the infant and hold her close until her sobs cease, but Mulder kept a tight hold of her and ushers her to back to their bedroom. From there she can hear the baby’s hiccoughs as she screams seem to get louder. Her heart aches, wants to do nothing but push her partner away and run to her baby. “Mulder…” She says again. The man shushes her, guiding her to their large bed.

“She’s not going to get any sleep if we coddle her.”

“Mulder, she’s going to go get any sleep if we leave her continue to cry like this!” She shoots back at him. “And neither will we!”

“She will eventually wear herself out enough to fall asleep and in time she grow accustomed to doing so without crying. My sister did it all the time when she was a baby. I grew used to it after a while and soon after my parents started doing this, she stopped.”

“I was too young to remember Charlie ever doing this.” She murmurs. “But I could never leave William on his own when he was like this. I always tried to be there for him.” When she had tried to listen to her mom’s advice for getting her son to sleep, she usually ignored it because it physically pained her to leave him like that. She usually ended up falling asleep in the rocking chair with the child. She didn’t have someone to contradict her the last time around, but she finds a different point of view refreshing, if a little painful.

He guides her to the bed and she sits down on the edge. A quick look keeps her there, but the need to bolt out of the room and into their daughters is the most prominent thought in her mind right now. As he moves around the room, she listens on to her little Sammie in the other room. What could have possibly caused this reaction from her? She’s never done this before. William was like this more often than she was.

Around her, Mulder turns on the baby monitor, throws a pair of her favorite silk pyjamas in her direction, before stripping down to his own boxers and white T-Shirt. He didn’t stop getting ready for bed, but he tries to encourage Scully to do so as well, the baby’s cries rang through the bedroom from the small device. “Scully, you have to leave her be.” He presses his lips to the crown of her head, her eyes closing at the contact. “She’ll fall asleep on her own, I promise.”

She rises to her feet, fighting down her instinct to run back into her daughter’s room. But she needs to get her daughter’s screams off her mind, so she forces herself to take a shower instead. Mulder is there to listen for Sammie if she needs anything anyways. Grabbing her night clothes, she heads to the bathroom for a well deserved shower.

Water runs down her long hair and shoulders. The thoughts running through head occupy her combined with the running water allow her to block out the outside world. She worries about Sammie, her sudden attachment to her brother, someone she has barely met yet played with as if he has been in her life from the beginning.

She leans back and rests her head on the tiles behind her, eyes closing almost reflexively. Her daughter confuses her. She’s been around a few of the agents at the FBI and each time the mini redhead would reach over to her, whimpering to be back in her mother’s or father’s arms. Today, she had not done that once.

She doesn’t want to leave your side, her son’s voice reminds her. He has this connection with her, one that neither she nor Mulder has. Something stronger. Something alien.

No. She didn’t want to believe it. Yes, she was injected with alien DNA when she was abducted all those years ago. Yes, Jackson started off as an alien-human hybrid experiment of that smoking bastard. But Sammie had been conceived out of trust and compassion, bringing the couple back together after so many years apart.

Nonetheless, her daughter was no experiment. She wasn’t alien. Her fears were coming true, that her daughter was not truly her own. Her heart is racing, refusing to see what is in front of her.

She needs to find out.

Mulder welcomes her to their bed when she finally steps out of the shower, the room filled with quiet whimpers from the baby monitor. “Mulder,” She says after many minutes of silence. “How did your talk with Jackson go?” For now she focuses the conversation on him, keeping her fears to herself until she can sort out her thoughts.

He breathes into her hair, pulling her body flush against his. “It went better than expected.” He pauses, burying his face into her neck. “I explained to him why I was so willing to trust him being here, along with vowing to protect him.” She felt him legs curl around her own, intertwining them. “What I didn’t expect was an encore performance of what happened on the docks. Oh that reminds me,” He said suddenly. “Can you show me how to clean blood out of a blanket again?”

“What did you two do?” Her eyes narrow dangerously. “I did nothing, I promise!” He laughs, kissing her cheek. “Jackson, on the other hand, decided to cut open his palm with a kitchen knife. Also, don’t use the knife in the sink until I can clean it properly; it has blood on it too.”

“HE DID WHAT?!” She exclaims, shooting up in bed and hitting her head off of his chin.

“Ow, that’s what I was saying.” He sits up with her, rubbing his chin. “He proved it to me, he can heal. Rapidly. That’s how he survived the whole thing at the docks.”

“That’s imposs- Just how rapidly are you talking about?” She interrupts herself, her curiosity getting the better of her. The man smirks, still rubbing his sore spot.

“He we healed within minutes, but my heart still hasn’t recovered from it.”

“Oh, oh wow.” She didn’t meet his eyes, as she continues to rub her head, “Well, that does explain a lot, doesn’t it?” She’s referring to the night on that night at the docks. He had told her repeatedly on how the night went after he had gone after their, of how that smoking bastard was already there. How Jackson pretended to be his father, and how his father had to watch himself get executed. It will never happen again. “I can’t believe it.” She said with a huff, lying back down in, her eyes on the ceiling.

“Neither could I… Until he showed me, that is.” He lays back down beside her, resting his head in the palm of his hand as looks down to his partner. “It was out of this world, Scully. He is truly remarkable. I know parents say this all the time about their kids, but our son is truly one of a kind.”

“Do… Do you think Sammie will be one of a kind too? Like Jackson?” She asks, her earlier worries coming back.

His hand comes up, touching her face, pulling her gaze towards him. “What do you mean?” He’s concerned, and why the hell not? This was his little girl she was talking about. She knew Sammie meant the world to him. “Scully, did she do something?”

“Oh, no no no, not at all.” She whispers, reassuring him. “It just, she’s been different today, and after what Jackson said this evening, I just have a few concerns.” She listens to the baby monitor, Sammie’s whimpers becoming few and far between as their conversation continues. “Jackson speaks as if he knows what’s on her mind.”

She could tell he was thinking back, he had that look on his face. “Is that where you got the idea that she likes to be called ‘Sammie’?” He asks, his eyes searching hers. The woman nods, raising her hand to rest a top of his. “I didn’t ask; I had figured that it was a connection between you and her, like you have with Jackson.” He tells her, interlacing his fingers with hers.

She shakes her head. “No, Jackson and I didn’t have a connection until he was a teenager, and even then, it was just visions. Jackson…” She pauses, inhaling. “Jackson speaks as if they are talking to each other, communicating.”

“Scully, she’s only a year old, she can’t talk.”

“Not verbally, no. But we both know she has other ways to tell us what she wants us to know.” Whimpers and screaming were the key ones for when she didn’t like what they were doing or want what they were giving her. She looks forward to the day her daughter can speak, but if her daughter is anything like her parents, she wouldn’t want to deal with the stubbornness of a Scully-Mulder toddler.

“Can you talk to him?” He asks. “Can you ask how they communicate?”

“I will.”

She kisses the palm of his hand, holding it to her lips for a few moments. She rolls over, facing away from him. He takes the invite, spooning up behind her, his hands resting on her her stomach.

They both fell asleep to the soft snores of their daughter.

***

Saturday morning Mulder was on the phone before he has his cup of coffee. He had woken up in the middle of the night to attend to Sammie, letting his partner to get some well needed rest. But when he had returned to bed, he couldn’t sleep. So he had come up with a plan.

“Boys, we’re hacking into Area 51.” He declares.

“What?” Scully’s voice comes from the kitchen, followed by a pot dropping the the ground, a string of curses following a loud clang.

Over the phone, he can hear someone cracking their knuckles, knowing he was on speaker phone. “Man! We haven’t done that in years!”

Frohike spoke up over the phone, his voice a bit cheery. “What’s the occasion?”

“We are stopping this manhunt at the source.” He is determined to protect his son, even if it was doing it the illegal way.

“How do you know it’s the source?” Byers asks.

“My gut.” It wasn’t the best of a source, but he couldn’t shake this feeling.

“So you have no idea?”

“Not an inkling.” It has never been a good source. “Just go in and see where they are finding information on Jackson, block it, and get out.”

“Don’t you worry Mulder, we’ve got it covered.” The line goes dead and Mulder imagines that The Lone Gunmen are hard at work.

“Mulder, you did not just do that.” Scully was standing before him, her hands resting on her hips, a familiar glare in her eyes. “Area 51 has more clearance than either you or I do! Someone is going to catch them! You’re gonna get caught.” She was stern, and he was slightly turned on by it. He shouldn’t be, but she was feisty when she was angry. “Mulder!” She brought him back to reality.

“They won’t get caught, Scully, trust me.” He smirks, looking her over.

“Says the man who says to trust no one.” She quips, keeping her stance. He walks towards her. “You taught me to trust someone, and there are only four people I trust with my life. And one of them is the love of my life.”

“Frohike?” Mulder can’t keep his laughter in, causing his partner to fall into a fit a giggles before him.

“I don’t think Frohike looks as good in a dress as you do, my love.” Still laughing, he pulls her into a hug, her laughs muffled by his chest. “But I trust those guys with my own life and the lives of my family, and that’s just what I’m doing.”

“I fear for the worst.”

“That’s because you’re a worry-wart.” He presses his lips to the top of her head, a deep sign coming from her body. He glances over to his daughter in her highchair. The little redhead was making a mess of her toast and cheerios as usual. “We will stop these people and we will protect our son.”

“God, I just hope you’re right.” She whispers, leaning into his touch. He rubs his hands along her spine, feeling her shiver against him.

They stood like that in the kitchen for what felt like hours, but it could have only been minutes before Sammie started throwing her cereal at her parents because she wasn’t getting enough attention, effectively pulling Mulder away from Scully’s embrace. He walks over to the baby, disengaging the tray from the chair, and pulling her out of the now messy seat.

“None of that now,” he whispers, pressing his nose against the side of the child’s head to breathe in that sweet baby smell he has grown so fond of in the past year and a half.

He sees Scully smile fondly at him and his baby girl. He vows to make this family whole again just as Sammie’s sweet laughter fills the room, effectively lightening the mood. He’s going to bring home his son for good.

His day had gone on quietly as he waits for the call from The Lone Gunmen. It never came. He wasn’t sure if he was worried or relieved. On one hand, they weren’t calling to say they fucked up, that his family was going to be dead because of their mistake.

But they weren’t calling to say they got in, or that his son was free now either. That’s the part that scares him.

It’s a waiting game, and right now Scully and Mulder are losing.

***

It was two more days of constant worrying, anxious nail biting, and doting on Sammie more than usual to distract themselves from the mission they have convinced themselves is doomed to fail.

That is, until early morning of the third day. It’s just past 5AM when the phone rings an ungodly sound. He answers with a sleepy yet curt “Hello” before scrambling to untangle the mess of legs and sheets him and Scully had somehow managed to work themselves into during the night and bolting out of bed. When he goes to stand up, he fails to notice his feet are still intertwined in some of the sheets and falls flat on his face, hitting his elbow on the way down.

He pushes himself up from the floor in record time, especially for a 60 year old, and finally manages to answer his phone while cradling his sore elbow. “Mulder.”

“We found the source.” It was Byers. Mulder let out a relieved sigh; Byers was by far the most trustworthy of the three men. If he was calling, then they can be assured that the information is solid.

Mulder didn’t say anything as Scully shifts in bed, turning over and snuggles with his pillow, breathing in his lingering scent deeply. He finally frees his feet from the bedding and moves to leave the room, leaving Scully in a deep sleep. “Go on.” He says, closing the bedroom door behind him.

Langley was the one to speak up this time. “It’s from a group in the Arizona desert that does experimental testing on...well let’s say ‘above average’ humans. The reason they’re after Jackson is because someone tipped them off about his unique DNA. We were able to remove all mention of him from their database. Jackson van de Kamp simply does not exist, according to the government.”

Frohike manages to shoehorn himself into the conversation, “Mulder, you’ve gotta find a way to get that alien DNA out of him; it’s how they’re tracking him and knows he’s still alive despite him being legally dead.” Mulder runs his free hand over his face, coming to rest on his forehead where he is starting to develop a splitting headache.

“Okay guys. Thanks for your help. I’ll call when we’re in the clear. Maybe we can do a barbeque or something.” The boys say their goodbyes and hang up. Mulder heads back to the bedroom; he has quite a lot to think about.

But when he re-enters the bedroom, Scully is sitting up on her side of the bed with her glasses on and reading the newest installment of her current favorite series. “Hey,” Mulder whispers, feeling as though his full voice is somehow wrong in this situation. She looks up and smiles in acknowledgement as she puts her book face down so she doesn’t lose her page.

“If you were up, why didn’t you come after me?” Mulder questions. He knows she is just as desperate as he is to put an end to this whole nightmare.

“I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with that; I’d only hear half the conversation and you’d wave me off until you knew the whole story. I figured I’d save myself the trouble and just wait for you to come back and tell me yourself.” She explains with a grin, clearly happy with her analysis.

“Okay then, Smarty Pants. Try this on for size. The Gunmen found the source and were able to remove any trace of Jackson from all government files. But they also found that the reason these people are after him is because they want to do testing on him due to his… unique DNA. It’s how they’re tracing him and how they know he’s still alive. We need to find a way to get that DNA out of him. It’s the only way. They won’t rest until they have him or he’s dead.” Scully’s eyes fill with unshed tears, nodding her head as if she somehow knew what their endgame was.

“That might mean surgery. I might be operating on our son, Mulder.” She leans into his side, needing to feel his arms around her again. They stay like that for minutes, hours, days, or possibly just seconds. It feels like an eternity either way. Then Scully’s head snaps up to meet his eyes, as if she has figured out the answer to the universe’s most intimate questions. Her eyes widen comically as her brain processes the information. Maybe she has.

“Mulder, remember when you were in Tunguska and they injected you with that vaccine that made you immune to the black oil? There’s no way it was made specifically for the black oil, they were just testing it to see if it worked for the it. Which it did. Which means that if they thought it might bring immunity for those exposed to the black oil, then it must mean that they know it provides immunity for other alien species,” She’s on a roll and there’s no way he’s stopping her flow so he just sits there watching as it works itself out in her brain. “Could it really be as simple as that?” She whispers, almost to herself. “What if injecting him with your blood negates the alien DNA? Even though he has some of your DNA because he’s half yours biologically, he couldn’t have gotten nearly enough to counteract it from birth, just enough to keep it from killing him. But giving him a transfusion of your blood would eliminate it from his body. Mulder, we have to find him, NOW.” She jolts out of bed and begins looking for her shoes, any shoes, not caring that she’s still wearing her silk pyjamas or that she’s not wearing a bra.

“Scully, calm down. It’s only 6 am. We’re barely awake, Sammie’s going to need to be fed soon, and we have no idea where he is. We should at least wait until after Sammie eats before we start a manhunt. That’s something that is best done on a full stomach.” He teases to lighten the mood. Scully has stopped tearing the room apart and instead sits on the edge of the bed to catch her breath, exhausted once again. The adrenaline rush she got from developing that plan left her body immediately and she sags onto her back.

“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” As if on cue, they can hear Sammie babbling to herself thanks to the monitor on the nightstand. They smile at each other and go to start their day.

***

“Okay, right up ahead is where I saw him last.” Scully points to the upcoming park with one hand while simultaneously pushing Sammie’s stroller. Mulder looks to where she’s pointing and nods. They decided to disguise themselves as a cute family going on a nice morning walk together. While that much is true, their motives are not those of two parents walking their toddler through the park on a foggy Tuesday morning.

The park is empty and desolate at 7 am on Tuesday morning. They walk through the entirety of the park to make sure they don’t miss him, but come up empty. That is, until the front wheel of Sammie’s stroller knocks against something solid. Scully looks in front of her to see what the obstacle is, but sees nothing. She looks up at Mulder, who shrugs his shoulders, and then motions to keep going.

Scully backs the stroller up a bit and then moves forward, hitting the same invisible barrier. This time, though, the force of the hit from the stroller reveals Jackson, unconscious and just barely breathing. Scully and Mulder look at each other, a silent conversation passing between their eyes. Seconds later, Mulder bends down, scoops Jackson into his arms bridal style, and starts fast walking towards their home, knowing Scully was directly behind him.

***

When he wakes up, the first thing Jackson notices is a small hand lightly tapping against his face and a light weight on his chest. He opens his eyes and finds that he’s in Scully and Mulder’s guest room. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust but when they do, he sees Sammie sitting on his chest holding her right hand out, obviously ready to tap his face again if he didn’t respond.

He smiles at the sight and hugs her to his chest as he sits up for the first time in what feels like days. The second thing he notices is that he can’t feel Sammie’s thoughts like he could before and immediately begins to panic.

He starts calling for Mulder and Scully, the worry evident in his voice. This power is something he’s had for as long as he can remember; glimpses of fire red hair filled his dreams when he was only a child and his communication with Sammie after he found his parents were much of what filled his brain. The fact that he can’t hear Sammie frightens him.

Scully comes rushing into the room, ready to murder someone with her bare hands if needed. Once she sees that it’s not needed, she sits down next to Jackson on the bed.

“Jackson, what’s wrong?” She combs her fingers through his long dark hair in what she hopes is a calming gesture. “My… My powers… The connection with Sammie… I can’t hear her!” His eyes were wide with panic, shifting from one eye to the other. He couldn’t lose that. Sammie had been his touchstone for over a year now, while he was on the run, waking up every morning to her thoughts had kept him going. She gave him something to fight for. The look in her eyes were grief. “How long have I been here? How did I get here?”

She blinks slowly at him, he wants to know what she was thinking. “Jackson…” She starts, pausing to take a breath. “You’ve been here for at least a week. Your father and I had found you Tuesday morning, unconscious, lying in the park. We wouldn’t have found you if we didn’t run you over with Sammie’s stroller.” The muscles in his lip twitches, wanting to smile, but he didn’t. “You were hardly breathing, we couldn’t leave you there. It was actually easier that way because we had found a way to get those guys off your back and we knew you wouldn’t come willingly.”

“What did you do to me?” The teen growls, his arms becoming tense around his baby sister, his gaze hard on the woman in front of him.

“We did what we had to do to protect our son.” She was forceful, but so was he. “Give me back my powers.” He ground out. “I need her voice in my head, I need my sister back.” The girl in question rests her head on her brother’s shoulder, not at all affected by the tension in the room, her actions were in fact comforting.

“We only did what we thought would protect you. To give you a new life so that you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life and so that you can be around us without worrying about putting us in danger.”

“You took away the one thing that kept me fighting.” He glares, his hand resting on the little girl’s back. My sister, he breaks eye contact and looks down to her, his hand brushes her soft red hair. He refuses to let her go. “The one thing I looked forward to every morning since the first time I heard her thoughts. I wouldn’t take that away from you, so why did you take it away from me?”

“Jackson…”

“Just go.” He turns his head away from her, wanting to be left alone with Sammie. With his ground-zero.

The woman stands up, her muscles, moving to take her baby with her, but Sammie’s eyes stop her. With another glance to her children, she backs away, “...I’m sorry.”

She leaves. Jackson looks up as his mother exits the room. His heart aches. How could they do that to him? Experiment on him? Like he was some fucking lab rat, something they promised to protect him from! They took the one thing he had control over in his life, the one thing that kept him sane. A stray tear escapes the corner of his eye, rolling down his cheek and landing in Sammie’s soft hair.

He can’t focus. When he reaches out to search for his sister, everything is silent in his head. It is too quiet and it unnerves him.

He strains his brain to its furthest capacity, blindly hoping that if he tries hard enough, the connection will simply reappear.

At first it was the same; it was silent. But then he hears it. The small voice of the little girl in his arms. At first he thinks it was just the giggle of the girl in front of him, that he it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He hears that giggle again, louder this time and he just knows.

Sammie? His mind reaches out, calling for her. The giggle came again, it was almost there, almost in reach. Sammie, please come here! Come back to me! He thinks loudly, almost screaming to her.

The giggles grow louder with each one, but the girl in on his shoulder is silent. Happiness takes over his body so much that he stands up and swings her up into his arms.

Sammie! You’re back! He mentally shouts with unrestrained glee. With one last swing of his body, holding the girl in a tight hug, he sits down on the bed. Does this mean that whatever they did to me, never worked? He questions. But that can’t be right, why was Sammie’s voice so quiet?

He sits there thinking, watching the baby babble in his arms, before he decides to test out his theory. He concentrates, focusing his mind on the ceiling fan above him. It felt like hours or staring, frustration building within him. Just move, he pleads to the blades above him. Just fucking move! He snaps his head away the object, tears welling up in his eyes. Fu-! His thoughts comes to a halt, tiny hands grabbing hold of his cheeks.

Blue eyes meets hazel. The smile on the baby’s face grows to match his own.

“DANA! MULDER! I didn’t lose it! I can still communicate with Sammie! It must’ve just had to reboot after I woke up.” He rushes down the stairs and into the kitchen with Sammie on his hip, yelling at the top of his lungs. Scully looks at Mulder with wide eyes. That is something she did not expect.

“See? I told you he’d be fine.” Mulder says, coming up behind her, resting his hand on her back while Jackson skids into the kitchen, Sammie on his hip and not at all bothered by the noise.

“Sammie’s voice came back. In my head.” He says calmly, though glee was still prominent in his eyes. “I just had to concentrate; listen more. But she’s back!” The last part came out as a delight whisper, holding his sister close to his chest.

“But I have questions.” He told the couple, suddenly serious. “And I want them all answered.”

***

He was nervous and he didn’t know why. It might have to do with the fact that he was sitting across from his mother and father. It also might have to do with the fact that he’s still seriously upset with the two. They went behind his back. Injected him with something they say was created to block the government from tracking him, but how is that possible?

“It’s not impossible, Jackson. The three of us share similar DNA-”

“Four.”

“Pardon?”

“Four of us; Sammie shares it too.” Scully’s eyes widen. “But unlike us, she was born with it.”

She was silent for a few moments, collecting herself. He could only imagine what was going through her head. She looks over to his father who mumbles a quiet “DNA, Scully” to her. Her mouth makes an “oh” before turning back to him.

“The four of us share a similar genetic makeup, each at different stages. I was able to take the alien gene from both your mine and your father’s blood to develop a vaccine that would counteract the alien DNA in your blood that they were using to track you.” She pauses, running her hand through her hair. “And it worked.” She had a hint of a smile on her face, like she couldn’t quite believe that they had actually done it. “The Lone Gunman called us yesterday. Area 51 has been scrambling to find you. Their satellite is unable to pinpoint your location, and hasn’t been able to for over a week.”

He can’t believe it. He actually doesn’t. He wants to, but he can’t. He’s been running from people who do this kind of thing for so many years that it feels like he doesn’t know how to not be running from them.

He feels betrayed by Mulder and Dana. But they did it for all the good reasons. It was like he is sitting on a fence, looking in both yards, one a junkyard and the other a pool and a patio set. After so long in the junkyard, making the decision to go back to the luxury yard after so long is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do. It’s not because he doesn’t want to; he wants to very much. It’s just that after so many years of looking over his shoulder constantly, strategically finding the warmest and safest places to sleep, and avoiding people in general, but specifically people he can get emotionally attached to, he has to learn how to let people in and help him again.

“Are you positive it’s working?” He asks, playing with the hem of his shirt. “I don’t want to place Sammie in anymore danger than I already have.” The little girl who was currently asleep in her crib is always at the forefront of his mind.

“Positive.” Mulder places his hand in his partner’s, interlacing their fingers.

“Then why do I still hear Sammie in my head?” The teen stood up, pacing the before his parents. He doesn’t give them a chance to answer, barreling on with his questions. “Do you know how hard it is to believe you? To believe anyone?”

“My motto was ‘trust no one’ for the longest time, so yeah I have an idea.” The older man smirks, watching the boy pace.

“Whatever happened to that?” He pauses his pacing for just a moment as he looks at the two.

The couple in front of him look deep in each other’s eyes. He fears he is intruding on another private moment. Mulder pries his eyes away from Scully’s to meet his sons. “I met your mother.” The sincerity in his eyes is intense and is ultimately what convinces him that they’re not just fucking with him or only giving him half the truth like some adults like to do.

“You make it sound like it’s some kind of fairytale. This is the real world.” A world where he had to grow up too fast. Why couldn’t of he been like the regular kids in his old school? He starts pacing again, his thoughts running wild.

The older two broke away from their locked gaze. “Fairytale or not, it’s the truth.”

“Get The Lone Gunmen on the phone. I want to see this data for myself.” He stops his pacing, and looks around the floor of the kitchen and then the living room. “Where is my computer? My phone?” Scully is the one who stands up to grab the electronics for him, wherever they had placed it, only to find that it had been in the same room he had left a mere hour before.

Walking back into the kitchen, he finds Mulder on the phone. He quickly plugs the laptop into the closest outlet before sitting at the table. “Uh, what’s the password to the internet?” He asks his mother.

“Queequeg.” She replies, going to the fridge to get a drink.

“What’s a ‘Queequeg’?” He was answered with a gasp.

Scully looks up from the inside of the fridge to stare flabbergast at him. “You’ve never read Moby Dick? The movie?” The teen shook his head. “It’s a character’s name. I named my dog after him.” He gave her a questioning look, thinking it was weird name for a dog. He was able to connect to the internet, finally using a secured network for the first time since his parents were killed.

“Hold up, I’ll put you on speaker.” Mulder finally says after moments of silence.

There was a lot of rustling over the phone as the boys on the other end got settled.

“Do you hear us alright Jackson?” Langley asks, the typing of the keyboard following his voice. The teen voices his confirmation. “I’m going to share my screen with you, we’re going to show you the results that the satellite in Area 51 has been picking up over the last three months.”

The teen works quickly at the computer, setting up the laptop to connect with the men on the island, just like he has done for the last few weeks of speaking with the three older man. “I’m ready.” He says, cracking his knuckles. Behind him, Scully pinches the bridge of her nose, trying not to scold her son for the horrible sounds.

“Alrighty then, let’s get cracking.”

It had only take a moment for the two computers to connect, flashing before his eyes was the list of data entries. “Mulder,” He says to his father, “I’m going to need a fresh map. Best to grab some thumb tacks, in a few different colours preferably. And yarn. I’d rather work with some visuals.”

“What’s your plan, honorary Gunman?” Frohike’s voice came over the phone, talking to the youngest in the room.

He didn’t see Scully throw her head back, staring up at the ceiling. “Oh brother.”

“We are going to map out my route using these cordnations.” He smiles, ready to start doing something productive since he started running.

***

Scully stares at the map before her. It was uncanny seeing the route her son had made throughout the United States. As he places each thumbtack, he explains to them what day it was, what he was doing, even what he had to eat that day, if he even ate at all. It pained her to hear the events that he had went through, to live the lifestyle of dead man, hiding from the world.

It reminds her too much of when Mulder was on the run. Now, she still worries for her boys’ safety as she did back then. Her feelings have not shifted in the slightest.

Behind her, Jackson was talking away with the boys and her partner. About what, she wasn’t sure, but the few laughs here and there were encouragement. Her son was finally relaxing enough around them to actually joke and laugh with them. Was is because they had set him free? Or was it because they were doing something together, as a family? Whatever it was, listening to Jackson enjoy himself made her heart swell.

“How far did you end up going?” The teen asks, typing away at the hardware before him. His fingers moving quickly against the keys. A lot fast than how his father can type.

“Far enough that I didn’t need to leave the continent, but I stayed close enough to your mother, that I could come to her at a moments notice.”

They were talking about how he was on the run, the first time. She didn’t have to listen to know what was being said. She had listened to the tales of his adventure multiple times in the past and no matter how many times she hears it again, it still stabs her in the heart a little bit. It always reminds her of her time without him, alone with their child. And in the end, giving up their child.

“Not to intrude on this discussion,” Frohike says over the phone, “but we are just finishing up here. After this, you’ll be free.”

“Really?”

“Really really.” She covers her mouth, tears threatening to spill. Her baby was nearly free from the horrors, free from having to spend his nights alone out in the cold. Finally free.

“Look, it’s not that I don’t trust you guys, but I need to see for myself.” Scully looks over her shoulder, her eyes meeting her partner’s, a silent conversation passing between their eyes. They agree that it’s only fair. It's the boy’s life after all.

The fast tapping of the keys fills the room, his eyes not leaving the screen as he pulls up the data for the restricted section of the government. After that, she was lost. This wasn’t her forte. She was Mulder’s personal google, not an IT whiz. All she knew is that her son was illegally hacking into Area 51, on his own, to search for himself.

The tapping stops for a moment, a low hmm escaping the teen before it starts again.

“Nothing.” He says, leaning back in his chair. “Not a trace of any of my aliases, my life, my medical records. They erased it all.” He starts the tapping again. “Not a single system in the government agency knows who I am.”

“We just need to give you a new name, and we’ll create a new you.” Langley piped in. “We also need to get a new photo of you, different enough that no one will recognize you.”

“I made sure that everyone who got a look at me was looking at someone different. Older, different features, race, anything to throw them off. I learned from my mistakes.” The teen comments, scrolling through the documents before him.

“You’ll need a haircut.”

The teen freezes, looking up from the screen. His hair had grown rather long, reaching his shoulders in the past two years of him being on the run. Scully could tell that Jackson wasn’t liking the idea, the ridged way he sits in his chair. “No.”

“Jackson,” Her voice was light, but the warning was there, “You just spent a week unconscious in a bed, plus you’ve been without a permanent home for over 2 years now. There’s no way you were able to get a regular haircut or take a shower. You need to clean up.” She commented on his stubble.

“I have nothing to clean up with. I’ve been on the run, or haven’t you heard?” She could hear the bitter in his tone, it was the same tone Mulder has used many times in the past.

“Yes you do.” Scully’s gaze darts from Jackson to Mulder who was sitting backwards in the dining room chair. “I got a new set for Christmas, works like a charm. Go use it. Clean yourself up.”

Jackson doesn’t say anything, he pushes himself away from the computer, the chair scraping against the floor. He walks out out of the kitchen and towards the upstairs.

“And take a shower!” The woman calls after him. She huffs when his only response is a ‘yeah, fine, whatever’ as she listens to his footsteps ascend the stairs.

***

Jackson stares at himself in the mirror.

They are right; he needs to clean up. He leans against the counter, staring into his own eyes, forcing himself to look away to do damage control on his appearance. His hair was greasy and a mess. He feels around his scalp, knowing his hair is matted at some place and grimaces when he finds it behind his left ear. His stubble is patchy and thin, but it still grows quicker than he expects. To put it simply, he looks homeless. Well, to be fair, he was. He lives in a tent in the middle of a wooded area in a small town that can only be described as “the middle of nowhere”.

He looks over to see his father’s razor sitting on the counter beside the toothbrushes. The sight reminds him that he hasn’t brushed his teeth properly in months. The kicked hygienic habit was enough to disgust him. But first, his hair needs to be done. Running his fingers through the knotted mess, he first decides to have a shower.

The water pounds on his back as he stands under the shower head. It was one of those special ones that has a detachable handheld shower head. He guesses his parents are catching up with the times. He fully expected them to have one of those rain showers that reaches all the places they can’t anymore because they’re old, something he would never say to his parents out loud. He’s seen what they can do to anyone who crosses them the wrong way and he doesn’t want to be on the receiving end, ever.

The muscles in the back of his neck start to loosen, the temperature of the water burning his skin. But he doesn’t care; he is properly getting clean for the first time in months.

Picking up the 2-in-1 shampoo that was on the side of the tub, he lathers his hair thoroughly, letting the shampoo set for a moment before rinsing it out. And just to be sure all the grime and grease was out, he washes his hair again. He stands under the shower head, laughing at the fact that he’s so tall that his hair almost brushing against it. And then he begins to process the boatload of information he has learned today.

He is free.

He has seen the proof with his own eyes. They can’t track him anymore. His days of running were over. He can finally breathe again. He steps forward, letting the water hit his back again, calming the twitch in his shoulder, probably from being bedridden for a week. Being in here is helping. He isn’t sure whether it’s the shower itself or being in the house with his parents and sister without a need to bolt, or a combination of the two. Whatever it is, it is greatly helping him to calm down.

When the water starts to get cold he finally turns off the shower and grabs a fresh towel off the rack. His heartbeat quickens as he towel drys his hair and then wraps it around his waist. He pulls back the curtain and steps out of the tub, onto the bath mat. He’s never cut his own hair before; his mom had always sent him to the barbers, each appointment done by the same man since he was 12. But here he was, standing in his parents bathroom, a large fluffy towel wrapped around his waist.

He holds out his hand for the razor, targeting the object with his mind, focusing purely on that what was before him. The vein in his neck throbs as he pushes his mind further, trying to pull the razor out of its stand and into his hand. Beads of sweat, or maybe it’s just water, rolls down his temple as he strains to use his powers once more. He knows he can do it, that injection can’t stop him. He is special. He is, dare he say it, alien.

“Fuck!” He swore, pounding his fist onto the counter. He can’t even move a small object. He hunches over the counter again, taking in deep breaths as he tries to control himself once again. After a few moments, he takes the razor in his hand.

If he is going to do this, he is going to do it right.

He grabs for the large head of the razor, fastens it, and placed a small towel over the sink like his dad use to do when he shaved. And for a safety measure, he places one on the floor at his feet. With the flick of a switch, the handheld starts to buzz. With a nervous glance into his mirrored eyes, he raises the tool and places it at the base of his neck. With a single swoop, a chunk of his hair was falling to his heels.

Jackson’s heart didn’t ease it’s pace as he continues to shear off his long locks, but actually increases. His head looks like a mess with each stroke, long strands of hair sticking out here and there. It was just never perfect. Not yet. He is known to obsess over the little things, but this was his hair, he wasn’t going to mess this up.

He lost track of time by the time he was satisfied with his appearance; his hair was short and he was finally clean shaven again. He was Jackson Van de Kamp again. For now at least. He just has to come up with a new name. A name that wouldn’t seem too suspicious. He has a lot of thinking to do. But that can wait, he has a new identity to learn.

Gathering his dirty clothes from the bathroom floor, he cleans up the mess he made before he makes his way to the bathroom door. With the clothing bundled in his arms, he peeks out the door, looking both ways before walking towards the guest bedroom that he has been inhabiting for the past week. He didn’t expect to find pair of jeans and an old Prince t-shirt laying on the bed, but there they were, with a note sitting beside it.

‘These are an old pair of your father’s clothes, hope they fit.’ - Dana

He read the note a couple times before placing it down again and started getting dressed. The jeans he had on were a little too big, it seems that when his father was younger, he still had bit more weight on him than he did now. But Jackson suspected that it was from his lack of eating for the past couple years rather than genetics. He lets go of the belt loops and the pants drop and hang off his hips, threatening to fall down completely. He looks down at his bare feet, the pants just hitting the floor at his heels. Flexing his toes, he grabs the t-shirt and pulls it on over his head before looking at the mirror in accomplishment. He is finally dressed in clean clothes in what feels like forever.

He sits on the bed to gather his thoughts, absentmindedly running his fingers through his now cropped, wet hair. This was something he's wanted for a while: to be clean, to be with his family, to be free. And here he was, with all of those things. Even though he still doesn’t fully trust Mulder yet, he is starting to feel that connection, however small that spark is.

Finally, he stands up, picking up the dirty laundry from the floor and walks barefoot to the main floor, back to his parents.

Voices could be heard from the kitchen as he made his way down the stairs. He decides to eavesdrop on their conversation as he’s already there anyway. He halts his movements and puts his ear to the wall. “How do we know she’s really ours, Mulder?” Her voice was panicked. “What if this was just another part of his scheme?”

“How? You were never alone with him this time.” He was calmer, more rational.

“I don’t know! We had went years with trying for another miracle, it took us 15 years to have Sammie.”

“Scully,” He paused. “You were barren, but that doesn’t make our children any less of a miracle. We’ve proven Jackson is ours, no matter what experiments that bastard had done to him. They both are ours.” Jackson could hear the stress in his voice, the plea that was wanting to come out.

“Bu-”

“Shh.” Everything goes quiet. The only thing that Jackson could hear was Sammie’s babbles to herself.

That is moment that he decides to make an appearance. “She’s yours.” He says walking around the corner. Mulder was the first one to look up.

“Pardon?” He doesn’t say anything for a moment as he walks into his father’s view. “Sammie was never an experiment. She will never have to go through the same thing I-I did.” His voice broke, remembering what he had went through. “She is more yours than I ever will be.”

Scully stepped out of Mulder’s embrace. “That’s not true, Jackson.” She says, taking a step towards her son. “You are our son, no one else's. But,” She paused taking in his appearance. “How’d you know?”

His smile was soft, barely even there. “Because, I just know. I have known for a long time. I’ve had my fears about that too, but after a while they were put to rest.” And if he had anything to do with it, he would make sure she was untouched for his whole life.

The room was silent for a long time, on the other side of the door, Sammie continues to play. After is felt like forever, Scully broke the silence. “Those clothes look good on you.”

“They, uh… They don’t really fit. Too big.” His mother nods. “I might need a belt, don’t want to lose my pants while just walking.” His smile grew into a smirk, laughing internally at the thought.

“Right.” She leaves the room, leaving the two boys alone.

Jackson shuffles his bare feet on the floor, then rubs him calf with his heel. “I’m surprised they fit.” He looks up to his father at his words. “I’ve had those jeans since before you were born. Kept them in case I needed them again.” He glances back down at the faded pair before flicking his eyes back up to him.

“The only reason they are long, is ‘cause they’re so loose.” A creek in the floor notes Scully’s arrival. They turn to greet her, their eyes drawing to a leather belt in her hand. “I feel it might be a bit big,” She says as she hands over the accessory. “It’s new after all.” He thanks the woman as he grabs it, his fingers brushing hers. He knew he wanted to ask her more, to get as much of this familiar feeling, the feeling of being home, to last as long as possible.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” He begins, “But may I do some laundry?”

***

Mulder watches his boy as he gathere some supplies and shoves them into his backpack. He is still in disbelief. His boy doesn’t say much as he pulls on the socks that he has borrowed, his pant legs an inch too short. That is another thing that he doesn’t believe; his son was taller than him. But he would take his son being taller than him and living with them over his son on the run who knows where anyday. But that also means having to pack up everything in the park.

“We don’t want to be seen.” The boy says, stuffing the laptop charger into the bottom of the bag. “Quick in and out.” He nods in understanding.

Mulder doesn’t say much as the boy flings the bag over his shoulder, walking towards the exit to pull on his shoes. “I’ll drive.”

Scully looks up from the floor where she sits playing with Sammie. She doesn’t have to say anything for him to receive her message. Be safe. He nods to her, grabbing his keys from the bowl at the front of the house.

The trip to the woods was quiet, almost an awkward silence, it made the drive a whole lot longer than it should have been. Finally he said something. “I could hear her since the first moment she cried.” Neither of them say anything after that. What could he say?

He didn’t know much about these powers that his son had. Yes, he had that brief episode of his life where he too could read minds, but it came at a price. “Every morning since then, I’ve woken up to her, cooing, laughing, even her babbles. I hear it all inside my head.” He continues. “She has been and will continue to be the source of my will to fight.” Out of the corner of his eye, he notice the boy turning to face away from him. “She’s my touchstone.”

Mulder understands all too well, as the boy beside him had been his own for a long time. For the longest time, the only things keeping him grounded were Scully and Jackson, knowing he was out there somewhere. Those days when he was alone, when his partner had left him behind, he constantly thought about his family that could have been.

But now, here he was. A father to two. A life partner to one. He wants nothing more than to be a family, a dream he has wanted since he… well, since he fell in love with one Dana Katherine Scully.

They pull into the parking lot closest to the wooded area. The two step out of the car scarily in sync. They take a quick but thorough look around the park to make sure they are alone before starting off toward Jackson’s makeshift home. Jackson took the lead, showing his father where he hid from the government. The tent was set up a good 30 minutes into the woods, truly testing the limits of Mulder’s stamina. How Jackson didn’t get lost is beyond him.

The tent is small, casually camouflaged into the green of the leaves around it. The boy opens it up, unintentionally releasing the stale smell of the outdoors that has been manifesting for a week. The floor is covered in dirty clothes and junk food wrappers. Mulder looks around for the sleeping bag before realizing he’s standing on it; the tent is very small.

“It’s not much, but it was home at some point.” Was the boy’s only comment. “It’s better than what I had started off with.” Jackson pulls the bag off his back and pulls a snack along with a trash bag. He opens the snack and takes a bite of it before focusing on the task at hand. He starts packing up his dirty laundry, marveling at how little of it he has; it definitely seemed like he had more while he was on the run. Beside him, Mulder starts to roll up the sleeping bag.

“I had left the country, was able to cross the border illegally. It’s where I hid for many months after you were born.” He didn’t know where those words came from, he didn’t expect to ever have to explain himself to his son. Where he was when he was still William. He knew he should stop talking but he can’t bring himself to stop the word vomit. “I had only seen you for three days before it happened.” He didn’t look over to the boy, his task was set before him.

“Yeah?” Was Jackson’s only response. He wasn’t sure if he was really interested what he was telling him.

“Your mom’s idea.” He grunted, tying the last strap of the sleeping bag down. “I was imprisoned the moment I got back, after you were adopted out.” He pauses. “I was too late.” Why was he still talking? Why was he opening up now to this boy?

He knows why. At least, he thinks he knows why, he wants to finally show his son his vulnerability. “Mulder…” Jackson says in the same tone as Scully when she is trying to reassure him.

“No, you need to hear this, Jackson. And I’ve been keeping it inside for way too long.” He presses, grabbing the tent bag. “If… If I never left, we would have never given up on you. Together, we could have fought for you to stay with us.” He stares at his son, angry tears threatening to spill. “It is all my fault.”

Jackson sits back on his feet, his hands dropping the t-shirt he had in his hand. “Mulder… I understand where you’re coming from. But,” He pauses, maybe Scully was right and Mulder really did have that dramatic gene. “I grew up with loving parents, and yet, all this still happened.” He stuffed his shirt into his bag. “So no, it’s not your fault. It’s theirs.” He says that last part with a disgusted tone.

Mulder watches the boy in silence, a protest on the tip of his tongue. “Okay, and maybe a little of my own fault.” He get out a huff of laughter, if Jackson was any younger, he would have ruffled his hair in affection. The inside of the tent was fully packed up, leaving the two to only take down the small tent together. They work as a team, putting the shelter away as quickly as they could, working in sync, as if they had done something like this a couple of times before. But they haven’t, something the Mulder has regretted for a long time. During the silence, he feels himself opening up to the boy. He just hopes Jackson feels the same way.

With the tent now put away in its bag, Mulder offers to help carry some of the supplies that Jackson shrugs onto his back. “No no, it’s good. I’ve got it.” The boy insists. Mulder could do nothing but nod, watching him. “I’m ready to go if you are.”

“I’m ready.” He stands up from his seat on a log. “Just one question, how do we get out of here?” Mulder looks around, his photographic memory getting lost in the trees that all look the same.

“This way.” Jackson lead the way out of the woods and back to the car, the 30 minute trip taking longer as the boy had to slow down for his father, whose stamina was failing him. “Hurry up slowpoke!” He laughs. “I bet Dana is wondering where we are about now.” Mulder huffs, gulping in deep breaths as he follows his son’s foot steps. In front of him, Jackson doesn’t flinch as a bird flies from its roost, calling out an alarm as it flew overhead, his steps never weavering. Every once in a while, he makes a comment on how his dad taught him to track. Or how a camping trip with his parents had turned out one rainy weekend when he was nine.

With each story, Jackson shows a little more of himself. And Mulder wonders, did Jackson trust him enough to say so much? Or was he just being polite?

Finally Mulder steps out of the woods and stumbles towards his car. He has never been more grateful to see this hunk of metal. Hunched over, he gathers his bearings, trying to remind himself to breathe through his nose. His son stands over him, his hands on his hips in typical teenage fashion. “Do you need an inhaler?” Mulder took that like a punch to the gut, glaring up at the taller boy in response. Jackson raises his hands in mercy. “It’s a joke.” But the smirk on his face didn’t help his case. “Let’s go home.”

***

“A road trip? To where?” Jackson asks from the floor, Sammie in his lap and he claps her hands along with the music playing from the toy in front of them.

His parents look at each other from their spot on the couch, cuddled up together as they watched their children. “To the Lone Gunmen. We are setting up your new life.” Scully says, her head resting on Mulder’s shoulder. “It’s only a few hours away, but they’ve hidden themselves on an island.” Interesting, now why didn’t he think of that two years ago?

“When are we leaving?” He asks, going back to paying attention to his sister.

“Whenever you’re ready.” He considers if it is truly worth it, going on his first drive with his parents. And it is, he decides, even though being around them is still a little strange and unknown. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Scully claps her hand on Mulder’s knee before pushing herself up and off the couch. “In that case, I’ll go pack Sammie’s diaper bag so we can get out of here.” She walks out of the room, and Jackson cuddles the baby close before moving to get up to go help her, but he pauses.

“Mulder,” He starts, the baby cradled in his arms as she plays with his nose. “You don’t think that me going to the The Lone Gunmen would jeopardize their position?” He presses his lips to the top of her head before handing Sammie over to her father who happily accepts her, tossing her in the air before cuddling her himself as he lays down on the couch.

“You being there won’t put them in any danger, trust me. If they can stop me from getting them found every time I visit their island, they can keep you from bringing unwanted guests.” Mulder says, the baby sitting on his chest as she plays with his own nose, the same nose as his son.

Jackson only nods at him in understanding. He truly doesn’t want to put his new acquaintances in a dangerous situation because of him, especially after they all have done for him. His mom always told him that first impressions were the most important. He never really thought much of this rule in the past but now that she was gone, he feels like he can honor her memory by following some of the lessons she taught him. Better late than never, he muses.

Jackson walks out of the living room and towards the upstairs to find Scully walking quickly out of one room and into another, something was bunched up in her hand. Ascending the stairs, he calls out to her. “Dana? Is there anything I can help with?”

“Wha- oh? No, not really.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, following her to Sammie’s room. “Nothing that needs to be put in the car? Nothing to grab from the fridge?” He doesn’t want to feel useless; he is itching to be doing something. “Please, let me help.” Scully stops what she’s doing and looks up into his eyes. She notices the need there and frowns before she gives in.

“Can you make us some sandwiches for the road? We’ll probably drive through lunch.” He lets out a breath of release. Finally something he can do to hopefully ease his twitching muscles that kept trying to tell him to run. To hide and protect himself.

“Thank you.” He whispers, heading back down the stairs, seeing Mulder flying Sammie around from his spot on the couch.

“And tell your father to get some bottles ready!” She yells down to him. He smirks, wondering if the man even heard his partner.

He makes his way to the kitchen rather quickly to get to work before he realizes something. “Um, Mulder?” He calls.

“Hmm?”

“What do I put on these sandwiches?” He can hear the man laughing to himself as he heads to the kitchen. And for a bit longer, his itch to flee disappears.

It takes another 30 minutes before the four of them are all packed up and in the car and heading back to the small island. Scully was right; they did drive through lunch, taking a 20 minute break to eat their sandwiches and stretch their legs.

“Hey, can I talk to you guys for a minute?” Jackson asks after they finish their sandwiches. Mulder and Scully had sitting at a picnic table at a rest stop and discussing the fastest way to get to the Gunmen’s hideout with Jackson sitting on the opposite side of the picnic table. That was put on the back burner when Jackson spoke up.

“Of course, honey. What’s up? Is everything okay?” Scully looks at him with concern, worried he might be sick or hurt.

“Oh, yeah nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to tell you guys something. These past couple years have been long and rough on both of our sides. I know you guys wanted me to have a better life than what you could give me at that time, which I understand and respect now that I have the whole story. I want you to know that I...I love you.” He looks at Mulder this time, his confidence growing with each word, “Both of you. And I want to be a part of this family. If you’ll have me, of course.” He looks down for a moment, scared they’ll reject him, forgetting for a moment that they’re driving three hours to get him a new identity. When he looks up, he sees that both of them have tears in their eyes and are gripping each other’s hands for dear life. Scully’s tears start to stream down her face as she nods, unable to speak.

Though Mulder looks to be right behind Scully in the crying department, he speaks up for the both of them.

“Of course, Jackson. We’d love nothing more than for you to be our son again, officially. And, we love you too. We never stopped.” That’s when Mulder follows Scully’s lead and let his tears fall. Jackson gets up from his seat and walks around to their side with Sammie on his hip. When they embrace him in a hug, that’s when his own tears begin to fall.

***

They’re on the road again before long and make it to The Lone Gunmen’s dock easily. They had called ahead this time and Langley and the boat are waiting for them when they arrive. Introductions are made as Scully and Mulder load their luggage onto the boat. Jackson takes his sister out of her car seat because she’s starting to get a bit fussy after being in the car for so long.

With Sammie on his hip, he brings her over to Langley, a man he’s only talked to on the phone.

“Hi, I’m Jackson.” He sticks out his free hand, thinking a handshake is the best way to introduce himself. He is very surprised when Langley goes in for the full hug instead, almost crushing him and Sammie with the force of it and almost making him lose his balance.

“You have no idea how great it to see you alive.” The man says, holding onto the teen for a few moments longer. “It’s been so long since we last saw you.” Langley lets go of the teen and leans down to Sammie’s level, cooing to her softly before calling to Mulder. “You ready to go?”

Mulder walks to the boat, his arms full, his partner beside him with the diaper bag over her shoulder. “Yeah, the car is empty.”

Jackson follows his parents to the small boat, watching as Scully climbs into the boat, loading it up with the items Mulder hands her. With everyone but himself and Sammie in the boat, Jackson hands his sister over to his mother before climbing in and taking a seat beside the two. The moment he sits down Sammie leans over, asking to be back in his lap. He happily accepts.

The ride to the island was longer than he expects. He keeps his mouth shut, not wanting to sound impatient as he wants to continue to ask “are we there yet?” He laughs to himself every time the question pops into his head; he wouldn’t be surprised if Scully thinks he is crazy.

By the time they arrive at the island, Sammie is fast asleep on his shoulder, her thumb tucked firmly in her mouth. Jackson follows Langley off the boat as Mulder and Scully gather the luggage, knowing he would be no help in carrying anything as his hands are already full. Langley steps in front of him, leading the way to the house hidden on the island. Behind him, Mulder and Scully quietly talk to one another, their voices too low to hear.

Sammie sleeps the entire walk to the house. Jackson takes in every tree as he passes, taking notes on the turns they made. Living on his own and on the run for years has forced him to develop an escape plan

. After winding through the trees and foliage for about 5 minutes they arrive at The Lone Gunmen’s home. Langley unlocks the five different locks on the front door, including a retinal, hand, and voice scan. Jackson is surprised at the amount of security the plain looking house has. His shock doesn’t diminish once inside. He knew these men were geeks before agreeing to go visit them, but the equipment inside the house made him downright giddy. He had begged his parents for this many electronics, but never had gotten them. His laptop, tablet, and phone seem like child’s play compared to the stock they have here. None of his personal electronics were strong enough to do as much hacking as he wished to do, but still enough to cause trouble.

Frohike chuckles to himself, a gesture that Jackson barely caught, as he was too busy walking around the room with his mouth wide open. “Like what you see, kid?”

He nods, his free hand running over the older electronics. “I’ve only seen half of these things in person and they were all in pawn shops and antique stores.” He misses Scully holding in her laughter at the expressions on the men’s faces. He looks around the room one more time, taking in the machinery, a smirk on his face. “Let’s get started.” With his free hand, he pulls his laptop out of the backpack on the floor beside the diaper bag and takes it to the couch.

Mulder notices Jackson’s trouble as he tries to set up the laptop with his sister in his arms, so he walks over to help him out a bit. A small whimper escapes the baby when he tries to pick her up, freezing the two in their spot. Jackson looks at Mulder and tries to convey what he needs him to do. Mulder understands immediately; silent conversations must be a genetic thing. He opens the laptop and places it on the couch. Jackson sits down next to the computer, cuddling his sister close to him and starts to pull up his notes that he made on his way to the island.

“Where do you want to start?” Byers asks cautiously, watching the two siblings.

“Hm?” The teen asks wondering what the man means. “Oh, uh, name I guess? You can’t create a story without having a name.” It feels surreal, talking about this, finally making it a reality.

He takes notice of Scully watching him carefully from the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug. He could almost feel her again, there inside his head. But he knew it wasn’t true, that she was no longer there. She can’t be. That part was taken away from him. It was just Sammie now.

“And?”

“And,” He echos, “I… I want to be a Mulder.” He manages to get out, not believing he was actually saying it outloud. Something smashes on the floor and he couldn’t help but lock eyes with his mother. This is it. It was the debate that plagued his mind the entire car ride down. And he made up his decision on the final boat ride to shore, locking it in during the walk through the woods. “Liam Mulder.”

The teary smile that grows on his mother’s face is contagious.

***

Creating a new life is exhausting and Scully knows it. But creating one this way was more taxing on the brain than the body. Having to think of every single detail was taking far too long, and she was so ready to be done. Part of her would rather go through a late-life pregnancy again than create a new person from the bottom up, especially when it means having to clear a teenager of a background check so he can hide from the men in black.

“You’re going to have to get your own passport the traditional way.” She comments on the teens conversation with his father.

“What do you mean? Can’t they make me one?” He points to the trio.

Scully shakes her head, putting her hands on her hips. “These guys don’t have the new technology to create what the passports look like nowadays. If this was 20 years ago, then maybe, but not now.” She remembers her own passport that is sitting in her nightstand beside her birth certificate, the peaked interest that she felt when she flipped through her new one compared to her old one, the difference of 25 years. “Trust me.”

That is all it takes to convince the teen, and it pulls at her heart. Here was her son, starting over from the beginning with a new family that he had never known he had been once apart of, taking her on her word. It’s all she had prayed for for the longest time. To have her son here, within arms reach, trusting her.

“If I promise to take my GED, can I still declare that I’m a high school dropout?” Jackson jokes, watching Byers type in some information into the Saint Paul the Great Catholic High School database. “Hey, give a guy a break! I did not deserve that D- in History!”

“You did if you skipped that class every week.”

Jackson glares at the man before he gives in. “Fair.” His tongue pokes out between his lips for a moment, soothing his dry lips. “So, can I?” He looks up at her, his hazel eyes locking on her blues. She gets caught up, looking into the identical eyes of her partners. “Dana?

She blinks a couple times to bring herself back, reminding herself that this is her son. Her son who just told her that he loves her, that he wants to be part of their family again. “Yes, but only if you promise to do it once you get all your identification: birth certificate, passport, and driver's license.” She was strict and she knows it; that part of her will never change. At least now she had someone else to use it on beside Mulder.

He was quick to agree, a little too quick. She suspects that he is either eager to start his new life, or he really wants his driver’s license. Whatever his reasoning, she is pleased to see him happy with the new rule.

Before her, the four boys were hard at work while Mulder feeds Sammie behind her. In all honesty, she and Mulder are only there for suggestions; it was the life of Liam Mulder that was being created, a 19 year old teenage boy. And it was Jackson’s job to decide what he had done growing up. She drops her head into her hands when a thought crosses her mind. “Please tell me you didn’t drop out to do drugs.” Please, oh please, she pleas to herself.

All her hopes flies through the air when he gives an all knowing smirk. “Trust me Dana, I didn’t drop out because of that. Let’s just claim I dropped out cause I was given a full-time position at my part-time job?” Ok, maybe there is some hope.

“We’re going to need to put in some employment history then.” Langley comments, his fingers already flying across the keyboard.

“You’re going to need to get a job anyway. Might as well get started on your resume.” She raises her brow at him, her arms folded across her chest now.

“Deal.”

***

Many hours have passed since they first sat down to start working on Jackson’s new identity. They lost track of time somewhere around the 5 hour mark. Everyone had been asleep besides Mulder and Frohike, as Mulder rarely sleeps through the night and Frohike isn’t human.

By the time they start to regain their senses, Sammie is passed out on the bed with pillows surrounding her. Spaghetti bowls are littered throughout the living room from their dinner, and they were finally on the last page of his new life.

Jackson is almost shaking with nerves, chewing on his bottom lip as he watches the Gunmen fill out the final pieces of his new life. It is finally coming to an end. A shiver goes down his spine just thinking about it.

He’ll finally be a Mulder for the first time in his life. After learning that he had been born a Scully, he knew that he couldn’t go back to his birth name. There had been a record of him at one point in his life, and he didn’t want to take the chance. But now, he got to be his father’s son, and not just his mother’s like he had been for the first nine months he had been alive. But the beginning life of William Scully didn’t go to waste; it was just the trickle of a stream that was able to turn into the river that is called Liam.

“And that’s that.” Byers says as Langley hits the enter key on the keyboard. “Liam Jackson Mulder is officially born.”

Mulder wraps his arm around Scully, gazing softly at their son. A smile grows on the teen’s face. Every part of his body is screaming at him to run up to his parents and pull them into a hug. He holds back, but just barely.

He feels as though a lifetime’s worth of stress and burden has been lifted from his shoulders. He is completely free.

***

Eight months later…

Now at two years old, Sammie runs like a track star, dodging her big brother as he chases her around the park. Little did the toddler know that Jackson is missing her on purpose. She squeals in delight as she thinks she’s outrunning him. The decibel of her squeals increase the moment he swings her into the air and lands in his arms. “Heya Sammie girl.” He laughs, walking towards his parents who are sitting side by side under a large tree.

“Are you going to spend your entire vacation hiding under the shade?” He asks his mother who watches him from under her sunglasses.

“You are forgetting one thing,” She pulls the glasses up just a little so he can see her eyes. “I’ll burn to a crisp if I stay out in the sun for more than five minutes. Going out into the sun must be a planned event.” She pulls the glasses back down to her eyes, most likely closing them.

“Then Florida was a bad choice for our first vacation as a family.” He laughs, lightly dropping Sammie on the picnic blanket and hands her a PB&J made especially for her.

From his spot on the blanket, his father speaks up for the first time in a while. “Well, we wanted to do something to congratulate you on getting your GED and your license.”

“And a week in the Sunshine State was your answer to that?” He takes a bite out of his own sandwich.

“We can always take you back home with your sister, and Scully and I can come back and enjoy our vacation time.”

Jackson pretends to think about it for a minute before smiling to his family. “Nah, I think I like it here.” Scully falls back and laughs, her head falling back and hitting the tree behind her. It feels good to see his mom fully let go, something he hasn’t seen her do for a few weeks now. He knew her part time position at the FBI took so much out of her last time she went in, something that he had overheard his parents talk about one night when he got up. Everyone knows that Scully’s laugh is contagious so when she starts, Mulder can’t help but join in, followed by Jackson.

And as if this moment isn’t perfect enough, Jackson watches as Sammie starts laughing too. Her laugh sounds like bells and it might just be the most perfect sound he’s ever heard.

This is Family, Liam Jackson Mulder thinks contentedly as he watches his parents role on the grass and holding their guts, laughing for no reason at all.