Author: Onemillionandnine
Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com
Archive: sure!
Rating: Earnest NC17 for birth, sex, and death not
filmed through a soupy lens.

See Part One for more details.

**NOTE** - This is technically a WIP -- 12 fairly
substantial parts is my best estimate at this time.
You have been warned.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

John Byers rarely got the opportunity to drive. Langly had
commandeered driving duties since the earlier nineties, and
when he wasn't driving, Thea wanted to. It usually didn't
bother Byers, but periodically he was gripped by the desire
to be in control of a motorized vehicle. That particular
day was one of the rare times in question. He offered, then
insisted on being the one to pick up dinner.

In the days since the newlyweds had returned from
Baltimore, the changes in all four of their lives had
become more pronounced.  The air of tension had evaporated.
Thea and Langly seemed like any other married couple.
Perhaps that's exactly what they were.

Byers was seeing something similar to a normal life unfold
before his eyes. A normal life belonging to someone else.
Ringo Langly. He fought off envy as unworthy and
unbecoming. On the whole, he was very pleased on their
behalf.

Every morning they sat elbow to elbow at the kitchen table,
Langly with his Cap'n Crunch and Thea with her dry whole
wheat toast mounded with bacon, marking their newspapers
intently. Langly would gaze adoringly at her over the tops
of his black glasses; she would run her foot down the back
of his calf while cursing the
military/entertainment/industrial complex, her highlighter
clenched in her teeth.

They still spent an unseemly amount of time playing games
on the computer. They still enjoyed inventing crude terms
of abuse. The phrase 'blows goats' was currently en vogue,
the intensified 'blows syphilitic goats' and the active
'goat blowing' also being popular.

The paper did not appear to be suffering. Investigations,
of a non-life-and-limb-risking nature, were swimming along.
The quality of the writing itself, something he tended to
scrutinize when he was feeling out of sorts, seemed somehow
improved.

But John Byers was an honest man. He could not deny there
had been a shift in priorities for everyone, himself
included. It was as if there were some magical significance
to the fact that Thea was carrying three fetuses. He felt
the inexplicable desire to both mourn and celebrate.

There was no disavowing the fact that the Truth, the
Struggle for Justice, the paper as his own personal reason
to get up in the morning, had taken a back seat to those
three tiny lives. He had been distracted from the cause
that had consumed the majority of his adult life basically
because Langly had been too impulsive to take ten seconds
and put on a condom.

He was flustered to find himself grateful for what amounted
to an oversight.

At first he had been furtive about his sudden interest in
pregnancy and child development. Then one day he realized
Frohike had the latest edition of 'What to Expect When
You're Expecting' hidden in the bathroom under a stack of
Fortean Times. Now, it was common practice for the two of
them to while away the evening reading child care tomes as
Langly surfed parenting sites. Thea would just roll her
eyes and set about trying to make sure the van did not
fall prey to entropy.

YOU PEOPLE NEED A HOBBY THAT DOESN'T CENTER AROUND MY
REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, she would sign, a wrench tucked under
her arm.

Nonetheless, Byers suspected it secretly pleased her.

He stood at the check-out counter waiting longer than he
should have, thoughtfully examining the green and gold
flecks on the Formica. He paid, finally, took his
grease-stained paper sack to his VW bus, only to find
Marita Covarubbias sitting neatly coiffed in his
passenger seat.

For a moment, he didn't know where to put the cheese
steaks.

"I've come to offer you my help, Mr. Byers," Ms. Covarubbias
said earnestly.

He nearly laughed. "I beg your pardon?"

"I've come to offer you my help. With Thea Fidelis."

He was befuddled. "Why would I need your help?"

"Surely you realize you've taken a viper into your nest."
Her blue eyes looked straight into his.

"Oh?" He gave up and set the paper bag behind his seat.

"Thea Fidelis is dangerous, poorly designed. Surely you
have seen her impulsiveness, her temper, Mr. Byers?  Surely
you know by now she can be nothing by a liability to your
cause?"

Byers waited.

"I am giving you the opportunity to have your problem taken
care of."

Byers blinked, surprised by her offer, by her affected
concern, by her clear underestimation of him. He wished all
villains were always so transparent. "You want her
children."

"You won't be able to control the children anymore than
you have been able to control the mother," she warned.

"I see," he said as neutrally as he could.

"I could make it worth your trouble. I know about Dr.
Modeski. I could see to it that the two of you are free to
be together, without fear, without reprisal."

He gaped. "You expect me to find my own happiness at the
expense of Langly and Thea - and their children?"

"You truly believe Richard Langly is the father?" she
asked.  Clearly, she believed no such thing.

"Why shouldn't I?"

Marita licked her lips. "How long do you think a man like
Langly can hold her interest, Mr. Byers? Thea Fidelis was
designed with heightened needs, needs your associate can't
begin to meet. How long do you think it will be before she
sets her sites on Jimmy Bond? On you? Even Melvin Frohike?
Who's to say she hasn't already? One male can't begin
satisfy her. It's simply a matter of time."

"Slandering an innocent girl won't convince me of
anything," Byers replied, surprised by his own anger.

"An innocent girl?" Incredulity dripped from Marita's
words. "That girl will be the mother of gods, Mr. Byers.
How innocent can she be?"

"Gods?" He almost snorted.

"Gods," she repeated, her eyes suddenly seeming lit from
within. "Gods to be molded to suit whatever agenda one
pleases." Her voice became quiet. "The bidding will
be...intense."

"And you honestly believe I will be party to this?"

"I believe you will do what you always do, Mr. Byers. I
believe you will do what is right."

"You're right," he answered. "And that's why I 'm not
having any part-"

She interrupted him with a gun to the ribs. "Oh, I think
you are. If Thea Fidelis is the daughter of Fox Mulder I
believe her to be, she will trade herself for you, without
hesitation."

It wasn't the first time Byers had been on the wrong end of
a gun, and although he felt sweat slick his palms, he knew
it probably wasn't the last.  But he also realized, as he
twisted her wrist away from him, that Marita had gravely
under-estimated him.

Shock and surprise crossed her face as the delicate bone in
her wrist snapped.

He soon discovered, however, that she was tenacious. She
fought dirty. With every muscle in her body, she battled
for control of the gun.  Byers knew that was one
thing he could not allow.

The struggle was dizzying, disorienting. Half of everything
in Byers told him that Marita was a woman, and that
fighting a woman was wrong.  The other half, the stronger,
smarter half, told him she would kill him in an instant if
she had the chance. He had to remind himself to breath.

She chose at that instant to risk it all by crushing her
body toward him. Byers was quick enough to anticipate her
next move and managed to get the gun pointed away from
himself. Somehow, it seemed, Marita had gotten confused
about the position of the gun in the tussle. Rather than
shooting Byers in the arm, the bullet pierced her own
throat.

The artery was severed. Blood pulsed everywhere.  There was
no time for last words or much of a death scene.

In less than a minute, she was dead.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Byers came home with a bloody corpse and cheese steaks.
Both his suit and the interior of the van were a total loss

YOUR TIE LOOKS LIKE A BLOODY KOTEX, Thea signed when she
saw him.

THEA, THIS IS SERIOUS, Byers signed.

ARE THE CHEESE STEAKS ALL RIGHT?  AT LEAST TELL ME
THE BLOOD DIDN'T SOAK THROUGH THE SACK, Thea signed.

Langly threw up.

Frohike called Yves, who arrived shortly thereafter. Yves
had a plan.

Three days later, John Wilson, Melvin Quinones, and Richard
and Althea Torvald split into two recently acquired
vehicles for the 2500 mile drive ahead of them.

Ten hours later, an electrical short began a fire that
destroyed a warehouse in Takoma Park, Maryland.  The only
things found in the ruins were ash, a few bits of charred
bone, and a molar from each of the former occupants

According to the fire marshal, nothing remained of the
warehouse's contents larger than a standard pawn.  The
marshal was an avid chess player.

He had never played three card monte in his life.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Langly woke up in a convenience store parking lot just as a
dawn was breaking, stiff and disoriented, with an aching
dry socket near the back of his mouth. They were somewhere
in the middle of the country, by the look of things.

A note slipped down off the dash:

Don't panic: I'm pissing and buying coffee. T.

Great Thea, he whined inside his head. She'd promised she'd
only drive a few more hours, but it looked like she'd gone
on through the night. Either that or there weren't any
motels to be found and she'd just pulled over in a likely
parking lot to catch some sleep.

Langly hated this part of the country, all flat and
nothing, just like where he'd grown up. He popped his neck
and pulled his glasses out of the glove compartment. He
could stand to drain the lizard himself.

Where were they, anyway? It wasn't like her to get lost.
Unfortunately, it was like her to get lured hundreds of
miles off course by signs for the *Famous Union Leaders Wax
Museum and Sausage Stand.*  He wondered what kind of
roadside attraction she could find in a place like this.
There was nothing he could see but corn fields and highway
and cows.

He ran a brush over his head. It really did look like
Nebraska. There were even bare patches in the pastures on
either side of the road from natural salt deposits. He
tucked his ponytail in the back of his shirt and grabbed a
baseball cap from behind the truck seat.

He realized there was a large smear on his glasses. He was
concentrating on cleaning the greasy slash on the coated
plastic when he walked into the fluorescent lights of
Love's Country Store.

"Daddy, I swear I was not the one that scraped your truck,"
the high nasal voice of the clerk seemed to be addressing
him.

"Excuse me?" Langly put his glasses back on. The speaker
was a thin blonde teenager in a brown and orange polyester
smock.

Her forehead wrinkled for a moment. "Uncle Ringo?"

"Uhhh, you seen a pregnant girl around here? Short brown
hair? About this tall?" He put his hand on top of his head.

"Uncle Ringo, it's me, Becky!" she yelled, running around
the counter and throwing her arms around his neck.

"We're in Saltville?" he asked.

"Seventeen miles off the interstate, same as always."

He winced. Thea had stayed up all night and driven to
fucking Saltville, fucking Nebraska. And they were all
supposed to be dead.

He looked hard at Becky, who was busy grinning at him.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to see Tom. Tom could keep his mouth
shut better than anyone alive.

Pop! A peanut ricocheted off the side of his head.

Thea stood outside the women's room door, as inscrutable as
ever, throwing legumes.

WHAT'S WITH LETTING THE BIMBO GROPE YOU? she signed.

SHE'S MY...MY...I DON'T KNOW THE SIGN. MY FEMALE
RELATIVE, MY BROTHER'S DAUGHTER. BESIDES SHE'S ONLY
A... He stopped before he signed the word 'kid' just
in time to realize his wife and his niece were the
same age. Wait, maybe Becky was older. Shit!

WHAT? SHE'S ONLY A WHAT? Thea signed irritably before he
took her by the hand dragging her over to her newly
discovered in-law. JUST ONE MORE WORD AND WE'LL HAVE A
SENTENCE.

HER NAME IS BECKY.

"Becky, this is my wife, Thea," he said, smiling tightly.
"She's deaf and I have to go to the bathroom."

With that, he left the two of them alone.

*****

The two girls stood there, all eyes, evaluating each other
in the manner universal to 17 year old female homo sapiens
the world over.

Becky was the genuine article, a real live teenager. Her
shiny yellow hair in a trendy coif, wearing no more and no
less but the exact amount of make-up prescribed in the
fashion magazines she pored over. Becky made the best of a
bad situation when it came to the orange and brown smock.
She dated. She blew what cash she had and was always
borrowing money from her father. She went to sporting
events to see and be seen. She flirted with every male that
crossed her path.

Becky appraised her Uncle Ringo's wife. She was around her
own age, Becky thought, which was kind of creepy.  She was
tall, too, as tall as Uncle Ringo, and pregnant in what
Becky considered a tacky way, with a good six inches of
Firm, round belly protruding from the bottom of her black
muscle shirt. Unfashionably low slung jeans, canvas tennis
shoes. She was dressed, Becky realized, like a boy.

Usually you had to go to Omaha to see something like that.

On a deep, instinctive level, Becky Langly was uncertain
whether she was attracted or repelled. Either way, her
reaction occurred on a magnetic level. The brunette's bored
expression tipped the scales in favor of appeal. Her short
hair was wet from the bathroom sink and parted on the side.
With her large unpainted eyes, her too broad mouth, her
large nose, high hard cheek bones, Becky would never have
called her pretty. It did not matter. On some fathomless
plane of her soul, although the other girl was clearly
pregnant and Becky had never, would never, consider herself
even slightly bisexual, she found herself responding to the
woman before her as though she were a piece of prime male
flesh.

Becky was extremely surprised.

She blinked rapidly. The entire exchange took less than
15 seconds.

A low, nasal voice clipped the air. "Why is there a three
foot long scratch on the side of my truck?"

A man stood just inside the door.  He was wearing jeans,
t-shirt, and a John Deere baseball cap. Becky breathed a sigh
of relief.

"Your brother's in the restroom."

"What's that got to do with my truck?"

"It's Uncle Ringo."

"Ringo?" he repeated in disbelief.
 

*************

It seemed like slow motion when he reached out and shook
Thea's hand. She smiled at him, squeezing back firmly. He
touched her wedding ring fleetingly then shook his head.

Dammit! What had she done wrong? She tried to keep smiling
as she took his hands and laid them on her belly. People
liked that, right? Strangers were always trying to touch
her stomach now. Maybe that would fix what ever she had
done.

His whole body stiffened. She was screwing it up worse, she
thought. The babies kicked. He took a step backwards just
as Ringo stepped out of the men's room.

T, he signed at her, WHAT'S GOING ON?

I DON'T KNOW. I DID SOMETHING WRONG, I'M SORRY, RINGO, I
DON'T KNOW WHAT. I TRIED TO LET HIM TOUCH THE BABIES, FEEL
MY STOMACH. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME. I'M SORRY.

IT WAS A BAD IDEA TO COME HERE, T.

I KNOW. I WANTED...I WANTED TO SEE FOR MYSELF. YOU SAID HE
COULD KEEP A SECRET.

IT'S COOL, T. LET'S GO, he said it and signed it at the
same time. "You guys'd be better off if you forget you saw
us," he told his brother.

"Like Hell we will," Tom Langly answered.

"Just forget you saw us, okay?" Langly said reaching into
his wallet to pay for whatever Thea had bought.

"She already paid," Becky lied.

"Don't tell any body we were here, okay?" Ringo insisted
walking backwards out the door.

Langly climbing into the their new pickup and wondering why
Thea was still standing on the sidewalk, just looking at
him.

The truck smelled like cows. He wanted to puke.

His brother stood staring as well. "That's my truck, dumb
ass."

Ringo climbed out of the vehicle. He looked at one truck,
then the other.  Except for a long scratch down the side of
the one he'd just been sitting in, they were identical.

Thea stood beside Tom, printing in her notebook. Ringo
watched as they passed her notepad back and forth for what
seemed to him like very long time. Without warning, Thea
and Tom walked over to him.

"My sister in-law wants to see the farm," Tom said, hopping
up into what was clearly his truck. Thea climbed in on the
passenger's side

Ringo didn't believe he was in a position to argue.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Henry "Hank" Langly was in the barn, not thinking about his
son, Ringo. His fourth child had always been a sore spot
with him, the kind of occurrence a less stubborn man would
have taken as a sign from God to stop reproducing. He
firmly believed he was not to be blamed, in any event.

He had not intended to get MaryBeth pregnant so soon after
the twins but those kinds of accidents happened to people
all the time, and they usually didn't turn out so badly.
Ringo managed to be premature, though, so right away the
boy was expensive and worrisome. And, in his father's
opinion, the most contrary person on the face of the earth.
When he put his arm around Marybeth outside the neonatal
intensive care and told her the boy would pull through,
it was the last time Ringo let him be right about anything.

It never seemed like all Ringo's cylinders were firing to
Hank. He spent too much time staring into space or saying
things that made no sense. His mother, of course, jumped
right in to defend him. What else was she supposed to do?
But when the boy taught himself to read before he started
school, Hank's fear that something wasn't right was
confirmed. To a man who valued his children primarily on
their ability to perform chores efficiently, an awkward,
bookish boy with a tendency to malinger was a special
torment.

Hank Langly made a policy of ignoring his offspring until
they were big enough put to work. Until then, they were
their mother's problem, to be referred to in the third
person only, as in "Can you shut them up or am I gonna
hafta take the TV out to the barn?"

It was a classic division of labor along gender lines; Hank
raised dairy cows, MaryBeth raised farm labor.

When Ringo was 12 and Bobby and Eddie were 8, the twins
could milk four cows in the time it took their older
brother to finish one. Of course, he might have done better
if he didn't try to read and milk at the same time.  After
a while, Hank learned enough to frisk Ringo for books when
it was time to start to work.

The boy grew quick enough, but no matter how much he grew,
even his sisters could outwork him. Hank piled more chores
on the boy in hopes of toughening him up. Mule-like, Ringo
slowed his pace even further and complained more bitterly.

The boy seemed naturally disrespectful. Sly, smart-ass
comments about everything seemed to slip out of the corner
of the boy's mouth at the slightest opportunity. And these
comments were usually directed at the one person a boy
should respect - his father.

Hank did what had been done to him on the rare occasion
he had been stupid enough to flout his own father's
authority; he gave him a lick or five with his belt. It
seldom worked on Ringo. The boy had the irksome habit of
hollering before leather ever met skin, just to get the
sympathy of anyone in ear shot. Hank was never sure exactly
how much was sincere pain and how much was for show.

It went downhill from there. So, by the time Ringo got the
scholarship to go to school back East, Hank Langly was
downright relieved. You couldn't expect to win every time,
and six out of seven was still a good track record. He
didn't think about the boy much after he was gone.

He watched from the barn door as Ringo got out of Tom's
truck with a girl. A pregnant woman. It looked like he'd
finally started breeding.

Well, Hank hadn't sired a pansy after all.

The Egghead held her hand and stared at her like she was
made of gold.

Better late than never. Maybe.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

In the house, Meggy Langly was feeding her granddaughter
and having a cup of coffee.

"What did Becky say about the truck?" she called when she
heard the front door squeal.

"Doesn't matter," he yelled.

"That wasn't what you said when you left."

"I got somebody with me you're gonna want to see."

Meggy snorted softly. "Unless it's the Prize Patrol or
Harrison Ford, they can wait until I finish my coffee."

Tom elbowed his brother in the ribs.  Ringo didn't know
what to say.  "What's the chance of getting something to
eat?" was all he could think of.

Meggy dropped the baby's spoon and turned in her chair.
Next thing Langly knew, she was running toward him,
screaming. "Ringo!" She kissed him firmly on both cheeks.
"And who's this?" she asked taking Thea by the hand. "Is
this your - oh!?" She stopped mid-sentence. "Oh, Ringo!"
she said reprovingly.

"'member when you told me I'd find a girl who'd appreciate
me if I just waited? Turns out she hadn't been born when
you said that," Ringo told his sister in-law, his shy
swallow and averted eyes belying his blustery tone.

Meg bit the inside of her mouth. "Well, looks like it's too
late to get after you now," she muttered. "Honey " she said
smiling and gathering up Thea's hands in hers, "can I get
you some breakfast?"

"She's deaf, Meggy," he said taking the small green book
from her shirt pocket. "Write it out."

"Lord, Ringo!" Meggy hissed.

Thea signed to Ringo excitedly, LOOK, THEY HAVE A BABY.

"Whose kid?" he asked Meg

"Little Tommy's," Meg answered.

"Jeez, he's 23, Meg," Tom interjected.

"Where's his mom?" Ringo asked for Thea.

"HER mom, Amy, is at work at the plastics factory outside
of Omaha," Meg answered uncertain who she should address.

"Amy who?"

"Amy Langly," Tom sneered.

"Amy's mom is Mandy Clevenger," Meg supplied.

Ringo's eyebrows shot up involuntarily. When he was
sixteen, he was sure that Mandy Clevenger had been put on
Earth to torment him. Long black hair, huge brown eyes,
captain of the girl's basketball team, he could never
figure out why everyone else paid so much attention to the
twins when Mandy Clevenger leapt around the gym like a
goddess. Of course she never said two words to him. Now she
was someone's grandma. That was weird. Beyond weird,
actually, and right into surreal.

Meggy picked up the baby and offered her to Thea.  Thea
squeezed Ringo's arm excitedly.

CAN I? she signed to him.

DO YOU KNOW HOW? he asked.

I READ IN A BOOK, she answered.

"She doesn't have any experience with kids, so she might
need a little help," he told Meg.

Meg's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Well, no time like
the present."

"I think I need Ringo out in the barn," Tom said. Ringo
signed dutifully.

Thea nodded, barely noticing Ringo for once, mesmerized by
the baby. Ringo was slightly wounded.

"We'll be fine. You two go on," Meg assured them.

Ringo didn't know what to do, other than comply.

********

Tom Langly asked as soon as they were away from the house,
"So, what's going on, Ritchie?"

Langly grimaced. "It's complicated."

"I got time."

"Tommy, in a couple of days someone's probably going to
notify you that I'm dead. I've pissed off some people."

"Like her dad?"

Langly shook his head. "Her dad's a friend of mine."

"That's how you treat your friends? Walt Einer's my friend
and if I caught him messing around with one of my girls,
I'd still be looking for my gun."

"Tom, I'm gonna say this slowly so you'll understand." He
enunciated his insult very clearly.  "Her father is not
looking for us. I'm an investigative journalist, you
stupid hick, and I've pissed off the mob." It sounded
like a good lie, something they could swallow in Nebraska.
Super soldiers and government plots only played to the
militia guys.

Tom looked skeptical. "And they're gonna kill you in a
coupla days?"

"Noooooooo. We faked our deaths, Einstein. It'll probably
be another 24 hours before they notify you."

"Her parents know she's okay?"

"Yeah. She's been living with me two years already. It's
not like it happened-" Ringo Langly blurted. Fuck, there
was no way he could straighten this out. Tom would never
believe he lived with her two years without so much as a
kiss. He wanted to break something.

"How old is she, Ringo?" Tom kept his voice low and even.

"17. And she's deaf, not mentally defective or anything.
She's a damn genius. She can read and write four languages.
She's got math theory so intense maybe two hundred guys in
the country can touch her," Ringo said matter-of-factly.
"I'm not taking advantage of her, I swear."

"15, Ringo? Damn!" Tom threw his hat on the ground and
walked away in disgust.

Ringo promised himself he would not run after him. He
promised himself. Then he promised himself again. And then
he trotted behind him like a puppy.

"You know, if that was my girl you'd be in jail right now?"

"If that was your girl, I'd belong in jail," Ringo agreed.

Tom nodded and grunted in affirmation.

"How'd you meet anyway?" Tom looked at his shoes.

"Like I said, her folks are friends of mine," he said
quietly.

"Which one? Byers or umm, Dohickey?"

"Frohike, but it's not either one of them." He sniffed
arrogantly.  "I do have other friends, you know.

Tom didn't say a word.

"T's parents are FBI agents. I consult for them from time
to time." It was more of the truth than he'd mean to reveal,
and he closed his eyes.

Tom shrugged.

"We been together pretty much 24/7 the last couple of years
and I never have to explain what I mean to her. That
doesn't happen a lot for me." Ringo leaned against the
corrugated metal of the barn; it was already getting hot
from the sun. "You ought to be able to talk to the chick
you love, right, without feelin' like you're from another
planet."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Shit! I forgot! Ringo's so smart
nobody understands him. He's unique."

"Cut it out," Ringo snapped.

"He's special, he's the loneliest guy in the world and all
us morons can't hope to fathom his depths, so I guess it's
okay if he messes around with teenaged girls."

"Okay." Ringo shut his eyes. "Here's something you can
understand.  Remember when you were first dating Meg? Or
before that even, when we'd be in our beds with the light
out and she was all you could talk about? 'Meggy
Gilbransen's got the best butt of any girl in school.
Meggy Gilbransen made the best dessert at the senior class
bake sale. Meggy Meggy Meggy blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah.'  And later, when she turned up pregnant, as mad as
Dad was, you told him you weren't sorry 'cause you were in
love."

Tom grunted, profoundly embarrassed.

"For the first time in my life, I know what that feels
like." Ringo pushed his glasses up again.

Tom scratched his forehead, trying not to look astonished,
and wound up looking deeply pained instead.

Ringo leaning his head against a tractor, unable to look
Tom in the eye. "She's the first person who told me she
loved me since Mom. This is my chance. I don't think I'm
gonna get another one."

Tom couldn't hold back his incredulity any more. "You mean
you never-?"

"Of course I've gotten laid, moron." Ringo sighed. "I just
never developed what you'd call a serious relationship."

Tom was speechless. What his brother was describing was so
totally alien to him, so totally out of his realm of
experience, he didn't know how to react.

Tom looked at the ground. Some things you didn't want to
know about your brother. It didn't fit with the image he
had in his head. He wanted to ask him what their mother
would say. He wanted to wake up and this whole thing to be
a bad dream. He studied Ringo's shoes as an uncomfortable
thought settled over him: his brother was not the same boy
who had left the farm twenty years ago. Something had
happened to him, and he now had a life, a life Tom knew
nothing about, and might not understand even if he was
told.

"T was just this kid hanging around and like, one day I
realized she'd turned into my best friend, then one day she
was...everything."

Tom cleared his throat. "Yeah but she might grow up sooner
or later."

"Screw you."

"Look, no matter what kind of crap you might try to tell
yourself, you know it's wrong "

Ringo kicked at the ground. "I love her, Tom."

"Is that why all I keep hearing is why this is such a great
deal for you? You ever stop and think about what she
needs?"

"I can be what she needs."

Tom looked dubious. "Is that so?"

Ringo grimaced. "I guess we oughta be going."

"No, stay. I'm finished chewing you out, the least I can do
is feed you."

Ringo stared at him, arms folded across his chest.  "Think
Meg'll make dessert?"

Tom smirked and nodded.  "Doesn't that little girl know
how to cook?"

Ringo smirked back. "She's not exactly skilled in the
wifely arts. I mean-" he stopped, stammered, "she, um,
she's  pretty skilled at some. But she just can't cook or
do laundry, and she's a slob, but, um..." He blushed.

Tom almost laughed out loud. He'd forgotten how much fun
Ringo was to tease.

"How's she compare with Nancy?" Tom asked, trying to keep
his face straight.

Nancy Squalls. Two years younger than Ringo, Nancy had been
the other school geek. Short, stocky, with Coke-bottle
glasses, greasy black hair and tits only slightly smaller
than Bosnia and Herzegovina. Everyone in a three county
radius knew she had it bad for Ringo all the way through
school. She might have had a shot at him if she'd bathed a
little more frequently. His standards might not have been
high but he drew the line at girls who stunk.

"She still here?" Ringo asked, trying not to wince.

"She's principal over at the junior high school," Tom said,
trying not to smile

"You two done giggling? You sound like a couple of school
girls." The old man stuck his head out of the barn. It was,
Ringo thought, difficult to believe he was only a few years
older than Frohike. "You married her, right, this girl
genius?" It was the longest string of words he'd said to
Ringo since the boy was 12.

"Yes, sir." The words jumped out of Ringo's mouth unbidden.

"Well, it's done then, no point in talking it into the
ground. I want to get a look at Mrs. Egghead." And with
that, he led his two sons into the house, muttering,
"Couple a sissies, if you ask me. Least Bobby and Eddie
would have knocked the hell out of each other, but, no,
all you two do is yack."

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

When the men entered the house, Thea and Meggy were on the
couch adrift in a sea of photo albums. The baby was
clinging to Thea's neck and laughing. The minute she saw
Ringo, her hands shot out in sign.

LOOK, SHE'S GIVING ME PICTURES OF YOU. AND THIS THING.

Ringo winced, striding over to her. WHAT THING?

I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT SHE SAYS IT WAS YOUR
FAVORITE WHEN YOU WERE SMALL. She reached into the shoe box
beside her and brandished a palm-sized blue and white
square with a bright yellow knob.

He took it from her hand. IT'S A MUSIC BOX. SEE THIS SIDE?
He turned the box around and twisted the dial. Inside, a small
disc turned. Thea saw a little ship on the sea, riding on the
waves as bright day became starry night. Although the toy
was plastic and the technology was crude, she seemed to find
it charming.

"You stole that thing off the crib for years." His father
shook his head.

"It was mine," Ringo shot back, almost good naturedly.

AND PHOTOGRAPHS. She waved a picture of a painfully small
infant in an incubator, tube down his throat, thread-sized
IVs attached to his disproportionate head, cotton pads
covering his papery eyelids. Shaky handwriting on the back
gave the date as July 16, 1969. YOU'RE TWO DAYS OLD AND
LOOK HOW SICK YOU ARE, ALL WIRED UP LIKE I WAS.

Ringo took the picture too but said nothing.

"I took that," his father said. "The only reason they let
me was that you were so bad off. Your mother wanted a
picture." The older man stepped closer.

YOU AND YOUR MOTHER? Thea signed, handing him the picture.

Sure enough, it was, but he didn't remember ever seeing it
before. His plain, thin mother, all big eyes and Dumbo ears
and streaky white blonde hair. She looked to be on the
downhill side of yet another pregnancy, while he would have
been about five, wearing his first pair of black glasses.
He was either handing her a cup or taking a cup from her.
Their eyes met in a way that suggested neither knew what
to make of the other.

AND THIS ONE. She handed him another photo. WHEN YOU
FINISHED SCHOOL. YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT HAT THAN THE OTHER
PEOPLE.

I WAS, UM,  V.A.L.E.D.I.C.T.O.R.I.A.N. THE TOP OF MY CLASS.
I HAD THE HIGHEST GRADES. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING
ABOUT?

YES, RITCHIE, I WENT TO SCHOOL, YOU KNOW. She rolled her
eyes. SOMETIMES YOU ACT LIKE I WAS RAISED IN A SKINNER BOX.

He chose not to bicker. Instead, he looked at the photo.
The only long haired boy in the cluster of caps and gowns,
he wore the blank look of resistance. He was sweating in
his first Ramones shirt underneath the red nylon robe.

When the picture was taken, he realized, he was Thea's age.
A girl like her would have killed him back then. He would
have had a heart attack before she could get his pants off.
Of course, she hadn't been made yet when he graduated from
high school.

He blinked.  It seemed wrong that his early life could be
summed up so completely by a few snap shots. But it looked
to him like all that was missing was one with him getting
his ass beat for the heinous offense of smarting-off to his
father.

Thea stood up holding the baby with one arm. She extended
her free hand to her father-in-law as politely as she knew
how.

Hank Langly shook it vigorously, giving Thea a long look
that made his second son want to sock him.

Hank turned his head to Tom. "I don't know what you got all
worked up for. Looks to me like Ringo's child bride here
could go bear hunting with a stick. It's pretty clear who
got the raw end of this deal."

Ringo had forgotten his father's knack for reducing all
human experiences to economic transactions.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

They spent that night on the farm not in his boyhood bunk, but in
his parents old bed. His father had, in his own way, insisted,
saying he was alone now and every other bed in the house besides
Tom and Meg's was meant for one person. Ringo didn't have it in
him to admit they spent their nights on a narrow single mattress
and box springs set on the floor.

They weren't used to so much room. Ringo spent a long time
staring at his mother's vanity, at the thin veneer over particle
board and two narrow drawers, at the large octagonal mirror
facing the foot of the bed. He knew if he opened the drawers her
things would still be there. He didn't want to see them.

The whole set had been a wedding gift to his mom from her in-
laws. Everyone talked about it like it was some extravagant
gesture, but on cursory inspection, he could see it was just some
cheap mass produced job. Well kept, though.

He thought about Mulder for the first time in a while. He
wondered what kind of wedding presents his mother had received.
Pearls? Real china instead of Melmac? A summer house in Rhode
Island so you could retreat in peace when hoi polloi like the
Kennedys invaded Martha's Vineyard come summer? Still, when Hank
Langly brought Marybeth Skaarsgard from the next farm over, he
had more to give her than Ringo did when he married the daughter
of a man with millions of bucks squirreled away in several not-
quite-legal hiding places. Hell, Langly'd cleaned out all his
savings to buy her a ring that didn't look like it came from a
cereal box, only to realize too late he couldn't feed his
children a ring. He closed his eyes.

When his grandfather was liberating concentration camps and
puking his guts out beside the mass graves, Thea's was spiriting
away the bastards responsible and adding untold money and power
to his already considerable family fortune in the process.

His family was full of true assholes; hers was all comic book-
sized heroes and villains. She had Mulder, his face shining and
his trench coat flapping behind him like fucking Batman, and
Cancerman, her grandfather, whatever-the-fuck-his-real-name-was,
subverting anything right and good and sacred.

At least Hank Langly wasn't part of a conspiracy to alter the
human genome. At least he wasn't a Nazi sympathizer or
collaborator or whatever you called Bill Mulder and CGB Spender
and the rest of those sons of bitches who experimented on real
live people, like they were nothing, less than nothing.

Ringo recalled the first time Mulder had asked him to identify a
Project Paper Clip scientist from a yellowing photograph. It had
turned out to be Victor Klemper, smiling, holding a plate full of
potato salad at a Mulder family backyard barbeque.

He wondered if it had been Klemper or another in the sea of
German and Japanese war criminals he'd identified for the agent
over the years who had been responsible for designing his pretty,
smart, tough young wife, who stood, unflinching, with six million
dead behind her. He could not honestly say if she was just
another victim, or his own personal Girl From Brazil. All he knew
was that either way, it had not been her choice.

His father's nagging voice suddenly filled the back of his head.
"You knocked her up, and you married her," Hank told him. "No
matter what else she is, she's yours."

Of course, his father would never take into account that he
loved her.

He cracked his knuckles and looked around. He'd never gotten a
good look in this room before. When he was growing up, this room
had been forbidden, a restricted area. You'd have thought his
parents kept plutonium in here.

He was almost one hundred per cent certain he had been conceived
in this bed. Laying in it with his wife, he wasn't sure how he
felt about that.

THIS IS AMAZING, she signed.

THIS IS NEBRASKA, he replied. I THINK WE HAVE DIFFERENT
DICTIONARIES.

MEGGY IS NICE, Thea signed. I LIKE HER.

He knew that meant something. Thea never liked other women.
Respect was usually the best they could hope for.

I LIKE HER, TOO, he signed, thinking of how his family had
stared when the two of them signed. For about the millionth time,
Langly understood why Thea held such a low opinion of people in
general and hearing people in particular.

YOU LIKE HER MORE THAN THE REST OF THEM, Thea, never one for
tact, observed.

Ringo shrugged, MAYBE BECAUSE SHE'S NOT A BLOOD RELATION.

YOU'RE SO LUCKY TO HAVE A FAMILY.

YEAH, I AM, he signed back. YOU, THE BABIES.

NO, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. She rolled her eyes. YOU GREW UP IN A
HOUSE, THE SAME HOUSE FOR YEARS, WITH BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND A
MOTHER AND FATHER. LIKE ON TV, ON THE WALTONS.

I MUST HAVE MISSED ALL THOSE EPISODES WHEN DAD HIT JIM BOB WITH A
BELT.

Thea looked down. Ringo realized neither of them was particularly
interested in having the bad childhood pissing contest.  Beside,
they both knew she'd win.

He touched her chin before he signed, trying to gather her
attention.  IT'S OKAY, MAMA. THE FUCKED UP PART IS MY DAD'S
TRYING REALLY HARD. THIS IS THE COOLEST HE'S EVER BEEN WITH ME.

I'M SORRY. HERE ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE AND YOU ALL KNOW EACH OTHER
AND YOU HAVE THE SAME GENES AND YOU LOOK LIKE THEM - YOUR NOSE IS
EXACTLY LIKE YOUR... She let the sentence go unfinished.  I HOPE
THEY LOOK LIKE YOU. She touched her belly. THIS IS SO COOL, TO
SEE WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

EVERYBODY HAS A FAMILY, T, he signed, then regretted it. IF HE
KNEW ABOUT YOU, MULDER WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST ONE ON A PLANE
TO COSTA RICA.

Thea frowned. YOU THINK?

WITHOUT A DOUBT. YOU ARE SO LIKE BOTH OF THEM. THAT THING YOU DO
WITH YOUR EYEBROW - THAT SPOCK THING? SCULLY DOES THAT. AND THE
THINGS YOU THINK ARE FUNNY - JUST LIKE MULDER. AND YOU LOOK LIKE
THEM. LIKE MULDER MOSTLY, THOUGH. YOU'RE MORE LIKE YOUR DAD IN A
LOT OF WAYS.

IS HE PRETTY?

HE'S NOT MY TYPE, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN, he signed with a
smirk.

She punched him in the arm.

BUT CHICKS REALLY GO FOR HIM, SO I GUESS HE'S NOT QUASIMODO.

She took this as a cue to strip off her shirt. I DON'T LIKE
CHICKS, she signed bare-breasted.

Langly's eyes widened. NO, THEA. NO WAY. NOT IN THIS BED.

IT APPEARS TO BE STRUCTURALLY SOUND, she signed, then thumped the
mattress.

NO WAY. I WAS PROBABLY CONCEIVED HERE. FORGET IT.

Ringo could see her pupils dilate as she considered the idea. IN
THIS BED? IN THIS ROOM?

He nodded. He watched her hands reverently smooth the still made
chenille bed spread. He knew the way  she thought, knew she was
seeing strands of DNA combining like puzzle pieces. He kept
seeing his hulking father and skinny birdlike mother naked and
felt slightly ill.

I THINK THEY'VE CHANGED THE SHEETS SINCE THEN, THOUGH, he signed,
silently wishing she would put her shirt back on.

RITCHIE, I AM SO TURNED ON.

Ringo stepped back. NO WAY, T, NO WAY.

WAY, she signed, leering.

DO I HAVE TO GO SLEEP ON THE COUCH? BECAUSE I WILL IF I HAVE TO.
I'M NOT KIDDING.

She stroked the thin skin that stretched over his knuckles.

He looked at her sharply.

I WAS JUST HOLDING YOUR HAND, she signed. I CAN'T EVEN TOUCH YOU
NOW?

YEAH RIGHT, FIRST YOU HOLD MY HAND THEN YOU GOT ME PINNED LIKE A
BUG AND YOU'RE PULLING DOWN MY ZIPPER WITH YOU TEETH, he signed
only half irritated. BEEN THERE.

MORE LIKE A BUTTERFLY, she corrected him, smiling slyly.

A MOTH, he compromised.

YOU'RE USUALLY A VERY COOPERATIVE VICTIM,  she signed.

I MEAN IT. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS HERE. JUST LAY WITH ME
TONIGHT, OKAY? BE MY FRIEND?

ALWAYS, RITCHIE. She nodded with her forehead wrinkled. He
promised himself he'd make it up to her at the next cheap motel.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

After breakfast, everyone shook hands and slapped each other on
the back, and made promises about visits no one was going to
keep. Ringo and Thea left.

There was a much-used paper sack in the driver's seat of the pick
up and a note:

YOUR MOTHER WAS SAVING THIS FOR YOU.

A quilt. A field of white with interlocking white rings. Red
embroidered birds and flowers. A wedding quilt.

He didn't recognize the handwriting.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

Taos, New Mexico. Passing time and waiting to pick up the
deed and the keys for the new house from Jimmy and Yves'
lawyer. It took awhile to find the lawyer's office, but
Langly noticed one thing right away - Taos wasn't DC.

Every building in town looked the same - squat, square
variations on the theme of mud, all looking like they
had risen spontaneously from of the ground. The streets
were all profoundly twisted and about half as wide as
they should have been.

The weirdest thing, though, was the people. Against the
bland earth-tone backdrop, it looked like a dozen
circuses had all pulled into town at once. A pair of chicks
in sports bras and cut-offs with shaved heads were playing a
heavy round of tonsil hockey waiting at the cross walk.
He could have sworn he saw a guy wearing Fro's furry vest.
He saw a Sikh carrying a scimitar, a dude in what looked to
him like 18th century knee pants and a tri-corn hat, a person
of undetermined gender with Maori facial tattoos, numerous
women in saris, and four different guys sporting old-fashioned
over-the-shoulder-and-wrapped-around-the-waist-a-couple-of-times
type kilts, probably from the one and only kilt store he'd
ever seen, which seemed to be doing a brisk trade. Obvious
tourists wandered the streets, gawking, and wore shorts
and fanny packs. They might as well been painted green.

Definitely not DC.  No, in Taos he was - normal. He looked
exactly like he'd come from the same *long-haired-white-
guy* factory as half the passersby. This was one place he
and T and Fro could pass unnoticed. Yves knew what she was
doing.

Only, now that he thought about it, in all the ambling
herds of humans, he hadn't seen a single suit.

Byers was screwed.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

Ringo hadn't seemed even slightly fazed when the lawyer
explained the house was deeded to Thea Torvald only. "Mrs.
Bond was very clear," the man said when Thea objected.
There was, it seemed, a not inconsiderable cashiers' check
to be handed over Mrs. Torvald as well.

Thea was flustered. She never been thrown so far off
balance before.

An hour later and thirty minutes to the north,
trying to unlock the front door while Ritchie scruffed-up
the back of her hair with his fingers, she felt her eyes
water. She brushed them dry with the back of her arm. For
most of her life she hadn't even owned the clothes on her
back. A house?

She looked up. Two stories. Solar panels. The only apparent
dependence on the outside world was a phone line. Her heart
beat like a fist trying to pound its way out of her chest.

She pushed open the door. The house was full of stuff.
Yves or Lois or whatever she was calling herself hadn't
just given her a place where she wasn't a guest or a
student or an inmate. She had furnished it.

Thea opened the kitchen cabinets. Dishes. Glasses. Pots.
Pans. She stared at the couches and chairs in the cavernous
room that took up the whole ground floor, then took the
stairs at a run. Four doors and a long hall.

The first three were bedrooms, the last with two dressers
instead of one and a ridiculously large bed. Her babies
thrashed and wiggled inside her.

She opened door number four carefully. Three little
baby...what were they called? Cribs.  A changing table.
Other things, too, and she wasn't sure what they were.
Little toys. Spinning, suspended sculptural things that
needed winding. Three little dressers.

She pulled open a drawer. Profoundly tiny clothes nestled
inside like small mammals in hibernation. She found
herself unrolling what turned out to be a pair of
miniscule pastel green socks. She was crying and she had no
idea why.

She felt a soft touch to her arm and jumped. She didn't
realize Ritchie was in the room. How embarrassing to be
caught crying like some idiot girl.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER?" He leaned against the dresser.

Thea felt greedy. She had Ritchie for her own - he'd
promised 'til death do us part, and Ritchie's promises
meant something, not like hers.  She had Byers and Frohike
to look out for, too. She was going to have Ritchie's
babies. Who was she to have a house on top of all that?
Her own house, one nobody was going to move her out of.

She also had twelve thousand dollars in her pocket.

Her cheeks flushed and her chest felt cold.

NOTHING, RITCHIE, she signed. YOU KNOW ME, I'M A DUMMY.

He frowned. YOU'RE A GENIUS. WHAT'S WRONG?

RITCHIE? She began, then stopped. She didn't know what she
wanted to tell him, so she swallowed hard and shrugged.

Ringo bit the inside of his mouth and put his arms around
her.

She rubbed her tears with his hair, seized by the sudden
urge to count all the electrical outlets.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

For years, John Byers had blamed the constant bickering on
Langly.  All it took was being trapped alone with Frohike
in a van to jolt Byers into recognition of the fact that
Melvin Frohike really was an incredibly frustrating person.
And a terrible driver.

The first bone of contention had been 'The Indian.' The
motorcycle was huge and took up most of the room inside the
new van. Frohike would not leave the vehicle behind,
knowing it would be destroyed. He likened it to leaving a
puppy and the Mona Lisa in a burning building. Byers
secretly wondered if Fro would still be married if he'd
shown that much devotion to his ex.  Every curve required
an eye turned back to the machine. It did not take great
intellectual prowess to understand how they had found
themselves lost in the West Virginia hills for a half a
day.

Frohike though, had had the gall to challenge Byers'
ability to read a map.

The stereo was another issue. Frohike's music was both
terrible and depressing. Leonard Cohen was a circle of hell
unto himself. Byers found himself feeling nostalgic for
Langly's miserable singing voice cranking out Motorhead or
Ramones songs hour after hour. And what kind of person, he
had to wonder, cranked the AC up so he could wear a leather
vest while driving through the south in the summer? John
Byers' teeth chattered  from Georgia to Oklahoma City,
where he broke down and hung his head out the open window
as Frohike croaked along with the stereo. After twenty
minutes, he gave in and rolled up the window. Oklahoma City
in June smelled like a giant stockyard.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

In the desert of eastern New Mexico, Byers and Frohike
watched two glittering boxes  chase each other through the
mid-afternoon sky for twenty minutes before they
disappeared off the flat horizon with incongruous speed.
 

It was painful not to follow them. The desire to chase was
almost a phantom itch for Byers, and he could tell, for
Frohike, too. Their old lives, already a missing limb.
But neither spoke. They simply got back in the van and
drove.

Hours later, Byers stood in the men's room of the Tucumcari
Wendy's and stared in the mirror. The image was
disconcerting. In a t-shirt and jeans, his head and face
shaved down to bare skin, no trace of John Byers remained.
He scrutinized the glass for some hint of himself and found
none. Without knowing where he was going, he walked past
the familiar form of Melvin Frohike and onto the dusty
sweltering concrete of Tucumcari.

Three hours later he returned to the van with the red and
blue Holly Sugar trademark tattooed on the tender skin on
the left side of his head.

He climbed into the driver's seat without comment.
Cigarette butts and beer cans pointed the way to destiny
and the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Frohike's snoring
comforted him all the way to their new home.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

His first night in New Mexico, while everyone else slept,
Melvin Frohike sat at his new kitchen table, gripped with
nameless dread. It sat in his gut like cold, greasy
cabbage. What if they had hitched their wagon to an
imploding star?

The fact that he didn't say any thing negative, or at least
more negative than usual, didn't necessarily mean he didn't
have any misgivings. He didn't see the point; what was done
was done. He knew Thea. He knew Langly. He knew there was
no way that particular genie was going back in the bottle.

Still, he wrestled with himself. Over the last couple of
years, how many late nights had he trudged past them on his
way to bed, leaving those two innocents alone to sit side
by side on the red couch, caught up in some Hong Kong
action extravaganza or anime blood-and-guts melodrama, with
repressed sexual tension, like a sleeping tiger, in the
room? How many times had he watched them leaning over the
same keyboard, arms tangled, without stopping to see what
was looming on the horizon? Could he have done anything
about it? Or was sex as inevitable as gravity? Would it be
too much to expect a guy to put on a raincoat before he
took the fall?

Thea was young, but she was flexible. She learned; she
grew. She'd taken everything Langly could teach her about
hacking and now stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with him.
Frohike had no doubt she would accept the challenges of
motherhood as matter-of-factly as she took everything else.
It was the Scully in her. He had never seen her fail to
cope.

Langly was the one who worried him. 'Mercurial' was not the
right word. You never fucking knew with the guy. He might
rise to the occasion admirably. Then again, he might crash
and burn. He was a study in screwed up. Neuroses, thy name
was Ringo.

Most people who knew them both would have said Byers was
the repressed one; they couldn't have gotten it more wrong.
Frohike knew that, other than being 'Captain Do the Right
Thing,' Byer's only real hang up was anger. In his own
gentlemanly way, Byers was actually fairly smooth with the
opposite sex.

Anger, however, was the only emotion Langly felt entirely
at ease with, but scratch the tin foil armor and he was a
child. Some part of Langly was younger than Thea had ever
been. He'd seen the two of them watching cartoons on
Saturday morning after Saturday morning, Langly unabashedly
enthralled and Thea analyzing the propaganda content. Her
comment? "Gibson liked TV. too."

Not that she was exactly pristine when it came to the
lowliest of all media. But in this milieu, her taste and
Goldilocks' did not coincide much - although the two of
them watched "Junkyard Wars" with the fervor of hockey
Fans, Thea's fascination with boxing turned Ringo's
stomach.

Langly might deny that Thea had taken virginity as well as
lost it last March, but Frohike remembered one particular
drunken night all too well.

1998. Russ Meyer marathon. Entirely too much vodka.
Conversation had gone from women in general to specific
women. Byers pissed and moaned about Susanne. Fro himself
had complained about the fact that all the women he hooked
up with were inevitably cut from the same bewildering
marriage-obsessed cloth. Mulder whined about not having
been laid in years, then spent forty minutes wondering
aloud if Scully loved him, without managing to say
her name once.

Out of the blue, Langly burst bitterly forth with "Yeah,
well at least you guys've actually *had* girlfriends."

Kind of made Mulder's problems seem inconsequential.

Langly didn't come out of his room for three days after
that, and when he finally emerged, his response to a
heartfelt offer of a hooker was a suggestion that
Melvin Frohike do something very uncomfortable with a
length of coax cable.

The same traits that at first made Langly knocking-up a
chickadee who was less than half his age fairly easy for
Mel to swallow were beginning to make him worry. Seriously,
what kind of grown woman would want him?

In truth, the guy was immature. When he was twenty, it
seemed like he had a chance of growing out of it, but by
the time he hit his mid-thirties fundamentally unchanged,
the outlook was not so rosy. Melvin wondered if maybe
Langly hadn't missed the ship bound for the promised land
of adulthood when they started the paper. He wondered if it
was something he had done, something about the way he and
Byers had treated him all these years that had helped him
to turn out this way, rather than some internal malfunction
of the growth mechanism. It was hard not to treat him like
a kid when he acted like one. And it was hard to stop
acting like a kid when you were treated like one, day in
and day out.

Frohike was chagrined to realize he credited Thea with
more self-possession than he did Langly, but being
chagrined wouldn't make him change his opinion. When the
shit hit the fan, Thea always, inevitably, did the thing
that needed doing, no matter how difficult or distasteful.

She wasn't perfect; Frohike knew she had her blind-spots,
namely diplomacy, Richard Langly, and the entire medical
profession. But she was grindingly pragmatic and stoic to a
fault. Like the father she had never known, being
responsible was basic to her nature.

Since Langly and Thea had gotten married, there was
something about the whole arrangement that set Frohike's
teeth on edge. Goldilocks was always playing with her
wedding ring, for one thing. For another, every evening
they would snuggle up together on the couch, and the night
they had driven nearly across the whole goddamn country had
been no exception. Thea sat up fingering that hair, that
stupid hair of his, the broad, satisfied smile of a woman
spreading itself luxuriously across her face. Langly
nuzzled her belly, all dimples and twinkling blue eyes. He
looked 14, not less than a month away from 38.

Frohike had felt physically ill at the sight and suppressed
the desire to grab Langly by the collar and give him what
for. Didn't that moron realize what a serious situation he
had gotten them all into? Langly should have been sweating
bullets, not grinning like an idiot. Frohike wanted to
shake him hard, but it wouldn't have done any good.

Either way, Ringo would show what he was made of when the
moment of truth came.

And he might wind up impressing them all. The only thing
they could do was wait and see.

That scared the shit out of Melvin Frohike.

The best he could hope for at the moment was a distraction.

It came.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Melvin Frohike went into the coffee shop for a cup of
coffee. He had no idea it would be the day he would really
begin to love the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

He ordered in Spanish, because he could, and because he
thought it might win him some points with the veritable
bevy of Latina waitresses buzzing around the joint like so
many lipsticked bees. The Joker beside him felt compelled
to comment.

"That's some serious fucked-up Espanol, Cuz."

Melvin Frohike frowned. "I believe I was speaking to the
young lady."

"Sheesh, Wanda ain't no young lady. 'sides,Cuz, she's
married. So's-" he began to point "-Mary Lou, Delores,
Yolanda, Lolo, Barbara ain't married but she ain't single,
if you know what I mean."

Frohike gave him a hard look, but said nothing.

"So where you from?" the other man continued. "I know it
ain't here, but you don't sound like no Mujado neither, and
you sure don't look like a Mujado." He took another sip of
coffee.

"Cubano - second generation," Frohike answered. "Melvin
Quinones is the name." He offered his hand.

"Gilbert Garcia. They call me GG. That your bike I saw you
come up on?" He said referring to the Indian, of course; it
always attracted attention from anyone breathing without
assistance.

"Yeah," Frohike answered, playing it cool.

"Then you're gonna be seein' a lotta me." GG grinned a
sideways little grin. "I own the Harley Shop."

"Maybe I'll see you around town, then, CUZ," Frohike
enunciated clearly. "I do all my own work on that girl."

"For reals?" GG looked impressed. "You wanna take me out to
get a good close look at her?"

"Sure."

"How long you had her for?" GG asked, pushing his way
through the coffee shop door.

"My old man bought her new in '46. He passed to me in '73.
She's never been outside the family," Melvin felt compelled
to add as they stepped into the parking lot.

They shot the shit for a good twenty minutes, talking
engines and horsepower and what was wrong with anything
made in the last 20 years. By the time they returned to
their cooling cups of coffee, Frohike had the admiration of
his new acquaintance and a job as a mechanic at the Harley
Shop.

Just as Frohike sat, the sharp cry of "Donuts Donuts
Donuts" rent the air. He looked up.

A vision of delight met Melvin's eyes. This vision was
plump, mid-to-late forties, and slightly taller than
average. A scarf held back long, dark tresses with fine
streaks of gray. She was heavily made-up, and had a pair of
breasts like cantaloupes fighting to escape from behind her
apron. The coup de gras was a tray of chocolate doughnuts
in her arms.

"Cindy!" GG enthused, looking up from his coffee. "Just the
lady I wanted to see! Gimme two blueberries, Meja."

"Oh GG, you just love me for my doughnuts." She laughed.
Her laugh tinkled like a slightly off kilter bell.

"You got that right.  You got too many ex's for me, Meja. I
don't want no woman whose been around the block more times
than I have."

"So what do you do?" she teased, setting the donuts on a
plate in front of him. "Go down to Sante Fe and cruise the
nunnery?"

"Maybe." GG tipped his head toward Frohike. "Meet my new
best friend, Cuba."

"Pleased to meet you." Cindy had a devastating smile.

"The pleasure is mine," Frohike responded. "Say you wouldn't
happen to have a couple of those donuts in chocolate for a
guy who knows how to treat a beautiful woman, would you?"
Mel smiled, feeling good.

"Does Cuba here lay it on thick or what?" GG laughed
stuffed a donut in his mouth.

"You bet I do." Cindy batted her eyes at Frohike. "I have
eclairs, too"

"You don't say?" Frohike responded. He left the shop 40
minutes later with a job, a new nick name, a date, and a
tell-tale trace of custard in the corner of his mouth.

That night, he learned Cindy was 52, adventurous, cheerful,
not overly talkative, never went anywhere without lipstick,
and had no interest in either matrimony or cohabitation.
Her only draw back was a surly teenaged daughter with
something resembling a life of her own.

All in all, Melvin 'Cuba' Quinones had found his perfect woman.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

See Part One for more details.

**NOTE** - This is technically a WIP -- 12 fairly
substantial parts is my best estimate at this time.
You have been warned.

***OTHER NOTE*** - Thanks to Livia Balaban for
'Seti Troopers,' - what a great idea ;-)
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

It took exactly four days for John Wilson (formerly Byers)
to obtain gainful employment. Work opportunities in the
tiny hamlet of El Rito were limited to working in one of a
handful of small recording studios, the single winery, or
leading wealthy tourists on fly fishing or kayaking trips,
none of which exactly suited his personality or abilities.
He was, therefore, forced to look farther a-field. The
full-time position he was offered at the Harwood Public
library was perfect; the forty five minute drive to Taos
was less than many urban commutes and the view was lovely.

His first day on the job he spent mostly setting up audio
visual aids for a University of New Mexico satellite's
'Introduction to Anthropology' class taught in a basement
meeting room. The professor was young and pleasant; he
thought he might want to take a class from her in the
future.  Maybe two.

Soon, they chatted regularly over their sack lunches at
the picnic tables in front of the small library garden,
but, other than missing her on the days she had no classes,
he thought little of it.  He enjoyed her company. She was
intelligent and personable. He'd made a friend. It was
that simple.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Ringo's well-built pretense of autonomy shattered when he
took the first regular joe-job of his life. He had to leave
Thea by herself for eight hours a day, nine and a half if
you counted the commute. He couldn't stop thinking about
her. They hadn't been apart like that since they'd met. He
imagined every male in El Rito aching for her attention. If
he was one of these imagined suitors, he would start by
bringing her broken electronics, then steal her affection
with amazing feats of sexual prowess.

He could never quite figure out what would happen between
presenting her with the busted amp and the bedroom, though.
How lame was that? He couldn't for the life of him figure
out how to seduce his own wife. That was just pitiful.

Every second of his work day he wondered where she was,
what she was doing, and who else was thinking about her.

Ringo had always had a special disrespect for jealous
husbands, so it was a pain in the ass to realize he was
one. Before they had ever slept together, he'd gotten a big
clue and ignored it - a boy at the skate park bought her
some cheese fries one night. It had made Ringo uncomfortable
but he didn't ask himself why. Back then, he didn't want to
know why he felt unreasonable hostility toward a baby-faced
kid whose mom picked him up in a Volvo. He didn't need the
aggravation.

Ringo Langly might not have had a lot of first-hand
experience with relationships, but this he knew; to possess
a thing was also to be possessed by it. Unfortunately, he
treasured the illusion of freedom. Too bad it was too late
to pretend. He, and it, were long, long gone.

The only solution he could find was to attend to his job
only when it was unavoidable and spend the rest of his time
chatting with Thea. He lowered the bar at a local ISP
already renowned for spotty service and a surly help-line,
inspiring his co-workers to more sarcasm and even more
lackadaisical repairs. Any time he was put on the spot
about his use of company time, his reply was, "She's
pregnant," as if it was well-understood that gestation
required a modem connection. If he was not a bad employee,
he did a remarkable imitation of one. It was a wonder he
lasted the 21 days he did.

He had been engaged in wanton cyber-sex with Thea on his laptop
while repairing a line and wound up knocking out internet
connections for half the company's 4000 customers. When his
supervisor apologetically let him go, the only person who was
surprised was Ringo Langly. But he wasn't what you would call
heart broken.

He went home to his wife, with a twinkle in his eye and a
spring in his slouching step. He walked through the front
door at noon to find her reading a stack of children's
books Byers brought home a few days before.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? THIS RED FISH, BLUE FISH BOOK? IT'S
VERY STRANGE. AND THIS ONE? WHY IS THIS CAT DOING THESE
THINGS? IT HAS A TIE BUT NO SHIRT. WHY IS IT BIPEDAL? THE
KIDS SHOULDN'T HAVE LET IT IN THE HOUSE, THE FISH WAS
RIGHT. She shook the books at him.

I GOT FIRED, he signed trying not to smile.

COOL, she signed. WANT TO PLAY THE NEW GAME I DOWNLOADED?

MAYBE I GOT A BETTER IDEA, he signed, peeking at her
through a lock of hair.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

When Frohike came home early, he was greeted by the sight
of Langly, kneeling naked in front of the couch playing
hide the bratwurst with his big-bellied wife. She was on
the sofa with her long legs thrown over his freckled
shoulders as he thrust lazily. She raised her eyebrow at
Frohike.

My god, she's limber, Melvin thought as he got back in the
car, wondering how much time he ought to give them.

When he returned, they'd gone upstairs.  But he decided he
was never, ever going to sit on that couch again.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

A week later Ringo had not made even the most cursory
attempt at finding employment. Instead, he and his young
wife repaired several mixing boards deemed unsalvageable by
the neighbors four houses down, also known as Discobolus
Studios, and were repaid with cash, a crate of avocados and
a his pick of several rare CDs. Neither John nor Melvin
was exactly sure what they'd done for whom, but stuff began
to pile up in a striking manner: camping equipment,
pressure cookers, a tattoo gun, two more couches, a Tesla
coil, three scuba tanks, an antique wicker pram, a crate of
smoked kippers, a box of obscenely juicy imported oranges,
and most of a butchered deer.

Ringo insisted what they were doing was better than a job
since it was part of the barter economy. Byers couldn't
follow his reasoning, but then, he didn't put a lot of
effort into it.

July was on its way and John laid on the couch drinking a
beer and thumbing through The Journal of American Medicine,
reminding himself that envy was a petty emotion and was
utterly beneath him.

He watched the couple spending their usual evening time at
the monitor. He glanced carelessly at Ringo running his
pinky along the inside of her arm and looked quickly back
down at his article on necrotic bowels. Langly stopped at
her wrist. Did he feel her pulse? What else did he feel
with her there on his lap? Did he even notice? Or was he
too focused on the information on the screen to realize
what he held in his arms?

Byers took a sip from his Sam Adams and closed his
eyes. He didn't even realize he was drifting off until
Langly woke him.

"See ya in the morning," he called as Thea pulled him by
the hand in the direction of bed. Langly made a point of
stopping on the stairs and yawning theatrically. It was
pretense. Pure Pretense. They would be downstairs again in
an hour, languid and hungry and musky smelling. Thea would
rummage through the refrigerator for meat and Langly would
eat Cap'n Crunch from a mixing bowl.

"It's okay," Frohike said as soon as they were gone.

"Of course it is," Byers answered, blinking to himself,
unsure of the topic.

"Situation like this," Frohike went on from his own
couch, "it's the most natural thing in the
world to be a little jealous."

"I'm not jealous," Byers replied quickly, still blinking
rabbit-like.

"Anybody would be."

Byers was silent a long moment. "It's like a fairytale " he
finally said softly. "The worthy knight, after many
adventures, finds the lost princess, evil sorcerers,
magical beings, true love." It reminded him of Mulder and
Scully, but he didn't say that our loud.

Frohike either couldn't or wouldn't suppress a derisive
laugh. "Sounds like a load of crap to me."

"You said anyone would envy..." John looked bewildered as
Frohike cut him off mid-sentence.

"I meant because they're like a couple of goats." Frohike
laughed again and took a pull at his own beer.

"That sounds like obfuscation to me." Byers frowned primly
as he said it.

Suddenly Frohike became slightly more serious, his smile
More wistful. "You know what's special about those two
knuckleheads? They're friends. Yeah, they're probably in
love, too, but a man and a woman goin' at it like rabbits
and still best friends? That's something you don't see
everyday." He took another pull at his beer.

To this, Byers had no reply. He had never considered that
friendship and romance could co-exist. All his
relationships were based on idealization. But then, now
that he thought about it, all his relationships ended in
disappointment and disillusionment, too. For the first time
in his life he considered there might be some correlation
between the two.

He had in all honesty spent more time over the years with
his dentist than he had with Susanne Modeski. It was a
sobering thought.

Out of the blue Doctor Wilde came to mind.

He set down his copy of JAMA and thought about her for a
good long time. Then he made a well-thought-out plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day at lunch he offered her the brownie he had
packed for himself and asked if she'd do him the honor of
accompanying him to the town 4th of July parade.

Her reply? "Chocolate and librarian's biceps? Oooh! How
could I refuse?"

John blushed.

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

It was, by any standard, a good first date.

They ate red, white, and blue missile Popsicles he
bought from a street vendor, laughed at a flotilla of 20
sequin wearing welsh corgis running in formation to give
the illusion of a low and rather doggy American flag,
raised their eyebrows at three teenaged girls in red
checkered bikinis with the Declaration of Independence
painted on their bodies. John even managed to catch a
handful of candy thrown by a volunteer fireman from the
back of the gleaming polished fire-truck. They had fun.  At
least, John did.  He hoped Amanda had, too.

Three days later they went out for lattes at a trendy
book-filled coffee shop. Amanda told him about her
childhood, her family, her parents, her friends. John
listened attentively and hoped she didn't notice when he
didn't share the same facts about himself.

Two days after that, they attended a poetry reading.

Three days later, there was a trip to the Saint Vincent de
Paul thrift store during lunch, where he bought Thea a
tent-like maternity dress. Amanda looked surprised. "For a
friend's wife," was all the explanation he gave, realizing
that, even as he said it, he may have made a major
miscalculation. But two days after that, they made a trip
30 miles south to the Drive-In Theatre in Espanola.

Everything was going according to plan.

He did his best not to arouse his house mates' suspicions.
He claimed he was working late, or doing volunteer work for
the animal shelter or any number of other likely excuses.
If anyone could ruin his chances with Dr. Wilde, it was the
people he cared for most in the world.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

One Friday at the end of August, the four of them - Ringo,
John, Melvin, and Thea - were scarfing down a pleasant
dinner of black olive and anchovy pizza, when John's ruse
began to unravel.

It started when Thea spied a bit of blue fabric peeking out
of the pocket of John's khaki pants. Having little or no
cap on her natural curiosity, she didn't think twice about
pulling the fabric quickly out of his pocket to reveal a
pair of cotton panties. She stood and waved them in the
air.

John lunged. Thea ran. Just as he was about to reach her,
she tossed them over his head to Ringo, who held them just
beyond Byers's grasp. John jumped frantically, Ringo
smirking down at him as he tossed the underpants back to
Thea. John miscalculated, attempting to bring Ringo down
before the panties left his hand. But he tackled too late,
and they laid on the floor face-to-face for a second while
Thea ran upstairs with the underpants, her belly like the
prow of a ship.

In such close quarters, Ringo realized John's face smelled
suspiciously like he'd been, as Ringo would put it later to
Thea, looking shyly away, 'on a pearl diving expedition.'

Ringo slid easily out from under John. "Sorry," Langly
apologized. "That uhh got uuuuuhhhh outta control. Um,
congratulations. Where'd you meet her?"

John chose to ignore him.

"Aww c'mon, Johnboy, you know all about my lady," Langly
tried to ingratiate himself a little too late.

"Lady?" John snorted. Thea was creeping down the stairs by
this time, and Byers stood stock still and crossed his arms
at her.

WHO IS SHE? Thea demanded, the panties dangling
from her hand. WHAT'S HER NAME? WHERE DID YOU MEET? DO YOU
LOVE HER? WHY DON'T YOU HAVE HER SPEND THE NIGHT?

GIVE ME THE PANTIES NOW, John signed stonily.

JOHN, she signed, WHAT'S HER NAME?

UNDERPANTS NOW, he signed.

FUNNY NAME, Thea signed. She held up the underpants in
question.  I HAVE SOME JUST LIKE THIS. HAYNES HER WAY.
COMFORTABLE.

THOSE ARE BRIEFS - YOU WEAR BIKINIS Langly interjected.

Thea rolled her eyes. WHAT KIND OF UNDERPANTS DOES CINDY
WEAR, FRO?

SHE DOESN'T. Frohike signed, still at the table.

"EEEEeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww," Langly squealed and signed
simultaneously. "That is not an image I want in my head.
They let her cook like that?"

YOU'VE HAD YOUR FUN, KIDS. GIVE THEM TO HIM BEFORE I GIVE
YOU BRATS THE  ASS PADDLING YOU DESERVE, Frohike signed,
ignoring Langly's comment. JOHN'LL INTRODUCE US TO MISS
UNDERPANTS WHEN HE'S READY.

"She's a doctor," John snapped, then cringed.

JOHN'LL INTRODUCE US TO DOCTOR UNDERPANTS WHEN HE'S READY,
Frohike amended. NOW GIVE HIM THE PANTIES.

Langly smirked, first at Frohike, then at Byers.  Thea
stuck out her tongue, but allowed the article of clothing
in question to drift down into John's hands.

Even after they learned her name, Thea and Ringo continued
to refer to Dr. Wilde as 'Dr. Underpants.'

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Amanda  stood over the potato display in the grocery
store, lost in meditation. She was feeling very favorably
disposed toward John Wilson right at that moment,
thinking she'd cook him something tasty, ply him with a
good wine, and then. . .

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice came from behind her.  She
stepped out of the way of the shopper she'd been blocking,
and much to her surprise, caught a glimpse of her amorata
turning into the produce section.

With a woman.

A pregnant woman.

A very pregnant woman who appeared to be wearing the
maternity tent he'd bought a month earlier when she'd gone
with John to the thrift shop.

An enormously pregnant woman who kissed John soundly on
the cheek.

Amanda felt her heart rise to her throat.

That shit. That bastard. He already had a baby on the way,
from the look of things. He was obviously playing Johnny
Appleseed, spreading the fruit of his loins as far as
possible.

Shit. She felt sick to her stomach. She had really trusted
that cheating son of a bitch.

Amanda wished the floor would open and swallow her.
Instead, she stepped a little too quickly backwards and
accidentally stumbled through the doors marked EMPLOYEES
ONLY.

Shit.

She was ready to sneak back out, when some wily part of
her brain realized she could see without being seen from
her new vantage point. She stood, watching through the
round windows as that son of a bitch and that poor,
incredibly pregnant woman picked their way through the heads
of endive.

"Hey," a voice startled Amanda. She turned.  A round faced
man with MIKE and PRODUCE MANAGER embroidered on his shirt
was giving her a hard look. "I'm sorry ma'am, but you
can't-"

"I think my boyfriend is cheating on me or with me or, or
something," she sputtered. "I'm not entirely clear on the
semantics of the situation right now. I'm just-"

Mike cut her off. "Yes, I'm sorry, but ma'am-"

"Look." Amanda pointed.  Anger was rising in her. "Those
two. By the lettuce. Look at them."

"Ma'am, I-"

"Look!"

"Okay." Mike said, peering through the smudged window.
"The guy with the holly on his head?"

"He's the one."

"Oh. I know that girl. She comes in a lot but she's usually
with a different guy."

Amanda scowled. "Great. So they're both cheaters."

"I don't think so, I - oh, look. There he is, her regular
squeeze, the one with the cereal, mas wheto."

Most white, indeed, Amanda thought. This new guy was the
very model of your standard northern New Mexico Anglo male,
and looked like someone had dipped him in bleach. He was
about two shades shy of albino.

Mas wheto said something to John and dumped the cereal into
the basket. DressWoman slipped her hand into the new guy's
hip pocket and simultaneously brushed the top of John's
head lightly with her other hand.

"Could be one of those free love things," Mike said. "Like
up at the Lawrence Ranch. You know, share and share
alike?"

"Shit," was all Amanda could think to say. All she wanted
now was to get out of the grocery store without being seen.
"You have a back door here?"

Mike shook his head.  "Other end of the building."

"Shit," she repeated. She wasn't about to abandon her food
for the sake of that sleaze. The hard part was going to be
making it through the check-out line.

She almost made it, too.

She was mid check-out, her inner voice screaming at the
cashier to 'hurry-up-dammit-hurry-the-fuck-up!' as she
smiled pleasantly.

"Amanda," John's gentle voice came up right behind her.
"Hey." He smiled when she turned reflexively toward him.
"Fancy meeting you here."

There he was. Behind him, a small, gnomish older man wearing
fingerless gloves appeared to giving a grocery list the
once-over. Mas wheto, as she thought of him now, was
browsing his way through a copy of some trash tabloid,
scowl on his face. And up close, DressWoman looked young.
Indecently, damned-near illegally young.

The John Wilson Amanda knew - or thought she knew - would
never be involved with a teenaged girl. Or was her mother
right about all men being morally inferior to the average
dog? Or - a light shone at the end of Amanda's emotional
tunnel and she prayed it was not a train - could she be his
daughter? A much younger sister?

She was grasping at straws, she realized, as disappointment
settled in her gut.

"Hi Amanda," he repeated.

"Oh, John, hey," she answered, flipping a stray tendril of
hair back behind her ear. She was trying to sound light and
casual instead of deflated and defeated.

The gnome behind John cleared his throat theatrically.

"Oh, um, Amanda, I'd like to introduce you to my, um,
housemates."

"Your um housemates?"

"Dr. Amanda Wilde, meet Melvin Quinones."

She made herself smile again as the gnome took her hand.
"Mr. Quinones."

"Mel is fine, Dr. Wilde," he assured her, and kissed her
hand soundly.

Amanda swallowed. "Pleased to meet you, Mel."

"This is Ringo, um, Richard Torvald," John supplied as
Langly leaned over the cart and shook her hand.

"Ringo's okay, better than Richard, anyway. Nice to meet
you."

"Likewise."  She squeezed his hand forcefully.

For a moment, all eyes focused on the pregnant girl.

Amanda went for broke. "And this?"

"This is my wife, Thea," Ringo supplied.  "She's deaf." The
other men began to sign back and forth rapidly with the
girl, whose fingers moved so quickly Amanda was almost
incredulous.

Suddenly, the girl's eyes lit up and she leaned forward
extending her hand over the top of the grocery cart. But
her belly was too big and no matter how she squirmed, she
couldn't reach. Finally, Thea stamped her foot in
frustration, gave up, and just waved.

Everyone laughed, even Amanda, although her laugh was
somewhat uneasy.

Amanda waved back. "Hi."

"So-" John began.

"When is she-" Amanda said, then remembered that she
should be talking to Thea. She turned to face the girl and
was careful to make eye contact. "When are you due?

"December," Ringo answered as Thea signed.  Before the
surprise could register on Amanda's face, Ringo added,
"It's triplets.  So, John tell you about the potluck yet?"

"No." Amanda turned to John. "There's a lot John hasn't
told me."

"Well, I was going-" John began, but Mel cut him off.

"Just a few friends and neighbors. Is El Rito out of your
way?"

"Actually, I live in El Rito," she said slowly, giving John
a pointed look, "although I'm not home a lot."

"Small world, huh?" Ringo smirked and she didn't
particularly like it. "Tomorrow, 7:30, 8:00.  We'd love if
you could join us, wouldn't we, *John?*"

John looked pale suddenly, but agreed.  "We would, Amanda.
We really would," he said sincerely.

"Pot luck?" Amanda asked.

Three of the four nodded. "We expect about 25 people."

"Sounds like fun," she said with little real enthusiasm.
If nothing else, she'd get some answers. "I'll be there."
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

Byers still hadn't figured out the protocol for announcing
oneself at the door of a yurt. There was nothing to knock
on and just walking in was something he still wasn't quite
comfortable with, especially under the circumstances. He
scratched the back of his neck for a moment, then called,
"Hello? Amanda?"

In response, a small curly mop came rushing out the bottom
of the door flap and attempted to leap into his arms. He
lifted it. "Hey, Spot." He laughed for an instant, taken
aback. At least the dog's feelings hadn't changed.

A moment later, the flap pushed open and Amanda stood there
in her bathrobe. It was the first time he'd seen her out of
her ever-present khaki shorts, aside from the few times she
had been utterly OUT of her khaki shorts.

"May I have my dog back please?" she asked quietly.

The dog in question attempted to bury his head in John's
chest. Amanda was clearly less than thrilled.

"I believe I owe you an explanation," he said lightly.

"If you want to lie to me, that's your business," she
answered softly.

"I was concerned that you might find my friends somewhat,
um, off-putting I guess, and I didn't want you to get the
wrong idea."

She pulled her robe more tightly closed. "And what wrong
idea would that be, hmmmm?"

John did not answer immediately; he was not certain there
was a right response.

"That's about what I thought," she muttered. "Look, John, I
finally found a good spot for my satellite dish and Seti
Troopers is about to start, so I'd appreciate if you'd give
me my dog and go-"

His words came out in a rush. "I live with three other
people - Melvin and Ringo and Ringo's wife Thea.  You met
them at the store. We've lived together for years. Well, not
Thea, but-"

"It's not some stupid alternative life-style thing, is it?"
she sniffed.

John's eyes went wide. "What?" That was when he noticed how
terrible she looked. Her eyes and nose were red and puffy,
and her hair looked like she's combed it with a hand mixer.

"Polyamory," she mumbled. "Polyandry. Group marriage.
Something stranger I don't even want to know the name for."

"Absolutely not," he assured her. "God, no. And I shouldn't
have said I lived in Dixon, either."

"No," she agreed. "You shouldn't have. What the hell is
this all about?"

"It's a complicated situation," he began.  Off her look, he
quickly added, "Complicated, not kinky. I've known and
worked with Ringo and Melvin since the late 80's. Most of
the time it was just cheaper and easier to share living
accommodations, so we did.  Do.  We still are."

Amanda folder her arms across her chest. "And Thea?"

"Thea's been living with us for almost three years."

"How old is she?"

John scratched his chin. "Almost 18."

"She's been living with the three of you for three years
and she's only 17? I hope she hasn't been married to your
friend for that long, John."

"No," he said.

"No," Amanda repeated, clearly angry. "So why was a 15 year
old girl living with three supposedly adult males?"

John hesitated. Honesty was one thing, but he wasn't sure
how much he could tell her without just plain scaring her.
He didn't want that.

"Thea's parents are friends of ours. She needed a place to
stay.  We let her."

Amanda looked skeptical. "And now she's married to Ringo
and pregnant with triplets?"

"Shit happens."  John shrugged. "On the upside, she and
Ringo are madly in love."

"How do her parents feel about this?"

John exhaled slowly.  "They don't know."

Amanda gave him a long, hard look. "Give me my dog, John."

"I struggled with it myself, Amanda, but they're in
love, he isn't taking advantage of her. It's a weird
situation, but it's, god, it's okay, it really is."

She shook her head.  John, I-"

"Look," he said, knowing he sounded desperate. "Come to the
potluck. See everyone in their natural habitat. You'll see that
it's unconventional, but it's not bad. And, and, um, if you
don't come I won't know anyone but my friends." He held out
Spot. "Please?"

She took her dog and, for a moment, their hands touched and
the top of her robe slipped open.

"Probably," she replied. She hesitated a moment. "It's
three minutes until the credits roll."

"Right," John nodded. "Seti Troopers. I'll get going."

"I, um," she hesitated, "I was going to ask if you'd like
to come in."

John blinked. "Sure. I, am I forgiven?"

"No," She answered. She held open the door flap. "But I
might need someone to adjust the dish.  You'll do."

John wasn't stupid. He went inside.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

Thea wasn't exactly hiding when she stowed herself in a
comfortable office chair behind the bank of speakers
Ritchie had assembled for the party.  She liked feeling the
thump of the sound system all over her body, and even the
babies moved in rhythm. It was a cool trick of theirs, she
thought: they were smart and they weren't even born yet.

Besides, it wasn't really hiding.  She was just eating
cherries from a paper sack and...avoiding.

This was NOT like any party the guys had in Takoma Park.

This first party in New Mexico was busier than any at the
old warehouse, more animated, more people. No one had the
slightest interest in a friendly game of D&D. And most
different of all, there were lots and lots of chicks. They
never used to have chicks at their parties.
Unless you counted her.  And she didn't.

It wasn't like she had a problem with Byers and Frohike
having women. She didn't, honest. It seemed like nearly
every guy in New Mexico had a female, and so did a lot of
the women. It was kind of relaxing to consider there were
women who preferred other women sexually and therefore
could be safely assumed to have no interest in Ringo.  She
liked two or three of the smarter ones and deemed the
coupled-up females pretty harmless, overall. It was all the
unattached women floating around her house like free
radicals that made her clinch her jaw.

And her husband was acting weird.

Robert Thompson had ridden his horse over and brought her
the sack full of cherries. Ritchie had made that
face - that pissed-off face where the corners of his mouth
went down and his nostrils flared. When she offered him a
cherry, Ritchie signed NO THANKS and stalked off somewhere.
Sitting where people wouldn't see her and feel compelled to
try to communicate with her seemed like the best option.

Her ass was starting to fall asleep so she struggled to her
feet. Ritchie surprised her by sticking his head around
the corner.

GOT ANY CHERRIES LEFT? he signed.

She held out two on a common stem. YOU STILL MAD?

He looked embarrassed, started to sign something, then
appeared to think better of it. Blond hair swayed as he
shook his head, popping the cherries into his mouth.

She reached out and ran two fingers along his cheek, traced
his jaw. He stepped closer, as close as her distended belly
would allow. She drew two fingertips down the bridge of his
nose and watched as his right hand went unconsciously to
his now straining crotch. With one finger, she touched his
mouth.

Ritchie buried his face in her hand, nuzzling the palm.

WANT ME TO SUCK YOU? she signed, drawing her hand away.

HERE? NOW? WHAT IF SOMEONE SEES?  he asked.

IF SOMEONE SEES US, THEY WILL CONSIDER THEMSELVES
FORTUNATE, she answered, the slightest smile on her lips.

I LOVE YOU, Ritchie signed. YOU'RE SO DIRTY.

Thea was poised to pop open all the buttons on his jeans at
once when a head of long wavy chestnut brown hair poked
itself into the cubby where they stood.

Robert Thompson. Damn!

The two men traded speech, rapid-fire. Thea wishing she
could lip-read more than her name and a few vital words.

She signed a question mark to her husband.

SOMEONE AT THE FRONT DOOR. I THINK IT'S DR. UNDERPANTS, he
signed back.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Thea replied. LET HER IN BEFORE
SHE CHANGES HER MIND!

Ritchie grinned and took off for the door.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

Potluck. Yeah. Right.

Amanda wasn't stupid; she knew a party when she saw
one.

It was loud.  It was crowded.  On top of that, there was a
line of behemoth American-made motorcycles parked in front
of the house.

But part of her was curious to see if John's friends were
as odd as he'd let on, and part of her didn't want to know.

Spot wagged his tail. She could turn around, fire up the
generator, watch an old Seti Troopers DVD, and eat the
garlic roasted peppers and rice crispy treats she'd brought
along in the relative comfort of her yurt. It sounded a lot
like a plan, really.

As she stood there deliberating, the door opened.

It was the blond roommate. What was his name? Paul? She
knew it was one of the Beatles. Damn, no way she could run
away graciously now.

"You're here. Cool." He gave her a measuring look that
made her feel nervous.  "Loverboy was gonna be pathetic if
you were a no-show," he added laconically.

She tried to smile and nod. "Oh, I-"

Suddenly the blond's face lit up. He looked 12, complete
with dimples.

"RicekrispytreatsAAALLLLLRRRRRRRIIGGGGHHHHTTTTTT!" he
squealed. He took the plate from her hands, yanked back the wrap,
and shoved one into his mouth. "By bub usta bake deez," he said
with his mouth full.

"Yes," Amanda smiled. "One of the treasured ethnic
delicacies of my people. They have sustained us through
times of great famine and many episodes of the Brady
Bunch."

The blond just stood there, nodding and chewing.

"Next time I could bring bologna sandwiches on Wonder bread
with mayonnaise."

"And Kool-Aid?" he asked, shoving a second square into his
mouth.

"Cherry," she answered. "Unless you prefer grape?"

"Cool."  But he still didn't ask her in.

For some bizarre reason, Spot suddenly developed amorous
designs on John's roommate's foot. The roommate didn't
notice; he was chewing with an ecstatic look on his face.

Fortunately, the gnomish hand-kisser she'd met in the
grocery chose that moment to stick his head through the doorway.

"Let the lady in, willya, *Ritchie*?" he said, slapping the
blond on the back of the head. "Sheesh."

"Why doncha ever make me rice krispy squares?" Ritchie said
as soon as he swallowed.

"Why don't you bring me flowers?" the tiny man answered.

"Why don't you blow me?"

"In your dreams, Farmboy."

Further volleying was interrupted by John poking his
head between the two combatants.

"Amanda!" he said breathily.

No one, she realized as John took her hand and led her into
the bustling house, had ever looked so pleased to see her
in all her life. She was suddenly very glad to be there.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Amanda had no idea that the next day she was investigated
within an inch of her life.

Her middle name was Lynn.  (It took Langly some time to
explain to Thea that *Amanda Lynn* sounded like *a
mandolin* and why that was funny.)

They also learned Amanda was the only child of prosperous
blue collar parents who divorced when she was ten years
old, that her father had been a plumber and her mother a
secretary, and that both were now deceased; her only
grade below an A in her entire school career was a D
in typing in 11th grade; she had lived on a series of
scholarships and grants and her late father's nest egg
until earning her Ph.D.; she had owned a succession of
small, long haired pure breed dogs and her groomer bills
were high; she taught but preferred to excavate; she had
had a series of serious, long-term relationships with
various grad students, but had never married; she was
apolitical to a degree Thea found peculiar; and best of
all, she had no ties to any known conspiracy.

They deemed her safe.

Not that John would have listened to them if they had any
objections.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

A leopard cannot change its spots, nor a zebra its stripes.
And a man who has spent forty five years being a boy scout
is unlikely to be transformed by something as shallow as a
shave, a haircut, and a new name.

Whether he was called Byers or Wilson, John Fitzgerald
still carried an extensive first aid kit, a jack, jumper
cables, and, since Frohike had a habit of ripping the seat
out of his pants, a sewing kit whenever he left the house.
It was practical.

And so, his day began with saving Barney. Yes, THAT
Barney. The eight-foot tall soft-sculpture dinosaur in the
children's library had been injured in a violent
tussle between three 2-year-old girls.  This resulted in
tiny Styrofoam balls spilling everywhere. As the only
person in the immediate vicinity with both a sewing kit and
the appropriate colored thread, John had been elected to
mend the behemoth.

He sat on a stool behind the circulation desk, stuffed purple
legs thrown over his shoulders, intently focused on
his repair job.

"John?"

He did not recognize the voice, and so, he did not look up.

"John," the voice again, and this time there was something
familiar in the intonation. "John, is that you?"

Oh Lord. It couldn't be...

He looked up.

It couldn't be, but it was.

"Susanne?"

She let out a small laugh, and it sounded like a caged bird
fluttering its wings. "That's quite a disguise. I almost
didn't recognize you."

He smiled shyly, lifting his hand reflexively, scratching
the tattoo on the side of his head. If she noticed it, she
said nothing.

"Susanne, I..."

"I know you weren't expecting me."

"No," he replied honestly. That last thing he'd been
expecting was Susanne Modeski. "How have you been?"

She gave a tight little smile.  "Good. You?"

"I've been-" He stopped.  "How did you find me, Susanne?"

"I have resources," she said a little cryptically.
"Contacts.  People who owe me favors."

"Oh," he replied as calmly as he could. If Susanne could
fine them, that meant anyone could.

"But don't worry," she rushed to assure him. "Jimmy said
you and your friends are perfectly safe." She gave a weak
smile. "I wouldn't have come otherwise, John."

"Right." He nodded and licked his suddenly dry lips.
"Susanne, if you're in any kind of trouble..."

"No." She shook her head. "I'm not in any trouble, at least
not anymore."

"Then, why are you here?"

She smiled. "I'm here for you, John."

"For me?" John gaped. "Susanne, I...you...you and I barely
know each other."

"I realize that." She kept glancing down at her hands as
she spoke. John noticed a thin fish-belly white band of
puckered skin on the ringer finger of her left hand. "I
just, I just thought you and I might have a chance."

"I'm with someone," John blurted out.

Susanne blinked. "Oh."

"Someone I am serious about, I mean," he said, much to his own
surprise.

"Someone who knows John Byers?" she asked.  "Or someone who
only knows John Wilson?"

Byers looked at her, hard.  Amanda knew him only as John
Wilson. But. . .

"Someone who knows *me*," he answered.

"Well, then." She seemed to draw herself in tight, "I guess
I'm going to have to hurry back to Denver if I'm going make
it in time to cash in your plane ticket."

Byers nodded.  "Yeah.  I guess you are. I-" he stopped.

"Yes?"

"Thanks for stopping by," he said, and held out his hand.
"Have a good life, Susanne."

She gave him the tiniest sigh and the thinnest smile as she
clasped his hand and shook it. "You too, Mr. Wilson."  And
she walked away.

Byers sat back down. He picked up his needle and thread. He
was surprised at how little her departure bothered him. He
realized he'd probably never Susanne Modeski again. He was
surprised how little that bothered him, too.

He thought maybe he would stop at the jewelry store after
work.

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

In Amanda's yurt on the edge of village, they lay in her
bed enjoying the crisp September morning. Afterglow city.

Lightly, her fingers tripped over his stubbly head.

"Amanda, do you have any regrets about your life?" John
said quietly into her side.

She didn't say a word, just kept stroking.

"I do," he answered his own question. "I regret not having
a wife."

"Oh," she replied.

"Not having a family," he went on.

Amanda was silent a long moment. "You could still have those
things."

"Could I?"

She nodded.  "Sure."

"Could I have them with you?" he asked, glad the air was still
and he was able to speak softly.

"With me?" she echoed.

"Theoretically?" he asked. "Hypothetically?"

"Maybe," she answered after a pause.

It wasn't a 'no,' and to John, it sounded enough like a 'yes' to
make him push his luck.  "Do you think. . .perhaps you might
consider. . .we might. . .not *try* to conceive, exactly,  but. .
.not try 'not' to?"

She stopped stroking. "John," she whispered. "You're serious?"

"Dead serious. Would you give it some consideration?" he asked,
too nervous to raise his head and look at her. "Take as long as
you like and let me know. Get back to me, you know, um. . ."

"John, I can't exactly think about it rationally." The stroking
began again but, John noted, it was a little less casual, a
little less easy. "I can't say it hasn't been on my mind, either.
My biological clock is striking like Big Ben at midnight."

"That's hyperbole if I've ever heard it." He smiled.

There was a long pause. "And, if, um, when I get pregnant? What
then?"

He knew this one. "We'll get married. We should get married
either way, I think."

"We should?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Oh," she answered neutrally. "Um," she began, and cleared
her throat softly, "let me think about it? Okay?"

"Of course." He snuggled against her.  "Of course."
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 
 

Title: Retam Sullet  10/12
(An Alternate Universe *Tellus Mater*)
Author: Onemillionandnine
Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com
Archive: sure!
Rating: Earnest NC17 for birth, sex, and death not
filmed through a soupy lens.

See Part One for more details.

**NOTE** - This is technically a WIP -- 12 fairly
substantial parts is my best estimate at this time.
You have been warned.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~~:~:~:~:~:~

They'd had never had a disagreement more serious than what
to watch on TV, so it took awhile for the others to realize
exactly what they were seeing. Eleven o'clock p.m.,
November 1st, after three years of cohabitation and six
months of marriage, Langly and Thea had their first real
fight. Frohike battled a compulsion to mark it on his
calendar.

If he'd known the reason they were shooting off
sparks like a bad wiring job, he would have been far less
amused.

~:~:~:~:~:~~:~:~:~:~:~

Langly and Thea sat thigh-by-thigh on the couch staring at
nothing, arms folded across their chests, both too
stubborn to move.

To his credit, Langly was right. He quoted statistics.
Triplets were by definition high risk, particularly when it
came to delivery. He signed small between them, listing
intrauterine growth retardation, breach delivery, immature
lungs, snarled umbilici, placenta abruptia, and myriad
other reasons logic dictated she give birth in a hospital.

On her side, Thea had negative experience, paranoia, gut
Instinct, and naked terror. She was her father's daughter.
Despite the weight of facts, she stuck with what her gut
was telling her. And her gut, in this case, was telling her
'no.'

Neither Byers nor Frohike had any idea there was even a
question. Langly didn't tell them; he thought he could
handle convincing her. He hadn't had any luck getting her
to a doctor since they left Maryland, but this would be
different. It had to be.

She did not tell him she was beginning to feel odd and
restless. She went to bed, though what sleep she got was
shallow and unsatisfying.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:
 

It was already snowing when John and Melvin set out for
work the next morning. Standing at the window in the front
of the house watching them disappear down the road, Thea
felt a strange compulsion to pick the clothes up off the
bedroom floor. That accomplished, she waddled around the
house putting away any books she was able to reach, despite
the nagging pain in her back. While she stood rubbing her
lower back against the bedroom door jamb, her amniotic sack
broke and she doubled over as the contraction hit. It hurt
a lot more than she had expecting.

One thing became immediately obvious - she was in
labor. There was no denying that.

Before Ringo woke, she pitched the emergency cell phones as
far out the window as her arm would send them sailing into
the blowing blizzard. As if in conspiracy with her, the New
Mexico State Highway Department closed all paved roads
within 50 miles of their home. Half an hour later, the
phone lines went down. The generator-less fools in that
part of the world were soon without electricity, as well.

It was nine a.m. before Langly got out of bed, and by then,
they were well and truly stranded.

Thea flatly refused to tell Ringo what she'd done with the
truck keys.  When he hot-wired the ignition, she flatly
refused to get in the truck.

He knew it was pointless to yell, but he couldn't restrain
himself. He got scared. He yelled. He begged.

She refused. Flatly refused.

He watched her body tense, intermittent contractions
stilling the pacing she had been possessed by, reminding
him a tiger he'd once seen at the DC zoo. The tiger kept
leaping at the electrified chain link. Her somewhat
primitive personality had always been part of her charm, as
far as Langly was concerned. In labor, however, and snowed
in, it lost some of its exotic appeal. She seemed
dangerous, yes, but dangerous and pathetic.

YOU REALIZE YOU COULD DIE? he signed as another intense
contraction passed.

IT WOULD BE BETTER TO DIE THAN TO SEE MY KIDS IN A LAB, she
signed back at him.

WHAT IF THEY'RE NORMAL? he asked.

WHAT IF THEY AREN'T? she answered as another wave of pain
seized her.

He watched her stand through four sets of contractions. By
the fifth, he was whipped. He couldn't fight the elements
and a girl with a head like a rock. He sat on the couch.

YOU WIN.

WHY DON'T I FEEL MORE GRATEFUL? her hands snapped at him
as another pain started.

And so it went. He gathered the supplies he knew he'd need.

The first hour, the pains were about five minutes apart.
Then, for most of the next hour, three. Langly put his arms
around her when she'd let him. He petted her head until she
batted his hand away.

I HATE HURTING, she signed in a calm moment.

Langly nodded. It required most of his self-control not to
remind her that she could be out of pain if she would give
in on the hospital issue.

I HATE FEELING WEAK, POWERLESS, LOSING CONTROL, she
amended. I HATE NOT KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT TO DO.

He nodded again, understanding. The trouble was, he knew
exactly what to do.

What followed was an hour of...well, a whole lot of
nothing. Followed by another. Then another. And
another. Nothing happened except more pain and more snow,
but Thea had stopped even her fairly mild complaining and
it worried him. He could see her belly go rigid every
couple of minutes. Her eyes had long since glazed over.
If he asked her a direct question, she would answer with
either a nod or a shake of the head.

He stood over the sink and washed his hands for a very long
time. If she got an infection and died, it would be his
fault. If he didn't do something quick, she would die, and
it would be his fault. If she lost the babies, it would be
his fault. If the cords were tangled, one or more of the
babies could be becoming more and more brain damaged by the
second, and that too would be his fault. It was all his
fault, it seemed.

The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

It had been twenty years, but thanks to his dear old dad
and a farm full of cows, he understood the basics of labor
and delivery. Well, bovine labor and delivery. And he'd
been doing a lot of reading on the subject of human labor
and delivery lately, too.

He was well aware that Thea wasn't a cow, but they were out
of options.

T, he signed, I KNOW WHAT TO DO. I'M GOING TO HELP YOU,
OKAY?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? She had been in pain for so
long she was worn down and not entirely coherent.

THEY'RE STUCK. I AM GOING TO REACH IN AND UNTANGLE THEM.

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO, she signed, shaking her
head violently.

I HAVE TO.

DON'T DO THIS TO ME, RITCHIE, I CAN'T, I CAN'T TAKE ANY
MORE PAIN. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE, I'M TIRED, I
DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, I CAN'T HAVE THESE BABIES, I
SURRENDER.

THEA, he signed slowly with his very clean hands, IT'S TOO
LATE TO CRAP OUT NOW. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE DOING WHEN YOU
ASKED ME TO FUCK YOU. YOU WANTED TO GET PREGNANT. I'M NOT
STUPID. YOU MIGHT PLAY THE POOR DUMB DEAF GIRL WHEN IT
SUITS YOU, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE ACCIDENTS. YOU GOT WHAT YOU
WANTED. YOU GOT ME AND YOU GOT PREGNANT. I LOVE YOU, AND
NOW WE ARE GOING TO HAVE OUR KIDS. SHUT UP AND LET ME
HELP YOU. THE SOONER I DO THIS, THE SOONER IT WILL BE OVER.

It was the harshest thing he'd ever said to her. The worst
part was that he knew every word of it was true.

DON'T HURT ME, she begged.

He knelt in between her legs, one hand resting on her
abdomen, then he reached inside past her dilated cervix and
slowly, carefully began turning and untwisting his
offspring. The sounds she made could not fairly be
described as crying or screaming, but neither could they be
described as truly human. Whether she chose to trust him
or was simply unable to struggle he could not decide, but
he was grateful she did not fight him.

It seemed like hours, but it took roughly seven minutes
before the first bluish, gooey boy was delivered. Before
Langly fully realized he had nothing to clear his tiny
airways, the boy sneezed forcefully and began to scream.
He turned a healthy, robust pink at an alarming
rate.

Langly wrapped plastic-coated wire around the cord,
cut carefully, laid the baby on Thea's chest. The
frightened father reached inside for the next boy. The
cords of the remaining two were wrapped tightly together.

Langly turned and turned and turned and turned for
something close to 10 minutes. He saw Thea struggling not
to struggle, her hands clenched tight. Finally, the next
boy was free. This second baby looked worse than the first,
but recovered just as rapidly.

By the time the third was delivered, the first showed no
signs beyond blood and vernix of having been very recently
born. His head was now perfectly round.

The last baby, however, appeared to be dead.

Ringo stared, lost. The baby was black. It was clear his
oxygen had been cut off for a while. Not knowing
what else to do, Langly held the naked little corpse to his
chest, rocked it gently, kissed its head. After a few
minutes, the strangest thing happened.

The baby moved. Stretched. Coughed blood and mucus all
over his father's shirt, and started to cry.

"Holy shit," Langly whispered rubbing the boy's back.

The boy went from black to blue to perfect-peachy-magazine-
ad-baby pink in minutes. After a little nervous hysterical
laughter, Langly wrapped the boy, and went back to work on
Thea.  He kept the last baby beside him.

The new father saw to it that his wife was cleaned and
wrapped in warm blankets. Immersed in thought, he tended
the fire.

There were so many things going on in his head. He
shuddered to think how much pain he put her through, how
much pain men in general put women in general through. He
wondered why they weren't all lesbians. Why homo sapiens
didn't die out. Stupid fucking evolution.

Stupid Fucking Ringo Langly should have spared her all this
and remembered the damn condom.

The baby squirmed against his chest. His sons were
gorgeous. He loved them. The minute he saw them, he loved
them. They were best thing he'd seen in his life. He was
amazed he had a part in producing anything so. . .pretty.

He was glad he forgot the condom. He was glad he was male,
and at the same time, belatedly sick to his stomach.

Thea sighed, drawing his attention. She seemed alright, not
too much blood, placenta in one piece. All that was in
her favor. She didn't seem to be in pain anymore.

He would never ever be able to pay her back for this, for
this gift. He had the sudden inexplicable desire to see his
mother, forgetting for a second she was dead.

Finally, Langly and Thea made long weary eye contact.

YVES WAS RIGHT, she signed, running her finger over the
tiny nodule on the back of one son's neck.

Langly had noticed. LOOKS LIKE IT. I MEAN, THE LAST ONE
WAS...HE WAS DEAD, he signed.

Thea's eyes widened. DEAD? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, DEAD?

NOT BREATHING. STIFF. COLD. DEAD, he signed, realizing it
was only shock and exhaustion that made him communicate
such a thought so easily. BUT HE SEEMS OKAY NOW, he added,
signing less sharply.

He looked down at his hands. There was dried blood under
his fingernails.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

From her spot on the couch, Thea watched her husband. He
was holding their son, the one he insisted had been dead,
and staring at the child, mesmerized. He hugged the baby to
his chest, kissed the little head again and again.

She realized he liked them. Whatever they were, Ritchie
liked them.

She pulled back the blanket and exposed the two squirming
bundles on her chest. For the first time, she looked at the
faces of her children. White, feathery hair was crusted
with the evidence of birth, large blue eyes stared up at
her, already focused. Their noses were bridgeless, like
all infants, but already familiarly pointed at the tip.
Their chins deeply cleft.

They were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

She breathed them in. Babies? Was it her babies?
Ringo's babies? Of course his babies would smell
delicious.

One of them was looking her in the eye and opening and
closing his mouth against her arm, like a fish in a tank.
She opened and closed her own mouth back at him and stroked
the soft skin on the other baby's back. The one she was
rubbing was calm, his cheek against her breast, his breath
deep and even. He was simply enjoying her presence, her
touch. The feeling was mutual.

Langly crossed to the couch and touched her arm. HE'S
HUNGRY, he signed, sitting beside her on the floor. HE'S
DOING THAT BECAUSE HE WANTS YOU TO FEED HIM.

HOW?

LET ME HELP. Baby on his shoulder, he carefully took her
breast in one hand and rubbed her nipple against the hungry
baby's cheek. Within seconds, the baby was nursing
intently.

YOU DID EXCELLENT, Langly signed. LOOK AT THESE
GUYS - YOU ROCK.

THEY AREN'T NORMAL, she signed, really thinking it for the
first time.

Langly shrugged as best he could while holding a baby. HOW
NORMAL COULD THEY BE WITH US FOR PARENTS?

YOU LIKE THEM? she signed.

He nodded. OF COURSE I LIKE THEM. THEY'RE MY KIDS.

It was too much.  Suddenly, it was all too much. She
started to cry.

T?

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? she signed. I DON'T KNOW
HOW TO DO THIS.  I'LL MESS THIS UP.

Langly stroked her sweaty hair. I LOVE YOU. WE CAN FIGURE
THIS OUT. DON'T WE ALWAYS?

YES. WE DO, she answered tiredly. WE'RE A COUPLE OF
FUCKING GENIUSES, AREN'T WE?

Langly gave a small laugh. YES, he answered solemnly.

I LOVE YOU, RITCHIE.

SORRY I HURT YOU. SO SORRY. SORRY. SORRY. YOU FORGIVE ME?
He signed the word 'sorry' tensely, his eyes cast down, his
flattened fist moving counterclockwise on the center of his
chest. He smeared his shirt with blood.

Thea nodded tiredly.

Soon after the five of them drifted off to sleep in front
of the fire under a quilt made by MaryBeth Langly.
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Frohike called as soon as he was able. "Byers and I spent
the night at Cindy's," he told Langly. "You two alright up
there?

There was a long pause on Langly's side.

"What happened? Is she okay?"

The pause went on.

"Dammit, freak, what's going's on?"

Finally Langly spoke. "Congratulate me."

"Congrat-? Oh." Melvin felt faint for possibly the first
time in his life. "Congratulations. Is everybody okay?"

"Yeah. And Yves was right."

"Yeah?" Melvin gulped. "How's the new mother?"

"She's okay, considering."

"Considering what?"

"Considering the babies got stuck and I had to reach up
inside her like she was a damn cow." He sounded like his
same old piss-and-vinegar self, but Frohike thought he
heard a ragged edge threatening to turn into tears.

"You keeping tabs on her temperature? Watching for
infection?"

"Yeah, and she ain't exactly being Little Mary Sunshine
about it, either."

"When is she?" Frohike chuckled. "So what are they,
anyway?"

"Huh?"

"Boys or girls? Pink or blue? Do they have little...?"
Frohike snorted

"Boys. All boys "

"I'll pick up Byers at the library and we'll stop by the
store on the way home - I'll get diapers, bottles, formula,
what else?"

"She's got milk."

"Already? You think it's gonna be enough?"

"It's enough."

"Anything else?"

"You think they got home vasectomy kits at Wal-Mart?"

Melvin Frohike gave the receiver a stunned look. As far as
he was concerned it was the most mature thing Langly had
said in all the years he'd known him.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Three minutes later Cindy's phone rang.

It was Ringo.

"Uhhh I forgot something "

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I uhh I need you to get some..."

"Some what?"

It sounded like  "mumble-mumble-brake-pads" coming from
Langly's end of the phone.

"Brake pads? why do you want brake pads?"

"I said 'sanitary pads,' Numbnuts."

Frohike laughed. The guy might be growing up but he still
had a ways to go.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

That evening, roughly 24 hours after the birth, John stood
at the doorstep behind Melvin. It felt electric.  It felt
as if it was one of his childhood Christmases, when Santa
Claus was alive and well and midnight mass at the Episcopal
Church had lent a solemn air to the holiday and John felt
sat perched in his pew, reasonably confident he had been a
good boy.

From behind the door he could smell Thea's favorites,
coffee and bacon, along with the delicious perfume of pinon
wood on the fire. Underneath he caught a disturbing whiff
of blood. There had been a birth, he reminded himself.
Blood was normal. He wondered how Langly managed, until he
was caught off-guard by a sound oddly familiar sound.

Low. Nasal. With a definite twang. Something like Langly
singing, but the tune was Gilbert and Sullivan and the
words were wrong.

"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium/
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium/
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium/
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium/
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium/
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium/
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium
And...and...fuck, I  can't remember the rest."
 

The singing stopped and talking started. "You like that
buddy? Soona taught me that when we had chemistry together
about a million years ago. Yeah, he's dead, like your
Gramma. Too bad they'll never get to see you. They'd have
liked you, all of you. My mom used to..."

Langly had been singing his child the periodic table of
elements. Byers couldn't help but smile.

The door opened. John and Melvin looked at each other and
at their friend standing in the kitchen with a baby in his
arms. John felt  his heart swell until he though it might
split at the seams.

Langly brought the boy closer. The three men formed a
huddle around him. Byers held his breath.

A dense crown of feathery white hair stood up from the
infant's head. Bright blue eyes focused intelligently on
the two new faces. The baby gripped his father's wrist,
looking from one man to the other and back again. the
vivid pink rosebud mouth seemed to frown in concentration.

Without conscious intent, Byers took the boy from his
father's arms.

"Quit boggarting the kid,"  Frohike grumbled.

"There's more where he came from, Fro," Langly replied.

Byers felt strange. His skin tingled. The newborn grasped
his coat sleeve. Kicking free of his blanket, the boy
exposed
a freshly severed umbilicus between his tiny diaper and
snowy white shirt, and opened and closed his
mouth, guppy-like, at the man who held him.

"What's that?" Byers asked. "Why is he doing that?"

Langly said, "That? He's hungry."

"Feed him for god's sake, Ringo," Frohike said.

"I'm going to as soon as there's a feeding station open."

It took John a minute to realize what his friend was
saying. There were two more babies upstairs, with Thea.

Lord...Thea, how was she?

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

Frohike didn't know when he'd felt so excited. All sober
reservations and concerns aside, he wanted to see Thea and
he wanted to see the rest of those babies.

Knowing her as well as he did, Frohike should have realized
there was a good chance when he opened her bedroom door she
was going to be topless. She had a baby at either tit and
all the modesty of a stray cat.

SHORTMAN! JOHN! LOOK WHAT WE DID WHILE WE WERE SNOWED IN.
YOU CAN'T SAY WE AREN'T PRODUCTIVE, she signed, smiling.

All Melvin could do was stare. The boys were wiggling and
sucking as loud and vigorous as  puppies.  After the
embarrassment of seeing the Kid's tits ebbed, he was able
to take a good long look at her.

She looked great and awful at the same time. She had that
ashy color of an olive-skinned person who'd lost blood.
Broken capillaries like red snowflakes fell across cheeks
made chubby by pregnancy. Despite all that, or maybe
because of it, her eyes gleamed. Like a soldier, she seemed
bloodied but victorious.

The funny thing was Mel suddenly realized he'd seen the
girl mentally fatigued, physically exhausted, and plain old
fashioned sleepy, but never relaxed before that minute.

She wound a hank of hair at the crown of one baby's head
into a curl around her finger as she gazed up at Melvin
expectantly. After a minute she signed a question mark with
her free hand.

Frohike forced a smile. He couldn't think of a single sign
to her to tell her how he felt.

CAN I? he gestured at the babies, whose hunger seemed to
be slacking off.

LIKE YOU NEED TO ASK, she signed, snorting.

Carefully, he took one boy in his hands. He seemed
unnaturally strong for a newborn. There was something else
hinky, too. His head. The little guy held it up on his own
without even a hint of wobble. And it was round
and smooth, not even the littlest bit out of shape. Not at
all like he had just been squeezed out.

WE NEED TO NOTIFY YVES. HAVE SOME TESTS RUN, the older man
Signed, even as he tucked the boy under his chin for a warm
hug. He noted the way Thea tensed. She had to have expected
it; she had to have known it was necessary.

OKAY. BUT ONLY THE TESTS RITCHIE AND I APPROVE. THIS IS A
ONE-SHOT DEAL. THEY AREN'T... She paused for a word,
looking something between angry and afraid.

LAB RATS, Langly supplied for her.

She nodded and rubbed the thigh of his jeans. WE MADE THEM
FOR...FOR... FOR... LOVE.

NOT AS A SCIENCE PROJECT, Langly finished. She nodded.

"Get off it, Blondie," Frohike said and did not sign. "You
did this because you were too excited about popping The
Kid's cherry to take any precautions." He inhaled and added
in a conciliatory tone, "But it looks like you did alright
in spite of yourself."

Byers had surrendered the baby in his arms to Thea, then
scowled at Frohike. Frohike found it unsettling.

WHAT? Thea signed. WHAT DID HE SAY RITCHIE? JOHN?

Neither answered her.

Frohike leaned forward and touched his thumb to her chin. I
TOLD HIM I WAS PROUD OF YOU. BOTH OF YOU.

He wasn't sure how it happened but the next thing he knew
Langly was hugging him.
 

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
 

Like that, they were parents.

It proved that evolution tends to be cataclysmic rather
than the incremental. In a few gushes of blood, hot sticky
fluid, and other unidentifiable nastiness, their lives
changed forever.

Although his standard reply to any outside query was, "I
had it under control," in the privacy of his own opinion,
Langly was a bungling incompetent who'd lucked his way
through the whole birth.  Thea would never seem
indestructible to him again. In her miserable labor, he had
seen the long shadow of a girl stripped bare of intellect
and strength, a girl afraid and totally unprepared for what
was happening to her. Somehow, this epiphany lowered his
estimation of himself and raised his estimation of his
wife, though he would never have been able to explain why.

Some things seemed to come as a surprise to both of them.
Thea and Langly both had labored under the delusion that
childrearing, like all the Lone Gunmen's other endeavors,
would be a group effort. They were shocked when Frohike and
Byers contributed little beyond a brief evening stint in
the rocking chair and the occasional martyred diaper
change.

Neither of them started with even the most vague no