Note: The "glass installation company logo": I'm assuming that the BPRD goes back underground, but with a different cover. In the commentary for the first movie, del Toro says that originally they were going to ride undercover in a glass company truck rather than a garbage truck.

Trevor Sherman's voice: Letters

I got the letter just after I graduated from high school. Did I want to meet with my first parents?

The government will pay for my plane ticket, they'll pay for everything. I just have to be willing to make that trip. I love my adoptive parents, I like where I'm living, but I'm not conflicted for one second - of course I want to see them. When I send back the RSVP, the Bureau - I know it's the Bureau, even though it comes in an envelope marked with the logo for some glass installation company, it's funny, my friends are gonna think I'm apprenticing there as a summer job or something - the Bureau sends me back an envelope with my plane ticket and a brown paper package marked in threatening red block letters DO NOT OPEN BEFORE THE TRIP.

It says, "before the trip" - it doesn't say anything about opening it while ON the trip. They're flying me business-class, and I'm lucky enough not to have anyone sitting next to me, so I go ahead and open the package. Inside are a couple of fat manila folders, both marked "SECRET". On the edge, typed out, one has my Mom's name and one has my Dad's name.

The government has sent me a top-secret briefing on my parents. Welcome to my life.

I open Dad's file first. There's an old photo sitting right on top, and seeing it hits me with one of my earliest memories.

I was maybe four years old. I was sitting on Dad's lap. I said "Tell me about Trevor again."

"Trevor? He's about yeah big," said Dad, stretching out a hand parallel to the ground at about my height, "and he likes to play dinosaurs."

"No! Silly. Tell me about Trevor-father!"

"Trevor's father? He's about yeah big," and Dad stretched his hand high in the air, "and he likes cats."

"Noo-ooo!" I wailed, laughing and pounding his chest. "The other Trevor!"

"You mean Daddy's father?"

"Yah. That one." I gave him a good solid pout.

Dad sighed. "I wish I had a photo to show you. I had this great photo, the first one anyone ever took of father and me together. But I lost it."

This photo, cracked and sepia-tinted with age and too much handling, this has got to be it. This is priceless. And my Dad sent it to me.

There's Dad in front - he's just a little baby, but nobody else in the world looks like him - there's his stone hand. I turn the photo over, and there's the date and a list of names. 1944. I count heads from the left. That man standing behind Dad with his hand tucked into his coat, that's Trevor Bruttenholm. I hold the photo up close. My grandfather - stuff of legend. My namesake.

There's a list of dates, with names of places and all sorts of other weird words, plus a few notes. I catch "werewolf" and "vampire" in the list - okay, so looks like these are jobs he did for the Bureau. Nice. It's a long list. The last entry is the year before I was born - not too many months before I was born, come to think of it. I count it out mentally. Eight months. Hmmm. Mom and Dad said they quit before they had Katie and me - that must've been the last job Dad did before he quit.

There's some grainy tabloid clippings, with headlines like "FBI Makes Deal with Devil-Boy" and "Government Hides the Truth". Then there are some more newspaper and magazine clippings - nice ones, with real head-on photos, and quotes and everything. I've seen most of these before.

When I was in elementary school, I read fantasy books as fast as I could find them. It was the one thing that made me feel connected to Mom and Dad and Katie, when everything else in my life was completely mundane. It was like hearing Dad tell me stories again.

When I was in high school, I started looking up urban legends. And that's how I found Mom and Dad again. On Youtube. On websites - some respectable, some trashy, some just weird. Giving interviews. Cell phone videos. Conspiracy theorists, claiming the whole thing was an elaborate hoax.

I scoured the internet for everything I could possibly find about them. So much of it was B.S., though. I never got the whole backstory. And I never got any news. It was like they fell off the edge of the earth after they left Katie and me. I saw some rumors of Dad being seen, but it's sometimes hard to tell whether those are posted by honest paranormal enthusiasts, or bored kids, or druggies, or what.

I close Dad's file and go to open Mom's. An avalanche of polaroid photos comes spilling out of it, all over my lap and the floor. A flight attendant walks over to help me, and I almost panic - the government's going to find out I spilled all their secrets! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO TO TRAITORS! But then I realize that there's nothing incriminating about the polaroids. They're all normal people. There's my Mom, younger than I remember her... there she is again, even younger... here's my grandfather... and some people I've never seen before.

Here's that USA Today article. Somebody had linked it to her, so I've seen this too. "Tragic Explosion" it says. "Child Only Survivor." And the photo of Mom as a little girl. It still chills me all the way through to see that headline.

There's a list here of all her pyrokinetic episodes. There's a list of Mom's missions with the Bureau too. I check the last entry - yep, same as Dad's. That means Katie and me were going on top-secret government missions before we were born. Awesome.

Then I notice that the list of her missions includes quitting dates. Not the one quitting date, when she and Dad left together - lots of quitting dates. Almost every year, it looks like. I count them out... thirteen. Wow.

I've got a lot to think over before I see them.

The car ride from the airport is uneventful. The B.P.R.D. building (they don't call it that, of course - it's got that glass company logo on the front) is pretty ugly, to be honest. It's got this section of the floor that sinks down like an elevator, though - I have to say, that's pretty impressive. A middle-aged blond woman meets me at the bottom, introduces herself as Kate Corrigan, and leads me through the most god-awful maze of hallways to a large, heavily-decorated door. She waves me in, and I'm in the most richly decorated study I could imagine - books, statues, tapestries, the works, and even an aquarium that fills up an entire wall, although that looks completely empty.

There are two couches set up facing each other in the middle of the room. My parents are sitting on one of them.

They stare at me when I come in. I'm staring at them, too. My Mom looks shockingly old - but then, I haven't seen her since I was six, and I was just looking at photos of her taken more than eighteen years ago. My Dad, though, looks like he's gotten younger since I saw them last. He's obviously been working out - he's wearing this tight shirt, and he's ripped. Man, I wish I could have picked which genes I was gonna inherit.

My Mom speaks first.

"Trevor! You've gotten so tall! And so handsome."

My Dad makes a lopsided sort of smile. "Hey, no fair saying that! He doesn't look like me at all."

He's not wrong - I got most of Mom's small features, just somehow stretched out over Dad's height. But I don't think that's all he means. I pull my hair back over my forehead and show them my scars - the two circular scars where my horns used to be.

They stare, and then Dad says, "Huhn. That's neatly done, there. But you're probably going to lose that hair sooner or later," he gestures towards his own bald head, "What are you gonna tell people when they ask how you got those scars?"

"I'll say, 'You should see the OTHER guy'."

My voice is really deep. They both look startled, and then these crazy grins spread over their faces, and suddenly they're laughing. I start laughing too, and they're sprawling out over the couch and beating it with their hands and holding their stomachs, and I have to sit down because I'm laughing too hard to stand, even though I have no idea what's so funny. Then they're walking over to me, still laughing, and they stand me up and hug me, and I see tears in my Mom's eyes, and it's kind of embarrassing because who wants to see their parents get all emotional?

We get back over to the couches and they sit me down on the one and sit down across from me. They ask me all about my adoptive family, about school, about my friends, everything. They keep telling me how proud they are of me, and how happy they are that I found good place to live.

At one point Mom gets quiet, and says, "We are so, so sorry we were such bad parents. Can you ever forgive us?"

What can I say to something like that? I stop and think for a moment. "I won't say I wasn't angry. But I think I understand a little bit better now. There was a lot you both had to deal with, and you kept Katie and me safe from it. We were happy. You weren't bad parents, really. So yeah. Of course."

We keep talking for another good chunk of time. Then Ms. Corrigan sticks her head in the door, and announces that Katie's arrived. The sister I haven't seen in twelve years walks in, and all the air goes out of the room.

You'd think, that if fate gave a girl hooves, it would make her pretty as sort of a consolation prize. That didn't happen with Katie. It's not that her features are ugly - just utilitarian. And right now, they're efficiently and effectively expressing that she is Not Happy.

Mom is so relieved after talking with me, she goes right up to Katie and hugs her. "Katie! I'm so glad you're here!"

Katie just stands there stiffly, arms to her sides, and says "Hi, Mom." in a flat little voice. Mom turns to lead Katie to the couch, and when her face is towards us we can see that she's crushed.

Dad's staring at Katie, his eyebrows all heavy. And he says, sounding very concerned and paternal, "Katie, what happened to your tail?"

Katie's wearing jeans that ride low on her hips. She turns around and pulls the top of them down almost to her buttcrack. Right on top of her tailbone there's a large, puckered nasty-looking scar. Next to it she has a tattoo. It's a she-devil - one of those trashy ones you see on guitars and cars sometimes, with red skin and a forked tail and big boobs and a come-hither look.

"You have a tramp stamp," Dad says in a flat voice.

"I'm not a tramp," says Katie sharply, and gives him a look that's just as heavy as his.

Mom tries to save the situation. "Katie, come over here. Sit down. We're so glad to see you. Tell us where you've been, what you've been doing."

"Lots of places. Different people's homes. Group house."

There's a sort of sad parody of the conversation I was having with Mom and Dad, where instead of laughter and happiness and pride there's suspicion and awkwardness and short hard answers. It's not that anything really bad has happened to Katie - it's just that there hasn't been much that's been particularly good. I notice that Mom doesn't ask her if she's forgiven them. I think she's afraid of the answer she'd get.

They finally wrap up their questions, and Mom and Dad get a business-like look and give us an offer: now that we're eighteen, we're emancipated and free to choose where we want to live. If we want to, we can come live with them at the Bureau until we get places of our own.

I know how much they'd like that, so it's really hard for me to give my answer. "Thanks, really, I'd like to, but... well... I'm starting college in the fall. I got accepted to one I really like, and I already have some friends who are going there too. And then on vacations - well, I'd like to see you again, but I really like my adopted family too, and I want to keep seeing them, and I have friends in my hometown..."

Dad puts up a hand to stop my rambling. He looks a little disappointed, but happy too. "It's okay. Do that. Whatever makes you happy, you go ahead and do it. But if you ever want to come visit, we'll hook you up. A letter sometimes would be nice too, or..."

"I'll stay," says Katie loudly, interrupting him. I think we're all a little surprised. We look at her, and she says, "It's not like I have any other plans. You think the Bureau's got something for me to do?"

"We'll talk to Kate. I mean, Dr. Corrigan." says Mom, a bit weakly. And it's decided. I stay for a couple of weeks, and then I go back to my adoptive family to get ready for school.

So that's where it stands. I'm doing okay at college - getting pretty decent grades, making new friends. I get calls from Mom and Dad sometimes - they kind of nag me about studying and stuff, but it's okay. I get letters from Katie, too. She complains about Mom and Dad a lot - says they're always on her case. I secretly kind of think if she didn't go out of her way to get in people's faces all the time, they wouldn't have a problem with her, but she'll do what she wants - that's just the kind of person Katie is. Sounds like she's doing okay, though - she's got some clerical duties, but says she wants to learn how to shoot a gun and become a full agent.

And me, I'm the boring one. I like things predictable. I kind of wish I could tell my adoptive parents and my friends about where I came from, and what I know, but I guess things are the way they have to be. Sometimes I hear my friends complain about how messed up or weird their families are, and all I do is laugh.