COMPLICATED SHADOWS 

Day 1  

Okay, Horowitz, I'll keep the deal.  I'll goddamned well write in 
this fucking journal between sessions to keep from having to come 
down there every goddamned day.  

What did you ask me the first visit?  What happened to me, that's 
what you asked me.  How did I come to be here.  

I died in 1997.  Or people thought I did.  And until Walter Skinner 
went to work for whatever the hell they call this organization, they 
kept thinking it.  

The first time I laid eyes on Skinner after almost three years--
although, believe me, I had no idea if it was three years or five-- 
was with Watts, who had hustled me through the airport at 
Calgary and into a private plane, up into the mountains to an 
airstrip, and from there by four wheel drive up slopes rugged 
enough that I had vertigo and dry heaves toward the end of that 
trip.  

Of course, Watts is such a nice guy, he had his pet medic give me a 
shot that left me reeling so badly I'm not sure I could have 
remembered my own name.  It was wearing off by the time we got here, and thankfully had 
gotten dark, so I didn't have to look and see that our chances of 
falling off the mountain were pretty good.  I might have 
been asleep when we got to Skinner's.  Or just fugued out.  Watts 
reached in through the open car door and I nearly panicked again, 
completely at sea about where I was, who he was, all those little 
facts that let you get your legs under you.  Skinner's shape in the 
doorway was familiar, but it was a sort of pleasant familiarity and I 
tried to get my breath, to actually get my legs under me for real.   
When I got a look at him in the light, I started shaking.  It was 
Skinner, it wasn't a trick. 

They weren't just moving me from one Consortium site to another.  
Notice, Horowitz, that not even in my worst nightmares and 
paranoia did I ever think that Skinner was a Consortium 
clown, even though I'd wondered about that a time or two early on 
in our association.  For the first time, I didn't mind being a little 
shorter than him, it was just so damned good to see him.  
He immediately got an arm around my shoulders and walked me 
into the house slowly, giving me time to get my feet in place, not 
rushing me.  

There was a shortish, muscular guy standing there, sandy blonde 
hair and an improbable mustache.  He was introduced or 
introduced himself as Jack. 

Ah, Jack, my personal nemesis.   

Jack proved himself that right away.  Hot bath to get my guard 
down, and the son of a bitch wouldn't even leave me alone to take 
it.  Please, I checked, there weren't any sharp things in the 
bathroom, although at that point I wasn't processing enough to 
start planning my check-out from Planet Earth.  He at least let me 
wrap a towel around my waist to walk back into the 
bedroom.  I balked at the door.  

None of the furniture was mine, but everything else--Skinner told 
me yesterday that since I'd made Scully executor, she'd taken care 
of bequests, gotten rid of the furniture, and simply stored 
everything else.  He thinks she simply couldn't face going through 
it, and her mother gave him the key and told him to take care of it.

The usually pragmatic  Walter Skinner paid the fees for the last 
two and a half years rather than throw my stuff away.  Not that I'm 
complaining, after hell it's nice to have the sweats that I wore so 
often I got a hole in the left knee.  Or my favorite sweater.  Or my 
Quantico sweatshirt.  

Jack decided that I needed to have a physical exam, the jerk.   

Skinner and he clashed there for the first time, because Skinner had 
decided I needed to get dressed.  I liked Skinner's idea a lot better, 
needless to say, and obediently reached out for the sweatshirt he 
handed me.  It was  my Quantico sweatshirt.  Any composure I'd 
gained in the bathtub went right out the window.  A real and 
tangible indication that I had once been a real person, with a real 
life, no matter how obsessive.  I wasn't a lab animal or--well, 
outside of toy, I'm not sure how Wilkinson would have viewed me.  
So I sat there on the edge of the bed hugging that stupid sweatshirt 
to me like a kid with a teddy bear, tears streaming down my face 
and rocking back and forth while Skinner got me a different shirt 
to wear.  

But going back to balking.  I saw all these books and bookshelves.  
I didn't remember having bookshelves like that, so I was 
reasonably certain they weren't mine, but the books were.  
Books I hadn't had out of boxes since I left Oxford.  I stared at 
them until Skinner came and gently took my arm.  No, he didn't 
really take my arm, he sort of nudged me forward to the 
bed. 

A real bed with clean crisp sheets, sheets dried outside in the sun 
and fresh air.  The smell of clean sheets has always been one of my 
favorites.  So as Skinner handed me the sweatshirt, I was sitting 
there surreptitiously rubbing my fingers on the sheets.  Oh, the best 
kind, worn almost silky with age. 

Then I got the sweatshirt, which I've already discussed.  Jack, as I 
said, decided I needed to have a physical exam right then.  And 
while he was snapping on the latex, he and Skinner were having a 
terse, whispered exchange.  I think the only reason I didn't freak 
out was that he wasn't holding either a syringe or a scalpel.  And, 
of course, Skinner was there arguing with him.  

I'm still angry about that, Horowitz.   I'm angry that Jack couldn't 
leave me the hell alone when I was still so raw and upset and 
barely processing that I was really safe for the first time in 
three years.  Or almost three years, excuse me, Doctor, if I'm less 
than precise.  And I'm angry that Skinner was convinced against 
his own better judgement to let him.  Not that I'm blaming Skinner, 
exactly, and there was a certain relief in seeing his jaw go tight.  
And he handled the whole thing pretty calmly, as if he sat next to 
one of his half-naked agents every day and talked them through an 
anxiety attack and physical exam. 

But I'm still furious with Jack.  Like I couldn't have lived without a 
physical examination right at that moment.  And when he actually 
wanted to get out the KY and probe places I really didn't want 
probed, particularly not in front of my boss or former boss or 
whatever, Skinner snapped at him.  "That's fine, Jack, he's freezing 
and he's obviously not in immediate danger, Watts had him looked 
at before the flight."  

I would have kissed him, but considering what Wilkinson's done to 
my reputation, I thought it wiser not to.  So instead, I just sat up 
and let him help me into the rest of my clothes.  Oh, man, they 
were clean and soft on the whip cuts on my ass and the backs of 
my thighs.  Those were healing, lest I lead you to believe that Jack 
didn't do a good job and check me thoroughly.  But it still felt 
good to have soft fleece there.   

Skinner motioned and I swung my legs into the bed.  He'd piled 
about three or four pillows behind me and I scooted up to the 
headboard.  And there we were, staring at each other like 
bandits in a Mexican stand-off.  

"Jack," Skinner's tone was mild, despite his earlier irritation.  "Why 
don't you get him some of that clam chowder and bread and 
butter."  I started salivating.  On top of whatever Watts had 
given me, I felt a little queasy, but God, I was starving.  

Jack went out without a word.  I think he figured out that Skinner 
was going to be a problem for him long before I did.  Of course, 
since I think Jack secretly dreams of having Skinner invite him into 
the big kahuna's bedroom, that must have hurt.  Do I care?  Not a 
lot, no.  I'm heartless, Horowitz, live with it.

Skinner and I stared at each other in silence for several moments.  
He was sitting on the edge of the bed by this time.

"Fancy meeting you here," I finally said, although I'm afraid it was 
hard to recover a cool exterior after sniveling over a Quantico 
sweatshirt.  "Yeah."  

He smiled then.  

I haven't seen Skinner smile often.  Occasionally at office 
functions.  

"I'd ask you how you're doing," he told me, "But that seems like a 
really stupid thing to ask.  No offense, Fox, but you look like hell."  

"Don't call me that," I promptly said and hugged my sweatshirt a 
lot more tightly.  "My name is Mulder."  Tight voice, trying to 
keep it from shaking.

An arched eyebrow, but he nodded.  "Sorry."  

Of course, I immediately wanted to apologize and tell him he could 
call me Fox.  Not really, and he certainly didn't look disturbed or 
like his feelings were wounded.  But my normal reactions weren't 
in operation and I was operating out of this mindset that didn't 
want to upset the only person who really seemed to give a shit 
about me.   

I started to apologize, but he shook his head, smiling a little bit.  
"It's been a while, I guess I forgot."  

So I leaned back against the pillow and tried to loosen my 
deathgrip on the sweatshirt, tried to think of witty repartee for the 
occasion.  Let's see, he'd told me I looked like hell.  Hmm, 
nothing really good came to mind.  Except maybe, "You don't."  
And he didn't, he looked good, fit and rugged and a helluva lot 
more relaxed than I would be if *he'd* been the one to 
come back from the dead.  "Watts says you got me out."   

He shrugged.  That's so Skinner, it really kills me.  Gary Cooper to 
a T.  "Once I'd figured out it was you, that you weren't dead, yeah, 
I guess I got the ball rolling to get you out of there."  

See how he tells it?  Minimizing the fact that he actually went in 
and got the big boss--who did head up UNCLE, anyway, in the old 
series, I can't quite retrieve that--to get me out of the clutches of 
THRUSH.  "Thanks."  I mean, what do you say?  

"You should have left me there, I'm better off dead."  That's what 
you say and I said it.  

Did I say I wanted to punch him out for it in spite of everything?  

"Maybe."  Skinner just kept giving me this uncharacteristically mild 
look.  "Maybe not.  Judgement call, besides, it's been dull without 
you."  

Jesus.  I had to look away and blink hard then, and Jack came back 
in with a tray and laid it across my    knees, fortunately preventing 
me from saying or doing anything it would embarrass me now to 
remember.  

Jack was miffed over having Skinner put a stop to his do-gooding.  
He left Skinner to watch me inhale the clam chowder.  New 
England style, thick chunks of potatoes and pieces of clam, it was 
the best thing I remembered tasting in--in my entire life, if you 
want the truth, Horowitz.  I almost moaned in pleasure.  Thick 
sourdough bread with butter--god, real butter, I swear, I got tears 
in my eyes again.  I felt obscenely full by the time it was gone.  

Lolling back against the pillows, I watched drowsily while Skinner 
turned on the small television set that sat on the dresser.  He 
handed me the remote and I blinked at it.  

"You want to tell me how all this happened?" he asked softly.  

Not particularly.

"I'm tired," I told him shortly and pulled the bedclothes up to my 
chin.  A down comforter on top of a couple of nice homey thermal 
blankets.  It must get colder than shit up here, I thought and 
wiggled my toes in the silk-wool blend socks Skinner had so 
thoughtfully provided me.  "I want to go to sleep."  

He nodded and turned off the lamp.  I almost reached out and 
turned it on, but there was an infomercial coming on the television 
and I hadn't seen one in three years.  Enthralled, I watched for a 
moment as somebody touted a real estate course.  

"210 channels, Mulder," Skinner's voice came from the door.  
"Knock yourself out, but try to get some rest, okay?"  

Heh.  I fiddled with the channel button, discovering that there were 
actually 214--trust Skinner to err on the conservative side--and fell 
asleep within the first few minutes of Alien.  The first one.  

Is that what you wanted to know, Horowitz?   No homey little 
House on the Prairie reunion here.    


Day 2  

Okay, we had another pointless session yesterday, Horowitz.  I 
don't know what the hell you want me to say about any of it.   
Yeah, I was pretty  ragged when I got to Skinner's that night.  
So, what's your point?  How would you expect me to be?  Did you 
want me to hang on Skinner's neck and cry?  You and Jack, I 
swear.  

Yeah, Skinner had gotten me out of Consortium hands.  He'd 
gotten me out of genetic testing and medical experiments and a 
rest cure at the Wilkinson estate.  And yeah, Horowitz, 
Wilkinson was a sexual sadist.  

I want to differentiate between guys who dress up in leather and 
whip their chosen partners, Horowitz.  Wilkinson's the kind of guy 
I used to hunt.  I should have been grateful, I should have hung on 
Skinner's neck.  But what I really wanted to do at first was punch 
his lights out.  I was reasonably certain that if things had gone on, I 
could  have gotten Wilkinson to kill me. My instinct was to 
survive, like it always had been, but I was working around to the 
opposite point of view on that.  He was dedicated to snuff films, 
was Wilkinson.  

The people you meet in the Consortium, as I now call it, are so 
charming. 
 
Terry Watts may have been leading the team that extracted me, but 
Skinner got me out. They wouldn't let Skinner go.  His face was 
known, and he hadn't had any interesting cosmetic surgeries to 
change that.  

Right after they got me up here in the Canadian Rockies, in this 
little enclave of secrecy, I had to go into their clinic for surgery.  
To remove the implants here there and everywhere.  So I spent the 
first two or three weeks pretty well zoned.  

I'm told by Jack, who also expects me to be grateful, that Skinner 
didn't leave the clinic except when I was asleep.  I was pretty 
strange.  Especially after they told me that Scully had died almost a 
year and a half earlier.   

Actually, I am grateful, Skinner was the only face I knew and I was 
out of my head a lot of the time.  I kept thinking I was back in the 
experimental lab with my old friends, the Mengeles, undergoing 
things I'd never known existed, even though I'd imagined plenty.  

So, when I was well enough to leave the clinic, i.e., they didn't 
have a suicide watch on me and I was healing from the surgeries, I 
went home with Skinner, about fifteen miles up-mountain from the 
clinic.  They say that a lot here, up-mountain.  Weird people.  
They're okay, mostly.   Except for Jack and Horowitz, my duly 
assigned shrink.  She looks like this nice little Jewish grandmother 
and acts like the Bitch of Belsen.  

Hey, I can say that, my mother is Jewish.  At least by heritage, 
even if she's never seen a synagogue since she married my father, 
and wouldn't set foot in a church if you threatened to burn her as a 
witch.  The first time they made me go in to talk to Horowitz, I sat 
there silently for the entire hour.  

After the first ten minutes and a few gentle leading questions, she 
went and got some embroidery out of her desk drawer and sat 
there and did needlepoint or cross stitch or whatever the hell it 
was.  And when Skinner collected me, like you collect kids after 
kindergarten, she shook her head at him and said, "Not a good day 
today, Walter."   

Except she has a heavy European accent and it sounded more like 
"Not a gut day today, Valter."   

I swear, life is a comedy and God is a sick, sadistic son of a bitch 
jokemeister.   

The second time, she decided on a different approach and read out 
loud from the file they'd put together on Wilkinson.  I had to stop 
there a minute, Dear Diary, so I could go and throw up.  But I'm 
improving.  I don't get so many physical memories when I hear his 
name these days, except for the hot sweet urge to go diving in the 
Bermuda Triangle, pull up his rotting corpse and do things to it 
that my mother would faint to hear about.  I spent that hour 
throwing up into her wastebasket and the bitch wouldn't let me 
leave.  

God.  I spend years dancing around shrinks and I end up with 
Horowitz.  She doesn't care that I went to Oxford and she won't let 
me engage in detached analytical bullshit.  I wish I still carried a 
gun.  Either for myself or Horowitz.  And Skinner and Jack won't 
let me miss an appointment and I have to go every goddamned 
day.  It's like having a root canal.  

Imagine Walter Skinner as my guardian angel.  Or my mother.  I 
can't even begin to imagine him as my father, Skinner's too decent, 
and I don't think irony is in Skinner's vocabulary.  

I keep waiting for him to say something touchy feely like "I hear 
what you're saying, Mulder", or worse, "I feel your pain, Mulder", 
and I'll punch his lights out, but it hasn't happened yet.  And at my 
present weight, I probably wouldn't even leave a dent in that steely 
jaw.  

That prick Watts thinks Skinner is fucking me, he thinks Wilkinson 
did such a good job on me that I just crawled into Skinner's bed 
and said, yes, Master, do me however you want.  Now there's 
someone I could justifiably shoot.  Along with Jack.

Jack hasn't got a clue, I swear.  He thinks Wilkinson's habits were 
no kinkier than the average S&M freak.  Whips and handcuffs and 
leashes, Oh, My.  Of course, Wilkinson liked the accoutrements as 
a spice to his entrees, but he could forego that without any trouble.  

Anyway, after a week of apparently pointless sessions, with me 
throwing up into the wastebasket at the slightest opportunity, 
Horowitz let me cut back to three times a week if I kept this 
fucking journal.  

Oh, no, not a nice easy cognitive learning journal, she wants the 
life and times of Fox William Mulder.   Well, she ain't gonna get all 
that--you hear that, Horowitz?--but I'll give her the recent life and 
times of Fox William Mulder so long as she doesn't press me for 
details on the last two years.  Or the last year.  Or whatever it was, 
I kinda lost track of time.  

Evidently Skinner doesn't read these pages before he takes them 
down to her.  In fact, I know that, I watched him seal the last set 
into an envelope and give it to Jack.   Jack would probably read 
them, Jack thinks he's going to be my messiah because he survived 
six years of sexual slavery and came out of therapy intact.  He 
thinks Horowitz is the answer to a submissive's prayer and is 
horrified when I don't cooperate.  At least Skinner won't let him 
use the needle too often, or I'd have to contemplate shooting Jack, 
too.  

I hate surviving one year of Wilkinson, and the fucking wasn't the 
hard part.  My fingers ache when it turns cold because he thought 
it was amusing to break my fingers after I caught hold of the leash 
he tried to use on me.  Needless to say, I decided I'd rather keep 
my fingers and let him have his way after he produced the magic 
pictures of Scully.  

I keep asking myself where they got those pictures, but it's really a 
fool's question.  I certainly wasn't around her twenty-four hours a 
day, and some of them, where she looks healthy and strong, were 
taken before she got sick.  But Wilkinson had his little ways, he 
did, and most of them included pain and loathing for me.  

And that's not even why I hate surviving, I hate surviving to find 
out that I was pathetic, I bought into the biggest lie of all, I 
believed that cigarette smoking motherfucker when he said 
they'd cure Scully if I turned myself over to them.  Naturally, I 
thought they were going to kill me.  

Oh, surprise, Mulder, you're only going to wish they did, and 
everytime you gave them any real trouble, everytime you had the 
strength to give them any real trouble, they threatened you 
with that, produced the healthy Scully pictures and reminded  me 
that they'd taken her the first time and could do it again, far more 
easily.  That five years, really, should go by before she was 
pronounced cancer free.  

Lies, lies, lies.  And I swallowed them whole, walked out into the 
darkness of that night, watched them take in my body double, heh, 
and got swallowed up myself.  

My father let them experiment on his kids.  I know that for a fact 
now, and they were fascinated to study the spiral of my DNA and 
figure out what worked and what hadn't.  I got fat on the drugs 
they gave me, lazy and sloppy and so completely blitzed I was 
lucky I could find my dick with both hands.  I'm not sure how long 
that took.  I was too stoned most of the time, and they weren't 
going to let me get clean until they'd gotten what they wanted 
medically.  The baseline I think Scully would have called it.  

Wilkinson worked the fat off me in no time.   

Everytime we sit down to eat now, Skinner eyes me if I even slow 
down.  Jack threatened to give me insulin or something to trigger 
this horrendous appetite that I wouldn't be able to fight.  Hah.  
Little does Jack know the Mulder temperament.  Or the Skinner 
temperament.  Skinner put a stop to that in a New York second. 

I may hate surviving, but I like Skinner.  I used to wonder if he 
expected me to fall on his neck in gratitude for getting me out of 
there and finally asked him yesterday.  

He gave me that funny little twist of the mouth he's developed 
since joining UNCLE or whatever the hell these people call 
themselves and shook his head.  "Nope."   

Sometimes, Skinner rivals Gary Cooper as a man of few words.   
He also manages to work my ass to exhaustion.  How can anybody 
living in the mountains come up with so many outside projects?  
First, it was cutting wood, enough wood to build the fucking 
house twice over again.  I had blisters on my blisters, which didn't 
make me any happier to have to go talk to Horowitz every day, 
except that it meant I wasn't chopping or digging or sanding or 
planing.  I suspect he's planning one of those Japanese Gardens and 
spent too much time watching the Karate Kid back in the eighties.  

Work will set you free.  

I called him Napoleon Solo to his face the other day and he 
cracked up, plain and simple.  I can die a happy man, now, I've 
seen Walter Skinner with tears running down his face from 
laughing.  

Maybe that's why I like Skinner, he's complex, but uncomplicated.  
And he treats me like Mulder, not like a victim.  Well, except for at 
night, when I've had a particularly vicious nightmare. 
 
Scully is dead.   

There, I've written it down as a hard fact.  She died thirteen 
months after my alleged death.  In the hospital.  Ravaged by 
radiation and chemo.  Or so I imagine, Skinner doesn't want to 
talk about it much except he said that he used to go and see her 
every few days.  I had to cry then, which upset him, but he sat 
there with his hand on my shoulder looking out at the sunset over 
the mountains and just let me be.  He also told me he promised her 
he'd make them pay.  

With that twist of the lips, letting me know that he thought it was 
probably a lost cause, but he was going to damned well do it 
anyway.  It tells me something that he left the FBI, that he 
didn't think he could even make a start there.  I finally convinced 
Skinner that the bad guys were all around us and all I had to do 
was die.  

No, that's not fair, he knew, they tried to frame him, tried to kill his 
wife.  And he tried to save Scully.  After that little frame-up, I 
figured they were jerking him off and after Kritschgau, I figured 
that the only way they'd save Scully is if I was gone.  As in dead.  
They knew damned well they couldn't co-opt me.  

I think my sister is probably dead.  The really horrible thing about 
living through everything is that I can accept that, even if it isn't 
true.  I don't want to look anymore, I just don't fucking care.  I 
can't win this one.  I'm never going to win it, even if I'm still 
breathing.  

Okay, I've been putting it off.  Horowitz, you know about Mengele 
and his cronies and what they did to Jewish prisoners in the 
concentration camps.  Imagine that much fun, only with people 
who actually didn't want you to die until they finished with you, so 
they kept bringing you back again and again.  That was how I 
spent my time before Wilkinson.  

And when, for some reason, maybe fucking stupidity, I kept 
surviving, they got all excited and muttered darkly about the 
changes to my DNA and put me out to pasture with Wilkinson.  In 
case they wanted me again.  

Wilkinson told me that little tidbit, when I was raging at him to just 
fucking kill me and get it over with.  Regretfully, no less.  "I can't 
kill you, Fox, I have orders not to."  

In a way, that was a relief, it was the first inkling that I wasn't 
really intended as his little tidbit.  That was just an unfortunate side 
effect of my captivity.  I was able to keep in mind that I was 
a sort of political prisoner a lot more easily.  Not that it helped 
much.  

Political prisoners get tortured all the time. 

I still wish he wasn't dead, I'd like to have him here in a cell and 
just drop by two or three times a day to do something reptilian to 
him.  Except I'd have to touch him for most of them, and I couldn't 
stand that, so I'd have to invest in some of his nifty electrical toys.    

I also have some dandy scars in various places from interesting 
surgeries.  I suppose I should be grateful they didn't castrate me, 
but evidently they didn't want to fuck with the natural biochemistry 
of the machine much.  So I didn't even get any really swell drugs.  
Hey, how do you feel about having the bends, Horowitz?  Or 
traveling at the speed of light?  I don't want to brag, but I've 
damned near done it all, including a lot of things I didn't think 
anyone could do, not even with the fucking technology I knew 
damned well they had.  

Our brothers from beyond the stars aren't particularly interested in 
us as an intelligent species, I've decided.   It's more like the Roman 
Coliseum.  They drop by to see the latest gladiator action.  

That's it for today, Horowitz, I'll catch you tomorrow.   

Day 3.  

How's that for uninspired, Diary, I didn't even put a date.  

I had a real screamer last night and woke up to find Skinner talking 
to me again, his hand cupping my face.  Talking me back out of the 
netherworld of my dreams.  

It's so fucking humiliating.  I can give him shit all day long, classic 
me in high roller mode.  He doesn't even get pissed.  Just gives me 
that weird smile again or laughs outright.  Sometimes I think it's 
because he knows that in the middle of the night I'm going to 
regress again to about five years old--and that may be generous--
and he's going to be dealing with my inner child.  I really hate my 
inner child.  There was a great song a few years ago about finding 
your inner child and kicking its ass.  I wish I could remember.  

I used to remember everything.  

On the other hand, maybe that's one of the few mercies of the 
Great Jokemeister in the sky.  

He says I don't scream, but if I don't scream, how the hell does he 
know I'm having a nightmare?  Does he sit up at night waiting for 
the slightest sound from my room?  He said no, when I asked him 
and just shrugged.  

Am I supposed to believe that Skinner, by the book, ramrod 
Skinner, has a psychic connection to my dreams?  Jesus, that's 
scarier than Roche.  

BTW, Dear Diary, I found out, Horowitz is Freudian.  Thereby 
giving me further confirmation of my view of a supreme being.  I 
survive the last two  and a half years, and I end up being 
forced to go to a Freudian.  No wonder she wants me to write 
about my life and times.  Not a chance, Horowitz.  This stuff is bad 
enough, count yourself lucky.  And the only reason I'm doing that 
is because Skinner seems to think there's a good chance I can make 
it back all the way and stop thinking about using his cutlery to 
redesign my hydraulic system.  

I don't know why he bothers.  I drove him fucking crazy for four 
years.  Well, okay, I saved his ass a couple of times, but he saved 
mine, too, so we're even.  I don't know why he keeps going around 
with the guilt sword hanging over his head.  He denies it, but I can 
practically see the wheels turn when I make some remark about 
offing myself.  On the other hand, he said Scully felt guilty, too.  

I'm not ready to write about Scully, yet.  It's hard enough to keep 
remembering she's dead.  

Skinner has a good question, though.  Why didn't they just kill me?  
I told him when he figures it out, let me know.  I guess it's the 
medical/genetic shit, which they didn't bother to share with their 
lab animal.  

Julie Wilson is the physician of record here, did I say that already?  
She assures me I'm perfectly human, which was, I confess, 
something of a relief.  I mean, bleeding red when I cut myself 
shaving used to be a good enough sign for me, but it doesn't work 
that way anymore.  Not after the things I saw.  I probably have 
kids out there who are one quarter alien and bleed red. Tank 
grown, so they're already halfway mature enough to use.  I don't 
have anxiety attacks when I think about it anymore, but I did tell 
Skinner so if somebody, sometime, shows up who looks exactly 
like me, he knows to shoot first and ask questions at the autopsy.  
He passed it on to someone who passed it on to someone and I got 
to talk to that prick Watts again.  

Skinner told me drily that I should capitalize it when I write that.   

That Prick Watts.   

He and Watts act like two alpha males at a wolf shindig.  Skinner's 
shoulders get twice their natural size and Watts just smiles that 
shit-eating, fuck you grin like he's waiting for Skinner to turn his 
back so he can knife him.  

I was too zoned the first time I saw them together, but when Watts 
showed up to interview me, you would have thought I was kinner's 
fifteen year old virgin daughter the way he acted.  Actually, it was 
reassuring, Watts wasn't above fucking anyone, and he'd had a 
little taste of me when I was tied down on Wilkinson's estate.  Like 
I said, he thinks Skinner's my big leather daddy, and I suppose it 
was like pissing on Skinner's territory.  

Skinner caused something of an uproar when he found out I was 
on Wilkinson's estate, evidently.  Jack told me that in hushed 
tones--Skinner may not expect it, but Jack expects me to fall on 
Skinner's neck and weep in gratitude and he gets annoyed when 
I'm not properly grateful.  I think Jack wants to fall on Skinner's 
neck and weep in something other than gratitude, I think he's still 
secretly a sub and wants to lick Skinner's Marine boots clean.  

Anyway, Skinner's interference pissed Watts off and he had to 
move sooner than he wanted to, or so I gather.  So they didn't get 
everything they wanted.  And Watts is still pissed.  

So I had to look at mug shots, no shit, and go through every 
goddamn record they had on the Consortium, as the men from 
UNCLE call it, and I was still in bad enough shape that it upset 
me, and Skinner got Watts the fuck out of the house.  They 
exchanged some hard words outside, it was impossible to miss.    

I went into my room and actually curled up on the floor under the 
desk Skinner put in here for me.  Another sterling moment in the 
history of Fox Mulder.  Closets were bad enough, at least I was 
dreaming then.   

Eventually, Jack ratted on me and Skinner came in and sat cross-
legged on the floor.  

"Want to talk about it?" he asked quietly.  

I most certainly did not, although I was embarrassed enough to 
come out from under the desk.  And sat there on my heels, waiting 
for him to either ream me or do something even more embarrassing 
for both of us.  But he didn't.  He just waited.  For a long time.  
Apparently quite patiently.   

Another new thing, Diary, this new world contains a patient Walter 
Skinner.  Oh, Brave New World-- wasn't that Shakespeare? I was 
psych, not lit, and even though my brain stores endless amounts of 
information, I think some of the old data got damaged during my 
rest cure with the Consortium.  

He reminded me of those old daguerreotypes you see of Apaches 
on the reservation, patient expressions, even though they drove the 
US Army crazy before they got rounded up.  

"I don't want to talk about it," I finally ventured, since he obviously 
wasn't going to say anything unless I answered him.  He's worse 
than Horowitz that way.  I've accused him of taking up Zen since 
his resignation from the Bureau and he just laughs again.  

I think he's met Buddha on the road to enlightenment and killed 
him.  He's entirely too cheerful about having to nursemaid me and I 
know it's not in his nature.  He even thinks it's funny that Watts 
thinks he's fucking me.  I don't think it's funny, but he does.  I just 
don't have the energy to get pissed about it.  

"He's a weasel, Mulder," he told me once, very seriously, "But he's 
good at what he does.  Just ignore his bullshit."  Easier said than 
done.  

But we were sitting in front of the desk on the floor, weren't we?  
Yeah.  

Skinner nodded at my declaration of self-imposed silence as if he 
agreed with it.  "You want something to eat?" he then asked.  

He asks me that about ten times a day.  I know I look bad, I weigh 
myself every morning on the scale in the bathroom, I know I'm 
hideously thin and I  wasn't ever really fat to begin with.  Except 
on the drugs, when I basically slept all the time and ate whatever 
they gave me.  I felt like Brian Wilson, of the Beach Boys.  

"No."  I managed to look straight at him.  To my relief, he didn't 
look like he was feeling sorry for me.  Exactly.   But he was 
watching me pretty closely.  Worried about the cutlery, I 
imagine.  

"Let's go outside," he suggested.  

I didn't have a good reason for disagreeing with that suggestion, 
and I'd actually put my shoes on that morning.  A new high in 
Mulder's life.  Until today, when I shaved by myself.  My hands 
have been shaking too badly, and if I wanted to get shaved, I had 
to get Jack or Skinner to do it.  

I wasn't going to ask Skinner, and I sure as hell wouldn't cross the 
street to piss on Jack if he was on fire, so I went unshaven a couple 
of days.  

Skinner resolved that by getting an electric razor from somewhere.  
Which was better than nothing, but I hate those things.  I get 
ingrown whiskers from them.  Today, I managed a razor all by 
myself, without cutting my own throat with it.    But I digress 
again, Horowitz, forgive me.  

So....I nodded and got up and followed him out to the front hall--
this house is built into a hill, did I say that yet?  It doesn't have any 
fucking windows except one over the kitchen sink and one in the 
livingroom and one helluva lot of filtered light that gets routed 
through in some arcane way.  A bermed house, that's what they 
call them.  The whole fucking settlement is like that, and 
camouflaged heavily against satellite photos.   

Anyway, I followed him out to the front hall and he tossed me a 
familiar jacket.   

My jacket.  My leather jacket.  The smell made my throat hurt, but 
I put it on and followed him outside, blinking at the sun.  Trees 
everywhere.  It reminded me of New England, except New 
England doesn't have mountains as high as the Canadian Rockies, 
and we were in the Canadian Rockies.  

Instead of working me hard, Skinner walked me a long way.  Into 
the trees and across the slope.  We came to a spring and Skinner 
stopped dead.  Put a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward 
more trees.  

I saw the doe then.  It was fall, she had the fawn near her.  I didn't 
know we were low enough to see deer, I somehow had this vision 
of being on the roof of the Western Hemisphere.  And I froze and 
just watched her.  

She was scenting the air, testing it for danger.  Skinner was smiling 
a little when I glanced at him, watching her.  After a moment, she 
flicked her tail and she and her baby ran away from us, back up the 
slope.  And Skinner was still smiling.  

"I love this country," he said softly.  "We haven't murdered it yet."  

I wondered if he meant Canada or the mountains in general and 
decided on the latter.  I somehow couldn't see Skinner suddenly 
developing a rabid allegiance to Canada, not when all governments 
were, at the dark heart of it, the same.  And I'd never thought he 
was stupid.  

"It's pretty," I agreed and shifted from one foot to the other.  

He gave me a mild look.  "Yeah.  Time to turn around, Mulder, 
before I wear you out."  So we started back for the house.  A man 
of few words, like I said. 

 Finally, I asked him, "Why are you doing this?  Why do you care?"  

Another mild look.  "Why shouldn't I?"  

I wanted to stop, stand in the middle of the forest and scream at 
the top of my lungs while tearing out my hair.   He keeps telling 
me that every goddamned time I ask him either question.  

Instead, I just stopped and scowled.  "That doesn't tell me 
anything."  

He just kept walking.  "I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm 
asking you why I shouldn't.  You went to Oxford, I think your 
verbal skills are good, Mulder.  Tell me why I shouldn't."  

Because I didn't think you even liked me, I wanted to begin, but I 
knew that wasn't true.   

Because you aren't a cop anymore?  For all I knew, he didn't see it 
that way.   

Because I'm a fucking basket case and you have nothing to gain?  I 
actually said that and got that weird little smile again.  

"Sure I do.  I can look at my own reflection when I shave."  

Oh, great, a moralist.  While I thought about that, he got ahead of 
me and I had to scramble on shaky legs to catch up.  "That's 
bullshit."  

That smile again.  "Then you tell me, Mulder.  You're the psych 
fella.  Why  am I doing it?  Why does anyone do anything?"  

That was easy.  "Because they want to.  Because it makes them 
feel good." 

 "Bingo."  The smile again.  I wanted to scream in frustration.   

"But why does it make you feel good?" I persisted.  

"You're the psych--"  

"Fella, yeah I know."  I scowled at him.  

"Profile me, Mulder," he challenged and then grinned outright.  
"Figure it out.  Maybe it's an X file."  He kept walking.  And got 
ahead of me again, the bastard.  

Profile him.   

Yeah, maybe I will, I thought, but I haven't.  Maybe I don't want to 
know why he's doing this.  Maybe I'd rather think he just liked me 
and thought he'd do me a good turn by getting me out of hell.  

I was thinking about that the other day while sanding wood and 
started giggling at the thought of him as Orpheus to my Eurydice 
and he stopped and frowned at me.   I actually told him why I was 
giggling and his face cleared.   

"Yeah, but I was smart enough not to look back.  Of course, that 
meant you had to deal with That Prick Watts."  

Which got me giggling again until I had to put the sander down.  I 
could hear the capital letters in his tone.  I think he thought it was 
a good sign.  

Maybe it was.  I don't know anymore.   


Day 4  

I really hate Horowitz.   And yeah, I know you're reading this, 
Horowitz, so fuck you.   

Walter Skinner can't possibly represent my father because he's a) 
only nine years older than I am, he told me himself, and b) just 
because he was an authority figure doesn't mean my unconscious 
confuses him with my father and c) my father was an alcoholic who 
managed to blame me for his own sins and compounded that by 
getting shot in the head and dying as he asked me to forgive him.  
Talk about no closure.  

And my toilet training was not traumatic, thank you very much.  

And my mother's still alive, so let's leave her out of it, and 
Skinner's actually told me he's going to try to get them to let her 
come up here.  So she knows her only son isn't dead by his 
own hand.  

I have mixed feelings about that, Horowitz.  In an honest effort to 
do some therapeutic work, I tried to talk about that yesterday, but 
you were fixated on Skinner.  You and Watts both make me tired.  

I told Skinner he could read these pages before he seals them up 
and sends them.  I'm not sure why, maybe an exercise in self-
abnegation.  See, why are you doing this, I'm an asshole and I'm 
not worth it.  

He read the last batch and cracked up in several places.  And when 
he looked up, he was still smiling.  "You're going to make it, 
Mulder.  Don't ever doubt it."   

It's a good thing he's not a shrink, I'm not sure *I'd* have that 
much confidence in a patient in my condition.  But from Skinner, 
who used to think I really was crazy, it's reassurance. 

Go figure.  And don't tell me it's because I'm starving for approval 
from my father figure.  

When I told him he could read them, he looked at me for a long 
moment, completely Gary Cooper.  "Mulder, these are for 
Horowitz, not me."  

I gave him my best shit-eating grin.  "Yeah, but you want to, you 
know it." 
 
Shake of the head, one eyebrow lifted.  "No, I don't."  

Maybe that's why I wanted him to read them, he's probably one of 
the few people currently associated with me who doesn't demand 
to know what's going on in my head.  "Okay, but I want you to."  

He gave me a long look and I managed to keep a straight face.   

Heh.  Gotcha, you stone faced bastard.  I haven't asked you for a 
goddamn thing since I got here.  And it worked, by Christ, he 
finally nodded and sat down to read them.  

With the result that he decided I'm not completely insane.   

At least he doesn't keep telling me I'm a survivor, he just keeps 
working me to death.   Right now, this project is taking shape as a 
kind of an enclosed porch, as far as I can tell.  And he really knows 
what he's doing.  I'm afraid, I'm very afraid. 

I can manage to fix my plumbing and change my car battery and 
figure out if my carburetor isn't running right, but I'm not sure I 
could manage an undertaking like this.  Fortunately, I'm only 
handling the grunt work.   

I'm afraid to ask him, I'll bet he spent the last two years building 
this damned three bedroom berm himself.   

Today he told me that he'd told Horowitz that he'd read my 
rantings.  Not quite that way of course, he said, "I told Dr. 
Horowitz that you asked me to read your journals."  

No wonder she thinks he represents my father.  Jesus.  I'd rather be 
seeing a shaman, I didn't have any ill effects from the Blessing Way 
Albert Hosteen and the elders performed on me.  I'd trust them a 
lot more not to take off on tangents unrelated.  

Yeah, okay, I guess I trust Skinner.  For one thing, he hasn't patted 
my ass and asked me to slip into something more comfortable.  
Although if he had, I think Wilkinson's training would have 
deserted me and I'd have simply gaped at him like an idiot.  Or 
laughed hysterically.  Or something.   

For another thing, he really doesn't have a goddamned thing to 
gain by having a lunatic live in his second bedroom.  Although he 
acts like he doesn't.  He still persists in treating me as normal, even 
after a month of having a lunatic in his second bedroom.  

Although maybe he does have something to gain, a goddamned 
enclosed porch for his three bedroom berm.  

It doesn't seem enough, somehow, to warrant not trusting him.  
We haven't talked FBI at all, except for when he explained that 
he'd resigned to start a new life as Napoleon.  And him telling me 
to profile him.  

And it's weird, he knows stuff about me that he shouldn't.  Like 
sleeping with the television on.  Like hating to be drugged when 
I'm upset.  Like digging up the fucking potato on the sideshow 
murder case.  I finally asked him how he knew all this stuff--
despite Scully's insistence during the Roche case, I can't really 
believe that somewhere out there exists a Fox Mulder web page 
with pertinent details about my life.  And even if there was, it's not 
exactly the kind of research project I'd expect from Skinner.  

He really thought the Gary Cooper comparison was funny, BTW.   
He thinks the strangest things are funny, and it's generally the 
things I'd expect to piss him off.  Like Watts' certainty 
that he's fucking me.  

He said, "Well, Mulder, when we get snowed in this winter, with 
that long dark hair, you might actually start to look appealing."  

That's typical cop humor, Horowitz, I used to come up with much 
worse to Reggie and Jerry Lamana and another couple of good 
friends.  But here he is with this mental invalid living in his house 
and when I tell him that fucker Watts thinks I'm his little warm and 
toasty, he laughs and hands me that line.  

I snickered and froze, the smile congealing on my face, flashing 
one of those goddamn visceral somatic memories of Wilkinson 
running his fingers through my hair.   

Skinner's face changed.  "What?"  

It passed and I was really proud of myself, I didn't throw up, throw 
a screaming temper tantrum, or burst into tears.  Instead, I let the 
smile take on some real force and said, "I was wondering how one 
of those pre- Raphaelite curly perms would affect you."  

And he said, I kid you not, "As long as you don't go around in all 
those gauze draperies."  

How many people have I known that could pick up on the pre-
Raphaelite reference and zing me back with it?   Not many.  

Nothing in his tenure as my AD prepared me for this.  I told 
Horowitz that far from representing my father, Skinner was 
starting to make me crazier than any of the Consortium 
clowns had managed.  

Anyway, I asked him how he knew all this shit about me and he 
looked at me kind of quizzically and said, "Scully told me."  

Well, naturally, Mulder, get your head out of your ass.  I think I 
turned a little red.  

He went back to smoothing wet cement for the porch floor.  "It 
helped her to talk about you," he told me, and his voice was a little 
muffled, as if he didn't like remembering those days.  

I didn't like thinking about them.  I stood there like an ass with 
tears running down my face and holding onto the damned trowel 
that I was useless with until he stood up again, put an arm around 
my shoulders and led me back to sit on the boulders at the edge of 
what was supposed to be a yard.   

If I find out he moved those boulders there himself, the cutlery will 
not be safe.  I couldn't even manage to get myself out of durance 
vile alone.  

Anyway, we sat there for a minute and I managed a couple of 
appalling sniffles to keep my nose from running.  

"She missed you a lot," he said softly, turning the trowel over and 
over as if it held the secret of the universe.   "And when she talked 
about you, it seemed to help.  There weren't many other people she 
could talk about you with.  None of the people from the Bureau 
came by, except me and a woman who was in her class at 
Quantico.  And her mother sure as hell didn't want to talk about 
you, she didn't even like seeing me show up.  The Bureau killed her 
daughters, to her way of thinking.  I think she was too Catholic to 
spit at me, but she'd get up and leave without a word when I 
showed up.  I kept showing up because there were things 
Scully wanted to say."  His voice was rough.  

I nodded, even though I couldn't see anymore.  "I killed her."  

"They killed her."  He sat straight up, as angry as I'd ever seen him 
back in the good old bad old days.  "You didn't kill her, Mulder.  
You were doing your job and she was doing hers.  And they 
decided to try and stop you by taking her."  

I wasn't going to argue with him.  I knew better.   She thought she 
was just going to follow me around and find scientific explanations 
that made sense for the things we dealt with and I never told her 
that I knew they'd kill us to stop us.  Well, I suspected, the closer 
we got.  I was never sure until they took her.  Which was a 
meaningless distinction, I never said to her, say hey, Scully, we 
might really get into  trouble here, you know, that might not stop 
at shutting down the X files.  And so she took that damned metal 
implant home with her.  Which might not have made any difference 
if Krycek told Barry where to find her.  

It makes my head ache to think about it and I keep thinking about 
it late at night.  And wake up screaming in Skinner's second 
bedroom like the lunatic I am so he can come in and soothe me 
back to sleep.  

Okay, Walt, maybe not screaming, but shaking and sweating and 
moaning, satisfied?  

My father, for your information, Horowitz, never bothered to 
soothe me back to sleep.  If I woke him up screaming, I had plenty 
of other reasons to scream when he was done with me.  Jack 
generally wants to trank me when I wake up like that.  Or did.  

I don't know what he thinks of Skinner's insistence that I go back 
to sleep naturally.  Maybe Skinner is just this natural way freak, 
you know, no drugs, lots of hard work, fresh air, and good food.  
There used to be this thing called Muscular Christianity in the last 
century, but Skinner may not be as pure of heart as those guys.  
For one thing, I think Julie Wilson sneaks into the house at night.  

Presumably, they think the mention of sex is going to send me 
screaming for the knife drawer.  I have very little libido, of course, 
but having surgery and being a head case probably has more to do 
with that than Wilkinson fucking me.  

He might have gotten me to do what he wanted, but he didn't get 
into my head.  Exactly.  

I do wonder why I managed to lie myself into turning myself over 
to them.  I was that desperate to save Scully, says the little voice 
that also asks me why I'm being such an asshole to Jack, who really 
is trying to help me.  And I can accept that, but I can't accept that 
I kept buying it.  

Maybe I had to in order to survive.  One of those deeply held 
instincts for survival.  But I never was terribly strong on that.  

Actually, I'm glad somebody is sneaking into Skinner's bedroom.  
Somebody, at least, is having a normal life.  And Jack sneaks off at 
night down-mountain, so presumably he's got some kind of sweetie 
somewhere.  If Skinner had taken a monastic vow while I'm here, I 
think I really would punch him out.  It *is* tasteful of him not to 
have her parade around in her underwear, but I'm a big boy, I can 
stand to find out that my former boss is getting some regularly.  

Sorry, that was rude.  I just hate being patronized.  

Anyway, back in time, I guess.  Cancerman wouldn't look at me 
when he came to get me that night.  Maybe he was a little 
embarrassed about turning me over to the Mengele squad.  

I wonder about that.  

I asked Skinner about him a few weeks ago, while he had me 
slaving over the planer.  

"He's dead.  I think."  Skinner held up the board to study it and 
nodded his approval.  "Blew his brains out, Mulder, about six 
weeks after you allegedly blew yours out."  

Trust Skinner not to tiptoe around it.  I grinned and went back to 
work.  Hey, I might still be skinny, but I weigh more, I have to say.  
All that free labor for Skinner is putting muscle back on the way it 
ought to be.  Even if my jeans still slide down my hips.  

Once I realized I wasn't going to be shot execution style on my 
living room couch, I wondered what was going on.  I thought 
they'd brought the body double to keep Scully from looking for 
me.  I was right, they had.  But not right about why.  

"You said you think he's dead."  I looked up at him before turning 
the planer on again.  

"Well, you're still alive."  He gave me that twisted little smile again.  
"He could be." 

 "I can only wish," I told him, thinking about the last two years.  

"Me, too."  Skinner's tone was flat.  "Come on, let's break for 
some lunch."

Jack goes down to the main enclave during the first part of the day.  
Skinner won't let him stick me, so I suppose he's not really needed 
up here.  And despite the tools, Skinner keeps a pretty close eye on 
me.  I was digging through his tool box, I don't even remember 
what I was supposed to hand him, and came across an evil looking 
pair of needle nose pliers and had sort of an anxiety attack.  I don't 
think I'd done anything more than gasp and he was right there, 
getting me back on my feet and walking me around before sitting 
me on that damned 
boulder.  

So I could probably get about as far as I did with my juice glass 
when they told me that Scully was dead.   Inside of the left arm, 
about fifteen sutures required.  I got that far when Skinner's bulk 
hit me.  

If Skinner didn't play football in high school and college, the world 
lost a great linebacker.  I swear, I still have bruises from hitting the 
floor that time, although I didn't notice it then.  

Not for a couple of days.  I was otherwise occupied doing the full 
tilt, going out of my mind boogie.  And trying to bang my head 
against his floor.  He did let Jack stick me once that morning, the 
first morning I was here. And really, it wasn't really his fault, I'd 
not only asked him, I'd told him I wanted Scully to doctor me if 
anyone did.   

Anyway, I don't plan on getting any more bruises.  If I decide to do 
it, I'm going to wait until he's otherwise occupied, believe me.  He 
doesn't need any more guilt. 

Cancerman wouldn't look at me as they took me to the car, which 
should have told me something.  Instead, it confused me, and 
robbed me of strength to fight back when they first took me.   And 
I'm not sure that I want to remember that.  Horowitz seems to 
think I need to.  I'm not sure if I do or not.  Maybe it's enough to 
survive and find pleasure in doing something with my hands and a 
few jokes with somebody who cares that I make it back. 

I asked Skinner this morning what he thought about recovering 
those memories.  He stared at me for a moment and then got up to 
get more coffee.   And yes, God, they finally let me have real 
coffee instead of fucking decaf.

Evidently, I'm considered healthier now and allowed a mild 
stimulant.  

Of course, I only get one cup a day, while Skinner could swill it all 
day long without getting anything but an adoring look from Jack, 
but it's enough of a pleasure that I don't gripe.  Much.  

This time I got another half cup, the Coffee Policeman having 
already finished his breakfast and started his shower.   

Skinner grinned as he poured it.  "Don't tell Jack."  

I inhaled reverently.  "I may be crazy, Skinner, but I'm not stupid."  
That got me a rap on the head, like he was my fucking big brother 
or something.   

There, Horowitz, you want family identification?  You got it.  The 
authoritarian older brother who keeps the younger kids in line.  I 
gave him a look and he chuckled, then put the pot back and sat 
down.   

"I don't know what to tell you, Mulder.  On the one hand, my 
common sense says why bother?  You made it, you're coming back 
just fine.  And on the other hand, I 'm not so stupid--what you 
don't remember can ambush you when you don't expect it."  

Fair enough.  And sensible.   Why is it that I'm taking all my 
psychological advice from Skinner, the man  with the master's 
degree in Administration of Justice?  Hey, I like him better than 
Horowitz and he doesn't bullshit me with how homey and warm he 
is.  

Fictional shrinks are always perfect, they handle their patients just 
the right way.  I remember too much about my education to think 
that's true.  Alan Brainerd, one of my professors, made a pass at 
me and I was barely sixteen, took a good whack at seducing me, 
and nearly got himself thumped when some of my friends, who had 
decided I needed looking after since I was just a pup, found out 
about it.  I suppose that doesn't rule out the possibility that he 
could have been a decent therapist, but since they tell me that I 
looked like a tall thirteen year old at sixteen, I keep thinking that 
pedophilia would cause him certain problems in dealing with 
patients.  And he wasn't the worst I've ever seen.  

I think Horowitz is probably a good shrink for some people, but 
she's not exactly my dream shrink.  

"Why is it you don't like Horowitz?" Skinner asked me this 
morning, after the facing-your-fear talk.  

I grimaced.  "I hate Freudians."  

Skinner's mouth twitched suspiciously.  "You tap danced around 
anybody we ever sent you to in the Bureau."  

"They were hacks."  I gave him an innocent look.  "I don't tap 
dance."  

Snort.  Skinner leaned back in his chair, mouth still twitching.   

I couldn't help it, I grinned back.  "Okay, maybe I did a little soft 
shoe.  But if I can think rings around them, why bother?"  

He laughed, shaking his head.  "Mulder, you can't deal with this 
alone."  

Another innocent look.  "I thought that's why we were building 
House Beautiful."  

He kept shaking his head, amused.   "No, the plan is to keep you 
from brooding and to get you back in halfway decent shape."  

Well, it does keep me from brooding, but not from thinking.  I 
turned my coffee cup between my hands, circle after circle after 
circle.  "She hasn't got a clue, that's all.  If I tell her the reason I 
turned myself over to them was to save my partner and get her a 
cure for cancer, she's going to shoot me full of Thorazine and put 
me in a strait jacket.  If I tell her my sister was kidnapped by aliens, 
how do you think that will go over?"  

"You're not sure of that."  He had stopped laughing and was 
listening.  "You yourself weren't certain that Roche wasn't telling 
you the truth."  

I hated thinking about that, too.  Another little girl had nearly died 
because of my obsession.  "Yeah.  You're right, I'm not sure.  But 
if I tell her that I was regressed and that's what I thought I 
remembered, how do you think she'll take it."  

Skinner sipped at his coffee.  "About five years ago, there was a 
woman who managed to get her father convicted of murder, did 
you follow that case?"  

I nodded, feeling glum suddenly.   "Yeah.  I'm still not sure.  Sure, 
the bastard raped his kids and beat them, but I'm not sure he's 
guilty of murder."  

He nodded.  "So, your memories may either be screen memories or 
they may be false, things that were suggested to you post-
hypnosis."  

I folded my hands and rested my chin on them.  "Someone's been 
doing his reading."  That weird smile again.  

"I was a field agent, Mulder, I'm not completely ignorant."  That 
was true.  I guess I'd gotten used to thinking of him as a 
bureaucrat, no pun intended.  

I considered that.  "You think they might be screen memories?"  

"I have no opinion on that, Mulder.  I do know, from what Scully 
told me, and what I've learned here, that your father was neck deep 
in whatever they're hiding.  And I do believe that they're hiding 
something bigger than a breadbox."  He looked into his coffee cup.  
"And I've seen enough evidence here to know that it may possibly 
involve something not native to this planet."  

I almost fell out of my chair.  Walter Skinner mentioning ETs?  
"Watch out, Horowitz is coming after you next."  

He almost smiled.  Not quite.  "You might be surprised.  Horowitz 
might be the one to help you remember what really happened.  
She's part of the enclave, after all, not some imported Freudian we 
brought in to drive you out of your mind.  Or back into it."  

"Out of body," I said smartly and grinned at the way he looked at 
me.  "Hey, it sounds good.  Not as good as it did, say, a month 
ago.  Your cooking is better than mine."  

That made him smile for real.  "It's so hard to chop effectively with 
a plastic knife, Mulder.  Wait until you're ready for the real stuff."  

Like I said, he doesn't tiptoe around the hard stuff.  He might not 
go in with guns blasting, but he doesn't pretend that I'm A-Okay, 
or treat me like I'm a victim or an invalid.  How could I not trust 
the guy?  

He's not trying to railroad me anywhere, except into building a 
porch, and I do have the feeling that if I just sat on the boulder and 
watched, he'd be okay with that.   

On the other hand, I do remember Skinner on a roll and I'd rather 
not find out.   


Day 5 

I really hate Jack.  And right now, I'm not sure how I feel about 
Skinner. 

I didn't feel like writing and dug my heels in about going to talk to 
your Loveliness, Horowitz, and the end result was having Jack stab 
me with a needle--he doesn't do it very well, Horowitz, and I like 
to think it's indicative of his sexual style.  He and Wilkinson would 
have gotten on very well together.    

So after getting tranked to the gills, I ended up getting thrown in 
the local equivalent of the funny farm with regular dope to keep 
me too zoned to think or write.  I still feel fuzzy.   And if Jack 
threatens me with that needle again, I'm going to go for his throat.  

Not wanting to talk to you, Horowitz, does not indicate suicidal 
behavior.  It actually indicates health.  I hate Freudians, I've told 
you, and your persistence in trying to make Skinner my daddy only 
drives me up the fucking wall.   I told you, Skinner is basically too 
decent to be my 
father, the first one was fine, and I don't need another one.  But 
don't believe me, hell, I'm not only trained in the field, I'm intelligent and verbal, so I must 
be lying to you!

I guess you can tell, Horowitz, that right now I hate you, too.  

Okay, I had a bad couple of days.  That's going to happen, it 
doesn't mean Skinner's going to find me hanging in the front hall 
closet.  But I didn't feel like writing and that penny ante tyrant 
Jack decided I had to.  He got my back up, and by the time Skinner 
came back inside the house, we were in a full fledged battle, with 
Jack waving the needle around.  Skinner, whether from general 
principles or because he really understands how it scares me, 
doesn't let him use it.   I don't think Jack is exactly Skinner's choice 
for help in dealing with me. 

He gets a look on his face like he used to get with Ted Ryerson.  

Remember Ted Ryerson, dear Diary?  Not a bad agent, but he'd 
get this mind-set.  On the rare occasions I actually had to behave 
like a team member with VCS, I used to watch Skinner lead Ted 
through the rationale for whatever investigatory plan we had and 
watch Ted get this blindly stubborn look on his face.   

I actually used to envy Ted sometimes, Skinner just used to cut 
loose on me.  On the other hand, when I asked him about that, this 
morning, he stared at me and then shook his head.  

"Mulder, I never needed to lead you by the hand through anything.  
If anything, I needed to nail you down and keep you where you 
needed to be." 
 
 Grue.  Nail me down.  That's something our friend Wilkinson 
never tried.  At least Skinner didn't say anything about putting a 
collar and leash on me, I might have lost my limited breakfast right 
then.  

But we were back with Jack.  

Skinner got me on the couch and took Jack out into the kitchen to 
talk to him.   And when he came back in, he wasn't looking happy.  
"Come on, Mulder, we need to go talk to Dr. Horowitz."  

Jack.  God, I saw red, just flamed out and went totally ballistic, I 
was screaming and raving about Jack and cocksuckers this and 
motherfuckers that, with the end result that Jack *did* get to use 
the needle and they hauled me down here to this fucking clinic.  

The only good thing is that today Julie Wilson came in and gave 
me some mild shit about her stitchwork on my left wrist and 
brought me a real cup of coffee.   

Dr. Wilson, I worship at your feet.  No, I'd better leave that to 
Skinner, but I'll worship from afar.   

I still don't like you, Horowitz, but I'll take your word for it that 
you've talked to Jack about his zeal.  Skinner came to get me, and I 
thought his expression was relieved when he told me it was time to 
blow this pop stand.  No kidding.  I think he watched too much 
Miami Vice in the eighties.  

And even though it hurts to type it, I want to thank you for 
listening to Skinner over Jack.   

I was still wobbly from the drugs and being restrained in the bed 
the first few days.  He was very matter of fact about that, helped 
me get into my jeans and boots, helped me on with my jacket and 
got me the hell out of the clinic.   

Jack was a little subdued when we got back to the house.  I 
remember that I used to feel pretty subdued after Skinner got done 
with me, and from the look on Jack's face, his hero gave him a real 
reaming.  And just  because I feel smugly pleased about that 
doesn't mean I think Skinner's my daddy and Jack's my bratty 
sibling, and Daddy likes me best, Horowitz.  You've got a one 
track mind, I swear.   

What it does mean is that Skinner thinks I'm a real person, not just 
this case he's taken on, and Jack thinks I'm a case.  I've said that 
before, I know, but it's still just as true.  It's nice to be home, if that 
isn't too weird a concept.  And even if I hate writing this thing, 
there's something calming about it.  I can come in here and spew 
venom about that asshole Jack and I feel a little better.  The only 
thing that would make me feel a lot better is thumping him on the 
head  with Skinner's cast iron skillet, that sucker is heavy.  

At least I don't want to shoot people anymore.  

We got back and I went straight back to my room.  After a while, 
Skinner tapped on the door and stuck his head in.  "You ought to 
be too tired to be this mad at me."  His mouth had that funny quirk 
it gets lately.  

"I'm not mad at you," I muttered and sat up to scowl at him.  

He leaned against the door jamb.  "Yeah, you are, and I don't 
blame you. Sometimes, Mulder, I don't have much of a choice, not 
when I think you're a danger to yourself."  He used to growl that at 
me when he'd force me to go to counseling.  

Civilian life has had a softening effect, he didn't growl it this time.  

"I wasn't."  

"But I'm not exactly an expert in this area."  Faint smile.  "Maybe 
you could give me a little more information to stand Jack off next 
time, instead of bouncing off the ceiling and walls."  

That was fair.  I didn't like it, but that was fair.  I jerked my head in 
a nod.  

"Hungry?  Or is your stomach still messed up from the meds?  
How do you feel about salmon?"  

Immediately, my stomach sat up and took notice.  "I feel like I 
could eat a lot of it," I said unwisely.  

That got a half-grin and he nodded.  "Baked potato?  Maybe a 
vegetable."  

"I'm eating enough vitamins, I shouldn't need vegetables," I 
growled.  "Skip the vegetables.  Can I have butter *and* sour 
cream on my potato?"  

"What other way is there to eat a baked potato?" he asked.  A man 
after my own heart.  

Death by cholesterol, much easier and more comfortable than any 
other form of suicide.  

I deigned to get up and mosey out to the kitchen after him.   He 
really can cook, can Skinner.  I'm a little envious.  He was 
obviously an Eagle scout in his youth.   

Jack never did apologize.   

Day 6  

I guess I should point out at this point that this really isn't the sixth 
day of journaling in sequence, unless you elect to drop the two 
weeks I was sick as a dog out of the sequence entirely.  And there 
was the week Horowitz left me so jellified that I stayed in bed 
every day until Skinner dragged me out to eat.  And then I'd go 
back.  

If I'd fit, I probably would have been under the bed.  

Horowitz was worse than the bronchitis, but it's been three weeks 
since I started this thing.   

How did Horowitz jellify me, you ask, oh, Diary?  Horowitz 
knows, so I suppose there's little point in journaling it, but I didn't 
explain it to Skinner, I just went on bed rest and refused to 
talk beyond "Pass the salt, please."  

So, here we go.  Into the murky depths of my subconscious mind 
and memories.  

I got shoved in the trunk when they picked me up.  Not an entirely 
comfortable place to be.  Duct tape on my mouth and binding my 
hands.  Real original, guys, I at least hoped for something really 
high tech and cool.  The spare kept digging into my kidneys.  
When we got where we were going, I was hauled out to stand 
blinking in bright light, my legs half-asleep so that I had trouble 
standing.  As beatings go, the first one was pretty bad.  Just 
softening me up.  

Why did they beat me if they were going to take me out and drug 
me?  I must have really pissed off the Jokemeister and his 
equivalent in the Consortium, that's all I can figure.  Or else I 
pissed off a lot of people in the Consortium.  And they don't 
always talk to each other, God knows, or the Third Elder wouldn't 
have spoken to Scully,  and the Brit guy with the sensational 
manicure wouldn't have warned Scully, and so on.  

Oh, for a nice monolithic conspiracy.  You can count on that.   
You know what to expect.  Here I am, shoot me, and they shoot 
you.  

Tissue samples aren't that bad, compared to a beating.  You lie 
there restrained on a table while they take cells from the inside of 
your mouth and various other places.  It was, however, extremely 
upsetting to have somebody jerk me off to get a semen sample.  
Hell, I'd have been glad to let them if they'd given me a pretty 
technician.

Try being stoned and lying there mortally embarrassed and stark 
naked while they treat you like a lab animal.  All the rational 
thought in the world ain't gonna get you past that one.   

Then I got packed off to a reasonably decent room with a 
reasonably decent bed and not one goddamned thing to do or to 
read.  They didn't even manacle me to the bed.  Just locked me 
in.  For what seemed like a fucking eternity.  Nobody to talk to.   I 
think I lost it after four or five days, and I was always more 
introverted than most.   By the time they came for me again, 
I was almost tearfully grateful.

Hey, beat me, mistreat me, but don't lock me in that room again.  
Naturally, they did, but I'd done myself, ah, a little damage in the 
interim period, which was why they came to get me, so this time, I 
got really good shit in my food and drink.  

I thought about not eating, actually managed it for several days, 
just drinking water from the tap.  Ah, but I was an amateur.  
Remember my tainted tap before the MJ fiasco, Walt, old 
buddy?  When I punched you out and you had to wrap me up in a 
choke hold before I stopped.  I remember that fondly, actually, if 
only because I did get one lick in.  

No, I'm kidding.   I think.  

Okay, so there I am, buzzed to the eyeballs, drinking tap water.  
And it finally penetrated my thick skull that I might as well eat, the 
water was drugged.  So I did.  And ate and ate and ate.  
I had about four feet in which to actually walk.  I think I tried to 
summon up everything I'd ever known about t'ai chi at one point, 
but I was too buzzed to actually do it.  And I was too buzzed 
to beat off, even if I'd wanted to provide them with the 
entertainment.   So I slept a lot.  A whole lot.  And was sleeping 
when they came in for me again.  

More tissue samples and then I was off to the Mengele squad.  
And I'm not up to remembering that at the moment.  

I don't know what it is, but every Freudian shrink I've ever known 
has the worst decorating taste I've ever seen.  Horowitz has chintz, 
god, worse than Aunt Margaret had when I was a kid.   So, there I 
was in her office, lying on the goddamned couch with the chintz  
fabric in Horowitz' office, working, diligently to talk about these 
things, to remember them and suddenly I get this physical flash of 
memory, of having my fingers broken one by one while Wilkinson 
leans over me, inhaling the smell of pain and fear and wanting to be 
dead.  

I ended up behind the couch, curled up on the floor and Horowitz 
sat there and kept doing that needlepoint or whatever it is.  

I think I finally managed to pull myself together enough about five 
minutes before Skinner showed up.  He gave me a funny look, so I 
suspect I wasn't looking as together as I wanted or needed to.  

He didn't say much in the car to me.  He did ask me if I was all 
right and I made some noncommittal sound that probably didn't 
fool anyone.  And I went to bed for a week.   Except for meals, 
and that was only because Skinner doesn't believe in coddling me.   

Jack wanted to wave that needle around again, but Skinner told 
him plainly that the last thing he thought I needed was to be 
drugged into unconsciousness and if Horowitz thought I'd 
needed that she would have recommended it when he picked me 
up.  

The Battling Bickersons.  Jack carried on for a while longer and 
kept looking in on me to make sure I hadn't smuggled anything 
sharp or breakable into bed.   

Skinner mostly left me the fuck alone, although he'd come in after 
I'd make my escape from dinner and just sit there and read quietly.  
For some reason, he finds my library fascinating.  He's already 
worked his way through the Narnia tales and Swiss Family 
Robinson and about fifteen other tomes from my lost youth.  I 
think he's reading Jung now, although what a hard headed Admin 
of Justice man can find in Jung to entertain him for a week is 
beyond me.  

Maybe he's trying to learn enough about it to keep Horowitz from 
killing me.

Anyway, I'd finally brought myself to emerge from my room again 
and behave like a reasonably sane and intelligent human being 
about the time it started raining while I was dragging Skinner up 
and down mountain in a frenzy of walking and exploration.  
Frenetic activity to keep me from thinking.  So it started raining 
like crazy, which turned to sleet--it's October, for God's sake--and 
I was shivering like the proverbial drowned rat by the time we 
got back.  And Skinner had given me his jacket, too.  

I hate being a fucking invalid.  I hate being weak.  And I really hate 
being sick.  Scully used to tell me loftily that going outside when 
you're wet never caused anyone to catch a cold or anything else, 
but I woke up in the morning with my throat swollen and my nose 
stuffed up and a raging fever that scared the shit out of Jack and 
certainly got Skinner's attention.  

I don't remember that particularly, but it's not trauma, it's delirium 
that robbed me of that, and I find that strangely comforting.  Sick, 
isn't it? 
 
The first week, I was just plain sick, so sick that mostly I slept and 
coughed and took my medicine and slept some more.  Great, I lost 
more weight.  Just what I needed.   

I spent the next week eating Skinner out of house and home.  He's 
worse than any Jewish grandmother, even though it's Horowitz 
who looks like one.  I told him that he had to be Jewish and he 
thought that was as funny as the Gary Cooper thing.  I have no 
idea why.  

So, I broke even, weight wise, and looked like "death eatin' a soda 
cracker" as a witness once described a suspect.  And it had snowed 
while I was vegetating.   

Fortunately, during my absence and in between haranguing me to 
eat, Skinner had gotten one helluva lot done during three weeks.  
The exterior was finished on the porch and he was working on the 
inside, a space heater plugged in to take the nip out of the air.  He 
even had the goddamned windows in--only on the front.  

Our next big project is probably going to be to berm the damned 
thing.  Which reminds me, he also thought the boulder thing was 
funny, Horowitz. I can't decide what's harder to process, what I let 
happen to me, or that Skinner has a really twisted sense of humor.  

So, the first day I was allowed out of bed, I put on my woollies 
under my clothes and ventured out to admire his handiwork and 
hopefully bark my knuckles on a tool or two.  

He turned to look at me in disbelief when I stepped out. 

I cleared my throat.  "It looks good."  That distracted him for a 
moment.  

"Yeah, it's coming together nicely.  Doesn't have to be fancy, I just 
want someplace to shed boots and shit."  

Skinner as homeowner.  God, it's as strange as finding out he was 
married.  I scuffed my toe on the cement floor like a goddamned 
little kid and cleared my throat again.  "So, what's the next step.  
Astroturf?"  

That got a grin.  "No, just plain old wood, Mulder.  Hate to 
disappoint you, though, so if you've got your heart set on Astroturf 
I can see about bartering down at the foot of the mountain."  

"Nah, I just wondered."  I studied the inside of the porch.  He was 
leaving the wood unadorned, but it smelled like he was varnishing 
it.  "Painting?"  I gestured to the wall.  

"Waterproofing.  Keeps the wood from rotting.  I did the outside 
last week.  Too cold to do the inside right now, we'd end up 
asphyxiating ourselves." He was doing something arcane to 
what looked like a carpet cutter, but which probably wasn't.   

I shifted from foot to foot.  "Want some help?"  

That brought him back to incredulity.  "I don't think so, not today.  
I'm just cleaning some edges up right now. And you don't need to 
be out here in the cold."  

My stomach did a slow, lazy roll.  Shit.  I was an invalid after all.  
Maybe he saw it.  

His face didn't change though.  "Hell, I don't want to be out here in 
the cold, but I needed to clean this up."  He dropped whatever it 
was he was holding into the toolbox.  "I'd kill for a cup of coffee.  
You want one?"  He stepped past me to the door.  

I stood there and thought about it.  "Don't patronize me."  

A hand fell on my shoulder.  "I'm not.  You don't need to be out 
here in the cold and I'm finished.  You wanna check the work and 
see?"  

My throat hurt too much to say anything.  I shook my head.  

Hell, it was probably true.  I'd slept late this morning and Skinner, 
dare I say it, is a morning person.  

But he stepped back and tugged on my sleeve.  I followed him 
over to the window, listened numbly as he told me what he'd done 
and why.  Went to the other window, too.  Nodded in all the right 
places.  

"Cut yourself a little slack," he finally said, waving a hand in front 
of my nose to get me back to Earth Now.  "And let's get warm, 
please, my balls are starting to crawl up into my body for the 
relief."  

I don't know where I was or what I was thinking, but I followed 
him in.  Even with the space heater, it was colder than shit out 
there.  He was right about that.   

The coffee--my illicit second cup, heh--tasted great.  The bastard 
could not only cook and build, he could make good coffee.   I 
slunk into the livingroom and curled up in a corner of the couch.  
More kitchen noise ensued and he came out with sandwiches, set 
the plate on the coffee table and sat at the other end of the couch.   

"I'm not patronizing you," he told me seriously.  "But I'm damned 
if I'm going to let you do something that's going to do you in.  Not 
on my watch, Mulder."  

Okay, I could accept that.  So why were my eyes leaking again?  I 
took a drink from the cup and turned a little to the side.  

He leaned back and drank his own.   

I don't ever want to be around talkers again, by the way.   I mean, I 
loved Scully dearly, but her not talking was frequently passive 
aggressive.  I still missed it.  But Skinner's not talking was pretty 
comfortable.  We sat there and I finally cleared my head enough to 
notice there was a fire in the fireplace and it was a damned good 
fire.  

Jesus, a damned good fire, I sound like Hemingway.  

Finally, I reached for a sandwich, if only to make Skinner's yenta 
half happy.  

He gave me the briefest glint of a grin, like he knew it, he knew I 
knew it, and we were both okay with it.  

Jesus, now I sound like I'm big on transactional analysis.   

"I hate being treated like there's something wrong with me."  

Skinner shrugged.  "There isn't anything currently wrong with you, 
I just tend to lose more of my hair when you have febrile 
convulsions."  

I blinked at that.  Nobody'd said anything about that.  "Oh."  

Mild look.  "Didn't seem much point to bringing it up to you when 
you were delirious."  

My face got hot suddenly.  "I hate being sick," I muttered and bit 
into the  sandwich.  Roast beef with horseradish.   

I wondered if I could come up with a rationale for being gay and 
turn Skinner out.  You gotta love the guy's taste and habits.   

And Julie Wilson is a knockout, for a tough, no-nonsense doctor.  
When she was stitching my left wrist back together, I was too 
intimidated to be noncompliant.  And as she stitched, she advised 
me how to better slice and dice myself, then looked me in the eye 
and told me that if I messed up her sutures, she was going to make 
me wish I'd done a better job.  

She's the perfect foil for Skinner.  Which, by the way, he's admitted 
to me, more or less.  For some reason, he felt like he had to tell me 
that he wasn't afraid knowledge of his sexual activities was going 
to send me into hysterics, it was just that Wilson was an intensely 
private person and she didn't like other people knowing what she 
was doing.  

I rolled my eyes at that--it was while I was recuperating and eating 
everything that didn't get out of my way--and muttered something 
about people in serious denial, which made him laugh again.  

Anyway, she's better for him than I would be, even if I could 
switch orientation.   When I have erotic dreams, which has actually 
begun to happen again now and then, it's about women.  I have to 
admit, that's a relief.  I was afraid I was doomed to nightmares 
about Wilkinson for the rest of my natural life.  However long that 
may be.  Unfortunately, being sick took that away again.  

So I bit into the sandwich and nodded my approval while Skinner 
smiled and drank his coffee.  "Okay," I finally said, "But I think I 
can be trusted not to do anything incredibly stupid anymore.  Life's 
getting too interesting.  You're reading Jung."  

Another smile.  "It's worse than you know.  I've been watching 
your Monty Python videos.  You do have an interesting 
collection."  Another raised eyebrow.  

I'm not sure why, I blushed.  We're both men of the world, right?  
Why am I  blushing?  And no, Horowitz, he is not representative of 
my father.  

Although after reading my brother remark in the last batch of 
journal pages, he threatened to legally adopt me.  

Another sip of coffee, another bite of sandwich.  Skinner said, "So, 
you think can be trusted with the cutlery now."  Maybe it was a 
mistake to let him read these.    

I choked and swallowed and  nodded.   He nodded and took 
another sip.  "All right.  I'll try to back off if you try to use some 
sense.  Mulder, even as an FBI agent, you were, shall we say, 
a little reckless at times."  

He's right.  I was so goddamned reckless I willingly leapt into hell.  
My face must have changed, because his did.   

"Mulder," he said gently.  "I wasn't talking about that.  I can't fault 
you for desperate measures, you know that.  I took a couple 
myself.  And they were just as useless."  

That hurt more than I expected.  More than thinking about my own 
recklessness.  My hand tightened on the sandwich and turned it 
into a shape nobody ever intended for a sandwich.  Very Dali.  But 
I did nod at him.   

He reached over and patted my knee, then got up and walked into 
the kitchen.  Giving me a minute.   

Hey, Horowitz, I like his personal therapeutic style better than 
yours.  And I'm starting to think he's a Jungian.  

Just kidding.  I'm going to give you all the gory details you want 
when I start talking about Wilkinson, Horowitz, so charge up your 
vibrator.  Skinner came back in and picked up a sandwich before 
sitting back down.  And something struck me.  

"Monty Python?"  

"The Holy Grail," he told me and took a bite.  "You know, 'she's a 
witch, she turned me into a newt'?"  

I surveyed my sandwich and mashed it back into shape.  "My 
image of you will never be the same."  

"Live with it," he told me, smiling again.  

"It's an X file," I told him gravely and then we both started 
laughing.   


We took a drive down to the main enclave and picked up some 
supplies and I actually got flirted with.  No one's told this woman 
that I'm the resident loon, evidently, and I must look better than I 
thought, unless she's the lame duck type.   And she's very 
attractive, so I don't think she's suffering from hard luck and 
desperation.   

Skinner even noticed it, which surprised me, because I usually 
don't notice things like that unless they personally involve me, but 
maybe that's why he made AD while I was stuck in the basement.  
He didn't make any comment, although I did see his grin when she 
waved and told me to come down again next time we needed 
anything.  

I actually felt really human down there for a while.  Two people 
who don't think I'm a cripple.  Not counting my mother, who 
apparently now knows I'm alive and is selling her house and 
coming to join UNCLE like all good boys and girls do.  

I have very mixed feelings about that.  "Where's my mother going 
to stay when she gets here?"  

"Probably with Julie Wilson," Skinner told me and put the damned 
car up a slope that made me grab the dashboard in sheer terror.  

I was ashamed of being relieved by that.  My mother, I mean.  Not 
the terror. I don't think I can take my mother hovering over me like 
the Prodigal Son returned, although she did write me a nice note 
that got filtered up during my recovery from bronchitis.  I don't 
know what I expected, Dear Fox, How dare you go off and leave 
me to think you're dead?  Actually, I think I did expect something 
like that.   

Especially considering that the last time I spoke with her I wasn't 
exactly lucid and accused her of some things I'd rather not think 
about.  Like who my father was, or if that bastard Cancerman was 
Sam's father.  Please don't let him be my father, I thought and hung 
on for dear life while Skinner drove like a madman.  

Maybe the wrong person was in therapy with Horowitz.  I should 
stick with Skinner and he should explore his death wish with 
Horowitz  

When we pulled into the flat space in front of the house, I wanted 
to get out and kiss the ground.  Fortunately, his amusement at my 
pallor prevented that self-indulgence, but I got out on wobbly legs 
to help him unload.  "So how do you pay for all this, by sitting 
around and taking care of me?" 
 
 "Something like that."  He nodded agreeably.  "And data analysis 
while you're zoned out watching the soaps."  

"I don't watch the soaps," I protested, but he caught me last week 
watching in fascination as a two year old metamorphosed into a six 
year old in the space of five days.  Talk about temporal dilation.  "I 
watched 'em when I was sick, I was too sick to read."  

"Right."  He handed me a box of canned goods and I trudged to 
the door.  

Jack opened it and gave us a sharp look, as if we'd been playing 
hooky.  

"Hi, Jack," I said breezily and went past him.  

"I'll get my coat," he told me and bent to pull on his boots.   
Skinner put him to work, too, which made me snicker.  Although I 
managed to keep my face sober enough when I went back in again.  

Just so you can check up on me, Horowitz, the woman's name was 
Cassie Delevan.  Ask Skinner, I wasn't hallucinating.   


For some reason, we ended up watching Monty Python tonight.  
Jack didn't seem to enjoy it, but the wing span of the sparrow joke 
cracked Skinner up.  The only place I felt that ole debbil anxiety 
and his twin depression creep back up was during the completely 
frivolous Spank Me scene.   I didn't think it was funny any more.  

Although the maidens in that gauzy drapery evoked a nice 
response before they started seeking chastisement.  Maybe I am 
getting better, huh, Horowitz?   


Day 7  

Gloom and more gloom.  We're in the grip of a Canadian Rockies 
blizzard and I'm bored and missing my appointment with Horowitz.  
Am I going to regale you, good Doctor, with written details of 
what happened to me when I first arrived at Wilkinson's?  Or what 
those handy dandy Mengele clones liked to do?  Nope, I am not.  
I'm going to write about other things.

Things that will make you salivate and cream your elegant slacks.  
My family.  

Drum roll here, please.   

For some reason, at breakfast, Jack started talking about how his 
sister loved blizzards.  Hell, maybe I'm being too hard on the poor 
guy, I'm a real shit to deal with.  Skinner's used to me, he had me 
for four years.  So I listened attentively and somehow got all misty 
about pulling Sam on the sled that had once been mine when I was 
really little.  Which led back to remembering Dad pulling me when 
I was really little.  It wasn't always bad.  

My first memory of Dad is him tossing me in the air and making 
me shriek with delight.  Mostly.  

Sometimes he scared me, and that generally pissed him off, he'd 
hand me back over to Mom and stalk off in a temper.  When I was 
that small, he only hit me when I got out of my crib.  I think. 
 
 But when I was bigger, say about two, he used to pack me into 
that sled and go down the hill behind Aunt Margaret's house.  I 
liked visiting Aunt Margaret, but it wasn't so much fun when 
I was three and a half and got knocked down the stairs.  

Jesus, I'm still doing it.  But I'm getting better, I used to say I fell 
down the stairs.  Surviving hell must have made it easier to at least 
get to the nitty gritty of it.  My father hit me hard enough to knock 
me down the stairs, but even therapy will not make me believe that 
he knocked me down a flight of stairs deliberately.  At least not at 
three and a half.  So I have a broken leg, I'm in the hospital, and 
the doctor who treats me--our doctor is on vacation--has looked at 
my records and put two and two together to, gasp, come up with 
four.  And he calls the police.   

Dad has enough grease that they don't arrest him, but wham, I'm at 
Aunt Margaret's.  Mom was pregnant with Sam then.   I was so 
scared, I thought they didn't want me anymore, and there was a no 
contact order that took three months to void.  The only time I saw 
either of my parents was when I decided to ride my trike back 
home, confident of my ability to remember the way, and got lost 
avoiding bullies.  

My father and his smoking friend pulled up in a big, blue Buick, my 
father jumped out and I thought for sure he was going to kill me.   
Literally.  Our dog had died in the spring, so I had a fairly decent 
concept of death for a three year old.   Anyway, the one favor that 
Cancerman ever did me was to calm Dad down.  

I remember them talking on the way back, Dad was saying 
something about he should never have had kids.  Cancerman told 
him not to be an idiot, it was a great privilege, that his kids would 
be the next ruling class, shit like that.  And Dad got pretty close to 
hysterical, said it wasn't worth it, having your kid vanish and 
reappear, that I was *too* bright, that people thought it was 
strange, and so on.   

You know, I don't think I've thought about that conversation until 
now.  Did he mean that I was an abductee, too?  Only they didn't 
bring Sam back.  And what did they do to me?  Well, whatever it 
was, it fascinated both minor and major league Mengeles.   

They took me back to Aunt Margaret's and I stayed there for, God, 
months. I remember my birthday there, and I started what they 
used to call nursery school and now call preschool.  Only I got 
moved out of the regular one and into the high-powered one.  And 
we had Christmas at Aunt Margaret's.  My parents got to come 
and see me on my birthday.  I read to my mom instead of the other 
way around when she tucked me in.  And they were allowed to 
come on Christmas.  By mid January, just before Sam was born, I 
was home again.  And naturally, I missed Aunt Margaret.  

But Aunt Margaret came to stay after Sam was born.  Dad insisted 
that Mom have some help, and I think maybe she was worried 
about what he'd do to me if she didn't.  So Aunt Margaret moved 
into my room on the rollaway bed.  I actually didn't mind.  

And Sam was cool, I thought, although she wasn't much fun.  She 
slept all the time, as babies will, and my father hated to catch me 
hanging over the bassinet watching her sleep.  I'm not sure what 
he'd thought I would do to her.   Or maybe it just wasn't manly 
enough for a son of his.  Oh, Dad, dear Dad--you can't imagine 
what I've learned since then.  What treats your good friends had in 
store for me.  

When Julie Wilson told me I was human, she also told me I was 
negative for HIV and that my immune system was actually in fair 
shape.  At the time, it didn't impress me much, but I'm feeling a lot 
of relief about that now.  Must have been those gauzily clad 
maidens.  But I also start to think about Wilkinson, who hated 
latex, never used it, and I wonder if I'm immune due to alien 
intervention.  Or because of that weird retro-virus that nearly killed 
me in Alaska.  

I went for years loving my father, but denying what he had done.  
But he was a part of whatever they are.  And thanks to Wilkinson's 
deep therapeutic intervention, I can no longer deny any of it.  Gee, 
all it takes to come to terms with an abusive childhood is to be 
tortured repeatedly for nearly three years.  Somehow, I don't think 
it's going to make Psychology Today as a popular new therapy 
option.  

I still love the man my father was sometimes.  And I still love my 
mother, though I wish she'd tried harder to protect me.  To protect 
us.  Dad didn't hit Sam.  Must be that father-daughter bond, 
Daddy's little girl.  Maybe that's why I don't care about finding her 
anymore, I don't want to find someone too alien for me to know, 
or someone who brings up old resentment about being the 
scapegoat.  

There, Horowitz, happy now?  That's all you're going to get on my 
family, unless it comes up again, believe me.   But I find I really 
would like to see my mother.  


 Day 8 

I don't even know why I bother writing the numbers down, I know 
the date now.  It's October 13th.   Horror of horrors, I'm thirty-
nine.  Skinner actually had a present for me. 

 I mean, it wasn't exactly sentimental, but it was a good pair of 
arctic boots.  I needed 'em.  And some snowshoes.  Evidently that's 
a big thing here.  Thank God he doesn't have a snowmobile.  I'd 
have gotten a suit and goggles.   

I still have my wonderful and huge winter parka.  I say huge 
because even with the weight I'm slowly gaining, I'm now looking 
half-starved instead of concentration camp.  But the boots 
were really a surprise.  

I wanted to go out and snowshoe, but it was dark and Skinner 
convinced me that taking lessons after dark was an exercise in 
idiocy.  

Actually, what he said was, "Are you crazy, do you want to fall off 
the mountain?"  

I love his tact.  Are you crazy?  Jack blanched when he said that to 
a mentally ill me.  I swear, he did.   And I nearly fell over backward 
in my chair laughing my ass off at that.  I  laughed so hard I got the 
hiccups.  Or is it hiccoughs?  I guess it depends on whether or not 
I'm being proper.  I did finally manage to stop after drinking like a 
quart of water and holding my breath.  Then, I grinned at my 
former AD and told him, "I used to snowshoe when I was a kid, 
for God's sake, I grew up in Massachusetts."  

Cut no ice with him.  "Then you should know better.  Besides, 
Mulder, you aren't a kid anymore."  

Jesus, I guess not.  I'm nearly forty.  That depresses me.  What the 
hell have I done in my life but run on the hamster wheel Dad and 
his cronies set up?  No sister, no lover, no life.  

Well, I have sort of a life, I guess.  If you count being flirted with 
by a total stranger while you stare at her, stunned by the novelty of 
it.  And to think I used to stand women up on dates when I got a 
case in my teeth.  I wish I could go back and change at least some 
of it.  

What would I change, oh, Diary?  Shit, I hate crying.  

Well, first off, I'd tell Dana Scully how much she meant to me.  I'd 
tell her up front what I suspected about the people who protected 
the lies we tried to tear apart.  And if she quit the X files, I'd have 
taken her out on a hot date, that's what I'd change.  I wonder if I'll 
ever stop hurting this badly when I think about her.  

Skinner says I will.  His wife didn't die, but she nearly did, and for 
the same useless goddamned things.  And of course, his marriage 
did die.   He doesn't say it, but he thinks I was in love with Dana 
Scully.  I don't think that's true, I think we'd have killed each other 
in a relationship, I'm crazy and she's passive aggressive.   Was 
passive-aggressive, and shit, I'm crying again.  I hate saying was.  

And if Jack comes in and finds me crying, we're going to have the 
Battling Bickersons again while Skinner stands him off at the door.  

Scully was my closest and dearest friend.  I didn't think I'd ever 
trust anyone like I came to trust her.  I loved her and I hurt so 
badly because she's dead that I want to kill somebody.  Sometimes 
that somebody is me.  

On the other hand, Skinner's become my friend.  Not just because 
he stands Jack off at the door, either.   Reggie Pardue was my 
friend.  Jerry Lamana--well, Jerry had too much of the weasel to be 
my friend.  Frohicke was my friend, even if he was a weird friend.  
About the only thing we had in common was our mutual celluloid 
fantasy life.   

I think I'm going to have to become a hermit up here in the 
mountains.  Maybe Skinner will help me build a little tiny hermit 
house.  I can't go back to DC, that's for damned sure.  If I feel 
that suicidal I'll just break a glass.  Or better yet, heh, dig into 
Jack's little pharmacy and riddle him with guilt  

I want Jack to go away.  And it's not even his fault.  He thinks he 
knows what happened to me, but he only knows about the most 
superficial of Wilkinson's kinks.  He doesn't know who I was 
before.  He doesn't help me, even though he tries.  Skinner knows 
me, he knows I may sometimes be what could kindly be termed 
eccentric, but he sees that person and not this damaged, too thin 
guy who cries at odd moments and can't seem to gain weight.  

Maybe they fucked with my internal thermostat.  The Mengeles, I 
mean.  Wow, raging metabolism, I'd never have to run a day in my 
life again.  Pizza and beer and chili dogs.   

whatever.  im too tired now to hit the shift key, im going to bed.   


October 15 

I'm almost grateful to be snowed in so I don't have to take your 
little prescription of every day sessions.  I've been writing in my 
journal and behaving myself, and while I realize you think I 
need intensive work, I'm doing fine. 
 
The weather's been unbelievable.  We're actually communicating 
with down-mountain by radiophone.   I want to crawl under the 
bed and not think about it.  It's a little scary, and I understand why 
Skinner loaded up the four wheel drive with supplies.  He's been up 
here two years, though, he's gotten used to it, he knows the rhythm 
of the seasons.  

I told him I needed to start thinking about what I was going to do 
for the rest of my life last night.  

He went kind of still, staring at the fire.  "Why don't you stay up 
here?  The truth really is still out there, Mulder."  

I wanted to ask him something really smart ass, like "Is this a 
proposal?", but it hurt too much to hear the rest of it.   

Right now, I think I'm too damaged to care about the fucking 
Truth. It nearly killed me.  It killed my father.  It killed Scully.  It 
nearly killed Skinner.  It might have killed my sister.  That's 
an awfully high price to pay.  And I'm scared.  The price I paid was 
higher than I expected to have to pay.

Death would have been a breeze.  How can you tell someone you 
respect that you're doing the Funky Chicken these days and if faced 
with the Truth, you'd probably cut your throat?  

By the way, Jack and I had a nice long talk last night before my 
nice short talk with Skinner.  I told him that I'm sorry I resent him 
because he didn't know me before, that I can't deal with him 
because he treats me like a patient, and that I appreciate his 
wanting to be of help, but I can't let him help me.  

He was taken aback, but very nice about it, but after I went to bed 
I heard him telling Skinner how noncompliant I was, and how 
resistant I was and all this other bullshit that made me want to leap 
out of bed, go flying around the corner and wring his neck.  

Skinner didn't make AD on his smile.  He listened to Jack very 
quietly, then told Jack he appreciated how Jack felt, but Horowitz 
felt like I was doing fine.  Did you tell him that, Horowitz?  You're 
starting to scare me, I may actually come to like you.  He told Jack 
that it probably would be better for Jack to go back to his regular 
duties, since I was so noncompliant--I ground my teeth at that--
and resistant to Jack.  He thought that Jack would be happier, and 
he knew I would be happier and if we needed him, Skinner hoped 
he would feel comfortable coming back.  

So next clear day, Jack is going back to the main enclave, and from 
there wherever it is he goes when he isn't getting on my nerves.  

I feel like screaming Huzzah at the top of my lungs.  I can curl up 
under the desk if I want to without fear of getting jabbed with a 
syringe full of Thorazine. On the other hand, Skinner sternly told 
me that if I got to the point I couldn't function again, Horowitz 
was perfectly capable of jabbing me herself.  

But she hasn't yet.  I guess I figured her for a psychologist.  She's a 
psychiatrist, duly able to handle syringes, drugs, and all that nasty 
crap. 
 
Maybe I do respect you, Horowitz, you haven't jabbed me once.  
Not even with the embroidery needle.  Except for ordering heavy 
shit at the clinic.  And you did finally listen to Skinner long enough 
to let me surface.  

Getting well is a pain in the ass.  It changes your perceptions.  The 
next thing you know, I'm going to find out that Tom Colton wasn't 
such a bad guy.   

Jesus, that would take psychosis, what am I saying?   

So this morning Skinner took me out on snowshoes and I looked 
at the mountain all covered with snow and had a vertigo attack like 
you wouldn't believe.  I'm not sure having those semen samples 
taken by the Mengeles was any more humiliating than holding onto 
the ground and telling a very surprised Skinner that I couldn't get 
up.  

Fortunately, as I've said, Skinner is patient.  After a while, though, 
he did lose some of it and hauled me back upright.  So, we're 
standing there, I have my eyes squinched shut and I can 
feel Skinner's hands on my shoulders through the parka.   

"You aren't going to fall," Skinner told me.  "Come on, Mulder, 
open your eyes, I'm right in front of you, just look at me, it will 
help you get oriented."  

Right.  "I have problems in free fall," I gulped.  

"You aren't falling right now.  Your feet are on the ground and I'm 
holding you.  Open your eyes and look at me."  

The worst that could happen was that I'd either fall down or throw 
up.  So I opened my eyes a slit.  Up-mountain (see how well I'm 
acclimating, Horowitz?) was behind him, and the sky was clear.  
That helped.  Not exactly horizon, but close.  

And I certainly did feel grounded, Skinner outweighs me by a lot 
these days.   I opened my eyes wider, kept staring at Skinner's 
nose.  He has an interesting nose.  It's as memorable in its way as 
mine, and I never noticed that before.  

I finally let my field of vision expand enough to include his entire 
face, then what lay in the background behind him, and finally took 
in a deep breath of relief.  I wasn't falling *or* throwing up.  

"Free fall," he repeated, eyeing me.  

"Ever experienced anti-grav?"  I asked him, a pale shadow of my 
shit-eating grin on my face.  "Or FTL travel?"  

He arched an eyebrow.  "Faster than light?  Can't say I have, no."  

"I have," I told him and my smile faded.  I did finally dare look 
down at my feet and took an experimental step.  It takes a kind of 
step shuffle to do it right, and it took me a while to relearn what I 
remembered, but after about twenty minutes, I was making good 
time and good distance, keeping right up with Skinner.   He was 
pleased.  

"You really did do this as a kid, didn't you," he offered.  "It's 
coming back pretty quick, Mulder.  It took me nearly a month to 
learn these things.  Not a lot of use for snowshoes where I grew 
up."  

I wondered where that was and got hit again with a vertigo attack 
as we started back down-mountain.  Jesus, *I'm* saying it naturally 
now.  This attack wasn't as bad though, all I had to do was stop 
and look at him.  

And he put his hands on my shoulders again, steadying me.  
"You're listing," he told me humorously.  "Deep breath, look at me 
again."  

Only a few minutes this time.  I gave him back a grin and nodded 
shakily. "Yeah, better this time."  

A pat on the shoulder.  "Good, let's go.  When you get in good 
shape, you can walk down-mountain if you feel like, but I don't 
think it's the best idea to try today."  

Probably not, since it hasn't been that long since I got past the 
bronchitis and the cold air cuts like a knife when I breathe too 
deeply.  And, of course, the Vertigo.  (Melodramatic Hitchcock 
music in the background.)  Still, I was pleased overall.  

We got back to the house about the time a snowmobile--Skinner 
must be a purist, he doesn't have one, but a lot of other people 
down-mountain do--pulled up behind the shanty under 
which the four wheel drive resides.  When the driver pulled off the 
mask, I was surprised to see Cassie Delevan. 

No, surprised is too mild, I was stunned.  And it was nice to see 
that my hormones weren't playing tricks on me, she really was a 
pretty woman.  

She grinned at me, nodded at Skinner and got off the machine.  
"Got some mail for you, looked important, thought I'd run it up 
here while the weather's good."  

"Come on in," Skinner told her and I smiled back, feeling about as 
smooth as I had at fifteen when a pretty girl smiled at me.  
Somehow, I managed to get the lacings on the snowshoes 
undone and get onto the porch.  Skinner shed his coat and opened 
the inner door on the mudroom, letting out a draft of warm air.  

See what I mean?  I'm even doing it now.  Mudroom, inner door, 
down-mountain, up-mountain, we sound like hard-bitten country 
folk.  

So, we sat and had coffee and I actually managed to make small 
talk about the difference between the weather here and 
Massachusetts, and Skinner, leaning back against the kitchen 
sink, threw in DC and Nebraska, just for conversational fodder.  
Pure fluff, nothing heavy duty.  

And as she was getting up to leave, Cassie grinned at me.  "Ever 
ridden one of these beasts before?"  

Skinner took a sip of coffee, but not before I saw his mouth twitch.  

"No, actually."  I didn't mention that I wouldn't have been caught 
dead on one before my recent resurrection.  

"Would you like to?"  

Hell, yes.   Cassie even smelled good.  I was practically salivating 
just from sitting across the table from her.  Horowitz, I think 
Skinner's right, I am going to make it back all the way.  
"Sure," I said casually, "That would be fun."  

"You'll need a suit," she told me and I gave Skinner a desperate 
look.  Shit, shot down again.   

"I've got one he can use," Skinner told her mildly and didn't look at 
me at all.  

Probably afraid he'd start laughing too hard.  This big brother 
attitude is getting old.  

He produced the suit, I got into it, feeling ridiculously like I had at 
three in my snowsuit.  Goggles and a scarf completed the 
ensemble, and out we went.  

Snowmobile riding itself doesn't do a thing for me.  But by the time 
we got down to Cassie's little house, my heart was slamming 
around at an excessive rate, even for me.   Heh.  Needless to say, 
we went inside, had more coffee, did a little canoodling around and 
what can I say?  

Reader, I got laid.  

And boy, I can tell you, the combination of absolute terror and lust 
only works when the only thing you're terrified about is being able 
to manage at all.  

At least for me, I can't deny there are probably masochists for 
whom it works all the time.   

I was actually tempted to sing the Hallelujah Chorus on the way 
back at the top of my lungs, but I decided that would be a dead 
give away that I haven't had a normal, healthy sexual 
experience in three years and I didn't want to bring that up.   

On the other hand, while I wasn't exactly smooth at all my moves, 
Cassie has a sense of humor, thank God, and we managed just fine.  
Better than just fine.  We managed better than just fine twice, as a 
matter of fact, and if you think I'm sounding insufferably smug 
about that, you're absolutely right. 

If you're really good, Horowitz, I'll give you a stroke by stroke 
description at my next appointment.   

We'd been gone about five hours.  As we zoomed up,  Jack came 
out in a snowmobile suit, carrying a number of packs and stood 
there waiting for me to get off.  I whipped the scarf 
down and the goggles off and grinned at her.  She did the same and 
stood up to give me a friendly kiss.  "Keep your parts warm," she 
murmured and did another wicked grin.  Then, "Come on, Jack, 
let's get you out for southerly points."  

Jack gave me a look as he went by.  I stopped him and held out my 
hand.  Hey, I was feeling generous.  After a moment, he took it.  
"It's not you, Jack, it's me," I told him meekly.  "But 
thank you for trying to help."  A brief nod, a wink from Cassie, and 
they were gone, leaving me standing there like a fool in the cold.  

I was still smiling when I got in the house and Skinner was sitting 
on the couch reading in front of the fire.  

"I'm home, Dad."  I flopped down on the floor in front of the fire 
and grinned at him.   

He flipped me off.   I think I've definitely decided that life is getting 
too interesting.  If I quit now, I'm not going to see what else 
Skinner is capable of.   

Of course, you know, Horowitz, being the demon shrink that you 
are, that my euphoria didn't last any too damned long.   

Post coital tristesse hit with a vengeance by dinner time.  Of 
course, it was compounded by my mother's arrival.  My mom 
arrived about two hours after I got back.  She called from Julie 
Wilson's place, evidently they'd already gotten together and had a 
nice chat about me.  

Which really peeved me.  Skinner picked up on the conversation 
and grimaced sympathetically.   

Julie Wilson has something called a Sno-Cat that she uses to sneak 
up here at night, and this time she actually came openly.   

I guess I was nervous about my mom anyway, and I'd taken a nap 
on the floor in front of  the fire and had a very evanescent dream 
about Scully that seemed like the Jokemeister's punishment for 
having fun and getting laid and feeling alive again.   

Yeah, I know what you're going to tell me, the Jokemeister doesn't 
control my subconscious, that's me.  Whatever.  

So I wake up in a shitty mood and my mom tells me that she and 
Julie Wilson had a long talk about me, meaning, I suppose, that 
Julie Wilson managed to tell my mother everything that 
was done to me, which is nothing I ever wanted my mother to 
hear.  But it was good to see her.  

I hate crying, but I do so much of it, I told Skinner we needed to 
invest our retirement in Kimberly Clark.  To which he responded 
by handing me a handkerchief and drily remarking that these were 
recyclable.   I have to confess, depression aside, that as dearly as I 
loved Scully, she'd have had me in the clinic hooked up to a 
straight Thorazine feed for some of the remarks I've made to 
Skinner.  I can't decide if that means she worries more than he 
does, or if it's a guy thing and he can better judge what kind of 
emotional weight to place on my remarks.  Worried, Scully 
worried more than he does.  

Anyway, there was Mom--she looked a little older and sadder, but 
pretty much the same.  Jesus, she's nearly seventy.  She put her 
arms around me and just hugged me once she got in, before she 
even got her coat off and I felt both stupid and pleased at the same 
time.  Stupid, because tears were streaming down my face and 
pleased because my mom thought enough of me to fly to the roof 
of the Western Hemisphere just because I wasn't dead.  

Happy, Horowitz?  You got another family confession right there 
on the spot.

Anyway, she finally let go of me, I took her coat and ushered her 
in to sit near the fire.  Wilson gave Skinner a surreptitious kiss and 
goose, which he took like a man and didn't even jump at.  And 
since I was desperate to talk about anything but what happened to 
me, I kept popping up like a jack in the box to show her the house, 
which is a pretty nifty house, even if it is built into a hill, and show 
her my room and all my things, and she was bewildered enough 
to let me.  

Skinner kept glancing at me, frowning a little, but he let me be.  
And when we finally sat down in front of the fire, Wilson said, "I 
thought Mrs. Mulder could stay here tonight, Walt, since it's 
so late."  Panic crept in and closed my airways.  

I haven't had an asthma attack since I was four, but I could feel my 
chest seriously struggling right then.   Skinner shot up off the 
couch and yanked me up in a hurry to pull me into the bathroom, 
where, unbeknownst to me, was an inhaler.  

Evidently when I was so sick I was delirious, I was seriously 
asthmatic.  Of course, I got the stuff in shots, then, but Wilson 
gave them an inhaler for me if it started happening again.  I 
thought the mountain air was supposed to be good for your chest.  
Although my problems probably have more to do with what the 
Mengeles put me through than mountain air. 

So, Skinner sat me down on the toilet lid and shook the inhaler and 
handed it to me, meanwhile instructing me on how to use it.  I was 
so floored by that, my panic receded a little and I actually managed 
to follow his instructions.  Immediate relief.  

"Well, that was interesting." 
 
 "Yeah."  Skinner leaned against the sink, studying my face.  "I 
don't know if it's a good idea for your mom to stay here."  His tone 
was faintly regretful.   

I didn't want him to miss his visit with Julie Wilson, the Medical 
Valkyrie, just because I can't handle my mother hovering.  I shook 
my head.  "No, it's okay.  I was just surprised."  

I know it's no surprise to *you*, Horowitz, that I like my days 
planned nowadays.  The fewer surprises the better.   But I smiled 
brightly at Skinner and took my second dose of the inhaler.  

Good thing I can't go back to the FBI anyway, disability would 
really piss me off.  

So, Skinner emerged from the bathroom, not that he ever shut the 
door on the onlookers this time, and announced that I was fine, I 
had a touch of asthma these days, at which Wilson nodded, I saw 
her as I came out, wiping sweat-damp hands on my jeans.  Mom 
smiled a little worriedly and I managed a credible smile in return 
and went back to sit on the floor near her.  But it really was a 
decent evening.   

The subtext, of course, was that Mom would use the bedroom just 
vacated by Jack, since Skinner hadn't revamped it back to an 
office, and since Wilson was obviously sharing Skinner's bed, all 
was as merry as a marriage bell.  I was really glad that the second 
bedroom was next to the master and that there was a closet 
between it and the office, because I really didn't want my mother to 
hear me in the middle of a full tilt screamer.   



October 19  

Well, I didn't realize just how my mom's hearing works.  
According to her, mothers always hear their children cry out in the 
night, even if they're sound asleep.  I let that one go, because I was 
too exhausted to get into a screaming fit of temper about the 
nightmares I had when I was little.  

Fuck it, let her believe she was Donna Reed.   Even if Skinner did 
make it down the hall before she did.

Post coital tristesse turned into the worst nightmare I've had yet.  
Wilson suggests that possibly the inhaler had something to do with 
it, evidently my nightmares while I was still really ill were 
memorable.  

Thankfully, I don't remember.  

So she's switching my inhaler to a different drug and I can lie here 
on the couch limply while Skinner keeps me on suicide watch 
again.  

It was like reliving Wilkinson, with a few added embellishments 
that he hadn't thought of.  Scully was there, healthy and well and 
suddenly she was egging Wilkinson on.  Only this time, it wasn't 
just the visual dream imagery, which is bad enough, it was like 
those physical flashes of memory and I came up out of bed 
screaming myself hoarse and tearing at the sweats I was wearing, 
completely around the bend.  I do remember insisting that I take a 
shower, that I could smell Wilkinson on my skin.  

That was after throwing up everything but my toenails.  I also 
remember that Wilson wanted to give me a shot to calm me down, 
but the cooler head prevailed.   

That wasn't a hair joke, Walt.  

So Skinner got to baby-sit me in the bathroom while I obsessively 
scrubbed myself in the shower with the nail brush.  Which he didn't 
know I had and was willing to give me the courtesy of privacy and 
then found out I had and was pissed and I feel like shit because in 
my right mind, I wouldn't have done it.  I wouldn't have done that 
to him.  He's treated me more than fairly and then I scrub myself 
nearly bloody.  I suppose I just need to feel guilty for something 
other than my mother.  

Anyway, I didn't actually draw blood, although Skinner was short 
with me and insisted on me applying lanolin to the skin I'd scraped 
with the brush. 

I was feeling calmer by then, if only because he'd humored me, so I 
let him twist my arm.  And I was exhausted.  I had the dimmest 
feeling that I ought to be embarrassed, but was still in that fuzzy 
place where it didn't much matter. 
 
 When we came out of the bathroom, my mother was sitting on my 
bed crying, while Julie Wilson tried to calm *her* down.  

Welcome to the Mulder family, Walt.  Forgot to tell you, we're all 
pretty high maintenance.  

Well, you can imagine how that hit me.  So on top of the 
screaming nightmare, I felt guilty.  But instead of doing my really 
swell apology that I learned to do from the age of three on, I 
looked her in the eye and asked, "Who was my father, Mom?"  

Where that came from--you tell me, Horowitz.  Am I languishing 
in confusion because I'm no longer precisely sure who fathered 
me?  I know who fathered me, it was drunken William Mulder.  
Whose seed started me, I don't know.  

Maybe Mom doesn't know, either.  

She stopped crying and looked at me, clearly stunned.  

"Well," I told her, "There aren't that many choices, are there 
Mom?"  I was jittering and jiving from one foot to the other, 
adrenaline again, pumping enough that my heart was racing.  
"Was it William Mulder or his smoking buddy?"  

She stood up and advanced on me, her hand coming up as if she'd 
slap me again.  I swear, I leaned into it, just waiting.  

Skinner was behind me, his hand came out and gently, oh, so 
gently, caught her hand.  "Mrs. Mulder," he murmured.  "I can't let 
you do that." 
 
 Well, Mom does have a good right cross, I must say, but the day I 
thought I'd need someone to protect me from my mother--he 
chivvied me back into bed, which had fresh sheets on it.  

Probably the only thing I'd been smelling was my own fear sweat.  

I was shivering by this time, crashing like a jet without engines.  I 
heard Julie Wilson murmur something and Mom came to sit down 
by the bed.  She touched my face very gently and I started to cry, 
not making even a single noise.  "Fox, it shouldn't matter.  You're 
my son.  And I love you. Bill loved you, even though he hurt you.  
He was your father."  

I didn't know whether or not to believe her.  "There was a folder 
with my name on it.  Sam's had been pasted over it."  

She stroked my hair back from my face.  I remember her doing that 
when I was little and Dad had hurt me.  "Bill was afraid of you and 
afraid for you, Fox.  His feelings for Sam were less complicated.  
Sam was less complicated than you were."  

I still wasn't sure she was telling the truth.  Maybe she was telling 
her truth.  But I was too tired anyway.  So I pulled the blankets 
over my head.   

I heard Wilson murmuring to Skinner, and Wilson came and got 
my mom and guided her back to the third bedroom/office.  I was 
sliding down into sleep again, just hearing sounds.  

The light clicked off and Skinner's hand rested on my shoulder, 
dragging me back.  "Mulder," he murmured, "She's right.  It 
doesn't matter.  You do.  You're worth more than whoever 
fathered you.  It doesn't take that much to get a woman pregnant.  
And whatever else William Mulder did, he raised a good man."  

I was too numb to feel much warmth at that.  I nodded and put my 
face into the pillow and just fell down the rabbit hole into darkness.  

But there were no more nightmares.   


This morning was--strange.  When I grew up, the nighttime terrors 
were always succeeded by a blanket of denial.  

No, Dad didn't get drunk.  Dad didn't slam little Fox against the 
wall for having nightmares and waking the baby.  Mom didn't 
shriek and beg him not to hurt little Fox.  In other words, 
we sat around having a really happy smiley breakfast like Father 
Knows Best.   

But this time, my mom stopped beside me and did that Mom thing 
with my hair.  When I looked up, she kissed my forehead and 
smiled for real.  "I'm sorry I got angry last night, Fox," 
she told me, with remarkable ease and sat down.  "Thank you, 
Walter," she told Skinner, when he poured her coffee.  

Great, maybe she thinks Skinner's her new son-in-law.  No, she has 
to be able to figure out that Wilson didn't sleep on the couch, we 
were all up in the middle of the night.  

I worry about these things sometimes.  I mean, she's my mother.   

Anyway, the entire breakfast was a little subdued and a little quiet, 
but a lot real.  It was so unnerving to me that I curled up on the 
couch once Skinner shooed me out of the kitchen.  

Maybe he and Wilson have a thing for dishes.  I wonder if Wilson 
was ever a lady Marine.  

My mother, I'm sorry to report, has your habits, Horowitz.  Once 
I'd ensconced myself on the couch, she got out some kind of 
stitchwork from her bag.  "You need a haircut," she told me, 
and began to make quick stitches in an peculiar shade of grey blue.   

"I like it long."  It's long.  Did I say that yet in any of these?  
Wilkinson liked long hair, and the Mengeles didn't give a shit, so I 
haven't had a haircut in about three years.  It's pretty long.  
"Maybe I'll cut it in the spring, I need it now to keep my ears 
warm."  

That got a smile from her and a quick glance up from the stitchery.  
"I'm going to get a little house in Calgary," she told me, watching 
the needle move.  "It's not that far, and Dr. Wilson says that you'll 
be able to visit when you're better."  

When I'm better.  More euphemism.  

"You mean when they trust me to go around the block without 
worrying I'm going to off 
myself," I snarled.  

That jarred her.  Thank God.  If she wasn't dysfunctional, she 
wouldn't have been my mother, I'd have suspected she was a 
morph and stuck that needle in her thumb to find out for sure.  

"I suppose," she said, not looking at me.  I curled grumpily under 
the blanket Skinner kept on the back of the couch for me.  

"Yeah," I grouched, "I'd like that."  

Skinner and Wilson were taking an awful long time to wash the 
dishes.   I wondered if Skinner was adventurous enough to take 
advantage of the kitchen table.  Phoebe and I did, once, in her 
mother's house.  Of course, her mother wouldn't have ventured 
into the kitchen even if the entire household staff quit en masse.  
Aristos.  Jesus.  

I reached out for the remote and flicked restlessly through the 
channels. 

 My mother watched this for a while before saying mildly, "I don't 
know how you can tell what's on, you go so fast." 

"Yeah, that's why Dad let them keep taking me, so I could 
recognize television programs at a glance."  More snarling.  

Skinner emerged to hear this and came to look down at me.  "Mind 
your manners," he muttered.  

I pulled the blanket up to my ears and managed not to snarl at 
*him*.  He retrieved the remote, recognizing hyperactivity when 
he saw it, and set the channel to a movie that both my mother and I 
could tolerate.  

I don't even remember what it was, I went out again like somebody 
had slipped me a mickey.  I don't think they did, given Skinner's 
resistance to Jack, but I woke to find it was like 3 in the afternoon 
and nearly dark because of the latitude, and my mother was gone.   

Hell, Skinner was gone.   

And so, I noticed, was his computer and desk.  Oh, he moved it 
into the office again.  

Rolling off the couch, I padded down the hall and stopped at the 
open door of the office.  The glow from the screen made his 
glasses almost look like they were tinted  blue.  

"Hi," I said uncertainly.  He glanced at me, nodded in a 
companionable way.  

"You were pretty well sacked out," he told me and typed more on 
the screen.  "Come on in."  

I was actually relieved that I hadn't gotten on to his shit list by 
being mean to my mother.  Remind me, Horowitz, to talk about 
my problems with authority figures.  If you promise not to 
assume I think they're all my father, I will.  

I sat down in the second chair and perched behind him, watching 
him use the mouse to select geographical coordinates, name them 
and transmit.  Eventually, curiosity got the better of me.  "What 
are you doing?"  

"Ordering satellite scans."  His mouth quirked slightly.  "Lights in 
the sky."  

The old bug bit.  I leaned forward and frowned.  "Where is that?"  

"Newfoundland."  He moved the mouse again, clicked on another 
window and brought up what even I recognized as the Caribbean, 
near the Mexican coastline.  "Mexico."  

Something started jittering at the base of my spine, something that 
smacked me hard so that I seemed to be watching myself from the 
corner on the ceiling.  "That's not ET stuff," I heard myself say 
hollowly, "That's the testing place.  Where they test some of their 
tech to see if humans can tolerate using it."  From my place on the 
ceiling, I saw Skinner turn to face the man who was shaking on the 
second chair.  "Believe it or not," I heard myself say, heard the 
thin sound of my voice, "They're operating out of the volcano 
cone.  I remember seeing that shape going up and coming back."  

Abruptly, I was back behind my eyes, staring at Skinner and feeling 
a warm trickle down my upper lip.  He went white and was out of 
his chair like a shot, down the hall.  I closed my eyes, felt the 
trickle move faster.  I had a nosebleed.  Great.  On top of 
everything else, I had a nose bleed.  

Well, at least I know they didn't destroy my ovaries.  I may have 
been modified by my father's Mengeles, but I was reasonably 
certain I didn't have ovaries then and don't now.  

A cool wet cloth touched my face and Skinner muttered, "Tilt your 
head back, Mulder."  Obediently, I did, reaching up to hold the 
cloth in place.  He disappeared again, for several minutes.  I got 
tired of holding my head back and tipped it forward 
experimentally.  

The bleeding appeared to have stopped, although it felt like I had a 
blood clot the size of a plum in my nose.  

Skinner came back down the hall, his expression grim.  "Okay, 
Ace, they're coming to get us, we're getting you down to the 
clinic."  Ace?  

"I don't need to go down to the clinic," I disagreed.  "I don't have 
cancer, Skinner.  I just had a nose bleed."  

"Yeah, but we might have missed an implant.  God knows, you had 
enough to set off metal detectors, if metal detectors were rigged 
for that.  And I don't plan to let them come and get you, Mulder."  

Well, once he put it like *that*--It took about five minutes to get 
into warmer clothes and then wait impatiently for the lights of the 
Sno-Cat.  

This was a big one, not Wilson's personal vehicle.  I climbed in first 
and huddled in the corner.  I didn't know the guys in front and 
didn't remember seeing them before, which felt 
weird.  

I asked Skinner, who patted my shoulder absently and told me he 
knew them, they were fine.  He didn't, however, tell me I was 
paranoid, for which I was grateful.   

It took about 45 minutes to get to the clinic.  Such is travel in the 
wilderness.  The Sno-Cat goes a decent rate, but it's only about 20 
mph.  Or so.  Depending on terrain.  And Julie Wilson and some 
other stranger waited for us in the entrance.  

"We didn't do a neuro scan," Wilson was telling the stranger, who 
had clearly just arrived and was taking off fine leather gloves and 
unbuttoning an expensive coat.  

Neuro scan?  I suddenly had the heebie jeebies so badly my knees 
felt rubbery.   He reminded me a lot of the Mengeles, except his 
expression was a helluva lot more human.  When he caught me 
looking at him, he smiled reassuringly, except by that time we were 
on the way down to X ray and Skinner was making me shed my 
outerwear at the speed of light.  

"We've got activity," someone said behind us, low voice into a 
radiophone. 

 My ears all but came to a point.  "What kind of activity," I 
demanded and Skinner shoved me ungently into the X ray room.   

"Everything off except your underwear," Wilson told me 
cheerfully.  

Hah, Wilson, I'm wearing long underwear, I thought smugly and 
finally stretched out on the table, feeling chilled in spite of the 
room's warmth.  Wondering what kind of activity they were 
talking about.  

UFO activity?  So it would seem.  Skinner told me later that they 
watch the skies more than members of MUFON.

They took shot after shot of my face.  I figure Julie Wilson knows 
my nose well enough she could do a nose job, now.  Skinner 
walked in and casually draped a warmed blanket over me 
and walked out, in between shots.  

Nobody told him not to do that.  I certainly wouldn't, not when he 
has that expression on his face.  

I might have three years ago, but I was a fearless, reckless bastard 
back then.  And I did stop shivering after that.  Gee, it's nice to 
have someone worry about you.  

And I kept thinking about the "activity", whatever the hell it was.   

"There," I heard the stranger--whose name turns out to be Rivers, 
Anthony Rivers.  Probably only someone who had either majored 
in history or who had attended Oxford would associate that name 
with anyone historical, but I found myself hoping that this Anthony 
Rivers had better luck than the last one I'd heard about.   

Go look up Edward IV if you're curious, Horowitz.  It's just the 
weird way my mind works in stressful situations.  

Well, in short order, they took me into an operating room, 
knocked me loopy with a trank and a local anesthetic, and peeled a 
fairly good sized transmitter out of my nasal cavity.   Do I 
sound like I was calm about that?  I certainly was not.   

I wasn't gibbering, but the fact that the people with the 
radiophones were starting to look sincerely alarmed was making 
me nervous.  Anyway, they got the damned thing, and to my 
general astonishment, one of the people in the operating theater 
closed the damned thing in a little box and carried it away.   By this 
time, the building felt like it was vibrating, but as the minutes 
passed, it stopped.

Everyone exchanged a relieved look, then Rivers smiled down at 
me and said, "That's it."  

They'd packed my nostril with cotton so tight I couldn't even 
wrinkle my nose.  "Okay," I told him, sounding a little like a duck.  
Sounding a lot like a duck, Horowitz, I'm not even going to 
try and protect my vanity.  

Gee, I finally got to have a nasal transmitter of my very own, 
Scully.   

I wondered if when the trank wore off I'd be gibbering, but they 
whisked us back up the hill to the house once the bleeding stopped.  
Probably didn't want me around in case I had any other 
transmitters they'd missed.  I did get into the house, Horowitz, and 
start throwing up.  

I was still too zoned when I first got here to think much about the 
transmitters they took out of me.  And things were pretty fuzzed 
after that.  It was all I could do to get up and follow Skinner 
around the yard.  But this one was different.  It made me 
face the experiments.  The little tricks they'd play on me, to see 
how far they could control a human being.  Chips to download 
data to my unwilling brain.  Chips to upload data to them.  Chips 
to send messages to muscles to make my limbs move the way she 
wanted.  

Oh, God.  I said she.  I remember her.   


November 3rd  

It's almost fun sometimes to be crazy.   Although I would have 
passed on this binge.  

Skinner sat down beside me on the floor this morning and actually 
smiled at me.  He hasn't smiled for a while.  "You're doing fine, 
Mulder," he told me softly.   

I wonder who's kidding who, here.  I have bandages on my arms 
up to the middle of my elbows.  I was a little too crazed to actually 
try killing myself, but I ran my arms through the window on the 
front porch trying to get outside.  I  have no idea why, that's lost in 
the mists of insanity.   

Mists of insanity.  Sounds like something from the Princess Bride.  
No, wait, that was the Cliffs of Insanity.  

Horowitz, I have to hand it to you.  You did yeoman effort, letting 
me stay out of the clinic.  I'm very grateful.  Really.  I wish you 
hadn't needed to drug me into a stupor, but I can see your 
point.  Except I wasn't really trying to kill myself, I was just trying 
to get outside and away from the house.  From remembering her.  

Now, see, if this were a thriller, "she" would be a beautiful sexy 
woman who peels her face off to reveal an insectile visage beneath.  
There would have been some hot sex before she decided she'd had 
what she needed and bit my head off.  With a loving close-up of 
my arteries spraying blood.  

And I apologize for saying you looked like a Jewish Grandmother 
and acted like the Bitch of Belsen.  I know where that came from, 
now.   

Ingrid Volkman.   

It seems fitting that her name was German, after all this.  She looks 
Hispanic, of course, but that's because Mummy was.  Daddy was a 
Nazi.  

Well, I don't know that for a fact, but let's face it--she's Brazilian 
by birth, speaks perfect German and has Hispanic coloring.  What 
would you think?  

Her hair, by some strange genetic quirk, was as white as my 
mother's.  And she was really only about fifty, I think.  Sweet face, 
she looked like the kindest person in the world.  But, oh, she loved 
her toys.  

And I was one of them.  I was the strongest.  I kept taking a 
licking and kept on ticking, so she got paradoxically fond of me.  

I remember G forces.   I can't remember what the scientific 
meaning of one gravity is, but I remember hearing the computer 
read out more than that.  More than two or three.  My bones 
broke several times, which is probably why my legs and hips ache 
so much in the cold.  I remember drowning in blood, my own 
blood, because a blood vessel in the back of my nose broke and I 
was trying to breathe and kept choking on my own blood.  And 
eventually on my own vomit.  

Of course, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, so 
maybe I can thank Ingrid for the chance to actually see the earth 
from orbit, but since I can't remember it, only the pain of having 
my muscles misfire as conflicting messages got sent to them, I 
suppose I'm entitled to be a little rude.  

Thankfully, my mom was here, so they managed to pack back 
some of the blood I lost.  And Skinner's went in okay.  Imagine 
having the same blood type as Skinner.  I told him it proved 
he was my long lost older brother, a vain attempt at humor at a 
moment when he wasn't having any.  

So today, I was lying on the floor wrapped up in a blanket in front 
of the fire when Skinner sat down next to me.  

"I'm so fucked up," I whispered.  

He shook his head.  "Nope."  

My arms itched.  "What, then?"  Honestly curious.  If he didn't 
think trying to go through a window because you couldn't get the 
door unlocked wasn't fucked up, I wanted to know what was.  

"You're getting stronger.  And everytime you get stronger, your 
mind tosses up another memory that it didn't think you could 
handle until then.  And it's upsetting.  But you handle it.  And I 
believe you, I think you were just trying to get out and I wasn't fast 
enough to stop you."  

I almost smiled.  "Hey, I'm the guilt maven, you aren't."  

"Not guilt.  Responsibility.  I wasn't fast enough, I wasn't paying 
attention."  He takes on that rigorous expression when he talks like 
this, except that this time one corner of his mouth tipped upward 
suddenly.  "And for a scrawny guy, you're getting pretty fast."  

I looked back at the fire.  "You've been reading my psych books 
again."  

Skinner's chuckle was a low rumble.  "Nope, but I did talk to 
Horowitz.  She really isn't that bad, Mulder.  For a--"  

"Freudian," I finished and this time I did smile.  "Jesus, you like 
Jung, you believe in lights in the sky now, I'm starting to worry my 
insanity has infected you."  

He grinned at the fire.  "Like chicken pox?  That's supposed to be 
contagious.  Although there is this controversial idea about memes 
being contagious."  

I'll tell you, Horowitz.  I'll never underestimate Skinner again.   In 
any way.  

"Maybe they are," I told him and considered.  "I don't know, I 
keep going back and forth 
between the midbrain versus the contagious and deadly meme."  

"Maybe it's a little of both," he suggested.  "Our midbrain may be 
what told us that Other was bad, and it may be operating out of an 
obsolete environmental reality, but that doesn't necessarily mean 
that our contagious concept that the Others are bad is wrong, 
either."  

I'm not sure what he's arguing, but it has a nifty sound.  I nodded, 
anyway, and yawned hugely.  You've been tapering off on the 
drugs, Horowitz, and that's great, but I'm still going to get fat and 
sloppy like Brian Wilson if you don't stop.  

I know, I'm bitching.  You didn't really knock me out and you had 
some justification for doing so.  Whether I intended to be or not, I 
was a danger to myself and to Skinner.  But knocking the anxiety 
back to a drug controlled level did let me work through some of 
the memories without running through another window.  And 
while remembering Volkman makes me queasy, I don't get the 
screaming fits anymore about her. 

Jesus, Horowitz, I hope things don't go like this when we start 
getting into Wilkinson.   

So we sat and stared at the fire for a while, or he sat and I lay and 
stared at the fire until the radiophone beeped.  He got up and 
padded into the kitchen to answer it.   I leaned back on the couch 
and closed my eyes, wondering who it was.

Skinner doesn't get many calls.   Wilson just comes up if she wants 
to talk to him.  And presumably Illya Kuryakin calls, since he gets 
a couple he doesn't generally mention to me.  And Alexander 
what's 'is name, the head guy. But when Illya and Alexander call, 
he talks quietly, without a lot of animation, but with a helluva lot 
of intensity.  And on the rare occasions Wilson does call, it's to 
make sure that I'm still breathing.  

Well, my mom called from Wilson's a couple of times during the 
last couple of weeks, when it snowed too hard for her to come up 
here.  Trust Skinner to live on the outer edge of the 
settlement.  

Skinner came back into the livingroom.  "Cassie's on her way up, 
you have about thirty minutes to turn into a presentable human 
being."  

If he'd laughed, I'd have killed him.  But he was smiling when he 
said it. 
 
I sat up, acting like it was no big deal.  "She's just delivering your 
packages."  

"Nope, she just wants to come and say hello to you."  My face 
went very hot.  

"What did you tell her?  Did you put her up to this?"  

"Right.  You keep calling me a yenta, so I thought I'd set you up.  
If I didn't, you'd end up on my hands forever."  He bent down, 
grasped both my elbows and hauled me up on my feet.  "Your 
mom met her and told her you had an accident in the dark.  
And were feeling pretty stupid and low about it."  

I fought the urge to hysterical laughter.  Who would have ever 
thought that I would approve of my mother's confabulations about 
my injuries?  

Skinner steered me toward the bathroom.  "At least shave and 
bathe, for God's sake.  Didn't anybody ever tell you that four days 
growth of beard is not viewed fondly by the opposite sex?"  

Or lank and oily hair, I suppose.  I let him chivvy me into the 
bathroom and managed to get myself looking squeaky clean and 
neatly shaven without cutting my throat.   By the time she arrived, 
I was even dressed in clean clothes and my favorite Henley and 
was artistically arranged in the corner of the couch reading a book.  

Don't ever believe that women have the insecurity market tied up, 
Horowitz.  

Cassie came in and grinned at me.  I know you know who she is, 
Horowitz, and so does Skinner, but she's got hair so dark it's 
almost black and she actually has that long, curly pre-Raphaelite 
look naturally.  "Hey, I hear you've been housebound."  

Skinner vanished tactfully.  And I do mean vanished, he put his 
coat on and presumably his snowshoes and went out for a trek.  
Probably down to tell my mother all my parts were still in 
working order.  Or to tell you, Horowitz, that the suicide watch 
could be called off.  Well, not that I felt he was holding one, 
frankly.  

I'm beginning to think I really missed the boat all those years.  
Coffee and snow are clearly an aphrodisiac.   Cassie smelled like 
snow, a little bit of perfume, and a lot like herself and within 
about forty minutes we were both naked as the day we were born 
in my bed.  She doesn't get all my jokes, but she loved all the 
books lining the walls, and she doesn't make a big deal out 
of my scars and it was better than the last time.  

Unless it was just that I was depressed and she lifted my spirits, 
among other things.  I know you've seen Cassie, Horowitz, so I'm 
not going to describe her except to say that she has the best set of 
legs in the Western World, she's just tall enough that we could 
dance if I could still dance, and just short enough that she has to 
lean up to kiss me on the mouth.  For some reason, I've always 
found that charming, God only knows why.  And she's a very 
inventive woman in a frisky, playful way. 

By the time Skinner had gotten back, quite a bit later, she and I 
had cobbled together a meal in the kitchen and she was sitting on 
the couch rubbing my feet while we watched Aliens on 
the space-age television set Skinner has in the livingroom.   

He looked pretty relaxed himself, and I heard the sound of the 
Sno-Cat, so he must have gone down to see Wilson for a while.  
"Don't do that," he told Cassie, mock stern, "You'll spoil him.  
Didn't anybody ever warn you about that?  He'll start expecting it, 
and then where will you be?"  

She grinned back at him.  I get the impression that Skinner and 
Cassie are old acquaintances.   If they'd been anything more than 
that, she wouldn't have bothered with me.  Not to be tacky, Walt, 
but I've seen you in the locker room out at Quantico.  

That will probably get me rapped on the head tomorrow when he 
reads these.   

Anyway, Cassie went home about eleven, promised to come and 
take me adventuring when I had the all clear from Wilson (and 
you, Horowitz, although she didn't mention you), and I heard the 
snowmobile start up and rev down the path toward the enclave.  
Skinner didn't kid me and I didn't kid him, but we did sit peaceably 
together and watch the end of Aliens.  Turns out we both thought 
the third one sucked, but have differing views on the first and 
second.  

I prefer Alien, it's kind of Lovecraftian, it must be the neurotic 
Massachusetts thing for me.  Rats in the Walls has always been one 
of my favorite gruesome stories.  I read it to Phoebe late at night, 
while she sat on my bed naked, plaiting flowers into her hair.   It 
didn't even make her shiver.  Anyway, Skinner likes Aliens better 
and I told him that's because he likes the Space Marines.  

He chuckled at that and nodded.  "Probably so.  I like a 
straightforward approach to a problem, I hated the shiny bar 
Lieutenant in our platoon, and I was the only survivor of mine, 
like Hicks."  

I did like Hicks and told him so.  "But I have to admit, Ripley 
really rings my chimes.  A babe who can manage to escape from an 
alien infested ship and still have enough personal warmth to go 
back for the cat.  I confused my first serious lover with Ripley.  
She had the cojones, but not the warmth." 

 I took a sip of hot chocolate, since Skinner wouldn't let me have 
coffee at night, and I figure he hasn't heard that theobromine in 
chocolate and caffeine in coffee are kissing cousins.  Heh.  

He laughed at that.  "Women are always tougher, don't let anyone 
kid you." 
 
See what I mean?  That's not a sentiment I would have associated 
with Skinner.   

"Yeah."  Then, swallowing hard.  "Scully was pretty tough."  

"She sure as hell was."  He took a sip of his coffee.  "I wouldn't 
have crossed her.  Remember when she lied for you on the Tooms 
case?"  

I blinked.  "Lied for me, " I repeated, as if I had no idea of what he 
was talking about.   

He just grinned at me.   And I couldn't believe it.  My throat was 
tight, but I could talk about her.   "Yeah," he said and actually 
laughed out loud.  "I expect you to place the same level of 
trust in me as I do in you, sir."   

A direct Scully hit.  I didn't like her lying for me, but I had to 
respect her chutzpah.  And no, Horowitz, I don't speak Yiddish 
and I don't read Hebrew, but anyone who's attended a movie 
or read a book in the last twenty years probably knows chutzpah.  
"At Ellens Air Force Base, before you, ah, got the joy of the X 
files division, she actually overpowered an NSA jerk to get 
me out of their clutches."  I leaned back in the corner of the couch 
and poked at the marshmallows in my hot chocolate.  My mother 
must have told him about my fondness for those, Skinner doesn't 
strike me as a marshmallow guy.  

He tilted his head to look at me.  "I could see her doing that," he 
told me gravely.  

"And in Alaska, she tackled a guy who'd thumped me in the head."   
But my throat was getting too tight to say much more than that.  

We were silent for another minute.  He finally got up and came to 
get my cup.  "You ought to sleep well tonight," he told me 
obliquely, not even cracking a smile.  

I blushed anyway.  Jesus, it's worse than being fifteen again.   But I 
grinned, too, shaking away the sadness.  "Yeah.  You, too, I 
imagine."  Just the flick of a smile.  

And I went on in to brush my teeth like a rational adult and go to 
bed.   


November 4 

I should have known better last night.  I should have stayed up 
with the television, snuck back into the kitchen and brewed coffee 
to stay awake.  I woke up panting to find myself in darkness, and I 
was dripping with sweat, a dry hand cupping my face.  

"Mulder," Skinner's voice was very calm.  "Come on, try and wake 
up a little for me."

I dragged air in through the pinhole in my throat.  I couldn't tell 
where I was, except it was a very small space.  But I could hear the 
television, the barest hum of sound.  "I'm awake," I tried to say, 
but it was hard to breathe. 

And I could still feel Wilkinson's hands on me.  Feel Volkman 
stroking my hair back before she made another incision to insert a 
new and improved implant. 

If this is the effect that sex is going to have on me, that hermitage 
up-mountain sounds better and better.  

Suddenly, there was more space.  Blinking, I realized that 
somehow, I'd managed to force my body down between the bed 
and the wall.  He shoved it farther away and hauled me up 
against his chest, I was shaking too much to do more than that.  
"Open your mouth," he ordered and stuck the inhaler in when I 
did.  

It only took a minute or so and I could breathe again without 
sounding like an aging accordion.  I planted my hands on the floor 
and shook for a few minutes after he let go of me. 

"Which was it?" he asked gently.  

"It was new and improved," I whispered, still dragging air in. 
"Volkman and Cancerman and Wilkinson, oh, my."  

That almost got a smile.  He waited a minute before levering me up 
to the bed.  I sagged, head down, and just concentrated on getting 
lungfuls of air.

Great stuff, air.  

"Have you noticed," I ventured, "That all of their names end in an 
n?  Whereas you and I, two of the good guys, have last names that 
end in r?"  

"Wilson and Delevan," he told me in contradiction and sat down 
on the bed next to me.  I could hear the shower running already 
and almost laughed, only it would have taken too much air.  

God, I'll never find a wife who knows me like Skinner.  Maybe I 
can have her report to him for graduate work in Mulder, Fox 
William.  

"Ready?" he asked and I nodded.  

I made it to the bathroom under my own power.  And into the 
shower.  The first thing I noticed was that he'd taken the nail brush 
out.  That made me giggle hysterically under the hot water.  

I've finally discovered one of his failings, Horowitz,  there were 
dust bunnies the size of cats under the bed.  I was covered in sweat 
and dust.  

Emerging, I found clean sweats and skinned into them, already 
starting to feel the adrenaline crash and chill.   Back into the bed, 
which he'd already moved back against the wall.  Snugly.  

He was sitting in a chair reading, wearing a ragged sweatshirt that 
used to say something on it about the Marines, and sweat pants 
and red socks.  

Red socks.   

I can barely remember the starched and buttoned down AD who 
used to yell at me so effectively in his office.  

I trundled myself into bed and under the blankets and shivered.   
"So much for sex," I muttered.  

He smiled faintly.  "Don't you want to overwrite the bad with the 
good?  Can't do that unless you take a few chances."  

You know, Horowitz, it does occur to me that I've been making 
him sound like a saint.   

I guess I just don't worry about the times he snarls at me, or take 
them all too seriously.  

Just the other day, while I was still limp and wan from my collision 
with the window, he told me, "Mulder, if you don't stop flipping 
from channel to channel on that thing, you're going to have to have 
Julie Wilson remove it surgically from where ever I decide to stuff 
it."  

Sure, I sulked.  That was pro forma.  But I did stop flipping from 
channel to channel.  

He also hates what I do to the toothpaste tube.   Hey, he's a 
Marine, I'm a slob.  He told me he was going to use my toothbrush 
to clean the bathroom counter if I left the toothpaste cap off again.  

I somehow find all this endearing anyway, because it means he 
doesn't think I'm fragile.  Hear that, Walt?  I love you, man, and I 
don't want your Bud Lite.  I don't know if that's a solid basis for 
friendship, but it works for me.  

And, of course, today he threw me into a snowbank.  

It was a gorgeous day.  I went out and made snowshoe tracks for 
my own amusement while he checked the things he has to check to 
keep the house from falling down during the winter.  During the 
course of that wait, while he climbed the hill and cleaned out 
certain filters and shoveled the snow off certain panels, I decided 
to see how deep the snow was.  Apparently I was suffering from 
temporary amnesia and forgot about the two cement steps that 
used to lead to the porch.  Or would have led to it while we were 
building it, since it had already snowed by the time I saw it in its 
finished glory.  

I took off the snowshoes and promptly sank up to my knees.  
Which delighted me, for some insane reason.  Obviously my inner 
child decided to make a brief daylight escape.  I started making 
snowballs.  I made a dandy little stack and started throwing 
them at him.  

He promptly shoveled down a pile of snow that knocked me to my 
knees.  

Whooping like a maniac, I stepped back and started pelting him, 
one after the other, and I used to play baseball, Horowitz, I'm 
pretty damned good with snowballs.  

Turns out, so is he.   

It was an apocalyptic snowball fight, and to my way of thinking I 
won, so I declared myself the victor.  Since he's bigger and has 
longer legs, even, he caught me and threw me into a snowbank.  I 
bounded up and leapt on top of the boulder, loudly declaring my 
victory and froze, suddenly realizing that I was actually standing 
on a height, however small, on the roof of the Western 
Hemisphere.  

And the vertigo hit and I *did* fall down this time, remembering 
almost too late that gravity would let me do a tuck and roll, which 
was only half smart because I rolled down the slope a good 
distance before I hit a tree and stopped.  It knocked the breath out 
of me and I lay there wheezing, trying to laugh and not having 
enough air to do so.  He looked a little worried at first, but as he 
got closer and saw my face and heard these weak, breathless 
cackles of laughter, he relaxed.  

Naturally, he hauled me upright again.  He does that a lot, and in 
metaphorical ways, too.  

So I tripped him, he pulled me back down,  pinned me--I forgot 
what a good chokehold he has--and made me cry Uncle.  Literally.  
His little joke after being called Napoleon Solo for most of the fall.  

I was laughing too hard to walk straight going back up the hill and 
he had to keep grabbing the hood of my parka to keep me from 
rolling down, which wasn't easy.  By this time, he was laughing so 
hard the tears were freezing on his face.  Or maybe it was snow, I 
don't know.   I was wheezing when I got back into the house, and 
had to use the fucking inhaler, but guess what, Horowitz.   

I had fun.  I have now officially had fun three times and only twice 
had anything to do with sex.  

Is that good or bad, Horowitz?  

I'm supposed to go out in the next few days adventuring with 
Cassie, so maybe there are four, and it will probably involve sex, 
too.  What more can I ask for?  

Well, a job would be nice.  I must be getting well, I'm getting 
restless. 
 
 You don't need a slightly damaged Jungian associate, do you, 
Horowitz?   


November 12  

Honesty compels me to admit that I've had a terrible time the last 
several days.  Appointment with Horowitz and more digging and 
remembering.  Volkman for the first half of the hour, and when 
we'd exhausted the possibilities of torment with her, we moved on 
to Wilkinson.  

By the time Skinner showed up to escort me back, I was curled up 
on one end of the couch and Horowitz was trying to reach Wilson 
to get me an extra inhaler for her office.  

Skinner had to have been an Eagle Scout.  He whipped one out of 
his pocket and told me to open my mouth again, then triggered it.  
I waited until I could breath again before standing up and politely 
apologizing for the fuss.  

Horowitz gave me a look that saw through that, unfortunately--
Horowitz, I like you better than I did, but you're still tougher than 
granite and slicker than Teflon.  

So I was morose going back up the hill.  It was another gorgeous 
day, with no snow or sleet or crap scheduled for a couple more 
and Cassie showed up as we reached the yard and wanted me to go 
adventuring with her.  

Skinner looked at me.  "Sounds good to me," he told me softly.  

Right.  Rehab, I suppose.  But Cassie's grin coaxed one from me 
and I sighed and nodded.   

"Come on in and have a cup of coffee," Skinner suggested, letting 
me make up my mind in peace.  "Then you can kidnap him."  

"He's over twenty-one, isn't he?" she teased and followed us in.  
We never got the cup of coffee, because I decided to put the damn 
suit on before I changed my mind.  Skinner came back out to see 
us off.  "Don't worry if I don't get him back tonight," Cassie called, 
over the roar of the machine.   

I froze.  Was I ready to do that?  Skinner evidently thought I was, 
he tossed me my inhaler.  

And we were off.   Cassie took me down-mountain to meet some 
of her relatives.  Not her parents, thank God, or I would have gone 
into the full tilt, insanity boogie.   

No, it was an aunt and uncle, both Native American, although I'm 
not sure that's the politically correct thing to say in Canada.  I 
should have known with those cheekbones, the almond shaped 
eyes, and that nearly black, silky hair.  

We made stilted conversation for a while, then got easier with each 
other while Cassie helped her aunt cook dinner.  It appeared we 
were going to stay the night here.  Her uncle was something of a 
native healer, it seemed, although he was a quiet, soft-spoken man, 
and we discussed various native religious beliefs with the first real 
pleasure I'd felt in meeting strangers since--since Cassie, I guess.  

Nice dinner, venison stew or something like a venison stew, I ate 
an embarrassingly large amount and enjoyed every bite.  More 
conversation and I helped her uncle bring in the wood for the 
woodstove for the night, which at least let me feel marginally 
useful.  I used to carry a gun and stop bad guys and that made me 
feel useful, but bad guys give me nightmares these days.  

Anyway, I was walking back in with an armload of wood when I 
saw the figurines on the mantel and nearly hyperventilated.  Big 
almond shaped eyes, oversized head.  Only not like the Whitley 
Streiber, common abductee type of alien, these were posed with 
human figures proportionately larger and they wore clothes.   

Her uncle David stopped to look at me very keenly and took the 
wood from my arms.  

"What are they?" I asked.  I managed to keep my voice relatively 
normal, even though my airway was shrinking rapidly.  

"The Little People," he said and then named them in his native 
tongue.  

I'd seen them, but to a child they were equal, not little.  And the 
next thing I knew, Cassie had me wrapped up in a quilt and was 
patting my cheek patiently.  "Come on, Mulder," she murmured.  
"It's all right.  It's just the--" and she gave the name again, a liquid 
name that made it that much harder to breathe.  Cassie held up the 
inhaler for me and I used it.  

I had maybe been two or three.  I saw them from my crib and they 
scared me.  But I couldn't move and couldn't stop them, and I was 
awake, I'd been reading quietly in bed to myself since I wasn't 
supposed to get out and I'd learned that the price for disobedience 
was a cast on a limb or sometimes a stay in the hospital.  

They came and got me.  And where they took me, I can't say.  It 
isn't recognizable from an adult's point of view, and children's 
perceptions are colored by the emotional weight they give 
things.  But sometimes it hurt.  

They stopped coming when Sam was born.  I don't know why.  I 
think that's what my father meant when he said something about 
his kid vanishing and reappearing.   I curled up on the couch the 
rest of the evening.  David brought me some nice herbal tea and it 
made me sleepy, but didn't make me feel drugged.  I liked him for 
that.  We sat and talked, or rather he talked and I listened, and he 
told me tales of the little people.  

I'm going to find out what that native name is, I'd like to run a 
cross reference on other native myths.  I'd always known that the 
Cherokee had their myths, but it wasn't anything I'd studied.  Now 
I wanted to know.  

So, Cassie curled up behind me in the bed in the loft, and the heat 
drifted up, smelling of wood ash and a little bit of pine cones, since 
her uncle liked to use those as firestarters.  Warm and snug and 
almost, but not quite, feeling safe.  I didn't have any really nasty 
dream episodes, although Cassie did wake me up in the middle of 
the night to seduce me.   

I think that was the first time I really felt like I was going to make 
it all the way out of the darkness for real.  Oh, I've been telling 
myself that a lot.  Especially when I can see that I'm getting better.  
But skin to skin in the warm darkness under the comforter, I felt 
human again.  Completely human and healthy and very pleased to 
be there.  No nasty echoes and no post coital tristesse this time, 
Horowitz, I even woke up with a smile on my face.  

Maybe Cassie's my talisman, if I keep her  in my pocket, the bad 
dreams will go away for good.  

I wish it was that easy.   

We got back around two in the afternoon with the sun already 
westering and she came in long enough to have a cup of coffee.  
"Uncle David wants you to come back," she told me, when she 
left, standing on tiptoe on the porch to kiss me. 

I hugged her hard.  "I'd like that."  

She laughed, broke free and went out the door, pausing only to 
wave before she zoomed away on her machine.   

I promptly experienced a crash that left me shaking on the couch.  

"Is this that post coital depression thing?" Skinner asked me drily, 
packing blankets around 
me. 

"Uh uh," I told him, teeth chattering.  "I think it's delayed reaction 
to something I found out yesterday."  

So I told him.  He listened very seriously, even though he would 
have ordered me into counseling four years ago.  Hell, he might 
have gotten an involuntary on me.   But now he listened and piled 
more blankets on and made me some hot cider and forced me to 
drink it when I groused.  

And then, he got on the telephone with Illya or James Bond or 
Maxwell Smart and within an hour and a half another nifty laptop 
computer was delivered to my room and set up on my desk.   

So instead of having to hand-write these damned pages, I can email 
them to you.  I think I'll cc Skinner, too, just to keep you honest, 
Horowitz.  After all, if he reads them and thinks I'm sane, what can 
you do to me?

 "You're well enough to start working," Skinner told me, after 
getting off the telephone.  "And if we dig enough out of your 
memories, I think you deserve to find what it is.  You're the one 
doing all the hard work, we're just recording it."  

See what I mean about him?  I can stand being told he's going to 
stick the remote where the sun doesn't shine if I don't calm down.   
I wish I'd known this side of him four years ago.  I wondered if 
Scully had, but decided she must have or she wouldn't have filled 
his ears up with Mulder stories.  

Would it be egotistical to ask him how she felt about me, 
Horowitz?   


November 15  

Yes, Horowitz, I've been a bad boy, I know it, I haven't been 
writing.  I've had a cold and I've been coddling it, since Skinner 
won't.  

That's not true, strictly speaking, he's pretty damned fast at sticking 
that Thermoscan thing in my ear, but once he decided I wasn't in 
danger of pitching a fever fit, he backed off and told me to make 
my own damned soup.  Growling to be sure I knew he hadn't really 
been worried about me.   

I thought I'd fall off the couch laughing, but it made my cough 
worse, so I finally had to stifle it.  

Men are really stupid, and I say that as one of the prime examples 
of that stupidity, Horowitz.  I mean, I thought about it the other 
night and why the hell do I care if I cry in front of Skinner?  
Some holdover from when Dad would fly into a rage when I cried 
in front of other people--or for that matter, alone in my closet. 

I used to hide in my closet, by the way, when Dad was  drinking.  
And why the hell do I care what anybody thinks of the fact that  
Skinner's my lifeline to reality? Or at least what passes for reality 
these days. 

Hey, I'm a man, I'm stupid, I care.  I mean, I have to admit it in a 
manly way, gruff voice and downcast eyes, as if I'm confessing to 
some really ghastly sin.  Dad did too good a job on me, in some 
ways.  I mean, I know I'm a candy ass, I went into psych for God's 
sake, and I had to carry two guns because I was always losing one, 
and while I shot great on the range, moving targets were a little 
harder.  That badge was my macho, believe me.  So I have to do 
the manly things the manly way or I'm just a little questionable.  

And that's probably going to get me a rap on the head tomorrow 
when Skinner reads this.  Live with it, Walt.  You're six three and 
look like Paul Bunyan without any hair and after he retired and 
settled down in the mountains, living off his royalties and eating 
Babe Blue Ox steaks.  It's not like I don't know that one of the 
more recent comments about male pattern balding links it to higher 
levels of testosterone.  

Why do you think I did sports in high school?  Baseball and 
basketball and I'd have done wrestling, too, if my mother hadn't 
refused to allow it.  She was sure I'd get my nose broken 
and my mother, to show you how deluded my family is, likes my 
nose.  Macho, I'm telling you.  

I was the biggest cocksman in the bureau for a long time, back 
before I crashed and burned my way out of VCS and Behavioral. If 
she was Betty Bureau and cute, she was for me.  And I scored 
more than the average.  Yup, you guessed it Horowitz. Actually, 
you didn't. I was lonely as hell, but terrified of getting too close to 
someone else who would either reject me or vanish.  Or both.  And 
my experience with Phoebe didn't exactly encourage me to get 
close to anyone else.  

I was doing dangerous work after that.  Look at what happened to 
Scully. God, Scully, I still find myself thinking, Scully's not going 
to believe this, or I've got to tell Scully that.  It hurts so much, then 
it doesn't, and then it comes back like a Hound of Hell, gnawing at 
my guts.  Where am I going with this?  I've forgotten, actually.  
Maybe I was heading toward Wilkinson and how strange it was 
that what he did made me sick, traumatized the shit out of me, but 
didn't make me question my orientation or masculinity.  

Of course, now, caving into those faked pictures makes me 
question both my masculinity and my intelligence, but he didn't.  
Despite all the good times he shared with me.  Do you know, 
Horowitz, that it is possible for someone to bring you to orgasm 
even when they're really hurting you?  I don't mean spanking you, 
or pinching your nipples,  either.  It's not easy, to be sure, and it 
takes a great deal of work, but it can be done.  

Now you know why I was so euphoric to find out that he didn't 
majorly screw with my wiring.  Oh, I may not ever get the same 
pleasure from a bit of rough and tumble--I find I'm liking it 
sensuous and sweet these days.  Some people it affects differently.  
I was terrified that I was going to find out that he'd managed to 
rearrange my internal furniture to leave me where I had to be hurt 
viciously in order to achieve any kind of sexual satisfaction.  

I wish Watts had let me kill him.  Wilkinson, that is.  I no longer 
really wish to shoot Watts, but I wouldn't mind doing a little rat-a-
tat-tat on his kidneys with a blunt object.  

I told Skinner the other day that Watts had fucked me after he had 
Wilkinson safely corked and trussed.  I haven't seen Skinner turn 
that color since his AD days, and usually in a meeting with me.  

How did we get to that?--oh, yeah, we were talking about That 
Prick Watts and his recent request for another interview with me.  
Fat chance.  I'll talk to the head man or Illya Kuryakin, but not 
Watts.  

Anyway, I told Skinner that I really thought Watts was a class A 
sociopath and he nodded thoughtfully.   
 
It took me a minute to realize that he was accepting it on my 
credentials and I nearly choked on my coffee.  Hey, I get two cups 
a day now, Horowitz, though Skinner still threatens me with bodily 
harm if I even look at it past noon.  

After the nail brush incident, I go by the honor system.  If he starts 
locking the coffee up, then it's fair game, but as long as he trusts 
me, I can't.  

Anyway, once I'd gotten my swallowing back in order, I told 
Skinner what had happened.  I'd been tied down very conveniently 
for another evening of fun and games--why the bastard always had 
to fuck up the little sleep I got, I'll never know.  Come back and 
fuck me in the morning, I told him once, and he actually broke one 
of those little riding crops on me, he was hitting me so hard.  

Anyway, there I was, the reason Watts had been forced to move 
earlier than he wanted, and he took advantage of those oh, so 
convenient bindings and had at me.  Hey, I was so far gone by that 
time, I figured he was just another Consortium pig and barely 
noticed.  

I did notice that none of his people bothered me, and a couple of 
them got me out and cleaned up before dressing me in Wilkinson's 
castoffs long enough to get me back to Canada. 
 
 I was gibbering quietly, because every time they moved me it got 
worse, and I wasn't sure I could stand what would be worse than 
the Volkman or Wilkinson.  In that order.  

So I told Skinner about it, even described the people who were in 
the room when it happened pretty well.  

He was furious.  "Un-fucking-believable."  

Since that was really the first time I've heard Skinner say fuck--
outside of when he accidentally whacked himself on the thumbnail 
working on one of his manly outdoor projects, I was pretty  
rocked.  Eagle Scout, I'm telling you.  Anyway, he called his boss, 
who is also Watts' boss, and evidently there are going to be some 
feathers flying.  

I'm telling you, it's alpha male time at the next wolf shindig.  

So I tried to make him laugh.  "Don't worry about it," I said, and "I 
hardly noticed after Wilkinson," and "He has a cat-dick, Walt, it 
was no big deal."  

All he did was glower at me.  

Why did I try to make him laugh? Easy, Horowitz.  So I didn't 
burst into tears because I didn't think I deserved to have anybody 
get that angry over what happened to me.  I did it to myself.   
Just when I think I'm getting somewhere, this shit sneaks up behind 
me.  

Anyway, Skinner's got to fly out somewhere arcane that I can't be 
told about because I don't know the secret handshake or 
something.   

Get this, Horowitz.  I'm going to be left on my own for the first 
time in--well, more than two years.  And he's not going to lock me 
in, so I can still come out and play with Cassie or whomever.  

My mom is coming back up, so maybe I can make some peace 
with her.  

Tra-la.  

I'm actually nervous about it.  I told him to lock up the cutlery in 
case I have one of my fugues where I decide that Planet Earth is 
better off without me.  He told me that was the best sign he could 
ask for to prove I'd be fine.  

Right.  Admin of Justice.  Direct approach.  Let's hope he's right.  

I hate having a cold.  Not as much as I hate being really sick, of 
course, but I still hate it.  Let's face it, Horowitz, I hate being less 
than 100% and none of the psychoanalytic bullshit available in the 
world today is going to affect that.  I always did and always will.  

It has nothing to do with what happened to me in Consortium 
playland, although I would have to grudgingly admit that it 
probably makes me a lot more hyper in that area.  

BTW, I've learned to drive that damned snowmobile of Cassie's.  I 
was actually thinking about getting one.  

Too bad all my earthly goods and funds were distributed--hey, I 
wonder if my mom got my life insurance?  Does this constitute 
insurance fraud?  Do I have to arrest myself and her?  And 
Skinner?  

Oh, can't do that, I'm dead, that badge doesn't mean anything 
anymore.  I can see it now, dead FBI Agent arrests self and mother 
for Insurance fraud, former supervisor is indicted as
co-conspirator. 

Heh.  

I certainly don't have the chance of a snowball in hell of bringing in 
the people who shot that poor son of a bitch body double.  Which 
would be murder, first degree, conspiracy to commit murder, 
assault and battery, and conspiracy to deprive the poor sod of his 
civil rights.  No one will ever convince me that these guys don't 
have backdoor connections to the government.  Which, I suppose, 
brings me up to what charges would result from me.  God, 
where do I start?  Conspiracy to deprive me of my civil rights, 
wrongful imprisonment, medical malpractice, assault and battery, 
sexual assault--I guess in all fairness that I can't say conspiracy to 
commit murder at this point because they had no apparent interest 
in putting me out of my misery.  

But it is an interesting moral issue.  

I think my mom was my beneficiary, and I don't think there was 
any clause prohibiting the payment of benefits in the event of 
suicide.  Since it was the authorities who faked this, do I get to use 
the money to pay for my rehabilitation?  

I asked Skinner, who clearly hadn't thought about it.  He blinked at 
me a few times and took his glasses off to polish them, a sure sign 
he's stalling while he thinks about it.  When he put them back on, 
he had that twisted smile again.  "Actually, I think that's pretty 
reasonable, Mulder.  I think you should use it for rehab.  I know 
your mother told me she put the money in the bank.  And she got 
what your father left you."  

I arched my eyebrows.  "Are you going to be really offended if I 
use any of it to buy a snowmobile?"  

He got this pained look on his face.  "Jesus, Mulder, if God had 
meant us to ride in snowmobiles--"  

I cracked up then.  He's such an Eagle Scout.  "Okay, forget it, 
how about a Sno-Cat?"  

He arched an eyebrow.  "Talk about luxury sedans, Mulder.  All 
this to pick up your date?"  

I flipped him off.  

"All right, all right, I'll see about getting one assigned to us up 
here.  It's not entirely unjustified, given that we're a long way 
away, and you aren't exactly in tip top condition."  

What he means, dear Diary, is that I limp.  Badly. You ought to 
see me on snowshoes, it's a hoot.  It has something to do with the 
way my hip and pelvic cradle healed after the last time Volkman 
made me take a trip.  Yeah, and I'm still getting laid, Horowitz, so 
there.  

I'm not quite as bad as the deputy in the television show from my 
childhood--Gunsmoke, that's it.  Chester was his name.  Our 
neighbors used to watch that all the time, my father would have 
choked on his scotch if we turned it on at home.  I can only barely 
remember that anyway, I was still pretty small.  

So, I left it at that.  Except I was allowed to call my mom in her 
new home in Calgary to see how she was settling in and she 
brought it up, rather tentatively, as if she was afraid I'd start 
foaming at the mouth again.  It seems she had no idea what to do 
with it, and she did sell the house on the Vineyard and put what 
she got into another investment on the advice of her attorney to 
keep from having to pay capital gains taxes.  Ain't dying a  bitch, 
Doc?  

It seems I'm actually pretty well off for a scrawny gimp who ends 
up between the bed and the wall on occasion.  

Maybe Cassie only wants me for my money.  Ouch, she just bit my 
ear.  

Yes, Horowitz, Walt is away and the Fox will play.   Excuse me, 
Horowitz, I have matters to attend to.   


November 18  

Well, I kind of got cut off last night and I forgot where I was 
going.  Oh,  yeah, my financial status.  Well, I suspect it's going to 
take all the king's horses and all the king's men to put this Humpty 
back together again the way I'm supposed to be.  And that ain't 
gonna be cheap.  I mean, Horowitz, at a conservative $150 an hour 
three appointments a week since September, your bill's gonna be a 
wowser anyway.  

Why am I worrying about this all of a sudden?  I don't know, 
maybe it's a step back into real life.  I think Canadian health care is 
nationalized, but I'm not Canadian, am I?  

Anyway, I'm doing just fine, Horowitz, possibly because Skinner 
thinks I'm okay enough to be left on my own. I did have a hell of a 
time getting into the knife drawer to cut some slices of roast beef 
for a sandwich.  He's childproofed it.  

He called today to let me know that he's going to be back earlier 
than he expected and to remind me to clear the snow from the 
panels and filters and what all.  There's an entire list.  He probably 
also called to give me time to clean up all traces of the orgy I held 
in his absence.  

Just kidding, Horowitz.  

So, I'm going to put on my woollies and parka and climb up on the 
roof to clean those things off.  Or climb up the hill, which is a lot 
easier to stomach.  He was going to have someone else do it and I 
convinced him that I wasn't going to fall off and roll down the 
mountain.  The vertigo is really getting better.  Or maybe it would 
be more accurate to say that it's been apparent by its absence 
lately.   

Anyway, I asked him about the childproofing and he chuckled.  
And said, "Well, I thought it might slow you down if you ever 
actually did go for the cutlery.  Give me enough time to get to 
you.  I never thought about the windows, though."  

Childproofing.  Well, he's right, it did slow me down, and it was 
probably showing a lot more trust than installing a lock on the 
drawer.  I'm actually kind of amused by the way his mind works.  If 
I'm going ninety miles an hour in high insanity mode, I'm not going 
to be able to work those goddamned plastic thingies.   

That's it for today, Horowitz, I'm going to do my housekeeping 
duties on the roof and then snowshoe down to see Cassie.   


December 21  

You gotta admit, Horowitz, my life is really eventful.  And this 
time, I can't blame myself.  

As you know, I am presently lying immobile in the clinic, my hip 
held together by pins and wire if the pain is anything to go by.  
Lucky for you, I didn't break my arms, so you got to nag 
me about writing it all down.  You know, in a couple of centuries, 
someone is going to exhume this hard drive and recover what I've 
deleted and it's going to blow your international reputation as Saint 
Horowitz.   

Your vicious streak will be revealed for all the world to see.  Your 
descendants will be mortified.  

Yeah, I'm putting it off, so live with it, Horowitz.   On the other 
hand, the sooner I get it over with, the sooner you'll stop nagging 
me.  I'm really pissed, Horowitz.  I thought I was safe from goons 
up here.  I certainly didn't think I'd manage to survive doing 
Skinner's duly assigned chores to get mugged while taking a walk.  
Mugged is too kind a word for it.  

Okay, backtracking, before Skinner left on his secret mission, we 
had to go down-mountain and meet with Heatherton, who is 
Skinner's boss and apparently only a minor bureaucrat here in 
UNCLE.  Skinner had asked me to write out a detailed account of 
my extraction including Watts' little segue into personal 
entertainment with me.  

So I did.  Very dispassionately, using all the clinical language that I 
learned to use writing profiles.  

Heatherton was, to put it mildly, steamed.  He's Brit, which I 
thought was interesting.  And assured me that the matter was 
going to be properly dealt  with.  

So I knew nothing was going to happen to Watts, which was just 
as well. I'm not in the mood to start making enemies, and while it 
made me feel all warm and fuzzy to have Skinner stomping around 
in a temper, I also didn't want to deal with Watts unless I had a 
gun in my hand.  And you won't let me have one.

Little did I know.  

I was on my way back up-mountain to the house after a profitable 
afternoon spent with Cassie.  You know that stretch that is really 
wooded?  I took a slight detour, because I wanted to see if I could 
find the pool Skinner showed me.  Yeah, I know, it was getting 
late at that point and starting to get sort of dusky, but I didn't 
remember it being that far off the beaten path.  

I didn't find the pool, but I did find a breathtaking view of the 
mountainside that nonetheless didn't leave me screaming and 
holding onto the ground, if only because there was a good 
long slope before the drop off.  Shows how much I know.  

So I sat down and leaned against this scrubby pine, just kind of 
enjoying the way the sun turned everything on the mountainside 
that kind of red-orange as it got lower.  When I turned my head, I 
saw Watts standing there, watching me with that fuck-you smile  
And wouldn't you know it, he really had a knife in his hand  this 
time.  

What an asshole.  

We exchanged pleasantries for a moment, along the line of, "You 
really should have kept your mouth shut, Fox."  

And, "No, I shouldn't have, Terry."  No way did I tell him he could 
call me Fox.  Believe it or not, that's what got me up on my feet, 
just pure flame-out.  I got up in time to dodge the knife--I was 
wearing four layers of clothes, I'm not sure how smart-stupid you 
have to be to try and knife someone through the kinds of clothes 
we wear up here, but waiting until I got back to the house and 
breaking in would have been a lot smarter.  

Well, Horowitz, he did get me anyway, and it hurt, like it always 
hurts when somebody stabs you, and I was just crazy mad enough 
to punch his lights out and get him down.  It ain't easy to move 
smoothly in snow and he was relying on his kung-fu fighter skills, 
while I just intended to survive our encounter.  

Not that any of that intellectualization went on at that moment, of 
course. 

I don't really remember a lot of details about the hand to hand, I'm 
afraid.

He did thump my head against the tree a few times, so maybe it's 
the concussion.  He was choking me, then, and I was thinking 
about my mother, and Skinner and even Scully.  It hurt like unholy 
hell and I was greying out and suddenly I brought my knee up 
between his legs hard enough to make him let go and stagger back.   

Evidently, he wasn't wearing four layers of clothing.  

I was dragging in air too hard to follow through and punch him.  
As he hunched over, he turned away, making this little keening 
sound.  And I lifted my foot and kicked him down the mountain.  

Hey, I didn't know he was going to outdo me and roll halfway 
down the fucking mountain.  Worse, I didn't know kicking him was 
going to wake up the vertigo and let me roll down after him.  I got 
luckier.  I landed on a shelf of rock after rolling and bouncing more 
times than I care to try and remember.  A great big splat that felt 
like I was being crushed, the resulting pain was so bad I screamed 
in this gassy, high  shriek, like a noon whistle.  And passed out, 
thankfully.  

Fortunately, two screaming human beings rolling pell mell down 
the mountain do attract a certain amount of attention.  I'm not sure 
how long it took them to locate me, but Cassie thinks it was about 
thirty minutes.  

She says any longer than that and I'd have been a dead duck from 
hypothermia.  

Cassie comes in here about every four or five hours to spend about 
a half an hour daring me to get well again, sitting there playing 
some kind of flute, or just reading to me.  Unfortunately, she likes 
Tom Clancy, but I appreciate the gesture anyway.  I like her voice, 
it's very soothing, a kind of mellow contralto.  

He didn't actually get me with the knife too badly, although I'd lost 
some blood.  What really did me in was the trip down the 
mountain.   The surgeon imported in for me decided that my left 
hip and pelvis really needed to be rebroken, thankfully done under 
anesthetic, and reset properly.  I wasn't in on this discussion, 
believe it or not, but Skinner was back by that time and they called 
my mother, too.  

You wanna hear what else really makes me angry?  I'm not 
competent to make medical and legal decisions on my own, 
Skinner's my fucking legal guardian.   I know when I got here, I 
wasn't.  But if I'm well enough to try and defend myself from being 
murdered, that oughta tell you something.  

So anyway, I'm told I was lucky I didn't have a fractured skull.  
Among other things.  But I'm in this excessively nasty cast and I'm 
already tired of it, and I probably have a half a lifetime left in it.  
Cassie keeps feeding me boneset tea, and I'm agreeable to that.   

Watts broke his neck, which I wish made me feel badly or guilty or 
something.  But I don't.  

Skinner doesn't.  He's pissed at hell that nobody told me or anyone 
else that Watts had just gotten back from Hong Kong.  And when I 
persisted in describing it as rolling down the mountain, he snarled 
at me that the gentle slope I was describing was all of fifteen yards 
long and ended in a nasty drop off of about 25 feet and the only 
reason I wasn't as dead as Watts is that I landed on the shelf and 
Watts landed on the rocks.  Then he apologized of course.  

He's been a little snarly lately, which, I confess, makes me feel as 
warm and fuzzy as when he was stomping around in a rage over 
Watts.  There's something childishly reassuring about having 
someone care enough to get that pissed off.  And he doesn't do 
passive aggressive exactly, he snarls, which I also appreciate.  
Sure, he's  snarling at me when he's not mad at me, but after 
training with Scully for nearly five years, I can translate that.  

Anyway, he was so pissed he started to take it out on Cassie, since 
it turns out she's like security and the mayor and the quartermaster 
here.  But she pointed the finger at Heatherton, quite coolly.  

The chain of command in this place is as fucked as anything I ever 
saw in the FBI.  Skinner, BTW, agrees with me.  

Heatherton was extremely apologetic.  Yeah, I believe it about as 
much as you do.  I think Heatherton figured things would take care 
of themselves if Watts either scared or killed me.  I think 
Heatherton figured I'm a suicidal loon anyway, Skinner could 
be convinced, and Watts was more valuable.  

I think Heatherton underestimates Skinner.  Boy, does he. Skinner 
evidently has gained some credibility, because Heatherton flew out 
to London a day or so later, relieved by someone who looks like 
Maggie Thatcher, if that isn't scary.  

Of course, this Maggie sounds like an elegant Frenchwoman and 
her name is Camille Duvall, so the comparison ends there.  

Personally, I hope that they fed Watts' body to the mountain lions 
Skinner tells me still live up in these mountains.   I itch, Horowitz, 
but my bruises have all turned this really vomitous yellowish brown 
and the scrapes and cuts have healed and they're even happy with 
the stab wounds.  I get rolled over every little while so I can stare 
at my pillow for a while and not get bedsores.  But they tell me I 
won't limp anymore, and I won't have that pain in my lower back 
after I do any walking, and my legs will actually match again.  
More or less.  

I try to keep that in mind, Horowitz.  

Wilson comes in and rags on me, too.  And Skinner.   I'm too tired 
to be angry anymore.  I'm glad Watts isn't around and I'm viciously 
glad I pushed him down the slope after what he did to me.  I'm also 
feeling a little sick about it.  Go figure that one out, Horowitz.  

Gotta go, if I don't pay attention to Cassie, she won't bring me any 
more boneset tea.  And I honest to god swear it seems to be 
helping.   


December 22  

Well, looking pitiful does have its advantages, I must say.  I'm 
feeling a little more cheerful today, as you may be able to tell.  I've 
got my nifty laptop to play with and I can even surf the 'Net on it, 
which made Skinner remark drily that if that's how I used my 
Internet access in the FBI, he was glad I'd learned to circumvent 
the firewall.  

You wanna hear the latest bizarre fact on Skinner?   

He plays Doom.  We Doomed last night, heh.  Actually, Wilson 
then got on her computer and knocked the shit out of my score.  
Skinner does pretty well, though, I think he's been practicing 
secretly.  Of course, I'm a few years out of practice, so Doom is 
probably old hat out in the real world.  

Anyway, I've been looking so pitiful that Cassie has managed to 
smuggle in some really wonderful illicit goodies.   No, they don't 
involve latex or leather, Horowitz, I think all you want to talk 
about is my father or father attachments and my sex life.  She 
somehow managed to appropriate some Sam Adams ale, which I 
got to have a very small glass of.  Hey, she is local security, she 
didn't want to  have to arrest herself for contributing to the 
delinquency of a minor, since I'm no longer a legal adult at thirty-
nine.  Cassie is nearly thirty-one. 
 
Yeah, I guess you could say I'm miffed about being Skinner's ward.  
He just shrugs and tells me it's going to go away sooner than later.  
Which either means he's putting up with it and it wasn't his idea, or 
that he's doing something to give me back my legal existence.  

Which puzzles me.  Nobody seems to think I need alternate ID, but 
Skinner told me that going back to the States was definitely not a 
good idea.  Does this mean that the Canadian government isn't as 
naughty as ours?  Or am I going to have to spend the rest of my 
life up here?  Immediately, I want Thai food, and lousy delivery 
pizza with jalapenos, and drive through Chinese.  I want Knicks 
tickets, although I frequently ended up giving them away to a 
source.  I want to smell car exhaust and have a driver on the 
Beltway flip me off during rush hour.   

Of course, I guess I'm at the point where I'd like to stay alive, so 
maybe those are conflicting goals.  

I suppose I should be grateful, they had to fly all kinds of 
equipment and blood up here to keep me together after this fall 
from the wall. Poor Humpty, all he had to worry about was 
being turned into an omelet after his fall.  I don't know.   

Skinner promised to bring me a piece of software he picked up out 
in the real world.  I still can't get over Skinner being a computer 
game enthusiast.  

Maybe if I'd picked up on that in DC my performance reviews 
wouldn't have been such grueling ordeals.  

He comes in here in the afternoon and evening and grouches at me, 
just to let me know he's not at all worried about me, and if I was 
smart enough be educated at Oxford, I should have known better 
than to go wandering around the woods by myself after dark. He 
asks me didn't the X files teach me anything about that?  He says 
I'm worse than the heroines in horror flicks, the ones who pick up 
the candle or flashlight and go down into the basement from 
which the gruesome sounds are echoing.  

Grouch, snarl, snap. 

Of course he also brings me imported bagels from New York--
God, to die for, Horowitz, eat your heart out.  With salmon cream 
cheese, no less.  And having perused my bookshelves long enough, 
he brings me books, lots of books, books I promised myself I'd 
read and haven't.  The entire Joseph Campbell Masks of God 
series.  A really fun book about whether or not the earth's crust 
slipped and Antarctica is really Atlantis buried under miles of ice.   

So I just grouch back at him and we get along fine.  

Just as a matter of intellectual interest, if he was my father, he'd 
have not only put me here, he'd be buying my affection and 
forgiveness by spoiling me rotten instead of grouching at 
me.  My father never yelled at me after hurting me, he was very 
careful, very affectionate.  On the other hand, if he was my father, 
I'd be eating that up gratefully, instead of grouching back 
at him.  Besides, if I didn't grouch back, it would bother him, he'd 
be more worried about me than he is.  

I think I've figured it out.  He used to have a whole division of 
agents to worry about, and now he only has me, so I get a lot of 
concentrated grouching at times like these.  Thank God for 
civilian life, if we were still back in the Bureau, I'd feel I was 
required to show up and report in conditions like this, and he'd 
have barked at me to give him fifty pushups. 

I'm kidding, Walt, honestly.  I'm trying to build your macho 
reputation back up after letting it slip about your cooking and 
housekeeping skills. 
 
 We were sitting there in more silence than less after doing our 
manly quota of grouching at each other and I was reading the 
Hancock book with great glee when I glanced up to see him 
making notes on a legal pad and paranoia struck.  

"What are you doing?" I asked suspiciously.  

He gave me a bland look.  "I'm taking notes on your behavior."  

For a minute, I believed him.  And it would have served me right if 
I'd tried to go for his throat in this weird cast arrangement.  

Before my blood pressure got dangerously high, his mouth 
twitched.  

"Asshole," I muttered, and looked back at my book.  

He grinned outright.  "You're so goddamned nosy.  If you must 
ask, I'm writing to my mother."  

I looked back at him.  "Your mother?"  

A patient look.  "My mother."  

Dear Diary, here you get the truth.  I used to delve into mysteries 
like UFOs, EBEs, psychic photography, werewolves, vampires, 
and mind control.  Now, my single greatest interest is in getting the 
details of my former AD's life, or at reconciling the man I know 
now with that one.  

The closest I've gotten to cooperation is that he sighed once and 
told me that the only quantifiable difference between that man and 
him is that he doesn't have an ulcer.  Or have cigarette reek in his 
office.  

And, of course, he didn't have any pictures of his mother on his 
office wall.  He doesn't have any on his home wall, either.  

"Give me a break," I told him skeptically.  

"You have enough breaks."  He eyed my cast meaningfully.   

"Don't digress.  Are you really writing to your mother?"  

"I can't wait until you're out of that cast.  You won't depend on me 
for entertainment."  His mouth twitched again.  

The nurse, John Little River, a guy with shoulders like a 
linebacker--they're bigger than Skinner's, Horowitz-came in then 
and we had a painful few moments while he shifted me to another 
medically approved position to keep from getting bedsores on my 
ass. Or anywhere else.  At least I didn't break my neck, I'd be in 
one of those hideous frame things with the pieces screwed into my 
skull.  That would remind me a damned sight too much of the 
Mengeles.  And when he finally got me in a position he and I both 
agreed was okay, not  to mention rubbing my ass with lotion to 
keep the circulation going--please, be still, my heart--Skinner was 
writing again.  

So I sulked for a while and let him write, reading on in the 
Hancock book.  It almost sounds like it makes sense, except my 
bullshit detector goes ping-ping-ping at high speed.  Scully 
never believed I had a bullshit detector, but what was the point in 
doing what I did if I wasn't at least going to keep an open mind?  

Finally, I figured I'd given him enough time and looked back over.  
"I don't understand why I always get the linebacker.  Cassie's 
offered, but Wilson just gives her this amused look and 
tells her I'm not supposed to have that much excitement."  

He didn't look up.  "Didn't they cover your dick with plaster, 
Mulder?"  

"You aren't writing to your mother," I told him scornfully.  "Red 
hot love letters to Dr. Wilson, maybe."  

"I don't need to write to Julie, I send her obscene email."  He still 
didn't look up, and I noticed he had some sheets of fax paper 
tucked into the legal pad.

It was driving me crazy, now.  

"So, where does your mom live?"  

"Washington state."  He glanced up briefly, gave me the faintest 
glint of a grin, and went on writing.  

"Seattle?"  

"A little town outside Spokane."   

I considered that possibility.  It was just dull enough to be 
plausible.  I went back to my book.  

"You're giving up too easily, Mulder."  When I looked back at him, 
he was grinning at me.  I flipped him off.  "Her name is Rebecca."  

Now, I knew he was lying.  Little Walter Skinner's mother would 
be named Alice or Mary or maybe Beth.   Don't ask me why, 
Horowitz, I have no idea why people name their kids what 
they do.  Look at my name, after all.  What human being in their 
right mind would name their kid Fox?  Samantha at least had the 
virtue of being a good New England name.  But I kept reading 
anyway.  

He got up then and came to the bed, pulling out his wallet.  I don't 
know why he keeps it with him, I guess years of habit can't be 
overcome in two years time. By God, there was a picture 
of a sweet faced older woman, not all that much older than my 
mother.  "What did you think, Mulder, the stork left me under the 
cabbage leaves in my mother's garden?"  He was chuckling as he 
put the picture back.  

"No, the stork left *me* under the cabbage leaves," I grouched, 
feeling more than a little embarrassed as he pulled another picture 
out.  "Who's this?" 
 
A man as broad and tall as Skinner, with thinning hair--male 
pattern baldness runs in the family, natch--and a lovely dark haired 
woman stood behind four, count 'em, four kids of  varying ages.  
Two of each flavor.  "My brother and his wife and kids."  

I felt just a little envious of him then.  "Nice looking kids."  

"Yeah.  Fortunately, they got their mother's looks and not the 
Skinner nose."  He put the picture back again and moved back 
toward the chair.  

I watched him, thinking.  Skinner would have made a good father.  
If he can deal calmly with a lunatic like me, he could certainly deal 
well with either toddlers or teenagers.  "How come you and your 
wife didn't have any kids?"  An egregiously personal remark, for 
which I hoped I'd be forgiven if only because he's privy to lots of 
personal things about me.  

"Agent Orange," he told me and picked up the pad again.  

I thought I'd misheard him at first, but when he went back to 
writing, I decided not to ask.  

"Sharon had a miscarriage in her sixth month," he added, not 
looking at me. "That's how we found out."  

I wished I hadn't asked.  My stomach rolled up into a ball about the 
weight of a stone and lay there.  I tried to go back to my book but 
kept staring off out the window.  

Why does all the shit seem to happen to the decent people, while 
assholes like Cancerman live on and on and on?  I hope he blew his 
brains out because he found out he was riddled with cancer.  I 
hope he felt  terror like he'd never known before.   And I hope he 
felt the bullet as it ripped through tissue and bone.  

"Mulder," he said gently, "It's old news.  It hurt like hell at the 
time, but I feel worse for Sharon than I do myself." 

I suppose it's just as well he didn't grouch at me, I might have burst 
into tears again.  And I thought I'd gotten over that at last.  

"Mulder, if you really want something to feel bad about, I'll come 
over there and start sliding bamboo splinters under your toenails."  

On the other hand, sometimes grouching at me really works.  I 
flipped him off again, but it was with a wavery grin.  It got a nice 
solid one back, which made me feel better and sent me back to my 
book.   


December 23  

Well, I'm celebrating.  I got another little glass of Sam Adams ale 
because this hideous cast is going to come off sooner than later, I 
swear it's Cassie's damned boneset tea.  God knows, she keeps 
bringing these little herbal packets up and brewing them and 
pouring honey into them and forcing them down my recalcitrant 
throat.   

Of course, I'm still going to have to be excruciatingly careful.  I do, 
after all, have a more normal cast on my lower right leg.  Femur, I 
believe it's called, if memory serves.  God, I am drugged, that's not 
right, I took a hit to that in North Carolina.  Tibia?  Is that right?

Anyway, I forgot to mention that earlier, I was so focused on the 
intense discomfort of the other thing.  And if I'm very good and 
drink gallons of that tea, I might even be out of here 
within a week.  Says Julie Wilson.  

She's actually very surprised at how quickly I'm healing.  I could 
have told her Volkman loved it, but it seemed unkind to spoil her 
fun or in any way hint that she and Volkman had anything 
in common at all, even if it was just medical training.  

At least Cassie didn't bring crystals up or anything.  She says her 
uncle David keeps giving her these little herbal remedies for me, 
and I liked David enough that I keep taking them. Can't hurt, right?  

And I certainly managed to escape the whole trauma without 
getting bronchitis or pneumonia again, which I gather was a little 
bit of a risk.  In fact, all in all, it could have been a lot worse.  
It just made me madder than any of the other stuff because I 
thought I was safe up here.  

I think that bothers you and Skinner a lot, too, Horowitz, so I'll tell 
you what I told him, what he told *me*  a long time ago when he 
managed to procure Cancerman's address for me and get it to me 
in properly cloak and dagger fashion.  Back when Scully was in a 
coma and I thought she was dying.  She was, of course, but a lot 
more slowly than we knew.  Which I don't want to think about.  
Anyway, I told him he'd put himself in danger and he shook his 
head like I was missing the whole point. 

He said, "That's life, Agent Mulder.  Every day we're in danger."   

So while I still wouldn't mind kicking Watts down the mountain 
again in slo-mo, I guess I'm ready to use that explanation to slide 
me past this one.  I'm not sure if that's healthy or not, but I don't 
give a shit right now. 

The ale is making me feel a little mellower than usual.  And so is 
Cassie, who also managed to somewhere procure a decent baking 
stone and made me a pizza with pepperoni and anchovies and 
jalapenos and Italian sausage.  And lots and lots of 
cheese.  

I thought my toes would curl from sheer pleasure when I took the 
first bite.

It's a good thing I only had the one small glass, or I'd be blubbering 
and singing Joy to the World, or some shit like that.   

But I don't think I'm ready to deal with Wilkinson right now, 
Horowitz.  I'm barely able to deal with Watts.  Sorry, I know I 
promised you, but I just can't.  

And I can't deal with Volkman or any of the other Mengeles.   

I can't even really deal with my father or sister.  

I could tell you about my mother, who came up during this whole 
monstrous mess.  Actually, Skinner went and got her after he got 
back, the day after. 

 Anyway, she came up and sat with me while I was in so much pain 
I kept begging for morphine, and when they gave it to me, it did 
fuck all.   Except give me hives.  So they tried Demerol.  And that 
wasn't too bad, but it still wasn't great and about two and a half 
hours after they gave me a dose, I was hurting and using language 
that I hoped my mother didn't know. 
 
 Okay, Walt, I'll tell it straight.  Jesus, having him read these things 
really gives me an interesting double perspective on life.  He looks 
at me with the hair-raisingly impassive expression he perfected as 
AD and says, quite sincerely, "I don't remember it happening 
quite like that."  

And if I argue, he does this logical step by step thing that cracks 
me up until he figures out I'm just arguing to yank his chain.  
Sometimes, he does rap me on the top of my head, then.   

Just to stay honest, I have to admit that everytime I said 
cocksucker or motherfucker, I apologized to Mom.  

Anyway, Mom took it all fairly placidly and just kept wiping the 
pain-sweat off my face with a wet cloth and talking complete 
nonsense to me about how she was looking forward to 
planting a garden and Calgary was really a lovely city, and she had 
a nice little cottage instead of the big old barn she'd had in 
Connecticut.  

And when I was little, I used to read to her at bedtime instead of 
vice versa, but she liked to read me the poems from Milne's book, 
When We Were Very Young and started doing them 
from memory after a while.  

And then she sang very softly, "James James Morrison Morrison 
Whetherby George Dupree, Took Great Care of His Mother, 
Though He Was Only Three."  And all the rest of it.  

I remember that so clearly, Horowitz.  It was like a trip backward 
through time.  I had the chicken pox or something and she was 
doing the same thing, wiping my face and singing to me.  And I 
told her, quite seriously, I was just about three at the time, this was 
before Dad knocked me down the stairs, that I would take great 
care of her.  

Only I changed it, I said she must never go into the bright light 
without me, or she'd be scared and I didn't think they'd let her 
come back.  They kept the big people usually, I said.  They only let 
the kids come back.  Mostly.  

And she never sang that again.  Never.  Until now.  

I wonder if she remembers that.  If she even knows why she 
stopped singing it.  I wonder how much she knew about Dad's 
work.  I wonder how much she let herself know.  But she 
stayed with me almost non-stop, until Skinner would take her up 
to his house to let her get some rest.  She's nearly seventy, after all, 
and this uncharacteristically devoted behavior has to take it out of 
her.  

That was snide, wasn't it?  Ah, well, it took me thirty-something 
years to really get mad at Mom, I guess I should get used to these 
things slipping out now and again.  And it did help a lot, Horowitz, 
I was in pretty bad shape.  

Bouncing down a mountain is not recommended, at least not by 
me.  I don't even ever want to  look at another fool bungee-
jumping.  

She fed me lots and lots of ice chips, especially after they rebroke 
the nasty ones and rebuilt my hip.  How the hell did I break my left 
hip and my right leg below the knee, Horowitz?  I know you're not 
an orthopedic surgeon, but you are an MD.  Care to venture a 
guess?  I know I broke the hip when I landed on the shelf of rock, 
and boy was it a treat to have them get me off.  It's a damned good 
thing I was in so much pain I kept passing out, or my vertigo 
would be worse than ever.  

I tell you, Horowitz, a boy and his mother.  I've been protecting 
her and taking care of her, I thought, since she and Dad split, but 
lately she's been taking care of me like a real mom and it's hard to 
get used to.  I have trouble dealing with it unless I'm weeping from 
pain.  

But I've played nice, Dr. Horowitz, I haven't been cranky or 
snarled at her once, at least not if I was in my right mind.  And 
even when I was swearing like a damned Marine from the pain 
and begging them to give me something that worked, I kept 
swearing and apologizing, swearing and apologizing.  

I'm good at apologizing.  Dad taught me.  

She talked to me about my Dad again, Dr. Horowitz.  Not offering 
apologies for him or for not protecting me.  Just talking about how 
much he loved me. How scared he was of me and how scared he 
was for me.  She talked about me, stupid stories about things I said 
and did.   Do you think I was snarly while she was doing all this?  

No, of course not, only now, after the fact, am I a shit about my 
mother.  At the time, I ate ice chips and soaked it all up.  

She talked about how pleased he was when I was walking early.  
She didn't talk about him whaling the shit out of me because I got 
into more things once I was mobile.  She talked about how he 
taught me to sail, and watching us together on the porch building 
model spacecraft.  The Mercury.  The Apollo.  Like I said, 
Horowitz, I wanted to be an astronaut at one point.  But after Sam 
disappeared, I never thought about it again.   Didn't think I'd ever 
be one, but here I am, remembering the space junk in orbit around 
the green-blue planet.  And Mom kept stroking my face and telling 
me that they hadn't chosen me to be taken. 

I don't know if that's true or not.  I know I asked her once and she 
said she couldn't make that choice.  Maybe it was somebody else's 
choice.  

And Cassie's just put the flute down and smiled and I think I'm 
done brooding on this.  Later, Horowitz.   


December 25.  

My Christmas present from Wilson was to get this fucking 
distorted thing off my hip.  

I still can't walk around, the orthopedic guy doesn't want me 
putting any weight on it at all for another week, but I'm free of the 
torture of having plaster wrapped around my body in places 
I'd just as soon not discuss.  

Besides, it's fun having Cassie rub lotion on those places.  And I'm 
not even talking sexual, yet, I'm just talking about lying there 
moaning in happiness while she rubs in something calculated to 
stop my skin from itching and to peel the dead skin off so I don't 
dig my fingernails into it.  

My Christmas present from Skinner was that software he promised 
me, a game that looks pretty damned amazing and looks like it was 
inspired by Philip Dick.  I'm ready to charge it up and play it now, 
but my Mom has to do this Christmas thing for the first time in 
nearly 27 years.  

But she did get a fine bottle of bourbon smuggled in, since Skinner 
doesn't drink scotch, and that was my gift to him.  It was worth it, 
too, Horowitz, because his eyes got pretty wide and he looked 
from me to the bottle.  

"Pays to think ahead," I told him snappily and grinned when he 
rolled his eyes.  

My mom's present to me was a stereo, believe it or not, one of 
those compact ones, since I think Skinner would rightly object if I 
took over one wall in the living room with what I'd really like to 
have.  It's bad enough to have a lunatic in his second bedroom.  

Count on it, Horowitz, I'm going to have lumps on the top of my 
head by the end of the week.  

Of course, I loathe holidays, I have since Sam disappeared, but I 
managed to do the right thing.  

Skinner, on the other hand, made his escape early, telling my 
mother he'd stop and pick her up later.  

I'll get you for that, Walt.  See if I don't.  

My mom isn't any too sure she thinks Cassie is good enough for 
me, but since Cassie's a tolerant sort, she just treats Mom 
pleasantly enough and keeps rubbing lotion, this time on 
my back.   And I had a shot of that bourbon, even though I'm a 
scotch man, and I'm going to go to sleep.  

Hey, I remembered who the head of UNCLE was!  Alexander 
Waverly.   


December 30  

Free at last, free at last, Lord have mercy, I'm free at last.  
Dramatic license, Horowitz, since you won't let me quit writing in 
this damned thing and it's making me crazy.  

God, don't I tell you enough in our sessions?  You come by every 
other day and do embroidery and ask me questions in that Sigmund 
Freud accent of yours.  Why do I have to keep indulging in this 
self conscious, bullshit examination of my life?   

That's it for you, Horowitz, just for that, I'm not going to tell you 
about my sex life.  And telling me it's okay to go and sit behind 
your couch won't change my mind  

I don't want to sit behind the couch when I tell you about my sex 
life, Horowitz.  I want to sit right there nose to nose with you and 
see if it makes you squirm.  I don't want to brag, but I venture to 
say that I'm the only one I know who ever got lucky while 
incarcerated in the clinic.  

Of course, it was only marginally lucky, but I wasn't entirely 
disappointed, especially since Cassie sort of surprised me.  And 
since I'm not going to tell you about my sex life, you'll just 
have to use your imagination on what that means, Horowitz.  

Well, I'm home, so to speak, ensconced on my bed.   I got the 
deluxe treatment, carried in on a stretcher while Skinner bitched at 
me about what a pain in the ass patient I am, five days is 
not a week, and if I did anything to make myself fall down and 
break the newly healing bones, he was going to help break the rest 
of them.  

Of course, the minute we got into the house, I could see that he'd 
moved stuff around so I could manage better.  

John, the med tech who has shoulders broader than Skinner's, 
listened to this with a very small smile on his face and gently 
deposited me on the bed.

Since I'm so much better and healing so fast, Diary Mine, I get to 
use a, gasp, wheelchair.  And once I get the okay after that, I get 
to stagger around in a walker like a little old man.  And only then, 
after all that, do I get to actually use this walking cast.  How 
revolting.  

But it's an improvement to be in a real bed.  With real pillows.  
And real smells.  Mr. Walter Homemaker had stew on already 
before he came to get me and I lay there and inhaled the 
smell and buried my face in my pillow and smiled my way to sleep.  
Believe it or not, getting moved from one bed to another can really 
take it out of you.  

I woke up to hear Cassie and Julie Wilson and Skinner out in the 
living room talking, which seemed unfair.  I sulked about it for a 
few minutes before I realized that I had to use the bathroom.   

I was a little nervous about sitting up even though the ortho guy, 
who has the unlikely name of Hagadorn, had assured me that my 
entire lower torso was not going to fall off, that I was healing 
remarkably, nay, miraculously.  

I'm not sure I like that miraculous business, but I'd prefer to believe 
it's Cassie's boneset tea rather than alien DNA that's been grafted 
to mine.   

I made it to an upright position about the time Skinner got to the 
door and grouched at me for not calling for help.  I guess he was 
on his way in to wake me up for food, that yenta half coming into 
active play whenever I look like I do right now.  

With the hair and the crazed look in my eye, I look like one of the 
prophets after forty days in the wilderness eating locusts.   When I 
told Skinner, he offered to find me sackcloth and ashes to go along 
with the look, but I told him loftily that he had the Christian 
martyrs confused with the Hebrew prophets.  And then realized 
that I was wrong, that I was thinking of hair shirts.  

Nevertheless, I didn't admit it, and he thought it was funny enough 
to gravely thank me for correcting his religious misperceptions.  
Imagine Skinner making Biblical references.  The mind boggles. 
 
Anyway, I lost ground big time in the weight department and so 
ate like a wolf.  It was sort of weird, the four of us sitting down to 
dinner together, with Skinner playing straight man to my comic.  
Or one-upping me.  

I think I'm slipping, Horowitz, he does that a lot.  

And after dinner, I was actually allowed to sit up and talk with the 
grownups over coffee.  Of course, I only got a half a cup of the 
real stuff, the rest was decaf, but it gave me such an illusion of 
power, Horowitz.  

I think I've figured out why I hate being hurt or sick.  Aside from 
the obvious.  I hate being treated like a child or an invalid or--
whatever it is.  Which is one of the many reasons I've discovered 
for liking Skinner.  He may keep me in books, but he grouches and 
growls and generally reminds me that I'm not an invalid or a child.  

You don't growl and grouch at children when they're hurt or sick.  
Twisted reasoning, maybe, I don't know, but I like it.   

I hazed out into somnolence after all that food and sort of came to 
when Skinner suggested to Cassie that she park her snowmobile in 
the shanty overnight.  Pretending to be alert, I opened my eyes and 
said, "Yeah, I've got an alarm clock."  

Cassie laughed low in her throat and glanced at me.  "Yeah, I 
remember."  

Skinner gave me an amused look.  

I guess I didn't clean up all the traces of the orgy as well as I 
thought, Horowitz, he figured it out.  

So anyway, Cassie's here tonight and I'm tired and she's sprawled 
on my bed wearing my old Knicks t-shirt--the woman doesn't seem 
to understand that it's winter--and that's all.  And even though 
there ain't a lot I can do, I'd rather not do it over there in bed than 
here with my computer and you, Horowitz.   

BTW, my mom went home after Christmas.  

And thanks, Horowitz, for visiting me in the hospital.  

You can give me freedom from this journal for Christmas if you're 
really fond of me.   


Jan 4  

Okay, for once I'm not going to bitch about the journal, Horowitz, 
but only because I'm feeling really shitty.  Skinner's mom died.  He 
got a call from his brother on New Year's Day that his mom had 
had a stroke and left that afternoon.  He did make it in before she 
died.   

I feel really lousy about that.  And yeah, I know how irrational that 
is. 

But I keep remembering how I felt when I got to the hospital and 
saw my mom lying there.  And how decent he was to me 
throughout all of that, even though I'd been a real asshole and 
taken off for Canada without my partner. 

He could have staked me out over an anthill or sold me to 
Cancerman if he'd wanted to at that point and no one in the entire 
Bureau, not even Scully, would have told him no.  

I can't do anything, that's what makes me feel shitty.  I remember 
when Scully's dad died and I told her I thought it would be a good 
idea for her to take a few days off.  I didn't know what else to say.  
I wanted to make it better for her, I felt awkward as hell, and I 
knew there was nothing I could do.  Same thing, different year. 

Only this feels worse.  

And yes, Horowitz, I know I don't owe him anything for grouching 
at me.  

But it doesn't matter, I still wish I could make it better.  I'm not 
good with people, generally.  I know you probably find that hard 
to believe, Horowitz, given our tender relationship, but I really piss 
people off as a rule.  And Scully and Skinner may be the only two 
people except for one night stands that I haven't managed to piss 
off into telling me to go to hell.  

Of course, Scully still died, but I'm trying to forgive her for that.  

I'm glad Cassie is here.  I'm sorry, I missed Cassie in the count, and 
I haven't managed to piss Cassie off yet, either, but the year is still  
young.   

She's sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing her flute, something 
melancholy in a minor key.  It's not a flute flute, it's a native flute, 
and I really have gotten to like it.  I'm lying on the bed on my back, 
with a pillow under my knees--recommended by my doctor, 
Horowitz--and the laptop propped on my legs and while I feel very 
silly like that, it really does help my lower back.   

I can't believe how much pain I got used to feeling.  This is almost 
great, despite not being really mobile yet.  Anyway, Cassie seems 
to understand why I'm feeling too glum to do anything  but stare at 
the ceiling and finally drag my ass up enough to use the laptop for 
this.  

Hey, Horowitz, I have an idea.  Instead of me having to come in 
for sessions, how about if we just IRC?  Hmmm?   


January 10  

Skinner's been sidetracked from the trip home, he called to remind 
me that I wasn't supposed to try and get out and clean the filters 
and panels.   Of course, I forgot all about it, which shows you that 
I would have cheerfully asphyxiated or lived in the dark before I 
figured it out, not that I could have done anything about it.  Don't 
ask me how they work, I'm lucky I can manage a laptop.  I had a 
Mac of my own, which is, I've discovered, in the back of  my 
closet.  Still boxed.  

Skinner must be a PC snob.

And Cassie found my music collection--thank God Skinner's done 
something tasteful with my more colorful videos, that would have 
either  been embarrassing or pointlessly hot, since I can do a lot of 
fooling around, but no fucking.

Like I said, Cassie is inventive and imaginative.  

Dream on, Horowitz, I told you, no stroke by stroke descriptions 
for you, I don't care if you are a Freudian.  You don't get anything 
but tantalizing hints until I get to stop keeping this fucking 
diary.  I mean, haven't I been working honestly with you?  Talking 
to you for an hour on the phone every other day, even when I'd 
rather be lying around scratching my balls or watching porn?  Or 
are you going to pick up on your evading the issue line again, 
which makes me want to tear out my hair?
 
My hip was only fucked up for about two years and all of a sudden 
it feels weird, now that things are in the right place again.  And no, 
Horowitz, just so you don't alert the Medical Valkyrie, I'm not 
walking, just sitting up feels weird enough.  Like my lower torso 
really is coming unhinged.   

So, I'm sitting here while Cassie sings along to Jenny Says.  
Cowboy Mouth, if you're interested.  She's not an Elvis Costello 
fan, which is a little disappointing, but she has gratifyingly eclectic 
taste in music otherwise.   

I just realized that I've gotten closer to Cassie in a month and a half 
than I ever did to most of the women I've slept with in my entire 
adult life.  Good thing I'm more or less bedridden and wheelchair 
bound, I'd have my bags packed and be on the road by now.   

Except that I promised myself, back in hell, that if I got out of it, I 
wouldn't waste time.  I'm not sure what I meant by that, aside from 
shooting Cancerman, but it seems like a legitimate resolution.  

Even so, Cassie's just a little scary.  She's standing in the kitchen 
right now, stark naked, making sandwiches for us.   Maybe she's an 
alien, that's why she likes me and doesn't feel the cold like I do.  

"Pooh," she says in my ear.  "You just don't have any meat on your 
bones to insulate you."  Setting the sandwich down, she goes back 
to bed and pulls the covers up.  

Now, do you see how dedicated I am to following your goddamn 
regime, Horowitz?  I won't even go to sleep unless I've written in 
it.  Well, at least every few days anyway.  I think that's remarkably 
dedicated for someone who never kept a journal outside of his field 
journal, and who doesn't like therapy and hates Freudians.  

Bye, Horowitz.  She's just promised me she'll rub my back if I get 
to bed before she falls asleep.  And Cassie has great hands.  Eat 
your heart out, Horowitz.   


Jan 16  

Well, just as I suspected would happen, Skinner walked in 
unexpectedly while I was sitting in the bathroom, peering at this 
antiquated shaving mirror and trying not to cut my throat.  In my 
wheelchair, in my underwear. Shorts, this time, not thermals.  
Wearing those fabulously warm, but white, socks, with the stereo 
cranked up playing Elvis--Costello, not Presley, I may be crazy, 
but I've got good taste--and me humming along.  

You can't sing when you're shaving, Horowitz.  At least I wasn't 
doing a Tom Cruise, although it would have been nice to be able to 
do it.  And thank God Cassie had gone down-mountain to work, 
since she spends a lot of time wandering around in either her 
underwear or the nude.  

Skinner looked pale and tired and sad.  He managed a faint smile 
for me as he passed the bathroom on his way to my bedroom to 
turn the music down a little before he passed by again to lean on 
the doorjamb.  "Sorry, I've got a headache."  

I swallowed and rinsed the razor.  "I'm sorry about your mother, 
Walt."  

He nodded gravely.  "Thanks."  His voice was a little husky.  He 
nodded at my leg.  "How are you doing?"  I grimaced.  

"I'm allowed to use the walker for short periods of time."  Another 
nod and he unleaned from the doorjamb and carried his bag to his 
room.  "I stopped to see your mother in Calgary," he told me, 
calling down the hall.   

Joy.  My mom and Skinner having another heart to heart about me.  
Especially right after he's lost his own.  My stomach knotted up a 
little. "Great," I muttered and finished my chin, then leaned over to 
splash my face clean before peering in the mirror again.  Not bad.  
Definitely presentable.  Although my nose was still looking too big 
for my face due to the fact that I had slunk back to a pre-emaciated 
condition.  Let me rephrase that, way too big, usually it just 
looks too big.  I'm doing better again, Horowitz.  Especially since I 
don't need to take the painkillers anymore.  Just a couple of aspirin 
now and then to fend off the ache in my bones.  

I'm going to be an arthritic old man, I can tell.  

I wheeled around and grabbed my jeans to carefully shimmy into 
them.  It ain't always easy to get dressed when you can't stand up.  
And I'm tired of having to sit down to take a piss.  

I want to stand out there on that boulder of Skinner's and write my 
name in the snow.  

"So, how's Calgary?" I called back and pulled on my sweatshirt.    

"Not bad," he said, from the doorway again.  "I'm going to make a 
pot of coffee, want some?"  

I stared at him.  Of course, I'd had my two cups that morning and 
it was past noon.  But if he was going to offer, I'd take it.  "Uh, 
sure."  

He nodded absently and went off to do it.  Anyway, once I was 
dressed, I wheeled my ass out into the kitchen to find him staring 
out the window over the sink. Coffee was brewing and the 
smell made my mouth water.  "Why don't you go and sit down," I 
told him quietly.  "I'm getting pretty mobile with this thing, I can 
handle it."  

He started a little and turned to give me a smile.  "I'm just tired, 
Mulder," he told me and patted my shoulder on his way back.  
"But thanks."  

Instead of going into the livingroom, he sat at the kitchen table.  
 
Cassie keeps leaving things out in my reach, so I rounded up two 
clean mugs and brought them to the table.  Skinner takes his coffee 
black, and so do I, which made things easier.  "There's sandwiches 
in the refrigerator," I told him hesitantly.  "If you haven't eaten."   

He was sort of rubbing his eyes, his glasses set aside on the table.  
"I might take you up on that."  To be honest, I couldn't think of a 
thing to say.  Except what I'd already said, that I was sorry about 
his mother.  

I'm really bad at this stuff, Horowitz. When Scully's dad died, I 
was hopeless.  I knew I was hopeless, but I just couldn't seem to 
say the right thing.  And when she was in tears, I wanted to turn 
and run like a maniac, I didn't know how to deal with it.  But being 
hopeless doesn't mean I don't feel for other people, and that makes 
it worse. You want to say something to make it easier, or less 
painful, or even just to acknowledge their pain, and I just sit there 
like a fool, wondering what the hell to say.   "What did my mother 
have to say," I finally asked, wincing a little inwardly.  

"Oh, she's fine, she's getting nicely settled in."  Skinner's voice was 
absent, as if he were really thinking of other things.  

I regarded him, wondering why he'd stopped to see her, unless it 
was just to reassure her that I was mending and hadn't jumped off 
any more mountains.  The coffee stopped burbling and I wheeled 
around to get the pot.  Managed to pour both cups and wheel back 
very deftly.  Not that I'm planning on making a career on it, 
Horowitz, but it's nice to feel at least competent if you're going to 
be a gimp.  We sat in reasonably comfortable silence for a while 
and drank our coffee. 

After a bit, Skinner got up and went to the refrigerator to survey 
the sandwiches I'd made.  "You want something?" he asked and 
took one out, eyeing me with one eyebrow arched in 
question.  

"Sure, why  not."  I must be starting to get healthier, I'm starving 
all the time again.  Wilson says it's because my body is healing in a 
pretty major way and needs fuel.  Cassie says it's because I'm so 
thin.  I don't much care who is right, but food tastes good and I 
like putting it away.  Although my own cooking is strictly from the 
Betty Crocker Basics, and that's why I have a stack of sandwiches 
made.  Skinner's cooking is enough to give me an inferiority 
complex.  So, we sat and ate in more comfortable silence and 
finally he sighed and got up for more coffee.  He was preoccupied 
enough that he refilled my cup, too.  

I wasn't going to turn it down, Horowitz, I'm starving for caffeine, 
too. 

"I need to talk to you about something."  

"Is there something wrong with my mother?" I asked, immediately 
leaping to the wrong conclusion. 

"No, not at all."  He looked startled.  "No, Mulder, she's fine.  
Very well in fact."  

I eyed him.  "Then, what?"  

Now, he sat down and slid his chair around to face me directly.  "I, 
ah, have come into some papers.  From Grey's estate."  I stared at 
him blankly and his mouth quirked.  "Cancerman."  

Oh.  Enlightened, I nodded.  

"I was gone from DC before he shot himself.  Evidently, they were 
forwarded on to my brother, and my brother forgot about them 
until I got there."  He looked at his coffee without a lot of 
pleasure.  "So, he gave them to me.  I'm not sure why Grey 
thought I should have them."  

"What are they?"  My heart was thumping hard.  "Are they about 
my sister?" 
 
 Skinner was still surveying his coffee.  "There is some information 
about your sister in there," he agreed grudgingly.  

"Where are they? I want to see them."  I frowned at him, he knew 
how important that was to me. Had been.  And I suddenly realized 
that I was feeling something for Samantha again.  Besides, fuck, 
leave it be.  

He held his hand up. "Hold up, okay? I think this information is 
going to be upsetting.  I want you to promise me that if it hits you 
hard, we'll go down and see Horowitz, okay?"  

Fuck.  I stared at him and my mouth was suddenly dry.  "That's 
why you went to see my mother, to tell her something about Sam."  

He took on that impassive face he used to wear as AD.  "Do I have 
your promise?"  

I nodded finally.  I never underestimate Skinner these days, 
Horowitz.  

So, he went into his room and came back with a manila envelope, 
eight and a half by eleven. And set it down in front of me.  

My hands were shaking when I took the papers out.  The top page 
was a letter from Cancerman to Skinner.  

"You may wonder why I've sent this to you, Skinner.  You and I 
were never colleagues, and you disappointed me badly as a player.  
But my own cause has betrayed me, and I'm just enough of a 
player still to make certain that they pay for it.  So here is some 
information I think you will find interesting.  Some of it is 
publishable, and will cause the players named herein no small 
amount of damage.  I trust you'll put what I've sent you to good 
use."  

The signature was illegible.  I set the letter aside and went white. 

Photographs of me during my time with the junior Mengeles.  Six 
weeks after I left, Skinner had said.  That would be about right, I 
thought, though my time sense of those days is sketchy.  After the 
pictures, came names and a location.  I started to feel sick.  Really 
sick.  "He sent this to you before he died."

Skinner nodded unhappily.  

"Two years and some months ago."  

Another nod.  

"And your brother has had it all this time."  

"Yes."   

He wasn't sparing himself anything, I thought distantly, seeing the 
lines in his face.  Talk about guilt mavens.  But that thought didn't 
really touch me, I tasted acid in the back of my throat.  "You didn't 
get it until now."  

Another nod.  

"Excuse me," I said faintly and put my head between my knees.  
Two years.  Cancerman had tried to save me.  But why?  After a 
while, the dizziness passed and I became aware that Skinner's hand 
was between my shoulder blades, gently rubbing my back.  

For a macho Eagle scout, he's a very gentle person, Horowitz.  

I finally managed to sit up again.  Of course, my face was wet and 
I still felt sick, but I was thinking again.  I moved past the 
photographs.  And came on something that looked like a 
medical report.  I'm not a physician, but I didn't have to be to 
decipher it.  It was clipped to another sheet, with another name.  
Presumably one of Grey's, since there was a handwritten 
note. 

Skinner, it read, just for your amusement, this is mine.  

I shoved the papers violently across the desk, unable to read them.  
My gut already knew.  "She lied to me," I whispered.  

"No, she didn't, not really.  She said Bill Mulder was your father.  
So far as it matters, Mulder, he was."  He leaned forward, his eyes 
intent.  "And it changes nothing."  

I was shaking too badly to protest that.  "Oh, God.  I can't deal 
with that."  

His hand closed around my wrist.  "It doesn't matter," he told me 
again, holding my gaze.  "You're still the same person you were, 
Mulder.  It doesn't matter." I think he repeated that about ten or 
fifteen more times until I got the shaking under control.  Still 
holding onto my wrist.  

When I finally nodded and took in a shaky, wheezy breath, he 
squeezed my wrist and let go of it.  "Just keep that in mind," he 
told me and took up the sheaf again.  

Minus the DNA readouts.  The next sheet was an older document, 
the date was 1973. A memo from my father, protesting certain 
experiments currently being undertaken.  Very vague, no real 
details.  Another one back from a General Jefferson Taylor, telling 
my father in correct and punctilious terms that if he didn't keep his 
mouth shut, they'd find a way to shut it for him permanently.  

A memo back from my father, pointing out that he had certain 
information cached safely, that if he died a suspicious death, that 
material would be released to Congress.   

A memo from Jefferson Taylor to Ralph Grey, detailing the 
problem and directing him to come up with a solution.  

A memo from Grey to Taylor, telling him that the most 
advantageous way of dealing with my father was simply to take 
one of his children.  

A note from Grey to my father, asking for a meeting at the cottage 
in Rhode Island.  

Late summer 1973.  That's part of what I remembered when they 
drilled the holes in my head, Horowitz.  That meeting at the 
cottage.  My mother cried and cried.  Grey called me a 
little spy.  My mother said, not my baby.  My father took her by 
the shoulders.  And Grey held her as if they'd been lovers.  Which, 
of course, I now thought they had.  

Skinner took away the coffee and poured a shot of bourbon in each 
cup. Brought it back.  I drank without tasting it, though normally 
I'm not extraordinarily fond of bourbon.  

A memo from Taylor to Grey asking what had gone wrong.  

A memo from Grey to Taylor saying that the merchandise had been 
hard to handle.  That it had broken.  

I had to close my eyes again, fighting the urge to vomit.  Skinner 
rubbed my back again, told me to breathe through my mouth, that 
he'd always found that reasonably effective.  It actually worked.  
I'm telling you, Horowitz, Eagle Scout.  A photograph of a little 
girl in a white nightgown.  She lay in a corner, her head bent at an 
unnatural angle.  

The Nazis photographed things, remember Horowitz..  Obsessive 
cataloging of their victims' belongings and deaths.  They codified 
it, made it into a bureaucratic ritual, this sociopathic behavior.  
And in Germany, they say, like in Italy, the trains ran on time. 
 
 It was Sam.  I was right, my sister is dead.  She died 27 years ago.  
She wasn't supposed to die.  At least not the way the memos read.  
My father was supposed to trade something for his son, except 
Grey suspected I might be his and they took his daughter.  He was 
supposed to trade, except they had no intention of giving her back.  
They intended to keep her.  But the merchandise was hard to 
handle and it broke.  

I heard these little whistling breaths I was taking.  Skinner had 
gotten up and gone to get my inhaler from the bedroom.  I moved 
past the photographs of Sam's death and post-mortem and came 
upon a personal note from my mother, dated 1996.  After my 
mother's stroke.  "He's not your son, so leave him alone.  I don't 
want you near him.  And if you hurt him, I'll do more than just 
accuse you.  I have copies of the materials that Bill gave up for 
Samantha."  And that was it, except for a scrawled signature.  

That explained why it had to be a suicide, I thought dimly.  So she 
wouldn't use what she had against them if I died.   I looked up at 
Skinner, seated again at the table.  "Did she give it to you?"  

A brief nod and he sipped his coffee.  

And suddenly, I got it.  I started to laugh, albeit hysterically.  "He 
blew his brains out because he gave them his own son," I finally 
hiccoughed, when Skinner started to smack my cheeks 
lightly, obviously worried that I'd finally gone around the bed.  "He 
shot himself because he turned his own son over to them and they 
wouldn't give me back.  That's why he sent it to you, he wanted 
you to get me out."  

Skinner's face stayed pretty grim.  Obviously, he was faster on the 
uptake than I was.  

The last sheet in the stack was a map.  Of Massachusetts.  And 
there were coordinates written in the corner of the map.  
Samantha's body, I was sure of it.  

"They're checking there now," Skinner told me, reading my eyes, 
"If it's her, they'll bring her to Calgary, Mulder."  

I nodded, exhausted finally.  "Thank you for telling me the truth."  

He arched an eyebrow.  "Horowitz?"  

I shook my head.  That turned it into more of a circus than I 
wanted, and I was too tired.  

So don't bitch at me, Horowitz, I know you wanted me to come 
down anyway, but I really was exhausted, okay?  I did let him 
wheel me back in to my room.  But he wouldn't let me take the 
pictures.  Said he would keep them for now.  If I decided I wanted 
them again, I could have them.  But not now.  

I think I'm back on suicide watch, Horowitz, not that I'm planning 
it.  But he has that faint air of watchfulness again, and he sat down 
and read while I slept.  For about two hours.  

And the worst thing about it is that he shouldn't have to deal with 
me and my issues when his mother died.  I really, really hate this.   



January 17  

I know you're worried about me, I could hear it in your voice on 
the phone, but I'm okay.  Really, Horowitz, I'm okay.  It's slowly 
settling in.  And Skinner, while much quieter--not in the Gary 
Cooper sense--is still keeping an eye on me as if he's afraid I'm 
going to do something stupid.  

Actually, this sort of takes my mind off talking about Wilkinson.  I 
know I didn't actually give you what you want on Wilkinson, 
Horowitz, but I can't.  It won't come at this point, I keep seeing my 
sister floating across the room, screaming for me.  It's replaced all 
the fun things Wilkinson did.  

On the other hand, if I tell you about Wilkinson, maybe that image 
will fade again, go back behind the closed doors where it ought to 
stay.   

Okay, maybe that's the way to do it.  

I think it was around Christmas when they took me to Wilkinson's.  
I was still healing from the last trip to the Twilight Zone in 
Volkman's care.  The bones had healed, but I still wasn't doing 
well.  Probably the asthma starting up, even then.  So they couldn't 
use me, not the way they wanted to.  They had to start with 
healthy victims or the results were skewed.  So, they sent me off to 
Wilkinson's island.  

I had a nice little cell, with a reasonably decent cot, slick foam 
mattress, even a blanket.  No sheets.  It had been a while since I'd 
had the luxury of sheets.  Had to launder them too frequently.  
Hard enough to launder me.  

Wilkinson wasn't paying a lot of attention at that point, he was 
entertaining certain of his masters.  And not having a good time, if 
the amount of argument going on at that end of the house was any 
indication.  At night, I could hear it, even from the far end where I 
was.  It probably was about four weeks before he strolled by to 
take a look at the newest prisoner.   

I pretty much looked like shit, although I had more weight on then 
I do now.  I was limping from the broken hip and pelvis healing 
crooked.  I actually had a beard, one of those scraggly prisoner 
beards you see in films about Andersonville.  And I wasn't any too 
clean.  Wilkinson's thugs didn't much care about prisoner hygiene.  

That pissed Wilkinson off, he was a stickler for it.  I'll say this for 
the bastard.  I got showered and shaved regularly, not that I did it 
myself.  It was nice to feel at least as clean as a human being, 
instead of sweaty and sticky, like a lab rat.  At least until he 
was done getting me cleaned up and ready to play.  

Once the beard came off and the rest of me was clean, he was 
fascinated with me.  He sat that first day to talk to me, to ask me 
about myself.  I knew he was Consortium, and I'd done about as 
much fighting as I was able to the first few months with the 
Mengeles, so I answered him.  Most of his questions, anyway.  He 
didn't know about the Scully pictures at that point, they hadn't 
filled him in.  But they'd told him if I was difficult or ncooperative, 
to get in touch with them, and they'd give him something to ensure 
compliance.  

The magic, fake Scully pictures.  Wham, right to the solar plexus.  
And he used them all right.  "If you aren't going to cooperate, Fox, 
it's going to be very hard for her.  Look how healthy she looks 
now.  Don't you want her to stay that way?"  

Of course, I did.  Not as much as I had in the beginning, but it was 
hard to care about much of anything at this point.  And I'd mostly 
learned not to fight.  But Wilkinson really tripped my triggers.   

The worst part was knowing, listening to him and knowing him 
that I'd profiled guys like him, that I'd arrested them.  As the 
months wore on, he'd let me heal a little and then come back 
for more.  He broke my fingers one by one.  He also had them set 
right, which is more than I can say about Volkman.  

He couldn't do anything too permanent to me, it seemed, because 
his masters disapproved of his habits...I just flashed on Skinner's 
needle nosed pliers again and had to stop, Horowitz.  I'm not sure I 
can go there yet.  Tearing out fingernails and toenails may not 
seem like much, Horowitz, but when it's done again and again--
after allowing enough time for said nails to regrow--you can come 
to dread it worse than almost anything.   

Especially in the tropics, where infection sets in very easily.   
Between the running--he used to fasten a collar around my neck 
and ride around his paddock, guess who got to follow or strangle, 
Horowitz--and the infections and my growing desire just to be the 
fuck out of it, I didn't eat well.  Hence, my condition when I 
arrived.  

Skinner says that I was emaciated.  I think that was kind.  But I 
may be exaggerating, I'm not sure.  Obviously, I didn't have clothes 
and I didn't have a mirror.  Nine months.  That was apparently how 
long I was on that island.  That nine months was as long or longer 
than the time I spent in the hands of the Mengeles.  At least to me. 

And even though I think Watts was a grade A sociopathic prick, he 
was still better than Wilkinson.  At least marginally.  He just 
wanted to piss on Skinner's boots, I'm telling you.  I wasn't even 
real to him.  

Even sitting here, depressed as hell and hating it, wishing I could 
drag myself out of this long enough to offer Skinner some comfort 
over his mother's dying, I still get near tears realizing that I was 
real to Skinner, even several thousand miles away.  All because 
Wilkinson shaved me and my mole showed up in the photographs.  

He told me the story, Horowitz.  He's really upset about having 
that package from Cancerman sit gathering dust at his brothers for 
two plus years.  I'm kind of sick about it myself, but I keep 
reminding myself that he would never have been able to just 
retrieve me.  Believe me, I know their security arrangements.  And 
they might just have killed me, after taking a lot of samples to 
shore up their little genetic program if he'd taken some of that stuff 
public back then.   

Wilkinson, on the other hand, was evil, but not all that quick on the 
uptake. And he was obsessive.  So Wilkinson's place was still the 
best hope of freedom I had.  And by that time, they could have 
taken Skinner out if he was agitating to find me. They would have.  
Scully wouldn't have believed him that I was alive.  

I can say that with a minimum of pain.  Not without any, but only a 
little.  She wasn't good at letting go of her prejudices, she used to 
make me so nuts that I'd make statements I wasn't ever sure about, 
just to try and make my point.   I still miss her so goddamned 
much, Horowitz.  It still hurts so much.   It all hurts.  Everything.   

I keep telling Skinner that he never would have found me, I know 
what they had for security, and he gives me this slightly bleak look 
that his smile doesn't touch.   

"Sure," he says, and "Mulder, it's okay, you aren't here to make me 
feel better about it," and "Goddammit, Mulder, I know that, but it 
doesn't make me feel any better and it isn't your problem, 
specifically".  

Even in my present state, I kind of like the last one, because he 
does it in that growl that means he wishes I wouldn't worry about 
him, that he's worrying about me.  

Which is weird.   I used to think I could never really trust anyone.  
I used to think, once I'd gotten past that, that Scully was the only 
one I could trust.  He didn't have to show me the papers, he didn't 
have to tell me the truth.   I trust him a lot, Horowitz, and it scares 
me.  

A lot.  I'm not sure I'm ready to trust anyone that much.  I'm not 
sure I want to.   

So we end up sitting companionably in front of the fire, sometimes 
with Wilson and Cassie here, and they both seem to understand 
that we're men and therefore idiots and so they just kind of leave 
us alone to brood.  I hold onto Cassie a lot at night.  

BTW, Horowitz, just for some brightness to ease the gloom, I 
actually am using the goddamned walker pretty damned well.  In 
fact, we go down for some more X-rays in a couple of days and I 
might, be still my heart, actually be able to walk around on my so-
called walking cast.  Maybe.  

I don't have the heart to write anymore, Horowitz.   


Jan 18  

Okay, I'm back on a regular schedule of journaling, Horowitz, but 
it's only because you're such a petty tyrant and I will not go back to 
the clinic unless you drag me kicking and screaming.  Do you 
know how boring it is in there?   

I'm probably closer to Cassie than I have been to any woman in my 
entire life, except Phoebe, and I actually wasn't close to her, she 
never let me get that close, she got close to me and ripped my 
heart out.   

What a ridiculous phrase.   I wonder what Phoebe's doing now.  

Is Maggie Thatcher still PM?  If it's a man, I'll bet Phoebe is doing 
him.  

I've told Cassie about Scully and I've told Cassie about Phoebe and 
I've told Cassie about Reggie Pardue, and how hard it hit me when 
he was killed.  I've told Cassie about that crazy bastard Patterson.  
And my sister.   But I have a bad feeling.  

She's told me about her aunt and uncle, but they're all the family 
she has left, and she's never told me much about her childhood or 
life other than that.   And I keep sinking deeper and deeper into her 
and she lets me, but I'm really getting scared that I'm getting into 
another Phoebe-ish situation.  

Not that Cassie's ambitious or cold, the way Phoebe was.  I think, 
if anything, that Cassie's as scared as I am.  If she is, she's pretty 
damned brave to keep coming up here.  But it's going to hurt like 
hell when she finally takes off in flight, and I can't stop what I'm 
feeling and if you can't drive a woman away by running through a 
window or falling down a mountain, I'm doomed.  

She sings to me at night, when I wake up shaken and sweaty and 
dragging air in through the pinhole my airways turn into.  I use the 
inhaler and change my shirt and shorts and she curls around me, all 
warm satin skin and sings to me under her breath.  

I haven't talked to my mom yet, Horowitz.  She lied to me.  Or 
maybe to herself.  But I did write her a letter.  

Skinner didn't let her look at the photographs, he remembers the 
stroke she had.  But he did tell her that it looked like Samantha 
was dead, and had been dead for a long time.  That certain 
documents had come to him which indicated that was probable. 
And he did tell her that Cancerman had certain documents that 
indicated that he was my genetic father.  I'm going to call her 
tomorrow.  

She cried, Skinner said, and he did that Gary Cooper Skinner 
thing, where he took her hand and handed her a handkerchief and 
waited until she'd calmed down.  According to my mom, it was at a 
party, and he forced her into the bedroom, where the coats were.  
And my dad was drunk.  And the people out in the other room 
were dad's superiors.  You may have noticed that I will not call 
that motherfucker my father.  

As bad as he was, Bill Mulder was still a better father than 
Cancerman would ever have been.  And as Skinner keeps saying, 
what matters is who actually did the fathering.  

Strange to think of my dad as a good father.  He was a lousy 
father.  But he wasn't as dirty as Cancerman and he did genuinely 
love me.  In his own dysfunctional way.  

Anyway, Mom was too ashamed and frightened to fight back, then, 
because even back then, Dad was no treat when he was drunk.  
And she was too ashamed to report what had happened to the 
police, to anyone.  And when she realized she was pregnant, she 
convinced herself that I was Dad's.  Even though she knew it was 
possible I wasn't.  She told Skinner she prayed that I was dad's.  
She wouldn't allow herself to think anything different.  And when 
Cancerman bullied her into meeting him at the cottage, she had a 
stroke.  

Afterward, her writing to him was like a talisman, she had to keep 
him away. 

Skinner says he thinks that's the truth.  I want to believe it.  I want 
to believe that she's finally done with lying to me to protect me or 
herself or whoever the hell it was she thought she was protecting.  
I want to believe her.  I'm trying to believe her.

But she's kept the truth from me for so long, there are times in the 
deeps of the night when I'm just not sure.

Cancerman wasn't a fool, he must have suspected, and then her 
note took that limited safety away from me and he turned me over.  

But when he got copies of the DNA tests, he knew differently.  
And must have tried to get me back.  

My stomach turns over at that.  I can't even imagine what he 
would have told me.  Maybe just held going back over my  head.  
What was he going to do, let me go back to the FBI?  I doubt 
it.  I would have been a prisoner anyway, but for the rest of my 
life.  At least, the way it turned out, I'm free.  

It looks like they basically told him to go to hell, and that made his 
low man position clear to him, after years of doing their dirty 
work.  And when he tried to get me back, they must have said, too 
bad, so sad.  And only then did he realize that he was essentially 
without power.  As powerless as ever I was or ever Skinner had 
been.   

That was reason enough to kill himself.   

I'm so tired, Horowitz.  I want to kind of slide past this whole 
section of my life.  Thinking makes my head ache and I'm tired of 
snow and I just want to rest.  No, I'm not going to take the anti-
depressants you offered me.  Not yet, anyway.  If I can't pull 
myself out of this with your bright lights regime and diet, then I'll 
consider it.  

And yes, despite my New England Yankee background that says 
only the weak do it, I'm intelligent enough to understand what you 
carefully explained to me about serotonin levels.  And light, and 
the pineal gland and all that jazz.  So I'll keep it open as an option, 
but it's not my first choice, okay? 

Thanks for letting me choose, Horowitz.   I'll see you tomorrow as 
usual. But you'd better have that goddamned porch shoveled this 
time. 


  Jan 20  

I actually feel gleeful today.  Cassie snuck up last night and told me 
that today is Skinner's birthday.   

He's been out a lot doing maintenance, so Cassie borrowed the 
Sno-Cat and came and hauled me down to her place so we could 
plot with Wilson over lunch.   

BTW, did I tell you that Skinner has very eclectic tastes in reading 
material?  He loves those John Becker, FBI nut novels and drily 
told me that Becker reminded him a great deal of me, only I was 
sane.  Which tickled me in spite of myself.  

Anyway, there's a new one, and Wilson got that, and a couple of 
other books for him.  He's such a purist.  And vids in on the 
shelves of Cassie's shop.  So I picked up Die Hard, Die 
Hard 2 and Die Hard 3 and, one I hadn't seen yet and had to see, 
Die Hard 4.  I can't wait to see if Bruce has lost anymore of his 
hair, so I can rag on Skinner about it.  He'll either laugh his ass off, 
or rap me on the head again.  

Cassie made him a medicine bag, of which I was promptly 
incredibly envious and did my best wistful look to get her to 
promise me one, too.  That's Cassie.  Weird.  It's like we're all a 
family or something.  

Walt, this is so sudden.

Anyway, Wilson let Cassie and I dabble at her house and we baked 
a fairly decent cake and smuggled it back up.  He was dozing in 
front of the fire, pretending to read files and started awake when 
we came in to the livingroom after sneaking around like a couple 
of kids to hide the stuff in my room.  

I grinned at him.  "Checking for leaks in your eyelids?"  

He folded his arms tighter and narrowed his eyes.  "Fuck you, 
Mulder."  

"It's time to get my hair cut, I guess, you said I was safe until we 
got snowed in."  

And so on.  

His sense of humor is really more twisted than mine, Horowitz, he 
got up to make coffee again--and people thought I was a caffeine 
addict--and went by and smacked my ass lightly.  
"Filling out just fine, Mulder," with a wicked glint in his eye.  

It's so--normal.  Like I said, cops do that a lot.  We're bad 
motherfuckers and have to prove our manliness by pretending that 
we lust after each other.  Isn't that twisted, Horowitz?  

So I pretended to swoon and said, "Cassie, it's all over between us, 
I'm afraid, I'm his."  

Which got a snort from him and a choked giggle from her.  "I'll 
arm wrestle you for him," she offered, grinning at him.  

He surveyed her bicep.  "Nope, I'm afraid I might win."  

More giggling from Cassie and I put on an offended look.  "Hey, I 
promised I wouldn't wear those gauzy gowns didn't I?"  

At which point, he cracked up and Cassie sat down on the floor in 
an apparent fit of giggles.  

The sound of the Sno-Cat made us all turn our heads and I 
grinned. "You're in trouble, Walt.  You're supposed to have dinner 
on the table when she comes in."  

"I'll come up with a way to mollify her," he told me, straight faced.  

It might not have been on the table, but it was in the oven.  A 
perfectly splendid pan of lasagna.  When I goggled, he told me 
drily not to get too excited, this was the frozen stuff.   
Which cracked me up and seemed perfectly just.  Why should the 
man have to make his own birthday dinner?  

So, all was as merry as a marriage bell, as I think Shakespeare said.  
Julie brought wine, and I gimped on my walking cast into the 
bedroom after we'd eaten and gimped back out with the 
cake.  It had survived smuggling pretty well.  I apologized for the 
lack of candles.  "I was afraid we might not have any fire 
extinguishers."  

That got him past the completely blown away look and well into 
amusement again.  "Your day is coming, Mulder.  If you live that 
long."  

I think he got a little--choked up, maybe, over the gifts.  The 
videos really cracked him up.  "Mulder, I was hoping for 
something more explicit."  

"You can borrow those," I told him cheerily.  "If Cassie throws me 
over, I need something to assuage my heartache."  

Cassie snorted.  "Right."  

Julie Wilson grinned and poured more wine.  "Happy birthday," 
she told him.  

Dear Diary, they kissed in full view of God and everyone else.  
Skinner's face was a little flushed when he leaned back, but that 
might have been the wine. Julie just looked pleased. 
 
Heh, Walt.  I'm getting even for that smirk back when you let me 
use your snowmobile suit. And why the hell would you have a 
snowmobile suit when you don't have a snowmobile?  Heh.  

I'm going to catch hell tomorrow, when he reads this, but I still feel 
gleeful.  God knows, it's nice to have the emotional energy to think 
about doing something for someone else anyway.  But for 
someone who really did get me out of hell--he's lucky I didn't call 
my mother and have her buy him a Sno-Cat of his very own.   


Jan 22  

Is it possible to develop multiple personality disorder at the age of 
thirty-nine, Horowitz?   I'm not even sure I believe in MPD, and I 
tend to come down on the side of those who say it may exist, and 
if it does, it's rare.  It's easier to believe in reincarnation.  Which 
takes me back.  

I don't understand what that was all about.  My fascination with 
Melissa.  My conviction that what she said was true.  I identified 
Scully as my friend and my father, that we had been together again 
and again.  From the reading I've been doing since I got here--
Skinner evidently having a taste for arcane subjects, but not willing 
to admit it, he's been shoveling books at me-since I got to the point 
where I had enough of an attention span I could read--that doesn't 
mean anything other than the fact that we do gravitate to one 
another, that we have things to learn or repay to one another.  I'm 
not sure what that means.  And I don't recall identifying Skinner at 
all, so maybe we're relative newbies in terms of relating to one 
another.  

Scully's dead again, of course, and died again before me.  
Cancerman is dead, thankfully, which maybe means that the evil is 
done.  And of course, the problem with this is that Grey, as 
Skinner sometimes calls him--it makes my skin crawl, frankly--
was born in 1928.  And I think I placed my life in the Warsaw 
Ghetto as '43 or '44.   So what did any of it mean?  Of course, in 
the Seth books--oh, don't let me go there, it's like arguing how 
many angels can fit on the head of a pin.  

Dance.  Dance on the head of a pin.   

It's all too much for me, but it's still fascinating.  I guess you can 
take the boy out of the X files, but you can't take the X files out of 
the boy.  C'mon, Horowitz, how much longer can you bear reading 
this drivel.  Haven't I been a good boy and gone to my three 
sessions a week?  Haven't I played nice and actually talked to you 
about some of what I've written when you've asked?  It's a good 
thing you have that extra inhaler in your office, BTW.   

I really hate having asthma again.  I can barely remember it as a 
kid, which shows you it didn't inconvenience me this much when I 
was little.  

Fortunately, I haven't had an attack yet during sex.  Heh.   


Jan 24  

I'm worried about Walt.  He actually stayed in bed today with a 
cold.  Now, Horowitz, you and I know that the man eats railroad 
spikes for breakfast, he's tough, he's manly, and he doesn't 
admit it when he feels less than 100%. When I came back from 
session yesterday, he was lying on the couch with a blanket over 
him and looking grouchy.  

And this afternoon, he's in bed sleeping, after drinking enough of 
Cassie's herbal tea to float a battleship and grousing and grouching 
over each cup.  And not eating much.  

Oh, God, Horowitz, I'm turning into a yenta, too.  Be afraid, be 
very afraid. Actually, I'm not sure I'm really using that word 
correctly, Wilson said she thought a yenta was a matchmaker.  
Maybe I should just say I'm turning into a Jewish grandmother.  

Speaking of which, I talked to my mom finally.  She cried and 
cried and cried and I had to keep telling her it was all right, I 
understood, I wasn't mad at her. And oddly enough, I wasn't.  
I can understand what she was thinking.   

We actually talked about my Jewish grandparents, who disowned 
her when she married my dad.  They weren't warm and fuzzy sorts 
of people.  No wonder we're all so fucked,  Horowitz.  They were 
very conservative, very upright, and not very religious.  Very 
intellectual.  Epstein, if you can imagine that.  I never knew that, 
we didn't talk about them, and the only reason that I knew my 
mother was Jewish was she could explain the Jewish holidays to 
me when I had a buddy who didn't celebrate Christmas. And that 
was extrapolation. 

So, when she met my dad and fell in love--boy, it's weird trying to 
imagine your parents young and stupid enough to fall in love with 
each other, especially after they've spent the last twenty-seven 
years with one of them hating the other worse than poison--her 
parents said, no, and no, and no again.  

And when she didn't listen--wham, bam, she was no longer an 
Epstein.  

Lovely.  Both sides of my family are fucked.  My Aunt Margaret, 
who was really my great-aunt, once told me that Dad used to get 
the shit beat out of him.  Of course, Aunt Margaret, splendid New 
England widow that she was, didn't say it quite like that.  She said, 
"Your grandfather was very harsh on Billy, Fox."  

But I'm actually kind of interested in my other family.  Maybe I 
should take my mother's maiden name, since I've discovered I'm 
not only a figurative bastard, but a literal one as well.  If they're all 
as dysfunctional as my grandparents and my  parents, I might want 
to pass, but it would be interesting to find out.  

Of course, how would I explain myself?  Sarah Mulder's little boy 
Fox?  There's a great Jewish name.  My grandmother's maiden 
name was Fox, by the way, which explains that piece of lunacy.  I 
knew that already, and it's pissed me off since I was old enough to 
have kids make fun of my name.  Like New England isn't full of 
these old, hideous family names.  

Maybe I need to be bar mitzvahed.  Scully and I had a case--you 
may believe in aliens, Horowitz, but I doubt you'd believe in 
golems--and I was kind of embarrassed because these people were 
Hasidic and very devout and conservative and one of them was a 
concentration camp survivor.  And I knew zip about my heritage.  

So, I guess I know a little more now.  At least about my family.  

Funny, now that I know Sam is really dead, I'm actually feeling 
more like I want to go back to work at something, preferably 
something X file-ish.  I don't know what I'd be able to do, 
though. Open a private detective agency?  I do know how to 
investigate things, and I know how to investigate weird things.  
How about Ghostbusters Inc, Horowitz?  

I've decided you probably don't need a slightly damaged Jungian 
associate. 
 
I could learn to dowse for water and other assorted elements, but it 
doesn't seem quite challenging enough.  I could learn to dowse for 
ETs, but somehow, I figure I could just go back down to the Ring 
of Fire and hang around volcano cones and get myself implanted 
again in the lab.  

No, that wasn't funny. 
 
I know, you still think I need to talk more about Wilkinson, 
Horowitz, but as bad as he was, as horrible as it was to be in his 
power, I think I'm feeling more horror about Dr. Ingrid Volkman.  
She wasn't a Valkyrie like Wilson.  She was more Scully's size.  
And so soft spoken.  I've always known, as Shakespeare said, that 
a man may smile and smile and still be a villain. 

That's not exactly what he said, Horowitz, my eidetic memory does 
seem to be more or less intact, I'm paraphrasing. 
 
I'll bet you knew that.  For a Freudian, sometimes you surprise me.  
I could understand a Jungian knowing Eliot and Shakespeare, but a 
Freudian?  I know what it is, you're a closet Jungian, right? 
 
Okay, okay, you specifically asked me to write about Scully. 
 
This is harder than I thought.  She was this kid, I don't think she 
could have been more than twenty-nine, and yeah, I was thirty-
three, not exactly Methuselah.  But she seemed so young 
and bright down in the gloom of the basement.  And I knew she'd 
been sent to spy on me, but I had a job to do, in the "plausible" 
state of Oregon.  She still had a sense of humor then. She didn't 
lose it, really, until after her sister died.  Was killed.  By mistake. 
They were trying to kill Scully.  The well manicured Brit gent 
warned her. He didn't like the unsubtle behavior of his colleagues. 

When we were in Oregon, I think the second night we were there, 
she came to my room in her bathroom and said she wanted me to 
take a look at something and dropped the robe.  To stand with her 
back to me in her underwear.

The first thing that went through my mind was that they'd finally 
decided to get rid of me with a bogus sexual harassment charge.  

The second thing was that she had one of the most exceptional 
asses I'd ever seen.

The third thing, which leashed both my paranoia and my libido, 
was the realization that she was scared shitless.

I have never been so relieved to tell someone they had mosquito 
bites.

She yanked that robe back on and then turned and threw herself 
into my arms.  By that time, the sexual harassment notion was 
gone, and besides, she was trembling badly enough she was 
probably feeling rubber-kneed.   In the end, we sat down and 
talked for a couple of hours and she told me about her dad 
disapproving of her choice to go to Quantico.

And I told her about the things I'd seen, and the things I'd 
investigated and how Matheson and a couple of others respected 
me enough to let me call them allies, and Sam's abduction, 
as well as a sanitized version of my family's breakup. 

I think after that night we were really partners, never mind it took 
me a good long while before I trusted her without reservation, 
never mind that they'd assigned her to spy on me, to report 
back on me.  And she did her job, by God, Scully was devout 
about that.  She wrote those damned reports to Blevins, and then 
to Skinner and made sure that my wild-eyed view was 
balanced by her skeptical one.

She drove me crazy a lot of the time, but she was bright and funny 
and willing to respect my hunches and ideas, even when she 
vehemently disagreed with them. I suspect our first case together 
had a lot to do with that.  

As time went on, and we lost more and more, and were 
increasingly endangered by our search for the Truth, she got more 
and more dogmatic.  More resistant.  I kept saying, after 
all you've seen, why can't you believe?  

She couldn't. 

I think I know why now.  It was easier to believe that it was all 
human agency. Maybe it went back to being raised Catholic and 
believing in original sin. She always knew that people were 
capable of almost anything.  I just don't think she believed they 
were capable of selling their own species out as a whole.   And 
she'd made rationalism her god.  Or maybe not rationalism, but 
materialism in the sense that if she couldn't touch it, measure it, or 
see it for herself, it didn't exist. 
 
I know she thought that I'd imagined my sister being abducted.  I 
know she thought they were screen memories.  Maybe they were, I 
don't know anymore.  I do know that what I've seen turns my 
stomach, and I can't not believe in alien contact.  

Like I said, I think I probably have kids, of a sort, tank grown, 
mature in a fraction of the time it takes human beings to mature. 
Hell, they're probably more mature than I am, I sometimes 
wonder if I'm ever going to grow up, and here I'm nearly forty. 
 
I can bear to think about that.  I can't bear to think about finding 
little vials of ova that were labeled with Scully's name.  They 
robbed her of children, of joy and of her life.  Whoever they 
were.  I don't care anymore if it was people who took her, who 
irradiated her to mass harvest her ova.  It doesn't matter. 

What matters now is why. 

And I know why.  

They took semen from me more than once to get the DNA to do 
what they wanted to do.  They liked my hardiness. 
 
I miss her so much, I can't even explain it.  I miss calling her at 
night to tell her we're leaving on a case at 0:00 dark thirty.  I miss 
calling her to talk about cases after I've been working late and 
hearing her ask, "Mulder, what time is it?"  Or "Mulder, do you 
know what time it is?"  Or even, "Mulder, this better be good." 
 
I finally got my courage up and asked Skinner outright what she'd 
said about me. 
 
He got that look on his face then, like it was hard to think about.  
But he sat down and thought about it.  "You want me to sum it up, 
or take it step by step?" 
 
"Both."  I swallowed hard and took another sip of my beer.  Beer, 
Horowitz.  I'm actually allowed a beer, and that son of bitch 
Skinner actually found some Sam Adams while he was down in 
Washington state and brought me some.  I wonder why he does 
things like that.  He really didn't know me all that well before I 
supposedly shot myself.  He's down at his mother's funeral and 
remembers that I like Sam Adams.   

It makes me want to bang my head against the wall sometimes, but 
not because it makes me mad. 
 
It makes me ashamed.  

Among other things. 

So he brought back four six packs and stuck them in the bottom of 
the refrigerator and I nurse one along for most of an evening and 
rag on him for drinking that fucking Canuck weasel piss and he just 
rags back on me for being so effete that I have to have special 
beer. 

And I suppose I'm saying thanks and he's saying don't worry about 
it, asshole.  

Like I said, Horowitz, we're manly men.  We have to learn this 
very intricate code as kids or we're lost.  All those Sensitive New 
Age Guys?  They missed their lessons.  

Yeah, I'm delaying. 
 
First he told me that she had been very angry for a while.  And 
upset. When they closed the X files down, she stayed there until 
they were either moved out or transferred to other areas, then 
resigned.  Skinner wouldn't let her resign.  He made her take 
medical disability and it's a measure of how tired she was that she 
accepted that.  

But in five months, she resigned anyway.  She couldn't pretend any 
longer that she was going to go into remission. He didn't talk to 
her for a long while after that.  Not until her third or fourth round 
in the hospital.  And he actually went every day when she was in 
the hospice.  

She was glad to see him, but her mother started with the tight 
lipped retreat from the room. "She told me she was so glad to see 
me, she was sorry she'd left it the way she had when she resigned."  
He brooded for a moment, watching the fire. "She cried and said 
she missed working so much.  That she missed you." His voice got 
husky and he had to stop for a moment.  "And she started talking 
about you.  She cared a great deal about you, Mulder.  It 
devastated her when she thought you had killed yourself.  It made 
it easier to blame me, or the Consortium.  She didn't have to blame 
herself, and she came around to that.  I thought Kritschgau's story 
was a pile of shit, and she came around to realizing that there was 
something wrong.  Something not quite right about it.  She let 
herself remember some of the things you'd investigated together.  
And she blamed herself for deliberately denying them.  It 
took me a while to convince her that she wasn't completely to 
blame, if blame could be laid."  He took another drink from his 
weasel piss beer.  "Maybe I didn't ever convince her.  But I got 
her to consider it.  I blamed the holes in your head." 
 
I got a sardonic look then.  I stared blankly at him for a moment, 
then ducked my head, mortally embarrassed.  "All I can say is that 
it made sense at the time," I muttered. 
 
"Well, I think I got her to consider that you might have had 
another seizure, delayed after effect of someone using a Black and 
Decker to dig in your brain and then apply electrical stimulus."  His 
tone was dry. 
 
I nodded, still not lifting my head.  I hated to think of her blaming 
herself.  I hated it more than anything I can say, I wanted to find 
Cancerman's grave and dig it up and shoot him five or six times.  
And I couldn't see the beer bottle in my hands as I thought about 
that. 
 
"Once she got past that, she liked telling me stories.  Frankly, I was 
astonished at the amount of trouble the two of you could get into 
when I wasn't watching, and I was even more astonished at how 
expertly the two of you wrote your reports to keep me from 
finding out."  His voice was warm, as if he were remembering 
something pleasant.  "And about things that happened before I 
took Blevins' slot." 
 
I nodded, swallowing past the lump in my throat. 
 
"She had a lot of respect for you, Mulder, even though she couldn't 
agree with all your theories.  And she really--I used to think the 
two of you were involved.  Beyond your partnership.  She told me 
once that she could only wish that you had been, that maybe you 
wouldn't have eaten your gun.  That maybe she could have given 
you something to hold on to.  She loved you and was angry with 
you and missed you one helluva lot."  This time, I looked up, and 
his expression was kind.  "Is that what you needed to know, 
Mulder?" 
 
I nodded again, and this time I didn't give a fuck that I was crying.  
Oh, God, Horowitz, am I a SNAG after all? 
 
Well, I'm passing well enough, I guess, and when he got up to get 
more wood, he paused to gently clasp my shoulder for a moment 
before going outside to get his coat and the wood. 
 
Hey, Horowitz, keep your fingers crossed, tomorrow I go get 
more X rays to see if this lump of plaster on my leg can finally 
come off. 

 
Feb 1 
 

Listen, Horowitz, I'm busy.  Sure, I know, I missed session, but I 
had the one before that and I don't appreciate you calling Skinner 
when he's so damned sick and ragging on him to keep me in line.  
If you've got concerns about me, try talking to me.  He doesn't 
need to be bothered with this shit when he's been down for three 
days and isn't getting better. 
 
And I'm keeping this bloody fucking journal, I'm just not keeping it 
all the time.  So fuck you, Horowitz, I'm not counting the knives in 
the knife drawer, I'm way past that and you know it.  I'm fine.  Or 
I'm at least as fine as I'm going to be. So leave me the fuck alone 
for a couple of days and let Skinner get sleep, which Wilson says is 
what he needs right now, all right?  
 

February 2 
 
You wanna tell me what that comedy today was all about?  I 
realize that I'm still legally considered non compos mentis, but you 
know better.  And if you ever pull that shit again on me, you can 
find yourself another patient, I'll put my fucking snowshoes on and 
hike back to fucking DC and take my chances. 
 
I do not need this shit right now, Horowitz.  Yeah, I realize that 
I'm not Skinner's nurse, but it's the goddamned christless least I can 
do for a man I think of as a friend and who just lost his mother and 
who has been sick for more than a week.  So live with it. 
 
And I don't need to worry about whether or not you're going to 
send the Mental Health police up to get me when I'm worrying 
about Skinner. 
 
 
February 5 

All right, Horowitz, I accept your explanation, but I still think it 
sucked.

And yeah, Skinner's doing much better, he's grousing and 
grouching and grumbling and complaining that I'm a lousy cook. 
 
It's that male thing.  I understand that the grousing and grouching 
and grumbling and complaining is his way of telling me thanks and 
that he's better, and he understands that my grouching back means 
I'm relieved that  he's getting well. 
 
I can appreciate his alarm about my bronchitis in a real visceral 
way now. 

He was one sick puppy. Wilson says it's not surprising.  In her 
experience, up here dealing with the survivors of the Consortium 
and other assorted folk, an emotional shock frequently affects the 
immune system.  Thus, in her view, my bronchitis. 

But it hit him hard and it's kind of like when he got shot, when he 
tried to keep digging for the men who shot Scully's sister.  When 
Scully saw him in the hospital, when they were taking him into 
surgery, she said it was a little scary.  He always looks larger than 
life, frankly, and even thought I'm just a little shorter than he is--
male ego, Horowitz, I think it's actually like 2 inches--he looks a 
little quenched right now. 
 
He'll probably give me shit for that remark, considering he still 
outweighs me by a fair amount. 
 
All right, where was I when Skinner got sick? 
 
I don't know, Horowitz, and frankly, I delete these files when I'm 
done.  Field journals were one thing, keeping a journal on my own 
seems fatuously self-conscious.  I'm not a writer, per se, and 
nobody's going to read my collected writings.  I don't even bother 
to spell check the fucking things, that's how glad I am to get rid of 
them once they're on their way to you.

Jesus, I hope not.  If you ever publish 'em, Horowitz, you'd better 
hope they haven't given me back my gun. 
 
I know you want me to give you more on Wilkinson, but I honestly 
don't know what the fuck it is you want.  I keep going over the 
details with you again and again, and you keep looking at me like 
it's not enough.  How much detail do you need to squirm, 
Horowitz?  Physician, heal thyself. 
 
By that point, honestly, getting fucked by Wilkinson was--anti-
climactic, if you'll excuse the sick pun.  It was just another form of 
beating me up.  I suppose spending time with the Mengeles made 
that possible, or you would have reason to worry when I don't 
write in this fucking journal every other day. I'm not a rape victim, 
Horowitz, I'm a fucking political prisoner who survived. 
 
I've *seen* victims of rape, naturally, although most of them were 
dead. 

The local police seldom brought us in on more ordinary cases of 
rape.  Not all of them were dead.  When I was in VCS, we 
managed to stop a guy who was escalating from serial rape 
to serial murder, and we caught him before he murdered his last 
victim. 

Compared to some, James Ray was a piker.  All he did was abduct, 
rape and then, after he really got comfortable with the trolling and 
abduction process, strangle them.  He would artistically arrange 
the bodies in sexually degrading postures after they were dead, but 
he was pretty straight forward and not involved in a lot of the 
ritualistic significance that some of these guys need so much.  

Anyway, this was a pretty woman of 26, she had two small 
children, a baby and a toddler, and her husband was an ordinary 
blue collar kind of guy and the amazing thing was that he dealt 
with her so much better than I've seen white collar, well educated, 
supposedly sensitive men manage. He was a big guy, I think he 
owned his own garage, and he just kept telling her that the 
important thing was that she was alive, that they could work all of 
it out in time, but she was alive.  

I know he was angry, he wanted to go for Ray's throat and rip it 
out with his teeth, a feeling I'm familiar with myself.  I rustled up 
some cards and brochures from some of the local support groups 
and had a heart to heart with him, and he actually listened to me 
very seriously.  So many people don't, like it's some sort of horrible 
thing to need help. 
 
Yeah, I know I'm one to talk, Horowitz, but at least I come down 
there and spit in your eye and talk to you. 
 
So, I checked back later, just to let him know if they needed 
anything, I'd do my best to route them the right way, and she was 
doing a lot better than I had dared to expect. 
 
I used to think that bondage games were hot, but you know the old 
saying, there you go, thinking again....just shows you how much I 
know.  And yeah, I can trace that back to Wilkinson, Horowitz, 
but that's not exactly a new or startling insight, I've fucking said it 
to you in session.  And in this fucking journal, though not in those 
exact words. 
 
Skinner came out of his room grouching at me for getting up on 
the roof with my precariously healed leg.  Oh, I forgot, the cast is 
off now, you haven't seen me since then.  I'm a real person again, 
not an invalid.  The wheelchair and walker are no longer in 
residence in this house. Anyway, I grouched back at him telling 
him that I was perfectly all right and a lot healthier than he looked, 
which got more grouching in return. 
 
Even though he settled down on the couch when I told him to, 
looking amused at my tone, and watched the Knicks whip the shit 
out of the opposing team with me. 
 
I suppose he does find it amusing, he probably thinks I'm getting 
even for those times when I got sent to the principal's office and 
had to sit there and watch him read my reports, waiting nervously 
for him to jump down my throat and completely destroy my sense 
of professional self-preservation until I leaped back. 
 
In the darkest corners of my mind, I probably am.  But I figure it's 
also turnabout for all that free labor he got this fall. 
 
And his voice is now more than a croak, which is reassuring.  It's 
hard for him to grouch credibly in a croak. 
 
 
Feb 8 
 
It's a nice sunny day, Horowitz, and I'm going out to snowshoe, 
and no, I don't particularly want to write about what we talked 
about in session yesterday and I wish you'd just accept my feeling 
that we've done enough talking about it, it's over and I'm fine and 
I'm going on with my life. 
 
I know you're a Freudian, but come on, give me a break.  I've 
broken down and told you everything about that bitch Volkman I 
can think of and I've talked about Wilkinson.  If you want to talk 
to Wilkinson, that's going to be difficult, but I did meet someone 
who appeared to be a genuine medium back in New Hampshire 
about four years ago, although our genuine psychic offed himself 
by smothering himself in a plastic bag.  Poor guy. 
 
As for Volkman, surely UNCLE has the resources to go down and 
get her like they did Wilkinson, only this time bring her back alive. 
 
And please, stop calling Walt every time you think I'm not digging 
deeply enough or evading you, it really sucks, I'm the patient, he 
isn't, and he doesn't need this shit when he's still dealing with his 
mother's death, okay? 

You know how straight he is with me, he tells me when you call 
and what you call about and all that does is breed needless 
hostility, because he's trying to push himself to keep  me on 
an even keel and my keel is just fine. 
 
As a Freudian, you ought to understand what he's feeling, 
Horowitz.  


February 14 
 
No, I'm not going to write about our last three sessions, Horowitz.  
So fuck off. 
 
But, just to get your imagination working overtime, Horowitz, 
Cassie actually gave me this sappy Valentine surprise.  She said I 
needed to be reminded of the dumber things in life. 
 
And chocolate, I had chocolate.  It was great, and I'm not even a 
big chocoholic. 
 
And we're snowed in again.  Heh.  Except for Cassie and the 
wondrous snowmobile that makes Walt's jaw clench. 
 
 
Feb 16 
 
I've explained to you on the phone why I don't want you to read 
those pages, Horowitz.  I'm not doing the insanity boogie, I just 
don't want you to read them.  Or want Walt to read them. They 
don't make any sense and they aren't useful and it doesn't give 
you any more than I gave you yesterday or the day before that or 
the day before that.  None of it fucking matters, I've given you 
everything I can and I'm fine with it.  He's dead, and that's all that 
matters, and he's dead and they think I'm dead because there his 
fucking private plane went into the Caribbean supposedly with me 
in it, too. 
 
I'm trying not to get upset that you keep pushing me and pushing 
me and I don't know what the fuck else you want me to say and I 
don't have anything else.  I've given you the lurid facts during 
session, Horowitz, and I don't think Walt needs to read them and 
all I've done in the pages is repeat myself again and again.   

It's over, I survived, and it doesn't fucking matter anymore.  So 
back the fuck off, please, I'm not coming unglued, I just don't want 
you to have them, and for Christ's sweet sake, stop calling Walt to 
talk to him about it.  He's getting upset, but he's not going to give 
them to you, he gave me his word. 
 
Yes, I sealed them up in a envelope and gave them to him and then 
I changed my mind.  It's the patient's prerogative to change his 
mind, isn't it?  It's more than a prerogative, it's a fucking right. 

I wish I hadn't fucking given them to him and he won't give them 
back even though I told him I'd changed my mind and wanted 
them.  He won't give them back and I'm trying not to get angry 
with him, he's got them put away somewhere and I can't find 
them and it's such a fucking violation of my privacy and my rights 
and I really don't think I can stay here any more, and if you think 
I'm coming down there to talk to you about it, you're crazier than I 
am. 
 
Leave me the fuck alone, both of you. 


Feb 17 
 
Okay, you win, you fucking shrink.  I don't need tranks and I don't 
need anti-anxiety meds and I don't fucking need Thorazine and 
even though Skinner would probably bar the door before he'd let 
you drag me out of here kicking and screaming, I don't want to test 
that theory. 
 
You want me to tell you about Wilkinson, I'll tell you about 
Wilkinson.

After Wilkinson had them clean me up, he had them take me into 
the diningroom and had me eat dinner with him. 
 
He wanted me to tell me about myself.  Of course, he already had 
the details, he'd been given the dossier.  I answered his questions, 
although I didn't volunteer much. 
 
They took me back to my little cell and I went to sleep. When I 
woke up again, I was strapped naked to a medical examination 
table. Wilkinson was there and he started asking me questions 
again, questions about profiling. 
 
I answered the questions.   At least until I figured him out and how 
to deal with him.

I think Wilkinson studied the practice and application of torture as 
an art. How to make it exquisitely painful without doing enough 
damage to the subject that the will to live is lost.  This was a guy 
who really, really loved his little recreational pursuits, Horowitz.  
He devoted himself to them.  You gotta respect his commitment. 

Although he varied his tools and techniques, he was very careful 
not to cause permanent damage.   Despite his craving for the 
ultimate control, for his need to consummate the relationship after 
torture and death. Any damage that might have been permanent 
was dealt with by his doctor very quickly and competently. 

If I had to speculate, I'd say that seeing me cleaned up was the 
trigger for the aura phase, awakening that compulsive need in 
Wilkinson

Dinner was his wooing period.  His questions and my answers.  He 
didn't need to troll, of course, and capture was already 
accomplished, but he did indulge himself, however briefly, in the 
wooing phase. 

He achieved orgasm more than once during the course of the first 
session.

I believe strongly that he suffered from a sense of sexual 
inadequacy, perhaps stemming from  the fact that his genitals were 
undeveloped, as he'd suffered an hormonal deficiency during sexual 
maturation.  To compensate for this, he used an oversized dildo 
and other tools.  His ritual was to torture his subject in a variety of 
ways, then consummate the "relationship" until he again achieved 
orgasm.  The ritual was not complete without an attempt to force 
his subjects to achieve orgasm.  Or at least ejaculation.

For some offenders, the consummation takes place after the 
subject's death, but that level of control wasn't permitted, thus 
increasing his sense of powerlessness and inadequacy.

There are roughly twenty-one behavior patterns that are linked to 
episodic aggressive behavior.  I don't know Wilkinson's history, I 
don't know what his family life was like, I don't know his 
childhood history, but certain things can be guessed from 
his behavior as an adult.

Interrupted bliss of childhood, or none, cruelty to animals that 
escalated into killing them, possibly a history of wetting the bed 
and/or starting fires.

He was compulsive about cleanliness, and showered before and 
after 

As an adult, the ritualistic behavior is clear.  I believe that the 
reason he insisted on frequent sessions was the lack of relief, since 
he was not permitted the satisfaction of murder.  

So he repeated everything up to that point as frequently as possible 
to alleviate the pressure that must have built.  

Resistance, whether verbal or physical, inflamed him.  Re-
establishing control and dominance was more powerful than simply 
maintaining it, and the sessions that followed resistance were more 
intense and frequently required the intervention of one of his staff.

I suspect some neurological defects which may have been caused 
either by prenatal substance abuse, or even by some genetic 
misfire.  He stuttered when he got aroused.  

He drank infrequently, but was more dangerous when he did, 
because his inhibitions dissolved, and it was harder to control him.

He showed some signs of paranoia, but I'm not sure that wasn't 
justified, he knew too much and had taken steps to assure his own 
life was protected, but his masters did not like him.

The paranoia, coupled with their control of him, increased his fear 
of helplessness, which fed into his need for control over his 
subjects.

That was Wilkinson.  No worse than any one of a hundred other 
monsters.


Feb 18 
 
You're such a fucking bitch, Horowitz.  I gave you what you 
wanted, goddammit, I did.  I drag myself through bloody fucking 
hell again and again to tell you what you want to hear and it's 
never fucking enough.  Fuck you, Horowitz, and the horse you 
rode in on.  I gave you what you fucking asked for to keep out of 
that clinic and you know it, and if you want to really see me do the 
full tilt boogie, just keep it up. 

 
Feb 19 
 
I really hate you.  I hate you more than I ever hated Cancerman.  I 
hate you for this and for fucking up my friendship with Skinner.   I 
hate you for being such a goddamn bitch that a lousy Admin of 
Justice master's degree makes for a better therapist than you.  You 
want proof?  Let me give it to you.

I was trying to read, but I was having a hard time.  I kept thinking 
about your threat to have me hauled back to the clinic if I didn't 
give those pages to you. I kept wondering if Skinner would let 
you.  My head kept saying that he wouldn't, he'd probably bar the 
door, but my gut wasn't so sure. 
 
He's very quiet for such a big man.  He came to the door and 
leaned against the door jamb, looking tired and unhappy.  "Let's 
talk," he suggested. 
 
Point One, he didn't tell me I had to talk, he suggested it.

Point Two, he could read my body language enough to know that I 
didn't want to talk.  

But he came in anyway, sat down on the foot of my bed and talked 
to me.  Didn't try to force me to talk, didn't pick up his goddamned 
needlework and hum under his breath.  Just talked.  Said "I" a lot.  
Didn't talk about what I was or wasn't doing.  Talked about how 
he felt, and asked me to give him something to help him stand you 
off.

Point Three, I know him well enough that if he tells me that, he 
isn't jerking my chain with therapeutic language, that he'd stand 
you off at the door with his weapon if he had to.

After a moment, he told me that he knew that what I wrote must 
have been difficult to write, that he knew it was probably 
Wilkinson, if only because you've been ragging on him regularly 
about it.  He said he'd been trying to let me work through it on my 
own, but that you were insisting on admitting me to the clinic 
again, that you thought I was going to hurt myself when I broke 
through. 

Point Four,  he was trying to let me work through it on my own, 
like he trusts me as a fucking adult, Horowitz.

Point Five-a, also a biggie, he was straightforward with me about 
you and your calls and your ragging on him.  He was also honest 
about what you were planning to do with me if I didn't goose-step 
high enough.  Right up front, like he's always been since I got here.  

Unlike you.

I told him I wasn't going to hurt myself, that I'd already broken 
through, I told him I was tired of talking about it, it keeps dragging 
me back, and I want to get past it and just fucking go on.   
Calmly. 

He asked me to please give him something, anything to give him 
some legitimate backing if you insisted.  He said he couldn't stand 
in your way if he didn't have any justification. 
 
Point Five-b, he was honest enough to tell me that he didn't know 
what to do, he was scared enough that he was going to go along 
with you if I didn't give him a reason.

I admit, Horowitz, at that moment in time, I didn't think it was a 
point in his favor.  "Just do it, then," I told him, "Just fucking do it, 
wash your hands of it and let her take me down and drug me and 
fucking play in my head.  It doesn't fucking matter how I feel or 
what I want, does it?" 
 
Pushing himself so that his back was against the wall, he stretched 
his legs out across the foot of the bed.  We sat in silence for a long 
time. It sounds like he was being emotional and he wasn't, he was 
very quiet.  Very calm, very Zen, and he wouldn't stop, wouldn't 
just let it go. 
 
Unfortunately, he's evidently learned this part of his therapeutic 
technique from you.   Why do I have to be blamed for this, it's not 
my doing?  It's yours, Horowitz, you're as bad as fucking 
Volkman.  Why the fuck does it always come back to me? 
 
His hand came up again, rubbed at his eyes. "Mulder, tell me 
something, tell me anything, for God's sake, obviously those pages 
must be upsetting to you--"  Which was a major understatement, 
I'd violated all the laws of hospitality by going through his room 
while he was out on the roof, trying to find the envelope. 

"Did you give them to her?" I suddenly demanded, since I hadn't 
doubted him before. 
 
That got a direct look and his jaw got tight again.  "I told you I 
wouldn't, I gave you my word." 

Point Six, Horowitz.  I can always trust him.  Unlike you, you say, 
yes, that's enough, and then start nagging me for more the next 
time I come in. 

There was a long silence.  I tried to pull myself back together 
without much success.  Not because I was upset over you or the 
clinic, Horowitz, but because he's been my goddamned friend and 
I'm driving him crazy.  I really fucking hate you, Horowitz. 
 
And he set his glasses aside, looking more tired than ever. "We had 
a plant in Wilkinson's house.  Someone observing him.  That's how 
they got the pictures, how I figured out it was you.  We knew his 
daily routine within five to fifteen minutes at most."  Without 
putting it into so many words, he had told me that he knew, knew 
everything that Wilkinson had done.  All of it.  Every last fucking 
bit.  

And although I was really upset, Horowitz, I have to give him 
Point Seven, because he'd known all along and been decent enough 
to let me work through it without holding my hand, or pitying me, 
or nagging me to do my fucking journal every goddamned time 
you call him when I've missed.  He'd known and given me some 
dignity back by letting me have some privacy.

I told him it didn't fucking matter, then, and to go ahead and open 
it up and then fucking send it to you, Horowitz.

He got up and came over to sit by me, put his hand on my 
shoulder.  I told him to leave me the fuck alone, and folded down 
on the bed, just holding onto my knees.  Hating him, hating 
you, and hating Wilkinson.  I hated him for knowing.  Does that 
make you happy to know, Horowitz?  Doesn't that make you 
squirm in your chair?  

I hated him for knowing. 
 
He rubbed my shoulders until I stopped crying, then left me alone 
without saying anything more. 
 
So you'll get your fucking pages, Horowitz, and you'll be happy 
and Skinner will be happy and I won't. 
 
 
February 10 
 
You won't let it go, will you, you just push and push and push me 
to the fucking wall.  

All right, you bitch, you want to squirm?  Here, be my guest, I'll 
give you the details of what you asked, I'll give you the down and 
dirty on What I Did During My Summer Vacation.

Just remember, it doesn't fucking matter, I made it, I'm here, and it 
doesn't matter.  It doesn't change who I am or what I can do or 
anything else. 
 
I got taken back to Wilkinson's room that first time while I was 
still asleep, he'd drugged the food or something, I didn't even wake 
up when they hauled me out of the cell.  I woke up naked and cold 
on a medical table with my heels in the air with my feet fastened 
into stirrups.  Am I stupid, Horowitz?  Did I think this was okay?  
What the hell do you think, Horowitz? 
 
Damned straight I didn't.  I knew I was in real trouble again.  But 
what difference did it make, Horowitz, it was just like Volkman 
only not in the name of science.  It doesn't matter any more 
than that, no matter what Freudian ideas you have under that blue-
gray wig of yours. 
 
Where were we?  Oh, right.  Wilkinson me trussed up on a medical 
exam table.  You know, the kind with the stirrups?  Imagine what 
he used that for, Horowitz.  I'm sure you're intelligent enough to 
figure that out.  Why he had my feet up. Just imagine yourself, 
Horowitz, with your legs up in the air and your pussy exposed, 
huh?  Ah, I forgot, women do that all that time, don't they, it's a 
part of the drill.  Men just have to turn their heads and cough. 

No, Wilkinson wasn't supposed to do permanent damage. What a 
fucking joke.  Tell that to somebody when it's hooked to their cock 
and balls and the switch gets flipped.  Think of all the voltage 
required to run your car's electrical system, and think about it 
applied to your tender pink parts.  Oh, but wait, the best is yet to 
come. 

My dad used to beat me if I cried.  Men aren't supposed to scream. 
Oh, I screamed plenty, I can tell you.  I'm no a fucking hero, and 
after all Volkman's fun and games, I'd stopped caring who heard 
me scream.   Try hooking up a car battery to your nipples, 
Horowitz, and see how it feels,  see if you don't scream.  Ah, I 
forgot, you'd probably get off on it, wouldn't  you.  Try your 
fingertips just to see how loaded with nerve endings they are, 
I'll guarantee an epiphany that beats getting religion. 

I read somewhere that true S&M enthusiasts are wired differently 
than most people.  That the receptors for pain and pleasure are 
either indistinguishable or very, very close.  I'm happy to 
report, Horowitz, that in this one instance, I fall into the normal 
range of experience.  My pain receptors work very differently from 
those for pleasure.

Wilkinson preferred pain, of course, it was sooooo much more fun, 
so hot, so arousing.  Well, at least when he was inflicting it.  Early 
on, before I re-learned about not fighting back, I kicked him in his 
scrawny little ass and he didn't like it, not one little bit.

That first night, even with his underdeveloped little cat dick, I 
could see he was hard.  He liked using little metal rods to snap 
down against bare flesh.   In the little slot where your thighs join 
your body, Horowitz.   Across the soles of your feet.  Imagine 
that.  They say Lawrence got some of that, way back when in the 
olden days, but he got away from the Turks and fell in love with 
the Arabs.  Happy ending. 
 
Is that what you like, Horowitz? Hearing about that?  Hearing 
about what it felt like?  Well, let me give you a real treat, 
Horowitz.   After the first time he'd done me, I was ready to 
scream when they came for me in my cell.  Because I knew where I 
was going.  What was going to happen to me.  I didn't think I 
could survive it the second time.

So the next time, he got maximum pleasure from minimum effort.  
Ah, the man loved his hobby, he did, he was dedicated to it.  And I 
managed to survive a lot of those sessions.  Not that I wanted to. 

I screamed every time.  Fucking girly screams, believe me, 
Horowitz.  Like a fucking banshee.  And I don't give a shit what 
you think of that, in your lousy chintz covered office, doing your 
little needlepoint projects to cover your fucking Art Deco chairs.   
He put clamps on my nipples and tugged on them now and then 
just to remind me who had all the power.  All the control. 

By now, I'd imagine you're squirming good, Horowitz, all wet and 
creamy inside those tailored slacks you wear.  Well, take 'em off, 
because now we get to the nitty gritty.   The stuff you've 
really been waiting for. 

Yes, Horowitz, you're right, he didn't fuck me, that implies 
consensual decision.  He fucking raped me.  How's that?  Not good 
enough?  How about he fucking raped me with his alter-penis after 
he'd hurt me enough to make me scream myself hoarse. 
 
He kept calling me Fox.  Volkman had called me by a number.  
4375.  but Wilkinson preferred the intimate touch.  A man not 
afraid of exploring his more tender nature, was Wilkinson. 
 
"How does that feel, Fox, tell me?" 
 
And I'd scream at him to stop, finally, when I couldn't bite through 
my lip anymore.  There's this little scar on the bottom of my lower 
lip that no one ever asks me about.  It's from my teeth.  I've got a 
few other scars from teeth, too, but those are from Wilkinson's. 

Does it satisfy you, Horowitz, knowing that I screamed?  Shall I 
describe how his fucking dildo was so huge it felt like it tore me 
apart?  That it made my gut cramp painfully, that I couldn't get the 
breath to scream from the sensation of being split in two?   

Does that get you off, thinking about that? 

I hate Freudians.  I really hate you, Horowitz, and if it was possible 
to get control of my own life and get myself out from under 
Skinner's thumb any other way, I'd dig my heels in and fuck you if I 
came down or wrote this shit.  

You're so focused on the sexual aspect you're missing the real 
point.  It wasn't any different that Volkman no matter what 
Volkman called it.  It was just that Volkman wasn't honest 
enough to get off on it visibly. 

The worst part of it was knowing that if I screamed, that really 
tripped his trigger. The hardest and scariest part of it was learning 
to gauge him. 

Get this, Horowitz?  I was good enough all my life to piss off 
everyone who ever got close to me and I was good enough to do it 
with Wilkinson, too.  Tsk, so afraid of intimacy, I had to set him 
up to really torture me until he wore out, because I don't think his 
entire staff en masse could have prevented him from killing me.  I 
may have been totally fucked up by that time, Horowitz, but my 
brain cells were still working.  I had to use everything I'd learned in 
profiling to egg him on.   And even give him ideas, natch, because, 
as I've said before, he wasn't all that bright.  Why, guess who came 
up with the pliers gig, Horowitz?  You guessed it, I gave him that 
little detail during one of our question and answer sessions.  He 
was soooo grateful for all my creative ideas.

Can you dance to that beat Horowitz? I give it a 79, decent lyrics, 
but I can't dance to it.  You wanna do therapeutic work, you need 
to get down to the real stuff, Horowitz, instead of focusing on how 
it felt to be a victim.  I wasn't a victim, I turned myself over to 
them, deliberately, have you fucking forgotten that?  I can add that 
to my resume, I could call it expert at baiting psychopaths or 
something.  If the bottom ever falls out of UNCLE, I could 
really go to work as an insolent sub in the S&M district, and I'd 
outearn all those little pansies who think that mouthing off is 
enough.  "I've been a bad boy, master." 
 
Puh-lease.  How about, "I've been a bad boy, master, and I'll 
continue to be a bad boy because I can't even feel that cat-dick 
when you get it up, and let's not forget what Lawrence 
Biedermaier did to his victims, if you had any balls at all, you'd get 
some pliers and really teach me some manners."

Jesus, Horowitz, get a fucking clue.  I have a whole box of them 
here I'll  give you for free.  Want me to bring a textbook down 
next time? 
 
I'd tell him he was hung like a midget, that he had a cat dick, that 
of course it didn't hurt to be raped by him, I couldn't even feel it.  
Which wasn't strictly true, because he generally used objects 
instead of his own cock.  

But it got him worked up nicely and he'd have them string me up 
and whip me until I passed out. Sometimes with a riding crop, 
sometimes with a piece of electrical wire, sometimes with 
a leather strap or belt. 

I thought the wire showed a lot of imagination, Horowitz.  
Wilkinson was absolutely gifted.  I'm not sure you can see the scars 
any more from the riding crop, but the marks from the wire are 
indelible.  I look like the bride of Frankenstein naked, all different 
pieces stitched together.  I can't wait to try and get a tan.  

It's possible to actually ejaculate when someone is hurting you, but 
I can't call it a really good come, frankly.  I've definitely had better.  
Sorry if that spoils your fantasies. 

Do you know how many ways can you rape someone?  Even given 
human sexual creativity, biology is ultimately limiting, but 
Wilkinson had my memory and the imagination of hundreds 
of serial killers to spur him on.   Anally, orally, different positions, 
putting little glass rods into my urethra and threatening to break it.  
Or his little metal rod.  I was there nine months.  If you knock off 
about three months of time for the periods between visits, and the 
times I was healing, I'd conservatively estimate that, with six 
months left, he partied down with me about 180 to 200 times, so 
he began to repeat himself after a while. 
 
It wasn't quite as long as the Arabian Nights, Horowitz. 
 
Oh, Horowitz, those needle nosed pliers.  And weren't they fun? 
Are your nipples hard yet?  I'll bet you're really squirming now, 
Horowitz, so I'll be nice to you and tell you all about it.  He 
used them on my nipples and my cock and on my balls and once, 
just for fun, he put them up my ass and kept opening them in there.  
I bled quite a bit that time. 
 
So, not only did I have to scheme and connive to get him to hurt 
me enough to get him off, I had to tell him stories, like the fucking 
1001 Arabian Nights. 

Only, unlike the girl in the story, I wasn't going to be killed in the 
morning, but I had pretty good odds on not surviving the night. 
 
Get this straight, you silly bitch, rape is not sex.  It did not turn me 
homosexual, it did not break me.  If pain was going to break me, it 
would have broken me under Volkman's long-term care.  I never 
developed a taste for taking it up the ass, I never developed a taste 
for cock.  Have we got that straight, is that what you've been 
digging for all this time?  Is that what you wanted?  Do you think 
I'm lying up here at night secretly wishing that Skinner 
climbs into my bed one night and slips me the big kahuna? 
 
Really, Horowitz, I might have expected better, even from a 
fucking Freudian. 
 
And what you still don't get is that it doesn't fucking matter.  What 
matters is that is that I went willingly into that darkness, that I sold 
myself for a lie and spent nearly three years believing it and let 
them hurt me.  Even a fucking Freudian should see that, Horowitz. 
 
I'm not a victim.  I'm not like the people I've seen on cases, I came 
through it.  I'm a survivor and I'm tired of thinking about it and 
having you fucking push me to tell you each little thought that 
went through my head.  You wanna know what went through 
my head when Wilkinson was raping me? It was something like 
this, oh, good, he's done, he'll let me get some sleep 
now. 
 
Fact, Horowitz. 
 
You wanna know what went through my head when Watts raped 
me?  Oh, good, he doesn't need to hurt me to get it up and get off.  
And on top of that, I was more grateful for the bath than for that.  
Usually, I had to go back to my cell sticky and sweaty and smelling 
of Wilkinson.   He bathed me before, not after. 
 
I'm so glad Wilkinson's dead, I don't even mind that Watts did it.  
And I'm starting to think I'm glad to be alive.  So let me be alive, 
goddammit, and leave me the hell alone about what happened.  
You wanna do pretend therapy, let's work on why I was so 
desperate to save Scully that I was willing to let them kill me. 
 
 
Feb 20 
 
Walt says I have to send you something to day.  Fuck off, 
Horowitz, how's that? 

Feb 21 
 
Well, I'm fine, Horowitz, just as fine as anyone in my situation 
would be anyway. 
 
I surely do appreciate the phone call-so kind of you to show 
concern for my welfare.  I still say fuck you, Horowitz.  You 
belong with the Mengeles.  But not with UNCLE.  And since I 
still don't want to end up down at the clinic drooling and staring at 
the wall, I'll toss you another little bone.   If only to reiterate my 
point that Walt's a better therapist than you.

A goddamned ex-marine, former Assistant Director with the FBI, 
an Admin of Justice kind of guy, and he can do the work better 
than you.

Tell you what, I'll take over Walt's job and you take him on as an 
associate. 

Skinner left me alone after we talked.  All that night and the entire 
next day, except for making me eat something around noon and 
again around eight.  He didn't say anything to me, just brought it in 
and set it down and sat in that fucking chair with a book, reading, 
until I ate it. 

Please note, he left me alone, let me process what he'd told me, 
gave me time to think about it and get used to it, and just generally 
integrate it, even if I was never really going to be okay with 
knowing that he and every fucking data analyst in UNCLE 
has a voyeur's view of what Wilkinson did to me. 

Tonight, I nearly leapt out of my skin when he tapped at the door 
and barely managed to find enough of a voice to answer him when 
he asked if he could come in again.  He'd brought me a Sam 
Adams and very gently ragged on it as snob beer before handing it 
to me and taking his chair. 

Two things, here, Horowitz, although I think they're probably 
really the same thing.  One, he knocked on my door.  He respected 
my privacy and my frame of mind.  Two, he treated me like I was a 
real person, not a fucking patient. 

I'm thinking about having a sign put on the chair that says 
"Property of the US Marines" since he uses it and I hardly ever do.  
 
Of course, he had his own weasel piss brand for himself. 

I muttered something and pushed myself up against the pillows and 
fiddled with the cap for a while because I wasn't honestly sure I 
could stomach it. 
 
But once the cap was off, I took a sip.  

Skinner popped the cap off his own and took a drink, leaning back 
in the chair.  "I'm sorry.  But if you wrote it, I thought it was 
important." 

Important note.  He apologized to me.  Instead of just giving me 
that Freudian justification rap you use, he apologized to me.

"I'm not going to let you read my textbooks anymore." 
 
A faint smile.  "That's not Jungian, Mulder, that's just common 
sense.  As much as you hate to write for her, when you do, you 
usually go for the real stuff." 
 
Ah, Horowitz, see how astute he is?  How observant?  How 
analytical?  No wonder UNCLE wanted him.  

I took a sip of beer and nodded.   "I know I'm not the easiest 
person to deal with." 
 
"A lot easier than I used to think," Skinner told me and took 
another sip. 
 
No, Horowitz, neither of us grunted or scratched our balls.  I 
managed what was meant to be a wry smile.  "Thanks." 
 
A Skinner shrug.  Those linebacker shoulders barely twitching.   
"You're doing fine," he told me suddenly and gave me a long look.  
"Mulder, you don't realize how well you're doing.  You're the 
strongest, most contrary son of a bitch I've ever met and I'm 
damned glad of it.  I had visions of it taking years before you could 
function again, and Horowitz didn't give me any theories to the 
contrary.  You still have bad bouts, but hell, that's just human.  
Give yourself a little slack." 
 
Bingo, Horowitz, another thing.  He has faith in my strength.  
Sometimes more than I have, but he's got it.

"I'm not trying to be hard on myself, I'm trying to get past it, I 
don't want to remember it or think about it." 
 
He sighed.  "Remember what I said when we first talked about it?  
What you don't remember can ambush you.  I can't see either of us 
in law enforcement again, but suppose you do find something?"  
His mouth twitched.  "A Canadian Mounted Policeman." 

Which was so ludicrous it was funny.  Humor would not go amiss 
in our sessions, Horowitz, but I mention it as a point of personal 
style.  If you can't manage it, I understand. 

I looked down at the beer bottle.  "I don't ride anything that isn't 
motorized." 
 
"I told you, effete."  We exchanged an amused look and he 
continued.  "If you get into that, what's going to help you if you've 
suppressed all this and suddenly you're faced with a victim of 
something similar.  An investigation of someone like Wilkinson.  
You're going to have a goddamned hard time.  Like you did in 
Lake Okebogee." 

I'm not going to go into the conversation about Okebogee and 
what Scully told him and what she didn't tell him, it's not relevant.  
But I actually laughed.  

It died out fairly quickly.  "Real men don't get raped."

I mean, he already knew, I wasn't hiding anything, and I know he 
read the pages he sent down to you, he told me he did, and he told 
me that he thought I should send them, but that if I didn't want to, 
he'd respect that and destroy them.

Respect, Horowitz.  Another key element in a therapeutic 
relationship.  
 
He just looked at me, that hair-raisingly Zen expression on his face 
again.  "Tell that to the Aryan Brotherhood." 
 
Now, I gotta admit, Horowitz, you do that Freudian serenity pretty 
well, but I suspect it's only because you're trying to decide on 
whether or not you need the electric cattle prod.

"Thanks for the comparison, I already have an inferiority complex 
from hanging around you." 
 
He grinned.  "Good that something keeps you humble, Mulder." 
 
So I flipped him off.   
 
We sat a little while longer.  "I'm not a victim." 
 
He took another sip and tipped his head back.  "How would you 
describe yourself, then?"  

 Very calm, but not so fucking uninflected that I know he's taking 
little notes in his head like you:  patient is uncooperative, patient is 
deflecting, patient is being a pain in the ass. 

 "A survivor." 
 
"Sure you are, I just told you, you're one of the strongest human 
beings I've ever met."  He leaned back and looked at me again, 
dead on.  Why did I ever think he was that fucking Grey's toady?  
Even when he was under the gun, he didn't pussy foot around 
things.  "That doesn't mean you weren't a victim then, it means you 
aren't now." 
 
He says the hard things, Horowitz, but he doesn't badger me.  
Another thing for you to remember, and we might actually make 
some headway.

"I turned myself into them."     

His brows drew together.  "Does that make you any less a victim?  
Scully was a victim, too, they did that to her and you were 
desperate to save her.  They put you in that position." 
 
"I made the choice," I told him and laced my fingers together to 
stop them from shaking, you know, the way I do when I'm sitting 
on the end of the couch.
 
"So you were still in control?  Mulder, they drove you and drove 
you and you never had a fucking choice at all.  Not given who you 
are, who you were.  And they fucking knew it."   
 
I could hear the anger underlying the soft tone and looked up at 
him.  He looked intense and hard, like he did when he was AD.  
When he was reading me the riot act over something.  But I don't 
think he was mad at me. 

You know what, Horowitz, that anger makes me feel better.  You 
just sit there and stitch like Volkman didn't do anything worse to 
me than give me antibiotics when I was allergic to them. 

"I made the choice," I said again, but I had that burning sensation 
behind my eyes and nose again and my voice was a little ragged. 
 
He got up to sit on the bed next to me and reached out to turn my 
face to look at him.  Very gently.  "You had no choice.  Not the 
way you felt about  Scully.  Not after what Cancerman made me 
do.  Not after digging my ass back out of that.  They drove you in 
the direction they wanted you to move in, and they did just what 
they wanted.  If they'd killed you openly, or arranged an accident, 
they knew Scully or I would have raised all kinds of riot.  And 
your mom would have suspected." 

Please note the difference, Horowitz, he was pushing me, but not 
hard, not so fucking hard that I have to back up into the corner.  
He doesn't take another stitch and then give me that fucking 
Freudian question, "Why do you think so?"

He knows me better. 

I wrapped my arms around my chest and tucked my hands under 
my arms the way I do, ya know, when you're pushing really hard .  
I couldn't even see enough to focus on his face.  And I couldn't 
answer him. 
 
And he kept on.  "They could have faked a suicide, sure, with you 
as the body on the floor.  But they had more than one interest in 
you, there was more than one group driving that plan.  When you 
contacted him, Grey put it into play." 
 
I closed my eyes.  I didn't want to listen to him.  I didn't want to 
hear him.   But whatever you may think, Horowitz, I'm not a 
fucking fool.  "Maybe," I finally whispered. 
 
"They hurt you."  It was a whisper.  "They made you a victim.  But 
you're the one who made you a survivor." 
 
He gave me credit for not being a victim anymore, Horowitz, 
which is one helluva lot than you've ever done.  You're so focused 
on my being a victim, you won't let me be a survivor.

I finally just cried.  This time, Walt put an arm over my shoulders, 
just tightened down and let me cry.   
 
For a long time.  I ended up lying on my side, just huddled with 
him rubbing my back, feeling a lot like I did the first few weeks I 
was here.  I've been feeling that way since then and I want to thank 
you for really fucking me around and listening to what the fuck I 
tell you. 
 
I really hate you, Horowitz.  Walt's better at it than you are, so 
choke on it.  A man with a master in Admin of Justice is better 
than you.   And I just showed you why. 


February 26 
 
Horowitz, if you weren't Freudian, I would kiss you.  I'm actually 
going to get to go see my mother, see a real city, if we can actually 
refer to Calgary as a real city, maybe find a good bagel place, eat 
cheesy meals at fast food places, and all that wonderful urbanite 
jazz. 
 
I've been here, as Skinner pointed out to me, six months.  I don't 
get vertigo anymore, except a little on the roof if I'm not careful, 
but I personally think that's not altogether unjustified.  I still limp 
just a little bit, but even that is starting to get better as my muscles 
remember how they're supposed to work, instead of how they've 
worked for the last year and whatever.  I  have a reasonably 
healthy relationship with a woman.  I still have nightmares, but 
Skinner rarely shows up in the room in the middle of the night, 
which I find obscurely reassuring.  And the nightmares I do have 
usually wake me up enough to roll over and go back to sleep 
tuned to a different station. 
 
I still have a way to go in the weight department but I have, lo and 
behold,  reached the unheard weight of 160.  You'd have thought 
Skinner had accomplished that by himself, he went around with 
this sort of smug look on  his face after I announced it the other 
morning.  I still have to belt up my jeans pretty tight, but Cassie 
says I don't look so much like I've gotten hit in the ass with a 
shovel and she purrs as she runs her fingers over it. 
 
I still have scars, Horowitz, and always will.  Not just on the 
outside, on the inside.  I don't believe in much of anything 
anymore, not even the beliefs that once kept me going.  I don't 
want to believe in much of anything right now.  At the moment, it's 
enough to be alive and trying to figure out if Skinner needs an 
assistant, since his data intrigues me a lot, what he lets me see of it. 
 
And he frequently looks thoughtful and jots down notes when I 
give him  some bit of speculation or information. 
 
It's not quite as much fun as the Ghostbusters idea, I admit, but it 
also has the added advantage of helping stick it to the bastards 
who had so much fun turning me into psychological hamburger and 
a physical gimp. 
 
When I get back, Horowitz, you and I are going to do some 
serious re-negotiation, and of course I'm not keeping the fucking 
journal in Calgary,  you know that.  But I appreciate your agreeing 
that I was legally compos mentis, for a change, and I can't find the 
right way to say that to really make you understand how much. 
 
I'm going to miss Cassie when I'm in Calgary.  That doesn't 
surprise me all that much.  I was always pretty obsessive, too 
obsessive to allow relationships to interfere with the work.  But 
what the hell-some of my fire's  gone out, I guess.  What does 
surprise me is that I'm going to miss Skinner.  

I used to hide in the basement to avoid potential confrontations.  
Like I said,  Horowitz, I do have certain problems dealing with 
authority figures.   
 
He still is an authority figure in some ways, but that's not why I let 
him grouch at me and behave myself for him and even-when you 
pulled your little fascist maneuver the other week-got into the Sno-
Cat without pinging off the walls and doors and let Julie Wilson 
drive me to your office so I could scream at you.  

I guess I do it because he's my friend.  That's a strange concept for 
someone who didn't have a lot of friends.  And who frequently lost 
the ones he did because of what he believed. 
 
So, try not to miss me too much, Horowitz.  Heh.  You've 
probably vacated the guardianship order just so you don't have to 
put up with me for a while.  You're not all bad for a Freudian, 
Horowitz, I want you to know that.  Even when you made me 
grind my teeth, you really did give me a lot of leeway to work 
things out myself, a lot more than I'd have expected from most 
Freudians, who seem to like having that power trip when they deal 
with their patients. 
 
Thanks. 
 
 
April 15 
 
In times past, Horowitz, I would have been banging my head on 
the walls trying to get my taxes filed on time.  I'm a nonperson, 
now.  I don't have to.  I never thought there would be so 
many advantages to being dead. 
 
Long time no see, Diary.  The visit in Calgary stretched and 
stretched when my mom fell down and broke her hip.  Jesus, what 
a mess. 
 
Actually, it could have been worse.  Cassie came down for a week 
to help me with her, and Skinner stopped by on his way from the 
mountain to somewhere else, told me I was looking good. 
 
He's just glad I got my hair cut, Horowitz, he was starting to feel 
uneasy about his attraction to my long, lovely locks.  And if that 
doesn't get some remark tomorrow, I'll eat my arctic boots with 
McDonald's secret sauce.  It's still kind of wintry up here, which 
seems strange after Calgary, but it's starting to show those little 
signs of spring on the way.   
 
Anyway, my mom's all right and she shooed me off, which I was 
glad to see, because I swear I nearly had a close encounter with 
that ratfuck Krycek.  My paranoia meter started beeping 
really fast those last few days there.  
 
I hope to God it wasn't Krycek.  I'm sure it wasn't, his hair was too 
long and his face was too old.  But it has been three years and I 
wasn't sure for a minute. 
 
If I hadn't cut my hair, I doubt he would have recognized me.  But 
it was still out of regs for an FBI agent, and maybe I was far 
enough away from him that he didn't see me.   
 
It spooked me badly, as you can tell, Horowitz.  I lurked around 
my mom's house until it was time to go to the airfield and catch a 
ride with Skinner, on his way back from New York or somewhere 
exotic.  And he got me bagels. 
 
I'm telling you, maybe I need to throw Cassie over for Skinner.   
 
Heh.  Fat chance.  Skinner may have bagels, but Cassie-speaking 
of which, she wasn't here when I got back yesterday and I admit to 
disappointment over that.  I haven't seen her for almost a month. 
 
Julie Wilson told me that she thought Cassie had gone down to 
visit her aunt and uncle and waved her hand kind of vaguely.  Her 
cousin, Richard has temporarily taken over.  I didn't even know she 
had a cousin. I only knew about her aunt and uncle. 
 
And it worries me.  I know I'm not exactly the greatest catch in the 
world, but I'd kind of hoped we were both going to find our way 
past the urge to flee.  It hurts a little. 
 
Anyway, I'm back.  Be afraid, Horowitz, be very afraid. 
 
 
April 20 
 
 
We're back in business, Horowitz, because I admit, I'm not in good 
shape.  
 
Cassie came back about a week ago--which I didn't know about--
and suddenly Skinner shows up while I'm going over maps and 
marking coordinates and tells me he needs to talk to me. 
 
So I put down the maps and eye him uncertainly, a little worried, 
thinking that he's already told me the worst things I could have 
feared, so why is my stomach kind of knotted up.  Maybe, I 
thought, he's kicking me out, I'm not the easiest roommate in the 
world, although I have managed to stop leaving the cap off the 
toothpaste and smearing it on the counter. 
 
He comes in and hands me a beer.  Weasel piss, I'm out of Sam 
Adams and couldn't find any in Calgary.  He says, "Julie's asked me 
to talk to you."  And "Cassie's really upset and scared right now, 
and Julie thinks it's worth violating confidentiality to tell us why." 
 
I swallowed hard, suddenly worried about her.  "When did she get 
back?" 
 
"Last night."  Skinner popped the cap off his beer and looked at 
me directly.  "This isn't easy, Mulder, I don't generally involve 
myself in other people's personal lives, but I respect Julie's 
judgement.  Cassie is pregnant." 
 
I said something, I don't know what, but I'm afraid I didn't react 
well.  I thought I was going to pass out, and then I thought I was 
going to hyperventilate, and then I thought I was going to 
throw up. 
 
First of all, Horowitz, I had a quest, and that quest really meant 
that I was never going to have the wife and the children and the 
white picket fence.   
 
Second, I had really shitty modeling for parenthood and I figured 
no kid needed Fox "Spooky" Mulder as a parent.  

And third, now, after knowing what I know, I'm afraid to think 
what my genes would create.  I don't know what they did to me as 
a kid, and I don't know what the Mengeles might have done to my 
genetic code and how that would affect any possible offspring. 
 
Fourth, and not least, all I could think about was those semen 
samples and why UNCLE would let Skinner twist arms into 
getting me extracted and the fact that Cassie came on to me when I 
still looked like shit and was only about three breaths away from 
being a head case, and you know where that led.  Can you say 
paranoia?  I knew you could. 
 
"Jesus," By this time, I was on the floor with my back against the 
wall.  "You set me up,  I trusted you and you set me up." 
 
Skinner, naturally, looked alarmed, but he stayed calm.  "Set you 
up how, Mulder?" 
 
"The pregnancy.  They wanted my genes." 
 
I saw him think about it, saw that jaw tighten in a way that used to 
presage either tightlipped orders or a royal reaming.  "That can't 
be, Mulder.  I've known Cassie for two years, she and her ex-
husband were divorced because she was told she wouldn't 
ever conceive."  But it was a thoughtful voice, he was turning 
things over in his mind and re-examining them, and I managed to 
come back to earth again. 
 
"I'm sorry," I told him and folded my shaking arms around myself.  
"I just--" 
 
He nodded when I shrugged.  "Besides, if this was the plan, Cassie 
didn't know about it, she's damned near hysterical, Mulder.  She 
wants to abort, but Julie thinks it's important-"  Skinner looked 
down at his beer.  "As a kid, Cassie's parents were abducted, along 
with Cassie.  Only Cassie was returned.  She was about ten.  Julie 
believes there were alterations made to her genetic structure.  
Alterations like yours." 
 
About this time, I really did start to hyperventilate.  Great.  Double 
jeopardy.  I checked for the inhaler on the table beside the bed, just 
in case my lungs also decided to close down and rubbed my face 
with both hands.  "So Julie believes what?" I asked, not managing 
more than a whisper. 
 
He turned the beer can in his hands, round and round.  I watched 
it, half-hypnotized.  Anything to distract me from what I was 
feeling.  "Julie thinks that this could be important." 
 
I'm not ashamed to tell you, Horowitz, that was when I made my 
dash to the bathroom and lost what I'd eaten for lunch.  And 
possibly breakfast.  I was in there for a while, sitting with 
my back against the wall and trying to think past the unreasoning 
terror.   
 
After a while, Skinner got tired of waiting for me to return and 
came to sit on his heels in the bathroom doorway.  "Mulder, there 
are some tests Julie would like to do.  Cassie thinks that-that the 
child is going to be a monster because of what was done to you 
both.  Julie doesn't agree.  Julie's not a geneticist, but she's gotten 
DNA tests on both of you and sent them to someone who is." 
 
"Don't bullshit me," I told him raggedly, "I know how little they 
really know about human DNA.  It takes them years to discover 
what a gene code does.  They just figured out Huntington's 
Chorea not long ago and they'd been working on that for one 
helluva long time.  Oh, Christ, I can't believe this.  I've been doing 
safe sex since before it was a public health concept, and I 
haven't given it one fucking thought since I got back." 
 
He sighed and settled back to sit cross-legged on the floor.  
"Mulder, punishing yourself for what's happened isn't constructive.  
Cassie didn't want you to know about this, she was that 
hysterical.  What Julie would like is for you to talk to Cassie about 
the tests.  If she's still insistent on aborting, it's her choice, no one's 
going to harass or bother her about it." 
 
Drawing my knees up, I rested my elbows on them, put my head in 
my hands.  "Bloody 
fucking hell." 
 
Skinner made a sound, like a smothered chuckle.  "The benefits of 
an Oxford education." 
 
I wasn't laughing.  Blinking hard, I tried to think sensibly.  We 
were both adults, what the hell had we been thinking?  I hadn't 
been, that much was clear.  Maybe some buried psychological need 
to celebrate life after having been in hell for so long.  And now 
Cassie was paying for it.  "Where is she?" 
 
"Down at Julie's.  Julie's just trying to keep her calm and thinking 
right now." 
 
"I need to get down there."  I wiped my face on my sleeve and 
looked over at him.  
 
"I'll drive you," he told me, "We've had enough snowmelt, and I've 
gotten the four wheel drive out of winter mothballs." 
 
So to speak.  I did manage a faint smile at that, got up and found 
my boots and coat, and followed him out to the shanty. 
 
We didn't speak on the way to Julie Wilson's.   
 
When I walked in, Cassie gave Julie an utterly betrayed look and 
ran into the back of the house.  I ran after her, and since my legs 
are longer, caught her  before she got out the back door.  I'm not 
good at the crisis stuff, Horowitz, but I figured even an idiot like 
me could just hold her until she stopped crying and trying to get 
away. 
 
"You don't understand," she wept.  "You just don't understand." 
 
I had no idea what she meant, but was willing to bet it was 
whatever Julie had said to her.  And holding her, despite all the 
betrayal, despite everything, I couldn't believe that Cassie had 
done this to me as a trick.   
 
"Shhh."  I stroked her hair.  "Cassie, please don't be afraid to tell 
me things."  It came out with difficulty.  The only relationship I 
tried hard to save was the one with Phoebe, and while I realize 
we've only touched on that lightly in sessions and once in my 
journals, trust me, I fought hard for that one, which is why it's 
taken me this long to even consider having another one.  It's why I 
wasted time not telling Scully how I felt about her, why I don't talk 
to people about how I feel, why it's taken me twenty-seven years 
to let somebody get close to me, and why I just grouch back at 
Skinner instead of saying, hey, man, I love you, give me a Sam 
Adams instead of that puke Bud Lite.    
 
There was more crying, and she wasn't the only one, and we finally 
sat on the kitchen floor with our backs against the door and she 
told me about her parents and how she didn't remember for a long 
time, but when she did, she was recruited by someone working for 
UNCLE.   
 
Do you realize, Horowitz, I still don't even know what this 
organization calls itself?   
 
Anyway, she also told me about her ex-husband, who makes me 
look like a prince, which explains a lot about this relationship.  And 
she told me about having been told that she was sterile.  Not 
infertile, but sterile.  That it killed her marriage, because her 
asshole of an ex-husband had this thing about seeing his genes 
replicated.   
 
Whereas it makes me nauseated to think about that.. 
 
I managed to hide that.  I talked to her about having the tests.  I 
talked to her about my own fears.  And I finally put my arm around 
her and said, "Cassie, whatever you want to do, it's your body and 
I'll support you.  If you decide to have the tests done and there's 
something wrong, I'll argue with them for abortion.  If you have 
the tests and everything's all right, and you decide to abort, I'll still 
support you.  And if you have the tests and everything's all right, 
I'm probably going to be a jerk and panic and have all kinds of 
problems, but I'll be there if you decide to have the baby.  I'll give 
you whatever I can." 
 
That got a kind of watery smile.  "I can live with your kind of jerk, 
Mulder." 
 
I leaned down and kissed her.  We sat there for a while longer, 
mostly to calm both of us back down.  And finally, Cassie sighed 
and got up.  "I'd better tell Julie, I guess."  Her mouth trembled.  "I 
don't want to drag this out." 
 
I nodded.   "I know."  She held out a  hand and pulled me up and 
we went in together. 
 
I wasn't sure what she was going to tell Julie.  But at this point, I 
was honestly willing to do whatever she chose.  I wasn't 
comfortable with the idea of becoming a father, of course-that 
may be the understatement of the century, I was scared shitless-
but I put a little of the old Mulder stubbornness into it. 
 
Skinner says I was dead white when we came out, which was 
probably emotional exhaustion.   
 
Cassie said, "All right, Julie, you can do your tests.  But I'm not 
going to decide until I see what the results are." 
 
I love it, putting off the decision.  It probably kept me from 
throwing up again. 
 
That was on April 13.  A couple of days went by, since Julie 
Wilson isn't an OB/GYN and she wanted to get someone up here 
who was really good.  On April 16, Cassie went in and had some 
kind of test.  I think it had something to do with chorionic villi?  I 
may be imagining things or be out to lunch. 
 
On April 18, Julie Wilson's Jeep pulled up the hill and she and 
Cassie got out.  I was out cleaning up some of the shit that winter 
does to the outside of the house and the hill when they pulled up.   
 
Cassie got out and came to put her arms around my waist and her 
face in my shirt. 
 
Julie Wilson, by contrast, was smiling.  
 
My stomach promptly tied itself into a knot.  "Come on in," I told 
them, barely managing to keep my voice from shaking.  Funny, I 
didn't have any urge to rage at anyone about this, I wasn't angry, I 
was terrified.  I'd failed Scully when she needed me.  I didn't want 
to fail Cassie. 
 
Julie went in.  Cassie didn't.  "There are no abnormalities," she told 
my shirt.

I swallowed.  "What do you want to do?" 
 
She burst into tears.  We ended up sitting on the cement step, with 
Cassie in my lap, until she cried herself out.  Then, in a whisper, 
she told me what her decision was.  It turns out that she's about 
thirteen weeks along, she probably got pregnant in the little burst 
of carnality that occurred after I got my walking cast off. 
 
So, I guess I'm going to be a father, Horowitz.  I asked her if she 
wanted me to move in with her, she said no, not right now, she's 
trying to cope with all this and she doesn't think she can cope with 
a relationship.  And I'm just whacko enough that I'm both relieved 
and disappointed about that. 
 
So, we're back in business and I spent yesterday's entire session 
talking about my father.  It ain't hard to see where that's coming 
from. 
 
I know you wanted me to write about all this, Horowitz, but I'm 
done now.  I don't want to journal anymore.  I've got other things 
to think about. 
 
 
June 28 
 
The Jokemeister is having a great time with me.  I finally told my 
mother about the impending arrival and she's thrilled.  I think she 
sees it as the first normal thing I've done, as if knocking someone 
up is all that's required to be normal. 
 
Jesus, my family is dysfunctional.  Fuck, the entire world is 
dysfunctional, what am I talking about?  What the hell are we 
thinking, bringing a kid into this environment? 
 
At least I'm officially initiated into UNCLE and I'm working with 
Skinner, even though we spend most of our time zapping email 
back and forth.  I moved in with Cassie last week.    

They didn't even haze me.  Not even so much as making me run 
around in my underwear.  I told Skinner no way was I going to 
carry an olive around up my butt, which got me the most 
incredulous look, especially after I told him that one of the guys I 
knew in Quantico swears that this particular hazing ritual actually 
took place at Hamilton College as late as 1982. 
 
He did tell me that the olive thing sounded like the most disgusting 
thing he'd ever heard.  
 
I told him he hadn't heard anything yet, after carrying the olive 
around through prescribed tasks, the pledge had to eat it. 
 
I added that I had no proof of that theory, it was second hand 
knowledge. 
 
Skinner cracked up, for no apparent reason and nearly fell down, 
he was laughing so hard.  He's the Eagle Scout, remember, and 
we're actually working on various projects for Cassie's 
house and his, so I stood there with the sander block in my hand 
watching in amazement as Walter Sergei Skinner finally had to sit 
down on his own damned boulder and just whoop like a little kid. 
 
When I finally got sense out of him, he wiped his eyes and told me 
that my last line summed up my entire experience in the X files.  
 
But I'll get him for that, Horowitz. 
 
Cassie's starting to get this round little belly and I have to admit, 
Horowitz, even though I'm scared shitless and even though I've 
never had any particular interest in pregnant women-far from it-I 
find the way she looks is kind of erotic.  Shouldn't I be feeling 
particularly uninterested, viewing her as the sexless, pure, madonna 
figure?  C'mon, Horowitz, what kind of Freudian are you if you 
can't make something out of this that ends up sounding deeply 
disturbed? 
 
Having been small breasted, she has now gotten rather bosomy, 
and I'm trying to say that politely in case she comes up behind me 
and sees this so I can live through the experience of having her 
eavesdrop on my journal. 
 
I like what I'm doing, but I wish I could get out and do some of the 
onsite work.  But having promised that I'd be here for her, I don't 
feel I can leave Cassie behind. 
 
My sister's body was finally located.  They ran all the appropriate 
tests before they told me, and I dutifully went down to Calgary and 
told my mother.  It seemed like a good time to tell her about 
Cassie being pregnant, so I did. 
 
When I got home, I warned Cassie to prepare for an avalanche of 
booties or something. 
 
I do note that I can't quite bring myself to refer to my potential 
offspring as "the baby".  Cassie does and I have tried, but it kind of 
sticks in my throat. 
 
I keep dreaming of tanks containing children in various stages of 
growth.  And all of them have the face I had as a child.  And I 
dream of morphs who look like me coming to get Cassie or my 
mom.  I dream of all kinds of really nasty shit, Horowitz.  Like my 
sister's abduction, which makes sense I guess. 
 
We buried what was left of Sam in a pretty little cemetery in 
Calgary.  My mom cried, but I think it was relief, to finally have 
the certainty, to finally know.  A parent of a victim once told 
me that not knowing was the worst part.  You can't go on and 
heal, you're just suspended, forever, in that eternal moment of hope 
and dread.  And it's finally over for Mom.  Maybe for me, in a way, 
but I'm still so fucking angry.  I want to avenge Scully.  I want to 
avenge Sam and Deep Throat, and X and all the others who have 
lost their lives.  The children in North Carolina.   Everyone on my 
little list.  

Cassie wasn't there, Wilson has prescribed no travel, she's a little 
concerned about something arcane in Cassie's blood work.  And 
Cassie's blood pressure has gotten a little higher, but I've been 
doing my reading,  and it's still in the normal range.  You're an 
MD, what isn't Wilson telling us?  Or, which is more likely, what 
isn't Cassie telling me? 
 
I don't want to lose her.  But I don't know that I'm ready to be the 
kind of man she needs to have around.  I don't know if I ever will 
be.  I don't know what kind of a father I'm going to be.  I think I'm 
going to introduce the kid to his Uncle Walt and say, take him as a 
role model, not me. 
 
Like I said a while back, I think Skinner would be a good role 
model. 
 
He's a good man.  He got caught in a really bad place for a long 
time, and  e really does believe I should have followed procedures 
better, but he was never my enemy.   
 
I'm not such a good man, Horowitz.  They killed my father because 
of my relentlessness, they killed Scully's sister, and they killed 
Scully. 
 
I told Cassie if it turns out to be a girl-and don't tell me Wilson 
doesn't know, I'm not that much of a medical idiot-one of her 
names is going to be Dana.  Or Scully. 
 
She looked at me for a long moment and gave me a bittersweet 
smile.  "I'll take Dana," she told me and went back to trying to take 
an inventory in the shop.  "Scully would sound odd for a first 
name." 
 
Among my other talents is an ability to stack cans quickly.  I don't 
think it will make me famous, but it keeps her from doing it.  I had 
to stop for a minute.  But Cassie has never resented or been 
bothered about my grief over Scully.   

Until now, I hadn't appreciated that enough. 
 
I think Julie Wilson has suddenly gotten the domestic yearning.  
I've been getting the vague impression from various remarks that 
she and Skinner are getting to that stage in a relationship where it's 
a question of who moves where and when and what kind of a 
relationship is it going to be. 
 
Of course, Cassie and I skipped those stages, but I always tended 
to be more impulsive.  Unlike Skinner or Scully.  Hence, we still 
haven't figured that latter question out to anyone's satisfaction. 
 
That's all, Horowitz, see I'm being a good boy and I'm doing what 
you ask me to.   
 
I can see it now, my kid spends years on a therapist's couch 
because his father spends the first seven or eight years of his life on 
one. 
 
 
July 17 
 
It was Krycek after all.   
 
As you know, Wilson's been getting concerned about Cassie.  
Seems Cassie isn't one of those women who just gets pregnant and 
glows.  Her blood pressure is up and her legs and feet get really 
swollen and she snarled at me that if she'd had any idea that I was 
so goddamned virile that I could knock someone up who'd been 
told repeatedly that she was sterile, she'd have shot me instead of 
slept with me. 
 
I guess this is normal.  Skinner gave me a cross between a chuckle 
and a sigh and told me that his ex-wife threatened to emasculate 
him during the entire three months she spent throwing up at the 
drop of a hat. 
 
I felt bad about that.  Maybe I should let Skinner adopt the kid and 
be its dad.  I gather, although not from anything he said, just from 
his sort of avuncular interest in how Cassie's doing, that he really 
would have liked kids.  

At one point, early on, when I was holding my head in my hands 
and moaning about what a goddamned fool I'd been not to ever 
think of the possibility, he shrugged and said there's a way to avoid 
it. 
 
I just looked at him.  Of course, there are ways to avoid 
pregnancy, that was the point of my self-castigation, I hadn't made 
sure we were using any of them.  It's ridiculous to feel like a 
high school kid when you're nearly forty, Horowitz. 
 
But all he did was give me this Skinner-ish look back and say, 
"Can you say vasectomy, Mulder?  I knew you could."  

I pointed out that even those weren't foolproof--no shit, one of the 
guys in VCS got one after his second kid was born and duly 
provided the sample to the doctor to prove he was firing 
blanks after that and two years later his wife catches pregnant.   
They went through a really, really bad patch until he finally went 
back to the urologist and lo, behold, he wasn't firing blanks 
anymore.  It saved their marriage, but his wife was understandably 
cranky with him for a while, and they ended up going into 
counseling through the EAP and he transferred out of 
VCS.  I think he works over in Bank Fraud.  Or did when last I 
knew.  None of which means anything, but Skinner just nodded 
and shrugged again.  

"That's one of those statistical blips," he told me and went on 
making notes on his legal pad. 
 
It's an AD habit he still has.  No wonder I never made it out of the 
basement. 
 
Anyway, I considered it and am still considering it.  I don't know if 
Cassie and I are going to be a long term item, and I don't know if 
I'm fit to be a father or particularly want to be one, but since I am, 
I'm also not sure I want the kid to be an only child. 
 
You see what I mean about MPD?  Are you sure I don't have it, 
Horowitz?  

Is there ever a nice, grown-up, together Mulder who appears in 
your office and decorously talks about what he wants from life, 
like a settled relationship and kids?  I wonder sometimes.  
It sure doesn't feel like me, but sometimes these feelings come out 
of left field and scare me shitless. 
 
I'm avoiding talking about what scares me the most these days.  
Anyway, Wilson decided she wanted Cassie to move down to 
Calgary, ban on traveling or not.  She's got Cassie on 
complete bedrest, and her aunt and uncle came up from down-
mountain to keep the shop going, and my mom leapt to offer her 
home to the mother of her grandchild. 
 
If my life gets any weirder, it could be written up as a Twilight 
Zone episode, Horowitz.   
 
So, I go down with her, mostly because she's not feeling great and 
I'm worried about her so much that I have trouble eating when 
Wilson's showed up to talk to me about how Cassie's really doing.  
I feel like shit because I was irresponsible, I never once asked 
about condoms, I never hiked down to her store to get any on my 
own, and I guess I just kept assuming she was on the pill or 
something. 
 
Or something about covers it.  Not only weren't we practicing safe 
sex, we weren't using birth control.  And while my intellect can 
understand why she wasn't concerned about it, I'm still angry with 
both of us, scared out of my mind, and generally not the best father 
material in the world. 
 
The third day I'm down there, Walt shows up at the door with that 
look in his eye that tells me I'm going to get bad news. 
 
"The house is under surveillance," he tells me and I promptly had 
an anxiety attack. 
 
Fortunately, he made my mother leave, asked her not to tell Cassie, 
and sat quietly with me while I got it together again.  

"It was Krycek," I told him. 
 
God, I remember now why I used to feel just the tiniest bit 
intimidated when I was sitting in his office.  Those eyebrows came 
together and his jaw tightened.  "What was Krycek?"   Turned out, 
I hadn't cc'd him on the pages where I told you about seeing 
Krycek.
 
He has a few bones to pick with Krycek, too, not the least of 
which is throwing a man off Skinner's balcony.  Sure, Krycek was 
handcuffed there at the time, but it isn't exactly quality guest 
behavior to throw third parties off your host's balcony.  It's 
probably not as bad as searching your host's room to find the 
envelope of journal pages you want back, but it certainly got a 
certain amount of attention from the police. 
 
So, I told him about my sighting when I was down visiting my 
mom a few months ago and he hadn't read those pages before he 
turned them in to you, Horowitz, and therefore hadn't known 
about it, and since I didn't actually tell him, no one but me 
knew about it. 
 
"Damn."  Walt took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  "Well, 
we've got some of our security people watching, too.  I'd like 
someone in the house, though." 
 
"I'm in the house," I countered, "I'm considered legally competent, 
just get me a gun." 
 
That got me another look.  An assessing one this time.  "I'll see 
what I can do.  How's Cassie?" 
 
"Cranky and bored."  I flopped back in the chair. 
 
His mouth quirked.  "Pregnant women are moody, Mulder.  It isn't 
personal." 
 
Sounds like sexism to me, Horowitz, but it made enough sense that 
I just nodded.  Moody wasn't the word for it.  Her moods change 
fast enough that I'm seriously beginning to wonder if we don't both 
have MPD.

Just kidding, really, my mother thinks this is all perfectly normal--
which boggles the mind, Horowitz, trying to imagine my mother 
carrying me and having mood swings like that.  I cringe, trying to 
imagine my father's reaction. 
 
Be afraid, Horowitz.  I am now armed. 

 
 
July 20 
 
Gee, Horowitz, I didn't know you cared.  I'm not in fucking regular 
session with you anymore, will you just chill out?  Emailing 
journals is fine, but I really don't appreciate being nagged, it's 
not like my mental health is the only thing happening down here. 
 
My mother is driving me insane.  She may be driving Cassie insane, 
but I doubt it.  They spend a lot of time together, no doubt 
discussing me and what a cute baby I was--no, honestly, my 
mother got out a bunch of old picture albums and went through 
them with Cassie.  She said Cassie needed to be distracted. 
 
I think I could have come up with several different methods other 
than nostalgia. 
 
Evidently all Cassie had to do to be considered good enough for 
Sarah Epstein Mulder's son was to gestate.  No wonder my mom 
and I have always kept each other at arm's length. 
 
Okay, now for the exciting part.  Brace yourself, Horowitz, I came 
face to face with Alex Krycek and didn't even kill him.  Although I 
punched him a lot.  

Let's face it, Horowitz, he killed my father, he was in on murdering 
Scully's sister, he turned me over to the guys in the gulag at 
Tunguska, and if I could have killed him then, I would 
have. 
 
But I didn't.   
 
I know you've asked me before, Horowitz about Krycek, like after 
I first came back from Calgary when my mom broke her hip.  It 
touches me, it really does, that you want to know all the little 
things about me, what scares me and why, but it's a real 
pain in the ass, too. 
 
Okay. Krycek was my partner after they closed the X files down 
and I got reassigned to VCS in general and had to sit wire-tap duty 
until I was playing tiddly winks with sunflower seeds and a 
styrofoam cup with a pencil stuck through it. 
 
Great fun.  I thought a lot about leaving the Bureau then and Walt 
and I had a memorable set to over my allegation that I just knew 
my next assignment was going to be to scrub the men's room with 
my toothbrush and I felt like shit and useless and like I'd fucking 
pissed my life away. 
 
This was during a case involving--brace yourself--a giant 
flukeworm.  Well, that's not descriptive enough.  How about a 
humanoid flukeworm?  A bipedal flukeworm?  One of the scariest 
things I've ever seen, let me tell you, and just so you know I'm not 
making this up, there's actually federal documentation on this since 
a US Marshall got killed transporting this delightful being to an 
institution.  At which time it made its escape. 
 
Jesus, I did suffer brain damage under Volkman.  I got Krycek 
after that case, I got him during the sleep disorder case with the 
Viet Nam vets.  Forget all of the above Volkman. 
 
I got a tape in my newspaper from an anonymous contact who I 
later discovered was X.  I'm not going to go into that, because it's 
essentially boring and tragic and that's not the point.  So I take it to 
Skinner and he barks that he'll look over the material I've given him 
and consider whether or not it merits investigation. 
 
So Krycek shows up and tells me we're both on the case because 
he filed his paperwork and Skinner didn't file mine in time.  At the 
time, I thought he was a post-Quantico puppy with bad hair and 
awful taste in suits.  I sent him to get a car and went up alone to 
interview the sleep disorder clinic that the first victim ran and he 
caught up with me telling me how much he admired me and he 
didn't appreciate being ditched like a bad date and basically telling 
me in so many words that he was disappointed to find out I was an 
asshole. 
 
So, we worked on that case and it became clear that he considered 
me his partner.  And when Duane Barry got out of the local 
nuthouse in which he'd been confined, he came and got me because 
they wanted me on the HRT to talk to Barry because of my 
background in the X files.  Lucy Kasdan thought I was almost as 
much a lunatic as Barry and they all pissed their pants at first 
because I was validating what he was ranting about.
 
Bless her, Scully did some background work for me in between 
carving up stiffs, and I got the information, and they took Barry 
down against my growing belief that his experience really was valid 
and that would have been it.  

Except Barry got out of the hospital and took Scully with him and 
delivered her either to little grey ET types or grey human types and 
we didn't see her again for like three months, and she was dying 
when she got back.
 
Krycek fucked me and Scully over on that case.  He was working 
with that bastard Grey for real and he killed the tram operator and 
probably Duane Barry and he was responsible for Scully's dying of 
cancer.  Not as responsible as Grey and whoever did what they did 
to her.  

Then there's the fact, which I think I've mentioned, that he killed 
my father.  I'm almost certain about that.  And I think he was part 
of the hit team dispatched to deal with Scully.  I'm not sure. 
 
And he turned up on another case when I followed somebody to 
Hong Kong and found out that he was her partner.  I dragged him 
back to the states and we got run off the road.  When I woke up, I 
was in the hospital and he was gone.  We tracked him to a missile 
silo, and lo and behold, guess who was there?  Grey.   
 
I won't go into all the details of that, either, but we left it at that 
because we didn't have any other choice and went back to DC and 
almost two years later, not quite, I start getting material funneled 
to me that one of the extremist paramilitary groups is getting ready 
to make some bombs a la Oklahoma City and I get a team gathered 
together and we go up to stop them from picking up their material 
and arrest them and all hell breaks loose and we take them down 
and voila, Alex Krycek is one of them. 
 
He claimed to be my source, and got us involved in another 
situation.  We went to the airport to pick up a diplomatic pouch 
that was supposed to be high voltage and extremely dangerous 
and important and while I doubted it, it never pays not to check.  
 
It was a rock.  A space rock.  And another one just like it, 
evidently, was responsible for the deaths of a couple of people in 
Hawaii.  Another diplomatic pouch. 
 
So, Scully took it down to Goddard and I dragged Krycek's slimy 
little ass over to Skinner's and woke him up with a request for 
authorization for a safe house for the little slug.   
 
BTW, to my very great delight, Skinner punched the weasel in the 
solar plexus, said his place was safe enough and handcuffed 
Krycek to the balcony rail. 
 
I managed not to show any appreciation or amusement, and went 
on checking things out only to find that the researcher at Goddard 
ended up in some kind of stasis as a result of what was in the rock.  
Little oily things, not unlike the things in the case that led me to 
Krycek in Hong Kong.  
 
Interesting, no?  It seems fitting that he's tied to these things. 
 
At any rate, to make a long story shorter, somebody came looking 
for the pouch at Skinner's. Or for Krycek and the pouch.  Or just 
for Krycek.  And Krycek, talented little weasel that he is, threw the 
guy off the balcony. 
 
So I got reamed over the phone because I hadn't given Skinner 
enough information about this, because I'd confined myself to 
telling him Krycek had information on the paramilitary group. 
 
He was really, really steamed, so I went over and collected Krycek 
and had picked up enough vibes and info that I took a trip up to 
New York and visited with my new source, Marita Covarrubias, or 
whatever the hell her name was. 
 
She got us the necessary provenance to make the trip into Russia 
in a real sub rosa fashion and we went, ta da, to Tunguska, the 
original source for the rock with the little oily things.  In the course 
of that trip, we got picked up by the gulag troops and Krycek 
managed to blow my cover and get me turned into a lab animal for 
them. 
 
I'm not sure.  I think they were trying to develop a vaccine for this 
oily thing.  I don't know if it's like the thing in the woman I 
followed to Hong Kong.  That seemed pretty sentient and self-
aware.  I ended up getting a needle to the base of my neck and 
getting knocked out and fastened down in an interesting chicken 
wire arrangement that I'm glad Wilkinson never thought of, while 
they poured that thing into my face.  My other arm was fastened 
down straight, and they'd either given me an injection there or 
stuck an IV and I can't remember which. 
 
All I can remember is the way it felt, slithering into my mouth and 
nose, and how the already dim room darkened as it seemed to 
slither across my eyes.  And the feeling of having your mind be the 
only part of you that was alive.  I was paralyzed.  I still have 
nightmares about that, Horowitz, even after all the other things 
that happened to me. 
 
Did I tell you, Volkman coaxed it out?  Yeah, I thought I did in 
one of our early sessions, the complete and utter claustrophobia of 
having something like that move back out of your brain and pool in 
your eye sockets.  I appreciated having it gone, since it evidently 
usually kills people.  Maybe being exposed to an alien retro-virus 
early in my ET career helped, I don't know. 
 
But I don't think I like Volkman's methods.  Clinical death ain't a 
treat, not when you're brought back again with CPR and the 
paddles. 
 
Anyway, I was merrily making my way to pick something up for 
Cassie and I, since Walt had informed me that the house was under 
surveillance, was paranoid in the extreme and had taken to 
watching every face and anyone who showed even carefully veiled 
interest in me.   And I noticed someone was tailing me. 
 
So when I did my secret FBI trick and caught the tail, I discovered 
it was Krycek.  I must admit to feral pleasure when I applied a nice 
choke hold.  Not as elegant as Walt's I admit, but I'm about half 
Walt's breadth, so I was pleased anyway. 
 
I wanted to kill him so badly, Horowitz, I was shaking.  I was 
scared and I was fucking furious and I wanted to hear his neck 
crack as I broke it and I wanted to do other things to him that 
I've reserved for my fantasies about Wilkinson until now. 
 
When I let up on the hold just a fraction, he dragged in some air 
and squeaked.  "I've been trying to contact you." 
 
Yeah.  Right.  To congratulate me on my complete recovery, no 
doubt.  Or to kill me, or to sneak another little black oily thing into 
my brain.  And thinking about that made me shake again, purely 
primitive reaction that I  was having so much trouble controlling 
that my arm kept tightening convulsively, making him gag and 
choke. 
 
"Yeah, well you did," I hissed and dragged him farther back into 
the shadows.  "Who else is out there?" 
 
"Guys from the--"  I tightened my arm and he made this kind of 
squeaking sound, like the rat that he is. 
 
I slammed him up against the wall and bared my teeth at him and I 
think he saw the crazy glitter in my eye because he didn't try to talk 
again.  Oh, God, it was so hard, especially after I patted him down 
and found his gun.  I could feel the metal shape in my fingers, feel 
the way the trigger depressed and even see what it would do to 
him if I pressed the barrel against his forehead. 
 
He was absolutely silent, absolutely chalk-white and all it did was 
feed that rage.  "Bang," I whispered and bared my teeth again.  
"You're dead." 
 
My hand closed over his throat, fingers splayed across the 
vulnerable area under his chin.  I pressed and got another sound 
from him.  I put the barrel against his head and crooned, 
"Scully's dead, Krycek.  She died in agony from the cancer they 
gave her." 
 
His eyes got wider, but he didn't speak.  He may be a weasel, but 
he's not stupid. 
 
"And so is your boss," I whispered, leaning in as close as a lover.  I 
wondered distantly how he'd like being raped and caught myself 
trying to figure out where I could take him to visit some of 
Wilkinson's pleasures on him. 
 
I think that's what scared me, Horowitz.  Thinking of Wilkinson 
and doing what Wilkinson did to him. 
 
I stepped back, and I was breathing hard, trying not to shake.  And 
then I made the interesting discovery that Krycek now has an 
artificial arm. 
 
He still hadn't moved, except to breathe.  "I've been trying to 
contact you,"  he whispered, "They're interested in getting you 
back since they've confirmed you're alive.  They brought me 
up to make sure it was you." 
 
That red rage flared again.  I put the barrel back on his forehead 
and tried to take deep even breaths.   
 
I kept from killing him by imagining Skinner's reaction.  What he 
would think of me.  That was all, Horowitz, so maybe I have to 
admit, you aren't completely wrong.  He may not represent 
my father, but he's somebody whose opinion I care about one 
helluva lot. 
 
I did take some more deep breaths and tried to Zen my way into 
Skinner's head for a few minutes, just to get out of my own.  If I 
thought about Wilkinson again, I wasn't sure I could 
trust myself.  And I was still shaking, except for the hand holding 
the gun.  My knees felt rubbery.  I thought about removing his 
prosthesis and just walking him out with me to a public 
telephone and calling Walt.  Hey, Walt, I've caught this big rat and 
I need to dispose of him without getting the CSPCA up in arms. 
 
Which is ultimately what I did. 
 
Although I left him his prosthesis, I just kept his gun, naturally.  
After about a half an hour of sitting and sipping cold coffee at an 
outdoor table, a couple of guys showed up, gave me the 
secret password and the UNCLE handshake and took him off my 
hands. 
 
He gave me a panicked look as they led him away.  "Mulder, 
you're killing me.  I can help you." 
 
Help me what?  Get back two and a half years of my life?  I 
discreetly gave him the one-finger salute.  "I hope I'm killing you," 
I told him pleasantly, "And I hope it takes a really long 
time, Krycek.  I hope you're in hell as long as I was." 
 
And that, so far as I know, was that. 
 
Irrationally, I feel guilty about it.  And disappointed.  Is it really 
that easy, just call in the Marines?  Or the UNCLEs, as the case 
may be?  And what are they going to do to him? 
 
If I know you, Horowitz, you won't tell me a goddamned thing.  
But Walt will.
 
 
July 31 
 
Hah.  I told you, Horowitz.  Never underestimate Walt. 
 
You gotta love the man, he breaks off what he's doing to come 
down and explain to me what's going on with Krycek.  Just 
because.
 
"He's being debriefed," he told me, sitting on my mom's back porch 
and looking bizarrely relaxed and casual in jeans that have been 
worn and washed enough that they've gone this pale ice blue and a 
white t-shirt that touts Moulson's.   
 
"You know, with that look, you really need an earring," I told him. 
 
He adjusted his glasses with his middle finger. 
 
"Debriefed how?" 
 
"Drugs."  He was blunt about it, which is why I really love my 
boss,  Horowitz.  He doesn't have to dance on that wire anymore, 
so he never bullshits me.  As far as I know, anyway.  I almost 
regret emailing these things to you, I miss hearing him chuckle 
when I've ragged on him and he reads it. 
 
You know what I just realized.  Except for a few occasions, he's 
never even referred to reading any of my journal.  Talk about 
therapist/client confidentiality.  He's better at it than you are, 
Horowitz. 
 
I considered that.  "Are they going to kill him?" 
 
He gave me a sharp look and took another drink of his beer.  "Not 
to my knowledge.  He's too valuable, he's got contacts among 
several different Consortium groups.  And despite his sob 
story, he's only on one hit list, and that seems to have been 
canceled since Grey blew his brains out.  Or at least diminished in 
importance." 
 
Watch out, Horowitz.  If any of your guys are playing dirty, they 
better not let Walt hear about it.  When I come up with my more 
paranoid questions or theories, I can hear the wheels 
spinning in his mind as he re-examines what he knows.   
 
Jesus, I'm going to get all choked up about that in a minute.   I feel 
like fucking Sally Field, he believes in me, he really, really believes 
in me. 
 
If I ever say anything like that to him, I hope he raps me on the 
head to spare me any additional embarrassment. 
 
"What's going to happen to him?"  Imagine me, giving a shit about 
Alex Krycek. 
 
"They'll spend a good long while picking his brain and verifying 
what he tells them.  And then, once they've done that, they'll try to 
turn him.  If they can't, I suspect he'll be, ah, sent to a 
holding facility.  Somewhere desolate."  He didn't sound happy by 
it.  "Or turned over to his own people after getting his memory 
wiped.  What happened to you at Ellens wasn't completed, Mulder.  
And we have the tech and methodology to do 
it." 
 
I considered that.  "Tell me this, why do I feel badly about that?" 
 
He grinned crookedly.  "Because you're still Fox Mulder.  And he 
was, however briefly, your partner.  Disposing of someone in the 
heat of the moment is one helluva lot easier than in cold blood.  
For you and for me.  Not for Krycek." 
 
"I think I could have killed him in Tunguska," I admitted.  "I could 
have killed him in that alley.  I thought about it.  A lot." 
 
"The difference is, you didn't."  He stretched his legs out.  "He 
would have, if that suited his purpose." 
 
I finally made the hard confession.  "I thought about doing to him 
what Wilkinson did to me."  I couldn't look at him when I said 
that.  But I looked up after a moment of silence.  The son of 
a bitch was waiting for that. 
 
"I'm not surprised."  He gave me a very serious look.  "You 
wouldn't be human if you hadn't, Mulder.  There's a very thin line 
dividing us from the people we used to bring in." 
 
"Easy for you to say," I growled, "You only punched him." 
 
Faint smile.  "He only beat me up, Mulder.  He didn't get me into a 
position where I had something living in my brain that wasn't me.  
And I shouldn't have done that, I know it.  And I don't care that I 
did it.  I care that I managed to stop myself from doing anything 
else.  Like throwing him off the balcony once I got him out there.  
Believe me, the temptation was there." 
 
I have to admit, that made me feel a little better. 
 
Of course, I was having second thoughts.  He hadn't killed me on 
the tram.  There was no evidence linking him to the hit on Scully 
that killed her sister.  And I hadn't seen him at my father's house, 
although ballistics linked his gun and the bullet that had killed my 
father. 
 
The back door squeaked and Cassie came out, looking cranky and 
tired and puffy. 
 
"You're supposed to be off your feet," I told her and got out of my 
chair immediately. 
 
She allowed me to chivvy her into it and put her legs up on the 
porch rail.  "Reproduction is vastly over-rated," she told Walt. 
 
He half-grinned and looked away.  I couldn't tell if it was because 
it reminded him of his ex-wife, or because he was trying not to 
laugh.  "I've often said," he finally told her, "That if men 
had to be pregnant, over-population would not be a concern." 
 
"Tell me about it," she muttered and then gave me a real Cassie 
smile.  "On the other hand, you have to put up with us when we're 
growling and complaining. 
 
See why I don't want to lose her?  I sat down on the porch rail near 
her feet and set my beer down to rub them. 
 
She sighed in pleasure and leaned back in the chair, her eyes half-
closed. 
 
"Sausages," I told her, rubbing her toes. 
 
She stuck her tongue out at me.   
 
I feel relieved when she's enough like herself to do stuff like that, 
but I'm really worried, Horowitz.  The only pregnancy I know 
about that went like this I heard about second-hand and turned out 
to be twins.  But if Cassie was carrying twins, we'd know about it.  
Next time she sees the doctor, I'm going and I'm going to nail that 
fucker to the wall if he doesn't talk to me. 
 
 
Aug 3 
 
Okay, now I'm really worried.  They're watching Cassie's blood 
pressure very closely and testing her urine and they think she might 
also have pregnancy induced diabetes, which is just about the way 
things go when you're involved with Fox Mulder. 
 
C'mon, Horowitz, the OB guy really downplayed a lot of it, saying 
they were watching her closely and could deal very well with it if 
either toxemia or diabetes turned into a problem, that pregnancy 
induced diabetes isn't common, but it isn't so rare that they haven't 
covered it before and it's just a matter of being very careful and 
following the diet plan. 
 
Christ, she's only thirty, I didn't think these things were a problem 
for younger women. 
 
My mom's even worried, and since my mom generally goes around 
in a state of denial, that scares me even worse.  She's using these 
cookbooks to prepare meals, my mom, who wasn't sure Cassie was 
good enough for her lunatic of a son. 
 
And tomorrow, I'm leaving to take Skinner and Illya Kuryakin up 
to where the ginseng fields and clones and bees were.  I've 
attached a file with my notes from what the doctor said and I 
want you to be straight with me, Horowitz.  I know you're not an 
OB, but you are an MD, and I want somebody, for Christ's sake, to 
at least give me a chance to prepare for what might happen. 
 


Aug 15 
 
Guess what.  Marita lied to me.  In a pretty major way.  Why that 
should surprise me, I can't imagine, but we found the fields and the 
bees.  Illya Kuryakin, BTW, is a lean, hatchet faced guy with a 
nose bigger than mine who outdoes Walt as a man of few words.  
Slight accent that I can't place.  Iron-grey hair cut short.  Not quite 
a buzz cut.   His English sounds more or less Canuck, but he 
speaks both Canadian French and flawless Parisian French.  How 
do I know that, Horowitz? It's just another facet of my character, I 
used to speak and read reasonably good French, although it's been 
a long time and I'm not sure my accent wouldn't get me thrown out 
at the French border if I tried it these days.  And I heard him 
talking on the telephone. 
 
I can also read Latin and Greek, Horowitz.  Badly, these days, but 
I had to pass them both at Oxford.  Aren't you impressed? 
 
We were doing the telephone repair gig along the highway and 
stopped about the point I remember running out of gas with 
Jeremiah Smith. 
 
"We went overland from here," I told Illya, who was never 
introduced to me, and pointed.   
 
Illya promptly whipped out a map and hummed the Marseillaise 
under his breath as he studied it.  "We'll stay on the road," he 
finally said, and put the truck in gear again. 
 
Smith was right.  About twenty miles by highway.  Lying on our 
bellies in the tall, prairie grass, we took turns staring through 
binoculars.   
 
"She lied to me," I muttered and Walt just made this humorless 
sound under his breath.  I looked at him and shrugged.  "I'm an 
eternal optimist," I whispered. 
 
I heard Illya make this satisfied sound under his breath.  
"Excellent."  He started slithering backward down the small hill 
and we followed him.   

Without another word, he got back in the truck, waited until we 
were in there and pulled out, turning around at a wide spot in the 
highway and climbing a telephone pole to do his thing. 
 
Walt got out to play the role with him, and I sat in the truck and 
stared back toward the compound.  Thinking about what had 
happened there, what had happened later.  How Scully had put her 
arms around me when I'd gotten back to my mom's hospital room, 
reeking of gasoline and with, if you'll excuse my bluntness, a full 
fledged case of diaper rash from the gas.  All over my body.   
 
I'd forgotten that.  Walt managed to rustle up a change of clothes 
for me, and Scully chivvied me into taking a shower.  I think they 
were afraid that between the fumes and the oxygen, the room 
might blow up.   
 
You know, he never gave me a reprimand for that.  It's hard to 
believe.  And he saved my career after I blew it with Roche and 
again after the episode with Goldstein drilling holes in my head. 
 
I don't know how the hell he did it, or even why, but he did.  He 
says it's because I was a necessary pain in the ass, that if I'd gone 
down, there would have been no one with the commitment and 
focus to keep the X files going. 
 
Although we didn't know Scully was sick at the time, so that's not 
completely true.  Or maybe it was.  Maybe I just sort of carried her 
along in my wake, but I don't like to think that.  She was strong 
and saying that makes her seem like my sidekick, not my partner. 
 
Hell, I don't even know if it's worth wondering about after all this 
time.
 
They eventually finished whatever they were doing outside and got 
back in the truck and drove south again. 
 
We stopped outside a small whistle-stop town and Walt and I got 
out and got into a fourwheeler than had been parked there and that 
was the last we saw of Illya. 
 
 
Aug 24 
 
Nice timing, Horowitz.  You send me the answers to the questions 
I asked in time for Cassie to be admitted to the hospital here.  
 
You thought I was nervous before, you ought to see me now.  I'm 
nervous about Cassie, about the kid, and about the fact that just 
about anybody could walk in off the street and blow either of us 
away. 
 
So I brought my gun in her bag.  Paranoid, yeah, but just because 
I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're really not out to get me. 
 
They've got her all hooked up to this fetal monitor, which makes 
her cross, and they've got an IV in her, which doesn't help, and I 
try to spend as much time as possible making her laugh.  My mom 
takes turns with me, which gives me the opportunity to go outside 
and have my own little private nervous breakdown about once a 
day. 
 
Julie Wilson and Walt came down.  Julie can't stay, but Walt 
casually mentioned that he's not leaving for a few days, and I was 
embarrassingly, pathetically grateful. 
 
Of course, he's working my ass off, draining my brain of all the 
little details I never bothered to put in my reports, and since my 
field journals were trashed or incinerated when Scully closed down 
the files, I'm doing my best to put that eidetic memory to work. 
 
It takes my mind off Cassie in the hospital. 
 
Let's see, Horowitz, she's like twenty-five weeks along.  What are 
the odds of a kid surviving at this point?  Pretty damned small, 
from what they've been telling me.  I tried to talk to her about 
aborting and she got so furious her blood pressure soared up 
again, so I shut the hell up and told her I was just scared, I didn't 
want anything to happen to her.  She calmed down and the nurse 
calmed down and I just folded up inside and tried not to have a 
howling fit of temper. 
 
If I lose anyone else, I'm not sure what I'll do, Horowitz. 
 
The kid's not real to me, let's face it.  I don't look at the 
sonograms, which Cassie does, she and my mom cheerfully talking 
about its little hands and feet and there's its head.   
 
I have to leave when they do that, I admit it.   
 
What kind of a father does that, Horowitz? 
 
Cassie, on the other hand, is real.  And going through this with her 
has only made her more real and I almost can't handle being this 
close to anyone anyway, and the thought of losing that because of 
a kid that happened by accident. 
 
On the other hand, though, Walt doesn't think I'm a monster for 
telling him this.  We just sit around on the porch after a hard half-
day's work, while my mom entertains Cassie at the hospital, 
drinking iced tea or a cold bottle of weasel piss and doing that 
manly Gary Cooper thing.  

Jesus, I'm not sure I'll survive pregnancy.  What the hell is 
childbirth going to do to me? 
 
 
Sept 19 
 
I'm okay, Horowitz.  Cassie's okay, thank God, and even the kid is 
holding her own.   
 
I've got to stop calling her that, I guess.  She's a real person, more 
or less, although I'm afraid to call her by name since she's still in 
the neonatal unit in one of those isolette things. 
 
She weighed four pounds when she was born, and has dropped 
weight, which I guess is normal.   
 
Cassie's blood pressure went sky-high and they had to do a 
Cesarean on her.  She had a convulsion in the delivery room and 
they wouldn't let me in, Wilson having flown down and 
gone in with the OB.   
 
I gotta admit, Wilson's one helluva GP, Horowitz.  I know, she 
knows Cassie, she knows me, and she sure as hell knows Walt, but 
she does care about her people, as she says it.  Not patients, but 
people.  Maybe that's why I always liked her. 
 
I was going to stand there at the doors and bang on them until they 
let me in, but Walt wrestled me away and hauled me off to get a 
cup of coffee into which Mr. By the Book poured a couple of 
fingers of bourbon.   
 
From a flask, no less.   
 
Well, it's better than getting stuck full of a syringe of Thorazine 
and I eventually calmed down enough to listen to him talk about 
how scary it was for him when Sharon had this really late 
miscarriage at about six months, and he was sure she was going to 
die.  He didn't mention that the baby died, so I could tell he was 
trying to highlight the positive.  Sharon had been fine, he told me 
gravely, and so would Cassie be.  But we didn't talk about the kid, 
either. 
 
I managed to calm down enough not to get thrown out of the 
hospital by security and he stayed with me and kept talking to me 
until Wilson came out in scrubs and sat down and took my hands 
and said "Cassie's going to be all right, Mulder, but she's pretty 
sick right now.  She had a convulsion, she's really out of it, but we 
don't think she had a stroke, and I really believe she's going to be 
all right." 
 
I had to put my head between my knees.  Thinking, stroke, Jesus, 
she's thirty, not sixty.  Wilson stroked my hair and Walt was 
patting my back like he did when I found out Grey was 
my father.   
 
"I want to see her."  I'm sure it came out muffled, my head was 
hanging upside down. 
 
"In a little while, okay?" Wilson's voice was very gentle. 
 
I didn't dare sit up.  "What about--"  I couldn't say, "the baby", it 
wouldn't come out. 
 
"Well, she's small, but she's a fighter, and she's in an isolette right 
now.  You wanna take a look at her?" 
 
I finally managed to straighten up.  She.  She was real, not just 
some evanescent concept that had blown Cassie's slim figure out of 
proportion. 
 
Walt nodded at me sympathetically.  I think he understood better 
than anyone.  So we walked down to the preemie nursery where 
they had her and he got gowned up with me and went in. 
 
Jesus, Horowitz.  She's no bigger than one of my sister's dolls.  
She's got a lot of nearly black hair and waves those arms and legs 
around as if she hates being in there.  I don't blame her.   They 
have a monitor in her scalp and little tiny holes in her feet where 
they've taken blood and I put my hands into those holes in the side 
and risked touching that little tiny person, lying there howling with 
unhappiness about her situation. 
 
Walt's hand was on my shoulder.  "She's a fighter like her dad."  
Very quiet voice. 
 
"I hope so," I said, around the lump in my throat.  And she stopped 
howling when I stroked that impossibly small leg.  She didn't stop 
fussing, but she did stop howling and waved those little arms.  
"God, she's so little." 
 
Walt's hand squeezed my shoulder. 
 
I hadn't thought about her like this.  I just called her the kid.   But 
those little fingers curled around mine when I put one of mine in 
her hand.  Making all these little sounds of complaint. 
 
A nurse popped up in scrubs and looked at me.   "Would you like 
to feed her?" 
 
I stared at her.  Walt squeezed my shoulder in encouragement or 
reassurance, I'm not sure which. 
 
So I held her and sat in the rocker and fed her.  It really kind of 
amazed me because babies that small don't generally have a good 
instinct to nurse, I'd read.  Skinner sat on a chair in front of me and 
reached out to brush her forehead with a fingertip.  She had to 
wear this little cap to keep her from losing heat and was wrapped 
up in swaddling and she kept turning her face toward me as if she 
was trying to figure out who the hell I was. 
 
The nurse bent down and touched her face lightly.  "We thought 
she was only about twenty-eight weeks, but she's a little more 
mature than we thought, Dr. Walker says." 
 
Maybe that explains the sucking.   
 
The nurse, whose name tag read Carrie Madsen, smiled again.  
"Maybe about only eight weeks early, he thinks." 
 
That gave me a little bit more hope.  She drank a fair amount of 
the formula in the bottle for me before she just got too exhausted 
and went to sleep. 
 
The nurse smiled and took her from me again, to put her back in 
the isolette.  "She'll be fine, Dad, don't worry.  We'll take good 
care of her." 
 
What am I supposed to say to that?  I wasn't sure who she was 
talking to for a moment.  Then, I nodded and let go of her, rising 
as Carrie Madsen deftly bundled her back into the warmth of the 
isolette.  Feeling helpless as I watched.  I finally turned to Walt, "I 
want to see Cassie." 
 
He nodded and we got out of the scrubs and went back down to 
find Cassie, lying in her bed, hooked up to a lot of different 
monitors.  Julie Wilson was standing by the bed and turned to 
smile at me a little.  "She woke up for a little bit, Mulder, and I 
think she really is going to be all right.  She's going to be here for a 
few days, but I think she's going to be just fine." 
 
Wilson's never bullshit me before, so I'm inclined to believe her. 
 
I leaned over the bed and stroked Cassie's hair back from her face.  
She stirred and gave me a blurry smile.  "Hi." 
 
"Hi, yourself," I told her softly and bent to kiss her, mostly to keep 
from crying outright.  Hey, it's that's manly thing. 
 
"How's the baby?" she asked, still blurry. 
 
I didn't know what to say.  "She's fine.  I fed her." 
 
She nodded a little and faded out again, her fingers curled around 
mine. 
 
I fed her ice chips now and then when she woke up, and we talked 
a little more about the baby and finally she went to sleep for real.   
 
So that's it, Horowitz.  Business as usual for Fox Mulder.    Only I 
took Cassie with me this time.  And the baby. 
 
 
Sept 23 
 
I just realized, Horowitz, it's been a year since Walt got me out of 
Wilkinson's clutches.  A little more than a year.   Last year at this 
time, I was still sitting underneath the desk in my bedroom in 
Walt's house.   This year I'm spending time split between the 
neonatal unit and Cassie's room.   
 
What a difference. 
 
But I'm not any more in control of my life now than I was then.  
Last year I had to rely on Skinner, this year I'm waiting for the 
doctors to tell me how Cassie and Sarah are.  Guess what, 
Horowitz, Cassie wanted to name the baby after my mother, 
and her mother and Dana Scully.   So the poor little thing, who is 
no bigger than a tissue box, has this huge name:  Sarah Rose Dana 
Delevan-Mulder. 
 
I think she recognizes my voice.  When I go in there and put my 
hands in and talk to her, she turns her head.  Walt says that makes 
sense, she heard me talking to Cassie while Cassie was carrying 
her.  She already knows me, he says, and I tell him I hope to hell 
not, poor little girl. 
 
She is doing pretty well, on the whole, although they had to give 
her some oxygen the first couple of days, and she's a little yellow 
now.  She's not eating as well now, but she's fighting back. 
 
That's what Walt says, anyway, he says that she's a fighter like I've 
always been.  In that case, I want her to fight harder, because I 
damned near gave up in Consortium hands. 
 
Wilson says she thinks that the twenty-eight weeks might be right.  
It's just that Cassie and I have been tampered with, and maybe 
Sarah lucked out in what she got from us. 
 
It looks like she lucked out pretty well all the way around, then, 
because most babies this early have real problems. 
 
Cassie's nursing her now, so I don't get to feed her anymore.   
She's still so little,  Horowitz.  So damned helpless.  So dependent 
on us, and it scares the hell out of me. 
 
She has all this dark fuzzy hair on her head and it stands up 
straight, kinda like feathers.  I love touching that, it's so damned 
soft.  And she still closes those little fingers around my hand. 
 
Cassie's fallen in love with her.  I think I am, too.   
 
Boy, does that scare the hell out of me. 
 
 
Oct 13 
 
My birthday present is to bring Cassie and the baby back up-
mountain.  We've been staying at my mom's all this time. 
 
One of the projects Walt and I completed was a crib.  She's so tiny, 
though, we've been letting her sleep in this willow basket on one of 
those golden lambskins you see in the baby stores.  My mom got 
that along with a brochure that told how good they are for reemies 
specifically and babies in general.  I confess, it makes me nervous 
to see her sleep face down on it,  but Cassie keeps assuring me she 
can breathe face down. 
 
I have a confession, Horowitz.  Sometimes I take her out and let 
her sleep on my chest because I'm nervous.  

Cassie came in the other day from a walk to find me snoozing on 
the couch with her that way and laughed hard enough to wake us 
both up. 
 
Sarah was annoyed.  Cassie had to pick her up and nurse her until 
she settled back down. 
 
I'm going with Walt to London next week.  I haven't been to 
England since I got back from Oxford.  It ought to be interesting.  
I hope I don't run into Phoebe. 
 
With my luck, I will, Horowitz. 
 
Nov 15 
 
London was interesting.  Guess who I ran into?  Yup, it was 
Phoebe, you guessed it, Horowitz.  
 
And just to prevent you from grilling me about it, I'll tell you about 
it now.  But I'm not wasting time in session going over this again, 
just be warned. 
  
There Phoebe was, having dinner with her latest politico--or 
should I say victim?--and she happened to look up and go as pale 
as the tablecloth just as Walt and I sat down for dinner at a nearby 
table.   
 
How did I feel seeing her?  I don't know, honestly. I think I'm 
finally over wishing she was different, wishing she'd returned what 
I offered to her--my heart, still pulsing from having been torn from 
my chest, how's that for  gothic description, Horowitz?  You 
oughta love that, you Freudian you.

Anyway, how much worse could it get than to see someone from 
my past who recognized me when Walt and I had come to meet 
with some people about the bees and my experience with the 
morphs?  A lot worse.  Phoebe slid under the table.  Yup, Phoebe, 
who probably could rival Walt at eating railroad spikes for 
breakfast, fainted. 
 
I nearly got under our table at that. 
 
Well, there was a fuss over at the other table, naturally, and the 
waiters gathered around and Walt looked over to see what was 
going on. 
 
I cleared my throat nervously and said, "Um, I think my old 
girlfriend just saw me." 
 
He chewed my ass ragged after finding out I thought I'd seen 
Krycek and hadn't mentioned it to him.  I thought it best to tell him 
up front that my cover was blown. 
 
Walt looked back at me.  "What?"  Those eyebrows drawing 
together in that dangerous set that always made me grab the 
handles of whatever chair I was sitting on if he was aiming them at 
me. 
 
I cleared my throat again.  "Phoebe Green, Inspector, Scotland 
Yard.  Remember?" 
 
"Vaguely. Jesus, that's just fucking terrific."  He looked back again 
to see them hauling her out from under the table.  "Jesus, what 
happened?" 
 
"Um, I think she fainted.  She must have heard the rumors about 
my death." 
 
He looked at me and his mouth twitched.  "And didn't hear that 
they were greatly exaggerated."  But he was already gathering up 
his little note pad and tucking it in his jacket, so I guessed dinner 
was going to take place somewhere else. 
 
"I guess not," I said.  Horowitz, I may have to stop badmouthing 
her so much.  There's a kind of poignancy to having Phoebe Green 
faint when she sees you and thinks your dead. 
 
"Let's go."  Walt glanced back at the other table.  Phoebe was 
unfortunately conscious and waving her hand to get the smelling 
salts away. 
 
"Now, " I agreed and he nodded. 
 
We were nearly out the door, Horowitz.  We nearly made it.  And 
then I heard this clipped British accent at 95 decibels say, "If you 
walk out that door, you're a dead man." 
 
Well, I hope this means that Phoebe is not with the Consortium.  
Walt looked at me, gauging the public exposure if we went ahead 
and left and I shrugged helplessly.  The woman is more relentless 
than a locomotive, she'd do a passport search and even though I 
had a fake one, she wouldn't rest until she checked every 
goddamned entry.  I wasn't thinking clearly, Horowitz, we'd come 
from Canada, she would have done a search on who entered from 
the States.   
 
But we waited.  The rest of the diningroom was scandalized, of 
course.  Shouting like that is simply not done, not in British circles. 
 
Phoebe advanced on me and I actually gave Walt this pleading 
look.  Like, Help.  Save me.  You did before. 
 
Walt's expression was both amused and appalled.  At least she 
didn't call me by name.  One saving grace. 
 
Phoebe stopped and stared at me.  "Mulder, I ought to shoot you." 
 
"I didn't think Scotland Yard issued guns."  It was a weak 
rejoinder, but I hadn't been prepared.  Actually, it wasn't as good 
as telling her that my sense of humor was the only thing she hadn't 
driven a stake through, but I didn't think it was bad for short notice 
repartee. 
 
She looked daggers at Walt.  "AD Skinner," she said frostily.  "Am 
I to understand you were in on this charade?" 
 
"I beg your pardon."  His tone was very bland and boy, did he have 
on that AD face. 
 
"You should beg my pardon."  Phoebe snapped and jabbed a 
fingernail into my chest.  "And so should you." 
 
"Why, Phoebe, I didn't know you cared."   Well, Horowitz, she 
slapped me then. 
 
"You bastard," she hissed, in those high class British consonants 
that so charmed me back at Oxford.  "I actually cried for you." 
 
Well, I wasn't enough of an asshole to ask her why bother.  So I 
kept my mouth shut.  Besides, I figured we were doing damage 
control at this point and left it at that. 
 
Walt, bless him, dragged her out the door bodily, and got right into 
her face, which meant he had to lean down.  "Do you want to see 
him dead after all?  Keep running your mouth, Inspector Green, 
and that's just what will happen."  Low voice, so the passersby 
didn't hear him. 
 
She stared at him for a long moment, then looked at me, wide-
eyed.  "This was deliberate?" 
 
"Oh, yes, but not in the way you suppose," Walt growled.  "They 
faked his suicide deliberately to get him into their hands and 
control, and we got him back from the bastards who did it." 
 
"Back from hell," I put in, just because I'm an asshole.  And I have 
to admit, it really did make me feel better to see her blanch again. 
 
"What are you talking about?" 
 
Walt frowned.  "Nothing you need to know, except if you discuss 
this with anyone, you've probably given them a good reason to 
start looking for him again." 
 
She bit her lip.  Because I'm only mostly an asshole, I took off my 
coat and draped it over her shoulders.  "All right.  But I still want a 
better explanation." 
 
Walt looked at me.  I shrugged.  "Give me your number, I'll call 
you later." 
 
That got a long-suffering look from Walt and he reached into his 
coat and pulled out a small notepad and handed it to her, with a 
pen. 
 
After a long moment, she wrote it down and handed it back to him.  
"Tonight," she told me, holding my gaze. 
 
I nodded. 
 
She gave me my coat and went back in. 
 
Walt looked at me.  "I wish that hadn't happened." 
 
"Me, too.  Anyway we can check Phoebe out?"  I actually felt kind 
of a skittering nervousness in my stomach.  I kept thinking about 
Sarah and Cassie.  Even though I knew the enclave was pretty 
damned safe. 
 
He nodded.   
 
Needless to say, we found another place to eat. 
 
 
Sarah is really amazing, Horowitz.  She's only a few months old, 
and was born nearly two months early and she's lifting her head to 
peer at us.  And smiles.  Toothlessly, of course, which strikes me 
as hilarious.   
 
Cassie's still nursing her, but she's getting antsy.  She wants to go 
visit her aunt and uncle again, despite the fact that they were here 
taking care of things when we got home.  She wants not to be a 
mom for a while.  She wants not to worry about another human 
being for a little while. 
 
So I kissed her forehead and said, "Go, I can take care of her, get 
away for a couple of days." 

'm insane, Horowitz, quick, certify me.
 
Walt laughed so hard that he nearly fell off the porch at Cassie's.  
"Have you lost your mind?" he asked, wiping his eyes. 
 
"Evidently," I told him mournfully. 
 
He snickered and wiped his eyes again.  "All right, you hopeless 
idiot, I'll give you a hand.  I have nephews and nieces, I have some 
experience." 
 
So he's going to come down and stay here while Cassie is gone to 
keep me from drowning Sarah when I give her a bath or 
something. 
 
I somehow have come to the conclusion that Cassie and I aren't a 
long-term thing, Horowitz.  I get on her nerves in her house and 
she gets on mine, to be honest, and I've started moving my stuff 
back up to be Walt's roomie until either I leave this little enclave or 
get a place built of my own. 
 
That makes my stomach hurt, because of Sarah.  I actually want 
the chance to do a better job with her than my dad did with me, 
Horowitz.  Is that nuts?  I don't want to leave her, but I can't think 
of a way to ask Cassie if she can come up and spend time with me 
at Walt's, and what the hell do I know about babies?  She's so little 
and dependent and I'm fighting to get back out in the world and do 
some work.  Although London's out since I ran into Phoebe.  The 
big brass in London was a little peeved about that, and so was 
Madame Duvall, Maggie Thatcher with the French accent. 
 
And I'm a little scared, Horowitz, because Cassie's better at the 
practical things, like taking care of her physically, but having this 
tiny baby around is making her a little high strung and she gets 
frustrated when she starts doing something and Sarah gets hungry 
or her diaper is wet and Cassie has to stop doing something to 
change her.  Well, I've taken that over, despite her jeering what a 
klutz I am about it.  The diapers stay on, Wilson once told her, 
leave him alone.  He'll get better. 
 
I can't nurse Sarah, obviously, although I've started a subtle 
campaign to switch to formula because Wilson spends a lot of time 
over here when I can't, and this little line forms between her brows 
when she watches Cassie's nerves. 
 
I do love, Cassie, Horowitz, she's one of the people who probably 
saved Fox Mulder, the me I am inside, but I can't live with her and 
I don't want to spend the rest of my life with her.  At least, I'm not 
sure that I do. 
 
I suppose you want to know what I told Phoebe, Horowitz. 
 
I told her the truth.  I didn't leave anything out.  Which was cruel.  
She was crying by the time I got done.  And I felt like a shit. 

I kept telling her that I was all right now, that Walt had gotten me 
out and gotten me help and left it at that.  I told her to be careful 
and not tell anyone she'd seen me.  She said she'd told her 
boyfriend, not that she called him that, that her blood sugar was 
low and she'd gotten faint.  And apologized profusely.  I wondered 
how she explained shrieking at me from across the restaurant, but 
thought it was better not to ask.  Maybe she told him I was a felon. 
 
And that's that, Horowitz.  I'll see you in a couple of days.  
 
 
Nov 
 
I don't know what date it is.  I don't care what date it is.  I know 
you want me to talk or to write about this, but I 
can'ticanticanticant 
 
Dec 
 
I'm not going to off myself.  I'm not going to hurt myself, and I 
sure as hell would never do anything to hurt Sarah. 
 
Jan 12 
 
Walt came to see me again, just like he does every day.  Only this 
time, to show you how desperate he is, Horowitz, he brought 
Sarah.  She sat on his lap and talked to him and to me in that baby 
babble she does. 
 
She's really grown.  She's doing fine with Walt and Julie, she really 
adores Walt and that stern AD face softens just enough when he's 
looking at her that she knows she's got him wound around her 
finger.   
 
But that's not the reason, Horowitz, that's not the reason I called 
you and played nice and agreed to the journal, since I wasn't really 
up to coming into the office just yet.  It wasn't Sarah.  It was Walt.  
It was the desperation that made him bring the baby in.  It was the 
look in his eyes. 

I can't stand for anyone to feel guilty about me.  I have enough 
guilt of my own. 
 
 
Jan  13 
 
I'm fine, Horowitz.  I appreciate your cutting the dose on the 
meds.  I'm thinking a little more clearly and now I can recognize 
that Sarah's baby babble actually contains words.  Recognizable 
only to someone who listens closely, but still words.  She calls 
Walt a recognizable version of his name, calls Julie something that 
most closely resembles Doo-ee, and refers to me as Dada. 
 
I don't understand why she remembers me.  Although Walt's 
getting as obsessive as I am, it seems to be his personal quest to 
get Fox Mulder back to being the Fox Mulder he used to be, once 
upon a time before the world turned to shit.   
 
I confess, Horowitz, even with the dullness caused by the low dose 
you've got me on, I still have this droll image of Walt sitting her in 
front of a picture of me and drilling her in identification. 
  
Walt came to get me last night.  In the Sno-Cat, of course, which 
reminded me that Julie and he were now sharing quarters.  He'd 
told me, I just hadn't thought about it. 
 
They've got things moved around some.  Walt's office setup is back 
in the corner of the livingroom, since Sarah's crib and things are in 
what used to be his office.  And, of course, my room is still mine. 
 
I want you to know that I wasn't bullshitting you, I'm really going 
to do my best to write about it. But you have to let me do it the 
only way I can. I don't have the strength to write it all down 
at once. Even during the fight over those goddamned journal pages 
I wanted back, I had the strength. I just didn't know I did.

So I'm going to do the best I can. 

Cassie had been examined for implants a long time earlier, back 
when she was first recruited.  They found a few and removed 
them.  And rescanned just to make sure.  I've seen those, 
Horowitz, back when Walt was trying to convince me that I 
couldn't have known. 
 
I should have known.  I should have known she wasn't behaving 
normally, but I let my own panic about relationships and 
commitment and all that shit blind me. 
 
They also, back then, before the modern age of really sensitive 
MRIs and PET scans, saw a delicate filigree shape that didn't make 
any sense, but didn't seem to be causing problems.  Didn't seem to 
do anything to her or for her, and because of the small genetic 
anomalies they'd come across in her tests, they decided it had more 
to do with that. 
 
They found several small implants during her autopsy, Horowitz.  
One near her spinal cord.  And they found this strange, almost 
biological network in her skull, rooted in her brain. 
 
My scans don't show any such thing.  Thank God.  Neither do 
Sarah's. 
 
Sarah and I mostly sat on the couch while I tried to remember how 
to play with children.  She forgave me-children are infinitely 
forgiving of our failures, as least while they're children, Horowitz-
and I finally managed to make her giggle with a finger puppet 
somebody had given her. 
 
So it was a quiet evening, and I found out that not only had I not 
forgotten how to change diapers, but that I wished I had, and then 
I put her to bed. 

 
 
Jan 14 
 
I'm trying, Horowitz.  I appreciate your phone call and I even think 
it's hilarious that you're more worried now than you were when I 
got here more than a year ago.   

I'm trying to get myself together enough to give you what you 
want.  I know I have to, if I'm going to live up to the reason I 
made the agreement.  

Reasons.  Walt and Sarah.

Isn't that strange?

Walt says you're bugging me because I act like I don't have any 
fight left.  It worries him, too. 
 
But I honestly don't, Horowitz.  It took everything I had to get 
past what happened to me before I got here.  I don't have anything 
left right now.  I will again, I know that.  But I don't right now. 
 
I promised you and I intend to keep that promise, so try not to 
worry so much. These days the childproof knife drawer is for 
Sarah.

It's enough for me to turn my laptop back on and try to work 
again, sometimes with Sarah in my lap, except she's fascinated with 
the keys. 
 
And drools on them.   
 
That's what I'm reduced to Horowitz, instead of working for the 
FBI, snagging baddies and throwing them in the pen, I'm sitting at 
my desk in front of a laptop with baby drool on my keyboard. 
 
She's getting so pretty, Horowitz, and I'm not a man who ever 
thought babies were particularly cute, let alone pretty.  Her hair 
has grown back in-Walt tells me she lost most of her baby hair 
while I was out of commission-and I think it's going to be curly. 
 
Like Cassie's was. 
 
Cassie left on Nov 14 to go down and spend two days with her 
aunt and uncle.  Her aunt likes to have Cassie there when she starts 
brewing all these herbal decoctions for the winter.  I took Sarah up 
to Walt's with me, we decided if he was going to give me lessons 
in infant-handling, I ought to take advantage of my room.  She was 
still small enough to sleep in her basket beside me on the bed. 
 
Big tough macho Walt, as you know, is a softie unparalleled in 
human history, or he wouldn't be wasting so much time on me.  
And Sarah-well, like I said, all she has to do is grin at him and she's 
got his attention.  Julie thinks it's sweet and I just think it's Walt. 
 
He's such a good man, Horowitz.  I'm ashamed I never knew how 
good before all of this happened.  He says it was no big deal, he 
would have argued that anyone in Wilkinson's hands be extracted, 
and he says, a little embarrassed, that he admits that although he 
would still have been a hard assed son of a bitch over it with 
Heatherton, way back when, it was probably the old Marine in him 
taking care of his own people that made him get up and stand 
on Heatherton's desk until he got the decision he wanted.

And you think *I'm* stubborn, Horowitz.

I believe him.  Except when you or that fucker Jack scared him, he 
really looked out for my dignity, he refused to treat me like a 
weakling or a patient, he never tap danced around me, and get this, 
Horowitz, even though he's a manly man who eats railroad spikes 
for breakfast, he was careful with me when he needed to be, when 
I was still so broken I cried if my hands wouldn't stop shaking long 
enough for me to shave with a regular razor. 

Like I said, he's a good man.  And I'm glad I found that out, 
Horowitz, not just for myself, but because this fucking abyss needs 
more good men and he gives me hope for the future.  

On Nov 16, I started worrying about Cassie, because when I'd 
tried to call that morning to find out when she'd be back, I didn't 
get an answer on her aunt and uncle's radiophone.  The weather 
had been good when she'd left, taking the snowmobile, but 
they were forecasting some real shit coming down pretty quickly 
and I was a little worried. 

Plus, I wanted to get Sarah back down to the house before she got 
back, since we actually hadn't talked about where I was going to 
take care of Sarah while she was gone, and Cassie was developing 
a real tendency to flame out over very small things. 
 
Part of the reason I had decided to back away and move back to 
Walt's second bedroom. 
 
I still couldn't reach her by about two, so Walt ran me down with 
the baby in the four wheel 
drive.   
 
Sarah, by the way, was a gem during the two days that Cassie was 
gone, except on the first  night.  For about three hours, Walt and I 
did everything we could think of to get her to stop howling at the 
top of her lungs, and she wouldn't or couldn't calm down.  Then, I 
think exhaustion caught up with her and she just crashed.  And 
Walt and I collapsed in the living room, drank three beers each 
without doing anything more than occasionally laugh semi-
hysterically at each other, and then we went to bed. 
 
I think that's when it happened, Horowitz.  I think somehow, Sarah 
knew what happened to Cassie, only she was so darned small that 
there was no way for her to tell us except scream. 
 
This morning, I woke up to find it was about 10 in the morning; 
we've got to cut the dose back further, Horowitz, I didn't even 
hear Sarah.  By the time I wandered out into the living room, I 
could hear Sarah's version of the English language and see the top 
of Walt's head. 
 
He was sitting with his back to the couch and had a cup of coffee 
in his hand.  He also had printouts in the other, but he wasn't 
reading them, he was watching Sarah.  I guess movement caught 
his eye, he turned his head to see me and raised a finger to his lips. 
 
Sarah was determinedly making her way across her blanket toward 
his desk.  There was one of those crib mobile things that he'd stuck 
into the second drawer to hang over her head and she kept looking 
up at it, measuring her distance from it. 
 
I catfooted it to the couch and sat down, watching her.  But not 
quite with his evident enjoyment.  Horowitz, I may be an idiot 
about babies, but even I know that four month old babies seldom 
crawl, and they sure as hell don't usually have an attention span 
like Sarah.  Which brought back everything and my guts knotted 
up a little.  Not a lot.  Tranks have that effect. 
 
I wonder who made the alterations to me.  I wonder who did 
Cassie's.  When security checked out her aunt and uncle's place, 
they found them shot in the back of the head execution style.  They 
used the woodstove to heat their place, and the fire having died 
played havoc with really getting an accurate time of death.  At 
least, that's what Walt told me early on.  There were a lot of 
snowmobile tracks, not just Cassie's, although don't ask me how 
anyone can do anything so arcane as tell which tracks belong to 
which snowmobile. 

Cassie didn't take her gun with her down-mountain.  And her uncle 
David didn't have one.  We talked about guns that night I stayed 
there.  And if that weren't enough, the bullets in the bodies didn't 
match hers. 

Humans did that to her, Horowitz.  Not little grey men or morphs 
or hybrids.  Unless it was morphs or hybrids working for the 
government.  Maybe even the Canadian government. 
 
Anyway, Sarah tumbled on her nose, made this mournful little 
sound and got herself up again.  I have to confess, I was a little 
proud of her for that.  It loosened the knot in my stomach and let 
me smile.  And then she progressed over to the bottom drawer, 
which has a nice sturdy brass handle and studied it, rocking on her 
hands and knees as she thought out her approach. 
 
Walt was still smiling, that twisted little smile he gets when he's 
trying not to crack up.   
 
I started to get nervous about her whacking herself in the face on 
that handle.  When he put a hand on my wrist, I looked at him like 
he was crazy. 
 
Horowitz, that little shrimp kept looking up at the flying airplanes 
and boats and trains that were floating above her head.  Not far 
above, but still above.  She hauled herself to her knees, gave it a 
try and babbled some more in an annoyed tone, then hauled that 
little diapered butt up so she was actually standing.  Sort of.  And 
held her hand up to grab one of the mobile figures, her expression 
blissful. 
 
Walt chuckled then.  "She's a lot like her old man, isn't she?" 
 
Startled, she turned to look at us, then beamed at me.  

"She's better looking," I told him and got up to get her before she 
pulled the mobile down on her head.  She disagreed with that 
notion and I had to distract her with that goddamned ugly 
puppet.  This thing is made out of felt and you can't tell what 
particular kind of animal it's supposed to be.  I'm not even sure it is 
an animal, it just makes me shudder to think of it as human or 
humanoid. 
 
That cheered her up, so we played get Daddy's finger for a few 
minutes before Walt, who had gotten up when I went to rescue 
Sarah from the consequences of her own recklessness, came back 
with a cup of coffee for me. 
 
Caffeine. 
 
Anyway, it's all very well, Horowitz, but how do I deal with the 
reality that not only has my genetic structure been fucked with, but 
by extension, my daughter's is something slightly different than 
human.  
 
Jan 16 
 
I'm still here, Horowitz, you're making me tired calling every day.  
I haven't hung myself in Walt's closet or fallen off the roof or 
jumped off that particular little overlook I fell off last year. 
 
I know, I'm trying to get there, just let me do it in my own way, 
okay?  It's not like I don't have enough guilt, I don't need nagging 
from you. 
 
Cassie came back fairly late on Nov 16.  I'd gotten back down 
there and had Sarah fed and bathed even, and all dressed in this 
goofy little sleeping bag/nightgown that my mother had gotten for 
her.  With Disney's version of Winnie the Pooh on it.  I think she 
had to have sent away for it, my general impression is that 
Canadians don't have the kind of silly taste that Americans do, but 
I could be wrong.   
 
But my mother said I had a Winnie the Pooh sort of bear when I 
was very, very small, not that I remember, and she fell in love with 
that shit.  

Anyway, Sarah was lying on her belly in that thing, looking 
absurdly tiny, and I set her close near the fire and sat down to do 
some idle reading. 
 
I got up when I heard that kind of insect hum that Cassie's  
snowmobile makes.  I put my coat on and went out to the side of 
the house to help her stow it, since Sarah was sleeping 
quite peacefully. 
 
She didn't kiss me hello, but as I've said before, she'd been acting 
more and more like I was getting heavily on her nerves, and that 
was getting on mine.  She did say, "'Lo, Mulder."  Sounding tired. 
 
"Did you have a nice trip?" I asked and pulled the shed door closed 
to walk her back to the door.   
 
"It was fine."  She sounded almost dispirited.  I risked putting an 
arm over her shoulders and was not immediately rejected.  She 
raised a gloved hand and rubbed her forehead.  "I just have a 
headache, that's all." 
 
Did my alarms go off, Horowitz?  I wish to hell they had.  Oh, 
Cassie, I'm so goddamned sorry I didn't figure it out.  Spooky 
Mulder didn't even notice it, except to assume it was 
something to do with him. 
 
We went inside and I suggested she run herself a hot bath and 
asked her if she wanted something hot to drink or something 
alcoholic.  She said hot, so I put the kettle on and checked on 
Sarah. 
 
You know how babies look when they sleep, Horowitz, just 
completely trusting of the world, just so completely out that it just 
brings out that desire to protect them?  I bent over the basket for a 
minute and sort of stroked that soft fluffy hair.  She was losing it 
on the sides, I had kidded Walt that she wasn't supposed to take 
after her Uncle Walt that way, and he'd flipped me off, but the top 
was still that feathery stuff. 
 
She's so beautiful to me sometimes, Horowitz.  And other times 
she scares the hell out of me, I know there's so much I have to do, 
so many of the truths yet to find, and I'm trapped.  I know Walt 
and Julie would take good care of her, they love her, I can tell.  
But I fucked myself over when I fed her that first time and she 
turned her face toward me, trying to figure out who the guy with 
the funny eyes and big nose was. 
 
I could hear the water starting to get hot in the kettle, even though 
it hadn't exactly gone off screaming, and I went in to do the 
business side of getting the tea brewed.   
 
I was carrying the cup back out of Cassie's little kitchen when I 
stopped dead. 
 
Cassie had my gun and she was standing over the baby basket, 
staring at Sarah. 
 
My stomach turned a somersault.  I'm a psychologist, Horowitz, 
and that's what I told myself right then. Why didn't I see this, went 
through my mind, visions of post-partum depression and violence 
and all the shit that can happen when a woman has the trouble 
Cassie had.  I said, very softly, "Cassie, your tea is ready." 
 
She whirled to face me and the goddamned gun came up. 
 
I don't practice good gun safety, Horowitz, I don't keep it 
unloaded in the house.  I never dared in DC, it was worth my life 
to have to take precious seconds fumbling to load the fucker.  

"First you," she told me flatly, "Then the baby, then me." 
 
The cup in my hand fell to the floor and I dove over the couch to 
try and take her down.  The first thing I did was get hold of her 
wrist, she had fairly small wrists and I have big hands. 
 
 
Sarah's sitting on my lap now, she insisted by giving me the 
imperative "Da!"  Usually, when she's feeling goofy over me, she 
just calls me "Dada".  

When she doesn't like what I'm doing or wants me to do something 
else, I get this imperious "Da!"  She sounds like a goddamned 
Russian.  She's also drooling on my keyboard again, Julie says she's 
teething and Walt just shrugs.  
 
I don't think he has as much experience as he let me think, but he's 
awfully good with her 
anyway. 
 
I think she's good for him.  I'm sure no treat to deal with, even 
though he feels compelled to drag me out of yet another abyss. 
 
But despite her imperious ways with us, Sarah is this innocent, 
who just gives him so much back.  And even gives so much back 
to her fucked up father. 
 
I'm tired, Horowitz, and the midget needs to go to bed. 
 
 
Jan 18 
 
Thank you again for agreeing that I could cut back again on the 
meds.  I know I haven't given you one helluva lot to go on here, 
but I'm trying. 
 
It was a sunny, clear, windless day today, so I bundled Sarah up 
into her bunting and then into the baby sack or whatever the hell 
it's called, and carried her around on my chest while Walt and I 
were doing the outdoor kinds of things.  She wasn't entirely sure 
about that, since I faced her toward me, and she didn't like the 
taste of my sweater, and she didn't really like me to zip her too far 
into my coat. 
 
And when Sarah gets mad at me, she calls for Walt.  Same 
imperious tone as Da, but it sounds more like Watt. 
 
He looked over at her from where he was knocking icicles off the 
eaves of the porch.  "Sorry, kiddo, Daddy's rules." 
 
Scowl, almost as if she understood him.  I looked down at her and 
wondered.  Maybe she just recognized that regretful tone.  

Cassie missed me the first time she fired, before I got hold of her 
wrist.  I tell myself that she was trying hard to disobey whatever or 
whoever was using the bio-network and chip to control her.  I have 
to think that. 
 
Sarah woke up howling at the gunshot.  Cassie's face got more 
desperate and God, she was so strong, stronger than she should 
have been.  You know those newspaper stories that say, 
"Mom lifts car off tot"?  That was what this was like. 
 
But I was as desperate as she was.  And I banged her hand against 
the floor, not wanting to think what I might be doing to the bones.  
She released the gun and it slid across the floor, she got me in the 
groin, not as badly as she could have, believe me, and skittered for 
it, got it up and aimed- 
 
This is so hard.  I don't have the fight to tell you to fuck off and 
Sarah's taking her nap on my bed with that goofy posture that 
babies take that makes them look like frogs.  If I go and lie 
down beside her, I can take a nap, breathing in the smell of the 
baby soap we use to give her a bath.  I was being an asshole to 
Walt this morning and I asked him what the hell he called 
this arrangement, a menage a trois? 
 
I kid you not, Horowitz, he told me straight faced that he preferred 
me with longer hair, and that if I was more interested in Julie, I 
should take it up with her. 
 
I snarled something back at him about give me a break, I'm not 
your goddamned kid or kid brother.  And repeated my question. 
 
He gave me a mild look and said, "Convenient.  For all of us.  
Extended family, Mulder, I thought you were the one who did all 
the liberal arts shit, didn't you take anthropology?" 
 
Needless to say, that was the end of that discussion. 
 
But Sarah's sleeping beside me, and I can reach out and touch her 
and she's real, not just this inconvenience I had to face when I 
found out Cassie was pregnant. 
 
She's a real person, with real needs, and what I keep going around 
and around on is whether or not it would be best to talk to Walt 
about having him and Julie keep her.  Adopt her, if that's what he 
wants.  

I've made noises in that direction and he's given me a couple of 
sharp looks, but won't rise to the bait to discuss it.  I think it pisses 
him off when I start that. 
 
Everything, everyone I've touched has turned to shit.  My 
relationship with my father was shit to begin with, Horowitz, and 
Mom, though I love her, wasn't a lot of good there either.  
 
Sam was taken when I was twelve, and even though I wanted to 
throttle her a lot because she was the eight year old princess, she 
was also the child who would deliberately stick at my side when 
she knew Dad was mad so he wouldn't hit me.  Because it upset 
her. 
 
My big relationship with Phoebe was a bust from the beginning, 
and since joining the FBI, I've lost touch with friends and had 
partners killed or commit suicide or get shot or get crushed in a 
falling elevator.  Or had them die of cancer, slowly and painfully. 
 
I've turned myself over for an eternity of what was torture, 
intended or not, and I've put one helluva burden on Skinner and no 
matter what you say, Horowitz, if I'd pulled my head out of my ass 
and stopped being so fucking subjective, I might have been able to 
figure out what was going on with Cassie in time to stop her.  I 
wouldn't have been walking around making a goddamned cup of 
tea. 
 
What's going to happen to Sarah, after that list?  Is she going to 
turn out to be a mutant who terrifies others and dies early of some 
basic incompatibility with human environments?  Is she going to 
get taken by the Consortium? 
 
Maybe she'd be better off with Walt and Julie.  Maybe I'd be better 
off if Walt and Julie took her. 
 
I'm an obsessive, I have to find out what they're doing and why and 
now that I know my sister's dead, that's all I've got anymore. 
 
How can I take a child on that journey?  And my mom's too old to 
raise a child, and frankly, I don't think she'd know how to.  I mean, 
she managed, but not well, and I want better for Sarah than that. 
 
It makes my head hurt, Horowitz. 

Jan 20 
 
We're snowed in deep again.  Last night, Julie couldn't make it 
home, which it apparently is now, but she's kept her little house up 
and at least partially furnished and she called Walt regretfully to 
tell him it was too bad for her to bring even the Sno-Cat up. 
 
So it was Two Men and a Baby, although fortunately, we're a little 
more competent--well, Walt is, anyway--and it was a quiet lie 
around the living room and watch satellite television in comfortable 
mostly silence. 
 
I was lying on the floor on my stomach next to Sarah's blanket, 
half-watching the latest Bruce Willis movie, half-playing with that 
idiotic and atrocious finger puppet.  I really despise that thing, and 
my goofy daughter loves it.  She crows and grabs at it and 
generally comes after it like a Sherman tank with that dopey baby 
glee you see in stupid diaper commercials. 
 
Finally, she lost interest in that--that kid has a longer attention span 
than a lot of the agents I used to work with, believe me--and 
decided she was going to attempt conquest of the Mulder 
mountain and climbed up behind my shoulders.  None of which is 
to the point except she kind of lost her hold--she's only four 
months old, after all--and rolled down and bumped her head, even 
through the thick quilt that seems to have become hers and wailed 
like a banshee. 
 
Walt, who was sprawled on the couch in a most unAD-like 
manner, swung his legs over, just in case I was intimidated by this, 
but I had her, swung her up in my arms to check her head--
not even a bruise, the little fraud--and then put her on my shoulder 
to try and jolly her out of the screaming.   
 
Hey, I was missing crucial lines. 
 
She put her face in my neck and wound those little fingers in the 
neck of my sweatshirt and stopped crying.  "Da," she told me 
mournfully. 
 
Fuck, Horowitz, I started to cry.  I don't know what to do, I don't 
know what's right to do--for her or me--and I don't even fucking 
know what I want to do.  But she's mine and Cassie's, and while I 
can't see myself being this Mr. Mom type--Jesus, do I hate 
changing diapers, Horowitz, and the very notion of toilet training 
makes me quail--I'm starting to believe that Walt meant what he 
said when I was in the clinic everytime I said I couldn't be a father, 
I was too big a jerk, and I didn't know anything about it, and look 
at the modeling I had. 
 
He kept saying, "It's okay, we'll help you.  You don't have to do it 
alone." 
 
I always had to do it alone, Horowitz, even with Scully after a 
while, and I can forgive her for that easier than I can forgive her 
for dying on me with so much unsaid.   I told her she was the only 
one I trusted and that was all.  I didn't tell her I loved her--not as a 
lover, Horowitz, so don't go there--I didn't tell her she was my 
truest friend, at least until Walt became one, and I never told her 
how much hope and growth she brought me.  Of course, I also 
never told her she was passive aggressive to the nth degree, that 
her anal-retentiveness about some things made me insane, and that 
she had the cutest ass in the Bureau.   
 
I guess that's why I was crying, even if silently, and damned if the 
macho Eagle Scout didn't see me and come over and crouch down 
beside me and the froglet and start rubbing my shoulders.   
 
I really do want to thank you for letting me just journal this winter 
instead of forcing me to come down to the office.  It's too damned 
hard to haul the kid out and around and while Walt would gladly 
keep an eye on her, I've got to start taking responsibility.  I've got 
to pay the freight on my own life and obsessions. 
 
You may note that I've kept my part of the bargain scrupulously.  
Just scoring brownie points, Horowitz.  I need all I can get just 
now. 
 
 
Jan 23 
 
Sorry, I missed a day, so I'll catch up here.  Julie Wilson thinks that 
Walt and I are hilarious, which is both offensive and embarrassing. 
 
Sarah woke up with a fever.  Using a Thermoscan on an adult is 
very different than using it on a squirming, crying infant.  We 
finally got a reading on it and her temperature was 99.9.    
 
I got on the phone and woke Julie up and she told me calmly that 
the infant Tylenol was in the bathroom medicine cabinet and that 
even though they'd taught her in medical school that teething 
doesn't cause either fever or diarrhea, she's seen it too many times 
to discount it.  She told me how much to give her. 
 
Teething, said I, rocked. 
 
Teething, she said firmly.  She's getting teeth early. 
 
Great, she's crawling early, she's getting teeth early, my mother's 
going to be laughing her ass off.  It's going to be her best revenge. 
 
I was talking by six months, I'm told, and walking not too long 
after that.  I was reading at three, if I remember correctly, and 
probably walking on water at four.  And the froglet is going 
to beat my record.  And my mother is going to laugh and laugh and 
laugh. 
 
My karma must be really bad, Horowitz. 
 
Anyway, I managed to get the Tylenol into her, although she 
wasn't fond of the taste and gave me a reproachful look after that.  
Of course,  I also managed to get it down the neck of her sleeper 
and all over my sheets.  

Walt had gone out into the kitchen, presumably to keep from 
laughing his ass off, and I could hear weird crackling noises. 
 
I had to rock her for a while, and the weird crackling noises turned 
out to be from Walt smacking an ice cube in a plastic bag so I 
could rub it on her gums. 
 
"My sister-in-law swore by it," he told me and yawned.  "Of 
course, my mom swears she used whiskey, but I don't think that's 
wise." 
 
"Give me the whiskey," I muttered and found that Julie was right, 
the froglet has two teeny weeny new teeth on the bottom.  When 
she bit me with them. 
 
Sharp little razor teeth, like a shark.   
 
I'm not equipped for this, Horowitz.  I don't even, as a rule, like 
children all that much. 
 
 
Jan 25 
 
I know you're concerned, Horowitz, but please don't get into 
calling Walt again like you used to.  He still tells me, because Walt 
doesn't bullshit me.  

God, he hasn't even reamed me like he used to, and I'm almost 
nostalgic on occasion for that.   
 
Just kidding. 
 
Anyway, I'm doing fine, and no more meds, and I'm functioning 
and coping and working and trying to keep the froglet from eating 
everything she finds on the floor.  
 
I really don't understand, we feed her pretty well.  She's a 
carnivore, though, she doesn't want any of those crappy creamed 
peas, she wants my roast beef sandwich.  Although I'm not 
sure how she feels about horseradish, she made a terrible face 
when she managed to snag a piece of the roast beef that was 
dangling out of the bread yesterday afternoon. 
 
She does like pickles.   
 
The drooling has cut down a little bit, so she doesn't look so much 
like she's suffering from rabies. 
 
I know, I'm stalling.  It's hard, Horowitz.   
 
Cassie aimed the gun directly at the basket and I more or less 
rolled, still kind of curled up due to her unerring strike for my 
balls.  I wasn't going to make it to Cassie in time to get the 
gun and I basically threw myself over the basket, which didn't thrill 
Sarah, she only shrieked louder and I pushed the basket over on 
the rug and heard that little body roll out because I 
wanted more between her and bullet.  This all took seconds.  One 
helluva lot longer to tell than to think that through and do it. 
 
She jobbed me pretty good with that shot.  The surgeon that took 
care of me afterward said I was pretty goddamned lucky that it 
didn't hit me square in the spine.  To which I replied flatly 
that hitting my lung wasn't so hot either. 
 
I couldn't breathe and I thought she'd fire again and I could taste 
blood on my lips.  I refuse to talk about how it felt to be shot, 
Horowitz, I've been shot before a couple of times and this fell 
on the high end of the scale.  I got shocky faster when I got hit in 
the thigh because I was bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig.  This 
didn't hit an artery, but it hit some pretty major blood vessels.  It 
hit me in the left lung, and I'm also just fucking lucky, according to 
the surgeon, that it wasn't higher, or I'd be dead. 
 
For a while, I wasn't sure that was a blessing.  I'm still not, to be 
truthful, Horowitz, but I don't plan on trying to off myself.  How 
would that affect Sarah as she grew up, knowing that both 
her parents committed suicide? 
 
Okay, there, I've said it. 
 
Maybe I can say the rest. 
 
Cassie was screaming, even in my condition it was clear that she 
didn't want to be doing what she was doing.  Somehow, I turned 
my head to look at her, begged her in this breathless, I'm-going-
into-shock and I-can't-breathe voice to put the gun down. 
 
"They won't let me," she wailed and her hands tried to bring the 
gun up again, to aim at me. 
 
I closed my eyes, kind of floating, wondering if anyone would hear 
the shot or screams and come soon enough to save Sarah.  I think I 
said please, Cassie, don't. 
 
"I can't," she screamed again and I managed to peel my eyelids 
apart.   
 
She was so brave, in spite of everything.  She was so afraid of 
giving birth to a monster and she made it through all the problems 
in her pregnancy and she'd recovered from the loss of her parents 
and the two year gap in her memory and history.  And she was 
tough enough that she was more or less the police and mayor of 
our village up here on the roof of the world.  

Those are the things that I want Sarah to know.   I want Sarah to 
know the Cassie who laughed a lot, and sang off-key to Cowboy 
Mouth and finally learned to like Elvis Costello a lot, because of 
Watching The Detectives.  I want Sarah to know about how her 
mom helped Walt save my life and mind the first round of 
craziness. 
 
I don't ever want her to know what it felt like to watch her mom 
fight the force that had taken her, fight it so hard that the tendons 
in her arms stood out as if she were lifting weights, fight it hard 
enough to bring the gun up to her mouth. 
 
"I'm sorry," she wept, just before she put the gun in her mouth.  I 
like to think she was saying it to me.  That she was telling me that 
she could only stop it one way and she was sorry that had to be.  
Not that she was telling them she was sorry she couldn't do what 
they'd programmed her to do. 
 
I didn't scream, Horowitz, I wasn't getting enough air to do that, 
and I was starting to feel very cold and very spacy, but I remember 
screaming in my mind, no and no and no and no.  

She knew how to do it.  It blew the back of her head off and all 
over the chair behind her. 
 
I was gone, then.  Out of the blue and into the black, as I think an 
old song says.   
 
And so was Cassie. 
 
 
Jan 27 
 
Thanks for calling yesterday.  God, for a Freudian, you're entirely 
too interested in your patient's welfare, Horowitz, you're going to 
ruin your rep.  

I'm okay.  And you were probably right, I needed to talk it 
through.  You know, I've been letting Walt read these again, even 
though I'm emailing them to you these days. 
 
It's like talking to him about things that I can't talk about, and then 
we work into talking around the edges. 
 
He says he was sure I was going to die when he burst through the 
door.  See, Walt didn't go back up-mountain, and Julie Wilson's 
little house sits just catercorner to Cassie's. 
 
He says an old cop always recognizes a gunshot, even though Julie 
didn't, and he told Julie to call the clinic and have them gear up. 
 
I'm not sure why he knew, but he says he just had this feeling.  He 
says it's that old cop gut hunch working, because he wasn't sure 
where it had come from.   
 
He also admitted, very embarrassed, that his first thought was that 
I had shot myself, because he hadn't heard the snowmobile.  "If 
you had, I was going to round up one of those mediums you told 
Horowitz about and make your afterlife a living hell," he growled. 
 
Instead, he found Cassie with her brains sprayed over the chair, me 
unconscious and in shock and bleeding heavily and Sarah 
screaming. 
 
He says that if Julie hadn't made the calls and run like a madwoman 
to follow him, he isn't sure I would have made it. 
 
And John Little River's house is across from what passes for a 
street here and he came running out in his boots, parka, and 
thermal underwear, carrying a gun, but ready to do the 
medical shtick. 
 
Turns out he'd had a few conversations with Cassie the day before 
she went down to her aunt's and uncle's, if she ever got there, and 
she was acting really strange, he said. 
 
I missed it.  I only saw that she was tense and high strung and I 
figured it was me and the baby on top of it. 
 
John says she was talking about the voices in her head.  At first, he 
took it as metaphor, but she had a look in her eye that worried 
him.  He says he was going to talk to Julie about it, but Martin 
Whalen broke his leg, a nasty compound fracture, and they got tied 
up with that and he forgot. 
 
John feels badly, too.  He liked Cassie.  Most people did. 
 
I loved her, Horowitz. 
 
But John's saying all that doesn't make me feel less culpable.  
 
And she was so fucking brave, Horowitz, she was afraid she'd kill 
us and she fought back. 
 
Do I have to grow all the way up, Horowitz, now that I'm a father?  
After all, for normalcy, the froglet has Walt and Julie in this weird 
sort of family that we've created here. 
 
Notice I don't mention my mom. 
 
I'm going to be okay, Horowitz, it's just going to take some time, 
as Walt keeps reminding me. 
 
Why does that work now, when it didn't work a year ago?  
Damned if I know.  What really scares me a lot is that I'm not even 
enraged that after I recovered from the gunshot, you kept me in 
that damned clinic for another five weeks. 
 
Walt doesn't have guilt in his eyes when he looks at me these days, 
more like either amusement, annoyance, or just plain Walt. 
 
I can live with that easier. 
 
I'm not sure I'm ever going to stop blaming myself for not seeing 
into Cassie's eyes better.  But even with the guilt, I know who it is 
I really blame.  

I'm not delusional, I know I can't stop them from hurting other 
people.  Yet.  

But as Walt reminded me again and again, and as he continues to 
remind me, I don't have to fight that battle alone anymore. 
 
And we're going to get them, Horowitz.  Count on it. 

FIN