To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Chronology

I'm not entirely sure that this is either desirable or necessary, Dr. 
Horowitz.   
I've certainly given you enough background information on your 
patient that it shouldn't be necessary to have a chronology, and 
Mulder really appears to be doing quite well these days.  

In surprisingly good spirits, all things considered.

Besides, I'm not sure that having me develop a chronology of 
events is required, he has a pretty clear idea of what happened.  
I've certainly answered his questions as they've come up.  Unless 
he's planning his memoirs, I fail to see what there is to be gained.

However, in the event that you're right and I'm wrong, I'll give 
one.

I received a call from the Alexandria police after Scully had 
identified the body found in Mulder's apartment.  He had her listed 
as an emergency contact on the card in his wallet.  By the time I 
was notified, Scully was already making her report to what she 
referred to as the Star Chamber conspirators.  I confess, I adopted 
that phrase, because it seemed appropriate.  I, of course, was not 
there; by that time, I was doing what every supervisory agent 
dreads, I was contacting his mother.  If I could have, I would have 
driven up to tell her that her only son had killed himself, it seemed 
unnecessarily heartless to call her on the telephone and tell her 
that.

All I told her after delivering the news that he was dead was that I 
would keep in touch with her as I knew more.  Not because I had 
any inkling that he wasn't really dead, I'm afraid.  I simply couldn't 
tell her over the phone that Mulder had eaten his gun.

That's a phrase I've heard again and again in law enforcement, they 
call it the policeman's disease.  You see enough of what people do 
to each other, it can happen all too easily.  I've considered it 
myself once or twice.

A day after Mulder's alleged death, I met with his mother.  And 
then I told her what we knew at that point.  She was numb, I think, 
and simply heard me out.  I don't care how gently you tell someone 
that their loved one has committed suicide, you are still telling 
them something that is so loaded with guilt-

She said, "I wish I hadn't slapped him."  And pressed her 
handkerchief to her mouth.

I had no idea what that was about, so I simply kept my mouth shut.  
I had taken her other hand-awkwardly, mind you, as my ex-wife 
used to tell me ad nauseam, I am not a particular warm person.   
This was in Mulder's apartment, which made it that much more 
awkward.  Thankfully, someone had cleaned up the worst of it, 
although the stains in the floor and paint were still there.

"He was a good man," I told her, which I believed to be true.  He 
was also an obsessed and driven man, but if she knew her son at 
all, she already knew that.  

The apartment door opened and Scully appeared, looking as wan 
and tired as one might expect.  She gave me a look that was, 
frankly, extremely cold and suggested that I had no right to be 
sitting in Mulder's apartment comforting his mother.

It stung, of course, but I've gotten used to that in my dealings with 
Scully and Mulder.  They don't trust me, particularly, and I can't 
blame them.  When I first came into the division as AD, Blevins 
had briefed me on the loose cannon in the basement and his 
powerful contacts.  And looking at his operating procedures 
certainly didn't convince me that Blevins was wrong.  

Freshly appointed AD, I was going to keep the loose cannon in 
line.  I had been briefed on the reason for Scully's assignment to 
the X files, and Blevins was of the opinion that Mulder had 
dazzled her with bullshit and fancy footwork.  Of course, Blevins 
was also of the opinion that they were sleeping together, which I 
found doubtful.

I found it more doubtful as time went on, but the first time I called 
Scully into my office-Mulder already having decamped to testify 
at a hearing-I was still operating on Blevins' briefing.  It was the 
hearing for Eugene Tooms.  My first real brush with the 
unbelievable and the X files.  I dressed Scully down fairly 
thoroughly, and the entire time, Mulder's nemesis-I knew him by 
the name Grey, which I find appropriate enough-stood behind me 
at the window, filling the office with smoke.

I haven't smoked in nearly twenty years.  I quit when Sharon's 
pregnancy test was positive, and despite real temptation after her 
late miscarriage, I never started again.  

I'm not sure when I suspected that the loose cannon wasn't quite as 
crazy as his reputation suggested.  Not long after Tooms.  My first 
inkling, of course, wasn't that Grey wasn't surprised at the 
resolution of the Tooms case.  I had made some inquiries of my 
own.  Spooky Mulder had been in Quantico while I was climbing 
the Bureau ladder in Texas.  From there, he had gone almost 
directly into Behavioral under that lunatic Patterson, a 
circumstance generally unheard of.   He was widely considered to 
be one the brightest and the best student to come out of Quantico 
in the history of the Bureau, but every time I was face to face with 
him, he acted like a sullen adolescent.  No, that's not fair.  
He was sullen, but he didn't trust me.  Mulder's always sullen when 
faced with complete disbelief.  I can't blame him for either, at this 
point.

Somehow, I've digressed into a chronology of the time I spent 
supervising the X files.  I really didn't intend to, Dr. Horowitz, but 
it occurs to me that you may find that helpful as well.  As helpful 
as any of it will be, at any rate.

Fox Mulder started out in Behavioral, under William Patterson.  
Are you familiar with the profiling unit?  Their offices are 60 feet 
under, what would have been J. Edgar Hoover's bomb shelter.  Or 
so the legend goes.  William Patterson was brilliant, egomaniacal, 
relentless, and dedicated.  I only wish I believed he was dedicated 
to anything but his own glory.  He was one of the first generation 
of profilers.  And he was ruthless and dictatorial.  He drove 
himself as hard as he drove his staff and that's about the only good 
thing I can find to say about him.

Mulder wasn't the only agent driven to the brink while working for 
Patterson.  There were heart attacks.  A case of meningitis that I 
feel sure was caused by a stress-weakened immune system in an 
otherwise healthy individual.  Several cases of exhaustion that 
were almost certainly nervous breakdowns.  Mulder had one or 
two of those.  And then there was a case that drove him over the 
edge, child murders.  He was on disability for nearly half a year.  
Interestingly, the Bureau has no available record of why.  The 
records are sealed.  

He left Behavioral and went to VCS.  Oddly, most agents don't go 
straight to Behavioral, they have to prove themselves as field 
agents for at least a year, and usually two..  But Patterson was 
salivating for Mulder, Mulder was every bit as brilliant, and his 
empathy for the victims made him ideal to work the 
victimology.   Patterson did some maneuvering--maybe he had 
pictures of the Christmas party, Hoover was still alive when 
Patterson started to shine.  But after Mulder returned to work, he 
did some maneuvering of his own and got into VCS.  Or so I've 
been told.  I wasn't in DC at the time, so I can't swear to 
the accuracy of what I put together, nearly seven years ago.

At any rate, the work was still taking its toll, and he was so 
damned good that VCS worked him damned near as hard as 
Patterson had.  Allegedly, he did well enough, and made enough 
congressional contacts that he more or less blackmailed them into 
letting him take over the X files section.

Mulder's sister was abducted when he was twelve, but you 
doubtless have that information in his dossier.  His sister's file was 
assigned to the X files section, he actually originated it.  There was 
an older file, because after the abduction of Samantha Mulder, the 
FBI was called in to consult.

I've seen that file, although it was allegedly deep-sixed at the 
request of William Mulder, with a little pressure from various 
influential parties, most of whom are dead now.  The local police 
were baffled at first.  And, as cops do, they started looking at the 
family.  First, Mulder, who was more or less catatonic and in the 
hospital for some period of time after the abduction.

The parents had been playing cards with neighbors.  The two 
children were at home alone together.  No forensic evidence 
existed to tie the boy to it.  So they started looking at William 
Mulder.  Interestingly, they had turned up something that aroused 
their suspicions--I'm not sure what, but I have my own 
suspicions--and began to focus on him.  Until William Mulder 
called in the FBI, using his powerful contacts in the State 
Department.

And then, as suddenly as that, the evidence--if evidence there was-
-gathered by the local police department was either destroyed or 
buried.  My own suspicion?  I've always wondered if the father 
didn't return to the house and something--and here I'm not sure 
exactly what--happened to trigger his temper.  It was hair-
triggered, according to the few sources I have, and he was prone to 
acting out violently when he'd been drinking.  So, my theory was 
always that he came home, ostensibly to check on the children, 
killed his daughter, either accidentally or deliberately, and terrified 
his son into a catatonic state.  All he had to do was go back and 
play bridge and wait until the evening was over.

Most murders are committed by people known to the victim, 
standard police work.

The only flaw in this theory is that the local police, despite their 
initial suspicions, never found any forensic evidence around the 
house or yard that might have suggested where the little girl was 
buried.

Mulder, during some course of Bureau ordered counseling, sought 
his own therapist and went through hypnotic regression to that 
night, with the subsequent theory that his sister was abducted by 
something or someone extra-terrestrial.  I used to think that was 
crap.

Now, of course, I know better.  So I don't know what to think.

At any rate, they brought me back from the New York Bureau 
office to take the AD slot when Jenkins retired.  I was delighted, it 
was the payoff for years of hard work.

I had no idea what I was stepping into.  No wonder Jenkins retired.  
With the job came the silent, smoking presence of Mr. Grey, who 
was allegedly just easing me into the routine.  Of course, he was 
pulling my strings--or was supposed to.  I confess that it gave me 
great pleasure when I finally drew the line and dared him to cross 
it.  I was bluffing, of course, so my stomach also felt like I'd been 
swallowing drain cleaner, but it was not without its enjoyable 
aspect.

Mulder and Scully weren't the only agents I supervised, of course, 
and they actually were the only agents I ended up supervising 
directly, without the layers of command in between.  For one 
thing, they were the most high maintenance agents I had.  It didn't 
take very long for me to figure out that Grey was terrified of 
Mulder's tenacity and determined to prevent him from 
succeeding in his quest for the truth and I began to see the moves 
behind the moves and get seriously concerned about the two of 
them.

They had so little to protect them.  And despite my unwillingness 
to deal with the arcane, I respected Mulder's tenacity and integrity.  
Well, I respected both of them.  Scully's insistence on framing 
rational explanations to things was reassuring and I reported to 
Grey that she was doing her job as assigned:  evaluating the 
scientific validity of Mulder's work.

But his methods were enough to make me lose what's left of my 
hair.  Hauling him in time after time wasn't a treat, particularly 
after the Tooms case where he decided that I was Grey's toady.  
With reason, I admit, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with 
him.

The odd thing is he seems to think he was outrageously difficult in 
our face to face contacts, but there were only a few times he lost 
his composure and outright challenged me.  When I was reaming 
him after his return from Puerto Rico, he took it very meekly.  I 
was the one who lost my temper, I ordered Grey to get out.

Much to Grey's surprise.  And Mulder's, I might add.  Mulder's 
eyes went very wide for a moment when he realized I wasn't 
talking to him.  And he politely averted his eyes from Grey's 
astonishment and anger.  

I know that wasn't the wisest thing for me to do politically.  My 
temper gets the best of me at times, but they were my agents, and 
Grey had no business opening his mouth.  

Mulder was right to challenge me over Krycek after Scully's 
disappearance.  Knowing in my gut that he was right, even if I 
doubted that the mechanism was extra-terrestrial in origin, made 
me sick.  I was powerless to protect Scully, who I both liked and 
respected.  

I think my powerlessness was what eventually led to him trusting 
me a little.  Paradoxically.  I couldn't do him any favors.  When 
Scully was returned, was in the hospital in a coma, I had to call 
him in over an execution that took place in the hospital laundry 
room.  Yes, execution.

I really didn't think Mulder had shot the man.  But he was 
sufficiently angry and distraught that I wasn't certain.  And that 
bastard Grey came in and told me in so many words that he would 
deal with Mulder if I couldn't keep him under control.  

I didn't like to think about how he might control Mulder.  And it 
was very hard to keep my temper that day when Mulder came in 
with an impassive face and kept throwing my questions back at 
me.  He couldn't keep it up for long, his temper wasn't any better 
than mine.

He asked for Grey's name and address.  I got the address for him 
and he showed remarkable restraint.  He either didn't go or he did 
go and thought better of his original desire to kill the bastard.  

I suspect the latter.  He tried to resign the next day.  Wrote up a 
proper letter and signed it and left it with Kim, who put it on my 
desk very gingerly as if she were afraid it might explode.  
Evidently, my clashes with Mulder were taking on mythic 
proportions in the halls of the Bureau.  Like most myths, they were 
greatly exaggerated.

I felt sick, reading that resignation.  And took it downstairs-it was 
late, very late, probably after nine in the evening.  

Mulder looked defeated.  He acted defeated.  Not just because of 
his partner's condition, but because everytime he got close to the 
truth, they yanked the rug out from under him.

If I'd acted like I felt sorry for him, he would have known it and 
rejected it.  But I didn't.  Instead, I told him a story about Vietnam, 
when I'd nearly died.  I told him I was afraid to look past that 
experience.  That he was not.  And then I tore up his carefully 
typed resignation and threw it into his wastebasket.

He started trusting me a little more after that.  Not a lot.  I wasn't 
sure I wanted him to trust me a lot.  I wasn't his friend, I was his 
commander, basically, and there would be things I had to do that 
he wasn't going to be happy about.

Of course, when I was framed for the murder of a call girl, Mulder 
was the one who dug up the truth.  I didn't want him involved, I 
wasn't sure what was going on, or why I was being set up, but if a 
situation has the potential to blow up into a major disaster, Fox 
Mulder's presence will ensure it.

Mulder draws trouble.  I swear, he doesn't always do it on purpose, 
he just flung himself into investigations with that damned terrier 
persistence that was going to get him killed until, finally, it 
appeared that it had.

Trust.  All right, one last thing, and I'll go on from Mulder's 
funeral.  When Scully was diagnosed with cancer, I refused to put 
him into contact with Grey to make a deal for a cure.  I told him 
they'd own him.  But I did contact Grey and I did make a deal.

I'm not sure if they were deliberately framing me for murder then, 
or if they were just careless.  I doubt the latter.  I suspect it was 
deliberate, and not to see me prosecuted, but to undermine 
Mulder's trust in me and to give them a handle on me.  Not that he 
had that much trust in me, mind you, but his insistence during the 
call girl frame-up certainly got some attention.

Another reason I didn't want him and Scully in on that.  I knew 
that it would only make things harder.  

At any rate, it nearly worked the second time, but they *were* 
careless then, they had to force my desk drawer to put my gun 
back in.  Now why would I force the drawer, I asked him, while he 
held me at gunpoint.

He might be temperamental, but he's not an idiot.  He actually 
dusted the desk himself, got a few smudged prints, and took the 
gun into Ballistics.  With the number filed off.

I was stunned, needless to say.  But a few weeks later, he was 
hospitalized for having holes drilled in his head-ask him about 
that, Doctor Horowitz, I refuse to even try to speculate about his 
intentions and his own partner clearly believed that he'd gone off 
the deep end on that one--I reamed him in my usual heartless 
fashion and gave him a week's suspension.  

Three weeks later, he was apparently dead.

All right, the funeral was brief and nondenominational.  Of his 
colleagues, Scully and I and two others attended.  Grey was there.  
There was a memorable moment when he tried to approach Mrs. 
Mulder and Scully stepped between them, giving Grey a long, 
level look.  Grey spoke to Mrs. Mulder anyway, I was too far 
away to hear what he said.  Mrs. Mulder gently moved Scully 
aside and then put her back into a slap that made him step back.  
By this time, I had gotten close enough to hear what she said to 
him:  "You can't hurt him anymore, and I don't have to tolerate you 
here.  Get out."

Now I know where Mulder got his temper.  

Scully wouldn't speak to me at the funeral, I got a look like the one 
she'd given Grey before she got Mrs. Mulder into the limo.

I didn't precisely blame her, but I stood at the side of the grave for 
a long time.  Not brooding or planning revenge, just thinking 
about what a goddamned waste it all was.  

I didn't start really brooding until Scully went on medical 
disability because of her illness.

But since Mulder was gone, I went in to see her anyway, once 
they'd admitted her.  She didn't die in the hospital, she died in a 
hospice, she said the only thing wrong with her is that she was 
dying and since there wasn't much they could do for her, she might 
as well be comfortable and not take up space.  Of course, 
she said that before the tumor really started causing her problems.  
I suspect that when she asked for my promise, she was already 
having trouble sorting out fact from fiction.  She saw Mulder a few 
times in the room when I was there, which may have been because 
she associated me with a time when Mulder was still alive.

Terminal illnesses are seldom as photogenic as they are portrayed 
in the movies.  At the end, the only trace of the attractive young 
woman  I had known was the color of her eyes.  One of her pupils 
was swollen to twice the size it should have been and she was 
nearly blind.  It's very hard to write about that, and that's all I'm 
going to say about it.  Mulder doesn't need to know what it 
was like for her, and I've tried to focus on the non-physical things 
in my brief descriptions of it.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't dwell on that if you discuss this with 
him.

After Scully's funeral, her mother gave me the key to the storage 
unit in which Scully had stored Mulder's things.  She didn't say 
anything except, "Dana couldn't bring herself to take care of 
Mulder's belongings."

So I took the key and went out to see what was in there.  Thank 
God, she'd gotten rid of his furniture, but everything else, 
including his computer, was boxed up.  I couldn't bring myself to 
take care of it either, so I spent the relatively modest fee to keep it 
in storage.

I have no idea why.

A week after the funeral, I was contacted by someone who 
eventually led me to Edmund Heatherton, who offered me the 
chance to at least partially redeem my promise to Scully.  I was 
divorced, of course, and clearly my days at the Bureau were 
numbered, either my career would be destroyed or they'd arrange 
an accident.  I was the only one left who believed in Mulder's 
truth.  I'd seen fragments of it, and was sure that more could be 
found.  But if I stayed where I was, I had no chance to assemble 
those fragments.

So I resigned, citing health, my ulcer was becoming a real 
problem, the stress level *had* also gotten my doctor frowning at 
the stress tests she ran to check my heart, and it was accepted 
without delay.

Within a month, I was up in the mountains breathing clean air for 
the first time since-God, maybe a decade.

I found out Mulder was alive quite by accident.  I hadn't worked 
with Watts before and had no idea he was running a long term 
surveillance on a long-term member of the Consortium named 
James Wilkinson.  Wilkinson was a Canadian expatriate living on 
an small island in the Caribbean, not far from the Mexican coast.  
Technically, he was on Mexican territory, but he was seldom 
bothered and appeared to be a wealthy recluse.  

Actually, he was mid-level Consortium.  Trusted so far and no 
farther, since his self-indulgences and his sociopathy had evidently 
compromised his efficiency.  But meetings were held regularly on 
the island between different factions-the Consortium, I am pleased 
to report, has a number of very vocal factions, all with differing 
agendas.  They have frequent and colorful disagreements, 
evidently and I can't help but find that reassuring.  There was a 
tech focused group that we knew was working on reverse 
engineered technology, and another one working on genetic 
modifications for the purpose of combining human and alien 
DNA.  

Just writing that makes my head hurt.  But I've seen too much to 
deny what Mulder believes any more.

There was also another group experimenting with modifications to 
human genetic structure for the purpose of improving the race.  
Ubermenschen.  

At any rate, Wilkinson also had the responsibility of holding 
people that the Consortium want held for an unlimited period of 
time.  And he had some nasty personal habits, as by now you've no 
doubt heard.  

The first time I saw Fox Mulder's face in a surveillance 
photograph taken by one of the household staff, working for 
Wilkinson, I actually thought I was hallucinating.  It was around 
three am, I'd been going through Watts' material and trying to 
make a decision as to whether or not there was more to be gained 
by simply continuing to observe, or by going in and interrogating 
him.  And Mulder, even with hair down to his shoulders and gaunt 
to the point of emaciation, is memorable.  The man in the 
photograph even had the small mole on his cheek that Mulder had.

I got up and washed my face, telling myself that I was projecting 
onto a man with a similar build and facial structure.  But 
subsequent photographs were no less haunting.

At six am, I went to roust Heatherton and Watts.

"Who is this?" I asked Watts, tapping the photograph."

Watts lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.  "That guy?  He's some 
poor slob used to be an FBI agent."  Big smile.  "Like you, 
Skinner."

I actually felt dizzy with rage.  "What's his name?"

"Something strange."  Watts' eyebrows drew together. "Fox 
something."

"Mulder?"  I remember being surprised at how calm my voice 
sounded.

Watts nodded, amused.  "That's it.  Yeah, they've had him on the 
island for about nine or ten months, I think.  Wilkinson's supposed 
to keep him fed and exercised in case they want him back in the 
tech center."

"I want him extracted."  I still had the AD tone of voice, slightly 
reminiscent of a drill sergeant I had as a marine recruit.

Heatherton stared at me, and Watts' eyes narrowed.  "You want 
him extracted," Watts finally said and shook his head.  "I'm in 
charge of this operation, Skinner.  Extracting him means we have 
to go in and interrogate, and I'm not in favor of that, that's why you 
have my stuff, to make a judgement on either or.  And if you've 
got personal reasons, you can't make that judgement."  He took in 
another drag and studied me as he blew the smoke back out.

I ignored him.  We were in that conference room for something 
like eight hours fighting over the situation.  But Watts is a weasel.  
A talented weasel, but a weasel nonetheless.  And I didn't get to be 
AD because I was good at sucking up to Grey.  *That* I got on my 
own talents.  It was just that Grey came along with it.

Heatherton decided that Mulder needed to be extracted.  Of 
course, I may have given the impression that Mulder knew more 
about the internal workings of the Consortium than he did, but no 
harm done.  If I'm going to learn to lie, I'm going to lie about the 
things that I value.

Jack Lenski was medical personnel with an interesting twist.  He'd 
been in a sexual bondage situation for six years, from eighteen to 
twenty-four, had gotten out of it, had several years of therapy and 
been recruited by Heatherton's predecessor because of his peculiar 
background.   He arrived and began briefing me on Wilkinson's 
nasty habits and what we could expect.

I think Jack expected that Mulder's situation was semi-normal, that 
it was a sex scene that had just gotten a little out of hand.  It wasn't 
quite the case, and I suspect that's part of the problem Jack has in 
dealing with Mulder.  Mulder hadn't gone to Wilkinson's estate as 
a sexual prisoner, he'd gone as a prisoner period.  It was 
Wilkinson's obsession with him that turned it into what Jack 
perceived as a sexual dominant/sexual submissive dynamic.  But it 
wasn't.  It was rape and torture, not sexual dominance, and Jack's 
inability to recognize that seriously compromises his ability to 
work with Mulder effectively.

The medical exam, for example.  I should have dug in harder at 
the outset and let Mulder get dressed, but Jack was supposed to 
know what he was doing, and I know enough medicine to know 
when I have a cold versus pneumonia.  That's about it.  The latex 
gloves were a little much, although we honestly didn't know if 
Mulder would have any infections, viral or otherwise.  And his 
insensitivity was simply the last straw.  I know Jack gave you the 
impression that Mulder was gibbering that night, nearly hysterical, 
but that's not what I saw.  

He was certainly rattled when he saw me, and I may be flattering 
myself, but he finally seemed to believe that he had been 
"rescued".  I prefer extracted, it has less emotional weight.  By the 
time I had managed to get a handle on Jack, Mulder was in bed, 
under the bedclothes, knees drawn up protectively and staring at 
me.  I'll tell you, I was seriously worried about him.  He was flip, 
but exhausted after he ate, and didn't want to talk.  So, calling on 
the Mulder lore Scully had provided me, I turned on the television 
and let him go to sleep.

Bad dreams that night.  I heard him, not screaming, just moaning 
in his sleep, and having some trouble getting his breath.  Actually, 
I was having a few of my own and found myself in the hall before 
I figured out what I was hearing.  With my gun drawn.

He settled back down quickly enough, just waking enough to nod 
blearily at me when I patted his shoulder and told him it was a 
dream, he was here, and he was safe.  By that time, I was unsettled 
enough that I sat back in the chair near the bed, wrapped a blanket 
around myself and dozed for quite a while before I left him alone 
again.

Those moans were hideous.  

The next morning, he was shaky and subdued, but I had the sense 
that Mulder was still living in there behind those terrible, dead 
eyes, and we just had to give him time.

Mulder ate decently.  Like many victims of starvation, he couldn't 
manage large meals, and I'd seen enough of that in Vietnam to 
remember it and warn Jack about it.  I later caught Jack bullying 
him over eating_threatening to inject insulin, for Christ's sake_
and made it clear what I thought of that.  As I said, Jack was a 
mistake.  He took very small bites, all he could manage to 
swallow.  Once we got to the clinic, I found out why.

Managing a fork was difficult, his hands trembled badly.  I had to 
suppress the desire to flinch everytime I watched him bring a 
forkful of scrambled eggs to his mouth, but he managed well 
enough, using a half a piece of toast to help get the eggs on the 
fork to begin with.  

About three quarters of the way through the meal, he looked at me.  
"'S good."  The same cracked voice.  

I muttered something in the way of thanks and asked him if he 
wanted more.

His eyes looked too large for his face, as thin as he was, and they 
widened further.  "Can't."

"Too full?"

He blinked and nodded and went back to the remains of his toast, 
all he had left.  And he'd taken the vitamins Jack laid out.  No 
caffeine, Jack said, but plenty of juice.  Grape juice_Jack had 
told me the night before that malnutrition had left Mulder with 
sores inside his mouth.  Orange juice would have been like 
rubbing salt in them..

"When you get done eating," I told him, "We're going down to the 
clinic.  There's a surgeon coming to have a look at you."  
Watching him limp the night before had convinced me of the 
wisdom of that.  He doesn't tell me a lot of details, even now, but 
some things even a medical idiot like me could guess, looking at 
him walk, seeing him wearing only a towel and helping him to get 
dressed the night before.

He was still sitting at the table, forcing himself to eat slowly.  That 
announcement got a blank look first, then a frown and he reached 
for the juice.  His hands shook badly enough that he used both 
hands to lift it and when he put it down, he kept them cupped 
around the glass.  "I'm fine."

That was patently absurd.  "No, you aren't, Mulder," I told him 
gently.  "You're far from all right."

The frown deepened and he looked down at his plate.  "I don't 
need a doctor.  If you're going to force me to see a doctor, I want 
Scully.  Scully's treated me before."

Jack gave me an uncomprehending look.  I hadn't thought to tell 
him about 
Scully.

And I was unprepared for it.  I told Jack to give us a moment or 
two, a polite way to kick him out of the kitchen, and then moved 
my chair a little closer to Mulder's.  "Mulder, I'm sorry, she can't 
be here."

"Why not?"  His head came up, raptor quick.  "She's treated me 
before.  I don't want anyone else."

I got up, unable to sit still, and moved to look out the window over 
the sink.  "Because she's_Mulder, she's not with us anymore."  
Never have I hated the platitudes of death so much. "She's gone, 
Mulder, she died about a year after you_after we thought you'd 
shot yourself."

Bad thing to do.  Sharon may be right about me, I suppose, but I 
erred on the side of honesty.  I had looked away when I said the 
words, and only the sharp crack of glass made me turn back.  It 
had shattered between his hands; he took a piece and drew it down 
the inside of his left arm before I could stop him.  I ended up 
wrestling him to the floor, whereupon he thumped his head on the 
floor, screaming obscenities and threats and calling for Scully.

I think that was what Jack had expected the night before.  Jack had 
the syringe out before I'd had time to get my breath and I had to 
bark at him not to knock Mulder  all the way out.  Jack looked at 
me as though I were crazy and finally nodded.  Which was just as 
well, because Mulder's left arm was slippery and I was afraid I'd 
lose hold of it.

By the time the drug started to hit, he was simply fighting me, 
wordless sounds.  But he got limper and limper until finally I was 
lying over him, nose to nose.  "Mulder," I whispered.

"It was all for nothing," he whispered back, eyes glazing a little.  
"Everything.  They lied and lied and lied.  They always lie and I 
believed them.  It was all for nothing."

I thought I'd be sick.  I hoped I was hearing wrong.  I hoped I was 
misinterpreting what he'd said.  

We got him to the clinic in a pretty short drive.  Jack had wrapped 
up the arm and applied some pressure to it, and I drove down the 
rutted path that passes for a road up to my place.

I don't remember how many stitches, but Mulder was pretty 
compliant during the process, for a man who'd done the damage in 
the first place.  He had a lump on his head from hitting the wooden 
floor, but he was still pretty gone from the drug.  They x-rayed 
him and found the damage you would imagine, giving the way he 
looked and the way he walked.  And little bits of metal here 
and there.  Circuits to download, circuits to upload, little bits and 
pieces that, when laid out on the operating tray, came to a grand 
total of 26 implants.

It explained some of the scars.  He'd had a lot of broken bones.  
Julie stared at the pictures for a long time, making little marks in 
grease pencil.  This one was old, this one was recent, this was even 
more recent.

Healed fractures of the skull, even.   Julie and the surgeon said that 
they'd feel better waiting until he was much stronger before trying 
to rebreak and rebuild his hip and leg.  That whoever had given 
him medical care before should be shot, and so on. 

Looking at the x-rays, I agreed.

He was really sick after that.  Feverish and in and out of delirium.  
He did recognize me, because when I'd talk to him, he'd calm 
down slightly.  I had to argue very persuasively to keep him out of 
restraints, not that anyone was really eager to use them.   They 
thought it was necessary because he would panic in delirium, but I 
found that even sick, he'd listen.  Actually, he'd listen better than 
he'd ever listened to me in the Bureau.

His temperature spiked up several times after the surgeries, and 
except for one thing to try and correct some damage to his 
esophagus, the reason he had difficulty swallowing, the rest were 
pretty minor, outpatient stuff.  Christ, no wonder he was stick thin.  
He'd struggle in delirium and they'd want to restrain him; it was 
then I went into his room and grabbed a book off the shelf.  When 
I got to the clinic, I was embarrassed to discover I'd grabbed The 
Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis, a children's book, part of the 
Narnia series, but reading it still seemed to help.  Maybe it was 
just the familiar voice.  But he calmed down.

Which helped him tremendously, his heart rate went down, blood 
pressure, and ultimately his temp went down.  He went passive 
then, which had me worried, justifiably.

I think he was ready to fight back until I told him about Scully, but 
I still don't know what else I could have done.  Lied to him until he 
was stronger?  That would have cost me what little trust he placed 
in me.  I believe that he needs to trust someone if he's going to 
come all the way back to being Mulder again.  

He was still passive when Julie said he could leave the clinic.  I sat 
in his room and asked him outright if he'd rather be in the clinic or 
up at the house.  After a very long moment, during which I got the 
thousand-yard stare, he finally answered rustily.  "House."

And after getting that word out, he seemed exhausted.  Too tired 
to respond any more than that.  So, Jack and I got him up, got his 
legs over the edge of the bed, and got him dressed.

That was September 8th.   I noticed, reading his journal entries, 
that his sense of time is skewed, hardly a surprise.  He had no idea 
when he got here to begin with, and he only knows how long he 
was in the clinic because we've told him.  

When I drove him back to my place, he was_quenched, is the 
only word I can think of.  Jack guided him onto the couch and he 
collapsed.

Considering how many spots he'd had sutured, I didn't find that 
completely unreasonable.  We managed to get him to eat after a 
while, then he put his face to the back of the couch and slept.  Or 
pretended to.  I'm inclined to believe the former, healing requires a 
great deal of energy.

Jack suspected the latter.  But listening to the small sounds Mulder 
made in sleep, I backed him off.  

After a few days of letting him lie around in bed in a semi-
catatonic state, I started making him get up and put his shoes on 
and come out to work with me.

He watched me chopping wood without much interest, and 
allowed me to badger him into carrying and stacking it.  Watching 
him limp made my back and legs ache, not to mention making me 
feel heartless, but he seemed to actually take on a little more 
energy after that.  So I kept putting him to work.  I talked to him 
more the first three days than in the entire four years I was 
supervising him.  

I suspect he finally began talking again in self-defense. By the 
fourth day, he was actually giving me monosyllabic replies.   
Sometimes his answers were a little disconnected, I'm afraid, he'd 
followed some mental trail off that bore very little relationship to 
whatever I'd said, but it was communication, at least, and it kept 
Jack off his case and mine.  

One day, he had stopped and was staring at the cat that wanders up 
from the compound below.  You know, Doctor, the big grey tabby 
that looks to weigh about twenty pounds and as if it could take on 
most dogs without so much as ruffling its fur?  It periodically 
comes up and suns itself on the boulders at either side of the 
"driveway", regarding me as if I might be something good to 
eat, but not worth the time and energy to subdue.  I'm not much of 
a cat person, but I like that animal.

"No," he told it.

I stopped what I was doing_stacking the two by fours for the 
outer porch I was building_and looked up, a little worried.

Slowly, carefully_his balance still isn't good_Mulder lowered 
himself to the ground.  Sat there looking at the cat, while the cat 
studied him.  After a few minutes, the cat began licking its 
shoulder.  Unconcerned.

Mulder sat on the ground, knees drawn up.

I went back to stacking, keeping an eye on him as I worked.

Eventually, the cat decided to investigate this strange, unnaturally 
still human and came to wind itself around Mulder's huddled 
figure.  Purring loudly enough I could hear it a couple of yards 
away.  I'm telling you, Doctor, this is a mutant animal.

By this time, I wasn't worried, I was amused.  Mulder's very 
catlike himself, in many ways.  The cat rubbed against Mulder's 
back and wound its way around to Mulder's ankles, still purring 
loudly.  After a while, Mulder ducked his head, leaned down just 
slightly.  The cat delicately put both front feet on Mulder's knee 
and leaned up to rub its face against his.  

By this time, I'd stopped stacking and was just standing there, 
fascinated.   Mulder and the cat exchanged greetings and the cat 
reached up with one paw, batted gently at Mulder's cheek.  I 
wondered if it could smell that he was sick.  Mulder's head bowed, 
he got licked rather ungently on that cheek and up into his hair.

The whole thing was fascinating.  After a moment, the cat batted 
him again, then sank back and cleaned its front leg before trotting 
back down the slope.

He just sat there.  It took a moment before I realized that his 
shoulders were shaking and had the sense to walk over to him.  He 
ducked his head, put his face in his knees; I think, though I'm not 
sure, that he was embarrassed, trying to hide the tears.

I don't always know what to do at moments like this.  I crouched 
down beside him, looking after the cat, and put a hand on his 
shoulder.  Squeezed gently.  After a moment, I heard him take a 
shaky breath, he lifted his head and awkwardly pushed himself 
back to his feet, breaking my clasp.

He went back to work, but he made more effort to talk, to answer 
when I spoke to him after that.

By the tenth day, he was working on polishing his smart ass verbal 
skills again.   Still short replies, none of his really good stuff, like 
asking me if I was going to have him clean the men's room floor 
with his toothbrush next.  But it's a good sign.

And I was tremendously relieved to see it.  It was like his telling 
me not to call him Fox, it was a sign that Mulder still lived inside 
that head.  At least for me.

I'm not going to bother describing his reluctance to keep his 
appointments with you, you're as familiar with that as I am.  Jack 
had to threaten to drug him, which I found out later and reamed 
Jack about, before he would get in the car.

The first time I picked him up after an appointment, he was chalk 
white and I could smell vomit, of course.  Frankly, I accept that 
you know what you're doing, Doctor, but I found that highly 
upsetting, and he huddled in the car on the way back, as silent as 
he'd been after being released from the clinic.

I hope you know what you're doing.  Your predictions for him_I 
can accept that it's going to take a long time, but I'm not sure that 
pushing him that hard is necessarily the best thing.  Shouldn't he 
learn simply to be free again?  Not a prisoner, not under someone 
else's control?

I'm trying to give him as much control as possible, do you want 
scrambled or fried or poached eggs, do you want to wear the blue 
shirt or the grey one, and so on.

I get monosyllabic replies, mostly, but he thinks about it.  I think 
he knows that I'll give him as much choice as I can.  I think that's 
why he's coming back to life.  However slowly.

Jack wants to guard him, as if he can't be trusted.  I understand 
why, after the suicide attempt, but I have to keep biting my tongue.  
I did have to browbeat Jack into letting him go into the bathroom 
alone, although I condescended to let him remove any sharp 
objects from the bathroom.

The razors are safe, you can't remove the blades.  We'd hear him if 
he was experimenting with that, the house isn't that big.  Speaking 
of which, his latest breakdown came over not being able to shave 
by himself.

I've been doing it for him.  But he jerked away the other morning 
and took the razor away from me.  He still shakes badly, hands 
almost palsied.  It reminds me of my grandfather, who had 
Parkinson's.  I managed not to yank it back away from him and 
watched him raise it, eyeing his lathered face in the mirror.  
Frustration drew those brows together.  The razor came close to 
his skin and I got ready to grab it.  It wavered and shook and 
finally he threw it into the sink, making a sound like a sob.  He 
grabbed the towel on the counter and wiped the lather off his face.  
Sank back on the edge of the tub with his head in his hands, 
rocking back and forth.

Jack was already there, I suppose Jack thinks I'm dangerously 
optimistic or blind.  He muttered something about a shot and I 
shook my head, shut the door in his face and sat down next to 
Mulder, just holding on to his shoulder lightly.  "You're going to 
get frustrated," I told him softly.  "That's going to happen, 
Mulder, it doesn't mean you aren't doing well."

The rocking slowed.  I squeezed his shoulder.  "It took three years 
for them to get you to this point, Mulder, we can't expect you to 
undo it all in a matter of weeks.  Give yourself some credit."

He turned his head to look at me.  Not crying, though his eyes 
were red.  Studying me to see if I believed what I was saying, I 
suppose.  I've seen that look on his face before, at other times.  
Searching for the truth.After a minute, he nodded.  "Okay."

I squeezed his shoulder again, released it and got up.  "I've got an 
electric razor somewhere, you can use that for a while."

Faint twitch of the mouth.  He lifted his head, put his hands on the 
edge of the tub, to either side of him.  "Why are you doing this?"

"It's an X file," I told him drily and went to get the electric razor.

That seemed to take care of that_thankfully without the needle_
although Jack was miffed with me over my failure to take Mulder's 
despair seriously.

I'm not at all sure that Jack is going to work out, Doctor.   
Heatherton recommended him_I'd like your honest opinion on 
this.

At any rate, he's doing reasonably well now, although he persists 
in asking me why I'm doing this, what's in it for me, and so on.  If 
he keeps it up, I'm going to miss his near-catatonia.

ws


To:  HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Re: Chronology

I'm not sure that my emotional reactions to any of this are 
germane.  I didn't spend 3 years in Consortium hands, Dr. 
Horowitz.  If you simply want another perspective of the events 
Mulder describes in his journal, you might have said so.

ws



To:  HorowitzE
From:  SkinnerW
Subject:  Re: Chronology

Dr. Horowitz, with all due respect, I fail to see how this is going to 
contribute to Mulder's therapy and I am not your patient.

ws



To HorowitzE
From:  SkinnerW
Subject: Re: Chronology

Very well, since you think it's going to be of value to you in 
dealing with Mulder, but I feel very uncomfortable with this.  It 
feels very much as though I'm reporting to you about his behavior 
and I'm not going to do that without his knowledge.

In fact, I spoke to him last night about it.  

He gave me a long look.  "She's turning you into one of the mental 
health police."

"Evidently," I agreed and sat down on the end of his bed.  He was 
lying on his side, arms propped by pillows and watching an old 
science fiction movie.  From before he was born, no less. "Are you 
all right with that."

After a moment, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, chin 
pressed into the pillows.  "What exactly does she want?"

"Mostly, she appears to want things from my point of view," I told 
him uncomfortably. 

"Oh."  A line appeared between his eyebrows.  "Doesn't think I'm 
giving her the clear picture, huh?"

"She thinks you have a tendency to exaggerate what you view as 
negative behavior."

That won a faint smile.  "Sounds like you *have* been talking to 
her.  Like calling my nightmares screamers, I guess."  The smile 
faded.  "I'm not trying to exaggerate, that's how it feels."

I nodded.

More silence as he thought it over.  And a sigh.  "I guess I'm okay 
with it mostly.  It pisses me off that she thinks I'm so unreliable 
that she wants to see what you tell her."

I leaned back against the wall and stretched my legs across the 
bed.  "Personally, I think it's her tricky way of getting me into 
therapy, since I'm not a support group kind of guy.  You've been 
telling her all my weaknesses and she's salivating over the chance 
of dealing with them."

He actually laughed at that.  "Hey, if I gotta, you gotta."

I arched an eyebrow at him.  "It will probably prove helpful and 
save what's left of my hair."

Mulder sank back on the pillows and winced.  "Shit, I'm tired of 
this, you know?  I just want to go on with life."

"You are," I told him.

He nodded absently, but he was staring at nothing at all, his mind 
working.  It's hard sometimes to reconcile the man I knew with this 
man.   Not just physically.  But because this man, while frustrated 
and impatient at times, is-quieter.  Maybe that's not the word I 
want, he was never exactly raucous to my knowledge, but I think 
he's still just taking in the fact of his survival, and that's about all 
he can handle.  

"I guess I'm okay with it."  Mulder sighed and pushed that 
ridiculously long hair behind his ears.  "But thanks for telling me."

I shrugged.

So, what is it exactly you expect from me?  

When Watts brought Mulder to the house that night, I had thought 
I was prepared.  I wasn't.  He was gaunt, nearly emaciated.  
Wilkinson, as Mulder has pointed out, wasn't into S&M 
recreationally.  He was a sexual psychopath who was allowed to 
pursue his hobby without repercussion because he was the turnkey 
of a Consortium prison.  And Mulder's experiences with their 
technology faction left him limping badly.  He was wearing 
clothes that were far too big for him, Wilkinson's.  

He stopped dead when he saw me in the doorway, his eyes going 
very wide.  I heard a shaky inhalation in the dark.  

"It's all right," I said softly, "Come on in, it's cold."

Watts gave him a shove forward and he stumbled.  I caught him 
around the shoulders and got him into the house, got him in front 
of the fire.

No tears, no shock, not much of anything.  He kept staring at me 
as if he doubted my reality.  I got rid of Watts and came back to 
find Jack hovering over Mulder.

Other than pulling away from Jack, he did not make any attempt to 
fight.  I'm not sure he had the strength to fight.  

His eyes were dead enough that I actually entertained notions 
about clones for a few moments.  But I sat down directly in front 
of him on the coffee table and he looked at me. 

He was still shivering occasionally.  But he was tracking Jack.  
"Jack," I finally suggested, "Why don't you go and run him a 
bath."

Jack was happy to have something to do.  Mulder's eyes tracked 
Jack out of the livingroom and returned to me.

Knowing what I know now about the morphs, I took my pocket 
knife out and made a very small cut on the side of my thumb, let 
the red well up.  "It's really me," I told him softly.

And his eyes came briefly to life again.  "It's really you." Faint, 
cracked voice.  Raspy.  From screaming, Julie told me later, and 
there wasn't a lot of guarantee that his voice would ever return to 
what it had been, given the damage to his vocal cords.  But he 
sounds better now than he did, believe it or not.

"It's really me," I repeated and patted his knee.  "You're safe here, 
Mulder.  It's all over."

I'm not sure he believed me, exactly.  But he was certainly 
compliant when Jack led him into the bathroom.  

Jack came back and hustled him into the bath, which you've 
already no doubt heard about.  I did speak to Jack sternly about 
letting him do it himself, I can't imagine anything more humiliating 
than to be treated like an infant when you've just regained your 
freedom, and if he could walk, I couldn't imagine that he couldn't 
bathe himself.

Jack agreed with that, but insisted on staying in the bathroom in 
case Mulder decided to drown himself.  I opened my mouth to 
protest that if he was going to commit suicide, I was a damned 
sight more worried about him finding guns_and I removed them 
all before we got him out of the clinic, let me tell you_than I was 
about him drowning himself.  But Jack nodded knowingly and said 
he'd seen it happen.

I have no medical background, as I've said, and I gave Jack too 
much leeway in the beginning.

As I've said, he was exhausted, he'd been through enough that day, 
although I had no idea what Watts had done until much later.  And 
he did have nightmares that night.  Hardly surprising.


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Journal

I'd like to take a moment to thank you for the compromise, Doctor, 
I think it was the right decision.   Mulder has been noticeably more 
relaxed, even though he bitches everytime Jack says it's time for 
him to work on his journal.

Frankly, I'd bitch if Jack kept after me that way, I suspect that's 
most of the reason Mulder follows me outside every morning at 
the ungodly hour of eight am.  I'm inclined to think that the 
outdoor work is good for him; it may be just mindless enough to 
let his mind work, but not mindless enough to let him brood 
pointlessly.  Yes, we've spoken of Scully a few times.  It's upset 
him, which I would expect.  It upsets me.

And yes, I can grudgingly agree that in Mulder's current condition, 
he does need a nurse on hand.  I'm thinking of changing my 
remodeling plans and building a hut for Jack instead, before he 
pushes Mulder over the edge and drives me there, as well.

He did have a bad day last week when Watts insisted on seeing 
him.   But I was impressed with his strength, he went through one 
helluva lot of material for Watts before it was evident that it was 
too much.  I got rid of Watts in about a minute and a half once I 
divined that, and when I came back in, Mulder had vanished into 
his room.

Under his desk, if you must know the truth.  I acted as if that were 
perfectly ordinary and sat down on the floor in front of him.  I 
asked him something ordinary and inane.  I don't recall what.  
Asked him if he wanted something to eat, I suspect, since we're 
both trying to coax food into him.  He throws up so often during 
his appointments, I'm convinced he loses ground.

At any rate, he kept shaking his head.  He did come out from 
under the desk looking horribly embarrassed.  Instinct versus 
intellect, I'd guess.  His instinct was to head somewhere protective, 
but his intellect is still that of an adult who knows better.  I finally 
suggested a walk, took him up the mountain and just let him be.

On the way back down, he began pestering me again about why I 
was doing it.  I'm ashamed to tell you I'm actually amused by his 
confusion.  I may have been a hard-ass as his supervisor, but 
surely he can't believe that I'd willingly confine him to an 
institution_not when he's as compellingly stubborn as he is.

Well, whatever he believes, I challenged him to profile me, he was 
one of the goddamned best in the BSU, back when.  Too good, it 
nearly killed him.  It shut him up and I could practically hear the 
wheels turning, Watts' visit safely forgotten or shoved on the back 
burner where it had little importance.

I know he needs to deal with things, Doctor, but sometimes I have 
to distract him.  Pull him out of whatever pit he's trying to drown 
in.  And he seems to think about whatever it was that upset him, 
he'll bring it up later, I've seen it in his journal.

Yes, as you know, he insists on me reading the pages, which was 
an hilarious episode in itself.  When I read his description, I had to 
laugh at how neatly he mousetrapped me_and how accurately he 
perceived it.  I can't decide what I find funnier, the Gary Cooper 
description or myself as Zen teacher.

That evening, sitting in front of the fire, cross-legged, Mulder 
sighed and looked over his shoulder at me.  Jack was in the 
kitchen making himself a snack.  "It was seeing them again, it 
brought things back I hadn't let myself remember."

I nodded.  "I thought so."

Wry smile.  Almost a real Mulder smile.  "I figured you did.  You 
can't be used to having me sit under a desk."

I managed a smile back.  "No, although there were times I would 
have preferred that reaction to having you ask if you were going to 
have to clean the men's room floor with a toothbrush."

He actually laughed a little.  Shrugged the blanket more closely 
around him.  "I suppose I wasn't the easiest person to work with."

"You were a challenge," I told him diplomatically.  "Part of the 
problem was holding you on course, Mulder, your buttons were 
awfully easy to push."

As if mine weren't.  I didn't make the deal just because of Scully, 
Doctor, although I think I've told you that.  I made it because 
Mulder was the only one I knew with the commitment to the truth 
to keep doing the job right.  And I thought Scully's death would 
destroy him.

He was staring back at the fire again.  "I miss her so much."   Very 
soft voice.

My throat tightened.  "Yeah."

He's asked me a few questions, Doctor, I try to downplay what she 
went through.  Try to portray it more like the Movie of the Week.  
I don't tell him about the times she was hallucinating his presence, 
or the periods of dementia caused by the pressure on her brain.  I 
don't tell him about her going blind, or the way her fingers felt 
brittle and thin in my hand when I came to see her.

More brooding ensued after that, he slips back into the darkness 
pretty easily still, and I had to chivvy him up and out of the mood 
before I let him go to bed.

For some reason, he puts up with that with a minimum of snarling.  
He does snarl, but I can appreciate that.  He's at our mercy, more 
or less.

But he's getting stronger.

We talk about the old days, on occasion, although we're both 
careful to steer clear of Scully unless he raises the subject.  He 
really does make me laugh, Doctor, I told him I'm certain he's 
going to make it back, and well in advance of your dire 
predictions.  The ability to laugh, even if it's at me, leaves me 
certain of it.  I even find I'm enjoying the way he directs those 
observations at me, though I'm at a complete loss to understand 
where he ever got the notion that I'm capable of Zen detachment.

Sharon must be right about me, he just can't tell what I'm feeling.  
And his conviction that I'm doing all this out of guilt is only partly 
right.  I couldn't save him.  I couldn't save Scully.  Of course I feel 
guilty.  It's unavoidable, even though I can't think of anything 
more I could have done.

Mulder is apparently convinced that Watts believes that Mulder 
and I are lovers, which strikes me as hilarious somehow.  Mulder, 
whatever his foibles, is so obviously heterosexual_at least to 
me_and I like to think I am, too, I suppose, a residual type of 
homophobia.  I suppose if I ever read in his journal 
that he's secretly yearning for me, I'm going to be completely 
embarrassed and appalled, but he shows no signs of going there.  
And even though he hates Watts, allegedly for Watts 
misapprehensions about our relationship_which I 
find doubtful, but I'm waiting for Mulder to tell me why, God 
knows, I don't like Watts either.  I think he's an exigent and 
egotistical prick, if you'll pardon my terminology, Doctor.  At any 
rate, despite that, he does laugh when I tell him that his long, dark 
hair could be enticing when we've both been snowed in for a 
while.  Clearly, he's not worried.  

The first time I joked about it, he grinned, then froze, this 
indescribable expression on his face.  Like congealed horror.  I 
could have bitten my tongue out, I was so angry with myself.  But 
it passed, and he blew it off when I asked him, made an equally 
hilarious remark with regard to pre-Raphaelite curls, and I zapped 
him back and he fell back in the chair, laughing so hard tears 
came to his eyes.

He seemed pleased that I'd gotten the reference.  Some days, I do 
have to work harder than usual to keep up with his train of 
thought, but my reading experience is a little broader than he 
expects, I think.  He started snickering outside one day, standing 
there sanding, I believe.  Said something about me being Orpheus 
to his Eurydice.  He pronounced it the Greek way, the asshole, 
so it took me a moment to register, but then I cracked back with 
something about him having to deal with that prick Watts and 
Eurydice only had to deal with Orpheus.  He came back with a line 
about that being all right, Orpheus fucked up, and went back to 
work, snickering under his breath, little riffs of laughter that 
reassured me a great deal.

I'm sorry, Doctor, but I think your predictions were unnecessarily 
dire.  Even when he has bad moments, he's doing so much better 
than I'd dared expect.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

This was a difficult day.  He suddenly asked me, while I was 
smoothing concrete for the porch floor, how I knew about him 
sleeping with the television on.  And a few other things.  I didn't 
have any choice but to tell him how, that Scully had told me, those 
winter evenings when her life was winding down, before she really 
lost touch with who and where she was.

That upset him, understandably, although I didn't put it quite that 
way.  I walked him over to one of the big boulders and sat beside 
him, wishing I still smoked.  It would have been a great moment to 
have a cigarette.  Although it probably would have sent him back 
to the clinic to get a whiff of cigarette smoke.  I guess we don't 
have to worry about him taking up the habit.

We talked a little about Scully and how she'd told me things, that 
I'd gone as often as I could.

He blames himself, Doctor, but Mulder is good at that.  I 
responded pretty sharply, but I suspect you'll have to work hard on 
that.  If it's his fault, he's in control of what happened.  I can't 
blame him.  I felt that same way after Sharon was hurt so badly.  
It's a feeling I understand.  If it's your fault, things aren't out of 
control, they're just fucked up.

And he's figured out that Julie and I are involved, that Julie sneaks 
up at night.  Evidently, it offended him to have her sneak in.  I'm 
trying to think of a way to respond that neither betrays Julie's 
desire for privacy, nor allows him to think that I'm afraid he's 
going to freak out if he knows we're in bed down the hall from 
him.  And simultaneously treats him like an adult I respect instead 
of a mental patient.  Yes, I know he is technically a mental patient.  
But he's also still an adult I respect.  And like.

That may be a weakness.  I think this whole thing was easier 
before I figured out that yes, I did like the poor bastard.  And still 
do.  He's fighting it so goddamned hard, Doctor, fighting 
everything they did to him, and only when he's really tired or 
really down does it hit him like a freight train.  He used to 
curl up on his bed until Jack drove him crazy, checking him every 
ten minutes.  Now he curls up on the couch and zones out on the 
television set when it hits him that hard.  One day, still sunny and 
mostly mild, he took his blanket out and laid on the grass and just 
watched me work.  That damned cat came up and curled up in 
front of him.  He didn't touch it, but he let it stay.  And eventually 
fell asleep in the middle of my monologue about why I'd laid the 
concrete before framing the porch.

It's been awhile since the pliers sent him into a fugue.  He handles 
the tools reasonably easily, although I sometimes wonder in 
exasperation who the hell changed Mulder's light bulbs for him 
before.  No, that's not fair_my dad taught me how to do a lot of 
what I'm doing.  Mulder's father taught him about conspiracy.  
And guilt.  Mulder's father did a damned good job of that.  
Everything was Mulder's fault, evidently, including the abduction 
of his sister.

We did talk about the alleged sister, the one who dissolved in 
green goo when she was pulled to the river.  If you don't think I 
felt terrible about that_God, his sister supposedly comes back 
and we fail to get her back from the man who abducted Scully.

Who was, evidently, no man, but a morph.  Scully confessed that 
to me before she was so far gone I dismissed what she said as 
dream or fantasy or dementia.

The other day, he nodded absently when I mentioned this.  "Yeah, 
I figured it out when I went to the clinic, where the fire was.  
There were a lot of them there.  I think he got them all.  That's why 
I went to the Arctic."

Which is where he nearly died.  And contracted a nasty retrovirus 
that nearly killed him.  He arrested, Scully told me, lying in her 
hospital bed in the hospice.  While she was dying.   They had to 
work pretty frantically to save him.

I thought when I took the AD slot that the worst I'd have to deal 
with is Bureau politics and infrastructure fights.  I can't imagine J. 
Edgar ever had to make the kind of decisions I ended up having to 
make.

At any rate, he sighed and rubbed his face.  "I wonder if my father 
knew."

I privately hoped not, but from what Scully told me, I find it 
likely.  And that much more reprehensible.  How in hell did he 
survive to become the cocky, arrogant son of a bitch who used to 
stand in my office and challenge me?  Or the man who was so 
good with witnesses, I've seen his record.  Patterson 
damned near drove him crazy, but he was still good with 
witnesses.  Not so much with families, I expect his own 
identification with them made that harder.  

"If he did," Mulder mused aloud, sitting cross-legged near the 
table in front of the couch_he was playing some arcane kind of 
solitaire, he's since taught it to me and it's deadly.  "If he knew and 
still_"  and that was all.

But I think I know what he would have said if he'd finished it.

You have more to worry about than whether or not he's identifying 
me as a father figure, Doctor.  You've got years of William 
Mulder's work to undo.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Mulder

I can't agree with your judgement, Doctor, I've already told you 
that Jack has a tendency to overreact, and certainly, Mulder was 
distraught, but drugging him into insensibility doesn't seem very 
productive to me.  And frankly, I'm not at all certain that Jack 
didn't provoke him.

He hasn't shown any signs at all of self-destructive behavior, he's 
been eating well, he's been following directions, behaving himself 
inordinately for a man prone to going his own way.  And working 
outside with me, not his natural habitat.  I know the journal was 
our compromise so that he didn't have to come in every day, but 
that shouldn't mean that his punishment should entail being 
drugged and confined to the clinic.

I want the dosages you're giving him at least lessened and I feel 
very strongly that he was doing better outside the clinic.  In my 
house.  I've spoken to Julie Wilson and she's going to speak with 
you about my concerns.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Mulder

Thank you, Doctor.  I appreciate your confidence.  I took him 
home and he sulked in his room for a while before dinner, but 
emerged, apparently starving, and ate like a wolf.

Jack is now sulking.  I suspect he feels that I undercut him, and 
he's damned well right.  If he waves that needle around again, I'm 
going to jab it into him.

I also suspect that Mulder knows my feelings and is positioning 
himself to take advantage of them.  As irritating as that is, I find 
myself at least feeling relieved that he's come back far enough to 
think that far ahead.

I also think he's venting his feelings about Jack in his journal, 
although I think he's deleting a great deal of it before he sends it to 
you or lets me read it.  Aside from the frying pan comment.

I'd like to think that's a good sign, but I imagine you'll disabuse 
me.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Mulder

I appreciate patient/physician confidentiality issues, Doctor, but I'd 
damned well appreciate it if you'd give me some clue of how to 
deal with a man so shaken up that he stays in his room except 
when I drag him out to eat.  Sleeping a great deal of the time, but 
even when he doesn't, he's staring blankly at the television, not 
even reading.

I'm very worried.  Jack and I had a discussion about it, during 
which Jack wanted to shoot him full of Valium, which seemed 
counterproductive to me.  

After all, he's sleeping most of the time anyway.

I want to know what to do, I want to know what's going to help 
him get past this, and since the only time he talks is when he wants 
something on the table, I haven't a clue.  And I'd like a little help, 
Doctor.  I realize that you didn't really want him in my care, but 
he's been through enough, dammit, you've already had your chance 
in the clinic with him, and he does better up here.

And no, I am not going to force him to journal when he's in this 
kind of shape.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Apology

First of all, I'd like to apologize for being short with you in my last 
message.  Mulder is doing much better this week, although I 
suspect that some of the ceaseless motion is the effect of 
deliberately not thinking about whatever set him off to begin with.  
And yes, you're quite right, confidentiality is sacred, and I am 
genuinely sorry for being difficult.

I'm beginning to think that Jack is not going to last here.  If 
Mulder doesn't get him with the frying pan, I'm going to shoot 
him.

I'm trying very hard to be diplomatic with him, I recognize that 
he's really worked very hard to help Mulder, I just don't agree that 
he's done anything that's worked.  Which may be unfair and 
egotistical.  God, I hope I'm not so petty that I have to feel that I'm 
responsible for Mulder's recovery, just because I couldn't save him 
from himself.

I'm reading too much Jung, I suspect, and it's Mulder's fault.  The 
week he went on strike, I would sit in his room in the evening and 
read.  Not aloud, he's not a child, just read for my own enjoyment.  
I'll confess something, Doctor, not having had much exposure to 
the Narnia tales, I started out with those.  It did get him talking 
again, however monosyllabically.  And by the time I'd worked up 
to Jung, he was completely baffled.  By the end of the week, he'd 
roll over just to see what I was reading, so I suppose it worked in 
the long run.  I was just afraid he was going to find the protractor 
in his desk drawer and hurt himself with it.  

Anyway, never fear, he's back to being ambulatory again and 
dragging me up hill and down dell.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Cancellation

Mulder won't be at his appointment tomorrow, Doctor.  He's 
seriously ill, Julie says he's gotten a nasty case of bronchitis on top 
of damage he sustained in Consortium hands.  My ex-wife used to 
tell me that standing out in the rain wouldn't give you a cold, but 
Mulder got very wet yesterday afternoon.  And cold.  I had my 
jacket on him by the time we got back, we got  caught coming 
back downhill in that damned sleetstorm.

I'm fine, not even a stuffy nose, but Mulder was delirious by 4 am, 
and threw a couple of febrile seizures that   I'll tell you, that 
watered my eyes.  I'd gone in when I'd heard him moaning, just 
like I always do, and patted his shoulder.  Usually, he wakes up 
enough to make some sound or say something to indicate that he's 
compos mentis.  This time he did speak, but nothing sane.  
Something about the stars, and how much it hurt and I yanked the 
covers back to touch his skin and found him radiating heat like the 
goddamned woodstove in the fireplace.
 
Julie used one of those unwieldy Thermoscan things and found his 
temp had soared to nearly 104 degrees.  How in hell could he get 
sick so quickly?  With Jack's help and Julie's advice, we got him 
into the shower and got his temp back down, but it spiked back 
several more times, and twice he did seize, which left me colder 
than the water in the shower could account for.

Julie assured me that this didn't mean brain damage, which let me 
relax enough to catch a couple of hours sleep in the chair in 
Mulder's room.  By about noon, not too long ago, he was down to 
a relatively normal temp of 102.  Coughing and hacking his lungs 
out and kind of groggily semi-conscious.

At any rate, Julie says he'll be down for a while, and no way 
should he be out in the mountain air.  We've got a humidifier 
running in his room, which he grouses about and reminds me of 
my childhood, except this is what Julie calls a cool mist humidifier 
and ours was always steam.

Fortunately, he's sleeping a lot, so the grousing is kept to a 
minimum, and Jack is very relieved and subdued, as if he's 
decided he's in over his head.  I'm beginning to think that's true, 
but I don't know if Jack's ready to accept it yet.

As soon as he's well enough again, yes, he'll be doing his journal.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Mulder

Frankly, Doctor, I'm disappointed in you.  Of course it's true about 
his birthday.  It's not like I made a point of memorizing my agent's 
birthdays, but after he was dead, or we thought he was dead, I did 
have to go through the paperwork and his personnel file and 
somehow it stuck.

We didn't have cake and ice cream, so please don't start again on 
his alleged identification of me as a father figure.  I don't believe 
that's true anyway.  

He's only just beginning to identify me as a friend, I think.

At any rate, yes, I remembered his birthday.  Probably because I 
felt lousy about having to fill out that damned paperwork.  I 
always do.  It's the second worst part of the job.  The first worst is 
having to tell a victim's parents or family that they're gone, that 
despite our best efforts, the victim was murdered in cold blood, 
probably died in great pain_I think having Mulder talk about 
his family has gotten me down a lot more than I'd anticipated, 
Doctor.

My family life was relatively normal.  True, my youngest brother, 
Tim, was hit by a car and killed at the age of three, but we at least 
knew what happened to him.  And life went on, with two other 
kids in the family.  My parents grieved, we grieved, but we buried 
him and went on.  My father was certainly stern and didn't take 
any nonsense, but he also took us out and taught us to play ball.  
Even at his angriest, the most I remember getting is a few sharp 
swats on the seat of my pants.  For anything really heinous, we got 
spanked and sent to bed without supper.  At least until we were 
adolescents, and then we lost privileges out the wazoo.  Had to 
chop wood, do various unpleasant chores, whatever he could come 
up with.  And he was very inventive.

My mother was capable of losing her temper, but generally pretty 
calm and low key.  Sensible.  The one time, other than Tim's 
death, that I remember seeing her really distraught was when John 
was playing out in the mud and got it all over her clean sheets, 
running in between them as he played.

I distinctly remember being glad that I'd been down the street 
playing stickball with my buddies that day.  And when the nuns at 
St. Agnes told her that I was disruptive and daydreamed, she 
marched down there and had a word with the meanest of them all, 
Sister Leo.  That woman could have taught drill sergeants their 
business, Doctor, let me tell you.

At any rate, I look back at my early life and compare it to Mulder's 
and just feel lousy.  I've been a cop for a long time, I've seen the 
things that people do to their children.  And rationally, I know that 
Mulder's father could have been worse, I've arrested people like 
that.  I think about his parents blaming him for his sister's loss, 
though, and I can't help but contrast it to my own parents.  
They never blamed us at all for Timmy, even though we'd all been 
playing in the yard and I was nine years old.  

I blamed me at first, but that was another one of those rare 
occasions when my mother lost her temper and slapped me.  Her 
mother had come over from Ireland, and when my mother lost it, 
she had this ridiculous trace of a brogue, called me by my full 
name and told me she never wanted to hear me say such an idiotic 
thing again.  It took a while before I believed it_I think of Mulder 
being twelve and blaming himself anyway, and being told again 
and again by his father that he was guilty, having the lesson beaten 
in with leather or wood or fists.

Some people have no right to have children, that's all.  He's been 
giving me so much shit about how, if anything, he thinks I'm his 
older brother, not his father_must you go there, Doctor, I don't 
feel at all paternal toward him and I sincerely doubt, given his 
record, that he feels at all filial toward me.  He'd either shoot me 
or cringe, depending on his frame of mind, and I assure you, 
he's never done either.  So, after the last big brother remark, I 
threatened to adopt him, which sent him into breathless gales of 
laughter.

BTW, Julie says he may actually have asthma, which was one of 
the reasons his bronchitis was so bad.  It's not enough the poor 
bastard has scars and walks with one of the most painful limps I've 
ever seen, he's got to have asthma.  

I tell myself that at least he's alive.

Which brings us back to his birthday.  I got him a set of 
snowshoes, and I'll be damned if he doesn't know how to use them 
already.  Evidently this was not unusual in Massachusetts.  It took 
him a bit to get the rhythm back, but he's doing fine.

However, he has a bad case of vertigo.  He says it's related to FTL 
travel and low grav.  I believe him.  But I think you may need to 
address the vertigo, Doctor, it's going to be difficult for him to 
move up and down the mountain this winter if he can't get past it.

BTW, Jack is no longer with us.  Mulder actually appears to have 
had a reasonably civil talk with him_yes, I did eavesdrop, and I'm 
damned glad I did, because if I hadn't, I might have swallowed 
Jack's version, hook line and all.  Jack had to go, and Mulder and I 
are in complete agreement on that.  I think even Jack is. Jack is 
going back down the mountain back to whatever Jack usually 
does, and caught a ride down with Cassie Delevan..

I managed to keep my temper with Jack and actually remember all 
my management skills in handling him.

And Cassie came up on her snowmobile before hand, while Jack 
was in town, and kidnapped Mulder.  I think I forgot to mention 
that she'd been flirting with him when I took him into the 
settlement one afternoon for additional supplies. I did have a hard 
time not laughing at him, Doctor, he looked so poleaxed 
when she rather slyly offered him a ride.

Fortunately, I have a snowmobile suit that I've used perhaps once 
in the last year, and I sent him off, once again feeling like your 
darkest prophecies were being proven false.  

My warm fuzzies over that lasted until he got home four hours 
later and called me Dad, but it was genuinely nice to see him 
acting like a normal human.  Well, at least as much as normal as 
he's ever been, so far as I know.  I've never paid attention to his 
personal life before, just the part of it that drove me nuts, 
including arguments over expense reports and ruined Armani suits.

And I am determinedly not paying attention to whatever he and 
Cassie are up to.  It's all I can do to pay attention to my own love 
life.

His mother arrived that evening, surprising all of us; I hadn't 
anticipated her showing up for a few days, but evidently, she took 
advantage of the clear weather that took Jack away and came up.  
A pleasant evening, a  bad night.  This one was a screamer, Doctor 
Horowitz, and I have to wonder how much his mother's  presence 
exacerbated that.  He was acting, as an old Marine buddy of mine 
would have said, like a long tailed cat in a room full of rockers.

By the time I got in there he was tearing at his sweats, trying to get 
them off in a panic.  Julie, of course, was right behind me, and 
suggested that she get something out of her bag to calm him down.  
I vetoed that and let him get into the shower, which had the same 
effect.  I'm not sure why so many people want to knock him on his 
ass at moments like those, he works through it by himself.  

At any rate, he'd used the nail brush on himself to the point that he 
was looking a lot like an overdone lobster when he got out.  And 
once back in his bedroom, he and his mother had a flashfire 
confrontation over who his father was.

Julie was watching in amazement, and I just felt as if another piece 
had clicked into place.  I broke up the confrontation to bully him 
into bed.  He crashed hard, worn out by adrenaline and hot water, 
thank God.

He was groggy in the morning, a nightmare hangover, I suspect, 
but his mother apologized for losing her temper with him the night 
before.  I think he was gearing up for another confrontation, but 
that stole his thunder.  

So he went silent and sullen and a little hyperactive on the sofa.  
At least in the sense that he was driving his mother crazy when I 
emerged after Julie and I had done the dishes.  And snarling at her, 
too.

I resisted the urge to thump him on the head and told him to mind 
his manners before taking the remote away from him.  He crashed 
again, just out like a 
light.

"He's so thin," his mother said, eyeing him nervously, as if she 
expected him to wake up again and snarl when she spoke.

"He's doing better."  

Julie came in, drying her hands and sighed.   "He's gained almost 
twenty pounds since he got here, despite throwing up in Dr. 
Horowitz' office every other day.  Walt feeds him constantly."

"I try," I told them both drily.  "He doesn't always cooperate."

"That sounds like Fox."  His mother went back to sewing.  I gave 
Julie a look and went back into the kitchen where we had a 
discussion about the weird family vibes between Mulder and his 
mother.  I ended up telling her what I knew about Mulder's family 
life, which at least explained that much.

The next few days seemed to go a bit better, after his mother went 
back to Julie's to stay at night.  Although I did short circuit a 
couple of incipient fights between the two of them before Julie 
took her back to Calgary.  

And I did have a long discussion with her, which would 
undoubtedly enrage him, even now.  I told her plainly what I 
knew, what Mulder has told me, about how he was taken and what 
was done to him.  That was as difficult as telling her he'd 
committed suicide.

She looked at me in silence for a very long while after I'd finished.  
"You really didn't know, did you."

"No."  That was hard to admit, too, the extent of my helplessness. 
"No, I didn't.  I'd have found a way to stop him."   Which in itself 
is an image of helplessness.  Mulder was never very easy to stop.

Her fingers tightened on the loose sleeves of the sweater she wore 
over her shoulders.  "They hurt him very badly."

"You caught him at a bad time," I told her tactfully.  "He had an 
upsetting session the day before with Dr. Horowitz, and wore 
himself out yesterday."  I did not, of course, tell her how.  Some 
things one's mother doesn't need to know.  "They did hurt him 
badly, Mrs. Mulder, but he's strong.  And he's really doing much 
better than yesterday would suggest."

She nodded and glanced away for a moment.  "Would this Dr. 
Horowitz talk to me?"

Julie gave me a warning glance that was unnecessary.  "I'm sure 
she would," I hedged, "But not about Mulder."

Her mouth quirked a little. "I'm his mother."

"He's her patient, he has to know that whatever he tells her is 
confidential."  No sense in hedging about that.

Another glance away.  "I don't know how to help him."

I've gotten used to meddling, I guess.  Or there's no excuse for 
what I did then.  "Mrs. Mulder, I think the best way you can help 
him is to settle the questions in his mind.  If his father wasn't 
William Mulder, I think he needs to know that, for good or ill."

For a moment, I thought she'd try and slap me.  But she finally 
bowed her head.  "I told him the truth last night."

I wondered.  The more I learned about Mulder and his family, the 
better I understood his drive.  But I left it at that.  I may have a 
meddling instinct, but I hope I also have an instinct about when to 
leave things alone.
   
But he survived it, even if Julie's diagnosis of asthma appears to be 
proven now.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I understand your concern, Doctor, but I don't want him in the 
clinic.  He shuts down there.  He's lucid, regardless of being upset, 
and I think that's all we can ask for.  The journal pages should be 
reasonably explanatory, although I confess that I asked Heatherton 
to provide me with a dossier on Ingrid Volkman after Mulder 
babbled her name repeatedly.

Ingrid Volkman was absolutely a logical descendant of the 
pseudo-scientists who experimented on human beings in the 
concentration camps.   Some of her projects actually did involve 
science, but most of them seemed to have involved testing 
technology on human beings who had run afoul of the 
Consortium.  They also use abductees.

Christ, no wonder he fugued, if that's what he was remembering.

Thank God his mother was here.  Thank God Julie was on her way 
up already when he put his arms through the window.   She kept 
him stable while I frantically put the chains on the four wheel.  We 
couldn't take the time to take the Snowcat.

He did hit the artery this time, and Christ, even with my best 
efforts, he bled like crazy.   They pumped a pint of his mother's 
and a pint of my blood into him.  Fortunately, she and I both have 
the same blood type he has.

I need to stress to you that there was never any suicidal intent, at 
least in my well considered opinion.  He was trying to get outside, 
but rationality was gone and he couldn't get the door unbolted.

I was in my room, which meant I didn't get to him until terror had 
overcome his struggle with the deadbolt and led him to try and go 
through the window.  Which he did.  I should have put safety glass 
in it.

John Little River came up and replaced the window for me.  I wish 
it was that easy to fix Mulder.  He was upset over the implant, but 
I thought that was reasonably normal.  There are times when not 
being upset is abnormal, and finding an implant in your nasal 
cavity give you a nosebleed is certainly one of them, I suspect.  He 
remained pretty calm throughout riding to the clinic, throughout a 
lot of people running around because they were tracking activity 
in the night sky, and even throughout getting jabbed with a 
needle_not his favorite pastime, nor mine_and was fine until he 
came back and started writing in his journal.

So, despite your many concerns about him not writing in it, 
Doctor, it looks as though it was actually the journal that triggered 
it.

His recovery period has been marked by a real case of depression, 
and from what I've been able to chivvy out of him, it's because he 
thinks he's taken such a giant step backward.  But surely some of 
that is the physical side of healing.  Fortunately, he didn't quite 
turn himself into hamburger, although he's going to have some 
nice additional scars on the inside of his arms.  Once they fade, 
they'll be indistinguishable from the others.

I really don't think he has, Doctor, and I'm willing to argue with 
you.  I think his mind is just getting to the point where he can 
handle these things, albeit not without bad reactions.  Yes, I know, 
you'll tell me that I've been corrupted by reading Jung, that I now 
think I know all there is to know about psychological 
healing, and I can't argue your point.  But I still insist that his 
reactions, given the circumstances, are normal with the boundaries 
of those circumstances.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Mulder

Apparently, we're in agreement.  Mulder is doing well.  I was 
amused all over again to read his description of the snowball fight 
and his resultant fall down the hill.  I'm very concerned about that 
vertigo, Doctor, and Julie says there is no longer anything wrong 
with his inner ear, so far as they can tell.  

But he's in good spirits and says he's working with you, along with 
grimacing when he says it to prove how hard he's working.  Which 
also makes me laugh.  He's certainly doing his journaling the way 
he ought to.

I'm beginning to feel like we've gotten to the end of the beginning 
phase of his recovery.   Am I being overly optimistic?  Probably.  I 
haven't forgotten what you told me about the prisoners of war.  
And I was in Vietnam during the war, remember?

I haven't made them all pay for what they did to Scully and to 
Mulder.  But I feel I've gotten a start at redeeming my promise 
when I listen to him give me grief.  Of course, I give it back, I'm 
not his AD anymore.  I think that actually reassures him.

His sense of humor is returning again, which is good to see.  When 
I see that, or have to defend myself against some of his remarks, I 
feel like he's really come a long way since the window incident.

And he trusts me, I think.  We have interesting conversations that 
we could never have had when I was his AD.  I enjoy surprising 
him with a snappy comeback when he didn't expect it, I enjoy 
hearing that hoarse laughter.  His voice is getting better, believe it 
or not.  Not normal yet, I'm not sure it ever will be, but it's closer 
than it was when he got here.

I was still feeling good about all this when he told me that Watts 
was precisely the sociopath I'd suspected he was.  He's not 
completely exaggerating my reaction to the news that Watts raped 
him.  I was so enraged that I literally saw red, this sort of 
frightening red tinge to everything that made me walk around 
the house counting under my breath and breathing deeply until it 
receded.

Watts had requested another interview with him_hell, he'd 
demanded it, and that got my back up.  I passed it on to Mulder 
peaceably and he studied my face, as if judging whether or not I'd 
back him, then said, no, he'd talk to my boss, but not to Watts.

Just out of curiosity, I asked him why.  No other reason, at least 
none that I'm aware of.

That's when he told me.
 
I nearly went nuclear.

He was worried, he tried to deflect me by making bad jokes, and 
all they did was make me angrier until I finally growled at him to 
shut the fuck up.  His eyes went wide at that_I did have to laugh 
at his description of the discussion, Doctor, I'm not quite the Boy 
Scout he would have you believe_and he went very subdued in a 
corner of the couch, pretending to read a book while I continued to 
stalk around the house and finally put on boots and outerwear 
and went outside to load wood we really didn't need.

I wanted Watts' balls, Doctor, with a pure, sweet, incandescent 
anger that I hadn't felt, God, in years.   No ambivalence, no 
rigorous officer of the law, bullshit.  Mulder's absolutely right, 
Watts was getting even for having me upset his plans, and Mulder 
was just handy.  Pissing on my boots, Mulder called it.  I think 
that's true.

If Peter Watts had been within striking distance that day, I can't 
swear I wouldn't have killed him.   Not just on Mulder's behalf, 
although I'll admit, remembering him the day Watts had brought 
him up gave me unwelcome visions of him tied down and helpless 
while Watts took his revenge on me.

No wonder my blood pressure went up.

He was still pretty subdued when I came in.   That's not really 
surprising, once I'd thought about it, he's still on pretty rocky 
ground emotionally, though he's come so damned far since getting 
here, and it occurred to me that he might think I was angry at him.

So I made coffee and poured us both a cup, went back into the 
livingroom and sat down on the only part of the couch he wasn't 
occupying.  The coffee got a surprised look, but he's not stupid, he 
just accepted it, his expression a little easier.

Mulder isn't exaggerating about his coffee fetish in the least, 
Doctor.  Even when he's had his quota, I've seen him standing over 
by the coffee pot just inhaling the aroma.  He's told me he was so 
glad I was into good coffee and even gladder that I knew how to 
make it.

At any rate, I sipped at mine and he sipped at his and I finally said, 
"I want you to write a full report on this.  Just like a standard 
crime report."

Mulder blinked at me.  "On Watts?"   I gave him a long look that 
made his mouth quirk.  "Okay, but isn't that going to piss some 
people off?"

"I don't really give a damn," I told him grimly.   "I want it on the 
record."  Actually, I wanted Watts nailed to a wall, but I figured 
that much was already apparent.  I just wasn't sure what was going 
to happen.  What would be done about it.  I hoped to Christ that 
something would.

Mulder sipped at his coffee again.  "All right."  Very quiet voice.  
A little shaky, and he was blinking hard into his coffee cup.

I nodded, not looking at him, giving him a minute.  I can't even 
begin to imagine what he went through.  Oh, I know intellectually, 
but I can't imagine how he survived mentally.  Emotionally.  And 
he is coming back, Doctor, your predictions were so dire, I didn't 
expect him to have gotten this far already.

He's still got a long way to go, but he's recognizably as the man I 
knew.  Far more vulnerable than he ever was at his worst 
moments, of course, but that goes without saying.  

What I find strange is that I like him.  I respected him before, 
occasionally found myself in sympathy with him, sometimes had 
to suppress a smile at his sense of humor, and thought he was, 
despite his tendencies to go outside procedures, a damned fine 
agent.  One of my best, if you could keep him on track.

Now, I find I think of him as a friend whose gotten into bad 
trouble, who needs help.  For the rest of that afternoon, we sat on 
the couch and watched the Knicks play basketball.  I ultimately 
made popcorn and watched and listened as Mulder's attention was 
drawn wholly into the game, thin face lighting up with interest and 
enthusiasm as the Knicks trounced the rival team.

Mulder and I met with Heatherton and Heatherton temporized 
until I produced the statement I'd had Mulder write up.  And I'll 
tell you, Mulder knows how to write a report.

So we'll see if Heatherton actually follows through; if he doesn't, 
I'm calling Ellison and sending him a copy of Mulder's report.  I 
want that bastard.  

I want him badly.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Watts

All right, I'll give you the retrospective, Doctor, but I remind you, 
I'm not your patient.  Mulder is.

Shortly after our meeting with Heatherton, Ellison in London 
called and asked for a meeting in New York.  I won't go into 
Ellison and his request, because it's semi-classified, but I wasn't 
really worried about leaving Mulder alone.  A little uneasy, 
perhaps, but he's been cocky and funny and generally doing well, 
overall.  A few nightmares now and again, but not many.  And 
most of those, Doctor, coincide with difficult sessions in your 
office.  He did ask me to lock up the knives.

I told him no, I wasn't worried about it, and I was a little amused.  
I'd put childproof latches in that drawer and he'd never tried it, 
despite his remarks to the contrary.  So I wasn't worried.

And I was right, it wasn't Mulder I needed to worry about.  I've 
been to that point on the mountain, Doctor, and for all he makes it 
sound like they rolled down a nice smooth slope, out of clumsiness 
aided and abetted by vertigo, that's not quite the truth.

There's a slight curve from the spot at which he must have been 
sitting, a pretty mild slope.  But it ends, after about three hundred 
yards, in a drop-off that ends in a rocky scree butting up against a 
shelf.  That's where he landed.  Watts landed on the scree, and 
wasn't trying to tuck and roll.

If I'd my druthers, Heatherton would be a dead man.  But I'll rest 
content with Watts being dead.  The problem is that Mulder hit the 
shelf and broke his leg and hip, which necessitated some pretty 
major repair work.

He really isn't such a bad patient, considering everything.  He 
doesn't complain all that much to the staff, and Cassie's been in 
regular attendance, which eases my mind sufficiently that I don't 
feel like I need to be there every evening.  The worst point was 
when he had problems with the morphine and wasn't getting 
any pain relief.   And despite what he may tell you, he wasn't 
screaming and ranting to the extent that he indicates.   He's so 
damned proud_or worried about what we think of him_that he'd 
rather say he was ranting than say he was lying there in so much 
pain that tears were streaming down his face.  He only swore like a 
sailor when they came in to shift him, and I can't blame him.  
If it had been me, I'd have tried to punch someone.

They finally found something that would work for him, which was 
a relief to everyone, not just Mulder.  And since then, he's bitched 
now and then, and mostly kept busy reading and playing Doom 
with me on the computer.

Which is very funny.  He's so astonished that I've even heard of it, 
but I have nephews, hardcore computer gamers.  So I actually 
know it very well.  He refused to write in his journal the other 
night and when I suggested that it wasn't a good idea to skip it, he 
informed me that he was on a journal strike until he got out of the 
clinic.  

When I got back home, I got an email about a game, so I told him 
I was on a Doom strike.  He promptly replied that my behavior 
was stunningly passive aggressive for a generally straightforward 
person_trust Mulder to be politically correct_to which I replied 
that his powers of observation were amazing for someone who'd 
never seen my MMPI.  He keeps me on my toes, but then he did in 
the X files, too.  

He gave up then, and Cassie told me the next morning that he 
sulked until she played her flute for him as he went to sleep.

Being that badly hurt makes us act like children, I think. I don't 
treat him like a child or an invalid, I learned not to do that over the 
first battle of the journal, when he ended up in the clinic for a 
week.  And from what he's written, I'm glad I did. 

So that's the way I see it, Doctor.  Hopefully that's what you 
needed.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Watts

Yes, Doctor Horowitz, I am still angry.  No, there isn't any point to 
dwelling on it, I fired off a long and illustrative memo to Ellison in 
London and Heatherton is no longer here on the mountain with us.  
Heatherton, if I'm not mistaken, is in New Guinea.  

It's a pity that cannibalism is no longer prevalent there.  

Jesus, Doctor, what did you think, I went around wishing I could 
kill people when I'm in a good mood.  Heatherton is directly 
responsible for what happened to Mulder this time.  The 
Consortium may have given Mulder the first round of abuse, but 
Heatherton and his outright negligence nearly killed 
him this time.

Damned right I'm angry.

Ellison either is, or has decided I'm more useful than Ellison.  
Right now, I don't care which.  Watts is dead and Ellison has 
neutralized Heatherton.

And Mulder is slowly and gradually doing better.

ws



To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mrs. Mulder

I feel very awkward about  your request, Dr. Horowitz.  Needless 
to say, you were the one harping about confidentiality when he 
went on his strike and stayed in bed for a week.  Now you want me 
to discuss his relationship with his mother, and I scarcely know the 
woman.

If you simply want my reactions to her--I think she loves him a 
great deal.   I don't think she understands him, but I think, from 
observations, that Mulder is essentially in the same boat.  He 
hasn't a clue what makes his mother tick.  

She arouses all my investigative instincts.  Which I've managed to 
suppress, for the most part, although I confess to having her file 
sent up to me.  I sent it back before I read it.  It seemed to me that 
it was an invasion of her privacy.

I just wish her privacy wasn't at Mulder's expense.  Listening to 
him when he was in a great deal of pain, I suspect she's either 
forgotten or hidden a great deal--from him and herself, Doctor, 
and as a person exceptionally talented at that same thing, I 
recognize it very well.

No, I don't see myself as a paternal figure.  I was the oldest child, I 
can more easily see myself as elder brother.  And even that's 
difficult when I find the cap off the toothpaste.

I'm joking about that.  

At any rate, I think it did him good to have her here, despite all the 
things I've said above.   He doesn't have anyone left except for his 
mother.  No family.  Few friends.  And we've all been down there 
in his room at the clinic.  He told me the other day that one of the 
unexpected benefits of having been rescued was that he got a 
private room for a change.  The Bureau HMO wouldn't pay 
for that.

Only Mulder could make jokes about his HMO at a time like this.  
I've got to admire his determination to growl and moan and bitch 
his way through this.  According to Julie, the reason the morphine 
didn't work is that there are so many major nerve bundles in the 
pelvic area.  At least, I think that's what Julie said.  You're an MD, 
you tell me.

I generally don't care much for celebrating Christmas, but knowing 
Mulder, I thought it would be a novel experience.  I wasn't wrong.  
He'd had his mother smuggle up a fine bottle of bourbon for me, 
which really touched me a great deal.  

For God's sake, the man is dragging himself back up from an abyss 
and he thinks about Christmas presents.  He had something for 
Julie and Cassie as well, which brought proper appreciation from 
both parties.   And naturally, he's chivvied Julie into releasing him, 
which appalls me.  But Julie and the orthopedic surgeon tell me 
that he's under strict orders.  I want to laugh at that, but Mulder is 
definitely a more subdued character at this point, so I'm hoping 
I'm wrong.

I think he was glad to have his mother here, particularly at 
Christmas.  No fights this time.  I suppose being in that much pain 
squelched any tendency to battle.

I have to admit, watching him take pleasure in such small things as 
a shot glass of Sam Adams beer and a homemade pizza makes me 
re-evaluate my own approach to life.  I didn't even have to go 
through the hell that he has to learn it.  

Which makes me angry all over again about what happened to 
him.  About what happened to Scully.  They were my people, my 
agents, and I couldn't protect them from their own government.

Having him alive is a small victory.  Having him recover is a 
greater one.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Thank you for your note.   My mother lived a good, full life, and 
my brother lived close enough geographically that she was able to 
watch her grandchildren grow up.  But it is hard, finding that you 
are now the eldest generation, that both your parents are gone.   

Mulder is doing as well as you might expect, given the 
circumstances.  He's very quiet these days.  It's actually amusing, 
for someone who really loathes being less than 100%, he's getting 
around in that wheelchair astonishingly 
well.  

It makes me sick to think of that envelope gathering dust in my 
brother's desk.  I'm afraid John and I had some harsh words over 
that.   I eventually apologized, and explained in very general terms 
why I had been upset, and he then got equally upset.  To which I 
replied, ironically, with the same arguments that Mulder's been 
using on me.

That makes me equally sick, that he's trying to process what I 
brought back with me and is still trying to reassure me.  Actually, 
it's both amusing and touching that when I got back, he was trying 
to take care of me.

God, I felt like I'd just joined the roster of people to torture him.

But he's handling things as well as can be expected, as I said.  Not 
many jokes lately, although he tries.  And that bullshit reassurance 
that he keeps trying to give me.

I believe he's about to be freed of the chair, by the way.  So he'll 
back for his appointments far more quickly than any of us 
expected.   I think the rapid healing bothers him a little on one 
level.  On another, of course, he's almost deliriously pleased.  

And despite everything, so am I.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

He and Cassie and Julie between them cooked up a birthday party 
for me, Doctor.  Including cake.   I'm still amazed at that.  

I'm amazed by him, frankly.  With everything that's been thrown at 
him since we got him out of Wilkinson's hands, he keeps bouncing 
back.  Enough to give me grief about my lack of hair and the 
number of candles that should have been on the cake.  Of course, I 
nailed him back a few times, which sets him off again, laughing 
until he starts to wheeze.

He doesn't like using that goddamned inhaler.  I can't blame him.  
Julie says that the damage to his lungs wasn't major enough to 
cause serious problems, but bad enough to exacerbate a more or 
less dormant case of asthma.  When he groused that he'd outgrown 
asthma by the time he started school, Julie told him gently that he 
hadn't, exactly, which he doesn't really believe.

She had to chivvy him to get the inhaler.

I grouse back at him about not using it, but I can't blame him.  He 
made it through Quantico, and the training there is pretty damned 
tough.  Having this come back to haunt him must be difficult.

He's not quite ready to get back to work, but he's doing a lot of 
reading.  I think he's starting to think beyond simply getting well.    
We've had some elliptical conversations about what he's going to 
do when he's finally ready, and I've seen those wheels turning.

He's gone through the maps and told me what he remembers, 
which is significant.  Ellison is practically singing the Hallelujah 
Chorus over what Mulder's given us.   According to him, Mulder's 
extraction is more than justified now, which statement made me 
grind my teeth.  In spite of the fact that I'd pretty much sold 
Heatherton on it because of that possibility.

Even though I'm not naive or a fool, it makes me feel chilled to 
realize that if I hadn't recognized Mulder, he would have remained 
Wilkinson's captive.  Or ended up dead at Wilkinson's hands, 
despite Wilkinson's orders.  Where do we draw the line, Doctor?  
I'm still furious that Watts would have let Wilkinson continue with 
his victims, despite knowing what he was.  I'm furious that 
Watts knew that Wilkinson's current catch was a former FBI agent.   
I'm furious that I had to argue to get Mulder extracted, that I had 
to make a case for retrieving whoever Wilkinson's victim might 
have been.  

I do understand the pragmatic reasons for this.  As I've said, I'm 
not a fool.  But I'm compellingly reminded of Burke's comment 
that all that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do 
nothing.

How can we justify our own existence if we don't act to put an end 
to the monsters like Wilkinson?

I'm not happy and I trust that I've made my unhappiness known to 
Ellison, who is, despite my snarling, a decent man.  He assures me 
that Watts was Heatherton's operative, had been recruited by 
Heatherton and that the majority of the command operatives were 
unaware of what Watts personal style was.

I find that hard to believe, but then a small voice in my head 
reminds me that I frequently was unaware of what Mulder was 
doing to get himself into trouble until after the fact.

But it doesn't explain the people who worked with Watts.    

I get deep into brooding on that and the resident smart ass shows 
up and gives me grief over sitting so long at the computer without 
clicking any of the keys.

And wants to Doom.  I'll Doom him.  His sense of humor certainly 
survived.

ws



To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I really don't want to argue with you on the telephone where he 
can overhear me, Doctor, but I do appreciate your concern.  
Nevertheless, despite my own resistance to giving in to illness, I 
do feel pretty lousy.  And it would definitely drive home the 
message that we think he's still, as he puts it, non compos 
mentis if I don't let him at least help out.

So, now, I'm not going to force him, I'm not in good enough shape 
to force him.  If I treat him like a victim, it's going to be very 
painful for him.  

Instead, I'm going to treat him like a friend and bitch at him to do 
extra journalling.  I'll make that compromise with you.

And for God's sake, trust me to tell you if I think he's got a 
problem.  I have the flu, I'm not unconscious.  Sending John up to 
get him was a little much.  I'm at least glad that you didn't try to 
get Cassie to drive up and force him 
down.  

He was furious, understandably so--at least in my opinion--when 
he got back.  I heard his computer keys clicking like mad, so I 
suspect he's sent you something.  I can't say that I blame him.

He has talked to his mother, and he's told you about that.  He's 
been talking about Scully, and he's written about it as well.  

We're going to continue to have this battle, I'm sure, and I'm well 
aware that you're the professional, but for God's sake, give the 
poor bastard some breathing space.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Journal Pages

No, Doctor Horowitz, I haven't seen the journal pages in question.  
I do have them, sealed in an envelope.  He came out and gave 
them to me after spending the whole of the previous evening in his 
room, in the dark, listening to his stereo.  Julie was somewhat 
concerned, but I've seen this before.  Usually, he just needs time to 
work through it.

I did manage to chivvy him into eating something, but not much.   
He got up before I did the next morning and growled at me until I 
finally gave in and just lay down on the couch.

He was jumpy and nervy and was clearly trying to process 
whatever the hell it was the two of you had worked on the 
previous day.  And not inclined to talk about it.

Finally, I did venture to ask, by the way, I'm not that laissez faire 
with his health, physical or emotional.  "Bad session yesterday?"

That got a grim look and a quick nod.  "I really don't want to talk 
about it."

I nodded.  But couldn't forbear.  "You doing all right?"

He made this bitter sound.  "Yeah, I suppose.  She just won't 
fucking let up, that's all."  Another grim look.

I let that pass.

After breakfast, I heard him typing in his room.  Around noon, he 
emerged, looking raw and exhausted and handed me a sealed 
envelope.   Evidently, he didn't want to trust this one to email.  Or 
let me read it.

"I'll have Julie take it down," I told him.

He nodded, his mind clearly somewhere else.  "I don't want you to 
read it."  Very faint voice.

"That's fair," I agreed and tried to offer a reassuring smile.  Not 
my best feature, I'm afraid, he didn't look terribly reassured.

But he nodded and went into the kitchen to make clattering noises 
and emerge for lunch.  I, in the meantime, took the envelope in 
and put it in my dresser.  Not for any particular reason, I'm sorry 
to report, I had no idea that he was going to change his mind.  Just 
because I felt uncomfortable with it sitting on the couch with me.

He was quiet the rest of the day.  Not brooding, exactly, but 
thoughtful.  And that night, he had another bad night.  He hasn't 
had one of those for a while.   I found him pressed into the corner 
near the wall--at least he hadn't worked his way down this time, 
which was a relief--and got him up, into the shower and 
back into bed on clean sheets.

I'm not sure he completely woke up during any of these 
maneuvers, to be truthful, he seemed completely glazed, even after 
the shower.   When I guided him back, he sat on the bed staring at 
his feet, a strange expression on his face.

His toenails have all grown back normally, so I'm forced to 
assume he was thinking about what they looked like when he first 
arrived.  Or what Wilkinson did to him.   

"Into bed," I told him softly and he started, looked up at me, as if 
he'd just woken up, then sighed and got back into bed, pulling the 
blankets up to his ears again.

I reached for the lamp, but he put out a hand to stop me.  "Leave 
it."  Muffled 
voice.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was a good night for 
me to sit up and read, but I must be getting predictable, he waved 
me out.

This morning, he was up again early, before Julie left, acting like 
that longtailed cat again.   Jittering and jiving, as he puts it.  

When I emerged from my shower, he was pacing restlessly in the 
livingroom while Julie watched from the kitchen door.  "I want the 
pages back.  Julie says she doesn't have them."

I'm sure I looked dumbfounded.   "No, I haven't given them to her 
yet."

"I want them back."  Hyper as hell and just short of manic, still 
pacing.

I considered that.  Shook my head.  "Not until you calm down."

Mulder gave me a betrayed look and went past me to his room, 
slamming the door.

Julie and I stared at each other.  "Does he still have the meds from 
running through the window?"

"Yeah."  I looked over my shoulder at the closed door.  "But if 
you think he's going to take them in this mood, I have to disagree."

"I'll talk to Elise."  Julie finished her coffee and went into the 
kitchen.   I followed her.  We made our good-byes and she sighed.  
"Don't let him destroy them, Walt.  Whatever if it, it's got to be 
powerful, which means it's something he needs to work on."

I agreed that I wouldn't, and went in to my room to get out of my 
robe and into clothes.  Almost as an afterthought, I moved the 
envelope.  

And that, Doctor, is that.  I assume we'll have him down there this 
afternoon and I wish you joy of it.  But I'd ask one favor.  Don't 
push him to the wall.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  RE: Journal

No, he hasn't talked to me about your sessions, and I'm not going 
to push him to do so.  That's private, as you've pointed out to me 
yourself.

He's doing fine, apparently, and has gotten over being angry at me 
for not giving him back the journal pages.

He and Cassie evidently had a fine day together, his spirits seem 
reasonably good, and I'm not going to violate his trust by sending 
you those pages.  Please don't ask again.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I appreciate your concern, particularly now that we're snowed in, 
Doctor, but the only one currently upsetting him is you.  Strike 
that, I'm upsetting him, too, because I won't give him the damned 
envelope back.  I've given him my word I haven't and won't read it.  
Or send it to you without his permission.

That was the only reason he calmed down and behaved in a 
civilized manner last night and today.  Although he's still clearly 
angry.  Which isn't exactly comfortable for either of us.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, he did let me read what he sent to you, and yes, I do 
understand why you find this account less than informative.

He's a profiler.  He profiled Wilkinson for you.   No, I will not 
bring him down to the clinic, I couldn't make it down there even if 
I agreed with you that it was the way to deal with this stalemate.  

I know he needs to deal with it, but I cannot agree that forcing him 
to deal with it is a wise path.  In fact, Doctor, I have to wonder 
why you're forcing him so hard, instead of letting him take it at his 
own pace.  Is your curiosity about what was done to him so great?  
Fine, I'll get Watts surveillance files and you can read it on your 
own and leave him the hell alone.  Just let me know what parts 
especially concern you and I'll weed out the rest.  In fact, I believe 
that Watts actually had surveillance tapes, you might find those 
enlightening.

And frankly, unless you can come up with stronger reasoning than 
you have given me--and I remind you, technically, I'm his guardian 
at this point--I will not permit you to drug him and take him to the 
clinic again over this.
ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, I did talk to him, obviously.  Or he wouldn't have let me 
bring the envelope down.   I deeply regret that it was necessary for 
me to have that talk with him.  It was difficult and upsetting for 
both of us, and frankly, I'm none to happy with your behavior.  I'm 
not altogether happy with my own, but I feel that I at least did 
what I could to protect him.

All right, he's given me permission to send you the pages.   I hope 
that they're worth what you've put him through.

Needless to say, I'm still both angry and upset.  Not with him, 
Doctor, with you.  The more so because you know already what 
Wilkinson did to him.  

How does your behavior with him differ from Wilkinson's, 
Doctor?  Christ, for that matter, how does mine?  In letting him 
know that Wilkinson's little pursuits were documented, I violated 
him just as much.  In reading those pages, I violated him, never 
mind that he'd given me permission to read them.  He gave me 
permission because we backed him into a goddamned corner.

I'm not very happy with either of us right now, Doctor, so forgive 
me if I sound sharper and more disapproving than usual.  I have to 
trust that you know what the hell you're doing, you came highly 
recommended and you've dealt with Consortium survivors before.

But I'm not happy.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

As I said on the telephone, Mulder is doing fine.   I appreciate 
your comments regarding my sense of guilt, but I remind you once 
again, I am not your patient.

I'll deal with my own guilt in my own way, thank you very much.

In any case, he's clearly not blaming me, he blames you.  He thinks 
I got caught in the middle, which may be true, but doesn't make 
me feel any better.

I have to trust that you're doing the right thing, Doctor, because it 
isn't my field.  It's your field and it's his field.    And he isn't a 
Freudian.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, I saw what he sent you.  What can I say, I can't tell him what 
to write.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, I have talked to him about the entire matter.  God knows 
why, but he let me come in and sit down and talk about it over a 
beer.  Not that he drank much of his.  He was upset, I was upset, 
but we talked.

I actually wish I was as good at helping him as he thinks I am.  It 
must be the contrast with the last three years that makes me look 
good.  

The worst thing about rape isn't the violation, it isn't any injuries 
sustained during the crime, it's the way it makes the victim feel.  I 
know that, I've seen it in victims.  But I don't know it in my gut, so 
it's a lie for me to indicate to him that I understand. 

I can't even begin to imagine how the hell he survived any of it.   
He's told me that he tried suicide several times, but they watched 
him pretty closely.  Patched him up and kept anything that could 
be used as a tool away from him.

It's very humbling, frankly, I've always thought I could survive 
anything if I could survive Vietnam.  I'm no longer quite as certain 
of that.  Yet he has.  What I said to him, Doctor, is quite true.  
They made him a victim, but he made himself a survivor.  

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Request

I have a request to make of you.  Mulder has already talked to me 
about this, but he's feeling glumly sure that you won't agree with it, 
particularly after your intransigence over the journal pages and 
doesn't even want to raise the issue.

He wants to visit his mother in Calgary.  In his favor, I have to 
point out that he's coming back from the low triggered by the issue 
of his journal.   He's feeling very well physically, and he's gained 
seven pounds in the last week.  He's also in good spirits, which 
only goes to prove my point, that he's much stronger and saner 
than you give him credit for being.  And he's been working 
hard, pulling up data and providing Ellison, via me, a lot of 
valuable analysis.  That's what he's good at.

I've already had a petition prepared giving him back control over 
his own life.  I will, of course, wait on your final judgement to 
have it filed with the Committee, but I believe he's earned that 
back.  And, if necessary, I will take him down to Calgary myself 
and stay there for the visit--but I'd prefer to take him down and let 
him be alone with his mother.

I think he's earned that, too.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

For Christ's sweet sake, Doctor, what else do you want of him?  
He's clearly not suicidal, and believe me, if anything should have 
tipped him over, it should have been the Wilkinson pages.  I'd be 
glad to speak to Ellison and take Mulder to Toronto and get a 
second opinion if you'd like.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, he's very pleased to be going.  In fact, he's delighted.  I did 
not, by the way, mention your initial resistance to this plan, I 
simply told him that I had asked and you had agreed.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't alienate him any further.  Despite his 
assertions, my reading of Jung does not qualify me to work with 
some of the things he needs to work through.  Obviously.  And 
further alienating him does seem to me to be counterproductive to 
the therapeutic relationship.

At any rate, I do appreciate your agreeing that he could go.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Yes, I hear from him via email, he took his laptop with him to 
Calgary.  And I've spoken with him on the telephone, too.  He's in 
good spirits, although he claims it took him a week to get the 
nerve up to walk down the street.  I find that hard to believe.  A 
few days at most.

His mother is getting around reasonably well and we've found 
someone to help her out and look in on her now that she's semi-
mobile.  I actually think he's going to be glad--I confess, I loved 
my mother dearly, and I didn't have the load of ambivalence that 
he has, and I still couldn't take much more than two weeks staying 
in her home.

I hadn't realized how silent this house would be while he was 
gone, I confess, which tells me that I must be getting senile.  I'm 
far too old to start having either roommates or new siblings.  Julie, 
of course, kids me about it.

I'm flying to New York for a meeting with Ellison on the bee 
situation, so the plan is to pick him up at the airstrip on my way 
back.   And then you can talk to him in person, Doctor.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

All right, I'll tell you what I know, but be aware that I've told him 
that you've contacted me and once again asked me to join the 
Mental Health Police.

Cassie returned from a visit with her aunt and uncle and went to 
Julie, complaining that she'd been ill for several days, couldn't 
seem to keep anything down.  

Among other tests, Julie ran a pregnancy test.  I'm not up on the 
technicalities of her reasoning, since Cassie was told years ago by 
a series of doctors that she was evidently sterile.  And I'm not 
privy to what that diagnosis was based on.  At any rate, the test 
was positive, and under one pretext or another, Julie ran 
an ultrasound.

Cassie, as you know, was pregnant.  The news was not welcome, 
she was hysterical.

Julie called me.  Evidently the argument goes something like this.  
Cassie and Mulder have both, we presume, been guests of the 
Consortium or the Others at one time or another.  You're familiar 
with Mulder's conviction that he was taken repeatedly while still a 
small child.   

Well, our genetics experts are very excited to see what the result 
will be.

I was delegated to violate that old statute on doctor/patient 
confidentiality and break the news to Mulder.  Julie felt I could 
handle it well enough to prevent him from going off the deep end.  
I did tell her that I refused to argue the point one way or another, I 
would pass on her information and then whatever he decided--and, 
so far as I was concerned, Cassie decided--was up to them.

So I went into his room and interrupted his work and told him.

It did not go particularly well.  Mulder has reasons for being as 
paranoid as he is, but for a few moments, he seemed to feel that 
this had all been engineered.  For another few moments, I 
considered that possibility myself.  Rational thought dispelled that 
theory, but I confess, I was willing to consider it.

Evidently, that's why he calmed down.

Right up until he lost everything he'd eaten that day.  I swear, I've 
never seen anyone with a stomach that nervous, and I nearly had a 
full fledged ulcer, working as AD.

At any rate, I drove him down to Julie's house, where she was 
keeping Cassie under siege, and after some fuss, the two of them 
sat in the kitchen and talked for a couple of hours and Cassie 
agreed to hold off on her decision to abort until the results of the 
prenatal tests came back.

Don't ask me what kind of tests, I have a large blank space in my 
brain when it comes to medical procedures. I believe Mulder 
probably has a better idea, he tells me that's part and parcel of 
having been Scully's partner for four years.

He's still a bit shell-shocked, but he blames himself--doesn't he 
always?--and not Cassie, whereas Cassie is just shell-shocked.  We 
all had dinner tonight, after the tests, and the two of them were as 
near to completely silent as I've ever seen either of them.

Shell-shock, as I said.

And that, Doctor Horowitz, is all I can tell you.

ws



To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Evidently, the child is healthy and quite normal, which you 
probably have already heard from Mulder.  Cassie has decided not 
to abort, which you probably also know.

I confess to misgivings.  When Sharon caught pregnant, I was 
pleased and terrified at once, and we were planning that child.  
Sometimes, the terror outweighed the anticipation.

I think Mulder fears giving hostages to fate.  I think he always has.  
That's an intuition, Doctor, not a factual observation.  I tried to 
explain it to Julie, who has been fairly disapproving of his reaction 
to the glad tidings.

"It's his child, too," she told me sharply, last night, when I was 
trying to explain it for the tenth time.   We were in my room and 
she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing an old t-shirt of 
mine and eating the ice cream I'd brought up to fatten up Mulder.   
I often wonder why it is that women complain so much about men 
being able to eat anything they want without worrying about 
weight gain.  I've jokingly told Julie that as far as I can tell, 
she eats everything that doesn't have enough volition to get out of 
her way and if there's an ounce on that woman that isn't muscular 
and toned, I'll eat my old Marine boots for supper.

At any rate, I sighed.  "Julie, he's being very supportive of Cassie's 
decision and of Cassie.  What more do you want from him?"

Julie scowled.  "I'd like him to take an interest in her pregnancy.  
Cassie doesn't just need his support while she's pregnant, she 
needs his support when its a real live baby, and he can't even bring 
himself to look at the sonograms."

"This isn't Father Knows Best," I told her, rather sharply in turn.

"What would you do?"  Her eyebrows arched quizzically.

"Not fair, I had a vasectomy after Sharon's miscarriage."  I shook 
my head.

"Use your imagination."

I sighed again and leaned back against the pillows, arms folded 
behind my head.  "Julie, given his circumstances, I'm not sure I'd 
behave half as well as he has.  As he is.  He's got more than 
enough reasons to be nervous, for Christ's sake."

After a heartbeat, she flushed, clearly embarrassed.  Looked down 
into the ice cream container.  "I keep forgetting," she finally said, 
her voice soft.  "He's so strong, it's easy to forget what he's been 
through."

"And his bones have healed much more quickly than the rest of 
him," I told her drily and got a wince in return.  "I'm not saying 
he's a fucking saint, but he's doing his best, Julie.   Cut him some 
slack, okay?"

She was still staring at the ice cream.  "God."  Softly.  Then, lifting 
her head, she arched one eyebrow again.  "Why doesn't he ever eat 
any of this?"

"Probably because he'd have to race you to the freezer."  I smiled, 
hoping to show there were no hard feelings.  "And once you've 
dug into it, he's probably squeamish about eating after you."

It worked, evidently, she stuck her tongue out at me, put the lid 
back on and sauntered out to put the ice cream away.

I heard the front door open as she vanished around the corner and 
Mulder's voice said, "Nice legs, Julie."  And a wolf whistle.

An outraged little yelp followed that and I couldn't help laughing.  
I still can't believe she thinks that Mulder believes we play gin 
rummy in here all night.

Rolling off the bed, I went out into the kitchen and found Julie 
scowling at his back while he surveyed the contents of the 
refrigerator.  One thing I have to say, he's looking light years 
better than he did even a few months ago.  Fit, if still a bit on the 
thin side, but then he always was.  And he eats, nobody has to 
try and talk him into it.  Even with this new stressor, he's doing 
fine.

I grinned when he looked around at me, the perfect line coming to 
mind from the old movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid--
"You stealin' my woman?"

Mulder did a classic doubletake and smiled slowly, his eyes 
delighted.  "Yeah."

I let it go for two beats and said, "Take her."

Julie turned that scowl on me, but Mulder cracked up.  I mollified 
Julie, and we ended up sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer 
each and snacking on an odd combination of leftovers.  Mulder 
ended up telling us that he'd suggested to Cassie that he move 
down to her place, at least for the duration.

"So why aren't you down there?" Julie asked mildly.

Mulder rolled his eyes.  "She threw me out, said she had to think 
about it.  Not everyone  thinks I'm a great catch, Julie."

Julie frowned and took the last swallow of her beer.  "I'm going to 
bed.  You coming, big guy?"

"He's not even breathing hard," Mulder said, straightfaced.

"I'm saving myself for you," I told him and got my ear tweaked by 
Julie.  "Julie and I are just very good friends."

He rolled his eyes again and raised the bottle to his lips.  "Julie, 
are you still harboring fantasies that I'm only six and you're my 
parents and I'll be traumatized if I find out my parents are actually 
doing the wild thing?"

"Horowitz is corrupting you," she told him severely and bent to 
kiss me.   "Do your male bonding and come to bed."

Mulder grinned and leaned back in his chair.  "I forgot, is male 
bonding on the schedule tonight?"

"Not unless you brought the cuffs."

He laughed at that.

I studied his face for a moment.   "You all right?"

That earned me a wry look and a shrug.  "You ever wonder how 
Eurydice would have done if she'd made it all the way back out of 
hell?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Neither did I until recently."  He was rotating the beer bottle 
between his hands.  "I'm doing all right, Walt.  This is just 
unexpected and scary as hell."  Another wry look.  "But if we 
consider the Mengeles and Wilkinson the top of the terror scale, 
we're still way down on the bottom of the gauge."

I nodded.  "When Sharon was pregnant--and believe me, that kid 
was planned--it still scared the hell out of me.   Not so much on 
the material level, I figured I could always handle that, one way or 
another."

That seemed to surprise him, but after a moment, he smiled, a bit 
ruefully.  "You mean that even though I'm abnormal, I have 
normal feelings?"

"You still have the same number of fingers and toes that the rest of 
us have," I told him and got up to dispose of my empty bottle.  
"Please note, I didn't say you were normal, my first introduction to 
you was Fox Mulder, the abnormal psychologist."

He chuckled.  "Uh oh, you're holding my past against me."

"That's about all I'm going to hold against you unless Julie throws 
me out tonight over all this male bonding.

Raising the bottle, Mulder grinned.  "Does that mean I should fear 
a nighttime visit from the big kahuna?"

"I'll bring my own lube," I told him.

He'd been in the middle of another swallow, which promptly 
exited his nose instead of going down his throat.  

Yes, Doctor, I'm aware that kind of humor is juvenile and 
immature.  Unfortunately, it also strikes both of us as funny now 
and again, although Julie rolls her eyes and offers to watch.

At any rate, having zinged him, I went back to bed and was 
thoroughly welcomed.  And as Julie was drifting to sleep, she 
muttered, "I take all my grouching back, Walt." 

Which I suppose means that she's in agreement with me.  And that, 
Doctor, pretty well sums up my point of view on the entire matter.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Sarah Delevan-Mulder, as it says on her birth certificate--which 
I'm not sure is wise, frankly, but Mulder insisted and things are 
still iffy enough that I didn't want to upset him--is doing well 
enough to be out of the neonatal intensive care unit.  The 
pediatricians are astounded and call her a miracle baby.

I think Mulder's just content that she's doing okay, although she's 
gotten orange, as if they'd rubbed her all over with those old 
tanning lotions that used to be the thing.  Well, are again, thanks to 
the damage done to the ozone layer, which is neither here nor 
there--she's jaundiced, which I guess isn't completely uncommon, 
and she's had a little trouble here and there, but she's as strong as 
her father.  And her mother, although I don't know all of Cassie's 
personal history.  I tell Mulder she's a fighter, like her dad, and it 
seems to ease the look of strain he gets watching Cassie nurse her.

Cassie is likewise doing well after scaring everyone badly.  
Mulder was in a bad way when they took her into the operating 
room, he wanted to go in, but both Julie and the OB nixed that.  
Julie promised him she'd take care of her, which was why she'd 
come anyway.

I actually slipped him a drink in the waiting room, poured him a 
tot of bourbon and made him drink it.  There are times, Doctor, 
when it's appropriate to be distraught, and this was one of them.  
We didn't expect the baby to make it.  Oh, it might take some time, 
but Cassie was only twenty-eight weeks along.  They don't always 
make it that early, even with the advances in neonatal medicine.

I walked down with him to see the baby after Julie came out and 
told us Cassie was doing well.  I think he's been keeping the idea 
of the baby at a distance throughout this, unable or unwilling to 
see it as an real person.   I can't blame him--we don't carry them, I 
suppose, so it's different for us, we don't have the intimate bond 
with the child.  But when he put his hands into the openings in 
the isolette, I could swear she stopped howling as if she was 
checking him out.

As far as I'm concerned, newborns have always had an unfinished 
look about them, and premature infants only look more unfinished.    
Sarah is ridiculously small, she's not even the length of Mulder's 
forearm when he holds her.  And he does, Doctor.  He gave Sarah 
her first feeding.   But she's one powerful little thing, she got him 
that first time, no matter how terrified he is of her and for her.  Or 
maybe he's just terrified of becoming his father--and I'm referring 
to William Mulder--and screwing up, I don't know.

One look and I'm afraid she had me, too.  It was impossible not to 
remember Sharon and our son at that moment.  Poor damaged 
little boy, he never had a chance at life.  But Sarah does.

So, while Mulder is nervous and strained lately, it's nothing I 
would consider out of the ordinary for a man who nearly lost both 
mother and child.  I've been there, Doctor, and I think I might be a 
better judge than you on this one.

Other than that, he's besotted with the baby, relieved and glad that 
Cassie is doing fine, despite the emergency Cesarean, and doesn't 
even seem to mind staying at his mother's, although she was 
starting to drive him up the wall before the baby was born.  Maybe 
it was just worrying and waiting, rather than his mother.

Although he did confide to me that the very notion of his mother 
as a granny was enough to justify the existence of the X files 
section.  Which, I suppose, means that he thinks it's just as bizarre 
as I do to see her hovering over the isolette and crooning to Sarah.

He keeps watching her as if she's going to grow another head--his 
mother, I mean, not the baby.

I did tell him that I thought she had his nose, which got an 
honestly horrified expression.  Cradling the baby, he leaned over 
and told her, "Don't pay any attention to the mean man, Sarah.  If 
you have my nose, we'll get it fixed."

The nurse nearly fell down, but I'm used to him.  I just laughed 
and appropriated my niece by adoption and told her if she had his 
nose, she'd have to live up to it.  That Daddy had a habit of putting 
his nose in places that got him into trouble, but that we'd look out 
for her.

Which made him laugh, although he did re-appropriate her again.

I think that makes Cassie a little nervous, how involved he is with 
her.  I'm not sure what she expected.  I'm glad to see it, but Julie is 
beginning to watch Cassie with this little line between her brows.  
Perhaps it's time to change patients, Doctor, I'm well aware of 
post-partum depression, and Cassie had a difficult pregnancy.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I'm afraid that I'm getting maudlin in my old age.  Mulder and 
Cassie are back and I'm damned glad to see both of them.  All 
three of them, I guess I should say, but I'm still not accustomed to 
Mulder having offspring.

When he's showing her off, a very unMulder thing to do, he refers 
to me as Uncle Walt, which I've decided is acceptable.  For her.  
Not for him.  When I tell him so, he gives me the typical smart ass 
Mulder look, but has so far managed to refrain from making any 
snappy retorts.

On the whole, my only concern at this point is Cassie, not Mulder.  
She's very sharp with him over such things as diaper changing, 
how he holds her, and so on.  Julie's gotten to the point that she's 
been unable to prevent herself from speaking sharply in return, 
since Mulder's evidently decided these criticisms are valid and 
takes them to heart.

Julie's responses have been such things as "Cassie, the diaper is 
staying on, so what if it's not perfect," and "He's got her neck 
supported just fine, Cassie, just relax," and other comments to that 
effect.  It was reassuring to me to have Julie take note of Cassie's 
criticisms, because I was keeping my mouth shut based on the 
assumption that perhaps it was one of those gender things. 

Cassie also seems to have become very high strung.  This, I know, 
is hardly uncommon post-partum, but it is worrying.

To my astonishment, Mulder appears to be handling it better than 
Julie and I do.  It's almost impossible to believe that it was just a 
little over a year ago that Watts hauled him up-mountain and 
brought him to my door.  And he's gradually moving his things 
back up to the house, albeit with an apologetic look that makes me 
feel badly.  Evidently, it isn't working out, so he's doing his best to 
keep the relationship amicable so that Sarah doesn't suffer.

This man is recognizably the man I used to work with, although 
our relationship has certainly changed.  Still as reckless in some 
ways_he's volunteered to keep the baby by himself for a few days 
so that Cassie can go down and visit her aunt and uncle, some sort 
of annual thing that she does.  When he told me, I'm afraid I 
laughed outright.  The look of doom on his face, contrasted with 
his desire to give Cassie some time to herself, was simply 
impossible to reconcile.

I growled something at him about bringing the baby up, since I 
ostensibly have more experience, due to having nieces and 
nephews and he accepted the offer before the words had 
completely left my mouth.  I can't decide if it's normal new father 
jitters or if Cassie has actually managed to undermine his 
confidence in his ability to care for Sarah.  I'd prefer to think the 
former.

Hopefully, getting away, and being neither pregnant nor carrying a 
baby will ease Cassie's tensions and state of mind.

ws



To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Horowitz, what do you want me to say?  I heard the gunshots and 
ran like hell to find Cassie dead and Mulder damned near dying.  
Shocky as hell and bleeding out on Cassie's livingroom floor.

There's something hideously apt in the fact that she chose the same 
method of suicide that Mulder allegedly chose, and I can see that 
recognition in his eyes when he's awake and lucid.

How do you expect me to feel?  It's a goddamned miracle that 
Mulder's alive, it's a goddamned miracle that Sarah's alive.

I could hear her screaming halfway from Julie's house, fortunately 
just around the corner.  If Julie hadn't been right behind me, 
Mulder would have died.

I want to kill something or someone.  I want to find out who did 
this and annihilate them, annihilate everything they love, burn their 
homes and sow the ground with salt.

Ah, God, Cassie_Cassie was dead, no chance in hell.  I didn't 
think Mulder had the chance of a snowball in hell of making it, but 
I'd reckoned without Julie, and John Little River, across the street.  
They kept him alive, we got him to the clinic in nothing flat.  With 
John's wife holding Sarah, who was seriously spattered with blood 
and tissue from her father's chest.

Civilians don't know how a gunshot can chew through the human 
body.  I do.  I was a soldier, and then a cop, and I know it too well.  

There was so much blood.  When I put my hand over Mulder's 
wound to exert pressure, I could feel it pumping against my palm.  

I can't believe he made it.  I sat with Sarah in the waiting room 
outside the clinic surgery and tried to rock her.  John's wife, 
Annie, went and got a bottle for her from the house.  She offered 
to feed her, but I confess, I couldn't let go of her.  The only thing 
really alive in that house when I got there.  

I haven't been that bad since Vietnam.  Not even when Sharon 
nearly died.  And I was pretty distraught then.  Sharon has 
recovered.  I'm not sure Mulder can.  Not this.  

It looks like she got the gun and shot him with it first.  There was a 
cup of tea spilled on the couch.  Sarah's basket was turned over 
and she was howling when I broke the goddamned door down.  
Just shrieking, terrified and alone and with a bruise on her 
forehead.  I'm guessing that maybe Mulder tried to put himself 
between her and the gun.  It's just a guess at this point, because he 
certainly isn't in any condition to talk to us.

I don't need a shrink, Horowitz, I need a fucking archangel to go 
back and take the word to the Almighty that I don't much like the 
way he runs things down here, and I want to see some fucking 
changes.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder's condition

Sarah's staying up at my house with her grandmother and Julie and 
me.   She would not be consoled the first few days, while Mulder 
hung between life and death.  If I had to give anyone credit for him 
living, I'd give it to Julie and Dr. Rivers.  They're too stubborn to 
let go, he arrested more than once.

I certainly can't give him credit, he's gone completely withdrawn.  
He won't talk much, but I saw the relief in his eyes when I told him 
that Sarah was all right.  That's the only thing giving me any hope 
at this point.

I confess, I'm_oh, hell, it's just so goddamned hard to see him 
lying there, that fucking tube up around his nose to help him 
breath.  He looks so damned defeated.

We're taking Sarah down everyday, Julie is still worried, she says 
he's not fighting back in his usual way.  This is more like the state 
he was in after he was initially released from the clinic, more than 
a year ago.

He fought every step of the way after Watts tried to kill him.

He blames himself, he's said that much_"I should have known," 
he told me, thin, weak voice, "I should have seen it coming."

Doctor, I had a much more normal upbringing, and I was pleased 
that Sharon was pregnant, and I didn't do half as well as Mulder 
did with Cassie.  Either during the pregnancy or after it.  I was 
lousy at giving her emotional support after we lost the child, lousy 
about talking about it, lousy about letting her grieve.  Mulder's a 
psychologist, he kept coming up with reasons for Cassie to behave 
like as shrew and responded accordingly.  Before Sarah was born, 
I called him a SNAG, one of the terms learned from him that's too 
good to pass up, and he flipped me off.  

He's too badly hurt to joke with about it now, it won't help him.  
And I'm truly worried about the possibility of suicide.  I sit next to 
that bed with the baby in my lap_me, the ramrod AD who used to 
chew up senior agents and spit them out in little pieces_and read 
to him without getting so much as a twitch.  I even went back to 
Narnia and started over, hoping it would piss him off to have me 
read a children's book, but he just closed his eyes.

On the other hand, I'm becoming  scarily certain that Sarah is 
understanding every word.  

Julie finally gave me the okay to put  Sarah on the bed with her 
dad_not on him--and he just looked away, tears streaming down 
his face.  Christ, why don't I just rub salt in his wound.

But we bring the baby down every day, his mother and I.  It gets a 
little reaction, but not a lot.  Relief, mostly, and then only when 
we're holding her.  He doesn't talk much, but it's not the same as 
his not talking at first.  It's worse.

Yesterday, he started a line of conversation that made my skin 
prickle.  He talked about Julie and I taking Sarah in, adopting her.  
I growled at him, I'm afraid, told him not to be an ass and to hurry 
up and get the fuck out of the clinic before Sarah spends most of 
her life here visiting him

On the one hand, I think he'd do better out of the clinic, he 
generally has.  On the other hand, I don't want him in the clinic 
any longer than he has to be, but I'm not equipped to cope with 
both an infant and a man who may actively attempt to end his own 
existence.   

As for Cassie_thank you for attending the memorial and speaking 
to Mrs. Mulder.  I think it helped her a great deal.  Whatever else 
one can say about her, she is genuinely devastated.  I think it's a 
combination of having been fond of Cassie and having hoped that 
her son was going to have what she saw as a normal life.

Our investigation shows that Cassie was most likely taken by 
Consortium forces_evidently human, I can't see the Others 
needing snowmobiles.  It's hard to determine when, her aunt and 
uncle had been shot execution style and since the woodstove had 
gone out, it's difficult to tell from the temperature and condition of 
the bodies when the execution took place.

Presumably, they took Cassie then.  We're working on a rough 
theory why, and I suspect that it has to do with Sarah.  Which 
means that Sarah, in some way, is considered a danger.  They 
didn't anticipate a child born to two people subject to their 
modifications, Camille Duvall theorizes, and therefore are as 
worried about Sarah as our geneticists are excited about her.

As for Mulder and Cassie, who knows.  According to Mulder's 
statement, Cassie intended to kill him, Sarah, and then herself.

God knows, she's an unusual child.  She should not have survived 
her premature birth, or if she did, should not have survived it 
without some degree of injury.  However, she's not only indecently 
healthy, she's quite advanced for a baby who should still basically 
be eating, sleeping, and simply soaking in experience.  She creeps 
on her stomach far in advance of what she should be_and what I 
remember from my brother's children_and actually has begun 
referring to us by name.  More or less.

 Every time we take her to see her father, Julie or his mother_and 
yes, I have to confess, I do it, too_we refer to him as Daddy and 
she's taken to calling him something approximating Da.  

At least she knows him.  I keep hoping that she'll somehow lead 
him back out of the darkness.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:   Mulder

I don't know what happened.  Even Mulder's mother gave up and 
went back to Calgary, frail and worn and defeated, but this 
morning when I took Sarah in again to harass him as usual, he 
actually looked at both of us.  

We both leaked a bit at the eyes, but that's fair enough.   He's 
earned it, and I'm so damned relieved_he actually held the baby 
for a while and let her call him Da and marveled at that.  Jesus, did 
you change his medication or something?  Whatever, Doctor, it 
worked.  It really worked.

Doctor, I'd like to once again thank you.  You've really gone 
beyond the usual professional concern with Mulder, and although 
we've had our differences with regard to his treatment, I want you 
to know how much I appreciate it.

I wish his mother were still here, I think she'd be very relieved.  I 
did call and tell her, after he had put Sarah to bed and gone to bed 
himself.  

Obviously, I'm writing this from home.  Thanks to your expediting 
things, I brought him here this afternoon.  He's been quiet since 
then.  

But he's spending a lot of time resting still, hardly surprising.  And 
I guess relearning who his daughter is.  I'm very relieved.  I'm very 
relieved that he called you and suggested coming back here and 
journaling, as opposed to talking to you in the clinic.

I suppose relieved isn't really quite the honest word for it.  Stunned 
and jubilant might come closer.  I told him I was afraid I was 
going to get stuck raising Sarah, and I'd already lost more hair 
over the Mulder family than was fair.  Fortunately, he took that 
with a faint smile, one eyebrow quirked as though he knows better.  
He probably does.

I've been telling him for four weeks, everytime he insisted that he 
couldn't raise her, that he didn't have to do it alone.  He's got my 
number, I'm afraid, worse than Sarah does.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Journal Pages

Doctor, despite my appreciation and thanks, I feel wearily as if 
we're in a time loop.  Please don't push him so hard.  He's doing 
remarkably well, although he's still sleeping a great deal.

I like to think I don't require him to pretend that everything's great.  
I try and let him have the space to feel lousy without necessarily 
letting him sink under it.  He's pretty much taken over Sarah's care 
himself, which is oddly disconcerting; I hadn't realized how much 
I was doing until I was doing very little of it anymore.

Sarah fell down off his back while they were both lying on the 
floor the other night, and he was doing all right, calm and 
competent, until she calmed down.  And then something just hit 
him hard.   I think Mulder's right, I think we need to invest our 
retirement in Kimberly-Clark, and I'm getting just as bad as he is.

Julie lets him have his space, too, and I'm not really sure I could 
have gotten through this without her.  Oh, sure, I'm tough enough 
to do it.  But I have to honestly admit that I've learned a lot from 
Mulder over the last year.  I've gained more than friendship, I've 
had to be scrupulously honest with myself in order to be fair, and 
I've learned to be a little more open.

But he's still wrong about the Zen thing.  I don't accept a 
goddamned thing that's happened to him, up to and including 
Cassie's death.

Naturally, he has nightmares again, but he's usually fine if one of 
us just goes in there and breaks the cycle by gently waking him.  I 
think that the anti-depressants were a good idea, I think it lifts the 
weight off his shoulders.  Christ knows, it worked for me.
 
I'm still not completely sure he's going to come back from this, but 
he's been trying to work, Sarah on his lap.  He told me the other 
day, his tone rather rueful, that he didn't think that this was what 
he'd gone to Oxford for, all the while trying to keep baby spit off 
his keyboard.  I rescued him and the keyboard and took Sarah out 
and fed her some of those nauseating strained vegetables and rice 
cereal.  Which, BTW, she doesn't care for, she much prefers 
stealing bits of whatever we've got, the minx.

I think really that she's the only thing keeping him alive right now.  
I'm not sure anything else would work.

Although he has been throwing out broad hints about how well 
Sarah's bonded to Julie and I.  Watching the two of them, I usually 
growl, "Sure she has, she knows Uncle Walt and Aunt Julie", with 
the emphasis on the honorary titles.  And add that she's clearly 
besotted with her old man.

He doesn't like that.  Not really.  But I think he's coming to believe 
it.

And he's gotten short tempered, which I actually find a good thing.  
He's got enough venom to fight back again.  That was the first sign 
to me that he was going to recover, back when he first came here, 
and I think it's a good sign now.

I hope to God I'm right, Doctor.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I don't see any reason why he couldn't go down and spend a week 
visiting his mother.  The woman's been nagging him to come 
down, the weather being a little hard on her still up here, and I 
think he could use the opportunity to actually have a social life.  
Or so I'm hoping.  I'm dropping broad hints about that, which he 
ignores.

But it's March, five months since Cassie's death, and even if he 
doesn't feel like it, I think it would be good for him to have the 
opportunity if he changes his mind.  Christ, even to go out and see 
a movie by himself.  

We're pretty insular up here, and the men outnumber the women, 
at least those that aren't already committed, and to be perfectly 
blunt, Doctor, he's gotten strong enough that he's got to be getting 
bored with videos.

At any rate, my guess is that it would probably be good for him.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

The people we have keeping an eye on the Mulder house in 
Calgary reported that there was some interest once Mulder arrived 
with the baby.  Ellison doubled the watchers and upped the ante in 
terms of their armament.  He didn't tell me until after Mulder got 
back, early yesterday evening.  Julie had taken the day off, a well 
earned one, and heard the car first.

Fortunately for my dignity and Julie's peace of mind, he didn't 
catch us in flagrante delicto.

I went out to meet him at the car.

Sarah brightened and reached out.  "D'ere Watt is!" she crowed.

Mulder rolled his eyes, looking very much as if he'd had to listen 
to the question of where Walt was all the way back up the 
mountain.  "Here, Uncle Walt," he growled and handed her over to 
me.

She promptly squirmed to look over my shoulder.  "Dere Doo-ee 
is!"

"I take it she's been wondering," I told Mulder drily.

"Yeah.  Add Gran and Gran's cat and John Little River and Tony 
and you've got about the extent of her conversation."  He looked 
tired, too and grabbed her bag out of the car.  I handed Sarah to 
Julie and helped him unload.

Julie took her in to get her out of her pram suit_don't ask me why 
they're called that, Doctor, I only report the news, I don't make 
it_and Mulder and I carried in the paraphernalia that seems to 
accompany any trip with an infant.

"She's a good traveler," Mulder sighed, setting the portable crib 
against the wall of the porch, "But she talks if she's not sleeping."

"Where Da is?"  I heard a plaintive little voice from inside the 
house.

Sometimes I wonder if Cassie's death left a mark on Sarah in this 
constant questioning where people are.

Mulder gave me a long suffering look.  "I'm out here, Sarah."

I maneuvered the door open and got the big suitcase and diaperbag 
in, then reached out for the portable crib.  

"I've got it."  Mulder flicked me a grin and carried it down the hall 
to Sarah's room.

I heard the literal patter of little feet and paused to see Sarah 
coming up.  "I want kitty," she announced.

"Don't answer her," Mulder's voice sounded plaintive this time.  
"Whatever you do, don't answer that."

I couldn't help laughing, and passed by him in the hall, carrying 
the suitcase and bag.

By the time I emerged again, he was crouched in front of Sarah 
telling her "No kitties in this house," in firm tones.

She pouted.  She sulked.  "Da go 'way."  And beamed at me as I 
came up.

"Not a chance, kid," I told her, still laughing.  "Especially not until 
spring."

Mulder put his head in his hands.  "Don't leave that opening for 
her," he muttered.

"Sp'ing?"  Sarah's eyes gleamed.  "When snow gone?"

Her construction may be eccentric, as Mulder says, but she's 
certainly not the average six month old child.   She has the 
geneticists and the pediatrics specialist who work with us 
completely astounded.  At six months old, it's rare enough for her 
to be walking and talking, although Mulder's mother claims he 
was.  Mulder claims that he's discovered his mother is right, 
children are a grandparent's revenge.  Of course, Mulder also talks 
about selling her to the circus, so I take that with a grain of salt.  
But if you consider that she was premature, she ought to just about 
be able to sit up and focus her eyes, and reach for things.

We're way past that.

And obviously, from my report above, she understands the 
concept of spring coming after winter.  It's a good thing I told 
Mulder he didn't have to do this all alone, there are days I would 
have had to lock up the knives.

"We don't have room for a kitty," I told her, arbitrarily changing 
the focus of the conversation.  "When you're big enough to take 
care of a kitty, we'll get you a kitty."

Mulder made this smothered sound of despair.

"I big," Sarah told me solemnly.

"Not big enough for a kitty," Julie put in, from the couch behind 
her.  "You have to be at least 10."

Raising his head, Mulder gave Julie a grateful look.

Sarah didn't so much as turn her head.  She kept gazing soulfully 
at me.  I crouched down and touched the tip of her nose.  "Yup, 
Aunt Julie's right, you have to be ten."

Sulk.  A very Mulder sulk.  She wandered into her room then with 
her thumb in her mouth and Mulder sank back on the floor to lean 
his head against the wall.  "Oh, God, she almost drove my 
mother's cat to suicide.  We had to watch the doors to keep it from 
dashing out into the street."

"Strenuous visit?"  I had hoped it would be good for him, but now 
that I got a good look, he just looked tired.

"It was okay."  He rested his wrists on his knees and let his hands 
hang loose.  "Although if I had to listen one more time to my 
mother tell me Sarah was doing something just like me, I was 
going to puke."    He sounded tired.  "And talking about things 
from when I was little_Christ, does she think I don't remember?  
She's got this romantic haze around my infancy, how happy my 
dad was, all that shit."  A weary smile.  "I mean, please, spare me."

In the act of rising, I fixed him with a stern look.  "Did you get out 
at all?"

The smile took on some energy.  "Oh, yeah, I did.  And that 
damned seminar_Jesus, Walt, I was categorizing contacts before 
anybody believed me."

"Hey, Ellison recommended it, since you're supposedly one of our 
resident experts."  I chuckled.  "If you'll recall, I thought it 
sounded pretty silly."

"Aliens 101."  Mulder pushed himself up and I went into the 
kitchen, came back with one of his damned beers.  "God, Walt, if 
Julie ever leaves you, do you think we could make it work?"

"Not until you let your hair grow again."

Julie looked up from taking Sarah's shoes off and snorted.  "I 
might even come back to see that," she told us and we both 
hemmed and hawed and went outside to drink our beers in 
companionable silence.

So, other than tired, and fed up with his mother's deliberate 
amnesia, I think it probably was good for him.  Certainly, even if 
the seminar was simplistic, he ran rings around the other attendees 
sent by the various commands.  He got out like a real adult, and 
his mother was undoubtedly pleased.  

I'm trying to think of a tactful way to suggest to her that she not 
compare Mulder's infancy with Sarah's, but Julie suggested 
tactfully that I butt out, that there wasn't a damned thing I could do 
about.

And that it wasn't likely to be the kind of thing that sent him back 
into a classical state of depression.

I hope she's right.

I didn't tell him about the watchers tonight.  He looked tired 
enough.  And up here, they're both safer.  But I can't help but 
wonder if they've decided Sarah still needs to be killed or if 
they've taken a new slant and decide they want her.  On the other 
hand, given the factional disputes inside the Consortium, they 
may want both.

ws

To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Miscellany

Doctor, you know how I enjoy our little discussions, but I've done 
everything but stand on my head to assure you that Mulder is 
doing well.  I've given you details of my own personal life and 
discussions, I've repeated the latter almost verbatim, and frankly, 
I'm tired of it.  Invading his privacy is bad enough and necessary, 
to some degree.  

Invading mine is not.

Besides, as I continue to remind you, I am not your patient.  Are 
you worried that I'm going to_as my nephews says_go postal 
and whip out an Uzi and shoot your patient?  Trust me, if that 
were a possibility, it would have happened several years earlier, 
when I was his supervisor.  So, if your aim is to get me into 
therapy, think again.

You know he's doing well, I suspect you're just convinced, given 
his intellect and level of knowledge, that he's tap dancing around 
you.  Well, you can put your worries aside, Doctor, I've personally 
sent him to Bureau recommended counseling and he did tap dance 
around them.  He's actually worked hard with you.  Mulder may be 
obsessive, but he's not stupid, and he knows better than any of us 
how badly damaged he was when we got him back from those 
bastards.

He may not be crazy about admitting it, but he knows.

Yes, I'm aware that he may never get a clean bill of health from 
you, but I am persuaded that's because Freudians never give 
anyone a clean bill of health.  He's working and functioning, and 
aside from a tendency to get ragged dealing with Sarah's 
insecurities, he's doing great.

Frankly, we all get ragged.  Although we didn't have to spend 
seven hours in a car with her patiently answering each rendition of 
"Where Julie is?  Where Walt is?  Where Gran is?"  and so on.  

If you want a patient, why don't you try figuring out how to help 
Sarah through her mother's suicide, since I suspect_and I suspect 
Mulder suspects_that is at the root of these constant requests for 
location data.  If one of us is not in earshot, she gets very, very 
anxious.   Especially if Mulder is not in earshot.  I venture to say 
that this very private man has done pretty well in coming to 
terms with having his space invaded constantly by a munchkin--
she plays on the bathroom floor while he takes a shower, which 
was very hard for him to adjust to.  

I had to give him some grief about that, I asked him if he was 
afraid Sarah was going to develop an Electra complex because she 
saw him stepping out of the shower.  Of course, not being 
Freudian, I've probably got the terminology wrong, but you get my 
drift.

He scowled, then laughed and then flipped me off, but I notice he's 
relaxed a bit since then.

As I said, Sarah's sentence construction is eccentric, to say the 
least.  But since the wunderkind isn't even supposed to be forming 
sentences yet, we find it hard to correct her with any real firmness.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Events

As you are no doubt aware, circumstances have gotten_shall we 
say weird, and leave it at that?  Or weirder than normal, if normal 
can be used to describe any circumstance connected with Fox 
Mulder.

Ellison called with a job for Mulder and he flew to Toronto last 
week.  There was a certain amount of angst and nerves over it_
his, not mine_and as he was getting out of the car, he said, for the 
tenth time, "I'll call tonight.  Don't put her to bed before I call."

To which I patiently replied for the tenth time.  "Don't worry, I 
won't.  I'll tell Julie, too." 

In case I had a sudden heart attack and died before his call, 
obviously.  He actually nodded at that, he was so preoccupied, but 
he managed to get his bags and get on the small plane.

It took several minutes before the plane took off and I waited, 
half-amused, wondering if he was going to make them open the 
door to tell me again.

Sarah was likewise unhappy over his being gone.  I had suggested, 
if Mulder was more comfortable, that she could stay with his 
mother.  That got an incredulous look and, "Are you crazy, Walt?  
Why the hell would I want to leave my daughter with my mother?  
I'd come back and find her cat dead and my daughter thinking 
she's Queen of the May."

Sarah would have probably enjoyed it, but I think it would have 
upset her more that Mulder was gone than it does up here.  And I 
really didn't want him to take her to Calgary, I just wanted him to 
feel as comfortable as he was going to, leaving her.

When I got back, she was at the clinic with some of the other 
children, in the small nursery in the back.  John Little River was 
crouched in front of her, playing with a puppet, but she refused to 
be cheered up.  Little face scrunched up and thumb in mouth, she 
was crying, surprisingly quietly for a baby of six months.

I'm really very concerned about her anxiety.  I accept your 
reassurances that separation anxiety is a normal part of infant 
development, and I realize that Sarah's rate of development cannot 
in any way be termed average, but it seems curiously intense to 
me.  On the other hand, what the hell do I know about babies.

Of course, when she caught sight of me, she pulled her thumb out, 
climbed up on her feet and toddled over.  "D'ere Watt is!"

John gave me a rueful smile.  "Julie had appointments."

"Took longer than I expected."  I lifted Sarah up and asked her if 
she was ready to go home.  

Which was lunacy, of course she was, she nodded emphatically 
and turned to wave at John.  "Bye-bye, John."

As we were walking out to the car, she gave me a reproachful 
look.  "Where Doo-ee is?"

"She's working."  

"Where Da is?"  A little more anxiously.

"Daddy had to go to work, too.  He'll be back soon."  

Did she believe me?  I doubt it.  I got another classic Mulder look 
as I put her into the car seat.

At any rate, once I got her home, it was naptime, although I got 
another reproachful look.  "Watt not go?"

"I'm not going anywhere," I assured her and got a slightly sticky 
hug.

She slept until Julie got home, then got up and traipsed around 
holding onto a ratty baby blanket and a small, sticky stuffed 
animal, thumb in her mouth occasionally asking plaintively, 
"Where Da is?"

We kept telling her, of course, and she was no less unhappy.   
Feeding her was a thrill, since she kept putting her head on her 
tray, along with the pasta and marina sauce.  Julie is horrified 
about what this child eats, but I suggested that if she wanted Sarah 
to eat rice cereal, she try to feed it to her.  Doctor, do you know 
that rice cereal could be used as construction material?  If it dries 
on anything, it is harder and stronger and more impossible to 
remove than the best concrete.  Particularly from clothing.  Mine.

The phone rang, naturally, by the time she had sauce in her hair, so 
we had to do a quick wash before she could listen to Mulder.

Big smile, crow of delight, and then I swear, she chewed his ass.  
"Bad Da, Da be here now."  And so on.  

When I took the phone, he was still laughing.  "Boy, is she pissed 
at me," he told me.

"So I gather.  Did you get all that?"

"Sure, I'm a bad Dad, I should be there now, and she's going to be 
really mad at me if I don't come home soon."  He sounded tired, 
but relaxed.  "But, of course, she wuvs me."

"Mulder, don't talk baby talk," I warned.  "It's not cute."

More laughing.  "Thanks for taking care of her.  Again.  I'll talk to 
you guys tomorrow."  He hung up.

Julie was wiping Sarah's hands off.  "There's not much point to 
that," I told her drily.  "She needs a bath."

Julie gave me a long look.  "If you didn't insist on feeding her 
spaghetti," she told me sweetly and then straightened and frowned.  
Headlights flashed outside the kitchen window and I got up and 
walked over to peer out; John Little River's distinctive silhouette 
cut across the lights and into the darkness toward the front door.

I met him there.

His expression was worried.  "Walt, you guys have to get out here.  
Intelligence just got word, they've got some guys on their way up 
here."

"They who?"  I let him in.

He gave me a flicker of a grin.  "The bad guys, Walt.  Camille 
thinks they're after the baby and Mulder."

"Mulder's not here."  

"I know that, but they evidently don't."  John's teeth glinted 
briefly.  "C'mon, we're getting you guys out of here."

"Military?"

"Private.  But heavily armed.  We're evacuating everyone without 
training."

I gave him a look.  He gave me a patient one back.  "He left her 
with you, Walt."

"He left her with me and Julie."  I turned back and went into the 
kitchen.  Thankfully, Julie had finished cleaning Sarah up, so she 
looked less_shall we say, Italian?

"Go pack some things," I told Julie and levered Sarah out.  
"Quickly."

Julie's been working up here longer than I have.  She went.  I took 
Sarah in, did the usual baby care things with diaper and that pram 
suit, zipping her in.  Then, while I heard Julie racketing around in 
our room, I started stuffing baby items into the ubiquitous diaper 
bag.  

We got Sarah's bag packed, got bottles and formula_no wonder 
Mulder came back from Calgary tired, packing for the little 
monsters is exhausting in itself, and we were moving at the speed 
of light.

John got the car seat into his vehicle and I packed Julie and Sarah 
into the back.  Tim Murphy was in the front, armed.  He nodded at 
me silently and tugged at the brim of his hat.

If it were anyone but Tim, I'd say he watched too many Clint 
Eastwood movies, but Tim is for real.  So I nodded.

It turned out to be much ado about nothing.  Our people 
intercepted them before they got up to the settlement, a series of 
clever diversions involving the rutted trails and electronic signals.  
It won't last for long, unfortunately, so it appears that we're 
changing locales.  That is, those of us who have earned 
Consortium interest.  Meaning Mulder and Sarah, at this point, 
plus a few others who have been temporarily staying up here.

Sarah and Julie have been taken to a new safe house, for the 
moment.  And there are decisions to make.  Ellison paid a personal 
visit to Mulder, who is now in Iowa_of all places_following up 
on an old case of his, believe it or not.  This time, instead of the 
teenage girl, the younger brother was taken.  And the mother died 
last year of brain cancer.  

If all that weren't enough, Mulder had to be told that the one safe 
place he had was no longer safe.

And if I'm upset about that, I can only imagine how upset he is.

I'm not looking forward to moving again.  But I promised him he 
wouldn't have to do this alone.

ws


To: MSpooky
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Events

Mulder, I refuse to send you any more email until you've changed 
your address.  It's impossible for me to take seriously anyone with 
an email address like this.  Plus, I don't think anyone is completely 
ignorant of the fact that your nickname at Quantico was Spooky.

Sarah is fine.  I know it's upsetting at one level, but try to relax.  
We got word well in advance, so obviously our intelligence is 
working fine.  Paranoia only works so long as it keeps you alert 
and proactive_not if it drives you crazy, and frankly, Horowitz 
will have to deal with that.

I'm beginning to think that in some past life_don't go there, 
Mulder, I'm the only one allowed to go there_we really were 
related.  The house is attractive, the upstairs had been turned into 
an apartment at one time, so there's a kitchenette up there.  Since 
you seldom cook, we're establishing you and Sarah up there.

Besides, Julie claims that you prefer my cooking anyway, so I get 
the big kitchen.

Of course, while you're gone, she's staying down here with us.  
Thank God for the portable crib and the fact that she's used to it.  
I'm glad she's as small as most six month old babies, she's going to 
be outgrowing it before we know it.

It's rather odd to be back in the United States again, I've gotten 
used to the Canadian diphthongs and it jars not to hear them.  Julie 
will be working in a small, state funded clinic that is also one of 
ours.  Actually, small is relative, it's far larger than the clinic in the 
mountains.

Sarah wasn't frightened, although I suspect she was startled.  Julie 
said she was very good, very calm.  They stayed in Vancouver that 
night, that's how serious Ellison was about protecting her--and 
you.  She did ask at one point why we were going bye-bye, and if 
we would see Gran and the kitty when we got there.

It's somewhat reassuring to know that she learns by experience like 
the rest of us, Mulder.  

Fortunately, the novelty of a new place is distracting Sarah from 
endless, pointless questions--all except the crucial question, of 
course, and that is "Where Da is?"  

If I hear it again, I'm going to package her in a crate with dry 
kibble and ship her to Toronto.  Face it, Mulder, I'm fond of you, 
but hearing that as often as we do grows wearying.  Very quickly.

That's a joke, btw, so don't sink into gloom.  If I didn't rag on you, 
you'd immediately begin to think that a) there was something 
wrong with me, b) I'd been replaced by a morph, or c) I'd lost 
what's left of my mind.

Your mother is fine.  There was some surveillance, but evidently 
they've decided you aren't going to show up there.  Don't show up 
there, Mulder, Ellison has people watching out for her.  
Martyrdom isn't called for.  And that last was a direct quote.  I 
admit, she does surprise me occasionally, although I quite 
understand how difficult it is to deal with her at times.

I understand she decided not to move, relying instead on the fact 
that she doesn't, at this point, know where you are.  She sends her 
best, through Tim Murphy, and asks that you don't worry, she's 
fine.  That you take care of yourself and Sarah.

And cheer up.  Staying in a hotel with a six month old who is 
going on three years old was not a treat.  Far better that you finish 
up in Iowa_and, for God's sake stay out of trouble_it will take 
your mind off the delight of moving and unpacking boxes.  
Thankfully, we don't have to pack them, so I suppose it's 
childish of me to complain.

Everything really is fine, I promise you.  

And honestly, Mulder, have I broken a promise to you since you 
were resurrected?  Give me some credit, please.  If I was 
concerned about Sarah's safety, we'd be staying in a bomb shelter.

Walt


To: FoxW
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Email Addresses

While I appreciate your consideration, I'm not sure that William 
Fox is any better.  

I thought you hated your name, what's this clinging to the old?  
Live a little, Mulder.  Try Harry or Jack or something mundane 
like that.

Walt


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Re: Events

Doctor, I appreciate your concern, but he's not your patient 
anymore.  

However, I will tell you that he's doing as well as can be expected 
for a man who just had a shock.  It wasn't a horrid shock, I know it 
has occurred to him before that they would still take an interest in 
him, but I suspect that he preferred not to think about it.

What happened to Cassie was a good indication that they hadn't 
lost sight of his more intriguing genetic traits.  That they were 
afraid of them.

And even if Sarah didn't have us wrapped around her little finger, 
even if she wasn't a baby, that would be a good enough reason to 
protect her.  They're afraid of her, too.

Ellison takes Mulder's worth very seriously.  He takes Sarah's even 
more seriously.   And their well-being.  I'm pleased to report that 
Ellison does seem to be as decent as I suspected, and while 
circumstances may occasionally drive him to exigent behavior, he 
prefers to behave according to higher standards.  I can respect that.

So, Mulder's unsettled, but not seriously so.  Sarah was over the 
moon when he got back, shrieking with delight as he swung her up 
over his head and attaching herself to him like a limpet when he 
set her back down.

He was relieved to see her.  I think he was relieved to see us, too.

We're still living in the middle of half-unpacked boxes, since our 
belongings were delivered via the most convoluted route a moving 
truck has ever taken.  This, of course, would not bother Mulder_I 
was in his old apartment several times, and while he isn't precisely 
a slob, he's somewhat cluttered at times.  Hell, his apartment was 
tidy compared to his office.

San Francisco, the theory goes, is big enough and yet outside the 
power structure enough that we can hide in plain sight.

Hard to tell if he finds that reassuring.  Despite the circumstances 
of our return to the States, Mulder is_Mulder, glad to be back at 
work, less frustrated for a change, because Ellison, of course, 
believes him.  And given the nature of our organization, can tell 
him so.

I didn't have that luxury, once I'd begun to believe him.  

Take care, Doctor.  If the therapist here doesn't treat him right, I 
promise to treat him as starchily as ever I treated you.

ws


To: FoxW
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Email

I take it you're bored or you wouldn't be sending me email from 
upstairs.  Get your ass down here and quit wasting bandwidth if 
you want to talk to me.

W.


To: FoxW
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Re: Email

No, I am not up for a game of Doom, I'm neck deep in files that 
require my expert opinion and analysis.  May I suggest that if you 
require some occupation, the yard needs mowing?

W.


To: FoxW
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Re: Email

First, the lawn is the size of a postage stamp.  Second, I did it last 
time.

W.


To: FoxW
From: SkinnerW
Subject: Re: Email

You haven't had any broken bones for a while.  Would you like me 
to break some?

W.


To: SkeltonT
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Confidentiality

Doctor, I'm sure Dr. Horowitz meant well when she contacted you, 
but Mulder no longer needs go-betweens, he's really quite healthy.  
And as you probably know, I refuse to discuss him without 
apprising him of our correspondence.

ws


To: WilsonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Horowitz

Julie,

I'm going to fly back up to the Canadian Rockies and strangle 
Horowitz.  She's called Mulder's therapist and suggested that he 
keep his finger on the pulse, as it were, of Mulder's mental health 
by communicating with me.

On the lighter side, Mulder actually went out and mowed the 
grass.  Came in afterward looking amused and sweaty and cadged 
a beer.

Sarah got up from her nap, then, and the afternoon routine swiftly 
turned into chaos.  I sometimes wonder how my mother got 
anything done.

At any rate, I put that brain to work with me on the stack of files 
Ellison forwarded.  Several he dismissed immediately as hoaxes, 
based on photographs.  If I didn't like Mulder so well, I'd want to 
strangle him, too.  One look and the asshole knows, while I'm 
going through witness statements and trying to weigh them.

I threatened to give him all the files and retire, and he cringed and 
held Sarah up as a shield, telling her to save him from Uncle Walt.

Whereupon, I was told that I was Bad Walt to scare Da.   I gave 
him an evil look and told Sarah that I used to scare Da all the time, 
I think Da likes it.

Which cracked Mulder up and made Sarah giggle and I gave up 
and fixed us all lunch.

But I didn't tell Mulder about Horowitz, so don't mention it.  
That's all we need is to have Mulder go off on a tear.

Walt


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Confidentiality

Dr. Horowitz, I'm going to express my annoyance as politely as I 
can.  Mulder is neither an invalid, a mental patient, nor a child.  I 
appreciate that you felt you needed to share your notes with Dr. 
Skelton.  But Mulder no longer needs a nursemaid or a keeper and 
I'm quite angry that you felt it necessary to suggest to Dr. Skelton 
that he did.

I will deal with Dr. Skelton as needed, and while I do appreciate 
everything you've done for Mulder during his recovery, butt out.  
He's no longer your patient.

Thank you.

ws


To:  SpratJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Email

It's obvious to me that despite years of supervising you, I had no 
idea of just how twisted your sense of humor was.  And you're no 
longer quite thin enough to get away with Jack Sprat.

With regard to the interviews in Boise_I would agree, it sounds 
as though someone's been tippling a bit too much applejack, but be 
careful anyway.  There has been, despite the nature of David 
Jackson's alleged experience, a good deal of activity in that area.

Yes, Sarah is highly annoyed that you're gone again.  And now 
that she's nine months old, even I can make out all of her 
complaints.

Julie finds it highly amusing, of course, but Julie tends to find 
almost everything your daughter does highly amusing, up to and 
including waking us up at 6:00 am because she's bored and 
hungry.  On Saturday, no less.

I think I'm going to lobby Ellison for a nanny, costs covered by the 
organization.

BTW, she now knows how to climb out of her crib.  And get back 
in.  

I watched this heart-stopping adventure while skulking in the 
hallway, trying to figure out if she was telekinetic or not.   I know 
you thought I was being unnecessarily paranoid about that, but 
when one keeps finding her out of her crib--or finding things that 
you know you didn't put into her crib there--I understand that you 
were also exceptionally agile at this age, according to your mother, 
but there were just discrepancies, as we've discussed.

You thought the old man was just losing it completely, now that he 
believed in little grey men.  Well, guess what?  You were wrong.

I was standing there thinking how pleased you'd be to know that 
there are no signs of telekinesis, only Mulder sneakiness_alas, 
that raggedy ass bear lifted itself up out of the crib and joined her.

Julie also finds this terribly amusing.  I, on the other hand, am 
forced to either believe that the bear has suddenly become sentient 
and volitional, or that my original suspicions were true.  In 
addition to Mulder sneakiness, she's telekinetic.

So, Julie and I have had a talk with your daughter, Mulder, since 
you aren't here, about when it's appropriate to "make things fly" as 
she refers to it.  Cookies, ice cream, and other goodies are 
inappropriate, as are dishes and silverware.  You have to draw the 
line somewhere.

Although I confess, it's going to be interesting watching you try to 
discipline a telekinetic child.  God help us when she hits puberty, 
or so Julie says.

But relax.  She hasn't made herself fly, and at this point I'd be far 
more concerned about that.  And she hasn't figured out how to 
manipulate the door knobs and locks, either.

Of course, the year is yet young.

Walt


To: HarrisJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Complaints

The network techs are starting to complain to me about the 
number of address changes you've had.  Can we stick with Jack 
Harris?  If it makes you feel better, I'll let Julie call you Spooky 
when you get back.

There have been sightings reported, naturally, in southern New 
Mexico.  Mark Phillips, from the Albuquerque agency, has called 
to say that he's been in touch with Albert Hosteen, who has 
reported lights as far north as Farmington.

In addition to that, there have allegedly been Air Force exercises 
over the desert, around Alamagordo.  My understanding is that 
there is fighter lead-in training still going on at the air base there, 
but nothing to explain what people are reporting.  Be very careful 
down there, Mulder, your face is known to the members of the 
military involved in these things.

Your daughter is also complaining vociferously and asks anxiously 
if Da will be back for her birthday cake.  If she had the patience, 
I'd teach her to type and let her pass these on to you herself, but 
she prefers playing Beethoven's Fifth on the keyboard to actually 
typing.

Although she does know all her ABCs thanks to her presence on 
my lap when I'm trying to work.  Haven't you ever told her any AD 
stories, Mulder?  She's not even remotely worried when I growl at 
her.

Walt


To: EllisonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I don't really give a goddamn how many people it takes.  I want 
him found and found quickly.  I'm catching a flight down to 
Albuquerque in an hour and a half, and I'm heading that team.

ws


To: WilsonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

I wish I knew what to tell you, Julie.  She's older this time, and not 
likely to be as easily soothed.  Or worn out.   Didn't you tell me 
when she was teething that Benadryl would make her sleepy?

I know, it's hard.   I wish I had better news.  

Mulder's car was found on the highway, the driver's side door open 
and the battery dead.   A trucker reported it, but there was some 
weather and the highway patrol was busy dealing with idiots, they 
didn't get to it until the day before yesterday.  No forensic 
evidence, although his gun was in the driver's seat.  Only his 
fingerprints on it.

I told the silly bastard to be careful--oh, Christ, Julie.  If we find 
him dead, it's going to be like losing Johnny would be.  And I've 
got to face the fact that one of the two of us has to die first, 
although since I'm eldest, I'm hoping it's me.  But Mulder--I know 
he throws himself into this work, but this is so fucking hard.  It 
was bad enough when he was just one of my agents, one of my 
people.  

It's that much worse now.

Forgive me, that's much more negative than you need to hear.  And 
I haven't given up on him, they wanted him badly enough to keep 
him alive before, it goes against logic for them to kill him now.

Do you know, the high desert air is thin enough that the top of my 
head got a little sunburned today, out searching.

The police down here weren't exceptionally helpful until Phillips 
drove up from Albuquerque.  I wanted to tear into him for taking 
his time about it, but it turned out he was doing a lot from there.  
Making contacts on the shadow side, trying to locate him.

Turns out, Phillips was FBI once, worked on a case with Mulder 
in Oregon.  Thought he was as crazy as a junkyard rat, until he 
saw some things he couldn't explain and refused to just put his 
head in the sand.

You know, I deliberately try not to think about Dana Scully very 
often.  But that reminded me.  When she was dying, she told me 
that her greatest regret, aside from his suicide, was not realizing 
until too late that she'd put her head in the sand.  She called it 
science, she said, but it was really fear.  Fear to open the door to 
chaos.  

I suppose I had some of that myself.   When I stopped Mulder 
from resigning years ago, I told him that I was afraid to look past 
my Vietnam experience.  That he was not.  And that was the truth.  
So here I am, nearly fifty, and I've gone well beyond that point of 
fear.

It was good to see I wasn't the only one.  Phillips is yanking as 
many strings as he can, he reminds me of Mulder on a case, full 
throttle and ninety  miles an hour.  

We'll find him, Julie.  Somehow, we will.  Tell Sarah that Uncle 
Walt's going to bring Da home, damned if I won't.

Walt


To: WilsonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Jesus, I'm glad Sarah was still awake.  Does she seem to 
understand?  Jesus, what the hell am I asking, I swear the kid 
understood C.S. Lewis at two months, I suspect she more than 
understands.

Okay, to the details.   A highway patrolman found him wandering 
along the highway, dazed and filthy, barefoot and with blisters and 
scrapes on the soles of his feet.  His coat was torn, but he doesn't 
know how, doesn't remember.

He's going to be fine.  He's got absolutely no idea what might have 
happened to him during the last week.  Aside from his feet, from 
dehydration and the worst case of sunburn I've ever seen on 
anyone in the winter, he hasn't been hurt.  

At least that anyone can find, and Phillips has one of our 
physicians treating him.

No holes in his head, either, thank God.  No marks, although he 
does have a few bruises on arms and legs, but not in any ligature 
pattern, so I guess we have to suppose they're from falling down.  

Mulder remembers driving back to the motel_or rather, being on 
the road back to the motel after interviewing the witness in Las 
Cruces.  And that's it.

I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I knew where he'd been.  If he 
knew where he'd been.  But I'm not alone in that.  Mulder's trying 
to put a good face on it, but I think it terrifies him.   No, I know it 
terrifies him.  It would terrify me if I let myself think about it.

But I'm not letting myself think about it.   He's back and he's fine 
and even if he doesn't remember, Skelton will work with him.  
Like any other abductee.  

So, we'll have him home for Sarah's birthday.  Has she calmed 
down now?

Walt


To: WilsonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder/Sarah

Well, it still doesn't surprise me at all.   The night Cassie left to 
visit her aunt and uncle, Sarah howled for hours.  At least she's old 
enough to talk now and make her terrors known.

I'm glad you translated for me, despite having been around Sarah, 
I still occasionally miss some of her construction.  I confess, I'm 
pleased to know that I'm a very good Walt and she loves me very 
much.  Tell her I absolutely will obey and bring Da home 
immediately.

The little minx.  Well, at least she's learned the art of sucking up, 
her father certainly never has.

Mulder has been deemed well enough to be released, but prepare 
yourself.  He looks like he's molting.  There's nothing wrong with 
his attitude, aside from a case of crankiness brought on by acute 
sunburn, and he's still drinking gallons of water and juice.  I'm 
going to have to handcuff the drinks cart to his seat on the plane, I 
think.

We'll take a cab, don't try and bring Sarah out.  Tell her Walt says 
she has to stay home and be good and wait for Da.

Walt


To: WilsonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Calgary

How is Calgary?  Snowy, I would imagine.  I don't necessarily 
miss the harshness of the weather, but I do miss the mountains.  
Well, of course, I miss you, too.

I think I need to start taking SNAG lessons from Mulder.  Even in 
email that's very hard to admit.  There are times I wonder what 
you see in me, a grouchy old ex-Marine. 

Yes, you guessed it, I'm practicing sucking up.  Sarah's a good 
teacher.  No, that's not fair, she's an equal opportunity flirt.  I 
wonder why it was that I never noticed what flirts small children 
are until now?  I was around my nieces and nephews.

Speak of Mulder,  he spent the day in today, very quiet.   He got 
an extraordinary amount of work done this morning and I 
pretended to be senile so he worked on some of mine, too.  I did 
have to go up and force my company on him.  

He's brooding.  It's been a year today since Cassie died.

Our minx Sarah is quiet, too.  I think she senses his feelings, Julie.   
So I told him to get the hell out and go for a run.

And then I took Sarah out for a walk and got a little more typical 
Sarah behavior, people naturally admired her and figured she was 
mine, and I took credit, just to make her laugh.  Well, I also took 
credit because she's an appealing child and women appear to be 
fascinated by any unaccompanied male with a small child.

She did laugh.  She told me I was silly, but she played up to her 
admirers just fine.  And didn't tell me I was silly until we'd walked 
on.  

I suppose if I hadn't been around her since she was born, she'd be 
frightening, with her grasp of abstracts and her ability to reason.  It 
just seems normal to me.

We got back with packages from various places around one in the 
afternoon, made some scandalously good coffee and lured her 
father back downstairs.

After some good Italian take out, he seemed less morose, and 
Sarah, still bearing traces of her lunch, fell asleep in his lap on the 
couch.

I went back to my desk and let him just sit, half-watching Sesame 
Street or whatever the hell children's show is on in the afternoon, 
Sarah cradled on his chest.

When I finally looked back at him, he was ruffling Sarah's hair 
lightly with his fingers, or rather twirling those ridiculous curls 
around his fingers.  He caught me looking at him and gave me a 
rueful smile.  "I'm a pain in the ass."

"Not really."  I leaned back in my chair, not pretending to 
misunderstand him.  "You're entitled."

He looked away, blinked hard.  "Yeah."  Licked his lips.  "I keep 
going over and over it again.  You know, most of the time, I can 
shove it under all the other crap in my head, but today, it just hit 
me.  Sarah's more than a year old and she doesn't know her 
mother."

"I think Sarah knows more than you think," I told him.  "I think 
that's why she's always checking on where her people are."

Another faint grin.  "She's very proprietary, isn't she?"  Another 
curl wound around his index finger.

"Are you trying for the Shirley Temple look?" I asked, and nodded 
at Sarah.

He snorted.  "No, it's one of those obsessive compulsive habits, 
goes back to how feathery her hair was when she was born."  He 
straightened the curl, looking down at his daughter.  "She's so 
goddamned little and helpless."

"She's about as helpless as a Mack truck," I muttered and he 
flipped me off again.  "Well, let me amend that, she's about as 
helpless as her father."

He sighed.  "I still don't know what happened in New Mexico."

There was no denying that, so I changed the subject.  "How does 
Chinese sound tonight?  I thought we'd get out."

Turning his head, he frowned.  "I'm fine, Walt.  Honestly, I am."

"I didn't say you weren't," I told him drily.  "If I were that 
concerned about it, I'd be on the phone to Skelton."

That got him to chuckle and we ended up going out to eat. 

But I don't know what to say to him, Julie.  In one sense, we're all 
helpless, we can't seem to protect ourselves against the Others.  
Hell, the so-called bad guys can't either, that's why they made the 
deal.

I don't have any comfort to offer him.  Not about Cassie or 
whether or not he and Sarah really are safe.

You know, I used to say that every life was in danger, every day.  
That it was just life.  Somehow, looking at that child in her father's 
arms, I'm not as sanguine about it.

Come home soon.

Walt


To: SkeltonT
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

All right, I'm willing to talk to you now, Doctor.  

But I can't tell you much more than I've already told you.  I can tell 
you what you already know, that the network showing up inside 
his skull is not natural. And yet, it appears to be some kind of 
biological construct.  Cassie Delevan had the same thing.

I wish--I wish I'd suggested the regression to him more forcefully.  
Fox Mulder's never been afraid of anything in his life, but I think 
he was afraid of finding out what happened to him during that 
week in New Mexico.  I'm not sure what else to think.

All right.  That night.  

I woke up hearing Mulder stumbling around, crashing into 
furniture.  And Sarah was shrieking.

It was_too evocative of what happened a year ago.  Almost 
exactly a year ago.  To the minute.

By the time I got upstairs--believe me, I was running, too--Mulder 
was holding his head in both hands, crumpled on the floor.  

Unfortunately, he had his weapon out.  "Get her out of here," he 
gasped and flung the gun away from him.  "Oh, Christ, Walt, get 
her out of here."

Dr. Wilson had taught me how to give injections, back in the bad 
old days when Mulder was still really shaky.  She made me 
practice on grapefruit.  We had some the most well sedated 
grapefruit in the settlement.

So, I got the gun and Sarah and got them both downstairs, dropped 
the screaming baby on my bed, fumbled for the syringe and vial 
and was back upstairs before Mulder had managed to crawl to the 
top of the stairs.

His eyes were wide and panicked, it was obvious that he was 
fighting it.  I understand now what he told me about Cassie's 
struggle.  

"Kill me."  It was a harsh whisper, I could see the strain in his 
body, in his arms, muscles stood out like rope.  

I told him to fuck that, got the syringe out of the wrapper and 
filled it.  My hands weren't shaking then.  They did later.  Then, I 
yanked down the waistband of his shorts and stuck him in the hip 
with it.  Depressed the plunger as if I'd been doing it daily for 
years.

Back in the bad old days, when Julie had first taught me to do this, 
she had recommended a dose.  Thankfully, that dose more or less 
knocked him out.

Less, actually.  He curled on his side on the floor and wept as it hit 
him.  "They're in my head, oh, Christ, Walt, they're in my head."

Which, of course, was subsequently proven true.

Then, of course, I called Ellison and you.  In that order.  You 
know the rest, you met the ambulance here, which got some 
attention from the neighbors, you heard him when the sedative 
wore off, alternating between terror and ice-cold, inhuman control.

We have the scans from after Cassie's death.  He didn't have that 
thing in his head then.  The most reasonable hypothesis is that it 
was put there during the week he was missing in New Mexico.  
They really must be afraid of the combination of his genes and 
Cassie's.

They.   I don't know any more now about who They are then I did 
four years ago.  But I want them even worse.

If you could recommend someone in our group accustomed to 
dealing with small children, Doctor, I'd be very grateful.  

ws


To: SkeltonT
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Sarah is doing better, Doctor, thank you for asking.   She's not 
asking any more about where Mulder is, she's accepted what we've 
told her.  But she's much to quiet for a child with Cassie's spirit 
and Mulder's intelligence and determination.

I found her yesterday reading to herself.  At first, I thought she 
was pretending--she evidently has Mulder's eidetic memory--but I 
think she really was reading to herself.  

C.S. Lewis, of course.  She was reading in her own voice, and then 
a deeper voice.  Presumably Mulder's.  I've seen him read to her.  
Hell, I've eavesdropped.

But she's still an unhappy child.  She adores him, you know.  And 
I still believe that Cassie's death affected her far more than most 
people believe. 

They've let Mulder come up from the sedation, as you know, and 
its helped Sarah a great deal to see him.  Even in the clinic.  I want 
to thank you for allowing that.

As to decisions about our options_it was placed in his head 
without visible signs of surgery, integrated into his brain without 
any sign of injury.  Trying to remove it surgically is bound to 
resemble the pre-Columbian experiments in trephination.  I doubt 
there will be any Mulder left when you're through.

I can't agree to the surgery.  Julie is furious that surgical 
intervention is even being considered.

The alternative is to keep him on medication for the rest of his life, 
to watch him as if he really were a mental patient, and hit him with 
a needle whenever he behaves in a way that appears aberrant.  
Obviously, removing Sarah from her father is not going to do the 
trick, because as long as he can move freely, he could reach her.  
She's not afraid of him in the least.

I'm sorry, I haven't reached a final decision yet.  My choices are 
essentially no choice at all.  Do we carve his brain up and destroy 
or do we drug and imprison him and let him die by inches, or do 
we let him have his gun, as he's begged me to do, and let him kill 
himself.

They don't always control him.  They've let up, perhaps waiting to 
see what we do.

And I'm goddamned if I know.

ws


To:  HorowitzE
From:  SkinnerW
Subject:  Mrs. Mulder

Doctor, I can't thank you enough for going down to Calgary to talk 
to Mrs. Mulder.  

I only wish I had better news to pass on to you both.   We're still 
struggling with our choices, and we move ever closer to 
exploratory surgery.  Hillary, the neurosurgeon, is not optmistic 
that they'll be able to do anything at all.  He feels, as I feared, that 
any effort to remove this thing will do sufficient damage to kill 
him.  I can't understand what it is, it appears to be alive.  Some 
kind of 
organism.  

Which is just about more than I can believe, but the test results are 
pretty irrefutable.  

I'll keep you updated as we know more.  

ws


To: EllisonJ
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

All right.  Things have calmed down enough for me to give you 
some kind of report.  I appreciate your concern, Jim.  And have to 
thank you, once again, for providing what we need, however little 
use it proved to be in the end.

On Thursday night, Dr. Hillary indicated that Mulder was awake 
again, that we could bring Sarah down to the clinic, that he was 
evidently in his right mind.

Julie and I drove down there with Sarah, who was very, very 
subdued all evening.  Julie and I had finally agreed that despite the 
improbability of success, we would agree to exploratory surgery.  I 
strongly suspect Sarah was sensing that.

When we took her in, Mulder was dozing.  Sarah put her finger  to 
her lips.  "Shhh."  Exaggerated stage whisper.  But she insisted 
that she sit on the bed.

I put her there and raised the sides of the bed to make sure she 
didn't have any adventures, and sank back in the chair.  Watching 
her.

And frankly, Jim, feeling like shit.

Sarah leaned over her father and he stirred in sleep.  She touched 
the spot between his eyes very delicately.  Very, very delicately.  
He didn't even stir.

Mulder is usually as jumpy as a cat.  But that night, he still had so 
much crap in his system that I suspect a bomb could have gone off 
in the room next door and he wouldn't have stirred.

They'd taken the restraints off.  Yes, it's true, when left 
unrestrained, he tried to hurt himself.  Probably, like Cassie, he 
meant to kill himself.  No living witnesses to what had been done 
to him.

Now, what I'm telling you next is purely subjective perceptions.  I 
have no more idea of what really happened in there than you do, 
Jim.

Sarah made a little sound, like she does when she's trying to do 
something she hasn't been able to do yet.  Like stretching up to 
reach the doorknobs.  

The world will not be safe when Sarah Delevan-Mulder can open 
doors by herself.

That's a joke, Jim.

The lights flickered a little and Julie turned away from the 
window.  She'd been crying again, but she was staring at the lights 
now.  She headed for the door and opened it.  I heard her asking 
someone if there was activity in the area, heard them tell her no.

The lights went off.  Sarah's fingers appeared to be glowing 
faintly.  Nothing spectacular, nothing out of George Lucas' grab 
bag of special effects.   Just faintly, as if there was still a light on, 
shining on her fingers.

Mulder groaned, the kind of groan I'd heard when he wasn't 
getting any relief from the morphine, after Watts knocked him off 
the mountain.   Deep and painful sounding.

I was out of the chair by this time, but I'll be honest.  I was afraid 
to touch Sarah.  To interrupt whatever the hell she was doing.

"What the hell?"  Julie's voice was shaky, not much more than a 
whisper.

There was a flash of light bright enough to leave me blinking and 
fighting the afterimages.  It was over quickly.

The lights came on.  Mulder's nose was bleeding, and he was 
groggily awake.

Sarah was holding something that looked queasily like a bundle of 
veins.  I heard Julie gasp, heard her call out to Hillary, who has 
some experience with these things, I take it.

Sarah's expression was guilty.  "Is bad t'ing," she told me and held 
it out to me.  

I didn't want her holding it, but I didn't want to touch it either.  
Fortunately, I had a handkerchief and used that.  So I was holding 
it when Hillary followed Julie in.

Hillary petitioned God, which was about my state of mind, and 
Mulder pushed himself up, complaining that his nose was 
bleeding.

I handed the handkerchief to Hillary.  His eyes went wide and he 
petitioned the Almighty again, then rushed out the door.  To 
dissect the thing, probably.

Julie stuffed a tissue up Mulder's nose to stop the bleeding, which 
was stubborn and continued a while.  It made me remember 
Scully's nosebleeds and I had to sit down quite suddenly.

Sarah was watching me nervously.  It took me a while to figure 
that out, and I didn't until they'd wheeled Mulder out for more 
tests.

I don't know why he had a nosebleed.  I don't want to know if 
Sarah got it out through his nose.  It's quite enough to have the 
mystery of how she got it at all.

But now we know why they're afraid of her.

And yes, all the scans show perfectly normal.  No bleeding inside 
his hard head at all.  Just the nose bleed.  Mulder is home and 
recuperating, although his nerves are understandably shot.

Hell, mine are shot.  By the time we got Mulder and Sarah settled 
in his bed--yes, contrary to VCS myth, the man has always owned 
a bed--I went down and poured myself a couple of fingers of 
bourbon and downed it neat.

And Sarah still gives me this guilty look as if she wasn't supposed 
to do what she did.

What the hell did they do to them to produce Sarah?   I'd gotten 
used to the toys floating here and there, but this was--amazing.

ws


To: SkeltonT
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Well, Dr. Skelton, you can hardly expect him to remain sanguine 
about the possibility that they could take him again.

As I continue to remind him, he was strong enough to resist the 
compulsion_not that I would have expected anything else.  That 
he isn't alone, he doesn't have to worry about having it take him 
without us knowing.

And that, unfortunately for him, his field work is going to be 
severely limited.

That last, I think, is what bothers him the most.  So I'm piling work 
on.

If I were you, Doctor, I'd let him go ahead and vent all the 
frustrations.  I'm the one who has to play Pollyanna to remind him 
of the positives.  You're there to let him deal with the darker side.

ws


To: HorowitzE
From: SkinnerW
Subject:  Mulder

Thank you, Doctor.  It's very kind of you to ask, but he's really 
doing very well. 

The headaches are growing less frequent, and he's not had any 
neurological problems, a circumstance that has almost everyone 
involved in his medical care absolutely thunderstruck.

Sarah continues being Sarah, although she is attending play-
therapy with one of your colleagues on a bi-weekly basis.  
Primarily because having Mulder gone or threatened, and no one 
is entirely sure which, traumatized her.   I confess, we do wait to 
see what other abilities her peculiar combination of genes and 
chromosomes will produce.

Sarah and I had a talk, of sorts.  While they had Mulder out getting 
another series of CAT scans and MRIs, she was sitting in my lap.  
Very quiet.  Thoughtful.  And finally gave me another guilty look.  
"I did bad t'ing?"

I had to swallow hard.

You see, we'd had a talk with her about her little telekinetic trick 
and convinced her that it was not the done thing in all 
circumstances.  That it was all right to get her bear out that way_I 
fail to see why she should risk breaking her neck when she has this 
talent, and watching her get in and out of that crib would be hair-
raising if I had any left.  That using it to open the refrigerator door 
and get ice cream was not all right.

"No, you did a very, very good thing."  I picked her up to stand on 
my lap, eye to eye.  "That was a bad thing in your dad's  head and 
you got it out.  It was hurting your dad."

She gave me a diffident and tentative smile.  "Da's better now."

"I think he is," I agreed solemnly.

"D'ey won't cut his head open, now?"  Faintly questioning and 
worried.  Which confirmed that she had somehow known about 
our decision.

"No, Sarah, they won't." 

She was content with that.  Pleased.  And evidently reassured.

As I've observed before, she attached herself like a limpet to 
Mulder the moment we got him in the door from the clinic.  The 
car seat prevented her from doing so in the car.

Fortunately, despite everything he's been through, Mulder has 
enough of a sense of humor to find that funny.  "Kid, you really 
got stuck with the wrong kind of dad."  But he lifted her up and 
promptly reclined on the couch with her on his chest, since he still 
had several days of drugs to leach out of his system.   

Much to his dismay, I got her a cat.  I figured she'd earned it.  So 
Mulder grouses about who is going to take care of this cat, and 
when he's resting, guess who curls up on his chest.  You guessed 
it.  The cat.

If you think I let that one pass without comment, you've sadly 
underestimated the depths of my iniquity, Doctor.  I pointed out to 
him that I had read somewhere that foxes were most closely 
related to cats, in terms of species.

I won't repeat his reply.  But the cat was untroubled.

I think Sarah's going to be running this organization by the time 
she hits puberty, Doctor.  And I can't think of anyone better 
equipped to do it.

Mulder agrees with me.  In his lighter moments, he comments that 
the Consortium must be collectively wetting their pants, thinking 
of Sarah.

In his darker moments, he wonders what they'll try next.

I drily pointed out to him that Julie and I were next.  Which is why 
neither of us is leaving the city.  And if either of us disappear for 
any unexplainable duration of time, he'll need to pack and leave on 
an extended vacation.

To which he replied, No, he'd just have Sarah pull it through my 
nose.   And managed a real laugh.  Evidently Jim Ellison shared 
my little observation with him.  I don't mind, I was delighted to 
hear him laugh again.

It's going to be interesting, Doctor, that's all I can say.  But Mulder 
is, if anything, a survivor.  And while I've always resisted giving 
up in any endeavor, I've learned a great deal from him.

Despite his optimism, I always doubted that his prediction of 
"getting them" was going to be fulfilled.

Now, I'm not so sure.

Wish us luck, Doctor.  We're going to need it.

ws