From WATSON@austen.oit.umass.edu Sun Nov 10 13:00:51 1996
The Field Where I Smoked
by Andrew Watson (watson@som.umass.edu)

Category: Story
Subcategory: Angst (Mulder)

Rating: G

Summary: Another post-TFWID story. No prizes for guessing from the
title who's going to be hypnotized.

Assurance: No one dies in this one.

Disclaimer: I own Alan Cowles, the diner, and a few minor characters.
The other major characters belong to 1013 et al.


The two men had finished their lunch and had moved on to coffee and
acrimony. The waitress couldn't hear their conversation for the noise
of the busy diner, and the demands of her other tables, but it was
clear that the shorter of the two men--Alan, was that his name?--was
upset and angry with his taller companion. A pity, she liked Alan. He
had a cute English accent, and, once or twice, when in a playful mood,
had cracked her up with impressions; she particularly liked his Bill
Clinton.

But, right now, Alan was feeling anything but playful. "This is
blackmail!" he accused, through clenched teeth. The other man nodded
"Yes," he agreed wearily, "But I need you to do this. And I will turn
you in if you don't."

"How did you get the tapes, after all these years?"

"Alan, you know I can't tell you that. I'll protect this source, just
as strongly as I'll protect you if you do this one thing."

"If I do this, you'll destroy the tapes, keeping no copies?"

"With reluctance, yes. Cheer up, Alan. There are only audio tapes of
you with those women when they were under. I'd find video tapes very
hard to part with."

"Mulder, you're sicker than I ever was."

The taller man was only taken aback for a moment. Then he reached for
his wallet, said, "That's a hell of a way to talk to an old friend
who's getting lunch," and paid the check, leaving a generous tip.



"Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan." The receptionist smiled at the client,
convinced that Morgan was not his real name, and that he would be
paying in cash. "Doctor Cowles is ready for you."

Alan Cowles greeted "Morgan", finding his accustomed air of
professional confidence hard to achieve. He asked the usual questions
about ways in which Morgan had previously tried to stop smoking. His
client was obviously ill at ease without a cigarette. A slogan came
unbidden into Alan's mind: "A Morgan without a Morely is like a
Mulder without a..." Without a what? No time to think about that
blackmailing bastard, time to put this guy under.



This was one of the more difficult clients, but, within a few minutes,
Alan had his client hypnotized. He took a deep breath. Over the course
of a few sentences, his accent gradually changed. It started with his
usual English accent, the traces of London and Oxford still strong
after all these years in the states. Then it crossed the Atlantic.

He was very good at these impressions, he reflected. With no abrupt
transitions, he had ended up sounding more like Mulder than Mulder.
Perhaps he should have tried to make a career of the impressions. A
strange choice for an Oxford-trained psychologist, but perhaps no
stranger than where he had ended up.

Mulder entered the office, marvelling at the way his former fellow
student's voice changed into his. "I'm going to ask you a few
questions about smoking. We'll start with when you started. Please
tell me about the first time you smoked." As Alan finished speaking,
Mulder gestured for him to move.

"The family, the radio--"

Mulder interrupted as he slid into the chair just vacated by Alan.
"Perhaps you have earlier memories. Much earlier than that, earlier
than radios?"                

"Yes. My father, telling me that I'd own the fields, so I may as well
learn to smoke what grew in them."

"Own what fields?"

"The tobacco fields. As oldest son, the estate would come to me. The
fields, the house, the slaves, everything. And the duty to keep it in
the family."

Mulder, leaning forward in excitement and ignoring Alan's frantic
signals to stop, demanded, "Tell me about the Civ--the war between the
states."

"The estate was mine by then. We had to stop them taking our
property."

"What about states' rights? Wasn't that the issue?" Even now, thought
Alan, Mulder can't resist a snide remark.

"We told people that was the issue."

"Who's we?"

"Some of the owners of the tobacco estates, the cotton fields... we
called ourselves the conspirators. We got the people fired up over the
northern threat to our freedom."



The minutes went by, propelled by Mulder's morbid fascination with the
man's role in the Civil War. Suddenly, Alan caught Mulder's eye,
indicating the clock, which stood at 1:50. Alan's two o'clock would
arrive soon.

"Let's switch to another war. World War Two."

"The family, the radio." This time Mulder did not interrupt. "We were
listening to the news about Pearl Harbor. My father's hands were
shaking. He lit a cigarette. It seemed to calm him. He noticed that my
hands were shaking. He gave me one, and lit it from his. I felt at
once adult and part of the family."

"Were you ever in Poland during the war?"

"I've never been to Poland."

"Were you ever in Europe during the war?"

"Never."

"Listen, Cancerman. You will never give up smoking. If you ever try to
stop, you will remember how scared and alone you felt just before your
father gave you that cigarette." 

Mulder stood up, breathing heavily. He motioned for Alan to move back
into the chair. He stopped the tape, ejected it, and put it in his
pocket. He nodded at Alan, and slipped out of the room.

Alan sighed. He had betrayed a client, in order to keep hidden his
violation of other clients. And Mulder would keep those long-ago
violations hidden; he would keep his word and destroy the tapes.
Towards "Morgan" he felt guilt, and a little pity. But not as much
pity as he felt towards Mulder, and what he had become.

	The End of The Field Where I Smoked.

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think.

Andrew	watson@som.umass.edu

I'm not going to give up. I can't give up.
Not as long as the tapes are out there.
	The X-Tapes