From: "Adrian Van Boeyen" <avan@home.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 23:30:01 -0600
Subject: Focus by GenieVB (X Files novel length, Book 2 of 4 in the "PhaHks" series)
Source: direct

"How come you're here?" 

Skinner answered unhesitatingly. "Because I need to speak to you. 
Away from work." 

"Well, you can buy me some dinner if you like. I haven't eaten all 
day. I'm staying at the Four Seasons." Scully's face was unreadable. 

Skinner knew the hotel. It was comfortable, had good food and 
good service. No Hotel 8's when she was using her own money. 

Skinner wasn't surprised. She was a self-made woman who liked 
soft beds and room service and decent linen. Should have always 
had them. Deserved them. During the years she and Mulder had 
worked under his supervision, he knew Scully had done her best to 
keep expenses under control. Percentages for comfort had been kept 
low to cover her partner's unexpected, unauthorized, often illegal 
and expensive methods of investigation. Carefully typed expense 
reports worded to hide her partner's flagrant misuse of Bureau
time and funds. 

All those years chasing after his quests, sleeping in dumpy motels, 
eating greasy food... 

..All for Mulder. 

"Meet you in the lobby." he said, walking to his own car. He hadn't 
glanced up the high building with the bars on the windows. 

Mulder was in there. Skinner's heart twinged for what the man must 
be going through. He felt sorry for Mulder, he'd been a good agent. But 
what the hell could he do for him? Mulder had good doctors and he 
would get better. 

Probably. 

*** 




****



Scully chewed her food without enthusiasm. Barely noticing 
what she was eating or even that she was having dinner with 
Walter Skinner, her mind kept turning to Mulder Back There. 

"How is he?" Skinner asked since that seemed to be the topic 
of the decade. 

"Bad." She said. She placed her fork, tines pointed down, on the 
plate. Skinner noticed she'd eaten about half of her scallops and
only a few shrimp. 

"He's getting the help he needs. There's nothing more you can do." 

"I know." 

Skinner had not expected her to agree. "When are you com...going 
back to work?" 

"Tomorrow." Scully realized she was being unnecessarily short 
and sat back, stretching tense back muscles. When was the last time
her thoughts hadn't been on someone besides herself? She looked
at her former boss. Skinner seemed on edge. Because of me. Suddenly, 
she felt glad he was there. More than glad, grateful because she 
needed someone strong to look at. She needed direction and most of 
all a friend who understood. "Thank you." 

Skinner looked up from where he'd been paying attention to his 
food. "For what?" 

She took his hand and squeezed it briefly in her own. "For 
everything. For coming here, for being with me." 

"You sounded like you could use a friend." 

Sleep called. Scully found herself rising from the table and
gathering up her coat. Skinner settled the dinner bill with a 
credit card. 

He walked her to her room. Scully turned and faced him without
opening her door. "About Mulder..." she started then paused. Took
her electronic key and slid it in the little slot. "Come inside
for a minute?" 

Skinner nodded. 

Skinner watched her, all the tiny movements as she hung up her
coat, placed her briefcase on the dresser. Sitting on the bed. 
Removing her shoes by placing the toe of one foot on the heel of
the other and pushing. Each dropped with a soft thud in time to 
his suddenly loudly beating heart. It was warm in the room and he 
shrugged off his own coat. "What is it Scully?" he asked to distract 
himself from his thoughts that had quickly turned down a dangerous 
road. One where existed only this moment in time, Scully and himself. 

"I told you about the results from the tests we did." She said 
and continued when he nodded. "There was something else
I didn't tell you. Something very strange." 

"Stranger than the DNA "fingerprint"?" Strange was relative 
where Mulder was concerned, Skinner thought but didn't say. 
Scully nodded. 

"Strange how?" 

"When astronauts spend enough time in a zero gravity 
environment, they lose muscle and bone mass. The degree of 
loss depends upon the length of time spent on a space station 
what they ingest, the amount of exercise..." 

"Mulder's lost muscle and bone mass? Is that what you're saying, 
that you think that's proof he's been in outer space? Doesn't the 
same happen to people who are in comas, patients who spend
months or years immobile?" 

Sighing, "Yes, but that's not what I'm saying." 

Whoops. Shut-up, Walter, and let her finish. 

"We ran the test twice to be certain. Mulder's muscle and bone
mass, their density in other words has not diminished. It's 
increased." 

He knew he sounded like a prick. "Increased? So he got lots of 
calcium and exercise wherever it was he was." 

"Skinner. It has increased by a factor of fifty-two percent." 

"I take it that's unusual. What caused it?" 

"Unusual? It's unheard of. In fact, it's impossible." 

"What exactly are you saying, Scully?" 

"I checked my findings with a sympathetic friend whom I
now owe about a hundred dinners for his work sans questions
- God help me! - he specializes in unusual and rare diseases. 
We wanted to see if we could find one to account for this bizarre
physical evidence and other than the unclassifiable genetic 
fingerprint, we came up empty. So unless this "fingerprint" 
has somehow altered Mulder's DNA and caused his muscle and 
bone mass to increase in density to an impossible degree, there 
is only one explanation." 

"I'm almost afraid to ask-" 

"Time spent in a high gravity environment would account for it. 
We're talking significant time. Years. And unless Mulder was kept 
in a Barnum and Baily's Gravitron, I can only think of one way 
that could happen." 

"You really think it's plausible Mulder spent the last eight years
- where? - on _Vulcan_? Scully..." 

"Don't joke, Skinner. This friend is a respected astro-physicist 
as well as a medical doctor. He is an expert on rare disorders,
skin and bone diseases. Unusual congenital and non-congenital 
mutations. There's no doubting the findings. As for their improbability,
I don't know how to explain what we've found. I'm simply telling you
this because I don't want Mulder just written off as crazy in everyone's
mind or his claims dismissed out of hand." 

"I haven't." 

"I can see it in your eyes and by what you've been saying." 

That pissed him off. "You think I like seeing Mulder where he is? 
Mulder was one of the best agents I've ever had the pleasure of 
working with. He was a colleague and friend." 

"Then stop talking about him in the past tense." 

Another whoops. "I'm not casting him off as a lost cause, Scully. 
But I'm not hiding behind findings; so-called proof which is almost 
always debatable. Mulder is in-..sick. Now I am sorry about that 
but at least I have the guts to face it. To say it." 

"No, he's n-not...What he is saying, about his abduction, is just as 
plausible as any other explanation. His physical state is suppose to 
be impossible yet it exists. It's b-been vuh-verified." 

Skinner kicked himself as Scully's face scrunched up and she 
dissolved into tears. He may as well have laughed in her face and 
told her to quit with all the nonsense. 

He went to her and she didn't reject his hug. Buried her face in his
chest and let all the stored away sorrow out for a few minutes. His
shirt soon soaked through, while his arms stayed wrapped around 
her, feeling so right. 

He liked how well Scully fit against him. She wasn't the only one 
who'd been denying things. "Scully, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have 
said that, but it seems to me like you're not so interested in
believing it as trying to convince me to." 

She sniffed and whispered, too hoarse to speak properly. "You 
know the worst part? You're right." 

He couldn't help himself. He hugged her closer. That Scully didn't
stiffen or try and pull away thrilled him. How long had he been 
wanting to do just this? And here it was happening and she was not 
pulling back. 

"What's happening?" Not a scared question, it was and Skinner fell
into the embrace. There was no puzzlement or discomfort in her tone, 
just questioning. Where was this going to go? Scully wanted to know. 
So did he though he was pretty sure he knew. Hoped for it for a long
time and since yesterday craved it like a man starved. Skinner thought 
of things to say but feared they might be the words that would cause 
them both come up for air, bringing this moment to an end. 

"I guess," he finally spoke, "something I've wanted to do for a long
time. If you prefer, I'll stop." 

Though not stepping back she did raise her head to look up at him. He
was so tall. "I don't know. I don't know what to think anymore. Or what
to believe or even feel." 

He moved his mouth down to hover above - "You question yourself too 
much." - and then touch hers. 

**** 

Scully showered off the smell of Walter Skinner. 

I almost slept with Walter Skinner, she repeated to herself while
the spray beat on her face and neck. Skinner and I almost had
sex. 

It had been quite an eventful day. 

Scully shampooed her hair and scrubbed herself clean. She hadn't
disliked the smell of Skinner, or the look of the man or his feel. A 
decidedly attractive man in mind as well as physique. 

It was the guilt sweating from her she wanted to be rid of. The
shame of her own need. 

It had been close. 

The kiss had turned deep and long and soon there was tongue and
caresses, a fumbling with buttons, zippers and clothing discarded.
Soon bed and skin on skin and more kissing. Groping of hard flesh
and soft folds. Moans and sighs of physical pleasures long denied 
for each. 

Walter was very attractive and he was there, convenient and 
wanted it as much as she did. She was so lonely she thought she 
might vanish into mist if she had stayed that way one more moment. 

So she'd removed her garments as swiftly as he had, sought his
mouth as eagerly, imagined his engorged penetration with vivid
mental images that made her slick in seconds. 

And then another vision erupted in her mind, of Mulder drugged 
into a stupor, alone in a dark, padded room... 

God's biggest finger was the thrusting middle one and it had
spoken to her: Guilt! 

"Fuck." Scully had said, stopping and rolling off that hard, 
masculine body. She'd managed only a fraction more gumption 
necessary to do it than to stay and ride that gorgeous cock until 
millennium. 

Skinner had looked, to say the least, disappointed. 

"What's wrong?" He asked, sitting up, his member not relaxing in 
the least at the sight of her bending over to retrieve her clothes where
they'd been dumped not ten minutes ago. Full view of round, golden
bottom and pink, ripe pussy was no way to put the cap on a date with a
blue-balled man. 

"What isn't?" she answered and slipped on her panties, slacks and 
blouse, not bothering with her bra. 

At his puzzled and crestfallen face, she added. "Look, Walter. This
has nothing to do with you." 

"Like hell. I was here if memory serves." 

"I mean, the fact that I can't do this isn't because of anything you
did or didn't do. This is me. It's all me." 

"You mean Mulder." 

"If I do, it's my business. I can't do this to him, no matter how much I
want to. No matter how much I need it and God knows I need it." 

That made him feel only the slightest bit better. "Maybe you should
occasionally think of yourself first. It's good for the ego." 

"What I'm thinking of is that I just happen to love him. And before
I do any more damage to that, I have to figure out if that's going
to be enough, for either of us." 

Skinner sat up, his cock growing flaccid but the ache was still there.
His want for her undiminished. 

Abruptly changing the subject, "I'm going to order room service. I 
think I'm going to need several glasses of wine to get to sleep tonight.
Do you want anything?" She asked. 

Okay. Discussion over. Case closed. "Yeah, a bucket of ice-water." 

He stood and dressed himself. He'd be sleeping in his own room. At
her sad face, he relented. "I'm sorry, that was a cheap shot." 

"Yes it was. I've been a tease. I'm completely screwed up at this
moment and you're having to pay." 

He stepped toward her and she didn't move. Kissing her mouth once,
chastely, "I'm still here if you need anything, even an ear. Just don't 
be too long making your decision, Scully. Waiting isn't easy for
anyone." 

He'd left at the same time room service brought in the bottle of 
extremely dry Red she'd ordered and after sucking back half the bottle, 
she showered. The wine almost made her change her mind and go 
seek out that listening ear and ready and waiting penis. It wasn't as if
her desire for some serious sex had waned. 

God's fucking finger, however, stopped her. 

*** 

*****




"Was anything found at the house?" 

Skinner shook his head. "No. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The clothes he must have walked into the city wearing we 
found dumped in an upstairs bedroom. I had them trace 
evidenced, nothing unusual, just all American dirt. Other 
than that, we found a house full of his mother's furniture 
and about twenty pounds of junk mail." 

He'd also found a "SOLD" decal pasted over the "For Sale" 
sign on the front lawn. From the sale had come money needed 
for Mulder's therapy. Her former partner had granted Scully 
power of attorney years ago in the event of his death or 
incapacitation and now that he'd been diagnosed the latter, it 
was plain that Scully had taken complete charge of Project 
Mulder. 

Scully stood just off to the side of the boarding line at 
Boston International. Skinner had arranged a later flight 
for himself. She understood. What would it look like? Boss
and underling together in Boston, meeting together, dinner
at a hotel, flying home together... Just enough to feed the 
Bureau rumor mill which had nothing to chew of late and 
was smacking to grind up a reputation or two. 

"Spooky's-back-and-he's-crazy" had already dried up. 

"Thank-you. It was a long shot." 

Skinner stepped in and gave her a hug before she could
protest or sidestep. She found his bulk comforting. "I'll
see you in D.C., Scully. Don't forget what I said." 

She couldn't raise her eyes to look directly at him, 
choosing to bend down and gather her luggage instead. 
She nodded. 

Moving through the crowd across the walkway, her nerves
returned to a somewhat even keel. She hadn't looked at 
Skinner's eyes or the question she knew that would have been
present in them. Not because she would have had trouble making 
her mouth say no to his invitation. 

It was because her eyes would have said yes. 

She loved Mulder so Skinner and she were a No. She respected 
Skinner as a colleague. Liked him as a friend. 

But she was tired too. And the thought of giving in, of 
saying to hell with all the if's, possibly's and hopefully's, 
was tempting. You did almost fuck the man, Doctor. 

Somewhere inside something tired still wanted the Yes. 

*** 

Scully saw him every two weeks but as far as she could see, there
was no improvement. Too early to expect visible change, she told
herself. But no change she would have welcomed over worse. 

"Mulder?" She'd brought him a Hundred-Thousand-Dollar bar. He
took it from her without acknowledgment. 

They sat in the public ward T.V. room. Lots of space and comfortable
chairs. The television hung on the wall behind protective wire screen,
the controls and viewing choices under the thumb of the nurses. 

Saturday morning cartoons. She'd flown in the night before, dreading
this visit. 

Kurtzman had informed her of Mulder's outbursts, his violent attempts to
escape, his attacks on the orderlies. He never attacked other patients. 

Scully saw Mulder's dilated pupils and knew they had him on something
powerful now. No more escape attempts or violence. He didn't speak to
her anymore either or to the doctors. 

No more Mulder. 

Scully sat beside him but not touching on a worn chesterfield and tried
to think of something to talk about. Something where there would occur
no awkward silences in those places where he was suppose to respond.
Could think of nothing except, "My mom says hi." Pathetic. 

Scully looked over the other room's occupants. Card playing on the table
in the corner. Crafts on another. A few blankly watching a show about
sentient robots. 

And then there was Mulder who did nothing. 

"I'm going to keep coming here, Mulder. I don't care if you hate me. I
don't care if you won't talk to me. I don't care if it takes until we're
old and grey. I don't care what I have to do to get you to speak to me.
Or to Kurtzman. You can't give up, not now, not after surviving this
long. You can't let the bastards who did this to you win." 

Mulder finished the bar and balled the wrapper. He stretched out his
hand and gave it to her. She took it, puzzled. "I donn wannndie 'ere."
Soooooo quiet. Words condensed but syllables stretched until near 
unintelligibility. 

Scully jerked and looked at him and he was looking back. Through all
that haze of drugs and the mind-killers who'd caused this and held him 
in their loveless hands still, his eyes had sought for and found her and
she recognized it was indeed him. "But I cannn.." He took a great,
shuddering breath, "I cann'ssscape." 

Scully was speechless for only an instant. She wanted to run and get
Kurtzman or one of the other doctors but was afraid to sever this,
whatever small connection, this was. 

God. Mulder was wiggling a finger from that dead place and it was 
her he was trying to signal. 

"We'll help you, the doctors - me! - I'll help you, Mulder. Don't let
go. Please don't let go. I love you." Quickly said less she lose him to
the dark. 

He looked at her as if the words were foreign, the very concept itself
just a visitor from another world. Did it never cross his mind that I
might love him?, she wondered. 

A thought seized her. She had never actually said such to him but for
the meeting at the Greyhound station. That wonderful and horrible day.
What of it did he even recall now? 

She wanted to tell him more, explain to him how much he meant to her. 

But the body seated on the couch with her was once again no longer 
occupied. 

***

When the next shift rotations went into effect, Ian made sure 
his and Janice's start-time/quit-time overlapped. It meant he 
would see that much less of Gary for the next two months but he 
had the feeling it was important that he be there to keep an eye 
on Fox during the evenings. 

Janice's concern over the troublesome patient had
grown and she fed that concern to Ian through looks
and the occasional crucial conversations they managed
to grab whenever their coffee breaks coincided. 

"He hardly eats and throws up most of it. Munroe
just keeps feeding him antacids and gravol. I think
he prefers ordering the gravol 'cause it slows Fox
down." 

"What's he been doing?" 

"Fox? Nothing. I mean, no fights or anything, it's
just the throwing up and hysterics when anyone touches 
him. Problem is, to clean him up, he has to be touched,
y'know? To give a shot, even meds...but those meds
keep him pretty out of it most of the time." 

"Why the hell hasn't Munroe ordered some Upper GI's
or something on him to figure out what the hell is wrong?" 

"He did and you should have seen that battle. They had to 
pump the barium shit in through a tube. He had to be tied down 
in each position for the slides. It took forever." 

Ian could picture it. Fox was sick and weak but he was a
fighter. "Did they find out anything though?" 

"Oh, yeah, he has a hiatus hernia. Nothing major, millions 
of people have them and it accounts for the vomiting I
guess..." 

"Fucking Munroe is a prick. Maybe Fox really can't stomach 
the food. Jesus, he might have allergies to preservatives or
something." 

"Hmm, anyway, our little Fox has tricks." Janice raised one 
eyebrow and waited.


"Tricks?" 

"He has a stash." 

"What?" 

"A stash of goodies. Food. Someone's been sneaking him in
sweets. Chocolate mostly. And nougat. Barb brought me a whole
wad of wrappers he'd shoved in the bedsprings." 

"Caffeine. Sugar. Stimulants. Unhealthy shit. Who'd be doing 
that? He only ever gets one visitor and she'd never,..she's a 
doctor or something so no way in hell. One of the staff?" 

"I dunno." Janice shrugged. "And nobody knows where the hell
he's hiding it. They keep tossing the wards." 

"Is he at least eating his oatmeal?" 

"Mnn-hum. That and soup. Whenever they make him eat anything
else, either funnel or pump, he barfs!" 

"Poor son of a bitch. No wonder he keeps trying to run." Every 
few days or so, one staff member or another would catch Fox
trying to pick the lock of the ward doors or his room (if he was
confined in solitary), or trying to smash through the wire-
meshed bathroom windows. No one knew how he was managing
to sneak around unnoticed. Ian knew. The staff didn't watch the 
patients nearly so closely as they claimed to. Many hated the work
and put out the minimum. Besides Fox had been FBI, hadn't he? He'd
probably learned to be sneaky. F.B.I.'d wrote the book on Sneaky. 

"Well it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to 
live here." Janice quipped and rose from her seat in the small
cafeteria. 

"Wait. When are you off? Bring me up to date for today." 

"Tell you on the way."



After he dutifully had consumed his stew (he did sometimes
cooperate. The dead were experts on knowing when to give in),
it was time for meds and he palmed them. This time it worked.
He could spend the evening looking at and actually seeing the 
white layer of frost that had come that morning and stayed. It made 
the life outside look strangely alive while stilling it. 

Unlike him, beautiful. Like him, dead. He, living or not, could still 
appreciate pretty things. 

"Hey, Mulder." A voice dropped from above him and, along with it,
something fell in his lap. He was cross-legged in the corner of the
main hall. A sitting area where patients came to sit or watch T.V..
The window sill was just low enough to afford a view of outside 
if he craned his neck. 

He fingered the Butterfinger as Ross, a frequent bearer of such 
gifts, walked quickly away. 

Alms. 

It was as much association with a corpse as anyone would want, he 
supposed. As before he didn't question the gift and tucked it under 
his shirt. Such secret repasts hurt less than the kitchen's offerings 
and tasted better besides. 

Joseph, a fellow patient, resented the little favors Fox was receiving
from the enemy and made it his business - not to snitch because
snitching to the staff was like one chicken complaining about another
chicken to the weasel - but to make Fox's life miserable at every
opportunity. 

Joseph choose his left-over grape juice this time and pitched the
half-full plastic cup at Fox's head. It hurt, a little, but the mess was
everywhere and soon Ross was back and escorting him to the showers
to clean up while someone went to lecture Joseph about playing nice. 

Eyes at his back, Fox washed up and was given clean pajamas, which 
was all he was ever allowed to wear. His repeated escape attempts 
had behooved the staff to forbid him anything resembling street wear. 
Pajamas were noticeable on the outside. 

It didn't stop him from trying though. 

That night he got as far as the back fence. He had managed 
to steal a small pair of sewing scissors from a new and not 
too bright nursing student, picking the locks on three sets of 
doors including the chains on the rarely used rear exit before 
the dozing night watchman noticed him on the monitors and 
punched the claxon. 

*** 

"It's the norm for him." Ramsey was referring to the patient 
who'd been dragged away to the infirmary. Besides his cast,
Fox had a new bandage on his hand and Ramsey had heard that 
an orderly, Ross, was sporting butterflies on his temple, though
the injury was minor. Two staff now tagged courtesy of their most
destructive patient. 

"Oh. He always like that?" The student asked, a new
nursing assistant. It was her first week. She was in
the Cage with Ramsey, looking over the front desk. 

"Mostly." Fox had tried to escape the night before
and been caught, so rebelliously had refused his meds 
that morning. It was needle time. And tube time too 
because the recalcitrant patient had also refused his 
breakfast. 

"I wish they'd just give him everything through a needle.
His screaming just gets all the others going. What are you 
looking for?" 

"My scissors. I heard he used to be F.B.I., maybe it got to 
be too tough. I wonder what happened." 

"Who cares what happened to a suit. Rich dad - some
government cheese. Old money. Just try working in a place
like this for twenty years. _This_ is tough." To Ramsey, rich 
folks in expensive suits were the enemy. "As far as I'm
concerned, he belongs right here in Club Fucked." 

The little student nurse stole a peek into the infirmary.
The dark haired patient was strapped down and though he was
bucking like a bronco at his restraints, the drugs were already 
taking him down. 

"Maybe he just doesn't like the rules."



Ian crouched down beside the table where Fox was, once again,
drugged with a gallon of Thorazine. They'd shot him full of enough
of the shit, Ian figured, to fell an elephant. It was only Fox's
second month. 

He studied the man and wondered. Fox was curled up his side,
no need for straps when muscles were sludge and wouldn't obey. His
eyes were open but didn't look at Ian at all. Looked passed him
or through him, drugs blurring reality into something manageable. 

Ian spoke softly. He didn't want to startle him or alert any 
curious staff who might be wandering passed Isolation's slightly 
ajar door. 

"I don't know what all hell you've been through to bring you 
here, but we've got to get you better." 

Ian touched the man's face. It was cool and pale. The drug. 

"I see that lady who comes to visit, the one you refuse to 
speak to. I think she cares and I think she wants you to 
come home." Ian fingered the man's dry, wispy hair. It looked 
like someone had cut it with a weed-eater. The staff barber
must have had an off day. 

Whether his gesture of kindness made any impact, Ian couldn't 
tell. Fox's eyes remained empty. "If I wasn't so insanely crazy 
about Gary, I'd go for you myself, you seem about my type. They
say you're here because you're insane. Violent too. I don't know
why but I don't believe that. There's just something about you." 

He withdrew his hand, grabbing a blanket bunched around Fox's
feet. "I think you need to get better, Fox, and go home. She's
been here every two weeks like clockwork. She must care about you
a lot to keep coming." 

Ian stood and checked him over, being careful of Fox's thin wrist 
where the cast used to be and where was now a loose square of 
gauze. The flesh of that hand was pebbled and flaky. Arranging the 
blanket around the staring mummy, he said "At least think about it."





*****










Someone was talking. If it was to him, it wasn't loud enough
for him to hear through the demons so it was ignored. 

They'd bandaged his hand today (the scissors had turned traitor
and jabbed back at him) and would force solids down his gullet 
later, but because he was dead to them, they could not know 
that it hurt to eat. 


He looked alive. 

Very well. 

But upon his wakening, that day at the roadside where the 
moon had hung in the sky and the breeze blew, had come his
second death. 

Had he known that it had been a false moon, painted stars 
and cardboard trees... 

He'd come to death and walked like a deadman; no where in 
particular but, where ever that was, yet un-alive. 

Presently: bars, drugs, straps. 

The lake of fire had burned in her eyes at his pronounced 
state. 

He was made of sand, his insides molten, is heart stretched
as tight and thin as a fiber of glass. 

She was scared of him. She had every right. He'd seen his 
reflection in her fear that morning. The bath water had rinsed
his skin but a man was more on the inside than the outside and if
soap and a scrub brush were instruments of faith or healing, they 
had failed him. He had not been cleansed. 

The taint was simply easier to see now. 			

Her mirror had exposed him; unreceptive. 

She tried to save him the next day again, with food and soft 
cushions. She'd even laundered his clothing. He knew it had been 
a hopeless attempt but he wanted to please her at least and had 
eaten the food and answered the questions. 

And the next ones and the next. Salvation through saliva. 

Finally gotten angry and tired. Sick of all of it when they 
decided that doctors could help him, change what happened, cure
the rot, flight him with wings to a resurrection. 

Virgins could not know what it was like to have a demon eat 
your soul in teeny bits. 

They would never know what it is to be released only to find 
that you ought to have stayed in Hell because at least there 
you fit in. 

He'd walked on home soil, smelled the air, saw her beauty
and unmarred heart. Unobtainable things now. Things to be
admired but never reached for. Perfections with which he had
no connection. To understand that had freed him. 

With that truth his soul had shrunk to the size of a molecule, 
exited his flesh and taken up residence elsewhere. 

If still they wanted to believe he was undead and was not
decomposing before them... 

...So be it. 

But speak? Even to fool himself or them into believing that he 
was alive and clean enough to touch? That was out of the question. 

A person could make a study of crazy and not be destroyed
as long as you were on the right side of the mirror. But step 
out and look back and you might see what they saw... 

Talk about being driven insane. 

Liberating in a way, being dead. At least expectations were
minimal.



Hands touched him. Gently. A tease. It was torture to be
reminded of nice things and feelings but he was too weak
to slap it away or even get mad. 

It hurt to be tempted to swing that way and allow the
maybe in again. He'd given up on maybe. 

Dead people don't hope for anything. 

The hand kept it's touching and the voice kept up it's 
noises to drive him mad. If both became tainted with him,
he couldn't help it. 

Don't they know I can drain life? 

"You're wasting your time." He wanted to tell Nice Voice.
His lips moved but he wasn't sure if any words escaped. 

Nice Voice spoke through the years of other deafening
screams: "What? What, Fox?" 

But Fox wanted to sleep and forget there was such as
thing as a world where worthy words could be found or any 
truth other than what the Thorazine daily preached. 

The next day, Fox was up and walking around the ward with
some of the other patients. 

This was where he, they all, came to pass the time in between
meals (where it was announced over the loudspeaker for
those enough in the here and now to comprehend and obey. Those
who were not were escorted), meds (where one waited in line
at the dispensing window), washroom privileges (at specific times
and only three patients allowed at a time with two escorts), and 
to just wait out the day until bedtime and glorious unconsciousness. 

Fox didn't mind the waiting times so much. None of the patients
bothered him and he didn't bother them. 

"Cards?" Joseph (suicidal schizophrenic) was asking him, the
grape-juice toss from two days previous forgotten. Joseph loved 
card playing. Thin, gray haired, he'd been in one institution 
after another since he was thirty. He also hated everyone but 
was a crackerjack card player as long as you didn't point out 
that he was cheating. Fox didn't mind and it helped pass the 
day as well as anything else. 

Bradley (delusional psychotic "with violent acting out"), on the 
other hand, like to disrupt the peace and harmony as often as 
possible. He took great pleasure in producing shock effect by 
masturbating in the corridors, especially when there were visiting 
doctors or, better yet, new nurses. 

Martin (manic depressive), a motor mouth who bitched and moaned
like a politician when he was on a "high", about his hemorrhoids 
in particular, and who sat in the corner and sulked a lot when
he was on a "low". 

Not everyone moved about with free will. Thomas had been in a
terrible MVA, and had left a respectable portion of his brain on 
the shoulder of Highway 23. How he had survived was anyone's guess
and now he had a plate in his head, was blind in one eye and 
tended to ignore everything that went on to his left. He talked 
but only in gibberish and needed help with everything, from 
defecating to eating. He spent the majority of his days wandering 
around the ward, making right turns. 

Fox (whom few of the staff liked and who didn't like them, who
spent much of his day sleeping or sitting and staring through the 
bars of the huge ward windows, who fought and screamed at meal 
and med times, whom the staff liked nothing on him better than 
restraints, needles and feeding tubes) sat and played cards with 
Joseph while Martin complained in a normal voice - not yelling yet, 
it was too soon after his morning pills - about his unique physical 
state. 


"Goddamn cold floors are bad for my health. Don't you know this
floor is poison.?!" He snarled to a passing nurse who sped up his pace,
the sooner to get out of earshot. "The linoleum. I know, I've been 
in lotsa places before this, there's deadly chemicals in the wax. Makes 
my hemorrhoids bleed. They're like sausages now, god dammit." He shook 
his fist after the retreating representation of good health. 

The place suffered from things common to public institutions, it was
overcrowded, understaffed and the heating went out on a regular basis.
In the enclosed environment, germs happily multiplied and mutated. 

Nearing the end of the week two orderlies, three nurses and four 
patients were all down with influenza.



"They moved Mulder to the infirmary." Janice informed Ian as soon as 
he arrived for his Thursday afternoon shift. 

"Flu'?" Ian asked. Fox had been unusually docile. Nothing like an
illness to sap the fight from a person. 

"Yeah. He's got it really bad though. Woke up this morning, took a 
couple of steps and puked up all that Ensure they'd pumped into him
the night before." 

Nothing unusual. "That makes five sick." 

"Sick-ER." She said, teasing. Ian smiled for her because she was
his best source of information on what happened in the place and
especially things regarding Fox, but it wasn't funny really. 

He looked in on Fox later when all but one nurse went for lunch. 

Fox looked like absolute shit. Ian touched his forehead, he was as 
hot as a stove element, flushed from fever and the oxygen mask on
his face told the rest of the tale. 

"Pneumonia huh? How did you manage that so fast?" 

Later, Ian heard that his doctor friend, Scully, had phoned for 
for her tri-weekly update on Fox's therapy and general state of 
health. When she heard he was down with pneumonia and flu, she'd 
told Munroe she was flying out though it was not yet Saturday. Ian 
had smiled at the grumpy face Munroe wore after that phone 
conversation. The Doc' didn't like questions, especially interfering 
questions from another doctor and even less when that other doctor 
was a woman. 

"Bitch." Janice had heard the Doctor's expletive and like a good 
little snitch told Ian all she knew about it. 

Ian was liking this doctor Scully more and more. Anyone who 
managed to get under Munroe's thick skin was someone he wanted 
to meet and made a point of finding out when this Scully would arrive. 

*** 

The place was as crowded and dingy as she remembered.


The fellas weren't. Langley had chopped his hair to a 
brush cut and wore clothing that was actually passable. 
Byers was married, had a five year old son and had cut 
his dinner with the family short to come and meet with 
them. Frohike had suffered a massive coronary three years 
previously and was attending the meeting via his comfy
retirement condo across town. 

"Could something like this have been manufactured?"
Scully corrected herself. "That sounds crazy." "Assembled?
I understand they've completed the genetic code for a 
salamander and certain species of fish." She'd come seeking
their input on the impossible condition of Mulder's genetic 
invader. 

By habit, Byers answered first. "My work with the Justice 
Department allows me discreet access to all current medical 
advancements. But _we_ know there has been and still is work 
being done that is kept from the common people. The salamander
is common knowledge. They've also had limited success with 
warm blooded creatures, mice, bats..." 

Langley shook his head. "But what they've accomplished
is nothing but fitting Flange A into Slot A, square peg in the 
square hole. Genetic cross-word puzzling." 

"SCULLY'S TALKING ABOUT THE BUILDING OF DNA. MANU-
FACTURING IT. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A PROCESS OF 
CREATION. IF IT'S BEING DONE, NO ONE I KNOW KNOWS 
ABOUT IT." Frohike's voice over the computer voice line. 

"Nobody but the CIA." Langly corrected. 

"The creation of DNA," Byers added, "would elevate humans 
to gods." 

"I'm not sure humanity's ready for that, look what they've done
with television." Scully said. "If they've done it, if that's what this
is,
I can only think of one reason for "Them", she underlined the word, 
"to have done this to Mulder." 

""THEM"?" Frohike asked. 

"The same." She said. 

"Control. That's why they've done this. That's always why." 
Byers said. There was no need to remind the group that Scully
still carried her own physical evidence of "Them" and their
control. The chip was still nestled in place. The knowledge of
how her own DNA having been invaded, her immune system 
ravaged and then her body left to compost the "garbage" had not 
been forgotten by the room's occupants. 

"IF they've done it and, anyway, it doesn't explain the 
scars." Langley reminded them. 

Scully cleared her throat. "The problem is I can see no reason
why they would feel the need to control Mulder or harm him the
way he's been harmed. I was hoping you might have heard something 
that would explain the spurious code we're seeing." 

Langley looked at Byers who looked back at her. Both shook
their heads. Frohike muttered a far away "sorry" and was silent. 

"How is Mulder?" Byers asked. 

Scully gathered up her coat. "I haven't seen him for two
weeks. The last time, he was...there was no visible change. I'm 
flying out tomorrow and staying until the weekend." 

"IF THERE'S ANYTHING MORE WE CAN DO..." Frohike said, "CALL
US ANYTIME, DAY OR NIGHT." 

Scully smiled. "Thanks, Frohike. Thanks guys. I'll say hello from
you." 

For all the good it'll do, she thought. 

***

Dana Scully had finished arguing with the admitting nurse and 
was now having a polite if strained conversation with Munroe. Bryant 
was at a conference and not available to "discuss Mulder with her".
Kurtzman was not a ward doctor and though was responsible for
prescribing medication to Mulder and had access to Bryant's notes
on Mulder, he had no direct authority in the Infirmary. 

"How are you treating the pneumonia?" 

Munroe stiffly laded out for her the standard treatments being 
administered and now she was in the infirmary, seeing for herself. 

Mulder looked horrible. As far as she was concerned as bad as that
first day. Worse, even. No thinner (thank god!), but still flesh less
and pasty and he couldn't or wouldn't look at her over his oxygen 
mask. There were other patients almost as bad off but they didn't 
have masks or I.V. drips. 

Scully wanted to touch Mulder but had no idea how he would react 
to it. Sitting on her hands, she simply watched him. Occasionally, 
watery, droopy eyes would open but not look her way. 

Munroe told her what he knew about Mulder's therapy, emphasizing 
he was not the attending psychiatrist. But as for progress, there 
was none. Mulder had attended four of Bryant's group sessions during 
his lucid hours when he would actually emerge from himself and speak. 
Those times being arbitrary and rare, he usually just turned violent. 

The first two sessions he had refused to speak. The third time, when 
he did, he made his opinion clear about what the hospital and doctors 
could do with their Group Discussions: 


<<<"Do you have something to say, Mister Mulder?" 

"Yeah, can we stop all this genuflecting please. I have a 
weak stomach." 

"If you have something to add, we'd like to hear it." 

""We"? I didn't hear anyone else say Aye." 

"This group which includes you collectively agreed to hear each 
other out and then discuss things. Nothing is hidden here." 

"You believe that?" 

"Say what you want to say, Mister Mulder, we always encourage each 
other to get in touch-" 

""Yes, I've heard: Get In Touch With My Feelings." I get "in touch"
with myself every night for five minutes before I go to sleep. You're
right, Doc', it helps." 

"Communication is encouraged but we'd appreciate it if you would
refrain from the profanity-." 

"Jesus! "Communicate" this!" 

"-and crude gesturing as well. If you have nothing to add to our
group discussion, you can leave." 

"I HAVE something to add - this is a crock! - half of these
slobs are so stoned on cocktail they don't know if its their tongue or
their dick hanging out. The only reason they're here at all is because 
you wanted the job and their families wanted hope and the fucking 
pathetic thing is, they're not going to get even that! Jesus Christ, you

ask me to share my feelings and you think you're exploring something
profound?? Have you even looked at these people?? They're drugged 
until they're zombies, kept under lock and key, spoon-fed pablum, look 
at them! - they're sitting here in the middle of a working day in
fucking 
pajamas! - And then they send YOU in, to try and infuse them with 
"human dignity" and "self-worth"! Holy shit, don't you see how fucking 
ridiculous this is!!??">>> 

The last time he had "participated", he'd smashed the window with a 
chair and tried to push, first himself and the then orderly called 
to subdue him, through it, bars and all. 

"Hey." Scully said, expecting no response and getting none. But he 
looked right at her, however, and even that tiny acknowledgment made 
her heart sing. "You will get better, you know." 

Wanting so badly to touch him, she hoped her words might. "I know 
that's hard to believe, Mulder, but I think there's still some fight
left in 
you, and I think you want to get well. I just wish you would talk to
me." 

No answer. He continued staring at her though. Was there recognition 
there? Gladness, even? 

Her cell phone rang. "Scully." 

"Scully?" It was Skinner. 

"Sir?" She hadn't told him she was coming to Boston. He wasn't
her direct superior after all and there was no need to keep him informed

of her movements. Except for that she knew he cared and would want 
to know. 

"How's Mulder?" Skinner asked from D.C.. 

She stood and moved to the window. Heard Mulder's nasally breathing 
in the background, slow and steady. "Okay I guess. Sick though. Flu'.
Pneumonia complications." She heard Skinner sigh. 

"Anything I can do?" 

Scully smiled. A tiny one. "No, not really. He's getting all the anti-
biotics he needs. I recommended a few new ones." They both knew why. The

"fingerprint." They still didn't know what it was and they could hardly 
just arbitrarily announce that the man had "somehow" been exposed 
to "unidentifiable genetic matter" without there being everything from 
scoffing to outright alarm in the halls of medicine. "But thanks,
Walter..." 
She still wasn't used to calling him that despite their almost physical 
rendezvous..."Thank you for calling." 

"I'm concerned about you both." 

She knew he was still waiting for a decision. But, in truth she 
hadn't allowed herself to think about a relationship with Walter
Skinner. She hadn't even explored her own feelings for Mulder lately,
being too tired from work and worrying about him and dodging her
mothers inquiries. She just didn't feel like justifying herself
to mom or anyone. No time or room enough. 

"Listen, I've got a flight out in a few hours. Do you want to meet
and discuss the latest?" She was referring to the continuing research 
the Lone Gunmen had been doing for her about Mulder's second seemingly 
dormant genetic string. Scully was convinced it was a lurking monster 
that sooner or later would rear it's grotesque head to devour them. 

"Good idea. When?" 

Scully checked her watch. "Umm, nine P.M.? Usual place?" 

"See you then." Skinner hung up. Scully turned back to 
Mulder. He had his eyes closed. Sleeping. 

She had to go. Took a risk and kissed his forehead very softly 
before quietly leaving the room.



Ian intercepted her as she was waiting for the down elevator. 
"Doctor Scully?" 

Over a quick coffee in the windowless cafeteria, Scully 
was feeling a little better about her visit. Her sudden impulse 
to fly out had been right and not just because of Mulder's 
illness. She'd been feeling anxious over him without cause. 
At least cause beyond that he was in a mental institution. 
Now she was less anxious. 

"I'm glad to know he has someone here who's watching him,
looking out for him." This Ian seemed to like his work with
mental patients and he'd brought her up to date on Fox. Not
the medical side, but the human one. 

"Sometimes he has lucid moments. Yesterday he was playing cards 
with Joseph. He's fine unless he's touched. And he can't eat certain 
things without throwing them back up." Ian was explaining. 

"I know. Munroe told me." 

"You know, if there's anything I can do, all you have to do is ask. 
I'm only here four days per week, afternoons and evenings, but I 
kind of took to Fox right away. I know it sounds crazy but, I have 
a sense about people. It's not psychic or anything, but I get vibes..." 
he laughed at himself. .."sentience maybe. Fox is sane, somewhere 
in there, but I think just afraid to come out." 

Mulder's unofficial nurse was a believer in the paranormal or one 
who had experienced it. Scully was amused and pleased too. Mulder 
attracted strange things and people. Ian wasn't strange but he 
wasn't normal, in the psychological sense, either. He "sensed" things, 
whatever that meant and truly cared about the sick, whether 
directly under his charge or not. And he seemed to possess infinite 
patience so, as a care giver for Mulder, Ian was perfect. 

"Thank you." She had a thought. "Listen. Here's my number." Handed 
him a card. "It's my personal cellular number and," scribbling on the 
back of it, "my home phone number as well." Ian accepted it. "If 
anything happens that you think I should know about, would you 
call me? They don't always keep me up to date unless I get Bryant 
or Munroe on the phone and argue like hell. The "I'm F.B.I. and I 
can ruin your life" threat's wearing a bit thin." 

He smiled. "Sure. I'd be glad to." 

They parted.



*** 

"Where's Mulder?" Ian asked the next day at the ward station. 

"Isolation." 

He found out why later from Ramsey. Wished he could have talked to 
Janice but it was her day off. 

"Ten minutes out of the Infirmary he got a hold of a lighter somehow 
and burnt himself." Ramsey said. 

"Accident?" 

With his usual charm, "Fuck no. He set that thing to its highest 
flame and held it to his forearm 'till he screamed. Fuck, man, until 
the flesh was black and smoking and bubbling. Snap, crackle, pop." 

Ian swallowed. What had happened between yesterday and today?
Jesus. 

"He'll lose the feeling in a couple fingers, they figure and
have one hell of a scar for the rest of his life." Ramsey sounded
pleased. 

A call for help. A protest. Ian had read about stunts like that.
That's what they meant. A mute's plea. 

Hadn't anyone noticed if Fox had been acting unusual? Ian 
immediately shook his head at the dumb question. Nobody looked 
at or heard a patient unless they had to. 

That night, though it was late, he called Dana Scully. No, the
doctors hadn't called her about it. She was understandably upset 
but couldn't fly out again until the next weekend. She asked Ian
again to keep a close eye on her friend and if anymore happened,
to please call her immediately. She thanked him and Ian pressed the 
"end" button on the phone. 

"Who was that?" Gary asked, slouched on the sofa. He was finally 
back on days and enjoying his late evening television again. 

"Doctor Scully." 

"Fox?" Gary asked, by now familiar with the goings-on of Ian's 
newest human concern. 

"Yeah." 

"Listen, I found out some stuff on him. But I don't know if it'll
do any good. What has this Scully told you anyway?" 

"Nothing personal. I think she wants to protect his privacy. I don't
blame her, I mean he's her friend. Probably more." 

"Well. Little Luddy dug up some stuff for me and broke some laws 
doing it." 

Ian returned from the kitchen with the cordless in his hand.
"What did he find out?" 

"This Mulder _was_ F.B.I., but what we didn't know was the 
kind of work he did. Weird shit. Everything from serial
killer hunting to ghost tracking to chasing UFO's. He was a 
hell raiser, this guy. Maybe the work drove him bananas." 

Ian tried to mold the destroyed soul he saw on an almost daily 
basis with the crusader Gary was describing. It wasn't easy. 
"What else?" He scooted close beside his lover. 

"We dug up his file. His case. He went missing for eight years.
Just showed up again two and a half months ago. The medical report
would make you want to hide. No wonder he's where he is." When Gary 
gave Ian some details, the room went cold or he did. 

"Christ." 

"You might be biting off more than you can chew with this guy, Ian. 
He might really be crazy. I know how good you are but all I'm saying
is be careful." 


**** 

Bryant's sessions seemed to be doing little good in Kurtzman's
opinion. As much was reported to Doctor Scully who in turn managed
to come up with the extra money to cover the costs of Kurtzman's 
fee's so he could take Mulder as client on a limited basis as well. 

Personal attention was the key. 

"Why don't you tell me what lead you to burning your arm like 
that?" 

Mulder heard the doctor's words. Bothersome. 

Doc wanted another book for his shelf. 

Nothing had made him do it. He'd chosen to. It was all about free 
choice. Bryant had said it. "If you just want to, you can get well." 

He had _wanted_ to do the burning. A thoughtful visitor had provided
the Bic lighter unawares and he'd done it. That was all. No hidden 
agendas. 

Nothing to tell Kurtzman about reasons except that it had been
important, necessary and afterward, he was better. 

Played cards all afternoon with Joseph with the burn hidden 
beneath the sleeve of his PJ's. Shit, though burned up, he'd kept 
Martin from wackin' his weenie in front of the female visitors who'd 
passed them on their way to which crazy belonged to who. 

He'd performed a vital service to them. The hole was a monument.
He looked at it a lot. Hadn't hardly felt the flame. 

Kurtzman sighed. 

Mulder smiled only to himself. Kurtzman wanted a play by play
from center court. -Fuck you!- 

Mulder, from a discreet distance, watched as Kurtzman dropped his
mouth open to speak. It was often the way it happened when patients
refused to cooperate with the learned methods of psychiatry; answer for
the patient. It was not in the Manuals but doctors did it all the time
anyway. Fox had had a PhD. Once. 

"I think you did it to get back at me..." 

Oh, yes. Switching places at center court, that was also done. It was
necessary to keep things in their proper order. Doctor here and patient
there. Just in case the patient forgot who really was the important one.


"..or to punish someone,.." 

Wrong. 

"..the hospital maybe, to gain a bit of control,.." 

Wrong. Wrong. 

"..any kind of control over your life." 

Wrongwrongwrong! 

Brilliant. Patient in rags eating through a tube is upset at having
lost control over life. Burns his arm to get it back. 

God, if that was true, he was the Fire-king of his own kingdom - his
flesh. His death. It had felt marvelous. 

Kurtzman sighed. Time was up. Wrote out a prescription for an increase 
in the TriptoZac he had Mulder on. 

Mulder wandered out into the Day room. 

Martin was there along with a few others. He moved towards 
Mulder without looking like he was doing it on purpose. Mulder's
reputation was powerful. He hit Orderlies, Doctors. Anyone. 

That was to be respected and feared. 

"Kurtzman?" Martin said. 

Mulder nodded but said nothing in reply. Enough to show that
he wasn't going to speak and Martin understood, obliging by
moving off in the other direction before their accidental meeting
collided. 

Mulder wanted to sleep but the wards and the beds in them
were off limits between lunch and dinner unless by special
request from a nurse or doctor who determined you were ill
enough to lie down. 

Designated "Activity Time", the afternoons were nothing other
than mental doldrums. Made to keep patients from too much physical
lounging, they made up for it in mental sleep. Lethargy in all its 
forms was abundant and many of the patients were fat from it. 

Except him. 

It was called the Puke Diet. 

Trouble was, there was nothing to do but slouch around and be crazy.
No exercise program to speak of at Walburg. No "activities" provided 
either. No one on his ward even colored with crayons, the stylus's
ending up in patient's stomachs. 

Paper, another material coveted by the bored inmates, was forbidden
because of him. He played with flame. Paper burned.



**** 

"Dana?" Mom Scully was being extra careful with her words. She did
not want her daughter leaving. Dana needed this time. Bill and Tara
and the kids, Dana needed to see these things. Family. Maybe some
peace for just one evening. 

"Yeah, Mom?" Dana rose from the couch and her novel. 

At least she was reading something besides progress reports on Fox. 

"Would you make some coffee, my hands are floured?" Cherry pie crust.
Canned cherries. Cool Whip. Ready-Make-Do because she did not want to 
be in the kitchen too much for Christmas and Dana on the couch alone. 

"Sure." 

Margaret Scully watched her daughter. She did not want Dana to stop 
thinking of Fox, she just wanted her to think of other things too. Every
day, normal things. Happy things. Anything besides Fox in That Place.
She
cared, too. 

"He's not getting any better, mom." Dana offered the unsolicited 
information just as the coffee began to drip through the filter with
maddening slowness. 

Margaret felt a pang. He'd been a good man. Fox deserved better
than this. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She refrained from hugging her,
Dana didn't seem to want it lately. She'd lost weight. 

"It's been almost four months, is there no improvement at all?"
Margaret asked and rolled dough. 

"None that I can see. Four months isn't long, though..." 

Margaret bit her lip. 

"..Not after eight years." 

Had to say it. It was eating her up. "I don't want to see you alone
forever, Dana." 

Dana stirred her coffee idly, watching the tiny oily patterns shine
under the ceiling light. "How long would have been too long?"
She turned to face her mom. "For you? When Dad went away? When
it was war and you had no idea how long it would last? No idea
if he would even come home? If he'd gone missing in action? How
long would have been too long for you?"


The dough was rolled thin and lifted to be flipped to it's other side.
Roughly slapping the table. "This isn't the same and you know it." 
Staring back at her daughter with all the stubbornness she'd passed 
down to her. She folded the dough. "Maybe you should prepare 
yourself-" 

"Don't. Mom, don't even." Dana poured them both coffee's and took hers
away onto the couch again. Picked up her book and buried all thought
in the author's world. 

Margarete leaned against the counter, fighting the need to scream.
Yes!, she'd cared for Fox. But goddamn it, he had no right to hold 
this power over her daughter! Margarete wanted to scream and beat at
him and send him back to oblivion. She wanted to scream: Get well 
or die! 

Fox's illness had spread to Dana, and mother and daughter'd had
more than just today's discussion over him. 

Dana loved him. Yes, she understood that. But that was the _old_
Fox Mulder. The new and decidedly not improved version was a canker
in her life. 

Margrette was not unfeeling. Pity, sorrow, sympathy, heartache for that 
man stirred around in her. Empathy for her daughter who loved him 
bitterly. Who could not let go. 

Even Bill knew better than to raise the subject of his chosen nemesis
with his sister at any time lest he be shot down faster than Enemy
Aircraft. Even Bill knew when to leave well enough alone. 

It was going to be an unhappy Christmas. 

**** 

"Come on, hurry up." 

Mulder was showering. He'd had to obtain special permission because
at this time of night the showers were supposed to be closed and locked.
But he'd woken up covered in his own vomit. Normally, he would have 
simply shed his garments and curled up on the linoleum. But the night
orderly 
who made his rounds of the wards had taken to kicking him in the back if

he found a bed dripping in mess and the occupant curled up on the floor 
underneath. 

So, after wiping off as much of the sour smelling liquid as he could
with a square of the clean part of the sheet, he'd walked to the "Cage",
where the guards and night staff hung out, drinking coffee, chatting 
or reading. One whiff of him and they'd sent him off with two of the 
staff to guard him as he sluiced himself down in one of the rusted
stalls. 

Fox saw who one of them was and felt better; Ross, the source of his 
candy supply. It was the only solid food that stayed down and sometimes
even filled the echoing hollowness within. 

"Aren't you done yet?" They didn't usually call patients by name.
Usually 
didn't call them anything but "Hey". 

Mulder switched the water off and felt strangely exposed as he had to
walk the length of the shower room to find a towel. In typical
institution fashion, the towels were all the way across thirty feet 
of freezing tile. 

He dried himself, shivering. Water vapor condensed and dripped
off the walls and him. He wondered if he would be made to change 
his own bed sheets. 

Hands grabbed him from behind and slammed him against the wall,
driving the breath from his body. Words were whispered in his ear
that at first he didn't understand. 

When a hand grabbed his hair, it yanked his head back, stretching his 
throat until darkness threatened. Another paw clamped over his mouth,
stifling his startled cry. 

Wicked words polluted his ear and he understood. 

"After all I've done for you, you stab me? I've got a scar on my
face because of you." His hair was pulled harder and he felt some 
separate from his scalp. "You been enjoying those candy bars, haven't
you
Crazy Fox? Do they taste good?" He was pulled away from the wall and
slammed back again. "Well, I'll bet you taste good. I'll bet you taste 
just as sweet. Sweet and hot and wet." 

He was forced to the floor while hands stilled his arms and 
a heavy body sat on his thighs. Demon noises and gorilla
breath assaulted his ears and nose. 

He tried screaming through the cloth that was shoved into his
mouth. Gagged. 

It hadn't occurred to him that Ross might be angry about what
happened. That stabbing this two-legged creature who brought him
food and cleaned up his messes might not have been appreciated; that 
it might have, in fact, hurt and angered it. But he'd stopped thinking 
in the terms of living creatures. Being dead himself, he tended to 
view those around him the same way and his own actions unrelated 
to potential consequences because he was no longer alive and 
didn't matter. Nothing did. 

Ross getting mad hadn't even crossed his mind. 

Fingers groped him, spread his butt cheeks, found the tightly
clenched hole and an agony invaded. 

A baton, in and out that left gifts of stinging slivers. A hundred 
reminders that he was a convenience and nothing else. The 
candy? - tokens free of life or even pity. A price paid to gain 
his trust. He'd come cheap as usual.


Fox screamed but the sound was impossibly muffled. If anybody
heard it, it would be dismissed. The crazy always screamed. 

He heard a zipper and sounds of yanked clothing. Something tore.
"Fuck." Candy-Man cursed, whispered into his ear, "I know you like 
candy, that's why I brought it for you. Now it's time for you to 
give me yours, Crazy. I'm gonna take what's owed, darlin'. I've
been thinking about it for a while now. How sweet you look. I've
been getting ready for a long time." The Candy-man spoke harshly
to his assistant-rapist. "Hold him still!" 

Mulder bucked and fought for the leftover crumbs of his sanity. 

"Santa's got something special for you." The baton was jerked 
in and out once, twice and again. Then another weapon made of 
demon-turned-human-flesh was there. Smooth but it would hurt 
worse in the deeper parts of him, where it still counted. 

Not-again-notagainnotagainnotagain! 

His silent pleas were replaced by screams through the washcloth 
as Candy-Man penetrated him dry, forcing the instrument of death 
passed his sphincter without a care in the world and certainly none 
for the corpse he was violating. 

"Oh, yeah, yeah, baby. Fight. Fight! Makes it sweeter, makes it 
tighter!" 

"Hurry up." Other voice said. "I haven't had a turn yet and it's 
almost A.M. Counts." 

Fox twisted and gagged. A baton pummeled his rib cage and 
he surrendered his small cups of air in screams. The cloth was shoved 
in deeper until whole breaths came only every second or third try. 

Grunts and groans from above and behind. Jerking and 
stabbing knives from inside. Fox felt like he would split apart,
his mind screaming and screaming, his lips sealed with dirty
rags as senses reeled from the feel of blood dribbling down 
the crack of his cold ass to bath his scrotum in heat. 

Real death must come now, he knew. It was as inevitable as
his shame at the pleasure/pain he felt as the demon-shoot
licked at his gland and caused his own member to harden. 

Fox screamed for pain and the for mind-destroying pleasure that
came with a sodomizing rape. 

Mostly pain. But he couldn't be glad over that. It was not
enough to balance the scales. He was still left wanting. He 
would die. 

Candy-Man shuddered and sighed. Fox felt filth spray into 
his body to remain for all time. 

Poison to kill him. 

The thing inside him lost its power and was withdrawn. 

One presence changed places with another and the nightmare of 
pain and disbelief started all over again. But this time escape 
was possible. 

Fox felt himself die. 


"Hey." Ian, on morning/afternoon rotation stopped by the
ward of his favorite charge. Fox was curled up on his side
on Martin's bed. 

"Hey." Ian shook his shoulder just a little, aware of how 
much Fox hated being touched. 

Fox didn't stir. 

Ian pulled back the blanket Fox had wrapped himself up in. He
wasn't wearing any pajamas. "Hey, Mulder. Come on, buddy, you're
in the wrong bed. Do you want Martin's hemorrhoids to get worse?
Where the hell are your clothes?" 

Ian shook him harder, eliciting a groan from the slumbering
patient. Fox felt hot. 

"You sick again, Muld-" Ian noticed a stain on the sheets beneath
Fox and looked closer. 

Blood. 

Ian went for help. Mulder was moved to the infirmary, his privates
and anus examined, blood and fluid samples were taken, the slides 
checked. Confirmation made. Antibiotics injected. He was cleaned up. 

Ian put a call through to Doctor Scully. There was no answer either
on her cellular or at her home. He took a chance and called another
name on Fox's emergency contact list. 

Walter Skinner sounded sickened by the news and assured him, though
it was the holidays, he had a good idea where she might be and would 
relay the information to Doctor Scully immediately. 

Ian felt a bit better after hanging up the phone. Fox had people 
who cared at least. Maybe they cared enough to get him out 
of Walburg. 

*** 


"Two types of semen. Anal trauma..." Scully felt sick to her stomach.
It was all she could muster to keep the contents of last nights dinner
to herself. " Bryant's monotone went on. "...He has a cracked rib. They 
worked him over pretty good." 

Scully heard the unspoken. "Not only on the surface." She underlined. 
"Who did it?" 

"We don't know." 

**** 

Martin came out of his "down" and shuffled the corridors until he
found him. The one they all liked. Never throw food at this one. It
was an accepted rule of the patients, one learned without actually 
being taught. 

"I saw who done that to him." Martin announced in his "down" quiet 
way. 

Ian looked up from his duty with Thomas who was having trouble finding
his bed among the dozen in his section of the ward. Ian was gently
guiding him. 

"What was that, Martin?" Ian looked around surprised to find Martin
speaking during a downer, but didn't stop his movement down the hall
with Thomas. Once one got Thomas accelerated into motion, it was always
prudent to keep it that way, lest he decide that sleeping or going to
the bathroom right on the spot was the grander notion. 

"I saw who hurt him. Who stuck that thing up 'im." 

Ian called over his shoulder to Ramsey who took over the guidance of
Thomas after a bit of moaning. 

Ian took Martin aside and spoke quietly. "How do you know that, Martin?"


"I saw. I wanted to sit in the water..." 

Ian understood. Martin sometimes slipped out of his bed at night. One of
the night Orderlies would be convinced to unlock the bathroom so he
could flip up a lid and sit his cheeks in the cold water. Thank god for
Martin's piles, Ian thought. 

"And I was in there when they come in to shower him. Then they
started..."Martin swallowed. "They stuck one of their sticks up him and
then did...other things. He bled a lot. I was too scared..." 

Ian went pale. Where the hell was Ross today? 

He had not showed up for work it was soon discovered. Neither he nor his
joined-at-the-hip pal. Ian added his voice to Martin's in the way of
character witness. Yes, Fox often threw up at night. And, no, Martin was
not a fibber, he often sat in the toilet.


Serving their time through "Community Service"; Ross and his fellow 
rapist. 

"That's why they've been working at Walburg." Bryant later explained 
to Scully, adding, "nothing like this has ever happened before." 

She knew he meant "at Walburg". Because it certainly _had_ happened 
before. It was an old scenario replayed over and over through-out the
social structure. In long term institutions of all variety. In the
education system as well. Who hadn't heard of an all boys school coming
forward with it's awful tales of abuse and molestations twenty years
after the fact? Who hadn't heard of that or something like it? 

So why the hell not a mental hospital? The visitors would be less
abundant and less frequent - Scully felt an especially guilty pang - the
environment even more isolated and controlled. And, under the very
circumstances that made a mental hospital _mental_, claims of victims
would hardly be believed. 

Scully had comprehended these things. As an F.B.I. Agent, she'd
encountered similar inhumanities. Now she empathized. Understood all
too well those relatives and parents who had said: "I can't understand. 
I trusted them! How could they _DO_ this? Why would they hurt my 
child/husband/wife/parent?" 

"When will he be well enough to travel?" Scully asked. 

Bryant took one look at her and knew he had nothing to say in
protest to her obvious decision to move the patient out of there.
Charges would be laid against the perpetrators when they were 
apprehended. An investigation of the facilities by, he didn't 
doubt for a second, the F.B.I. itself would soon commence. 

"Two or three days."



Scully made a quick visit to Mulder's recovery bed. He was heavily
sedated. She was glad for it. Mulder had been experiencing significant 
pain before Nurse had come with her injections. 

Mulder was still the color of milk. The other small physical signs of 
trauma were there as well in the aftermath of the attack- 

-rape. 

She wanted to die. 

***



Skinner opened the investigation on Walburg himself. Being Director
certainly had its uses. There were few times in his life he'd indulged
in revenge. He didn't know what this one would taste like.




*** 

"How can you afford it?" He watched Scully tossing her clothes into
suitcases from the hotel dresser. Flight out of Boston in two hours. 

They'd been in Boston for four days and Mulder was ready to be
transferred back to D.C.. Scully had found a place. It was private,
expensive and Mulder would be a fifty minute drive tops. 

"I'll find the money. Walburg will have to reimburse me in part." 

"That won't come anywhere near to covering what this other place 
costs." 

She stopped. "What the hell does money have to do with anything?
I said I'll get it." 

He watched her fold blouses, slacks, underwear. "I don't like seeing 
you throw your life away." Regretted it the second it escaped. He 
knew what it had sounded like but it was not what he'd meant. 

Bras were furiously jammed into one corner of the Airliner carry-on.
Her voice matched her determined hands. "The last time money was a 
concern, it got Mulder beaten and hurt." Didn't have the courage to 
say the other word aloud. Tone lower, more steady. "I'm not throwing 
anything away." 

Skinner had been sitting on the bed, bouncing up a down a bit by
her rhythmic stuffing of her suitcase. Now he went to stare out the 
window and listened as she laid it out for him as he knew she would.
Scully carried arguments to their conclusion. 

"I'll cash in my own securities. My retirement funds, sell everything
if I have to, borrow, beg..." 

"And leave yourself what if it doesn't work?" He came back to the bed 
and stood in front of her, blocking her assault on the travel case.
"What if Mulder doesn't get well? What if he's in there or somewhere
else for the rest of his life-?" 

"-I put him there!" Her words mowed his down like an AK 47. "So I
lose my money. I don't care. Don't you get it? Mulder's lost everything!
Even his choices. He has no options now except what I can give him."
Where did Skinner get off thinking because they'd seen each others
privates, he suddenly had the right to question and argue? she wondered.


Skinner grabbed her arms, firmly. Gentled. Rubbed them. "Scully..." 

She collapsed into him and sobbed like a child. Sex wasn't the on-ramp
to a solution but she wanted him. His steadiness. His good, comforting,
ready to take charge saneness. 

Mulder. Mulder, what have you done to me?! Her mind screamed then felt
guilty for thinking it. 

"If - IF - he is your responsibility, then just remember that it's not 
your fault. Recognize the difference." He said the useless words knowing
she wouldn't believe them. 

*** 

GREENLAWN RECOVERY CENTER. WASHINGTON, D.C.
Office of Doctor Carl Petrillo.



Doctor Petrillo had an hour before his next appointment.
A rare period to unwind - to hell with the paperwork 
sitting neglected beside his In Box- and soothe his headache
with a mug full of Masala Chai and the walnut muffins and aspirin 
his wife always packed for him. Yeah, doctors felt shitty sometimes 
too. 

He put his feet up and leaned back, relishing in that useful
but rare thing: free time. 

It niggled at him though, that thick yellow folder sitting
center desk. He had to admit he was curious. It wasn't
often a private case came his way. 


Petrillo sat forward and opened it, muffin crumbs 
sprinkling the printed and hand-written notes under his 
eyes. Doctors reports, medical conditions, past and present. 
Recent history, as much as was known: 

Mulder. Fox William, 

Petrillo read for many minutes, flipping pages and
going back to re-read, checking physicians notes, initial 
diagnoses, drugs administered, reactions to medication, 
alternative treatment. 

""Treatment-s"." Petrillo muttered aloud. He frowned. Re-read
aloud a few things that refused to sink in. ""eight years,...
suspected violent...beating-s",..." Petrillo gulped his tea. 
"..."mental and physical abus-es"..." Plenty of plurals in 
this file. 

Read the childhood history (dysfunctional), educational 
background (Oxford PhD). Some of the family history. "Sister 
disappeared age eight when boy was twelve. No clear 
memory...catatonic state for four days post-event...child 
abuse thought factor...". 

Psychological Profile: Photographic memory. Genius I.Q. 
but long running stress/sleep disorders interlaced with self-
destructive behaviors. Few friends. Obsessive. "There
have been episodes of cognitive disassociation"." 

An obsessive, self-destructive genius with few friends. 

Less extraordinary than people knew. Genius - a high
functioning brain - by its very nature was obsessive. Self-
destructive because patience lacked in a mind that left most
others in its dust. Few friends because people didn't like
being left behind and shown up as mediocre. 

Petrillo skimmed his new clients work history. ""Dedicated but
insubordinate, brilliant, arrogant,"..." Yet his "closure rate"
(he recognized the law enforcement terminology) had been 
high. 

Partner in Bureau: Agent Dana K. Scully, MD. Pathologist. 

Now he understood why the file was so complete. Partner,
and doctor. She wanted this guy to get well and had handed 
Petrillo all the ammunition she thought he might need. Friend 
to the genius. No dummy herself or she wouldn't have gone
the distance. 

He read some of the later details regarding the events at
Walburg. Petrillo shook his head. "Whew..." 

Wondered if he could refuse the case after all. It was a lot
to bite off. 

At the back of the file he found a note paper-clipped to
the inside. It was a hand-written missive from Doctor 
Scully: 

//"Doctor Petrillo, 

I have given you all the information available regarding
F. Mulder's case. I would appreciate it if you and I can
maintain a running dialogue on his treatment and progress..."// 

She thinks there'll be progress. It's always good news that
clients and their families had confidence in one at least. It
was more than he felt about his ability to treat this new client 
thus far. The case was not to be believed. 

//"...If you'll forgive me, I have researched your work history.."// 

Ah. She would naturally. F.B.I.. 

//"...and you come highly recommended by certain individuals.
Please understand that my friend - Mulder - will be a difficult
client. He has had good reason to mistrust authority and the
medical profession in general..."// 

Oh, that must have been quite a high wire working relationship. 

//"...and will probably not cooperate with you. After what
happened at Walburg, I am sure you can comprehend his reluctance. 
As well, there are things about him, that is, his medical 
condition, that are known only to select people including 
myself. At this time, we feel this cannot be shared until we 
have more concrete confirmation. But the condition to which 
I refer is not contagious in any way. I have included a 
medical report on his general physical health to support my 
statement, however if you intend a second, independent examination, 
I would only ask you inform me. 
We want him to get well. If you feel this case would entail
too much of your time which I know is limited, please tell 
me now. I would also appreciate this letter be kept between
you and I alone. Thank you, Dana Scully."// 



Petrillo's eyebrows climbed his forehead. 

He would take the case. 

It sounded too interesting not to. 

**** 

The first thing Petrillo noticed about his new patient
was not the anger or yelling or biting sarcasm that usually
belied hidden hurt. 

It was the total silence. 

And the slackness of expression. 

This was one of the few patients he'd ever accepted just on 
the word of another. A care giver but also a doctor who had
insisted to him that her tired friend was not crazy. 

Carl Petrillo was a staff psychiatrist but working with
the frankly demented had never been his strong suit. He didn't
like to medicate if it could be helped and he didn't like
word association or hypno-therapy or anything that might
water down the honest sickness or pain the patient was 
feeling. 

Numbing a person with drugs might control some symptoms short-
term, unless they were suffering chemically induced mental illness;
unless their brain chemistry was pumping the wrong stuff, too
much of this and not enough of that, but the problems still
had to be addressed and those he had found were usually rooted in
nothing more mysterious than simple feelings. Emotions in an
upheaval. Overflowing or so stopped up the result was what he
was seeing before him now: a mute human who saw no use in 
acknowledging anything let alone himself. 

He had Doctor Scully's assurance that this was the case with
Fox Mulder. He was not crazy. 

Well, he would find out soon enough. 

Petrillo checked Fox's chart. Valium - Petrillo saw the lethargy
in the rounded shoulders and hunched back - //tell me something I
don't know.// He'd read Fox's recent history including the medical
data, the list of old injuries and new, the general physical state
and the events (some that shook even Petrillo, who'd seen much, to 
the core of his compassion) that had lead this individual with 
the tired eyes to this place and moment in time. 

Petrillo had read this information at an earlier date, but did so 
again while the patient was seated before him so the words on paper 
could be tied to a real, living creature and the "facts" be made 
personal. In the end, diagnoses were only partially accurate he 
had found. 

Petrillo thrust the chart under his wooden seat and looked for a
few minutes at Fox Mulder, the paranoid, delusional, schizophrenic
who had tried to kill an orderly. Who'd burned his arm with fire
until achieving an oozing, black hole. 

Fox had been an F.B.I. agent in another life. A good one or so
he had been told. Doctor Scully had told him a great deal about this
man for whom she cared. He'd listened and nodded, acknowledging
her desire to let Petrillo in on the secret that Mulder had not 
always been this way, that he really was _not_ this way at all. 

But a badge didn't exclude one from the human race. 

Even kings went crazy. 

"Is there nothing you want to tell me?" Petrillo decided to start
simply. 

No answer and he hadn't expected one. Some patients never shut
up at first. Some never spoke. 

"I guess you're pretty pissed off about being in another hospital.
Locks and bars and lousy food and patronizing doctors." Doctors
really could be patronizing ass holes, may as well clear the air 
right off. "Well, I'm here to help you if that's what you want. I tell
you the truth right now, I'm not sure how. But as long as we're 
working together, you'll have your own private room. Only two 
people have keys to it, myself and Eugena." 

Eugena was the petite little ward night Head Nurse whom everyone 
liked. Even the sickest patients trusted her. Petrillo decided to voice
the key business for two reasons. He wanted Fox to feel safe at 
Greenlawn, so he was letting Fox know that no-one had access to his 
room or him except his therapist and the trusted Eugena. But Petrillo
also wanted his patient to understand that the safety continued only 
if they continued working together. Otherwise Fox might end up with
another doctor altogether and who knows which nurse on which shift
would get the spare key to his room. 

It was kind of a dick-headed thing to do but if it worked (and it
had once or twice in the past), he was sure he would be forgiven. 

His patient sighed, a very long, slow breath of stale room air. 
Up to that moment Petrillo had wondered if the guy was breathing at 
all. 

"Well. We'll still meet each day if that's all right with you. I
imagine they've given you no choice and since I work here I have to
fulfill my part and come here every day,.." 

Had his new charge really been through all the stuff he'd read 
on the chart? Wouldn't that be enough to make anyone prefer 
death? Fox had burnt his own flesh. But Petrillo wondered if that 
had been more a call to life than death. Maybe the guy just wanted 
to feel something again, even excruciating pain. 

"...so we'll meet and just be quiet together. There's nothing wrong 
with quiet. But if you do feel like talking, I'm hell at listening." 

*** 



It went that way each day. Petrillo talking and his patient ignoring
the talk. 

It went that way for weeks. 

Until one day Petrillo tried something that had worked before. Once
in a nine year old boy who had suffered the most horrible abuses
by his mother. A highly intelligent boy who had learned to cope
with his pain by reading and learning and shutting down his mind to
all else. 

He'd come to Greenlawn, cooperative and mute. Petrillo had tried
everything that was suppose to work to get the kid talking. Nothing had.
Until one day... 

He may as well try it here. 

Fox entered his therapists office and sat in his usual spot. Immediately
he noticed the thing painted on the wall. It was a two digit number
printed in large, black letters. It had not been there before. It was
out of place, a picture in fact had been moved to accommodate it. 

I meant nothing to him. 

It meant nothing for days and days. 

Petrillo could see the curiosity swelling in his client. Obsessive mind.
Fox had a need to know. Always to know. The reasons, the whys,
the how-comes. Mute's see far more than they want people to think 
they do. Silence isn't so much crazy as stubbornness. It was an unspoken

"fuck-you" to the world. 

"Why?" Fox asked one day, looking at Petrillo and gesturing to the
mystery number, jabbing a pissed off finger at the wall.


"Your age." Petrillo answered. 

Fox stared. "Which of us here is insane?" 

"Are you?" 

"Insane. Delusional. Paranoid. A great ass-fuck, take your pick." 

Petrillo didn't nod, but he didn't fail to notice the flippant,
off-the-cuff way Fox had related that last bit of information. Lumping
the brutal rape in with things that were said to be wrong with _him_.
And he didn't get too excited over this sudden dialogue with a man who
had made a decision never to speak again. Petrillo kept speaking calmly
as if they were buddies who'd been chatting for weeks. Soon enough, Fox
would realize his error for allowing curiosity get the upper hand and
retreat back into his womb. He would try to reaffirm his visible
insanity for Petrillo by becoming a statue. Death by mind. 

"This isn't multiple choice." Petrillo tapped his pad with his pencil,
neither speaking for a moment. "Is there anything you want to tell me?" 

Fox sighed. "Why are trying to dig me up?" 

"Because your feelings have buried you alive." 

Mulder's heart betrayed his belief in being extinct by beating hard
and fast. Petrillo words were dangerous, they had a power. 

"Leave me out of your psycho-babble, Petrillo, you're out of your 
depth." 

"Can't do that, I'm afraid. I'm no genius but I know pain when I
see it, even when it's hidden under insults." 

"What the hell do you want from me?!" Fox stood and paced
but came no closer to the doctor with the lightening tongue. 

"I think you have a sickness, call it insanity if you want or
just plain old feeling "bad" but that's why you're here, Fox. 
I'm here to help you. You have to want that help. If you do, I'll
do my best. Let me start by saying I won't lie to you or betray
the trust we build together. Think about it for a while if you 
want." 

Fox stopped his pacing and crossed his arms. He didn't
look at Petrillo but at the earth at his feet that was in danger
of splitting asunder. 

Petrillo saw the fear settle in his patient's eyes before Fox
re-entered his silence, leaving him behind. 



***

"Anything you want to tell me today?" 

Petrillo and Mulder were in their Umpth session and thus far 
but for very few, Mulder had spent those hours staring at the walls. 

"You're not an idiot, Mulder. Your scores from grade school tell me 
that much. But we can sit and stare at each other and think vile things
or we can start working to get you out of here. I get paid either way,
so, is there anything you want to say?" Petrillo waited. 

Smoldering pupils but no voice. 

"Tell you what, tomorrow, I'll bring in my Super-Play Station and-" 

"FUCKED-UP!!!" 

The walls shook from the sound waves. Petrillo jumped, barely. Waited. 

Mulder had leaped up and was pacing the room and every second or so he'd

scream another imperfection at the doctor, the dam thus bursting. 

"UNSTABLE! VIOLENT! DESTRUCTIVE! SUICIDAL! And while we're at it:
DEMENTED-CRAZY-INSANE-SPOOKY-FUCKING-MULDER!" 

Angry Mulder. Lots of things untouched down in there. Lots of
hurt that had to be found and looked at so Mulder could see it for
what it really was - the basic feeling of abandonment and 
helplessness. Guilt, too, Petrillo thought. And fear. Human
things that were not so terrifying once they were exposed for 
what they were: emotions. 

Things they would examine together. Only Mulder did not yet
understand that he would no longer be punished for feeling them. 
He would also have to unlearn the punishment of self. 

"That's what _they_ say you are. I want to hear what _you_ think
you are. Do you think you're all these things? Really?" 

Mulder sat back down, slouched like an adolescent, arms
crossed over his chest to erect a barrier between himself
and the doctor who asked scary questions no one else had, 
never looking at the doctors eyes that could still disapprove
at any moment with a "tsk-tsk". 

But he didn't answer. 

"We have some hard work to do, Fox. We've spent most of this
session and others sitting across the room like two strangers in a 
bar. Too bad we didn't have any beer. But, next session, I'm going
to ask you where it is you want to start, okay?" 

That surprised his patient and it showed on his face for a fleeting 
instant. Walburg must have had little success with this one. 

Kurtzman! Petrillo had never been a supporter of the Sweet Talk 
Method. Any "You're a fine fellow" stuff used on Mulder would have 
failed miserably. And so many hospitals replete with so many textbook 
procedures that had the patients doing little each day to help 
themselves other than wiping their own asses. 

How disappointing to find that so many trained professionals
still tiptoed around the sicknesses as if they _knew_ their patients 
were crazy and unable to make a decision on their own when that 
was one of the first things to being human and sane: the freedom 
of choice. 

*** 

When Scully came for her after work visit, Mulder 
screamed obscenities at her through clenched teeth 
and stony eyes. She was not his friend. She was 
his murderer. A betrayer and liar to boot. He screamed 
until she left in shock. 

He'd done it to complete the death. Not only was he dead 
in body and mind, but now in heart as well and it was only 
fitting. The living had no dialogue with him. He'd told 
that doctor off good and proper too. 

Leave me to burn up out of the sight of pitying eyes! he 
screamed at them from his rift and ripped the scab from his 
healing burn. 

Even dying could be a shameful experience and was best 
done alone. 

*** 

Petrillo knew he was being punished for causing Fox to 
speak. But he didn't bring it up when he visited his patient
in the Infirmary. 

He sat beside the bed. Fox was in restraints but wide awake.
He hadn't been violent except to himself. 

"Well. Well I left yesterday, It was with the hope you had 
opened up, I didn't expect it to be the hole." 

Fox kept his head turned away. He felt shame and it angered 
him. For some reason he'd disappointed this doctor, not because
he'd shown by his self-mutilation that the doctor's methods were 
futile, but because for some inexplicable reason, this doctor had
looked into him and not shrunk back in nausea. Petrillo wasn't 
even showing disgust at his newly bandaged hole. He was sad 
instead. 

"I was kind of hoping we could talk a bit right now, if you'd
like. You know you are in some trouble, Fox? It's not impossible
that you'll be able to feel, equally, love for yourself as you do 
hate at this moment. We have our work cut out for us. I'll see
you tomorrow."


*** 

He was next in line for access to Fox Mulder. 

In an emergency. 

Which this wasn't. 

Mulder was kept isolated but he'd still have to 
settle for access under watching eyes, Greenlawn 
believed in closed-circuit television. But he was still
Director of the F.B.I. and if anyone had an argument
to make he would remind them of that. 

Soon he was being escorted to Mulder's "room".
which was "nice-nice" for a cell with rubber walls 
and a lovely sleeping mat. 

Yesterday afternoon, Mulder had tried to take the 
ward apart. Scully had gone to see him that afternoon. 
Afterward, Mulder had had a session with Carl Petrillo. 
He'd screamed a lot at Petrillo. A lot. 

Somehow yesterday's mix of events had then
lead to Mulder's beating on the furniture. 

Today, Skinner had talked to Petrillo after Scully had
come into work that morning looking like she'd had about 
ten minutes sleep. She looked spent. Depressed. 

Skinner managed to corner her later in the stairwell
and had solicited yesterday from her in addition
to some brimming eyes and a voice so sad it made
his heart ill. 

Mulder didn't want to see her anymore. He'd told
her to go away and never come back. He'd yelled at
her and screamed abuse at her and told her she was
a liar and a cheat and not to be trusted. 

Skinner wanted to kill him. 

The door shut behind him and was locked, he stared
at Fox Mulder for the first time in many weeks. 

Fox Mulder stared back. Defiant. Stood in place, 
looking at Skinner, thin and rumpled and arrogantly 
waiting. Not caring either.


"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Skinner
had not come to mince words, play by the rules
in the Book of Loon or rack up good guy points. 

Mulder actually changed position at that. Fidgeted. 
Skinner still had the ability to exert some authority 
over Agent Du' Spooky. Good. 

"I am sorry you're here, Mulder, but you're blaming
the wrong person by attacking Dana..." 

Dana? Visions of a sweating Skinner all over Scully's 
naked body, obtaining orgasm and pumping her secret 
place full of himself, swam before Fox's eyes in red. 

"It's none of your business," He spoke. One of few times
since the false dawn began. She's none of your business!
"so keep your goddamn hands off her!" 

Skinner flew at Mulder as if from a catapult. He grabbed 
shoulders and twisted his fists into the cloth, slamming
Mulder back against the wall. 

"You fuck! What are you going to do? Destroy her
along with yourself you selfish son-of-a-bitch?" 
Slammed him again. "You've been cut and raped and 
beaten so you've been through all there is, huh? You've 
seen it all?" 

"I have." Strangely calm. "I have seen it all." 

"Well, get passed it! Switch it around in your head, Mulder.
Pretend if you have to. Where the fuck this happened, who 
did it, get passed it; it was a bad weekend with a biker gang, 
it was too much booze, indigestion, I don't care. Just 
fucking deal with it and leave this place because I won't have 
you hurting that woman." Skinner ground the threat into 
Mulder's face, one inch away. "Understand? Am I being 
clear? Do you get it, Mulder?" 

Her scent was on him. "Yeah. I get it. But you don't want me
to leave here." 

Skinner let the fabric go. The impressions from his fists stayed.
"What the hell are you talking about?" 

"You fucked her, didn't you?" 

Skinner thought he'd come to set Mulder straight, to spur
him into getting himself better and getting out, if only to bring
some peace to Dana Scully. But at this moment he didn't give 
a squat if Mulder died here. Whether or not he and Scully had 
been intimate was immaterial, but how dare Mulder assume the 
worst of her! 

Skinner punched the wall beside Mulder's ear, hoping it
burst an eardrum. "You arrogant, self-assuming ass hole!
Scully and I are friends - that's because she has none. All
because of you, Mulder, she's fucking alone in the world
all because of you, you stupid dick! And she's been waiting
on your sorry ass for too long in my opinion. Fucking grow up!" 

Skinner stepped back a pace, standing that close was risky
because he wanted to ram a fist into Mulder's face. He kept
the urge at bay but he wanted to. Oh, yes, he wanted to. 

At the door, he turned back. "Pick up your life, Mulder.
Or stay here and weep, slice your wrists," He waved a hand
towards the bandage on Mulder's left forearm and the burn scar, 
"burn yourself up, I don't give a shit. But do something. Just 
get it done."



*** 



"Fox, I want Doctor Scully to attend some of your sessions." 

Petrillo was not surprised to see Mulder shake his head no. 

"You're afraid of her? Is that why? I heard about your little
explosion." 

"It doesn't matter." 

"It does if it means you won't get well. There's a reason why
you're trying to push her away. If you don't want to tell me,
that's fine, but it does mean it will be that much harder for
our work together. It means you'll be here that much longer,
trying to fix all that hurt inside you that you still won't 
share." 

"I told you I don't remember very much!" 

"Then tell me what you do remember. Something. One thing,
even." 

"I don't want.." 

Petrillo waited as Fox's eyes flickered and closed. He was 
remembering something. But his shame was stronger than his want 
to speak and he was motionless as the battle waged, invisible. 

"I won't tell Dana anything you don't want me to, Fox. For now,
we can keep the sessions closed. But I know she wants to share
in your recovery. She needs to understand too. She has some
healing of her own to do." 

Something in what he said made Fox slump over. He breathed
heavily. Trembled as if in fever. "I don't want...I don't want...
to...hurt her anymore..." 

But he was also terrified of being hurt and so he had tried to
destroy her. Name calling to keep her away because Petrillo didn't 
doubt for a second that Mulder would never have, could never 
have, struck Dana Scully. 

Words had been his only weapon to deflect the offer of opening 
up to her. Her and her love for him was a risk he was too 
terrified to take and had used his continental tongue to annihilate 
it. 

It must have hurt her or she never would have cut her visit so 
short. But Dana Scully was no fool and knew what lay behind the 
fury in his words. She'd called Petrillo the next afternoon and 
discussed it with him. He agreed with her. Told her his idea. 
Petrillo wanted her in on the sessions. 

She had agreed but not wholeheartedly. Not because of lack
of interest in Mulder's getting well, but worry that she would make
things worse. Petrillo had assured her she would not. Coddling
Fox would just be playing by his rules and that would accomplish 
nothing except perhaps keeping him an inmate of Greenlawn for
a very long time.



"Do you think she hates you?" 

"No." Liar! Believing she hated him was weak even though it was
true. But he had to at least pretend to have self-worth or the questions
would never stop. 

"Then let her come. One session. I'm not certain why, Fox, but
I think it's important. Unless you want to tell me why she shouldn't?" 

The doctor was showing his own weakness. Sharing a part of himself
that was flawed. He didn't know the reasons for everything. Therefore
he would share one of his own. One of those that counted the most. 

Shaking at the possibility that the doctor might confirm his disgust
for the corpse in his visitors chair, "I can't..c-can't, "get one"
..unless
I h-hu-urt myself." 

Petrillo watched Fox hang his head in shame at his revelation. Shaking
like he would fly apart at the joints, Fox said nothing more and
Petrillo knew he was waiting to see if this confession would damn him in
his eyes. Substantiate the ugliness that was Fox Mulder. 

Petrillo felt his heart go out to this man who looked upon himself
as not a victim of terrible crimes but as the criminal who somehow
had perpetrated his own destruction. Because he hadn't been able to
save himself from the slaughter, he was guilty. 

I _have_ to uproot that! Petrillo declared silently. The confession
of attempts at masturbation came as no surprise, the confession itself
did. It explained the purple bruises on the thighs, the teeny spiders
of broken capillaries on his stomach flesh. 

Pinching. To accomplish pain. To bring forth pleasure of a sort. The
only kind allotted to him during his incarceration in God-knew-what
under the mis-guidance of God-knew-who. Pain and punishment. 

The confession, the first time for both, was also an extraordinary 
sign of the healing light in Fox's mind. And of trust between patient 
and doctor. How often do people even have the courage to reveal such 
things to their priest? 

"Before, after or during?" 

Fox sucked in a huge breath. "It changes. U-usually ah-after." 

Petrillo made a few notes. So, punishment for feeling horny? No.
Because the abuse got to be so intertwined with the sex that, though 
the orgasm came, the high wouldn't until the pain did. 

That's what sex-torture was all about. It brought a high - to both 
parties - an endorphin rush and for a few seconds, Fox would have felt 
better. Felt, even, a sense of power. Felt something. 

Then the self-hatred would come and bring shame and humiliation. Things
are learned through experience, good and bad. 

They can be un-learned. So if by chance the memory is triggered, the 
physical reaction is not. 

Physically, emotionally and mentally abused children learn to believe
they deserve it. Belief is a powerful force. It can sway nations.
Petrillo knew. He was a psychologist. He had traveled. 

Abused children learn to escape into fantasy, learn to comfort
themselves often by performing the same abuses on themselves as the
abusers used on them. Familiarity can be comforting. Getting there first
is power and control. 

Or they learn to hate self and the destruction of their own flesh (the
wounds often do not scab over) is a kind of agreement with the
perpetrator of the mental bashing or emotional terrorizing. Agreement is
peace-bringing. There is relaxation and an end to conflict by conceding
to a defeat. 

Petrillo's mind went back to one girl he'd counseled who had grown up in
a family of six, experiencing tiny separate abuses that together formed
a poisoning whole of conflict and loneliness. One she wallowed in for
ten years before coming to him at the age of seventeen accompanied by
the frightened gaze of her tired looking mother. 

A few months into therapy, he recalled the girl saying: "I wish I had a
robot hand. A six fingered, black robot hand." When he asked why, she'd
answered: "Because then I could see my malformation and even if it was
creepy, some people would envy it." 

That girl's family ran out of money for her treatment. A year later, she
swallowed a whole bottle of her mother's sleeping pills and never woke
up again. 

Failures like that didn't come around often. Thank god because he
couldn't have stayed in the work if they had. Even doctors need a pat on
the back now and then, with a success. 

Fox was not so far gone as she had been, he didn't think. For one thing,
the man had survived abuses before, as a child, and gotten through it to
succeed in life to a certain extent. Good at his job. Had a share of
love affairs and friendships. 

But Fox was deeply ashamed of his own weaknesses during his captivity
and the result was very nearly the same; terrible self-loathing. Hatred
of self was dangerous. It could make a person sad to _death_. 

"I won't mention that, Fox. You know I don't lie to you. But I still
want Dana to join the sessions." It would cause upset, he knew but there
was a time for gentleness and a time for firmness and the time had come
for the latter. 

Mulder was confrontational. So they would be as well. It was honest at
least. Fox had to learn to feel again. Something good with no
punishment. 

"I'm scared. I'm afraid of whu-what I might do." 

Petrillo was very grave. Fox had shown he was capable of violence. Yet
that violence had been directed, focused on authority. Never the weak.
No patients had seen the bad side of Fox's fist of fury. 

"Why? Can you give me reasons why you should feel that way? I'm not sure
I understand." 

Fox shuddered like he was in fever. Something in him was crawling out.
"I think I...k-killed someone,...something..." 

Leaving the semantics aside for the moment, "What was the reason? Do you
remember that?" 

Shook his head no. He was trembling like a leaf, spasming in an
intermittent wind, hunched over to protect what was left of himself from
his own terrifying recollections. 

"No. But I remember doing it..." 

Petrillo wondered how "it" was "done". 

"...it was," - something connected - "alien! Not human." He looked at
Petrillo with his, to him, enormous eureka. 

Petrillo did not argue that part of it. Only asked: 

"Nothing else?" This was a biggie. If it was true, if Fox had killed
someone, might there be evidence of it somewhere? A nameless corpse in a
grave not so old? A frozen cadaver in someone's morgue waiting to be
identified? Or, if such luck still existed, a body with a name that
could explain a whole lot about Mulder's past eight years in limbo.
Something to bring to bear a light on the dark matter of Fox's mind. 

Petrillo's patient struggled for many minutes. If he could bring it
forth, an extra fact that they could confront... 

Silence in which was heard Mulder's tired lungs. Then: 

"It felt good."