From: "=?iso-2022-jp?B?GyRCJF8kPyRLGyhC?=" <mitani3@beige.ocn.ne.jp>
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 20:12:59 +0900
Subject: Guardians Chapter 1 Disclaimers
Source: direct

Part 5

*Disclaimers - Please read from the top of part one. Thank you.


Prescott Hospital Conference Room 2
Los Angels, CA
6:30 PM

By the time Mulder arrived at the conference room, Scully was through
with nearly half of the materials that had been provided by Clive Shaw.
Mulder nearly dropped to his knees once he saw her up and about. She was
walking, talking on the phone, and reading files. She was much better
than he'd expected her to be. Upon acknowledging his approach, she
greeted him with a flash of her rare radiant smile and hung up her
phone. Mulder walked right up to embrace her, though being very careful
not to touch her. She stroked his hair while he practically buried his
head in her hair. They were simply happy to see each other alive. 
	"Hey, Scully. It's so good to see you again." Mulder managed to utter
while his eyes moistened.
	"Hi, Mulder." Scully gently broke the embrace, directing him to a
chair. He sat down and began taking out the contents of a large carryout
bag. She smiled her sincere gratitude and took the container for the
'stir fried vegetables with diced chicken breast'. The food had no hot
spice, and it came with rice in a separate carton. She had only recently
regained her appetite, thus in no mood for another fluffy donut or a
sandwich that required a lot of jaw work. 
From his personal experiences of numerous hospital stays, Mulder
suspected she would be suffering from nausea; a side effect from the
painkiller she was prescribed to take. One look at her expression, and
he knew he made the right dinner selection for her. She widened her eyes
when Mulder took out a much smaller white paper bag from the bottom of
the big brown paper bag, and gave her a medium sized container of French
Vanilla frozen yogurt. Mulder chuckled at her open-mouthed reaction. 
	"I told you I would bring in a dinner. Not a bite to eat, but a dinner.
That means you'll get everything; complete with desserts." Mulder
commented proudly and began eating his 'shrimp, scallop, and vegetable
stir fry'. Scully knew, however, that he'd gotten her favorite dessert
for her as a back-up plan in case she was too sick to handle any solid
food. He was an expert when it came to gunshot wounds and the various
consequences that come with regular chemotherapy. 
	"How's your mother? I thought you said she was going to join us here?"
	"She was. But Skinner was against it. After reviewing the new medical
data here, Consortium's involvement in this whole mess became obvious.
We agreed that my mother should stay home, instead of coming out here at
such high risk of getting herself in the harm's way." Scully stared at
her hands on the table, her index finger kept busy drawing circles on
the Formica surface.
Mulder understood how badly Scully must've been missing her mother. She
wouldn't be the only one to be disappointed at missing the chance to see
Mrs. Scully, and Mulder knew Scully understood that. This was confirmed
the moment their gazes locked onto each other, and reconfirmed by the
sad smile they shared in that knowledge.
	"So... update me, partner." Mulder said, picking up an unmarked
leather-bound notebook off of the pile in front of him. Then, he took
another bite of his dinner. Scully swallowed the last bite of her rice.
	"That's one of the Jarvis' journals. There's quite a lot, so I'll give
you a short version. You know that Vera has a suspected beginning of a
brain tumor." She got right to the point. Mulder nodded at the mention
of the disease, motioning for her to continue. She looked at him with a
searching gaze, the one that told him to be ready for surprises, because
it was going to hurt. He swallowed hard and leaned back in his chair. 
	"It turns out she inherited it from her mother. It's not an acquired
tumor as we originally thought. I've received the full copy of the
Jarvis' research file you and the Gunmen retrieved from the research
center building. As you know, their independent research almost
exclusively dealt with development of treatments for various form of
brain tumor. They were killed when they were just developing a new
cancer-fighting agent formula to test on a group of women. 
"According to the rest of their data, the couple's research didn't just
focus on brain tumors. It was only the last five years of their lives
that they dedicated their time into it, and there's a reason why they
had to do it." Scully paused to take another bite of her dinner. She
couldn't believe how hungry she really was. 'Must've been the exercise I
got', she thought. Mulder finished his stir-fry, and now worked on the
egg rolls he got as his side dish. Scully never had seen him order any
dessert other than pies and an occasional cheesecake. She figured that a
Chinese restaurant wasn't a place for either item. 
If Mulder considered egg rolls for side dish, Scully could bet a hundred
dollars that he would bring out a bag of sunflower seeds for dessert.
She wasn't disappointed when she saw him empty the big brown bag and a
couple of white plastic bags, both of which were large enough to use as
pillows, dropped on the table. One of them fell off the edge of the
table, and Mulder bent to pick it up. She saw that the fallen bag had
loudly claimed itself to be the 'jumbo size'. She refused to imagine how
his dorm room at Oxford must've looked like during exam seasons. She
shook her head in disbelief when he sheepishly met her gaze. 
"Seeds?" Mulder offered her one of the giant bags, shrugging when she
gave him one of her cold stares and a shake of her head 'no'. 'Only you
would do something like this, Mulder.' She thought. Just then, she
realized the old sparks in his eyes had returnedp; making her wonder for
a fleeting second if he'd read her thought. She tilted her head a bit
and returned him the 'I win' smile for a test. His eyebrows jumped an
inch, and she felt a slight ripple of excitement run up and down her
spine. She quickly got them back to the important business at hand.
They'd just have to continue this silent Ping-Pong mind-game some other
time.
	"Mrs. Jarvis had been a carrier of the cancer gene that's currently
developing inside Vera's sinus. Mrs. Jarvis got into the cancer research
initially to find a cure for the world; herself included. When she got
married to Mr. Jarvis, she knew they would have to find a way to avoid
passing the gene to their future children. They didn't find the cure in
time, but they still decided to take a chance and have a baby. Vera was
the only child they decided to have. Right there and then, their
research grew into a quest to cure their daughter. They heavily relied
on the gene therapy technology. It was very highly experimental at the
time, and the technology wasn't even fully developed. But they didn't
make it in time to see their daughter saved."
	"What happened? I mean..." Mulder trailed off, but his eyes finished
the sentence for her. Scully sat on the edge of the chair and put down
the food. Her gaze drifted to her hands now resting on her lap.
	"The whole thing came crushing down on them when Mr. Jarvis got a
promotion. He was revealed that the center did cancer researches
relating to the alien abductees' undiagnosed and untreatable cancers;
most of which were brain tumors. 
"Speaking of the devil, you'll find the samples inside the glass jars.
They're extracted brain tumors from some subjects' brain tissues.
Jarvis' were cut off from the rest of their old colleagues, and were
instead given their own think tanks. They were desperately trying to get
out of their positions. There are letters of resignation and transfer
requests that they wrote repeatedly at great length to their higher-ups.
They kept trying until the very end. I believe they were forced to
continue with their researches, because their superiors kept threatening
Vera's life."
	"My God, Scully. They took Vera just like they took Samantha. She's an
insurance... an investment! ...I wouldn't be surprised if there are some
clones of Vera running around alongside clones of Samantha in a field
somewhere!" Mulder's words sounded as if they had been squeezed from his
gut and through his mouth. Scully reached out and patted him on his left
shoulder, careful of the stitches healing on his arm. He closed his eyes
to shut himself out of the disturbing imagination, and lightly patted
her on her knee. 
	"Mulder, I found no listing for Vera's relatives, but I did track them
down. Mrs. Jarvis' family wants nothing to do with Vera. I don't think
for a second that Vera would be happy there. Apparently, Mr. Jarvis was
Mrs. Jarvis's second husband. After her first marriage ended rather
messily, her family refused to be in touch with her. Mr. Jarvis had
nobody from the beginning, because his parents were deceased and he was
the only child."
	"Serial murder case was a cover-up... Who identified Vera's body?" He
asked, knowing Skinner's agents assisted Scully in background checks to
be done without his being around. 
	"The remains were deemed unidentifiable. Her parents were tortured
extensively prior to their deaths. But the dead girl was unidentifiable
even by dental record."
	"Why? I mean, they did have DNA technology..."
	"Yeah, but they didn't do that. It was an open-and-shut case, Mulder.
The police believed Jarvis' were murdered by a serial killer. Other
cases were piling up. Relatives of both sides wanted the remains
cremated as soon as possible. Given the publicity, the details and the
nature of the murders, the local homicide team was sympathetic."
	"Not even a dental record?" Mulder asked, watching her take the last
bite of her dinner.
	"No. They didn't find her teeth, nor most of the head. A strong
solution of acid was poured over the girl's face, leaving only some
brain tissues and skull fragments." She said holding up the crime scene
photo she nearly ran to the restrooms for. Mulder paled instantly. 'He
must be thinking about Samantha and the clones', she thought, recalling
how the clones corroded in front of their eyes.
	"Why didn't the police spot this? Anyone can see that if it is in fact
a serial killer hit, he or she will follow patterns. It's obvious that
whoever did this was extremely careful. They couldn't just dump a bucket
of the solution and leave. They had to have been sitting or kneeling
beside the body, pouring the acid bit by bit to create this. Someone
wanted the girl's face to be unidentifiable, but didn't want the case to
be thrown out of court, or go up to the FBI; to our VCU / BSU, let alone
the X-Files." Scully sighed, not liking the haunted look returning on
his face.
	"No one's talking to me about this, because the detective who handled
this case is deceased; an apparent suicide by narcotics overdose. His
partner believes that the detective was deeply affected by the Jarvis
case, and was suffering from violent nightmares." Mulder nodded, but not
in agreement. It was one of his 'yeah, I heard you, but...' nods. 
	"Or, it could be a very plausible lie. Where did the impostor body come
from? I know it's not Vera, but it's somebody." This time, Scully leaned
back into her chair. This was the shadow that was haunting Mulder's
eyes, and she didn't like one bit of what she had to say in reply. She
tried crossing her arms in front of her chest by habit; gritting her
teeth when the white-hot pain ripped through her entire body. Mulder,
ever the intuitive one, broke out of his reverie and almost stood from
his seat to check on her. She shook her head 'no', and went ahead with
her report.
	"I've only been able to track down a body that had been stolen from a
medical school, but the body was of a run-away homeless girl who died
due to an automobile accident." 
	"So... no cancer?" Mulder gave up trying to get her to admit she was in
pain.
	"No. Although the school said they detected a series of infections on
the body such as ringworm and lice. That's normal, considering the
girl's living environment. She also had dehydration and malnutrition."
	"Let me guess. She was about two sizes too small for a seven-year old,
just as Vera had been." Scully's nod was enough for an answer.
	"I guess Vera had been healthy, but her growth hormone may have been
affected by her cancer gene. She's born five weeks premature and spent
the better part of her first six weeks in an incubator."
	"And she still possesses that genius?" Scully stood from her seat and
rested her hands over her hips. "Well, at least one good thing can come
out of all this mess." When he was met with her pouting lips, Mulder
closed his eyes with realization.
	"You haven't told Kathler, yet." It wasn't a question.
	"Karen Kosseff came by just a couple of hours ago and interviewed Jake.
I couldn't possibly dispense either of them all this detail regarding
this case." Scully said as she moved to straighten the strewn papers.
	"No, of course not. I'll tell him." Mulder agreed, remembering Jake's
frighteningly familiar features and his four-legged loyal friend. Mulder
had no idea how or where to start on Jake. Mulder reached for the
melting frozen yogurt and handed it to Scully again with a clean plastic
spoon. He then reached over the mess of food containers and utensils on
the table, swiping them all into the big brown paper bag.  
	"I'll get to work and start catching up. Finish that dessert, and get
some rest, Scully. You've been way over-working. I know it's selfish for
me to say this, but I'm here now to back you up. I'm very sorry to have
missed all that's been happening around here." Mulder stood up and
gently placed his hand on her back; a gesture so familiar and so Mulder,
she couldn't say no. "I'll come up as soon as I know something." 
	"All right, Mulder. He's with Stella in his room. I was staying there
before this happened, mostly as a guard. Jake was unconscious and
defenseless. Other agents wouldn't have recognized if someone tried to
assassinate him under a disguise of a hospital staff."
	"Not to mention that you are a medical doctor." Mulder nodded.
	"I left instructions with Jake's doctors and the hospital security
service to have a nurse posted 24 hours a day inside the room while I'm
gone. I had her check everything before they were administered to Jake.
He's off of the IVs now, and nothing much is required now except waiting
for the stitch removal order." Scully said as she studied the frozen
yogurt container. Mulder thanked her for the precaution. But when he
headed for the door to escort her out of the room, she steered herself
toward the brown leather couch that sat against a wall.
	"We don't have a room set up for us, Mulder. You were gone and Stella's
in my place, so we'll just have to rough it here. We'll take turns, all
right? Go over whatever in there that you want, and I'll get my rest."
She said indicating the table covered with materials. Then she popped
the rid of the yogurt container and took three pills out of the
prescription bottle. 
Mulder watched stock-still on the spot as she downed the painkiller
pills with the slushy yogurt and threw out the container into a small
trash basket sitting next to the couch. She then lay down on the couch a
bit stiffly and settled herself on her back. Mulder rolled his eyes.
'Unbelievable', he thought.
	"Sculllllyyy!! You can't keep doing this to yourself! You've been shot
in the chest for crying out loud! Look, I'll get you a room and a guard
posted 24 hours...!"
	"Breasts are mostly fat tissues and blood vessels. Mulder, I'm fine. I
know how to take care of myself. If you could just dim the lights a bit,
I'll fall asleep faster. This is not your couch, but it's still
comfortable enough." Scully didn't even bother opening her eyes. She was
declaring the end of this argument. 
	"But, Scully..." Her mild attempt at humor on her last comment had
fallen face-flat and she sensed his distress. 
	"You're here, so I'm safe enough. You go back to work, and I'll sleep."
She said as she took out her pain prescription bottle and held it up for
Mulder to see. Mulder dropped his shoulders, surrendering the argument
before pushing her too far. He walked over to her and knelt down beside
her. She kept her eyes closed, but she knew exactly where he was.
	"I'll give in this time, but at least try sleeping comfortably." He
unbuttoned her jacket, then reached down to her feet and removed her
lace-up shoes. Scully briefly smiled. Mulder looked at her, releasing an
inaudible breath. "You amaze me, Scully. Always." She opened her eyes at
the comment and met her partner's smiling face. He was shaking his head,
clearly in awe. "What a trouper you are." She returned his smile and
watched as he stood up. He removed his jacket and wadded it up before
carefully sliding it underneath her head to substitute as a pillow. He
then shook his head once more before walking back to the table. Scully
smiled wider and closed her eyes again, falling fast asleep.


Conference Room #2
Prescott Hospital
Midnight

A slight knock on the door got Mulder to draw his gun and remove the
safety. It was a move he made by reflex, but the moment the door opened,
he quickly pulled it back.
	"Agent Mulder?" Agent Hall stood at the doorway, looking about ten
years older than the last time Mulder had seen the agent. Mulder nodded
and motioned him to come inside. Hall immediately recognized the heap on
the couch, hidden almost entirely under Mulder's black trench coat.
Mulder had thrown it over her a while ago when he checked her out
lightly for any signs of bleeding. Seeing nothing alarming, he returned
to work.
	"Sorry about that, Agent Hall. I didn't know it was you, and frankly, I
hardly recognized you. By the way, that neat pile on the couch is my
partner getting some rest, so keep your voice down. She's on painkiller
pills, so I doubt she'll wake up at all, but we can't be too careful."
Mulder spoke rapidly in a near-whisper and rested his hands over his
hips, ready to listen. Hall nodded with understanding.
	"AD Skinner's still with Clive Shaw, and no one had a chance to update
you on the girl's drawings I've been analyzing. These are the
print-out." Hall indicated the long black sling case in his hand. Mulder
threw his head back, remembering where he had left them. 
	"Oh, yeah. They didn't take the damn VR machine, did they?" Mulder
said, lightly brushing his chin with his hand before taking the case
from Hall and opening it.
	"Agent Mulder, there's a lot in there that I've found..." Hall refused
to continue, instead finishing his sentence with a nod and a hard
swallow. Mulder knew exactly what the young man was afraid of, and
offered the agent his sympathies. 
	"Don't worry, Hall. You know you can trust us. Why don't you give me
the sneak preview and tell me exactly how you did it all." Mulder
directed the younger man to the chair and sat down in the one he'd been
occupying for the last five hours. Hall nodded and followed him.
	"I know that you were trying to dissect the images to clear them up.
What I did instead, was to analyze them by layers; like skimming them
apart layer by layer, and... Well, I've come up with incredible images.
My guess is that the girl, uh, what's her name again?"
	"Vera Maxine Jarvis." 
	"Vera? 'Truth'. Good name. Anyway, my guess is that she began drawing
'scary' images like you said, then began covering them up with the layer
of colors, not necessarily to match them up, but just out of the desire
to hide them. Then added another layer of drawing out a different
fragment of her memory. Some colors, as you predicted, do match them
perfectly. 
"There's a segment of the butchering. This little figure here seems to
be melting on the floor. These figures here have unusually long arms and
legs. Then, there are some weird solid black figures in the corner. ...I
don't know what to tell you, but I think it corroborates your theories.
I can't explain further without your observation. I did the best I could
under the circumstances, and... Oh, can I use the white board?" Hall
indicated the white writing board with some markers lining at the
bottom.
	"By all means." Mulder nodded, watching as Hall took out several
poster-sized copies. As they were spread out in front of him, Mulder
found himself standing open-mouthed. 
	"There'll be more coming up from the basement, but for now, these
should give you a few ideas for some new leads." Hall said, picking up
the pointer stick used often by professors. 
	"Oh, my God. I'll be damned." Mulder's voice was feather-light. Hall
knew Mulder needed close to zero explanation from this moment on. 
	"The one at the very left looks like a description of one of the
examination rooms you talked about before. There's a table and a figure
lying on it, though it doesn't look like a human being. Who knows? And
the one right next to it has letters and symbols we've seen in others."
	"Holy, shit! Hall, this is terrific." Mulder shook his head in
amazement.
	"There's more, Agent Mulder. A lot more. But this middle one has
English alphabets."
	"What?" Finally returning to reality, Mulder turned to the younger
agent. He nodded, his lips drawn thin as tension grew thicker in the
room.
	"Yes. Except that they've been written backwards. Some are even
sideways, tilting in such unusual angles, that we won't recognize them
from underneath the layers of colors Vera used. The English alphabets
seem to be occasionally thrown in among the... unknown letters." Hall
was still very uncomfortable with the new discovery.
	"Angles? Like in third-dimensional images where they turn the letters
around 365 degrees?"
	"Yes. I'll get to the 3-D parts soon, but not just yet." Hall seemed to
find the carpeted floor suddenly too hot to stand on. His discomfort was
oblivious to Mulder, whose eyes were glued to the rows of shapes that
seemed to have the power to draw him into them. These images had
cylinder or rectangular shapes and greenish colors.
	"And what's this... vague image that you isolated? I don't see any
colors, but..."
	"That's a human face ...at least that's what it looks like. If it is, I
say it's a woman. The figure that's standing next to her is also a human
being, although he's got this big bulge on his back."
	"Oxygen tank." Mulder said matter-of-factly. Hall shrugged.
	"I don't know what the hell these rectangles are supposed to be, nor
the cylinders. As you can see, they're colored in green. I believe they
contain liquid."
	"Erlenmeyer Flasks. They're used to produce alien-human hybrids."
	"What?" Hall wondered if he was dreaming. 'Hybrids?' Mulder sent him
another look of sympathy before continuing on.
	"Clones. If you ever see hundreds of your own sister running around in
a field, you'll believe it." Mulder gave the young man a wave of his
hand, dismissing the line of thought and urging him to continue.
	"This... Uh, about these tanks. When I had them on a super close-up, I
could see obscure traces of a figure written inside each of the green.
The only problem is that they're drawn in a light color, and before the
green color was applied over them. I couldn't use the VR machine on
this, so I had to do it by hand. I'm afraid many of the originals are,
well, modified. I erased the green with an eraser to come up with those
trace figures."
	"Yeah, they're the hybrids in the making. Also, this event hasn't
occurred in the outer space, but it's happening right here on Earth. I
don't believe that the aliens would need any glass container to grow
these beings, much less the computer equipment to monitor them."
	"Oh, you've seen them?" Mulder never missed the shudders that ran
through Hall's body.
	"Yeah, several times." Mulder's expression was a half-smile.
	"Oh, man. I thought I was going nuts here. I'm glad you agreed with
me." Hall was truly relieved, eliciting a chuckle from Mulder. He
watched as Hall took down the four printouts and began pulling out
another batch. This time, Mulder helped Hall and they barely squeezed in
the five poster-sized imageries. Then Mulder backed away several feet
for individual observations. Hall stood beside Mulder; ready to deliver
his analysis on the first image whenever the request came. Mulder
nodded.
	"There are about five figures on this first print-out, all of them
unmistakably human beings. The large rectangle with black spots just
barely showing over all the red, black, and yellow seem to be a burning
building. There's a car parked at the bottom of the building, and that's
where the five figures are standing. But this scene is viewed from such
height, that I don't know where she had been to draw this. I'm even
suspecting this to be an aerial shot."
	"Have you any idea what the building is for?"
	"Well, no."
	"I think it's the old Bionix research center. It wouldn't surprise me
if there had been a fire there around the year 1984, maybe 1985. I'll
have it checked out. I just came from their new research facility and it
was much smaller than this building, but their security system was
unusually tight. They had no data available on their brain tumor
researches prior to the year 1985."
	"Agent Mulder, that doesn't make sense. Vera should've been an infant;
not even a toddler. She couldn't possibly remember..."
	"If it was an incident big enough to be covered in a national news like
the CNN, then the Jarvis may have taped the scene. See it on a big
enough screen, and you just might remember it as if you're there.
Explains the heights."
	"Who are these figures? They don't look like fire-fighters to me."
	"A rescue team, maybe. They often dress in a black special uniform, and
they have the headpiece to go with the uniform." Mulder hoped he was
right, because he hated his other guess. 
	"This image should be obvious to anyone with a functioning eye." Hall
said, moving to the next image. Mulder nodded. A bright red coming from
an oval shape in the center was drawn vividly. There were two gray
figures that were towering over at each side, as if...
	"An abduction in progress. But it's been proven in the past that these
gray figures were human beings in special suits. Now, the figures of the
EBEs whom I believe to have encountered were all small in height and
size. None of them reached half my height. They're more like dwarfs and
not towering men. I think these aliens are fake."
	"So, has Vera gone up to space or not?" Mulder furrowed his eyebrows,
suspecting for a fleeting moment if Hall had 'less than the best' of
intentions.
	"I believe she has. She had symptoms of prolonged weightlessness on the
medical records we've wrecked ourselves while trying to find them. But
the fact of the matter is, the state of prolonged weightlessness
experienced by astronauts can be reciprocated by our own existing
technology. There are people who literally wear these hand-made suits
and put on a fake show in order to discredit people like me and Scully
as consequences." 
	"You two put up with a lot of crap. If you could look at the next
image..." Hall didn't want to elaborate on the subject, because he
didn't want Mulder to know just how scared he was about the
'consequences' part himself. But before he spoke a further word, Mulder
chuckled at the image in question.
	"It looks like a school." Mulder's tone of voice was an indicator to
just how excited the man was about this one. 
	"Huh?" The puzzled look on Hall's face only made Mulder grin wider.
	"Okay, maybe it's a meeting. Look at these figures. These are obviously
EBEs, and this large round bulge that's partially showing on left corner
must be her hand. There is no desk or a chair, just the EBEs gathering
around on the floor she's standing on. No one's armed; no one's wearing
anything; but they're all looking at her, or rather, what she has in her
hand or hands. 
"At the top half of the drawing, separate from the bottom half, I can
see two of them side by side. They're hunched over beside a human figure
that's sitting cross-legged on the floor. The human figure there has
something on his or her lap, and some tool. ...I don't know. Maybe it's
a training session."
	"Excuse me, I think I'll be sick." Hall really was pale. Mulder told
him to go take a break, but he refused. "I'm sorry, sir."
	"You've been around Skinner for far too long. I told you to call me
Mulder."
	"Mulder, I'm sorry. I've had about less than six hours' sleep in the
last five days combined, and I'm a little tired. I'll go over the last
three, and tell you about the three-dimensions tomorrow. I took most of
these out of them. I connected them like Jake told me to, and bits and
pieces of them that I mentioned came from them."
	"Jake?" The name felt like a thunder bolt to Mulder's heart, because
he'd been working to gain Jake Kathler's trust from the beginning. The
architect knew a whole lot more than he was telling, and Mulder didn't
have a moment to spare on any more guesswork. 
	"Yes. He's the one who had me bring out the VR machine and told me what
he was thinking. He told me to call him Jake, and..."
	"I don't care. So, he's been cooperating?"
	"Yes. He's been involved in these analysis ever since he woke up, and I
was his guard for most of the time." Mulder released a breath of relief
at the comment.
	"Good. He hadn't trusted me enough to show me these early enough. Does
this mean we have his full support now?" Mulder needed assurances. Hall
nodded.
	"But on one condition."
	"What? You made a deal with him?" This wasn't surprising. Kathler made
a lot of deals on the job, as well as in his private life. Come to think
of it, that was how Jake Kathler communicated with Vera when she first
began to live with him.
	"Yes. Just that we'll keep all this a secret from our social worker."
	"Karen Kosseff. No surprise there. Sure, let's keep them away from her.
It's irrelevant to her investigation, and therefore, she has no need to
know." Vera's artistic talent and Jake's capability in parenting were
two separate matters. 
	"Oh, and the Highway patrol people haven't found any signs of the girl
yet. I'm sorry."
	"It's all right, Hall. We'll do our best, and we'll welcome her back as
safely as we possibly can."
	"I have them calling me daily with updates." Hall stared off to
somewhere far away. Mulder knew the pressure the young agent has been
subjected to in such a short period of time. Looking at Agent Hall,
Mulder swore to make a renewed effort to watch out for this man's safety
and wellbeing.
	"You are one of the primaries on this case. Don't think for one second
that you're not doing a good job. You are doing an excellent, important
job no matter what anyone else tells you. I don't think I would trust
any other computer expert within the bureau, because I know that the
moment they come up with the same images that you've been dealing with,
they'll either think you're a nutcase, or that they're the ones who'd
gone insane and blow their brains out." Mulder's previous intense gaze
grew with such warmth, that Hall actually felt his tension easing away.
'How does he do that?' Hall wondered. 
	"So, do you think Vera actually lived with these, uh, new people?"
	"Yes, I believe so. Why else would she know so much about them? Oh, I
would love to really talk to her, you know? But from all the test
results we've gotten on her, I think she knows exactly how to
communicate with us. Just not with a written or a verbal form of
language. I think she knows how to use mind-scan."
	"You mean, literally read people's thoughts?"
	"We don't have a definite proof, yet. But it's possible."
	"So, she's a psychic?"
	"No. She speaks and reads with her mind. She doesn't speak, because
people who'd been around her never needed to do so. Assuming that Vera
was a completely normal child with a high level of intelligence;
according to the diary and journals Jarvis' left for us to find, she
could have been surgically given this technology. We should  look really
carefully, but we might get lucky and find a few scars on her scalp or
in her optical nerves."
	"Optical nerves?" Hall narrowed his eyes.
	"Yeah, it's the technology to access an individual's memory. Not
lobotomy, mind you. Don't get them confused. They drain selective
memories from human brains. In fact, they achieve such level of results,
that you may remember watching a movie in a movie theater, but not its
contents. You remember going into the theater; you remember getting your
soda and find a seat; but you don't remember what you saw or how you got
home when you wake up the following morning."
	"You're saying it's all done by surgical procedures?"
	"Yes. They had it done on me. I remember calling Scully, and going to
the location of the case. But I don't remember anything about what I
have seen at the air force base we've investigated. I know that I
witnessed some concrete evidence that proved the existence of
extraterrestrial life on Earth. ...But they took it away from me. Next
thing I knew, Scully was pointing a gun at a security guard by their
front gate, and I was being traded for a guy who posed as a journalist,
but was in fact an employee of their UFO project team.
"At the time, I felt dizzy and exhausted, but I still sensed we were in
trouble. I could tell that she was really scared for me, so I just got
in the car as Scully told me to. ...That happened nearly five years ago.
They're probably capable to do variations of this technology by now.
It's probably no trouble for them to access and activate the areas of
the human brain that had been left unused, because through the
evolutionary process, we've reduced our brain function to 1/3 of its
original capabilities."
	"Well, I know that Vera draws and writes; perhaps in their language.
They mostly look like some of the works by Estcher, but... I don't know.
I wish we had more evidence, so that I could believe." Hall shook his
head, his eyes searching for answers that are hidden before his eyes.
Mulder knew how the younger agent felt, because he'd been where Hall was
right now. It was a fun place to be in, but the fun fades quickly as one
venture deeper into the cave of wonders.  
	"What's this last one here?" Mulder asked, not wanting to torment the
young agent any further. If Hall was to actually follow the footsteps of
Scully and him; Hall would be walking on the edge of life and death on
daily basis. Mulder didn't want to lose their newfound ally.
	"Oh, that? That's the one Jake really freaked out about. He told me to
tell you this is what he saw on the night when he first met Vera. Only
it's slightly different from his own witness accounts." Hall said as he
pointed to the bright yellow section of the drawing; unmistakably
belonging to a beam of light. Mulder let himself taken into the image
until he found what he was looking for. Through the myriad dark colors
Mulder closely focus on, Vera had drawn a few horizontal lines over
numerous vertical lines. Mulder remembered Jake's statements about the
unusually bright lightning that lasted for several seconds.
	"Jake's right. This is the skyscraper Jake was hired to build. This
horizontal shape is the security railing at the top of the structure. I
don't think railings are there any more, because Jake's firm took pretty
intense heat over the incident and the entire firm's busting their asses
off trying to finish the building."
	"Yeah, Jake said he had to fly to France over it." Hall has apparently
been spending some time with Jake. 
"Not only that, but there had been a last-minute change to the
construction design and the building was supposed to have another five
floors on top of that." Hall nodded to Mulder, remembering how Jake
talked about it. "The poor guy got whacked because he looks exactly like
me." Mulder added with a wince, obviously not getting over the guilt.
Hall nodded again as he quickly searched in himself for a good reply.
	"But he doesn't have all the memorabilia you got from your
investigations."
	"Hey, you never know. I think that in this drawing she drew about her
experiences of living with Jake, or about when he rescued her."
	"He said he yelled at her harshly, because he was scared to death for
her. He feels bad about it." Mulder shook his head in defiance, eyes
still firmly fixed on the printouts in front of him. 
	"He shouldn't. His honesty was probably the only thing that afforded
him her trust. I've seen him with her, Hall. They're perfect for each
other. You haven't seen them together, but when you do, you'll know. I'm
willing to back this up all the way."  Mulder pursed his lips and began
taking down the precious printouts to be placed back into the case with
the others. Hall shuffled his feet a bit, looking both uncomfortable and
nervous. Noticing the younger man's distress, Mulder stilled his hands
and silently urged the agent to get whatever trouble out in the open.
	"Mulder, I feel a bit safer if I could leave these here with you. I
know you were here to review research materials, but I didn't know that
Agent Scully was here with you. It's better to have both of you than one
of you." Hall said as he handed Mulder the sling case. Mulder nodded and
lay it on the table next to the two boxes. They finished the rest of the
cleanup, and Mulder even made them a cup of fresh coffee with the
coffeemaker placed at one corner of the room. 
Mulder checked on Scully again, taking a second to allow his fingers to
caress her cheeks. When he turned around to return to his seat, Hall was
engrossed in one of the Jarvis' journals. 
"Is she all right?" Hall asked, meeting Mulder's eyes. Mulder nodded,
wondering what must be on the younger agent's mind. Then just as an
idea, he had Hall sit down again in a chair.
	"Did you hear anything about what my partner's done in Vancouver? She's
not telling me a thing, and Skinner's not talking." It was his hunch
that Hall's smoothness with women and other agents got him the whole
story. Hall's eyebrows shot up.
	"You mean, you don't know?!" 'Bingo', Mulder thought, shaking his head.
"Oh, I assumed you'd be the first one to know. It's a legend among the
guys upstairs. Even Jake heard some of it."
	"So, spit it out." Mulder leaned close in his seat impatiently. Hall
chuckled, already imagining how much fun he was going to have with this.




Prescott Hospital Conference Room #2
5 AM

Mulder hang up his cellular, having had the Lone Gunmen's confirmation
on the late Jarvis' journals and their findings. The Lone Gunmen
reported that Vera did in fact have an inherited cancer gene; that what
the MRI and CAT scan showed were probably the suspected tumor growth. 
They also reported it was nearly impossible to recreate the subjected
cancer-fighting agent without the level of sophisticated lab equipment
seen in the FBI Headquarters, or in the FBI's Quantico research
facility. Mulder grumbled with frustration, but he thanked them for the
information. This meant the investigation team might have to take Vera
back to D.C., take biopsies if necessary, and possibly even try the
treatment on Scully. 
Mulder knew Scully didn't have much time, despite her appearance. He
believed that was the reason why she took such an extreme course of
action at the airfield: she wanted to prove to everyone and herself that
she could still do her job. His phone rang again less than a couple of
minutes later, and he was greeted by AD Skinner's droning tone of voice.
The man sounded exhausted, but what alarmed Mulder was the tone of
resignation hinted in the back.
	"Good morning, Sir. What can I do for you?" Mulder knew there was
something very, very wrong for Skinner to show any signs of helplessness
to a subordinate. 
	"Agent Mulder, the building is on fire." Mulder felt his heart skip a
beat.
	"What? Where?! I...!" Mulder was about to rush to Scully when Skinner
stopped him.
	"No! It's not this building, Agent Mulder; it's the Genesis
International. On the third floor you've investigated."
	"Oh, God. How...? Just the third floor? The Bionix Cancer Research
Lab?"
	"You know as well as I do that's the one. I've been told that the
entire floor's been reduced to a pile of rubbles, and they're now
desperate to save the building itself. The entire building may collapse,
if all the weight of the top floors crush down on the second floor."
Mulder paled, wondering the fates of his friends, not to mention Sarah
Martin, on the fifth floor of the building.
	"Sir? The fifth floor is the Keneally Psychological Research Lab..."
	"I can only say that any further investigation in that building is
useless. At least you got what we needed in time." Skinner was missing
the point, but Mulder wasn't going to let this go without making sure
that the Kenearly lab staff was safe.
	"Sir, have you heard of any news regarding the Kenearly lab?" 
	"Agent Mulder, I'm not at the scene. No one in the FBI with the
exception of you, Agent Scully, Agent Hall, and myself know about what
you were doing in Sacramento. All I can do is ask the officials for
generic information." Mulder sighed.
	"Sir, you know as well as I do that Cancer Man heard about my digging
around."
	"Calm down, Agent Mulder. There's nothing we can do. Concentrate on the
matters at hand. I'm still with Shaw, but I can already feel the fire
blowing at us. We need to wrap this case up. Submit your report on all
new findings by noon today. I need to sign your reports and make them
official before anything else happens."
	"Yes, sir. I'll get on it right away." Mulder rubbed his free hand over
his face. The truth was, Mulder had been getting on it for the past
eleven hours, but he needed Scully to finish it all up. Just when he was
about to hang up, Skinner's voice stopped his thumb in mid-air.
	"Is Agent Scully there with you?"
	"Yes, sir. Should I get her for you?" He winced at the thought. She
needed as much rest as she could get. Fortunately, the AD had the same
idea.
	"No, that won't be necessary. You're the department head. Tell her that
I'm going to give her a two-day time off as soon as she's done helping
you with the report. Her appointment is at four-thirty this afternoon.
She needs to fly there in time, and that means you must dismiss her by
ten at latest. I'll have the temporary leave forms ready to be delivered
to you. Understood?"
	"Yes, sir. Thank you." Mulder barely finished before the connection was
terminated. Mulder sighed, looking at the printouts Hall had left for
them. Mulder had been studying them for the previous hour, unable to
take his mind off of them.
Mulder returned them to where they belonged, then touched the keyboard
of his laptop. The swimming fish in front of him disappeared in a flash,
replaced by the familiar images of the Bionix files; particularly the
formula for the cancer treatment. He studied them for God knew how many
times in the last four hours, and decided he'd seen it enough. 
Turning the computer off, he picked up the pile of police reports on
Jarvis' research staff members that Scully brought. Mulder had to admit
that he was scared to half-death. He knew he wasn't alone, but thinking
of just how many more victims like Samantha and Vera; how many more
women such as Scully and Penny Northern
there are. 
He turned to look at Scully, who was mercifully under a chemical-induced
sleep. His vision instantly blurred, and he quickly slapped himself on a
cheek, luckily managing to avoid the stitches. He tore through the
police reports, but soon he slammed them shut and buried his head in his
arms. He knew how badly he needed to sleep, but his mind refused to turn
itself off. 'Skinner was right', he thought. He could almost feel the
engulfing flame licking at his back, and the stifling smoke stunk of
Morleys.
	Mulder stood up, carrying the chair he had been sitting in. He was
careful and quiet while approaching Scully; then stopping and setting
down the chair about two feet away from her head. Somehow, he felt safer
when he was closer to her. Time flew over them until he saw her stir,
trying to shift herself on her right side. His hands quickly stopped the
movement, gently guiding her to turn left. Her body complied, making him
smile. He lightly removed a few strands of her hair that were straying
out of place, and tucked them behind her ear. He smiled again, but the
moment he looked at his watch, he was back in the real world. He needed
to do as much as he could without her before it was time to wake her up.

	It was eight-thirty when an agent brought him Scully's temporary leave
authorization form. Mulder thanked the agent and went back to work. When
he was done at about nine, he picked up his cellular phone and called
Margaret Scully to inform her of the temporal leave that her daughter
was ordered to take. She thanked him and promised to be at the hospital
in time. 
As an after-thought, he asked Margaret if she wanted to wake Dana up for
him, because it was time for Dana to leave Los Angels. Margaret laughed
her signature laugh, to which Mulder responded with a chuckle. He sat
down on the armrest of the couch and shifted his black trench coat until
Scully's shoulders were exposed. He took an immense pleasure in gently
touching her cheek. When she stirred but hadn't yet opened her eyes, he
reached to caress her hair and continued the movement until her
ocean-blue eyes fluttered open. 
	"Good morning, Scully. There's someone wanting to talk to you." Mulder
smiled at her puzzled expression. It was apparent that she hadn't yet
registered what was going on. He handed her the phone and gave her some
semblance of privacy by leaving for the coffee machine. He got a fresh
cup of coffee before reluctantly heading for a tray of pastries that was
provided for them at the courtesy of the hospital.
	"Mom?" Scully's expression of surprise soon turned into a frown as
Scully realized what Mulder had done. She sat up a bit stiffly on the
couch and glared at him from across the room. Mulder was now wagging the
authorization papers in front of his face and grinning. 
	"No, Mom. I'm fine, I..., I don't think I can leave..."
	"Yes. You can, and you will. By the direct order of the FBI Assistant
Director Walter Sergei Skinner." Mulder closed distance in between them,
speaking loud enough for Margaret to hear. Scully slapped him on his
knee and poked the holy document that stared at her from inches away.
She realized she was going no matter what; she could read Skinner's
signature right where Mulder's index finger was tapping on. Mulder
watched her like a hawk, but he respected her privacy enough to walk
back to the table and pour his partner her cup of coffee. While tossing
in and stirring the cream, he could hear Scully's side of the
conversation.
	"Yeah, Mom. I'll see you at the hospital today, then. ...Sure, thanks
for calling me. It's so nice to talk to you, too. ...What? The news
report? Mother, I'm fine. I told you, I have no broken bones or ruptured
arteries. ...Yes, I still have my arm. Yes, my breast is fine. ...Quit
it, Mom!" Mulder choked on his coffee just imagining what Mrs. Scully
might have said to provoke Scully's last comments. Mulder almost missed
the rare sight of Dana Scully blushing. The possible reasons coupled
with the sight of his partner's blush flamed his own cheeks. 
Mulder cleared his throat and downed a slug of the hot liquid for cover
before he had the chance to consider the consequences of that particular
action. His eyes instantly grew moist as the heat and pain registered in
his brain. By reflex, he opened his mouth like a dog, trying to cool his
mouth down. Seeing how he was breathing with his tongue sticking out of
his mouth, Scully bit on her tongue to keep herself from bursting into
laughter. She concentrated on what her mother was saying to spare Mulder
the embarrassment of realizing he had been watched. Soon, Scully
realized how much Margaret Scully was still worried about her daughter's
wellbeing and she set about calming Maggie's nerves. 
"...Mom? Mom, you should sleep in. ...I took a nice na... oh, God! I've
been sleeping for more than twelve hours. ...I'm fine. ...Okay. I love
you, too." Scully hang up the phone and motioned to stand up, but Mulder
beat her to it. Now fully recovered from his embarrassing predicament,
he handed her the coffee and a jelly donut with a filling that he knew
to be her taste. She thanked him for them, then looking down at herself,
she thanked him for the coat. Mulder smiled and sat down on one end. 
	"I needed to have you awake, Scully. Skinner wanted us to submit a
preliminary report to put whatever we found so far on record. He's
having a hard enough time keeping up with everything. Just this morning
at about five, he called me to tell me that the Genesis International
building that I investigated in Sacramento just went up in flames. No,
sit down." Seeing Scully's reaction, he quickly rested his hand on her
left shoulder. "Skinner personally told me that he could feel the heat
of the fire. I think you need to take an agent with you to escort you.
Even if I don't order it, Skinner's going to assign you one, anyway. 
"He told me to dismiss you by ten at the latest; which means you need to
be out of here by then. I've done all I could on my own, so I just need
you to read them over in the computer and insert whatever additional
comments you want. So far, I wrote that we have a shot at finding who's
behind the arson and explain our need to reopen the Jarvis' murder case.
If we go though everything in that pile and still have Clive Shaw to
request additional information, we might just have the chance to get a
good kick in Cancer Man's gut. But I did conclude that we don't have
enough for a conviction just yet." Scully dropped her shoulders,
realizing just how much effort Mulder was putting in to make things as
easy as they could get for her. The best part was, Mulder tried his best
never to make that fact obvious.
	"All right, damnit. But you better keep me posted." Scully warned him
as she tossed the empty paper cup into the trash basket. She walked over
to the table while munching on the donut, but headed for the coffee
machine instead to get herself a new cup. Mulder knew what she was
trying to do, and gave her the remains of his bottled mineral water. She
took it gratefully and quickly downed two prescribed painkiller pills
with it. She then sat down at the table and began reading. 


Jake's Room
Prescott Hospital
Noon Same Day

"My God. What the hell happened to you, Mulder?! You look...!" 
	"Stop. I know what I look like." Mulder pointed his index finger at
Jake's refreshed, ready-to-be-out look. Jake rolled his eyes in
disbelief. When he looked up, though, his eyes held a level of intensity
that Mulder was so familiar with. Stella heard the commotion and lifted
her head.
	"Very funny. That's not what I meant, and you damn well know it. When's
the last time you slept?" His gaze held an accusatory, knowing look.
Mulder dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.
	"That's not important. Look, I agreed to keep the deal you made with
Hall. Karen's coming back again today to interview you." Mulder advanced
further into the room, looking out of the window to welcome the sight of
Los Angels under a blue sky.
	"Thanks for telling me that. How long have you been awake?" Jake didn't
give up.
	"Look! I appreciate your concern, but we're only trying to keep
everybody alive and safe to testify for us in court." Mulder was too
exhausted to hide his temper. Jake nodded with an expression damn close
to a smile. Jake's entire face was screaming: 'I'm not taking this bull
shit from you'. 
	"You look, Mr. F-B-I! Do you have any idea just how many agents are
crawling around in this hospital? Any idea how many teams Skinner's been
sending around this fucking state? I'm safe enough. Elly's safe enough.
Stella's safe enough by staying here with me. Your precious Clive Shaw
is safe enough. Your little war room down stairs is safe enough. Hell,
even Dana's safe, enough since getting the time-off!" Mulder clenched
his jaw so tightly, he heard his teeth complain. He quickly approached
Jake's bed, gritting his teeth even more with the force of storm raging
inside him.
	"What the hell did they say to you?! I'm fine, Jake! I've been away for
two weeks, but I was in training. You're not responsible for everybody's
life!" Mulder was shouting, and the nurse who'd been passing by the room
looked in to see what was wrong. Her eyes rounded when she saw Mulder.
He took out his budge and showed it to the female nurse. She left the
room in a hurry. Mulder sighed, admitting his defeat. He dropped into
the chair set next to Jake's bed, and turned to pat on Stella's head.
	"Thanks to you, she's recovering nicely." Jake resumed his calm,
stretching his arm to its limit to pat her on her head. She looked up
groggily and licked Jake's hand. Mulder shrugged and kept his hand
moving over the large black spot on Stella's lower back. "I apologize
for jumping up on you like that. But really, what went so wrong to make
you care about Dana so much? 
"You give Dana the impression that you over-protect her. I can
understand where that came from, because I've been living with you two
for about a week before all this happened. On the first day, you told me
that she needed to eat more. On the second day before you left for San
Francisco, she told me that you needed as much sleep as you could get. 
"I have to confess that I've heard a lot of stories about you; both the
good ones and the bad ones. You're not God, Mulder. Not every fucking
wrong that happens to any of us in here or out there, is your fault. No
one's fate, with the exception of your own, is in your hands. You have
such degree of integrity, that you excessively burden yourself with the
responsibilities of your job. Honestly, I never understood why anyone
would refuse to acknowledge these truths. You should be getting nothing
less than their utmost respect." Mulder grinned at the last words, but
kept his silence. Jake pulled back his hand from Stella to rest it at
his knees, over the bedcovers. "What's wrong with Dana?" The question
was simple and straight. Mulder swallowed quickly against the imaginary
knife that was tearing at his gut.
	"Ahh... I don't think I should be the one to be telling you that. It's
her personal problem." Jake saw Mulder's gaze darting everywhere except
on his eyes, and nodded his understanding for Mulder's need to hide his
pain.
	"That serious, huh?" Jake muttered. Mulder didn't answer, but his jaw
clenched. Jake dropped his shoulder and took a deep breath to change
gear. "Let's just go over what we have on you here. I'll start by what I
know or believe as facts. Aliens abducted your baby sister when you were
twelve and she was eight. Your parents ended up divorcing because of
this unfortunate incident. You escaped to England and eventually became
an Oxford graduate psychologist. You were scouted into the FBI, then
graduated top of your class at Quantico. You became the FBI's top VCU
mind-hunter. You were their golden boy until one fateful day when you
stumbled over the X-Files and got shoved down in the J. Edger Hoover
building's basement. Your first name is Fox, and your nickname's
'Spooky'."
	"How'd you know that those are acutally 'facts'?" Mulder tapped on the
floor with his feet, wondering more about how Jake learned so much about
him than Jake's motive for coming out with this surprise attack on his
ego. Jake shook his head 'no', clearly in a gesture that the man had
this show for now. Mulder waved a dismissal. 
	"Now, on to the bad stories. You have a knack for ignoring Bureau
protocols, and you rarely go 'by the book' in your investigations. You
have little faith in the United States Government, yet you've worked
throughout your entire career for Uncle Sam. You keep giving the
Hollywood Sci-Fi writers a run for their money with your
out-of-this-world theories. By doing this, you keep giving your high-ups
good reasons to gang up on you and your department's reputation." Now
Mulder furrowed his eyebrows, because he didn't know just who opened up
whose big mouth to get Jake so very informed.
	"Have you any idea what kind of trouble your sources can get into by
revealing this much internal information to anyone outside law
enforcement community?" Mulder tried this mild threat to hopefully keep
Jake's next attack at bay. It didn't work.
"Let's move on to the really bad stories. You've reportedly gone insane
while searching for Scully after she was abducted, which leads us to the
rumor of you having an encounter of sexual nature with a female suspect
in a vampire cult case. This last rumor gave birth to a large population
of broken hearted men, since there were lots of male staff in the entire
FBI who suspected you as a single, devastatingly handsome, and utterly
desirable homosexual male. The majority of the FBI believes you've been
having a decidedly unprofessional nature of relationship with your
partner despite their knowledge of evidences to contradict their
groundless rumors."
Mulder was so shocked to hear the mention of that particular LA case, he
didn't have the presence of his mind to silence Jake with a retort. In
fact, his mouth refused to form a word in reply as he stared agape at
Jake, who gave him a 'it's not a big deal' wave. Now Mulder began
contemplating all sorts of enjoyable method of torture to conduct on
Jake's own personal Deep Throats. 
"I want names, Jake. I want them right now. Who told you all this? A lot
of what you just told me is classified information. Okay, I admit that a
lot of people in the Bureau knew about the time when Scully went
missing. A lot of people saw me scavenging in the dark for any clues
leading to Scully's whereabouts, and I admit that I snapped at Skinner
during a meeting held in his office. But why would anyone know about the
cult case I investigated?"
"This is LA, Mulder. You were here, and so were lots of people." This
was why Mulder was so reluctant to return to this City of Angels in the
first place. He slammed a fist into his other palm, grimacing as the
sharp pain hit the hand, then kept going until it bounced back at the
socket of the arm. Seeing Mulder's distress, Jake threw his arms in the
air, and winced at the pain the movement caused. Wanting to explain just
what Mulder was getting wrong but not being able to find enough
patience, Jake released a frustrated sigh and began yelling. 
"Why do you do all this to yourself, Mulder?! Do you think I've been
airing your dirty laundry for nothing? Don't you get my point here? None
of these details about your past changes a thing about how I feel about
you! I bet the same goes for everyone who knows you well enough! People
can whack me in the head again; they can even bomber me again with yet
another load of skeletons hiding in your closet, and I still wouldn't
change my mind about you! Dana's of the same opinion, yet you refuse to
believe her!"
"You believe whatever the hell you want, Kathler! But regardless, I'll
find out who tipped you with all this, and then I'll drop both of your
asses before the Office of Professional Conduct for a hearing. Your new
friend will be out of the job in a matter of seconds, and he'll be lucky
if he avoids a jail sentence in the court of law!!" Mulder was now
standing up, shouting into Jake's ears regardless of who heard him.
Deep down, Mulder knew there was some bigger plan at work in Jake's
mind; that Jake was only taunting Mulder to yank him out of the closely
guarded fortress of his heart. But goodness help him, Mulder was losing
control on his pent-up rage.
"Dana's got horrible nicknames like 'Ice Queen' and 'Mrs. Spooky'. She
lost lots of friends while supporting the X-Files and you. She lost her
elder sister, who was shot dead mistaken for Dana. She had been abducted
five times in the course of the past four years; one of which being an
alien abduction. But still, she insists she wouldn't change a day of her
life even if she had a chance." 
	"She just might take that back tomorrow for all I know. She shouldn't
have been with me. I needed her, but she didn't need me. At least, not
until recently. Right now, all she should be worried about is herself;
not me. Never about me."   
	"Dana said you have a tendency to blame yourself every damn time, that
it's exhausting trying to convince you otherwise." 'Deep Throat Number
One.' Mulder thought, not being surprised, but rather hurt that she'd
share so many private information with Jake Kathler; Fox Mulder's mirror
image, and a perfect confidant.
	"I'm going to punish her for saying that. She better thank Skinner for
getting her a time off." Mulder grunted, but Jake knew that Mulder
wasn't mad at his beloved partner. The agent's forlone gaze betrayed the
man's own words.
	"I didn't know you were her senior; that you were the department head.
You never act like a boss. I know you act like a FBI agent as much as
you need to, but it's refreshing to actually witness someone exhibiting
a model behavior. I'm a boss of many people, and I'm a partner to many
people; but none of us get along the way you do. I get angry. I kick and
scream my gut out when something bothers the hell out of me. I don't go
looking for fights, but I did pick up one or two in the past." Mulder
noticed Jake's need to talk about something personal. He assumed Jake
was trying to even out the score by airing out his own dirty laundry and
opening up a padlocked closet of his own for Mulder's benefit.
	"Does this have anything to do with the official complaint filed
against you by the construction guy? Thomas?" Mulder knew he nailed Jake
when the man shifted uncomfortably before nodding his admittance. 
	"It was a game of 21, the extreme version. I wanted to get revenge, but
I was so enraged, I actually endangered both of our lives that night.
Alex killed herself because that guy didn't let her go. She told him she
was getting married to me, and she needed to end their affair. Thomas
threatened her by telling her that 'it ain't over until he says it's
over'. According to her diary, this scared shit out of her."
	"That would scare anybody. She could've consulted this with her
friends, then maybe even go to the police and talk to them." Mulder only
wanted to distract Jake for a second with his interference, because Jake
was suddenly looking pale and a bit green at the gills. The level of
trauma Jake suffered upon learning the truth behind his fiance's suicide
must have been devastating. Jake shook his head in defiance.
"I should've been home that night, Mulder. I should've taken time off
when she needed me to; when she begged me to. ...She was giving me
warnings. I know that now. The worst thing is that I knew she was in a
whole lot more trouble than she was showing on the outside, but I did
close to nothing about it. I didn't know why she was crying; why she was
suddenly talking about how she used to think she wouldn't wake up the
next morning if she fell asleep. I didn't think deep enough when she
told me why she felt as if her mother was still controlling her life. 
"In her diary, she talked about a lot of things about herself that I
never even knew or suspected. Like, why she was so fascinated with fire;
why she felt she wasn't worth shit; and why she thought her friends
would kick her away if she ever told any of them of her affair with
Thomas. Mulder, I should've been there for her instead of taking her
for-granted. I should've never made assumptions about what was the best
for her, or what she was really thinking behind her smiles. ...It's so
hard to know." Jake was now picking on his nails, his eyes only
occasionally meeting his.
	"Jake. It's my psychology degree, and two-week psychiatry training
talking, but what Alex should've gotten is a professional help. It is
obvious that the situation was out of control way before you came into
her life. I retrieved your case file, and I know she had an abortion
when she was eighteen. Her parents are divorced. Those are enough
reasons for anyone to seek some type of professional help. 
"She should've confessed to you about having an affair with Thomas. She
should've told you that she chose you in the end, because you were whom
she wanted as her life-partner. She should've known you well enough to
understand that you'd forgive her in time. What she was doing wasn't a
crime, because legally speaking, anyone can have more than one sexual
partner for as long as it stops before the wedding. What she did with
Thomas maybe immoral, but not illegal. The true crime she committed was
suicide." Mulder paused to wait for Jake's reaction, but this time, Jake
was the one who stayed silent. Mulder leaned forward and rested his
elbows on his knees.
	"Jake. You know how long I've been doing this job. People take their
own lives for many reasons. I've taken a case in Alaska where an
ice-core sample research group was found dead. There was absolutely no
survivor. They were infected with a species of worm that entered their
bodies as hosts. The aggressive nature of the worms made their hosts
lethal; thus successfully turning a group of intensely trained scholars
into murderers. They kept killing one another until they were down to
just two men and a dog. These two men had their guns pointed at each
other. The moment they faced each other, they understood what they had
become and the magnitude of the consequences of their actions. They
finally pointed their guns to their own heads and pulled the triggers.
Either way, results would have been the same. But I think it was their
last-ditch effort to preserve what was left of their dignity, and to
save the lives of our investigation team that they knew would eventually
come looking for them. But they forgot to shoot the dog, and it
survived. We've lost our pilot and a research assistant as a result of
the same infection as the researchers died of.
	"There also was a case where a cult group committed mass-suicides, and
one of the victims was a woman who we both believed to have been my wife
in our past life. We got our past names, layouts of the Civil War battle
and the bunker that I never knew about before. It's a long story, and
we've used regression hypno-therapy which afforded no credibility for
our story. I didn't feel like finding anything more about my past life
after that woman died of forced suicide, and the FBI was desperate to
close the case to save face. Scully was worried, because I suddenly
became someone else in my own eyes, and she felt uncomfortable, because
I saw Scully as my fellow soldier in my regressed life. All of us
reportedly have died in that Civil War battle against the Union army. 
"Then, there was a man who returned injured from a war, and desperately
wanted to die. I mean, this guy deliberately threw himself into boiling
water, and still didn't succeed. This man actually ended up surviving
through a series of suicide attempts, and now works in the military base
as a mail courier. There'd been no more suicide plan from the guy, and
the last I heard, his bosses have been treating him very nicely. 
"Then, I've had that vampire cult case here, which you've already heard
about." Explaining about himself and Kristin Kilar was something he
never wanted to do again. How the hell was he supposed to know that
there were security cameras set up in nearly every room of the huge
mansion? Kristin never showed any concern for them, and it never even
occurred to her to warn him about them. Well, he had to remember that
she was already half insane before she even met him. All he had to do to
close the case file after his return to DC was to tell his bosses that
all DNA evidence had been destroyed by the fire, and that the fire also
destroyed the security tapes in the basement. 
"There was this woman who was running from three vampires who kept
chasing her wherever she went. She was protecting herself in every way
possible, but she eventually took her own life to become a vampire
herself. She didn't do this only because she was a definite believer in
vampirism, thus believed she could kill them all by first becoming one
of them before taking her own life, because a vampire can only be killed
by another vampire. But she also killed herself to protect my life from
the vampires.
"I was there to protect her, but she already knew that I needed to find
Scully. This case happened during the time Scully was missing, and at
the time I was investigating this cult case, I was beginning to lose
hope of ever finding her. I think Kristen wanted to save my life,
because she knew that this chase would never be over wherever she ran
to, and regardless of whom she was with. Also, what gave her the final
push was her knowledge that I was their next chosen victim. 
"During the short period of time that I spent with her, she told me
stories about her past and about herself. I believe that my being who I
am helped earning her trust. I asked her how she got herself into this
vampire business. ...She was a victim of severe child abuse, and she
became obsessed with blood sport after tasting her ex-boyfriend's blood
by accident after he beat her up. At the same time, she told me that the
jerk also tasted her blood, and together they got into the blood sport.
"She told me about how ...how her father used to beat her up, and that
he once broke two of her tooth. After asking me if I'd ever tasted
blood, and after describing to me how it tasted to her, she told me that
when she bled, she at least knew that she was still alive. "
	"Sounds like the relationship between Alex and fire." Jake commented,
nodding to himself. 'That's true.' Mulder thought.
	"My point in all of this talk is that people can and do kill themselves
for many reasons. There are a variety of situations and reasons to
trigger such cruelty against oneself, but Alex had many chances. She had
every way to get herself out of her troubles. One: she had you. Two: she
had friends. Three: she had time to act. Four: she wasn't suffering from
any particular terminal illness. She was indeed suffering, but her
suffering was an emotional pain of which she perceived and considered as
an eternal one. 
"Alex could have gone to counseling at any time in her life. If she ever
had, it's obvious that she wasn't in it for long enough. Or, maybe she
wasn't motivated enough. She should have spilled her guts. She could
have stopped you physically if she had to, just to keep you from going
to work, so you'd eventually sit down with her to talk. She could've
even left the house and told you that she wasn't ready for a marriage,
yet. But she didn't take any of these options. Instead, she chose to
give up living entirely. That's a very serious crime to commit against
any faithful human being."
	"Have you been betrayed?" Jake's question felt like a sharp blade,
plunged deeply into Mulder's already broken heart. Mulder thought up a
reply for a few seconds before nodding a few 'yes'.
	"We were together ...or so I believed, ...in Oxford. I was in love with
her from head to toe, but she only kept me for fun; a change of wind.
What I didn't know at the time was that I wasn't the only favorite she
had in her arms. I was young and stupid back then. I was getting
top-level grades. I was regarded very highly among the faculties, thus
they put me through the highest level of classes that Oxford had to
offer. My successful academic accomplishments inflamed my ego, and I was
also being considered as one of the best basketball players that the
university had in their hands at that period of time." Mulder gave a
defiant shake of his head to Jake's 'way to go, man!' look. Jake pursed
his lips, getting Mulder's 'brace yourself' look.
"All this attention never helped my already inflaming ego, and on top of
that, there were lots of girls who were willing to date me or take me
out to dinners if not to their rooms. So, having me in their arms became
a competition among the female students who lived on and off the campus.

"I went out with a couple of women during my freshman year, but I
quickly learned that they only wanted a few sentences about meaning of
life from my mind before they got their money's worth from my body. In
fact, none of the women who came on to me wanted their families to know
who I was. None of them wanted to spend weekends with me if they weren't
going to 'get any'. I was supposed to be their secret lover; someone who
they wanted to know, only because I was a Scottish-Jewish cross,
American male student from a rich broken family who had flying colors on
his report cards and in basketball courts." 
Both Mulder's expression and tone of voice turned bitter as the memories
hit. Jake tightened his pursed lips, his eyes holding a pained
expression of one who understood the pain of betrayal. Mulder never gave
Jake more than a few seconds of glance before nodding briefly and kept
on with the rest of the story. 
"I sometimes helped them with their own homework or projects if they
happened to be in the same classes as me. But that never helps any one
to learn about each other. I admit that before I left US, no one who
knew me or my childhood wanted to have anything to do with me. I never
went to a prom. I never even went to the homecoming dances, and I never
attended Christmas parties in which I knew kids from my school would
attend. I was never ready to face the only game in which I knew I would
lose, and that was the game of love." Mulder visibly tensed as the
memories hit him full-force again. Mulder inhaled a deep breath, then
held it for several seconds before releasing it. This exercise always
helped Mulder in such a situation, and it worked again as he'd hoped.
He'd never told any of this to anybody. Not even his old therapist knew
about these issues to this degree, and it had been nearly a decade ago
since he'd seen the female therapist in England.
"I was pretty good at covering my tracks, but Phoebe Greene was nothing
if not brilliant. Her experiences in conquering men's hearts and leaving
them to bleed to death helped her to see my covers right through. I
believe she'd been spying on me until the time came for her to pounce on
me. I say this, because when I met her, she knew how exactly to approach
me. She knew what sort of behavior would best capture my attention, and
she quickly learned what kinds of stories to pull on me to make me laugh
or cry." Mulder was talking while keeping his eyes to the scenery
outside the windows, so he missed Jake's complexion growing paler as he
went on. 
"She always knew how to best show off her beauty to intrigue me; knew
how to show me off to other girls as if I was her trophy that had now
been captured securely in her arms. The very moment when I allowed
myself to take a plunge into her arms, ready to give her everything I
had in the world, was the moment when I dug my own grave. My conquered
heart took all Phobe's fun out of having me around. 
"She spent about the next three months carefully dissecting me, picking
my brains where she detected a tenderness. She then went about tearing
me apart bit by bit, breaking my confidence and reducing me to nothing
more than a pile of broken dreams, broken promises and despair. I
must've looked like a night demon's leftover dinner at that point.
Phoebe even succeeded in breaking my spirit, until it got to a point
where a mere sight of her would nauseate me. She was just one who
wouldn't quit until everything was complete, and this meant until I was
incapacitated or beyond repair." 
Now Jake was visibly wincing, seriously questioning Phoebe Greene's
sanity. Jake could think of a thousand tortures that a hoard of women
who wrote to him would love to conduct on her. Just then, Mulder chanced
a look at Jake and shrugged in silent acknowledgement. Jake's good hand
made a flap-flap in the space in between his knees over the bedcovers,
clearly attempting to say something, but not being able to. Mulder
turned toward the windows again, leaning forward to rest his elbows over
his knees. He exhaled a huge breath before going on with the last bit of
his Phoebe story. 
"I knew from a long time ago before our break-up happened that she
wouldn't be good to me. But I was already addicted to her spontaneity,
her spark, her intelligence, and her body. She was like a potent
narcotic that you just can't stop once you start. I should have known
that when I finally gathered up my nerves to deliver my parting words to
Phoebe, she'd already seen it coming from me. She knew it was about
time, and she'd been planning on how best to deliver one last kick into
my already-broken heart. She was ahead in her own game, and she never
gave me the chance to hold an upper hand. After my call, asking her to
meet me somewhere to talk in private, she very calmly asked me to come
to her place, because she wanted to show me something. I was too stupid
to realize what tricks she had up her sleeve, so I agreed.
"When I got to her place, her door was unlocked. For a second I was
worried if something bad had happened to her, so I knocked on the door
three times, three knocks each. There was no answer, so I really became
worried and opened the door. I thought about calling the police at the
sight of all the clothes scattering on the living room floor, but I
realized there was no signs of a struggle. No blood stain on the
polished hardwood floor, not a broken window nor china in sight.
However, I did find an empty bottle of brandy on the kitchen counter. I
was inspecting the pieces of clothing that decidedly belonged to a man's
business wear when I got the first inkling of what was really going on
in this apartment. I didn't own many business suits back then, and
certainly nothing with pinstripes. I felt my blood rushing to my feet at
the implications this situation offered me.
"The classic music coming from a CD player mixed with the groans and
moans from the bedroom gave me even more evidences that my fears were
realized. That she was fucking a man in her bed; the very Queen-size bed
where I used to lie. The worst part was, this wasn't the only time I
caught her sneaking around with another man. Each time I confronted her
about her disloyalty to me, she managed to find a way to somehow blame
me for her faithless acts. She never said anything to me directly, but
asked me questions that were purposely formed to lead me to doubt
myself, or hate myself.
"I burst into her bedroom, my arms full of all the clothes I gathered
from the living room. When I saw her riding a red-faced man twice her
age like a bronco, I threw their clothes in their faces and told her
that it was over between us. That I never wanted to see her face or hear
her voice again. She had the nerve to laugh at me, squeeze her new
bedmate's balls in front of 'my' eyes, then ask me if I wanted to 'join'
them. I gritted my teeth and told the guy to enjoy her tortures. The guy
shouted at me to get the hell out of his sight, and I gladly did as he
asked. The last thing I heard as I was leaving was the guy reaching his
orgasm. I remember puking my guts out just outside her front door." 
Now Jake gaped at Mulder, honestly wondering how the man ever survived
the experience in one piece. No wonder Mulder never sold himself cheap
despite the hungry eyes women often sent to him. From the strong words
Mulder responded with to his self-loathing about not being there to
support Alex, Jake had been suspecting that Mulder must've thought
seriously about doing the same to himself before deciding against it.
Jake wouldn't be surprised a bit if Mulder was suicidal around the time
this traumatic event had taken place. Sensing Jake's prying eyes, Mulder
stood up from his seat and began pacing in front of the windows. Jake
noted the man's arms were crossed in front of his chest; a defensive
gesture.
"Phoebe is a mind-player extraordinare; but a player who knows exactly
what buttons to push to play her boys. Ten years after we broke up, she
still had nerves to show up in my life to throw me and Scully into a
spontaneous human combustion case, fully aware of my phobia for fire.
She still knew, even after ten years, just how to play me. She alienated
me from Scully, showed her old aggression and spontaneity by booking me
into a hotel room without consulting me first, then flashed me that
mischievous Phoebe smile that was drenched with seduction. She had us
dancing, and eventually kissing in each other's arms. 
"I was stupid to have fallen into her trap again, but she made every
move that made me want to believe she really wanted to make up for what
she's done to me. The very next day, I caught her kissing the married
guy whom she was assigned to protect. Did I mention that the guy had a
perfectly lovely wife and two kids?" Mulder rolled his eyes, recalling
his moment of realization that he was being had once again. At least
this time she didn't ask him to 'join' in her fun with the distinguished
gentleman in her arms. Jake released a gasp of disbelief, then cursed a
blue string before getting himself calmed down enough to drink a whole
cup of water and face Mulder's rather amused expression; no doubt
enjoying every word Jake would have loved to spit out in Phoebe's
beautiful face. 
	"Jesus fucking Christ!! Any sane person would wonder why she's still
alive. How can this woman keep living with herself that way?!" Stopping
and leaning against the window glass, Mulder shrugged and answered Jake
matter-of-factly.
	"That's very simple: absence of guilt, and a complete lack of remorse.
Love is just a game to her. Each man's heart is a card to play. When she
came to me after ten years, she had me and Scully believing that there
was a plastic bomb planted in our car. She left a cassette tape with a
message, saying we were already sitting on it; that it was underneath my
driver's seat, plenty enough to blow us forty feet up into the air. She
even went as far as to booby-trap the vehicle's locking mechanism, thus
trapping us inside. Then she yanked open the door and poked her head
inside. She was smiling from ear to ear, while me and Scully thought we
were both dead."
	"Why didn't you punch her in the nose?! That itself is an offense
punishable by law. Even the English law would find her unfit for duty!"
	"We were like that when we dated. Wild. Impulsive. Crazy. Had sex over
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's grave." Mulder shook his head, laughing at the
memory and Jake's expression.
	"Me and Alex had sex during someone's wedding ceremony, and
occasionally in our bathtub if that adds up to anything." Jake shrugged.
Mulder's snickering disappeared, and Jake realized what question was
coming next. 
	"How did you propose her? You keep talking about it." Mulder tilted his
head to a side, curiosity clear in his eyes. Jake smiled solemnly and
stared at his hands.
	"On her 26th birthday. She had a birthday party at her office with her
colleagues, but she didn't bring anybody home with her. That was just
fine for me, because I was nervous and wanted to be alone with her when
I popped the question. I had a paper doll suspended from the ceiling
with the tiny velvet box for you-know-what hidden inside it. I
blindfolded her and gave her my baseball bat. I then told her to break
it and get her present. 
"She tried hitting the doll, but she kept missing it. I was out of
patience, so I finally held her from behind her, and helped her crash it
to the floor. She cried out with joy every time we hit the doll, and we
succeeded after about two, three tries. I have to keep reminding myself
that she was happy, really truly happy, if only for that moment. The
moment that doll fell to the floor, she crawled on her hands and needs,
trying to find the 'gift'. I turned on a fan that I set nearby, then
took her to the bench I moved over a layer of imitation lawn. She asked
me what was going on, so I said it was 'atmosphere'." Mulder watched as
Jake's cheeks reddened while the rest of his face broke into a shy,
boyish smile. Mulder decided not to comment on it. 
	"I told her to wait, because I wanted to do this right. I had her open
the little box, then took the blindfold off of her face. She looked
startled when she took in the ring. Her eyes popped open, and I said,
'Marry me, Alex.' She began screaming, falling from the bench and
rolling around on the floor." 
Mulder braced himself the moment that boyish smile evaporated from
Jake's face, and they were reminded of how this particular story ended.
Mulder thought about giving Jake a break and stop this confession banter
that began with them, but Jake quickly gave him a 'I'm all right, and I
need to get this out' look. This time, Mulder pursed his lips.
"But she withdrew quickly. She was on the floor and didn't say anything
when I lay next to her and held her. I told her to talk to me if she had
any problem. She told me there was so much I didn't know about her. Boy,
was she right. I didn't listen to her deep enough when she told me about
why she used to be afraid to fall asleep. I dismissed it as jitters, or
frenzy. You know, just a temporary thing. I recognized that part of her
as her darkness; her shadow. I wanted to make her stop feeling afraid,
so I told her that shadows made things beautiful in light. That's when
she finally, and fully, accepted my proposal by saying 'yes' under her
breath. That was the sweetest feeling I've ever experienced." He still
stared at his hands, his eyes now closed. Mulder felt the need to speak.
	"Jake. In a way, it was a good thing that you guys didn't get married.
Just think of the concept of marriage here. More than half of the
marriages happen in this country end up in divorce, because people get
married for wrong reasons. Maybe they did it too fast, too late, or
illegitimately. Whatever it is, it sounds like your marriage was heading
that direction. My own parents got divorced and that was a miserable
experience. It's amazing to see a family like the Scullys. They stick
together when it counts." 
This was something that took a lot of courage for him to admit to. He'd
always been jealous of Dana Scully for being able to have such a stable
family, but what he was most jealous of would have to be her mother,
Margaret Scully. Seeing the loner's look that instantly made Mulder look
ten years older, Jake silently damned Mulder's parents and his own. Jake
sighed, not wanting Mulder to yet realize just how similar their lives
were.
	"Look. I know you probably wouldn't have too many enjoyable memories by
investigating this case. But you know I'll be here, and that you're
always welcome to stop by my place with or without official reasons. In
fact, you should stay at my place again. Bring your friends. Bring Dana.
Bring Hall. Bring Skinner if you want. I might have some semblance of a
social life by then." Mulder's chuckle relieved Jake.
	"Thanks. I'll remember that." Mulder smiled and returned the gesture
when Jake gave him the high-five. Jake leaned back into his bed that had
been angled a bit for comfort by one of the kind nurses, then began
absently playing with his hands. It was again time to get serious and
realistic. Jake had been working on this issue for a while, though he'd
been hiding his efforts at all cost. 
	"I know that I'll eventually get Vera, but let's be realistic. We never
know when that'll happen." No longer smiling, Mulder saw him swallow
hard at the harshness of his own statement. Mulder stared down at his
feet.
	"...What do you miss the most about her?" Mulder willed himself to look
at Jake as he asked the question. Jake only needed a second to come up
with his answer.
	"Her eyes. Like they're holding answers to all questions. Like she
knows everything about me, just from looking at me through those deep
eyes. But, I don't know. I also miss her hands. The way they showed me
what she was thinking. She grabbed onto me with a death grip when I took
her down from the security railing; and when I saw her at the hospital
after getting her in for initial exams. 
"When I first discovered the level of violence she witnessed, I
literally fell apart. I dropped to my knees, and I just had to hold on
to her. Then, she touched my face. It was the most relaxing sensation
I've felt in a long time. So, I closed my eyes and let it happen. By
saying 'it', I meant about things like the circular motion of her hands,
the pressure coming constant from her fingertips, and the warmth with
which they wrapped me in. She has such tiny hands, and I knew she was
trying to tell me that it was okay for me to open myself up. She knew
how guarded I am about my weaknesses, and she was forgiving me for it. I
couldn't help crying." 
	Mulder knew exactly what that felt like. Scully had seen him shutter to
pieces, and she always managed to patch him back up. But when listening
to Jake talk about Vera, he was moved at just how much strength was
packed inside such a tiny body.
	"I guess Vera's hands are what Stella fell for, huh?" Mulder said,
laughing with Jake. When the laughter calmed down, Jake pointed to the
reclining chair set beside his bed, right in front of the windows.
	"Take that chair and go to sleep. I'll stay awake since I've been
asleep for far too long. I want to have an on-line conference from here
with the rest of my business partners." Mulder immediately began shaking
his head, but Jake was having none of it.
	"Jake, I know what you are trying to do for me. But,..."
	"Don't get into that again. I'll personally report you to Skinner if
you don't get some rest. Do you want to wait until you feint on the
floor? I can throw you a pretty good punch from right here." Jake pulled
a fist, ready for a jab. Mulder shrugged and called Skinner to see if
he'd be able to catch some sleep while being at where he was. Skinner
was surprised Mulder had been awake for over forty-eight hours, and
ordered him to bed. Hearing Mulder's side of the brief conversation,
Jake threw Mulder a blanket and a pillow. After a few seconds of
hesitation, Mulder handed Jake his back-up piece. Jake took it and
studied it as if it was a fine jewelry.
	"You know what happened to your house. You know what got you to stay
here, and you know how suddenly the attacks came. Wake me up if anything
happens." Mulder ordered Jake before putting his feet up on the
radiator, then he finally closed his eyes.


Prescott Hospital Conference Room #2
Los Angels, CA
3 PM

Agent Thomas Hall looked through the police reports again, realizing
he'd gone way over his head the moment he began hearing about the arson
incidents, and about Vera's test results going missing. However, Hall
never expected the case to come this far, and now that Mulder was
getting his first sleep in two days, Hall was assigned to guard the
temporary war room with another agent. 
This other agent who now sat across the table from Hall was all
professionalism: tight-lipped, immaculately dressed in a black uniform,
the man looked ready to for a war than an investigation. Hall preferred
being stuck with a pit bull than facing the piece of giant rock in front
of him. 
	But his temporary roommate didn't present too much of a problem, since
Hall was engrossed in the evidences in front of him. He'd gone through
the folders about the dead research assistants, paying close attention
on how closely each arson details matched with one another, and how the
cancers that had been the focus of their researches were brain tumors of
all types. 
Most research subjects reported to have had implants made of identical
and unidentified material in the back of their necks. Some had one
behind their ear or on abdomen just above belly button. Some had
unidentifiable scars from punctual wounds on their legs. Most claimed to
have little or no memory about their abduction. When they do remember,
their stories are about being confined to an examination table with the
EBEs, or about running through a forest somewhere. 
Hall knew these people's daily struggle to be recognized, to be
credited, or to be listened and understood. Hall wanted to believe these
stories ever since he was a child. Now, proofs of their legitimacy were
piling up in front of him higher each day. 
	Hall was now seriously contemplating whether he had a chance of
transferring to Bureau's D.C. Headquarters, so he would be working with
Agents Mulder and Scully. He knew the agents could use his help. Hall
also knew that they didn't want him getting too close to them too fast;
and he knew their reasons. The X-Files investigations made plane
highjacking cases look like a walk in a park. Stories told by the
hundreds and thousands of names, belonged almost entirely to women and
children who had been taken, exploited, torn apart, stripped of their
dignity, and sometimes stripped of their personalities; all in the name
of national security and the government's plausible deniability. 
This was something no one could ever prepare Thomas Hall for. This was
the side of human nature he never wanted to witness. Surely, he read
textbooks and heard lectures about serial murderers, past political
wars, holocausts, famines, religious wars, and the outbreaks of lethal
viruses. But this was different. This was done right under their noses;
out of reach from the eyes of the law; away from the hands of justice;
all by the selected a few of their own. The things Hall came to learn
were most likely what kept waking him up, screaming.
	He was deep into the Jarvis' journals when his cellular rang. He was
greeted by Mulder's groggy voice, asking him to go get Linda Lowry at
the door, because she just informed Mulder that she had the Kathler
family's background check report, and it was important. Glad for any
excuse to step away from the horrific truths staring back at him, Hall
complied without hesitation.
	Linda was complaining to the guards about her being denied access when
Hall arrived and thanked her for coming by. Linda practically threw the
folder at him and left without another word. Hall felt guilty for their
lack of social niceties, but the security needed to be tight. Hall
delivered the folder personally to Jake's room, but he almost missed the
fact that it was stumped 'CONFIDENTIAL' before Jake asked him what it
was.  
	"Confidential documents." He replied a little too quickly, and this got
Jake's stone-faced stare. Hall noted Mulder had dropped back to sleep,
and left the room without forcing the man awake. Jake kept staring at
the thick folder, but decided to give up before he got into another
trouble.


Jake's Room 
Prescott Hospital
Los Angels, CA
9 PM Same Day

To answer his own questions to Linda Lowry's report on Jake Kathler's
childhood, Mulder called on all her sources to check out the story
himself. He knew how reluctant Linda was about dispensing any
off-the-record details, and he had a hunch they were important. Linda's
initial assessment on Jake was proven accurate especially after reading
her final report. No evidence of excess physical abuse, only occasional
basketball injuries and a few bruises from typical adolescence street
fights.
	 What caught Mulder's attention at first were the allay of negative
comments from his school teachers about his 'inattention in class',
'lack of participation', and his 'tendency for self-inflicted isolation'
from the rest of the class. Mulder nearly laughed himself silly at the
next comment: he is always drawing shapes and lines on notebooks'. It
was easy picturing Jake in his teenage getting a chalk thrown at him. 
Mulder's grin vanished the instant he spotted a few high school
counselors' notes, accusing Jake of doing drugs on several occasions.
They were later proven false, but his parents were called, the school
principal was notified, and the damage was done. Mulder closed his eyes
momentarily and swallowed a curse. When you're in high school, false
accusations stung like hell, because very few around you had high enough
moral sense to go out proving your innocence for you before jumping into
conclusions.
Jake, as a result, was suspended from the school basketball team for a
whole year before he was back to playing after changing school. The
records showed clearly that in his senior year, his parents had sent him
off to a boarding school in Chicago, Illinois. 
Mulder shook his head slightly as he read about Jake's former
girlfriend, a reporter for the school's newspaper, openly criticizing
the school counselors in the very same article where she viciously
denounced the schoolmates who framed Jake on the narcotics-possession
charges. Mulder's eyebrows jumped when he read how the reporter ranted
about Jake's parents for falsely accusing her boyfriend. The girl must
have been half out of her mind with wrath for making such an aggressive
attack on so many school-related people with no regard for consequences.
Either that, or she was head over heels in love with Jake Kathler, and
knew a whole lot more about his life than anyone, including Jake
himself, was telling. Mulder threw another sunflower seed in his mouth
and chewed slowly, formulating plans to contact the girl. 
	Linda's thoroughness impressed Mulder, for she included the particular
newspaper in her report. Miss Nicole Hedgwick, Jake's high school
sweetheart and now supposedly a worldly-known political speech writer
and a civil rights activist, wrote a very direct, no-nonsense two
full-page article packed with her rage, transcending her anger to the
readers even after sixteen years. Jake's transfer to the boarding school
terminated their apparently healthy one-year relationship. Mulder knew
very well what it was like to have someone he loved being taken away
from him. Ironically, the boarding school was where Jake's talent was
discovered, and it brought him to the top of the pack. In Mulder's own
life, the get-away to Oxford in England which he made mostly due to
Samantha's abduction, made him a psychologist and a top FBI agent. 'Why
must life work in such cruel ways?' Mulder pondered. 
Mulder knew Linda Lowry must have contacted Miss Hedgwick, or else Linda
wouldn't have found this much background info. Mulder also wanted to
know just how much Miss Hedgwick knew about FBI's Kathler case. When he
got her answering machine, identifying herself by her phone number, he
figured the woman was getting harassed enough doing what she did for a
living. Mulder left a message to call him back at the earliest
convenience. 
	When Miss Hedgwick returned his call an hour later, the first words out
of her mouth demanded to know if Jake was all right. Mulder was startled
at first, then he smiled to himself, realizing she must've stayed just
the same way as she had been in high school, if not more fierce. He eyed
Jake and judged he would probably stay asleep through their
conversation. Mulder knew from reading the file that Jake shouldn't be
put on line without Miss Hedgwick's consent.
	"Yes, he's fine for the moment. I'm sorry to bother you, but I need to
know about Jake Kathler, and he's under legal obligations to provide the
state social worker and the bureau's clinical social worker with any
necessary information relating to his childhood experiences..."
	"Agent Mulder? I know all that. He's taking care of an orphan." She cut
him off, not the type to talk shop or make small talks. Mulder grinned
wider, already looking forward to meeting with her. 'This is going to be
interesting'.
	"I'm a primary investigator and a psychologist, so I'd appreciate it if
you could tell me a little more..."
	"I've heard about you already. I'm in San Francisco. Why don't you
come?" Mulder hesitated. "Agent Mulder?" Miss Hedgwick persisted. 'They
were in high school the last time they met. There's a good chance she
won't recognize Jake.' Mulder told himself as he replied 'yes'.
	"I maybe coming to San Francisco for a follow-up on an
investigation..."
	"Where will you be staying?" She cut him off again, and this began to
annoy Mulder. But judging from her article, he could understand if she
was a bit overly concerned. 
	"I'll have to discuss this first with my partner..."
	"What time's your flight?" Mulder raised his eyebrows. The woman had a
sharp mind. Mulder gave her his flight number, but she was gone by the
time he proceeded to ask her about her knowledge of the case. Mulder
gaped at his phone for a few moments with disbelief, then decided to
leave Scully in the dark on this for a while. Just when he reached his
car, his cell phone rang again.
	"Agent Mulder? Never mind San Francisco. I'm coming to Los Angels. I
know about FBI blocking the press out of Prescott and Henry Barrington's
hospitals, but maybe you can pass them a few words to let me in. I'll be
happy to meet the bureau social worker in person."
	"What?!" Mulder's exasperation was heard over the phone line, but Miss
Hedgwick stayed silent as Mulder stared up at the ceiling, pondering his
options. The woman's silence only held out for two seconds. With a sigh,
she reopened her mouth , but this time she spoke as if she was talking
to a four-year old.
	"If something concerns Jake and he's about to be judged wrong again,
I'm there. I won't let anyone tarnish his name or character just because
his trashy parents ruined his life. If you want me to testify in court
hearings, you're welcome to use me. Miss Lowry said that since Jake's
parents are deceased, she had to rely on his old friends."
	"Uhh... Miss Hedgwick? You're jumping way ahead of ourselves here."
Mulder blinked a few times and cleared his throat. His temper had
subsided now that he got a hint of just how much this woman knew about
Jake, and how much she must still care about him, even after more than a
decade. Miss Hedgwick smacked something, and released a loud sigh in an
apparent attempt to calm herself down.
	"Sorry. It's just that, when anyone talks about Jake, I get protective
and a bit self-conscious. Old habits die hard, you know. Miss Lowry
wasn't too informative about the end of Jake's spiteful parents, but I
hope they died screaming, miserable, and alone. I can die a happy gal if
they're enjoying their after-life being burned to a crisp in the very
pit of hell for eternity. But don't worry about Jake inheriting their
bad habits. Knowing him, I can assure you that he'll be an excellent
father. He tends to give others what he couldn't have for himself, and
that's what I loved the most about him." 
	"Meaning?" Mulder almost asked her if she's ever been treated
professionally for her inadequacy in impulse control, but he doubted it.
Then, he thought back to the Kathler family's financial statements
included in Lowry's report. They weren't exactly a well-off family.
	"You'll know more in person, Agent Mulder. It's a little too personal a
subject to talk over the phone, and it has nothing to do with money or
objects." Again, Miss Hedgwick was sharp. Mulder nodded to himself and
gave her the Prescott Hospital's address, but she already had it. "See
you tomorrow." With that, she was gone again before Mulder could ask
what time she'll be by. 'She's like a storm.' Mulder thought. The man
already had enough trouble in his hands, and because Mulder had the
man's personal authorization to 'dig up' whatever information he thought
as relevant, he decided to leave Jake in the dark on this one, too. But
it didn't mean he liked keeping secrets from the troubled man.
	


Prescott Hospital Main Lobby
Los Angels, CA
8:15 AM Next Day

After his San Francisco trip was canceled by Skinner, Mulder gladly used
the time to go down to check the lobby hourly to find Nicole Hedgwick.
He wore a pair of sunglasses and his clip-on FBI budge, hopefully as a
warning in case she mixed him up with Jake. He kept his eyes on search
for a said 5,8", thirty-six years old, short brunette haired female in a
black business suit and a navy trench coat. Mulder spotted her slender
form right away, and showed her his main FBI budge upon approaching her.

When the woman took off her sunglasses, Mulder's eyebrows shot up an
inch behind the dark lenses. She was gorgeous. Especially with her dark
blue eyes enhanced by her dark hair. They shook hands as Nicole Hedgwick
flashed him a full smile and began apologizing for her earlier attitude.
	"Look. Under the circumstances, I don't think I should see Jake. But I
came all this way for your convenience, so at least buy me a cup of
coffee." She jumped right to the point, leaving Mulder only a moment to
nod before walking off to the elevator. She spared Mulder from the pain
of asking her to stay out of Jake's view. When they sat down at a table
in a somewhat secluded corner of the cafeteria, Miss Hedgwick looked
around once more before staring back at Mulder.
	"Why don't you be polite and take your sunglasses off? I always prefer
straight-talking with new people." Mulder uttered a quick apology and
reluctantly took them off. Her eyes widened like saucers, indicating she
hadn't looked at his ID photos long enough nor hard enough. Mulder
closed his eyes for a long moment. 
	"I know what you're thinking. I look exactly like Jake Kathler. Only
he's not my clone, and we're not related." Miss Hedgwick nodded in
silence. "I'm sorry if our physical resemblance makes you feel
uncomfortable." He added, watching her watch him. She shook her head
with defiance.
	"So... this is how Jake, the grown-up version of the man I loved, looks
like today? My God, he's beautiful!" She watched as Mulder briefly
smiled, blushed, then cleared his throat not knowing how to respond
right. She shook her head again. "No, I don't... I mean, you don't make
me uncomfortable. It rather makes it easier. That is, if you don't mind
me getting you two mixed up. You know, if I call you Jake by mistake on
a couple of occasions and you'll let it slide." She never blushed. 'Not
a type to get embarrassed easily', Mulder thought. He had no clue to how
she and Jake had been a compatible couple. 'A lot has changed since high
school', Mulder reminded himself as he nodded in agreement. "Where
should I start?" Miss Hedgwick asked as she shifted in her chair, ready
to talk.
	"Could you describe the relationship between Jake and his parents in
general? If you can give me examples?" Mulder complied with her request
of 'straight-talk' by getting rid of sugar-coating from his speech, yet
without being rude.
	"Sure. Jake wasn't too open about them, but he told me they never
wanted him in the first place. It was an accidental pregnancy, happened
in the back of a van Samuel Kathler owned. They were watching one of
those drive-in movies, too jolly indulging in free-sex slogan of the
era. They were already grown-ups and had steady jobs. Sam as a divorce
lawyer in a small private law firm, and Cindy a private school science
teacher. Their collage degrees obviously didn't wise them up in the ways
that they should have. 
"Jake was mostly left alone at home, wearing his house keys to school
around his neck. His mother usually went to one of her lady friends'
houses or to social gatherings, trying to elevate her status by mingling
with the rich men's wives. Needless to say, that left us a lot of hours
in his house to ourselves." As much as he liked watching her eyes travel
everywhere and her hands jump up and down trying to emphasize her
statements, Mulder recognized the drastic changes in her gaze as she
spoke the last word. Mulder failed to restrain a grin. She immediately
caught herself and apologized. Mulder shook his head no.
	"I understand how this must be like for you." He saw the corners of her
mouth curl up into a knowing smile.
	"Well, what do you expect from a life? Anyway, when he was a little
boy, he had nightmares like any normal boy. They were about typical
things like monsters hiding under his bed or something. But his parents
never came to him and picked him up; or even to hold him and tell him
that everything was okay. Instead, they just stood at the door, flipped
on the light switch, and scolded him for screaming loud. That he'd just
cost them their precious sleep. Then, they'd tell him that if he had
another nightmare, they were just dreams and were never real. In the
end, they usually told him not to scream so loud next time. Tell me as a
psychologist, Agent Mulder. How the hell a six-year old supposed to
control his natural physical responses to what his mind registered as an
immediate danger or a threat to his life?!" 
Miss Hedgwick's eyes were brazing ice storms. Mulder himself shook his
head, sighing as he clasped his hands in front of him. Some of his worst
suspicions and fears were being confirmed, and the reasons to why Jake
so heavily guarded the details of his past. If any of this and more got
to Karen Kosseff's ears, it will raise questions which neither Vera nor
the lawyers can afford to answer. 
"I know for a fact his father called Jake a wimp. Cindy would tell Sam
these nightmares will eventually go away, but that didn't stop that
bugger from despising his son for being 'too soft', instead of accepting
his son's sensitive nature. Jake had friends, but not many were willing
to stick around for long. 
"It probably saved Jake from a lot of trouble when one of the neighbors'
kids talked him into playing basketball, because Jake was tall and fast.
In the basketball courts, Jake found his escape. You know, letting out
his tension. Of course, he spared enough tension in his body to release
in other places." Miss Hedgwick caught herself again and smiled
apologetically. "Judging from your cherry-red face, you also played
basketball for the same purposes?" Her observation skill was top-class.
Mulder nodded his admission.
	"I didn't come from a happy home, either. At least Kathler's parents
stayed together." He steered the conversation away from himself. She
rolled her eyes.
	"Yeah, right! They barely talked in the mornings and at dinner tables.
They acted like strangers, Agent Mulder. My neighbor's pit-bull could
show me more affection than this match-made-in-hell. They were better
off getting divorced. They were so inattentive, I'm surprised they even
learned we began dating. 
"His parents weren't too happy about this development on the ground of
my taking up his study time. He wasn't exactly a straight-A student,
because he devoted so much time doing sketches. I remember Sam Kathler
wagging Jake's report-card inches away from his eyes as he came out of
the house to meet me. Jake seemed embarrassed. ...No, humiliated; as his
father handed me the report-card and asked me if I knew what I was doing
to his son's school records. I graciously informed the bastard that we
were going to the library anyway, so leave him the hell alone. I didn't
know I shouldn't have said that. Sam Kathler humiliated his son even
further by scolding him for letting a girl fight for him." Miss Hedgwick
paused to calm herself down. Visualizing the incident, Mulder visibly
grimaced. 
	"Jesus. Is that why you told me earlier...? About Jake's 'tendency to
give others what he couldn't have for himself'?" Now Jake's paranoia and
over-protectiveness began making sense. Miss Hedgwick nodded and
finished her coffee. She shifted in her seat again, seeing that Mulder
was waiting.
	"I suppose you've read my newspaper article about his basketball
teammates framing him for their own drug-possession charges?" She knew
exactly what investigators looked for. Mulder nodded with appreciation,
and she returned a nod of acknowledgement. 
"It was at the end of our sophomore year. I knew I was a year early,
because I skipped the final year of my junior high. I was attending my
gym class when I was told that someone from the principal's office was
waiting to see me. I went there, but unexpectedly, my school counselor
met me. Her eyes regarded me as if I was something filthy, but the rest
of her face was plastered with a fake smile. It fooled everyone in my
class except for me. 
"She took me to her office first. Immediately after closing the door,
she asked me if I'd seen Jake that day. I answered no, which was the
truth. Then she asked me again, and I answered no. She asked me if I was
sure, so I said yes. When I asked her what the hell was going on, she
didn't answer me. Instead, she asked me if Jake was having problems
concentrating, and if I noticed any mood changes or if I ever had a
fight with him. I answered no to all of them. Then, I changed my mind
and told her about how his parents treated him at home. I thought I was
helping Jake, but in truth, they used that against him as the motive to
do drugs." 
Miss Hedgwick paused again, and Mulder excused himself to get them fresh
cups of coffee, as well as to give her a break. He felt Nicole Hedgwick
and Scully had several points in common. They both came from stable
families, both were very ambitious women close in their ages, both were
fiercely loyal to their causes and to their friends. As Mulder sat down,
he asked if she needed a few minutes to herself. She answered no, and
picked up where she left off.
	"She questioned me about everything including the status of our
sex-life, though we didn't get physically involved until after these
charges were cleared. They worked on separating us, but in truth, they
brought us closer than we'd ever imagined possible. Before this insane
mess sprang over us, Jake kept me as his best friend. He valued my
intellect and my personality, which were the very reasons why he didn't
want us to physically get involved. He was afraid of ending 'us' as one
of his one-night stand episodes." Seeing the change in Mulder's
expression, she quickly raised her hand in defiance. "Don't
misunderstand Jake, Agent Mulder. In his early teenage years, he was so
lost, that he wanted to experience what a love is. His parents gave him
next to zero of it, and I believe he wanted to replace the emptiness he
felt inside by going out and sleeping with girls. 
"He was already a handsome boy, and many girls wanted him for
unattached, spurs-of-the-moment affairs. Needless to say, that didn't
help his case of the drug possession charges. I claimed to the principal
that we were going steady, just so that they won't start asking me nor
Jake about who he slept with and when. He never went to bed with anyone
who wasn't ready for it. Meaning, if the girl was dating someone else,
wanting him for a boyfriend, or if she was a virgin. He didn't sleep
with anyone under-age, and never anyone over twenty-one. I don't know
why he cared about the latter, but that was his policy. 
"He also stayed away from girls with bad habits, like doing drugs or
committing petty crimes and getting away with them. So in the end, the
list grew quite short. He didn't have such company every single day,
either. Just ...whenever things got overwhelming at home, and he didn't
feel like opening up to anyone." She spoke without a show of
embarrassment as before. That alone intimidated Mulder, as just about
everything else about this woman.
	"What about before? I mean, when he was under-age?"
	"I think his curiosity and desperation for wanting somehow to be loved
by someone without the risk of a heart-break got the better of him. He
told me he was scared to death of being caught; not just for himself,
but for his sexual partners, because they'd be thrown in jail if this
detail got out. But that thrill fed his craving even more. He just made
sure that the others didn't tread the same path. I don't know of too
many boys who lost their virginity before the age of nineteen or
eighteen at least. But Jake wasn't one of them, and I believe for the
same or similar reasons, neither were you." She smirked upon eliciting a
deer-caught-by-a-headlight look from him.
	"You know just how to turn the tables, don't you?" Mulder tried to
avoid her next question. He wasn't that lucky.
	"How old were you?" Miss Hedgwick didn't need to add another word.
	"Fourteen." That answer raised her eyebrows, and Mulder chuckled.
	"How interesting. So was Jake." This time, Mulder's jaw dropped open.
She gave him a full smile. "Are you sure you aren't his lost twin?"
Mulder's face broke into a rare bright smile.
	"I'm afraid not. I've checked into it already. I don't know how Jake
looked at the issues of virginity. But to me, losing it was a relief.
People keep telling you, 'You don't know shit about sex, because you're
a Goddamn virgin!' So, I was like, 'Fuck you! I'll lose it faster than
you!' I know it was a stupid idea to look at virginity as a label and
sex as a game or a competition. But I was young, and therefore, stupid."
Mulder shrugged, then returned her a smile that was stamped
'professionalism'. "Can we move on, please?" Miss Hedgwick smiled her
apology.
	"Of course. ...After the counselor finished asking me about Jake's
parents, she told me about the accusations Jake was facing. I jumped and
said there must be some mistake, because to the fullest extent of my
knowledge, Jake never did drugs. But you know how it is, Agent Mulder.
No one believes that outright. But I believed, because I wanted to
believe him. I began making a list of people to contact in my head, even
as the stupid fat woman told me all about the consequences which I, as
his self-claimed girlfriend, was facing. I told her that I'd do whatever
possible to prove Jake's innocence... What is it, Agent Mulder?"
	"Nothing. You just remind me a lot of my partner. Go on." Mulder
motioned for her to continue.
	"Okay. ...I heard a thud from two doors down, followed by the sound of
a door slamming shut. I instantly recognized Jake's voice, arguing with
his own counselor. I could hear him shouting something about his
basketball teammates conspiring against him. He was bellowing that they
planted the drugs in his locker and fed an anonymous tip to the coach.
The counselor was yelling something about his suspension from the team.
That was enough shock to shut Jake up. ...The counselor took advantage
of that as he rattled on and on about the consequences he now faced as
well as about mine. I was listening to them, but I was also answering
questions I was asked. For this reason, excuse my vague descriptions of
my own interview. 
	"...My counselor asked me if I ever helped Jake studying, so I said
yes. She then asked me if I ever did his homework, so I said no. Jake
had too much integrity for that. But I know he did excellent in French.
He did some homework for the boys in the team, and some of the girls he
had a fling with." 
Mulder nodded. 'There's the reason why Jake was sent to France' he
thought.
"I couldn't bare to listen to them arguing not only about Jake's
innocence, but mine as well. His counselor was giving him a heavy guilt
trip, and Jake was furious at the son of a bitch for including me in the
guilty-party. I finally got out of the room and burst into the one Jake
was in. His complexion was ghostly pale, in acute contrast to his
counselor's beet-red fat face. I got sort of scared, because Jake's eyes
were glistening with the degree of rage and anguish that I'd never
witnessed on anyone I knew at the time. He quickly calmed himself down
upon seeing me there. I declared his innocence, and as before, told both
counselors that I'll do anything to find whoever was responsible. Jake
buried his head in his hands, and I knew I did it again. I protected him
as though he was completely incapable of helping himself."
	"Maybe he wasn't." Mulder's interruption only got him a glance.
	"Speaking out of experience, Agent Mulder?" She was quick to catch up.
	"Something like that." Mulder grinned in response.
	"I told the counselors to at least give Jake a chance to prove himself
innocent. I pleaded his case anyway, because I knew they'd listen to me.
I always had good grades and I had the faculty's trust, but that didn't
stop them from calling Jake's parents. That same day, both Mr. & Mrs.
Kathler were waiting with the school principal in the man's office when
I arrived there with my school counselor. Evidently, Jake and his
parents had been there for some time before I joined in. 
"Jake was seated in one of the four chairs that were set in front of the
Principal's desk. His parents sat opposite from him, facing their son. I
immediately saw that Jake was alienated not just by physical definition,
but psychologically as well. That was their battle strategy, and I was
damned if I let myself sit in the chair set for me in the very back of
the room, facing the principal. Jake was already in enough pain, seeing
me under fire because of him. I moved the chair and planted myself next
to Jake and glared down at his sorry excuses for parents.
"The moment the principal finished informing me of the purposes of this
ambush they called 'a meeting', Jake's parents openly accused me of
knowing about their son's alleged drug habits and letting him go on with
it. I thought I would go out of my mind and physically attack them. I
screamed at them to leave us the hell alone, and that I could prove his
innocence if they just gave me a chance. That is, until the principal
told me to sit down for the second time. 
"Mrs. Kathler told me how unlady-like I was and told her son that I was
exactly the type to avoid in a woman. Jake snapped at that moment and
pulled me out of the room with him. He closed the door behind us, and
told me to go before his parents killed me. I don't think he meant as a
figure of speech. I think he really was, at the time, afraid for both
our lives." Mulder's eyes widened with the implication of her last
statement. This was what he was afraid of the most about this interview.
	"What?! Are you saying that Jake was physically abused by his father?"
	"No. Well, I don't know. Maybe a few minor bruises, but I think that
being a lawyer, Sam Kathler knew exactly how to intimidate and frighten
his son to half-death without ever touching him. He made Jake recite the
bible, demanded him to do push-ups and crap. On a couple of occasions,
the fucker made Jake go to bed without supper because Jake was late for
it by five minutes. Samuel Kathler savored his superiority playing the
hundred-bucks-an-hour verbal war that he believed he was so good at. Sam
Kathler probably had thorough knowledge on how to break a person's
spirit, as he did with his legal opponents and witnesses in the
courtrooms. It was probably easy enough, especially if his subject is a
seventeen year-old boy whom he's known all his life." On this, Mulder
was in complete agreement.
	"I know of many stories reported by the surviving victims of domestic
violence and other types of child abuse. A majority of serial killers
and rapists came from abusive families, and I know what sick games they
play." He shuddered, recalling many cases he handled during his days in
the VCU, but he couldn't dispense any further information on these
cases. Miss Hedgwick studied Mulder's expression and nodded her
understanding.
	"I hope I'll never have to cross path with any of them. I came close to
them a couple of times on the job. I was researching the rebels to write
a speech after the Congo incident. These people I focused on were
terrorists and often take no prisoner, but that never stopped me from
sticking my nose into messy civil rights stuff. Sometimes you look
through trash, and find gold inside. You know?"
	"I know exactly what you mean." Mulder looked at her with awe. This
woman was a perfect mix of Scully and himself, only if she was a bit
cooler-headed. X-Files office was located in the basement, partly
because their department is where the cases thrown out from upstairs
often landed. Mulder was tempted to call Scully down to meet Miss
Hedgwick, and was already very sorry that she had to miss the fun. 
	"That's good to know, Agent Mulder. ...Anyway, Jake took his parents'
distrust in him much harder than anyone had anticipated. I don't think
he himself realized how much impact it had on him. He was trying to
protect me more than himself. People stayed away from him, students
talked trash behind his back, telling each other how it was likely that
Jake would do drugs. 
"All this while, the real junkies laughed at us. They tried coercing me
into giving up the fight. I told them to fuck off. This incident got me
a few minor warnings from these thugs. Crank calls, anonymous harassment
letters, people grabbing me on street corners for little chats... How
was I to know that I'd be getting those on daily basis after I grew up?"
Miss Hedgwick rolled her eyes at Mulder, who responded with a wince. She
waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal.
"...We grew closer than ever after that incident, because we proudly
showed the fucking world just how much we trusted each other, and
because I proved myself right in trusting him." Her eyes lit up a bit
with the obvious pride she still held over that victory. Seeing this,
Mulder hated asking the next question, knowing it would ruin her good
mood.
"Miss Hedgiwck? I hate to do this to you, but I would like a little more
detail on what happened after you and Jake had your chat outside the
principal's office." Mulder was only wondering why Miss Hedgwick
suddenly edited out so much of the story after that particular scene.
Everything she'd been filling him in on their past was very accurate.
	"After Jake shut me out of the principal's office and went back in
alone, I still waited outside the door. The principal didn't want to
alert the police and decided to place Jake under his parents' strict
supervision, but not before getting the both of us tested for any trace
of an illegal substance in our system. We were sent to the student
health services' lab, and endured the suspicious looks from the staff
there; but of course, they found nothing in either of us. 
"By the next day, my parents found out about it, and told me to stay
clear of Jake Kathler. I did agree with them as a cover. That went on
for two weeks, until I was stopped in the middle of a shopping mall by
one of the school cheer leaders who had been requested to keep silence
by one of the thugs about their plans to frame Jake. They wanted him out
of their basketball team, because Jake was considered for the position
of the team captain as soon as he became a junior, and they were
jealous. It was convenient for them, since the police was already on
their backs. Jake was their perfect target, considering his grades and
reputation for inattention; plus yet another false accusation of being a
sex-addict to top it all."
	"Why did this girl wait for two weeks to talk?" 'That's a reasonable
question', she thought.
	"Because that's when the guy cheated on her and she dumped him for it.
She no longer had a need to keep the truth to herself. She voluntarily
went to the principal's office and made her statement. She then
accompanied me to Jake's place and gave him the news. The principal's
office notified the counselors and then our parents. The police caught
the guys the very next day, and Jake was let off the hook.
"On the school records, Jake was said to have been chased out of the
basketball team, but in truth, it was because he didn't want to go back.
After his teammates pilloried him in such manners, who could blame him?
He began playing outside of his school circle, and began training
himself with neighborhood kids." 
She paused to finish her coffee and watched as Mulder stood up to fill
their cups again. She watched his moves closely, and for the first time,
realized that Mulder was practically the same height and build as her
ex-boyfriend. Mulder felt her eyes as if they'd grown hands and they
were touching him.
	"We can probably fit into each other's clothes." Said Mulder as he
placed the steaming mugs on the table. She laughed and took a sip.
	"Probably. But, you move differently. Your movement is much smoother,
and you often bring your hand up to your mouth for no particular reason
other than out of a habit. Jake doesn't eat those sunflower seeds
peeking out of that coat pocket of yours, either." She pointed to the
plastic bag. Mulder took it out as if he'd forgotten about it and began
munching on them. When he offered them to Miss Hedgwick, she gladly took
a handful.
	"Did Jake's parents ever apologize for their behavior?" Mulder asked to
see if there had been any indication of their plans to send Jake off to
Chicago. He was relieved when she nodded.
	"His mother did. But Samuel Kathler never apologized for anything.
Instead, he blamed his son for leaving himself vulnerable against such
an attack. You know, for allowing himself to become a target. I didn't
know about this until much later, when Jake had a nightmare and he
didn't have time to censor his words before realizing he'd told me."
Mulder shook his head almost impaceptively.
	"I've never seen Jake suffer from nightmares. But I believe he's had
them, especially now that he's in danger. I'm an insomniac, and once we
both stayed up all night, working." Miss Hedgwick nodded deeply, her
mind walking down another memory lane.
	"Jake does that. He used to fight sleep. ...Well, until we got
physically involved and he had reasons to drop near comatose. One time,
he passed out and I had to literally push him off of me before I
suffocated to death. I got scared, afraid that he had a heartattack and
died. It turned out that these episodes of unconsciousness were fairly
common in people after experiencing extreme orgasm. Only it's much more
common in females. You can check. I heard it from Dr. Ruth." Miss
Hedgwick enjoyed teasing Mulder, knowing he was fully aware of the
physical resemblance in between himself and Jake. But this time, he
smirked.
	"Be careful around me, Miss Hedgwick. Or you'll overheat yourself and
drop into shock." She burst out laughing, slapping her hand against the
table. But she began again without warning.
	 "Jake was a tender lover. Almost annoyingly tender and too much a
gentleman. He was aggressive at anything and probably everything except
for sex. He loved the intimacy of our relationship, because it involved
both our hearts and minds before our bodies ever did. This was
particularly true for me, because he was my first. He broke his rules
but kept all the necessary ones, like committing himself to me before
ever touching me. That's something to be honored in a man. Oh, and I
learned later that he stopped having one-night stands even after we
became apart, probably because he found in us the answers he was looking
for. You know, the answers to his questions about what it was like to
love and be loved."
	"That's a rarity these days." Mulder nodded his agreement, keeping cool
now that he was comfortable talking to the woman, and because he
remembered how Alex also felt Jake made her 'too happy'.
	"You're one of those rarities. I can tell." She smiled mischievously
before letting Mulder off the hook. Then she pushed her chair away from
the table to give herself enough room to do a stretch to get rid of any
kinks from her limbs. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to
give herself a moment. Mulder noticed her reluctance in getting to the
next part, and gladly gave her the time to prepare herself. When she
stayed silent for several long moments, he finally asked her if she was
all right. She didn't reply, but instead began the rest of the story.
"After I went to Jake's house to personally face his parents, I heard
Jake screaming, literally off the top of his lungs, demanding them to
tell him why they could ever think of their son as a drug-junkie. Sam
Kathler yelled back at Jake, telling him how weak-minded he was. I left
them alone this time, and went to the library instead. Jake found me
there and took me outside to personally thank me for getting the bad
guys. I drew him close and told him I'd always be there for him. 
"That wasn't the first time we hugged each other. Hell, he kissed my
forehead a couple of times before, and even that didn't happen until all
the mess happened. But this time, it felt different. I didn't feel close
enough to him. I mean, it was close, but I felt I needed to get closer. 
"I don't know how he understood me, but he took a step back and stared
at me. That was the first time I ever saw his eyes hold that particular
hungry look I was going to see on quite many occasions from that time
on. ...His hand was still at the side of my face. I don't know why I
knew that this was my cue, but I closed the final distance. That was the
shortest, sweetest kiss I'd ever had; to this day." Miss Hedgwick's
dreamy stare made Mulder blush again, until she spoke again without
changing her expression. "That broke the walls between us." 
	"Probably because he realized that he really was in love this time."
Mulder tipped in and saw her nod.
	"He didn't think he deserved me even after we said 'I love you' to each
other. I thought he'd be the one to lead me in this subject. I knew how
he made love to the others, because they were more than willing to share
their stories with me. I probably intimidated him, too. All my
boyfriends that followed after Jake told me so. Jake never said that
about me, though." 
	"Jake doesn't strike me as a nervous type. He worries and gets
paranoid, but only within appropriate measures." Mulder nodded and
agreed.
	"We read textbooks, did book reports, and did other homework together
every day. We began watching movies and TV programs while lying on the
couch together, until that no longer satisfied us. But I never told him
about the school newspaper article that I wrote. He never found out
about it until it was published three and half weeks after the big
revelation.
"By then, all our time together paid off and we both scored A's
all-round. He used to ask me before every test to give him a good-luck
kiss. I thought it was cute, so I went with it. It also made a statement
to the audience that we were indeed very much together. On the same day
the article came out, he called me at around seven to inform me of his
father's sudden departure, because he'd been called on by yet another
top client. His mother was at her sister's house, nursing the poor woman
back to health. 
"Jake told me that his father told his wife to leave Jake behind,
because he had a test on Monday and he needed to study. Jake told me to
come by, and I told him to give me an hour or so. ...Oh, did I tell you
that we lived in Virginia? Close to Quantico, actually." The sudden
change of direction brought Mulder out of his reverie.
	"Yeah, he did. But I didn't know where in Virginia."
	"Oh. ...Well, it was a Friday night and my entire family, including the
dog, except for myself was gone on a camping trip. They left me behind
for the same reason that Jake's parents left him for the house-sitting
duty. Jake called me back and asked me if he could come over instead,
because he didn't feel like being in his house any longer than it was
absolutely necessary. I told him of my situations, then I told him to
pack a few things and stay with me at my house. 
"We both understood this was the chance we've been waiting for. He came
knocking on the front door, because there was no need to throw a rock to
my window like he used to do. I could tell that he wanted to say
something, but he couldn't find the right words. He was holding the copy
of our latest school newspaper, and I understood why he would come
racing to my house. He asked me why I ever wrote it before telling me
that I was placing my future in danger by so openly criticizing so many
people who could give me hell in a hand basket. I told him it was the
complete opposite; that the incident forced open the parts of myself
that I never knew existed. I never forget the relief and something else
that I can't describe... gratitude, maybe... spreading over his face at
that moment. 
	"I gave him my invitation ...to have me; make me his. But he was still
reluctant, and told me to sleep on it and make sure that he was who I
wanted as my lover. I insisted him to at least sleep next to me in my
bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, and told him I couldn't wait
any more." She laughed fondly at the memory. "That first time, he
treated me like a soap bubble that could break at any given moment. He
even washed me in the bathtub afterwards, for crying out loud!" She
stopped abruptly when Mulder laughed softly. "He used to do that. The
way you just laughed. He'd smile, then laugh just the way you did. His
eyes used to shine and stretch out, just like yours did." She watched
Mulder as his expression grew increasingly self-conscious.
	"We did well enough on our Monday tests, but we never stayed the same
after that weekend. How could we? After waking up on two consecutive
mornings with our bodies entangled? After learning that each of us spent
hours watching the other sleep during wee little morning hours? How was
I to stay at safe distance, when the man who walked and stood next to me
in school was the same man who had my heart and gave me his in return?
The same man who stood bare before me in the moonlight, his face graced
with the warmest of smiles I've ever seen, and offered his hand for me
to take? Impossible! 
"...Unlike his idiotic parents, Jake was always well-prepared, so I was
never in danger of getting HIV which they discovered around that time,
or get pregnant. Things went so smoothly, so comfortably. We were in
love from head to toe. Soon, I became his safe haven and a sanctuary. I
say so, because we were free in our arms, and because we felt that we
were really, truly alive. Having the harsh world trapping us from
outside, we had to stick together and protect each other. ...Jake was
reluctant to talk to anyone about his parents or about himself whenever
I asked, because the subject was always too personal. I bet he was good
at leading you away from the topic, too." Mulder nodded deeply in
agreement, and she returned it with a sad smile.
	"Actually, yes. I never asked seriously. ...Come to think of it, I
never heard him talk about his parents, other than the fact that they
are deceased." Mulder narrowed his eyes, realizing how right she was.
Miss Hedgwick looked down at her hands momentarily before returning her
gaze to Mulder. When she spoke, though, Mulder thought he detected the
slightest hit of a tremble in her voice. 
	"He thinks, that by keeping quiet, he was protecting those around him
from his pain. I don't think the gory details like the ones I told you
would score him popularity votes. But I wanted to be there for him,
because he gave me so much of himself; above and beyond anyone has ever
given me. I grew up because of what happened to us. Alhough I didn't
know at the time, he helped me to learn how to express myself better,
and I believe I helped him do the same; to teach each other to bring out
everything that was, and still is, us. ...I can still recall even the
smallest details of our relationship." 
Again, her dreamy stare at Mulder made him a bit uncomfortable. However,
to get more truths hiding out inside this woman's memory bank, Mulder
needed to give her space to wander around. There obviously was much to
revisit in the long memory lane, and Mulder had to allow her to recover
before going too far, too fast. The last thing Mulder wanted was for the
investigation team and Vera Jarvis to lose this woman's cooperation.
"He had plenty of one-night stands and brief relationships based on sex
in the past, but that never gave him what he really needed. Eventually,
he learned that our close friendship was what he most craved for. You
are right, Agent Mulder. He was very scared of getting physically
involved with me for that precise reason. But, do you know what
convinced me that Jake was in fact in love with me?" 
Miss Hedgwick looked into Mulder's warm eyes, but got a 'no' for an
answer and smiled. 
"When he first touched my body through the fabric of my night shirt, I
could feel his hands slightly trembling. When he released a breath, it
came out just as unsteady. I noticed just how nervous he was from that
discovery. We were sitting on my bed with our legs crossed. I always
braided my hair before going to sleep, so I had the braids on. I thought
about losing them, but Jake was against it for some reason. It was
pretty clear to me that he wasn't going to make the first move. I
thought it strange, but I stayed quiet and began tracing the curves of
his shoulders. He breathed quicker then, and reached for my foot to
start started massaging my body. Right then, I could swear I saw his
eyes watering. But he gave me no indication of any tears coming, so I
didn't question him.
"I couldn't imagine what he was thinking at the time, mostly because he
was so good at the foot massage, that I'd stopped thinking all together.
Now that I'm a grown-up, I think it was his love that watered his hazel
abyss. I've experienced physical pains caused by my dire need to be with
particular individuals. ...For the most part, he was a reactionary. By
saying that, I meant he responded better than initiating. It wasn't
because of his lack of confidence or performance anxiety, but because he
was a hard thinker with a tendency to act impulsively on occasion. This
was probably because he didn't want to push me into or toward anything.
Any woman who he falls in love with will be spoiled rotten, believe me.
I know I was, because I've never met another man who treated me with so
much faith and trust. He never intimidated me, and I mean, never. He
treated me as an equal. 
"...By saying that he's a reactionary... I'll just give you a few
examples. ...If I said I was hungry, he'd give me a run-down of all
kinds of food that came to his mind until I decided on something. If I
asked for a kiss, with or without verbalizing the request, he'd kiss me
in a hundred different ways before I demanded something more or less
from him. If I initiated sex, he'd practically surrender himself to me,
and give me a thousand responses to my every touch. Ask yourself, Agent
Mulder. How many others, men and women that you've ever come to know,
can show so much devotion in another?" Mulder was in awe again, almost
hearing the puzzle pieces falling into their appropriate places in his
mind. People rarely changed. Mulder grew serious, now that he'd almost
uttered his partner's name in response. He didn't want this woman
misunderstanding the partnership he had with Dana Scully.
	"I agree with you, Miss Hedgwick. Jake does certainly have those
characteristics intact to this day. That little girl in question neither
spoke nor wrote to communicate with us. Jake did exactly what you said
when ordering food for her over the phone." Mulder nodded and shifted in
his chair to find a bit more comfortable position, since his rear was
aching everywhere, only because the hospital cafeteria chairs were never
designed for people who wanted to sit in them for hours at a time. Miss
Hedgwick smiled and stared off into somewhere far that only she could
go.  
	"...When he stopped his massage, I slapped him on his
beautifully-curved shoulder and complained. I was completely relaxed and
almost groggy from the massage. But I was also half-awake and aroused.
You know how you feel as you surface from or descent into sleep, and you
can feel your body responding, in fact demanding, sexual contact?" Miss
Hedgwick didn't bother taking Mulder's discomfort into consideration.
Mulder nodded without a word, to which she gave him a nod and smiled. 
"That's what I was feeling, Agent Mulder. Imagine my frustration when he
stopped those beautiful hands of his and told me to sleep on it. I
tossed and turned restlessly until I managed to gave fallen asleep, but
I woke up about an hour later. He had his arms around me, holding me
close. I felt his breaths on the back of my neck, coming long and
steady. That was too much sexual stimulation to handle. Too damn much. I
shook him awake, and told him..." Mulder had had enough. 
"That you couldn't wait any more. You already told me that part,
Nicole." 
Her dreamy look instantly changed into that of annoyance, and she shut
him up with her frigid glare. 
Mulder, on the other hand, was stunned. This woman had the ability to
always come straight to the point, yet she was readily allowing herself
to indulge so much and so deeply in these 'more than a decade old'
feelings. There could only be one name to call this phenomenon with, and
the worst part was that she didn't yet know it.
	"Let me finish, Agent Mulder, or I'll make you tell me everything about
your first lover. ...Okay. We understand each other, then? Good." Seeing
Mulder nodding to all her demands, she continued. 
"I don't know about you, but he had a strong and well-coordinated back.
Not necessarily flexible, but his back muscles and backbones worked like
a whip. They enabled him to score in basketball games, and to make the
tiniest of movements that women so loved in bed. None of my other
boyfriends that followed after Jake had the patience or the care that
Jake could show. 
"He had a different style of vision and expression in everything. I
believe these characteristics contributed to the success of his work. He
looks at, then really feel, how things are made. He wanted to learn how
I was built and how I responded to everything from inside and out. He
learned some of those answers from the massage he gave me. 
"His being my first made me want to study him. You know, really learn
him inside out as he wanted to learn about me. I can still recall how
his side muscle and ribs jumped and slid under my palms. I learned how
he sweated and smelled differently depending on situations, and learned
how soft his skin felt against mine. I treasured the way his collarbones
reflected in the moonlight. They were so beautiful; the true work of art
by the Mother Nature. They were the favorite spot for my eyes to rest
on, if not counting his gorgeous eyes. No other man I went to bed with
had such beauty."
	"Because you're still in love with him." Mulder risked interruption,
and she immediately snapped out of her 'intense but dreamy' studying of
Mulder's features.
	"It was an innocent love, Agent Mulder. It was, and still is, the
purest love relationship I've had in my life. But we were a couple of
high school kids, and what we had could easily be interpreted as a
typical kids' play." Mulder immediately sensed he'd struck a nerve, and
he decided to risk a bit more to dig a little deeper.
	"I wasn't letting you make fun of me for nothing. You lose your
playfulness completely whenever you get into the details. This
first-time thing happened nearly twenty years ago, yet you remember it
all like it happened two days ago, and you treasure it like the rarest
diamond. I doubt you remember much of our first conversation, but I'm a
trained psychologist as well as a criminal-profiler. I know how to get
inside people's heads. Don't lie to youself." Mulder used her short
temper to his advantage and dared her to snap at him. She didn't
disappoint him.
	"How dare you accuse me of lying?! You've only known me for a day,
Agent Mulder. You don't know shit, and don't you dare think you know
Jake, either! Just because you guys spent a couple of months together in
hell and you two happened to look exactly alike; that you force me to
think twice about who I'm speaking to!!"
	"Exactly." Mulder nailed her, pointing at her with his index finger.
Miss Hedgwick gasped and gritted her teeth almost hard enough to crush a
few. Never a type to go down without a fight, she half-stood on her feet
and leaned in closer to Mulder with blazing eyes.
	"Do you really think you can get inside my head, G-Man?! You have no
idea what agony we've experienced being torn apart from each other and
not being able to fight the fact. The last time I was with him... That
last time we were together in any sense... you don't know how my body
hurt feeling his hot tears ran down my chest without a sound! You don't
know how hard his body shook against mine when he sobbed! You wouldn't
even know how my ears hurt when he actually cried in my arms!" 
Miss Hedgwick turned to leave the room, the two of them already getting
a few curious stares from the rest of the occupants. But the same moment
Mulder reached for her hand, she turned around and sat back down. She
swallowed hard and decided to get this over with. They both already knew
that they were both going to be limping away from the battlefield; that,
for some reason, they were kindred souls. She slapped the surface of the
Formica table and glared at Mulder.   
"You fucking asshole! You'll never know how much pain he forced himself
to endure in his childhood, or how tightly and closely he held it
inside. You'll never know how difficult it was for him to open up that
side of him. He never showed his vulnerability to anyone except for me
during the course of our relationship!" 
Mulder's eyes dared her to go on, to finish her losing battle. She
glared at Mulder's piercing gaze; the hardened core of a serverely
scarred soul peeking from the tiny corners of his hazel-green eyes. She
almost got lost in the honesty of this man's grief, for whatever the
horror this man may have experienced in the past, but forced herself
never to get caught in it. 
"Special Agent Fox William Mulder, you can take your FBI budge, your
Oxford psychology Ph.D., and shove'em up your tight ass!!" 
Her hand slammed into the table hard enough to turn a few more heads in
the distance. Mulder resumed his calm, because he anticipated this
reaction. 'So, she is still in love with Jake; exactly from head to
toe.' Mulder thought as he watched her hastily straighten herself, all
the while studying his professional expression with annoyance. 
Mulder glanced down at his hands for a moment before returning them to
Miss Hedgwick's dark blue eyes. It was his turn now to move in for
attack. It was clear that she was catching up to be on the same page as
Mulder. She obviously wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of
this place, never to return. As much as he hated to do this to her or to
anyone, Mulder couldn't afford to lose her. He leaned in closer this
time and lowered his voice to near whisper.
	"Then why don't you tell me about it?" This time, Miss Hedgwick stayed
silent. Mulder decided to push on, so as to make her realize what she
really came here to do. "I think you have a lot of anger stored up in
yourself. You need to let it out or it will consume you in the end, like
it's doing it to you right now. I also have a feeling that you hold
answers which Jake has been looking for a long time. So far, he's only
mentioned his former fiancee and a brief affair with another woman that
he was involved a couple of years ago. 
"I have to admit that you are probably right about his regarding your
relationship as a child's play, or as one of his youthful mistakes
that's not worth remembering nor mentioning. But if there's something
more, and I believe there's a whole lot more, then I think you should
let it out. Not necessarily to me, but to someone who can guide you out
of this. It's not healthy trapping yourself in rage like this. You need
to find a way out." 
	"I'm perfectly capable of handling my own problems." She glared at him,
reminding Mulder of his partner yet gain.
	"I know you are. Not now, though. Not in this one, anyway. I think you
are experienced enough to recognize it. I understand that this scares
you, although I don't know just how much. If you don't want to talk to
Jake and you don't feel particularly compelled to look for a stranger to
be your shrink or a confider, then why don't you talk to me? Right here
and now. You've already given me a place to start, and consequently a
place to start for yourself. But I'm not him, and I can't be with you
for long. So, if you talk to me and still feel lost, then you need
someone better and closer to you."
	"You're still trying to get me to talk to Jake, aren't you?" Miss
Hedgwick looked at him wearily. Mulder's eyebrows shot up in response.
	"If that's what you think, maybe that's what you need to do." Mulder
watched as the woman's expression registered fear, resistance, worry,
and finally, resignation. Mulder resumed his calm. She sighed and
dropped her hands on her lap.
	"Thanks for the offer, Agent Mulder. I think I'm better off just
dumping this on you and leave it there." 
Mulder's eyes slightly widened in response, having half expected her to
walk away or throw him another fit of argument for the hell of it. He
knew Scully would, and did. Mulder closed his eyes and nodded in
silence, a quiet insistence for her to go on before she changed her
mind. She took a deep breath before returning her eyes on him. 
"We came to the end of our junior year. I still remember that day
clearly. Jake came to school real upset. His eyes were swollen raw as if
he'd been crying through the night and that morning. He wore sunglasses,
so no one noticed. We found privacy and I persisted him to talk to me,
because he was so quiet. He told me his parents had been secretly
conducting his transfer procedures with the school administrators. 
"...He was all set to go to a boarding school somewhere in mid-eastern
states. They told him he was free to do his sketches and play basketball
all he wanted; because his artistry was what he was wanted for, and the
school already had him included in their basketball team as a primary
player.
	"Jake resisted, of course. That is, until my own parents got involved.
They told him in secret that he was doing me and the rest of the world a
huge favor by leaving. That, he caused me so much trouble in the past
already, and neither family wanted us together in our senior year. They
were afraid of his reputation reflecting negatively on my school records
when I'll be selecting and entering a collage." 
Miss Hedgwick stopped to calm herself and to give Mulder a break. She
watched Mulder as he deflated in his chair, his palms rubbing his face
and raking his hair with his fingers. She'd already told Mulder the
events of the last time she and Jake had been together, so she chose to
skip through it. With a huge sigh, Mulder lowered his hands to rest them
on the table in front of him. She didn't detect tears in his eyes, but
they looked a little blood-shot as they locked onto her already much
more swollen ones.
"How did...? I mean, how did you come to know about your parents lying
to you in the first place? When was it?" 
Mulder's deep and velvety tone of voice sent a wave of tingling
sensations down to her chest, to rest at somewhere around her churning
stomach. Deeper than Jake's satiny tone, but none the less sweeter, it
soothed her tension-bound body. Restraining herself from asking him
another question just to make him speak again, she cleared her throat
and stretched her body. By now, Mulder knew what she was doing, and he
tightened his jaw as he braced himself. 
	"They... my parents kept me in the dark until after I graduated from
graduate school and came home. One evening, I was looking through a
walk-in closet in my father's study to pick out a tie for him to wear to
a business conference he was attending with my mother. We were doing
fine by then, mostly because after I got my Bachelor's degree in
political science, I accepted my father's peace offering of letting me
go to whatever school I wanted to go. 
"They already knew I was going all the way, and that I would request
them to let me go for Master's and Ph.D. It wasn't really a
life-changing event, because I had a full scholarship to get into Yale.
But I was their only child, and they hadn't lived with me, nor seen me
until I graduated from the University of Pennsilvania. My mother had
been pleading her case to let her spend some decent time with me, but I
hadn't forgiven my parents fully, yet. That's the reason why I never
returned home for the Thanksgiving dinners and the Holidays. I always
went on a trip by myself, once even to Chicago. 
"I should have at least tried to find Jake right then, but I didn't. I
didn't have the big picture on what exactly happened to us. Plus, I
never heard from Jake after we were separated, and I knew he probably
had a whole new life in Chicago; probably with a steady girlfriend, if
not with a hoard of women trying to get him into their beds. 
"I couldn't live with the guilt that I used to shoulder for Jake,
because just thinking about him and what he must have been going through
almost killed me. I was even hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer; then for
the beginning stage of a bulimia, before I was forced into getting
counseling for my insomnia. I've never gone through a decent counseling
session, if you haven't already guessed. The psychological counselor was
convinced that I only needed a prescription for sleeping pills." 
She was only stalling the biggest issue here, and she knew that Mulder
was aware of the fact. She released a nervous laughter as she told him
about the hospitalization. She was half-afraid of what Mulder must have
been thinking of her outbursts. She knew that if she told him too much,
this man had the authority to get her committed. When he reached out and
touched her hand now restlessly picking at each other's fingernails, she
released a deep breath. Mulder gave her hands a brief squeeze before
pulling away. His eyes never left hers, giving her his assurances that
everything could still go be all right in time. 
"Obviously, you both have been through hell and back. But I think you
know what you need to do here. Tell me what happened after you went into
your father's closet." 
She gritted her teeth and fought her tears away. Nearly twenty years of
training fighting her past enabled her to succeed, but experiences told
her she wasn't going to last forever. She took a deep breath, then
ordered herself to get through the rest as quickly as possible and get
the hell out of the room before she embarrassed herself even further.
She closed her eyes momentarily to take herself back into her father's
walk-in closet, on that fateful day. It was easy, for she'd done it so
many times before. She could describe everything about the room, to the
extent of describing the way that old closet and the damn box of secrets
smelled. She began.
"On its top shelf, I found an old, beautiful wooden box with hand-curved
patterns on the surface. I took it in my hands, but I broke a light bulb
in the process. I'd never seen that box before that day. I wanted to
know where he got it, and where it was made. When I opened the rid,
there was a beautiful red velvet fabric covering the inside of the box
and the inside of the rid. Its beauty would have taken my breath away,
if I never found that the box was full with official school forms and
notes regarding Jake's school transfer. I was smart for not read them
until I saw my parents off. 
"...I've learned that all of them were written by my parents, addressed
to our high school administrators and Jake's parents. Those documents
didn't shock me too much, because I remembered Jake telling me about the
conspiracy. I just never expected my parents to be the driving force
behind it. What terrified me the most, was when I went down to the
basement storage unit to look for a light bulb to replace the one I
broke. 
"I was trying to reach the top shelf which I wasn't quite tall enough to
even touch without stepping over the lower shelves. My left foot tripped
over several small cardboard boxes on the second bottom shelf that I
couldn't remember ever being there, and they went flying to the floor
with me. I found myself showered with letters from Jake that I never
knew existed. All of them were opened, sent originally by Jake to the
house and to the school I went to."
	 Her voice already shaking with pain and rage as much as her body, she
was forced to pause in order to compose herself before it got out of her
control. But for the moment, Mulder was busy looking away and shutting
his eyes against the pain this bit of information stirred up in him.
Mulder's own deep rage made him go pale, and this, even Miss Hedgwick
noticed. 'He looks just like Jake in the counselor's office that day.'
She thought as she fought back more tears and heard Mulder mutter
something close to a growl under his breath. She chose again to get the
story over with as quickly as possible. 
"They filed a document in juvenile court, refusing to dispense any of my
personal records including school documents to Jake, along with a
restraining order that had been filed against him. Jake's parents
actually went to the court with my parents to file it, because it was
their mutual decision. Our parents both swore the judge that the
documents were being filed also at both of our consent. They claimed we
had both agreed that our relationship wasn't in a healthy state, and
that it would become an obstacle in our future. 
"No wonder neither of us could get hold of each other! I never knew
where he was, because for some reason, I couldn't find out where he
lived. The letters I wrote to him had to go through his parents, and I
knew Sam Kathler would never let his son get to them. When Jake first
told me about the transfer, he didn't even know which school he was
being sent to. To top it all, our parents adopted a new offence strategy
and in fact begged Jake repeatedly to keep his whereabouts a secret from
me until at least we both entered collage. Then they told him and
eventually convinced him that this was the best thing to do for all of
us. 	
"Jake agreed, because he was facing four adults who were constantly
trying to break his spirit by convincing him that he was a hell of a
screw-up. That, he's doing great because of my help, but what about in
two, four years? Did he want to burden me with responsibilities of
'taking care' of him while I was trying to get on with my own life? You
know, the stupid crap like that. 
"Jake was very strong, but even he had his limits. They recognized
quickly that he was weakening. I've no doubt that Sam Kathler taught my
parents how to manipulate and inflict guilt tortures on his own son; so
that he may finally come to 'recognize his inadequacy' and leave me
alone. 
" Neither of us knew just what our parents were planning behind our
backs, and at that time, I believe neither of us were sure of our own
futures enough to over-ride the court's restraining orders even if we
knew about them. So, after finding out about the letters, I decided to
postpone the confrontation with my parents. "
	"Wait a second. Jake still doesn't know a thing about all this, does
he?" Realization dawning, Mulder asked with round eyes. She reluctantly
shook her head 'no'. Mulder sighed and rubbed his chin with his hand.
She only hoped he would be too shocked with the truth to have enough of
a presence of his mind left to read out her Miranda Rights after this
interview is over.
	"All the inside details about the exchange between my parents and his
didn't come from Jake's letters, because he obviously cut most of his
ties with his parents after he went to Chicago. He never questioned
them, because he was already too busy trying to figure out a way to live
through each day. If you must know, I literally beat them out of my
father, then yanked the rest out of my mother. I'm glad they talked
before I ended up murdering them, or otherwise you'd be conducting this
interview over a glass shield, in a maximum-security prison somewhere. 
"I went to Jake's parents', but they called the police on me when I
slammed Samuel Kathler up against their kitchen door. ...I took
kickboxing lessons through out collage, including the graduate school,
and all that workout finally paid off. I tore into the house like a
hurricane at their dinner time. That moron severely underestimated my
capabilities, and he threw punches like a little girl. I left there
before I got caught, but the police didn't come after me. I think Sam
Kathler was too proud of his precious male pride to tell them he was
beaten by a girl. 
"My father spent three days in a hospital, all the while Sam Kathler
made the ER interns busy with setting the fat man's limbs in casts, then
made his dentist a very rich man. My mother had to wear a wig for two
months until she grew back a head full of hair. None of them had the
guts to file any lawsuit regarding the incident. Instead, they each told
the police that they had been robbed and none of them saw their
assailants' faces. I was all ready to turn myself in if they ever had me
arrested. I'd have been proud to do it for as long as Jake wouldn't be
accused of the same crime as an accomplice.
	"For a while, I thought about hiring a lawyer or go public with
everything I had, so that I could at least apologize to Jake on-air. I
could have even found Jake with the connections I've got in Capitol
Hill, if not through the various influences I have in civil rights
activist organizations all over the world or with Hollywood. But I
always decided against these measures at the last minute, and I don't
even know why. 
"I eventually filed my own restraining orders against Samuel and Cindy
Kathler, then against my own parents before I decided that wasn't good
enough. I legally changed my identity and took myself out of my family
circle. I haven't seen them in over a decade and a half now, and still
it's not long enough. ...Jake never returned home and I finally moved on
with my life."
	"You've read Jake's letters." It wasn't a question, but it was better
than starting an interrogation on her. Mulder winced, already picturing
what the revelation must have been like for Miss Hedgwick. She tried to
reply as she fought yet another emotional roller coaster, then finally
found it a losing battle. Mulder could only wait until she recovered
enough, reminding himself never to reach across the table to touch her,
because he wasn't the right person for the task. Only Jake Kathler was.
But it was hard. 
She kept dubbing at her eyes and clearing her nose with paper napkins.
Once composed enough, she apologized to Mulder for the mess now
scattering over their table. Mulder shook his head 'no' to tell her it
was all right. This explained her confessed violent reaction and
previous harsh remarks about Jake's parents.
	"I did read them all, and they were everything I expected them to be.
...The act of ignoring any human being who screams to be heard, to be
felt, and to be learned, is the worst crime to commit, Agent Mulder.
Because silence is the worst poison against humanity. I've learned that
from traveling around the world, being a listening ear to the people
whose lives are as valuable as stray dogs to their governments. What
I've found in Jake's letters were constructed by exactly the same
elements as with these victims of silence.
	"Of course, Jake has a financially stability, a enjoyable work, and a
rather flexible life, considering he's able to work at home. ...I was
going to add the word 'safe' to the list, but that's no longer in his
possession, so don't count that. ...Money and objects hold no personal
meaning to you when you're face to face with a suffering human being.
When you look into these people's eyes, you go straight to their souls.
Even if they don't have eyes, they open up to you by whatever means
available to them.
"I've seen them use the touch of their hands; tapping of their feet;
even the tone of their voices. If they don't have any of the above, they
go to the extent of using the extra sensory perceptions. Human limbs
only exist to carry out what their minds interpret as their world to its
physical existence. Fortunately, Jake could use his hands, eyes, and
mind. They enabled him to write to me in so many words; to endure the
long hours he must've spent in writing them. 
	"My parents were in contact with Jake, Agent Mulder. Every single
letter he's ever written to me was already opened and read by them. In
some of the letters, Jake asked me why my parents were telling him to
'stop writing' to me, because I 'never want to see you again, anyway';
to use their exact words. He didn't want to give up until he's heard
from me personally. But of course, I didn't. I was busy getting my
degrees; and by my final year in collage, I was also busy fucking my new
boyfriend. My saying 'fucking', isn't in any way an exaggeration. I used
him as much as he used me. We were each other's tension reliever, as
well as sex toys. 
"I killed off Jake's spirit, Agent Mulder. Do you have any idea what a
cruel thing that is to do to any living human being? Especially to
someone who loves you as much as he loved me? 
"...It's like many of the POW stories I've heard. You live days and
nights in a cold cell, all alone. Your neighbor prisoners keep changing
and dying every week. The only thing that's keeping you alive is a bowl
of soup that's served every eight hours, and the thought that maybe one
day you'll see the light of day again, to return home to your loved
ones. 
"Many POWs die in the end with starvation, physical or mental disease,
exhaustion, or by their own hands. ...That is, if they still had their
hands, but you know what I mean. The lucky ones who finally manage to
escape or get liberated to return home find themselves declared dead by
their lovers and wives who were already happily married to someone else.
...I trapped Jake's spirit in that cold prison cell, and I unknowingly
let it live a slow death of hope; to starve it to death." 
Miss Hedgwick finally exhaled a large breath and buried her head in her
hands. Mulder stayed silent, his face resting on his hands now clasped
in front of his mouth. He was deep in thoughts, recalling several old
X-Files that involved POWs, medical experiment facilities, phantom
limbs, avenger of deaths, and the restless souls getting revenge from
beyond their graves. He shook his head to get himself back to the
present.
 	"Do you still have the letters from Jake?" Only Mulder's lips moved.
He saw her head shaking a 'no' and squeezed his eyes shut. Here was the
answer to why Jake stuck to 'letters' from those troubled women. He
thought about suggesting Miss Hedgwick to take a break, but she began
before he could utter another word.
"I wish I could've kept them all. He wrote beautifully. Most people do,
if they are desperate to describe their desperation in their stifled
voices." 
"What about the papers in that wooden box? The court documents and the
school forms?"
"I have those in a safe place, Agent Mulder; otherwise you won't be able
to do anything about them." Mulder nodded appreciatively, but he hated
asking his next question.
"What happened to the letters from Jake?" Miss Hedgwick visibly winced.
"...My father took them out and burned them over our barbecue grill. He
did this while I was tearing through the house and packing up my stuff
to get the fuck out of there on that same night. Opening such a large
number of letters without my consent... He would've been locked up in
jail for over a century, and I'd have been a billionaire." 
Her bitter laughter dripped sarcasm. 'So, here's the reason why people
praise Jake for his writing, and he thinks he's not good at it.' Mulder
thought, playing back Jake's earlier words from memory.
	"Miss Hedgwick? ...Or whatever your..." Mulder waved his hands in the
questioning gesture. Miss Hedgwick pondered whether she should lie, but
she no longer felt any need to hide herself from this man. 
	"Eve. Eve Austin." Mulder's eyes rounded and he took a sharp breath as
recognition hit him. 'My, my. Should I ask for an autograph?' Mulder
thought idly. She indeed was a globally known political speech-writer
who worked for Mulder's Congress connections, including Senator
Matheson. He also knew she occasionally worked in the White House. She
waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, realizing Mulder remembered her
true identity as well as what she did for a living. "Don't tell anyone.
Only a handful of people know it." Mulder never intended to, and he was
also busy thinking how to convince her to make her confession to Jake.
	"I won't. ...Miss Austin? If you find it too difficult to meet Jake in
person again, you need to at least talk to him. If you can't do it now,
then at least do it after this case is over and done with in court.
It'll take months, but the case will close. I can assure you that much.
...You need a closure, or you'll carry this burden around forever. It's
not too late to make it up. Telling the truth is always the first step
toward forgiveness."  
Mulder kept his voice in control with considerable effort while mentally
torturing the two sets of dead-beat parents with every method he could
think of. He hated to sound like a rehearsed cliche, but he chose to be
honest with this woman over his worries on how he sounded. He saw her
shake her head in the negative again.
	"Like I told you before, I don't think I should see him. Now that he's
a father, I can't take the risk of dropping this bomb on him and
permanently ruin him. Please just let him think I left him." This was a
possibility Mulder took seriously.
	"Nicole... I mean, Eve? You don't know Jake as he is today. But I know
how damn close he came to be destroyed by the secrets that had been kept
from him in the past. He's got a zero-secrecy policy in relationships
for that reason. Three years ago, his fiancee committed suicide over her
pent-up guilt for carrying out a secret affair with another man. The
brief affair he had the following year ended, because the woman
confessed to him later that she was already married; but she didn't do
it the best way. 
"...There's one more thing about Jake's letters. Are they the reason you
found out he stopped having one-night stands as you said before?" Seeing
her nod in response, he continued. "In my own life, I was forced to
watch my family tear itself apart, then I watched it being consumed by
its own past secrets. My own relationship policy carries a
zero-tolerance for lies, and I won't defy it for anyone including you.
You can't ask me to lie to Jake for you. I'm your confidant, but Jake
has to know the truth. He's got every right to know. 
"Jake still carries the burden of his fiancee's death, and he puts out
an ad in local newspaper every Sunday, asking female readers to write to
him about their own experiences with relationships, sexual encounters...
Your story adds the key piece to the answers he's been searching for
probably all his life." 
Miss Hedgwick / Austin was silent for a long time, trying to digest the
information Mulder hit her with. The unfairness of this whole situation
made Mulder swallow hard. A while later, she took her head out of her
hands and stared directly into his eyes.
	"Promise me something, Agent Mulder. Promise me that you'll keep our
conversations confidential until all legal matters concerning Jake
Kathler in your hands are solved and dealt with. Never spill a word
about my arrival here, or about what just took place. Linda Lowry only
knows about my name change and about the court documents on record. She
knows nothing about Jake's letters, nor about the minor harassment
episodes I got while being a high school student. She also knows nothing
about our first weekend together, but maybe that can be spilled without
a harm. But, I intend to keep the rest discreet.
"Jake probably won't recognize me now, because I altered my facial
features when I changed my name. I'm pretty confident that even my own
parents won't, either. I thinned my jaw bone, widened my mouth, and
thinned my lips. I then made my nose smaller and straight. ...It took
several punches in the past from kick-boxing, anyway. It was good that I
had the surgeries. Did you really think I'd come down here if I thought
Jake would be in the same building we'd be in, and may recognize me? 
"I'll meet with the bureau social worker as I first suggested to you,
but I won't tell the social worker any more than what I already told
Miss Lowry, and never a word to your partner nor your other colleagues.
With luck, you are still free to contact me and use me as a character
witness and to confirm the contents of those official Kathler documents
as I promised before. But in the mean time, try forgetting ever meeting
me."
	"I can't." Miss Austin was already leaving the room when Mulder's
choked answer stopped her.
	"Why?" She asked, her eyes begging him to forget she even existed.
Mulder took a moment before facing her again.
	"I have eidetic memory, Eve. It's physically impossible." He watched as
she shut her eyes tightly, clearly regretting ever meeting Mulder. She
walked back to him, sighing deeply.
	"Within twenty hours, I'm due for arrival in Tibet. I've written a few
speeches to be delivered there by a couple of hot shot Hollywood actors
and a US senator. I can't tell you which senator that is, though. He's
not sure yet whether the public should know he'd even gone there. ...My
life is filled with chaos, because that's just the way I like it to be.
Who knows? I might get away with a couple of bullet holes in my jacket
next week, when I go down to Bosnia. I may still be alive the week after
that, when I'm in Algeria. But I can't guarantee about the week after
that one, because I'll be in Baghdad. Good luck with getting a hold of
me, Agent Mulder. ...At least keep the promise, will you?" The dark blue
burned into his hazel before Mulder finally nodded.
	"It's hard, but I'll sure try. As long as you keep your end of the
promise." Mulder gave her the look that said 'better do it, or I'll
spill.' She nodded appreciatively. Mulder took out one of his cards out
of his wallet and wrote down his e-mail address along with his home
phone number. When he gave it to her, she stared at it for several
seconds before taking it and stashing it into her jacket pocket.
Mulder was ready to say his good-bye when she grabbed him abruptly by
the knot of his tie and drew him close. Her other hand swiftly grabbed
the back of his head. and tilted his face upward. She never gave him a
moment to react before she sealed his mouth with hers, along with her
past. Mulder grabbed the ends of his chair to keep from toppling
backwards, thus couldn't ward her off. 
The kiss was practically an airtight seal made stronger by the vise-grip
of her strong hands. It hurt like a blow to his mouth, and Mulder swore
she was trying to peel his lips away from his face. For several times,
he unsuccessfully tried to speak, but if it was possible, his efforts
only served to tighten their kiss further. At the moment it didn't dawn
on him that she might mistakenly think he was kissing her back. She
released him after what felt like an eternity. She took a series of deep
breaths, looking at the disheveled man before her as he blinked and
tryed to catch his breath. 
	"Promises sealed. Good luck with the rest of the case, and you all
better keep yourselves alive, Agent Mulder." Miss Austin concluded,
seeing that Mulder managed to send off his own good-luck wishes with a
wave of his hand. She straightened herself before walking away as
briskly as she first stepped through the main door. Mulder was left
open-mouthed, slumping back into the chair. So much has just happened in
this place; so many revelations made on both sides; so many questions
had been answered, and so many new problems were presented for the
takers.
When Mulder finally stood up to leave, he found it very painful to close
his mouth due to his rapidly swelling, severely bruised lips. 'It's a
miracle they're still on my face', he thought as he cleared the mess on
their table. Hastily filling a paper cup with ice tips and a little
water, he walked out of the deserted cafeteria. He took his sweet time
getting back to his workload, trying to come up with some excuse for his
new on-the-job injury. 'If phoebe is fire, then Eve is a tornado as she
said so herself.' Mulder thought. He saw how much of her had been
destroyed by her family secrets. The woman was not only hurt and
self-destructive, but she was downright reckless. 
Mulder now recognized the pattern in women Jake managed to pick out.
They were all self-destructive, all had secrets that destroyed them, and
all had so much to live for. Mulder hissed at the sharp pain when the
bruised lips came in contact with cold ice, and wondered if Miss
Austin's lips were sustaining as much damage as his lips had. He was
sure she meant to.
	"This adds a whole new meaning to 'occupational hazard'." Mulder
muttered as he headed for the elevator.