From: langford@infobahnos.com (Robert Langford) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Gwen and the People Upstairs 1/4 Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 07:17:14 GMT GWEN AND THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS by Tracey Houston This is the third story I've written about Gwen, a hostage negotiator for the FBI who has an uncanny talent for getting entangled in Mulder and Scully's world. It's a stand-alone story, but it's the third in a sequence. "Gwen" and "Gwen and the Videotape" are in the Gossamer archive. The time is roughly late second season, although there are no spoilers. Comments are welcome- I'm at tahouston@gm.gamemaster.qc.ca SUMMARY: Gwen stumbles upon a conspiracy to cover up one of Mulder's investigations. She regrets confiding her discovery to Mulder when he becomes hell-bent on exposing it, damn the consequences. Characters (except Gwen) are copyright Chris Carter and 10-13 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. Gwen and the People Upstairs 1/4 "I've brought a visitor." Assistant Director Skinner held the door open for Gwen. Mulder and Scully looked up from their work. Gwen stepped in front of the Assistant Director dressed in a long peasant skirt and a cotton blouse. Her mousy hair was tucked in a loose bun at the back of her neck. She flashed them an open-handed wave. "Hi guys!" "Gwen!" Scully grinned. "Long time no see!" "She asked where your office was," Skinner said matter of factly. He turned to Gwen and smiled. "Well, Gwen. I'm looking forward to our next meeting." Gwen nodded. "You bet." Skinner moved to the door and paused, framed in it. "Watch out for these two-" he said gravely, indicating Mulder and Scully. Mulder couldn't tell if he was joking or not, and that worried him. Finally Skinner smiled. "Take care, Gwen." "You too, Walt." she called after him as he disappeared back down the hall. A moment later, Mulder rose and shut the door. He leaned against it, a smirk spreading over his lips. "-'Walt'? What's going on, Gwen?" "Nothing." Gwen shrugged. "I was in to correct something on my pay check and I decided to do some visiting with the brass." Scully went over to the coffee machine and refilled her mug. "You should see what level of security clearance they gave her, Mulder." Mulder stepped toward his desk, smiling at Gwen. "What are you doing visiting Skinner?" Gwen nodded. "I visit all of the Assistant Directors occasionally-" Mulder tilted his head at her in disbelief. "It's kind of an informal therapy thing....Just chatting - seeing how it's going." Scully laughed. "-There you go Mulder. No grist for your rumour mill today." She grinned, sipping her coffee. "Give me a minute, Scully." Mulder sat down on the edge of his desk, nodding at Gwen. "'Just Chatting' with Assistant Director Skinner? What do you talk about-?" "-Mulder!" Scully exclaimed. He was relentless. "What does he say? Does he ever mention Scully and I?" "No." Gwen smiled. "Believe it or not." Mulder thudded back in his chair with defeat. He picked up a file folder on his desk, grinning. "Tell me something I haven't heard about Skinner, and I'll show you what's in this!" Scully rolled her eyes tiredly and walked away. "Mulder....." "I don't care what's in that." Gwen sighed. "-So why did they put you in the basem-?-" Mulder waved the file at her. "-Aren't you wondering why I'm in such a good mood today?" "Fox, our meetings are confidential." Gwen glanced over at Scully, who raised her eyebrows. Mulder waited patiently, saying nothing. "-What? You really want to know something about Walter Skinner? Will that make your day?" Mulder nodded. Gwen toyed with her long necklace, thinking. "Hm. Okay...." Scully couldn't hide her curiousity. "What?" "-Well," Gwen paused and took a deep breath. "And this better not get back to him. " she said after a moment. "-He's a passionate collector." Mulder considered this. "All right, what's in the file that's putting you in such a good mood?" "-A collector?" Mulder grinned. "Skinner? Hmmm...." Gwen reached for the file that Mulder held in his hand and tugged it away from him, flipping it open. Glossy photographs, slick and new-looking, slid out into her hand. She tilted her head at them. "-UFO photos...?" Gwen's voice was breathy. She had never given any thought to the subject until she had run into Mulder and Scully. "-Are these your pictures? Did you see something-?" Scully moved to her desk with her mug of coffee and sat down, smiling to herself while Mulder gleamed with shiny pride. "Well...." she said, under her breath. "No. Not exactly." Mulder gently took the photographs from Gwen and fussily slipped them back into the file folder. "They aren't even my photos." He handed her the accompanying papers instead. "This is mine. I've been working on this for three years - somebody's testing some type of high tech aircraft at Ellens Air Force Base. The first time they caught me and drugged me so I couldn't remember-" "He looked like a Deadhead with a hangover. I had to carry him home!" Scully shook her head with rueful fondness at Mulder. Mulder tried to hide the excitement from his voice. His eyes sparkled. "There was something BIG there, Gwen. So big that they try to erase it from people's brains - to steal the images from their minds-" As he spoke Gwen's eyes widened in amazement. "And now; this!" he said enthusiastically, smacking the photos with the back of his hand. Gwen turned to Scully in disbelief. "-" Gwen started. Scully shook her head. Before she could say anything Scully had answered her. "I didn't see any of it. I slept through it all." Mulder didn't hear her. "These are the first actual confirmed photographs to be taken of the tests and I've written about it all, including the disappearance and eventual lobotomized reappearance of a project test pilot named Budahas. AND," he said loudly, startling Gwen. "A newspaper is going to print it!" Gwen's eyes darted over the essay she held in her hand. "-You're going to publish this?" She looked up at Mulder blankly. "For the first time the truth about the government's secret tests will be known, Gwen! What they've been doing for years - the strange lights in the sky, the brain-washing, the disappearances, will finally be exposed!" "Ohh Fox..." Gwen dumped the file onto Mulder's desk like it was suddenly electric. "You're really going to make this all public?" she asked warily. Mulder jumped up. "Of course!" he shouted enthusiastically. When he saw her dismayed expression, his face fell. He was suddenly annoyed. "Why not?" "Secret tests?" Gwen flailed her arms helplessly. "- You can't go around exposing secrets!" Mulder looked dark. Gwen felt she should explain. "Fox, I'm happy that they would publish it, but don't you think the government would be a little upset? I mean, if they felt it was important enough to erase people's minds-" "-That's the same reasoning I had," Scully said calmly from behind her desk. Mulder slapped the file down on his desk with a hard whap! "I don't believe the both of you! Don't tell me that you condone this kind of behavior from the government!" Scully groaned. "Mulder - think for a minute. If they drugged and abducted you once, what makes you think that they would hesitate to do something worse?" "-That's not the point-!" Mulder's voice grew thin. "They KNOW that I know-" "They've known all along, Mulder-" Scully tried again. "What's different now?" "-They thought they had taken care of me - erased my memory - but I've collected more information-" "-Which makes this all the more dangerous-" "-Which makes this a powder keg I'm sitting on. The only way to be safe is to expose this now!" Gwen nodded at Scully in agreement. "I'm with Dana on this - we don't want anything happening to you, Fox! We're just concerned." Mulder put his hands on his hips and stared at the floor, steaming. "I knew I shouldn't have told you...." he said, his words stinging with bitterness. Gwen wondered why she and Mulder always ended up arguing. She counted Mulder as a friend but as of late she kept wondering why. She felt terrible about it. Looking over at Scully, she could see that she was having similar thoughts. "Fox,-" Gwen attempted feebly. "-Call me Mulder. Could you call me 'Mulder' just once?" "-Whatever. Listen, I think you've done a great thing, Mulder." The words tasted difficult in her mouth. Mulder continued to stare at the floor. "It's that we care and we don't want to see you in jail or...." Gwen looked at Scully, and saw a deep concern in her eyes. Mulder's expression did not change. Scully looked at her feet. Feeling a little foolish, Gwen backed down. "Well, anyways, if you feel safe, then go right ahead. But be careful." Mulder lifted his head from his sulk and looked at Gwen. He tried to match the concillatory tone in her voice. "I understand where you're coming from. It's nice to feel cared about." He picked the file up off his desk and flipped it open, his eyes darting over the photographs. "Then maybe you understand that this is important to me." Gwen nodded. She thought he was being foolish but decided against saying anything. Mulder must know what he's doing. To hear Scully tell it, the two of them were up to their ears in government cover-ups, and when Gwen looked at her, she saw that she had serenely resigned herself to the idea that she couldn't influence Mulder. Gwen realized she should take Scully's lead and let Mulder's karma take care of itself. She took a deep breath. "It's great, Mulder. I hope that you get some recognition for your work." Mulder smiled. "I won't. But F.M. Luder will." Gwen needed to find somebody who would take her pay cheque back. She had been paid by the Bureau for a negotiation job she had done when Scully had been taken hostage by Louis T. Bernard. He had claimed to have been abducted by aliens, and had eventually surrendered. They killed him anyway, and Gwen had sworn she wouldn't take any money for it. Lo and behold, months later a pay cheque for double the fee she normally charged appeared with her mail. She had cried. They were trying to buy her off. The elevator doors slid silently open on the ninth floor of the Hoover Building. Gwen stepped out. The xerox- scented halls were deserted, the usual hustle and bustle of the FBI headquarters' corridors a distant echo. A flourescent light flashed overhead. The J. Edgar Hoover Building was an architectural nightmare. Designed to look imposing, it was montrously massive and impersonal, and it sat on Pennsylvania Avenue like a schoolyard bully. Very little attempt had been made to make it look attractive. In fact, Gwen had always imagined it had been designed by angry robots. The only thing uglier than the outside of the Hoover Building was the inside. The hallways always seemed stale and urine yellow looking, no matter how well they were lit, and they wound around into dead-ends like a maze. Gwen took a few steps in one direction and stopped. The room numbers were equally enigmatic. After a few twists and turns she arrived at room AA4114-201c and paused. The bakelite plaque announced that AA4114-201c was Interior Audit Administration. That might waht she wanted. She knocked at the door. There was no answer, just the hollow sound of wood beneath her knuckles. Attached to the doorframe was a keypad and a pass reader. When that brought no results, she unclipped her badge and stared at it. Overlaying the skillfully bland photograph was a twinkly gold-coloured "V". Along the side ran a tiny magnetized strip. Without any thought, Gwen took her card and swiped it in the pass reader. A little green light soundlessly flinked on. She moved to go and then hesitated. This would surely be a gross misuse of her high security clearance. The visitor's pass was given to her in good faith. Already she had stolen a videotape, a flagrant abuse of her privileges. She wondered if this were the beginning of a life of crime. She tugged the heavy door open. Office AA4114-201c was bare. The lights were off and the windows dirt-streaked and shrouded with dusty old green curtains. Gwen quickly pulled the door closed behind her, the breeze chasing dust bunnies the size of tumbleweeds across the old linoleum into the corners. At the back of the room, near the windows, a few old desks sat lined up along the back wall. The desks were home to squat black boxes. A slight green glow floated above them, and it swirled slightly as the dust shifted when she moved towards them. For an instant she wondered if they were radioactive. Atop the desk sat row upon row of dusty fax machines, their luminous green LED displays blinking in wait silently. The backs of the fax machines bled phone cords and wires that ran alongside and spilled off the table onto the floor where they pooled into a big box. As she moved towards it, she heard the dangerous hum of high voltage and stayed away. As her eyes adjusted further, she saw a door tucked away in the farthest corner of the room. Unthinking, she went to it and tugged it open. The flickering soft light of twenty computer screens lit up twenty faces a ghostly white. Startled, the ghost faces turned toward her with the uniform choreography of a school of fish. "-Oh sorry!" Gwen gasped. Her dry mouth tasted like dust. "Please leave." An small man in a suit rose from one of the computers and addressed her. Gwen clutched her paper. "I need a change to my pay check-" she said nervously, her tongue too parched to speak. After a moment the robotic faces became real people. They regarded her for a moment with disinterest and turned back to their work. "I'll have to ask you to leave." The man stepped towards her. He was too short to be menacing but he made up for it with determination to stop her. Peering over his shoulder Gwen saw that the computer nearest her had an enlarged photo of UFO on it. "I was told that you could make a correction-" she began, her eyes never leaving the picture. "-We can't." The man tried to stand between her and the monitor. The photo of the UFO was identical to Mulder's pictures but with all the fins and gizmos of a low budget 1950s flying saucer. She craned to see what was happening. "You have to leave now." She stuffed the paper in the man's face, trying to peer over him. "Is this Interior Audit Administration?" Behind him on another monitor was an news article entitled "US Air Force hires Aliens to Prepare for WW III". Her eyes bugged out. The man saw her react and placed his hands on her. He began pushing her out the door. "No. We're not. Sorry." Gwen resisted but he suddenly linked arms with her skillfully and stepped out into the dusty room. The door to the office thudded shut and the ghostly light and luminous faces were gone. He pulled her with ease silently past the tables bearing their sentinel fax machines. Dust swirled around their feet as he dragged her, squirming, away from the adjoining office. He opened the door that led back into the hallway and shoved her out into the bright flourescent corridor. Strands of mousy hair tumbled out of her loose bun while Gwen had struggled. "We can't help you here," he said courteously enough considering that she had been wrestling with him moments before. He smiled at her, a blank monitor himself, and closed the door. "Wait, Gwen. What are you telling me?" Mulder paced the floor of his office. "You were roughed up by auditors?" Gwen stuffed her hair back into her clip. "They're not auditors - why would they need twenty five fax machines?" She sat on a wheeled secretarial chair of Mulder and Scully's. "And what about the UFO photos and article -?- Fox, for a moment I thought it was your-" She pointed at the file folder, still on his desk. "-Your expose." Mulder covered his mouth with his hand, lost in thought. After a second he spoke. "How did you know it wasn't mine?" "The photo was so fake. The headline looked right off of a tabloid newspaper." Scully frowned. Her orange hair swung. "Well, Mulder, it looks like the World Weekly News got a hold of your big scoop." Mulder met her gaze. "That's what I'm worried about." Gwen nodded slowly, a distinct feeling of unease settling about her. "I don't think the people upstairs were auditors." Mulder was suddenly serious and and his face was drawn. "Take me there." =========================================================================== From: langford@infobahnos.com (Robert Langford) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Gwen and the People Upstairs 2/4 Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 07:17:45 GMT Gwen and the People Upstairs 2/4 Tracey Houston (tahouston@gm.gamemaster.qc.ca) Characters (except Gwen) are (c) Chris Carter and 10-13 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended Minutes later, Gwen was back at room AA 4114- 201c slipping her pass through the magnetic strip reader for Mulder. The green light came on and Mulder looked impressed. "Wow, does this get you backstage at Stones concerts too?" he mumbled, glancing down the empty corridor before pushing into the office. Gwen followed him into the empty room and shut the door. He stood still in the grainy blackness for a moment, drinking in the empty expanse. The rapidly tilting sunlight of the afternoon had given over to dusk and now only the dust itself seemed to light the place. She waited for him to speak. After a moment she heard him, his voice low and powdery from the dust. "How come Scully and I get the small office? There's nothing here." "No-" Gwen shook her head at his back in the darkness. "Look harder. Against the wall. Do you see the glow?" He stepped toward the rank of fax machines. As he moved toward them they took shape in the dimness and Gwen could see that he was taken aback by their number. He paused. "Twenty-five? Gwen, there are at least fifty..." he murmured. As Gwen drew closer behind him, she made out numerous rows of machines, luminous and alert, blinking quietly in wait. Suddenly, as if inspired, Mulder looked up over to the wall. He saw the door. "Is that where all the computers you saw were?" He looked back at her. She nodded. A crumpled piece of paper lying next to a lonely trashcan caught Gwen's eye, even in the fuzzy dark, and she picked it up. She brought the page close to her face and her eyes darted across it. "Whoops..." Mulder tried the door to the adjoining room. "Can't get in -they've closed shop for today." He was disappointed. "Mmm." Gwen said, not listening. She was reading the paper she held in her hand. Mulder turned to her and saw the it. "What did you find?" "It's your article - kind of." Gwen grimaced and handed it to him. Mulder smoothed out the paper and stared at it. "-'Air Force Hire Aliens to Prepare for World War Three'?" he read incredulously. He looked up at her briefly. "-Gwen, I don't think that this-", he broke off and read onwards, his eyes quickly zig-zagging over the article. In a minute he was done reading. He lifted his head and even in the gloom, Gwen could see his eyes held the smarting sting of truth. "This is too much," he said slowly. "It's my article. Where did you find this?" Gwen pointed at the floor. His eyes followed her finger. "Next to the wastepaper basket." Mulder shook his head, a dim look of disbelief on his face. "Everything from my story has been distorted-blown out of proportion-" he stepped back towards the green glow of the fax LED lights. "And they've been sending it to somebody." "What would auditors be doing with it?" "I don't know." Mulder quickly began pressing buttons on one of the fax machines. "They're not auditors. Look at this-" He pointed at the small LED screen on the fax. He reached into his inside pocket and withdrew a small pad and pencil. "It's got a speed dial-" The FBI Librarian regarded Mulder and Gwen skeptically as he gingerly slipped a CD into the d: drive of a hulking computer. "The Reverse Phone Directory is not to be used for personal purposes, you understand." They nodded. "The Bureau does not approve of agents 'borrowing' resources meant for investigation purposes only." The librarian tried again, eyeing Gwen. She smiled, wondering if he had suspected her of stealing. "Of course." Mulder was already entering numbers into the computer's database. "813 is the area code for Miami, if I'm not wrong..." He slapped the Enter key. The CD whirled. Lights went on and off. The hard drive cackled. Words appeared on the screen. "The 'Weekly World News'?!" Gwen blurted. Mulder squinted at it. "They re-wrote my expose and sent it to a tabloid?" He typed another phone number from the list. The machine whirred and spat up another address. Gwen blinked. 'The National Examiner'?" Mulder grimaced. "-Ugh." He entered another phone number. The computer worked its magic. "'News of The World"?" Mulder choked. "Trash." Gwen muttered, rolling her eyes. More numbers were entered. "-'The New York Post'?" "Oh God." "The 'Sun'?" Mulder and Gwen looked at one another. "I can't believe how many lousy tabloids there are out there-" Gwen began. Mulder scrunched up his face in disgust and was about to reply when a cellular phone chirped insistently. The librarian looked up at the sound. He took the phone out of his pocket and snapped it to his ear. "What'd you find?" "There is no section called Interior Audit Administration. Everybody I've spoken to thinks I'm pulling their leg." Mulder turned to Gwen, illuminated in the flickering grey light of the monitor. "I saw the plate outside the door, Scully. Try calling the Bureau Information Desk." "That was the first place I tried." Scully sighed. "There was nobody there that remembers being asked about returning a pay check." Mulder looked up. The librarian was standing there, arms folded. "Is this 'research' for the purpose of an investigation?" Mulder brought the phone away from his ear. "Potentially." He tried to sound official. The librarian grabbed the sheet with the telephone numbers away from Gwen and gazed at the list of disreputable newspapers and magazines. He looked at Gwen and then at her visitor's pass. "Are you a specialist involved in this case?" "Well," Gwen began, and hesitated. The librarian was angry now and turned to Mulder. "What's the case number of this investigation?" Mulder blinked. "-Well,-" The librarian reached over and ejected the CD Rom from the drive and hit the power button on the computer. The screen went dark. The whirring stopped. "Who is the head of your division?" Mulder sighed. "Assistant Director Walter Skinner." "Very good." The librarian wrote this down. "I suggest you come back here with a case number or a brief overview of your investigation." "I'll do that." He got up and went out the door quietly, followed by Gwen. "I can't get a straight answer from anyone about this Interior Audit Administration place." Scully sighed. "Look, are you certain that's what it was called?" Gwen nodded. Scully glanced at her notes. "Well, that's interesting because the Bureau insists that they don't HAVE a room AA4114-201c." Mulder handed her the paper he held in his hand. "Wait til you see what the phone numbers we lifted from the fax machines are-." Scully scanned the list. "Tabloids?" She blinked in surprise. "These were the only numbers we could get. We were asked to leave." Scully frowned "What do you think is going on?" "I have a worrisome theory, and I know you'll think it's paranoid," Mulder sat on his desk. "But I'm wondering if somebody isn't trying to beat me to the punch." "To discredit you by trashing your story before it's even hit the press?" Scully's voice was almost admiring. He nodded. "Yeah, what if they were trying to lodge the idea in people's minds that my story was a hoax? If it got to a tabloid first," he glanced at Scully. "Well, even I'd be skeptical. Then, when I publish the real thing-" "-Nobody'd believe you." Gwen's eyes were wide. "Spin doctors." Mulder jumped off the desk. "On a grand scale. Right here in the Hoover Building - the people upstairs!" "That IS paranoid, but Mulder...if that's the case...." Scully said quietly. "They've been controlling public opinion. No wonder no one will own up to anything." Mulder began to pace nervously. "How many times have they influenced the public's beliefs? How many people have they discredited?" he examined the piece of paper with the telephone numbers on it. "I've got to check these numbers out." Gwen turned to Mulder, a look of concern beginning to etch itself on her face. "What about the librarian?" she frowned. "Will you get in trouble?" Mulder shook his head. "No. And if I do, I can explain." Later that day, amid the humid springtime rush and hurry on Pennsylvania Avenue, Gwen looked for a cab to take her home. This was the second day in a row she had spent at the J. Edgar Hoover Building and was happy to be headed back to her forested refuge. She was looking forward to a long luxurious soak in the bath. After a few minutes, a taxi appeared amongst the 5:00 traffic. Her mousy hair humidly hanging limp, she stepped forward and hailed it. Like a strange yellow bug, it rushed towards her, cutting across three lanes of traffic. Gwen threw open the door and a blast air conditioning cut through the humidity to her. She climbed in. "You know Hagerstown on the I-70?" The driver nodded but the car didn't move. Other cars blared their horns as they sat still, double-parked in front of the FBI Headquarters. Gwen followed the driver's gaze. He was looking in the rearview mirror. Someone was getting in the other side. The door opened and humidity leaked in as a thin man in a suit sat down in the back next to her and closed the door. Gwen hoped she wouldn't have to argue with him about who got the cab first like she always did in New York. The gentleman handed the driver a few 50 dollar bills. "-Wait," he said firmly. The driver nodded and stared forwards while the gentleman turned to Gwen. "I won't keep you." Gwen said nothing. The gentleman's aftershave reminded her of fresh suits and money. "Listen, you could be in trouble. I want to warn you." He spoke slowly even through the meter was running. She nodded, staring at his bland expensive tie. The gentleman stared outside as the cars drove past them. "You know a lot about the FBI, Gwen,-" She was startled to hear him use her name. Suddenly the air conditioning felt cold. Her bare arms prickled. "-but I think it'd be safer not to pry any more." He examined his cuticles a moment. "You like to fix things. I know that. It's nice to have everybody happy. I agree." He paused and looked at her meaningfully. "-What are you getting at?" Her voice was thin and undernourished. "Nothing will be accomplished by this, Gwen. Just leave things alone." He reached into his pocket and Gwen thought he had a gun. It was a leather wallet. "Leave what alone?" she stammered. The gentleman pulled out yet another fifty and handed it to the driver, who managed to accept it without turning around. "You know the I-70?" The gentleman inquired. The driver nodded. "-head for Hagerstown, Maryland." "Who are you?" Gwen asked softly. The gentleman nodded at her as if he were too modest to say. "You'll create more problems than you'll solve, Gwen." He tipped a wink at her and stepped out of the cab in a fluid motion. The moment he was gone, the cabbie pulled the car into the traffic's flow and headed for the Interstate. "Do you know who that was?" Gwen finally asked after they were safely underway. The cabbie shrugged. "Some guy." =========================================================================== From: langford@infobahnos.com (Robert Langford) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Gwen and the People Upstairs 3/4 Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 07:18:18 GMT Gwen and the People Upstairs 3/4 Tracey Houston (tahouston@gm.gamemaster.qc.ca) Characters (except Gwen) are (c) Chris Carter and 10-13 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended For the third day in a row, Gwen found herself in Mulder and Scully's office. This time it was late in the evening as Gwen had meetings with graduate students at Georgetown all day. It was the usual sort of university fluff. Frazzled and frantic, the students had begged for extensions on their theses and Gwen had given them, her mind still stuck in the cab on Pennsylvania Avenue the day before. But she was more annoyed than shaken. And now Mulder stood before her, his hands on his hips, in a hurry. It was after-hours and he had planned to go investigate the offices of the Washington Examiner. She had tried to explain but he hadn't understood. She tried again. "You shouldn't pursue this, Fox. Let it go." "-What are you saying? Do you know what we might have uncovered, Gwen?" "I understand,-" she began. "No." Mulder shook his head at her. "I don't think you do." How clear did she have to be with him? "-Someone went out of their way to warn me yesterday-" Mulder blinked. "-What did they tell you?" Gwen rubbed her forehead. She was tired of thinking about it. "They said to leave things alone." "Of course they'll say that! They don't want us exposing them!" Mulder rolled his head back sarcastically. "Don't you see? We've got them running scared now!" Gwen took a deep breath. When she spoke next, she was emphatic. "Fox, Listen to me. I don't want you to do this." The words tumbled out of her mouth like heavy concrete slabs. Mulder froze a minute. "What?" "I'm telling you this has gone too far," Gwen said firmly. "I made a mistake. Let's just drop the whole thing." "Did they scare you, Gwen?" Mulder asked softly. Gwen was angry and she shook her head with a jerk. "No! Listen to me, that's not what I'm saying. I'm telling you that you can't do this." His face stained with a curious disbelief, Mulder stared at her. He waited a moment before he finally spoke. "This is about my story, Gwen. I'm not about to let go." "I TOLD you about the people upstairs! I TOLD you about the tabloid articles!-" "-It's MY expose they're trying to discredit!" "I don't care!" Gwen snapped. "I didn't expect that you'd suddenly start a full-scale investigation over what I told you!" Her hair tumbled out of its thong and she brusquely stuffed it back up. Mulder turned from her and walked to the back of the room. "What did you think I would do?!" He yelled at the cluttered bulletin boards, his voice bouncing off of the back wall at her. "I thought-" Gwen began angrily and paused. What did she think? "I thought that you wouldn't betray something I told you in confidence," she said quietly. Mulder turned to face her. He looked hurt and angry. "Betray you? That's a bit strong, don't you think? I think I'd be betraying EVERYBODY if I didn't expose this!" Gwen marched up to him and her voice was measured and low. "Don't act like I'M being the selfish one, Fox-" "-The government owes people an explanation about why they've got an office upstairs that has a mandate to spread libellous misinformation." Gwen smacked her chest. "And what about me? My reputation with the FBI? I've got a job to worry about-" "I thought you hated working for the Bureau! I'd be doing you a favour!" "I don't do hostage negotiation to please the FBI-" she stuttered angrily. "I'll decide when I'M ready to quit, thank you." Mulder regarded her levelly for a moment, nodding his head in agreement with some private thought. He grabbed his jacket. "Well - I'll decide what I'M going to investigate, thank YOU." He went to the door and turned off the lights in the office, leaving Gwen in the dark. Gwen seethed in the blackness and Mulder waited, a narrow silhouette at the door to the bright corridor. He looked back into the room. Gwen made no move to go. "Make sure the door locks behind you when you go." And then he moved into the light. Late into the empty night, sleep avoided Gwen. Knowing that she was in a foul mood, drowsiness tiptoed past her and went off in search of a more willing participant. She sat wide awake on her futon in the most silent moments of the night, counting the red hours on her digital clock, wondering about her blow-out with Mulder. It was not natural for her to stay angry at someone for more than a half-hour, but here she was in bed, secretly revelling in how much he had pissed her off. She had tried everything: meditation, yoga, creative visualization, and a million Zen mind-clearing exercises and still sleep and enlightenment evaded her. At five-o'clock, a silvery-peach dawn stretched over the tips of the trees, bleeding into the last night's leftover sky, and her phone rang. As her warm bare feet padded over the wooden floors, she caught herself hoping that it was Mulder. As she lifted up the receiver, she realized how much she wanted him to apologize. It wasn't Mulder. "Gwen Gardiner?" It was a man's voice, low and composed, familiar yet unplaceable. "Yes?" "It's the fellow you spoke with two days ago." He paused. She said nothing. "-In the taxi. On Pennsylvania Avenue." She sat down. "Oh." "I hope I didn't wake you. I know it's early, but your friend has gotten himself into some trouble." "Fox Mulder?" she asked. She wondered why he assumed Mulder was her friend. "Is he alright?" "Of course he's alright." The gentleman was almost reassuring. "But he's put himself in a bad spot and I thought you should know." "Thank you." Gwen said robotically. "Is there anything I could do to help him?" "No." There was a long silence and Gwen wondered what he was doing. "I told you before that if you continued this you were going to cause problems. Now it's happening." Suddenly, the gentleman acted like he was barely within the limits of his patience. "I hope you're prepared." "You should really be talking to Agent Mulder." Gwen snarked, the lack of sleep combining with her rotten mood to mix a bitter breakfast. "And don't call me. If you want to talk to me, meet me in person like a real human being!" He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to have bothered you so early." "No problem." Gwen said automatically. And regretted that she had brought up so well. "But I can't help you." "Hm." The gentleman did not sound convinced that this was the case. "That is really all I can say." And then there was dialtone. Gwen hung up the phone. And what if it was true, what could she do? She had made every effort to stop Mulder and he had gotten himself into trouble anyways. She looked at the clock. It was five-thirty. She picked up the phone again and dialed. She waited. "...This is Fox Mulder. Leave a message." She hung up. Dim early sunlight had creeped into her windows, and she crossed over to her futon. Gwen climbed under the covers and pulled them over her head. Gwen snapped awake four hours of fitful sleep later. In a half-dream an idea had come to her, and it had shaken her out of her doze. She hopped out of her bed with a graceful leap, inspired, and picked up the telephone. She would call Scully at work. The phone was answered on the first ring. "-Scully." she sounded anxious. "It's Gwen." "Oh hi Gwen." Scully's mind was clearly elsewhere. "-Is Mulder there this morning?" There was a pause. "Yes. But he's not in the office right now. Why?" "I got a call last night telling me he was in trouble. Is he?" Scully sighed. "Yes. He was caught hanging around the offices of the Washington Examiner. He had sneaked in." "Oh no." Gwen moaned. "Is it bad?" Scully said nothing for a moment. "Listen, Gwen I won't be able to talk much - Mulder's going to be back any second. But yes. It's bad. The Examiner is ultra-right and they don't like the Federal Bureau of Investigation looking into their fax transmissions." "What are they going to do?" Gwen felt her heart sink. How could Mulder be so impudent? "There could be a lawsuit. Skinner's called Mulder in at eleven today. It's not going to be pret-" Scully cut herself off. "-Well, I hope that can be of some help to you, Agent Wilson. Goodbye." And she was gone. At eleven fifteen, Gwen was running out of the elevator onto the fifth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. She screeched into the outer office of Assistant Director Skinner. The secretary looked up. "I'm sorry Dr. Gardiner, but Assistant Director Skinner is in a very important meeting right now." Gwen hesitated, looking at the door. "I've got to talk to him." It was as if the secretary had never heard her. She was flopping open a ledger-sized agenda, turning through the oversized white pages. "If you like, I can put you down for eleven-fifteen tomorrow...?" "I need to speak with him NOW." "I understand. " The secretary nodded patiently. "I'll tell him you dropped by. I've been given specific instuctions not to disturb him. " Gwen said nothing. "It's very high-level bureau business. Perhaps I could have him call you when he's done." Shaking her head, Gwen went to the door of Skinner's office. "No, that won't be necessary, thank you...." she said and pushed herself in. Interrupted, the three men's heads snapped whiplash-fast to look at her. Layers of smoke hung thick and blue in the still orange sunlight that flooded Skinner's office and they wore co-ordinated expressions of guilty fear, which they erased. Skinner, who was standing very close to Mulder in the centre of the room, caught in the act disciplining, was the first to speak. "We're busy Gwen." he said firmly, but there was no power behind his voice. Over in the corner, Gwen saw the red flash of a cigarette end flare brighter and a cloud of smoke rise up from a man in a dark grey suit. Mulder looked at the floor, passive. "I know. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think you're wrong to be punishing Agent Mulder." Gwen began. Today there was something in Walter Skinner's eyes that was different and it worried her. "And why is that?" Skinner asked, his voice hard. He stepped away from Mulder and towards her. As he drew near, she saw that his expression was soft and compassionate. It threw her. "Well, I uh...well..." she began, trying to read his expression. He was signalling her somehow, holding her gaze. "Can you tell me why that is? Why I shouldn't be disiciplining Agent Mulder after he was nearly arrested for trepassing at offices of the Washington Examiner? Is there something I should know?" He was brusque with her. "There's something going on there, Walter. I keep being contacted by a someone who tells me I'm in danger," she said at last. Another puff of smoke was exhaled from the corner. Skinner was nodding imperceptably at her, egging her on. "And you think this person is from the Washington Examiner?" His voice was skeptical. Gwen frowned. "I don't know. I think so, maybe." Gwen didn't think he was from the Examiner but it might save Mulder's job. "And so I told Mulder about it, and asked him to help me." Skinner's eyes smiled softly at her and he whipped around to face Mulder, his hands on his hips. "Is this the truth, Mulder?" Mulder continued to look at the floor. "No." he said tonelessly. Gwen's heart sank into her feet. What was Mulder doing? The Assistant Director turned back to Gwen. "What's going on?" Gwen shrugged and prayed that Mulder would wise up. "He's lying." Mulder looked up at her, bemused. "-Sir-" he began. Skinner shook his head at Mulder, a quick, jerky motion. "Listen Mulder," he said angrily. "It's very noble of you to try to assist Dr. Gardiner, but if she wants any investigations she'll have to go through the regular channels and post a complaint to the FBI like anybody else." Mulder blinked, chastised and confused. "Yes, sir." The man in the corner extinguished his cigarette and stepped out into the light. He walked up to Skinner and stared at him levelly a moment. "I don't like this." he said, annoyed. He pulled out a pack of Morleys from his jacket and slipped a cigarette between his lips. Skinner's lips curled in disdain. "You don't have to like it." A match was snapped and brought fizzing up to meet his cigarette. He inhaled pensively. Sulfur smell swirled through the air. "You're wrong," he slowly exhaled the smoke into Skinner's face and walked to the door. On the way, he stopped at Gwen, who was staring at him in disgust. He puffed a little smoke at her. "-You're wrong." He smiled craggily at her and left. When she looked over to Skinner, he looked upset. The door creaked shut. Even though he still looked shaken, Gwen wondered if there wasn't a hint of relieved triumph on the Assistant Director's face. When he spoke, his tone was less harsh. "All right Gwen. Thank you for that clarification." He looked at Mulder, who had straightened up from his slouched position. "But Agent Mulder and I still have some things to discuss about procedure." His eyes beamed a gratitude that the stern line of his mouth refused to reveal. He turned away. Nodding, Gwen grabbed the doorhandle. She was suddenly hotly aware of how impetuous she had been to interrupt. "Sorry to disturb you, Walter," she said sheepishly and left the office. Skinner watched the door slowly drift shut for a minute and then turned to Mulder. "I just want you to know, Agent Mulder, that for the record I do not believe a thing of what Dr. Gardiner said." He ground his teeth. "BUT, tell me how you managed to involve the Bureau's hostage negotiator in all of this?" Mulder shook his head. "Believe it or not, she-" Skinner cut him off. "Did you have reason to anticipate a hostage situation?" Pausing a second, Mulder realized what Skinner was after. "No." "Did Dr. Gardiner come to you for help?" "No." "You're investigating the Washington Examiner of your own volition." "Yes." Mulder said finally. The Assistant Director turned away and faced out of the window, looking down at the street below. "I had a feeling that was the case." he replied, his voice heavy. He said nothing, lost in thought. Mulder stepped forward. "You hate him, don't you? That bastard with the cigarettes. He's told you not to go through with this..." Skinner did not answer. Mulder continued. "He's involved in this somehow, isn't he? Look, let me investigate this. Something's going on upstairs and he's involved-" "-Agent Mulder, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. The Washington Examiner is threatening to file a suit against the FBI-" Skinner spat the words at him, suddenly angry. "-You know that's not what I'm talking about!" Mulder shouted back. Skinner stuck his chin out at him and made no comment. "I'm talking about that smoking bastard - what does he want out of this? Silence? Does he have that much power over you?" Skinner shook his head and stepped close to Mulder. His eyes were brimming with a carefully controlled rage. "Be careful what you say Mulder..." his voice was low and tight, overflowing with threat. "I know." he said quietly. "I'm saying that if Gwen did make a complaint, we could investigate this without the order having come from you." Skinner continued to look angry. "I don't want Gwen involved." "She wouldn't have to be - all we'd need is a complaint filed with her permiss-" "I don't want her involved." Skinner snapped and turned away from him, walking over to his desk. "I know that there are a lot of unanswered questions, but I'm afraid the way I am to treat this situation has been spelled out clearly to me. I'm telling you to drop it." "What if she decided to file a complaint against the man who has been harrassing her?" "That's a job for the police." Skinner pulled a file out from his desk drawer and flipped it open. "What if she thought the FBI were involved-?" Skinner pulled out a pen and started writing in the file. "Then we'd have to investigate." He did not look up. "Thank-you Agent Mulder. That will be all." A day of utter silence passed, and Gwen had sat at home wondering what she used to do with herself before she had started taking daily cab rides to Washington. Her beautiful new home, a zen styled retreat, seemed spartan and spare, and instead of being the calm haven she had intended it to be, it was a boring empty motel. No phones rang, nobody visited, not even any mail marred the monotony. Even her beloved forest view offered no distraction. Just as her nerves had started to settle, and she snuggled back into her old ways, Mulder showed up at her door with a box of chocolates and an apology. She had accepted these graciously, and was halfway through the box of chocolates when Mulder produced a form he wanted her to sign. He explained that he was certain the the people upstairs were involved in illegal activities. He explained that the man smoking in the Assistant Director's office that day was ordering Skinner not to investigate. He explained that if he were to investigate the goings on in office AA4114-201c, he would need her to sign a complaint against the FBI. Gwen signed it, and they were off to the Hoover Building again. The elevator doors rumbled open quietly at the ninth floor and they stepped softly into the hall. As usual, it was deserted. They proceeded towards room AA4114-201c in silence and nearly missed the doorway. The bakelite plaque had been taken down. Mulder passed his hand smoothly over where it used to be. "It's clean," he said under his breath. "-they've painted over the spot." Gwen nodded and tried the door. She shook her head at him, handing him her security pass. Mulder nodded at her and slipped it through. The green light came on. He swung the door open. The afternoon light caught the dancing dust in the air as it swirled in large transparent clouds and they were enveloped in it as they entered. Mulder turned to Gwen, a halo of dusty sunlight circling his head. "All you have to do is identify the man who you met in the cab. Nothing more, okay?" he whispered. She nodded and they walked over to the entranceway to the adjoining room, past all the banks of fax machines. Gwen stepped up to the door and tried it, expecting it to be locked. Instead it swung open in a wide arc, swiping past her and Mulder, nearly knocking them off-balance. The ghostly faces at the computers pivoted around to them mechanically. Gwen and Mulder were buffeted by a gust of warm air, the soft wind of machinery humming in a confined enviroment. The faces regarded them with a nonchalant inquisitiveness. The room had no light source except the subtle pallor of monitor glow and its reflection on the bleached, moon-like faces of the workers. As if on a programmed cue, the same small pale man rose up from the center of them like a ghost. "You don't belong here." The next second, he was in front of them with the eerie nimbleness that short people have. "Please leave-" he tried to crowd them out the door, leaning into Mulder. Mulder wouldn't budge. "What's going on?" he demanded. Each flickering computer ran a dim article, its title hanging in the whiteness of the screen. His eyes fell to a headline that read "Inmates' Deadly Virus Hoax". 'I'm Carrying a Martian's Love Child' trumpeted another article. Gwen pointed to it, hanging in the wavering light of the monitor. "What are you people doing?" The workers angled their monitors away from Mulder and Gwen's view and the circle of cloudy light became tighter. "I said please leave. Please leave now." The man grabbed Mulder's jacket and tried to shove him out of the door. He only succeeding in ramming Mulder into Gwen, who fell against the doorframe. "Let's go...." Gwen began. Mulder snapped out his identification. "-I'm with the FBI. Who are you with?" he asked. "What are these computers for?" The small man pulled a gun out of his jacket. It seemed impossibly large for his tiny, doll-like hands but he was fearless. He held it on them unwaveringly. Gwen and Mulder froze. "Data entry. Now get out." Mulder raised his hands slowly. Gwen followed suit. "Put the gun down. It's all right." The gentleman in the suit stepped forwards out of a dark corner into the luminous circle. The gun was lowered reluctantly and the man hesitated before withdrawing to his own glowing terminal. "Who are you?" Mulder dropped his hands cautiously, like they were weights too heavy to release. "It's him." Gwen said simply. The gentleman smiled modestly. "Yes. I see you've dropped by yet again, despite my efforts." He beckoned for them to enter the room and neither of them moved. "It's time we discussed what this is all about." he said casually. Every pair of eyes in the room rested on Gwen and Mulder. She could feel their suffocating weight. "I really think I should explain some things to you both. That way you'll understand." "What are you doing with my expose?" Mulder countered softly, unmoving. The gentleman shook his head. "I'd like to explain-" "-Explain it to us here." "-Please. I assure your safety." Gwen came towards the man. "Tell me your name then." The gentleman reached inside his jacket and flipped open a leatherette case. He held it up for Mulder and Gwen to see it. A badge shone dimly in the light. "Special Agent Jeffery Howse. I am with the FBI." Mulder joined Gwen at his side and examined his I.D. "I'm willing to tell the truth." he said simply and retreated deeper into the room, pocketing his badge. They followed him. He stopped in front of a monitor where a woman was busily altering a mugshot of a nameless criminal. "I'm sure you've taken the tour here at the Hoover Building, Agent Mulder. You know that we alter photographs to aid in our investigations, adding years, changing haircuts, anything to jog a witnesses memory so we can catch the offender." Gwen shook her head. "Then why would you need to alter Fox's photo of the UFO?" "Because it WASN'T a UFO." The gentleman's voice was hushed so as not to disturb the woman doing the photo altering. He took a deep breath. "Let me explain..." He walked with them over to a dark corner of the room. "The public is bombarded by information almost every waking moment of their day. Sometimes there is data that they're not 'ready' for, sensitive issues-" "-The government's tests at Ellen's Airforce Base?" Mulder spat incredulously. The gentleman nodded sagely. "Exactly. They won't be able to handle that information, and until they have a chance to be correctly informed, we have to do a certain amount of damage control." "THAT's damage control?" Gwen blinked. "We respect the right to freedom of speech. The First Amendment supports the inalienable-" Mulder was angry. "-But spreading lies and misinformation is fine? Defamation of character is all right?" The gentleman turned and stared at Mulder. "Perhaps I'm not being clear. We are talking about knowledge of information that is potentially dangerous to the citizenry-" "-Are you saying that in the public's hands knowledge is dangerous?" Gwen cried. "Who are you to decide what's dangerous?" "Imagine for a moment that you live on a farm in Iowa. You hear that the President is dying, that he has a fatal disease, that he's incapacitated somehow. You would be worried, frightened even, that the entire country might turn to anarchy. What if some country picked this moment to declare war on us? The country would be paralyzed." He nodded at them. "But, WE know that that wouldn't be the case. We would know that despite whatever became of the President, there would be many capable people who could take over for him. There would be no cause for panic." "-Depends who the people taking over were..." Mulder muttered beneath his breath. The gentleman ploughed through Mulder's comment. "But do you see that if we don't reassure every single person that there is no danger, latent grounds for terrorism and anarchy would spring up everywhere! So, without interfering with the right of people to print and read potentially sensitive issues, we can "soften" the message, thus avoiding any unfortunate situations." "Are you doing this to protect them or you?" Mulder snapped. "For everybody. For everybody. Look at Watergate." Mulder sneered. "I am." The gentleman turned to Gwen. "It was a simple, petty crime. A case of political snooping..." Gwen frowned. "Well..." "What about the giant cover-up?" Mulder interjected. "That's my point. Look at the mess it caused. The public lost faith in the people they had elected. It destabilized the country for years, and we're still trying to make up for that damage. Where would this country be now if it weren't for Watergate?" The gentleman sounded almost wistful. Gwen shook her head. "In my mind, we'd still be governed by crooks." "I'm sorry to disillusion you, Dr. Gardiner, but that type of thing goes on all the time. Politics is a dirty game and people need to be kept out of it-" Mulder shook his head. "I can't believe you're saying this." "Your article is too sensitive for the public, Agent Mulder. We have to take precautions." "You can't do that-" "We can. And you should be thankful this isn't China or some little South American dictatorship! You'd be in an unmarked grave now. And who knows?" He looked meaningfully at Mulder. "You SEEM to think that it is. Be careful what you wish for...." "You pompous son of a bitch..." Mulder hissed. "Watch who you call names." The gentleman was angry. "I'm protecting the people, Agent Mulder. Not you." Mulder turned to face the gentleman. "Is that a threat?" "We don't need to discredit you, Agent Mulder, you're already a laughingstock. Your articles in Omni magazine-" Before Gwen knew what was happening, Mulder was flying across, face screwed into a tight expression of hatred, his arm swinging out and over. He landed a solid punch in the gentleman's jaw with the weight of his entire body. A bloody white tooth ricocheted off of a nearby monitor. Suddenly struck, the gentleman tumbled backwards into one of the computer operators, sending them rolling into one another, a chain reaction. He struck the floor with a hollow echoing crack that was most probably his tailbone, his arms and legs scrambling to get up before he had even landed, a grey flannel turtle tossed backwards onto his tailored shell. Gwen stumbled back and fell against one of the desks, her hands flailing for stability, and landing palm down on the keyboard of one of the computers. An incessant, protesting beep came from the machine and several error warnings flashed onscreen, vying with each other for precedence. A few of the operators jumped to the gentleman's aid, restraining Mulder, and the gentleman got up, his combed hair askew, and flew his fists into Mulder's belly. The operators streched Mulder taut like an open canvas. With each punch he crumpled at the knees. Gwen snatched up the keyboard that she was leaning on and fought off the hands that tried to grab it away from her. With a swift tight yank she'd disconnected it and it was soaring through the air towards the gentleman's head. It caught him on the shoulder, right on the bone, interrupting him. He turned around. "Stop!!!" she screeched. Mulder used the moment's hesitation to bring his legs up and kick the gentleman from behind like a mule. He soared toward a wheeled chair and ended hung up over it, still rolling. The computer operators and their pasty faces clambered away from their stations and huddled together in a corner, eerily silent, watching the fracas without comment. "-Fox! Stop this!" Gwen bellowed, an angry schoolmarm. Noone moved to touch her and she went to Mulder's side, where he was being roughly held aloft by two of the workers. "Come on, let go of him!" she snapped at his agressors. Mulder, hurt and bruised, was slowly released. He stood there, panting for air, clutching his stomach with his bloodied hand. He hadn't seen Gwen so murderously angry since she'd quarrelled with Burton. "You're absolutely brilliant, do you know that?!" she bellowed at him and turned to the gentleman lying draped over the chair, skating around on the floor. She brusquely helped him to stand, hanging on to his arm. Blood dribbled out of the corner of his mouth and left dark spots on his perfect grey suit. The two men stared at each other like animals. The room was silent, Gwen's words hanging in the darkness still. "Well..." the gentleman said eventually, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I think everybody got their licks, didn't they?" Without warning, Mulder lunged across the room at a computer and threw a blinking montior to the floor. There was a small explosion and glass shattered out over the floor like water, smoke drifting up idly. He turned on another computer and had knocked that over before anybody could react. "-Mulder!" Gwen ran to restrain him. "Don't!" The glass sparkled on the floor like a broken mosaic in the dim light and one of the computer operators caught her and held her back. The gentleman drew his gun with precision. "Leave that alone." The gentleman's voice was firm and confident. Mulder paused, his back to him. "Let me promise you that this gun is loaded." Mulder did not reply, his shoulders slumping slightly. Gwen did not struggle with the man who restrained her. The gentleman stepped over to Mulder. "I understand how you can be frustrated with the "system", Agent Mulder, but this is something that cannot be altered. It is a needed and valued service. It has been here through wars and elections, the changing of the guard, and we are not about to be stopped by you." He waited for a reply. The gentleman accepted Mulder's bruised silence as an answer and took Gwen's arm firmly, gently pushing her at him. "You've embarrassed yourself badly. Get out." =========================================================================== From: langford@infobahnos.com (Robert Langford) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Gwen and the People Upstairs 4/4 Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 07:19:07 GMT Gwen and the People Upstairs 4/4 Tracey Houston (tahouston@gm.gamemaster.qc.ca) Characters (except Gwen) are (c) Chris Carter and 10-13 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended A day later, Gwen presented herself to the secretary of Assistant Director Skinner, a self-conscious grin teetering on her mouth. Before she could make her case, the secretary had nodded her to Skinner's door, keeping a discreet and respectful silence. Gwen pushed the door open a few inches and stuck her head in. Skinner was seated behind his desk, Mulder sitting sullenly in front of him. She opened her mouth, an apology pursed on her lips and Skinner spoke, cutting her off. "We've been expecting you, Dr. Gardiner." His voice was expressionless. She shook her head at him, still trying to apologize. "-Walt, I-" "-Come in." he nodded at the doorway. "Close the door." She stepped into the room, dutifully pulling the door into place behind her. "You know, of course, that this is entirely off the record," Skinner began. Gwen nodded, unsettled by his pointed formality. Skinner picked up a white sheet of paper and read off of it. "You are aware that Agent Mulder 'assaulted an agent on Federal Property, interfered with the Bureau's activities, harrassed employees and willfully tampered and destroyed equipment belonging to the FBI', among other things?" Gwen bobbled her head, nodding and shaking it at the same time. "More or less," she admitted. Mulder stared ahead, mute. Skinner waited for her to continue. She did not. "And you were present during all of this?" he began after a second's pause. She regarded him levelly. "I was. Are there charges against me too?" Skinner stood up. "No," he said finally. "I've called you here to inform you that this is where your association with this case, whatever it was, is over." "-But-" Gwen started. Skinner ground his teeth. "I think we have to put our own spin on this. We're going to pretend that you were never involved." Gwen looked to Mulder. "But Mulder, you know I-" Mulder shook his head at her. "No Gwen. Assistant Director Skinner and I decided this between us. We're not going to connect you to all of this." "You decided? I was there! I ordered the whole investigation-" "No, Gwen. You didn't." Skinner was emphatic. He snapped up a piece of paper off of his desk. "-This is the complaint that Agent Mulder brought to you-" Gwen snatched the paper from him, angry. She waved the paper at them. "I signed it. Right there." She spoke quickly, her voice high and wavering. "You're not going to say that I'm not involved in this, Walter. Don't protect me. This is my responsibility." Skinner stood up and took the other end of the contract that she held. "No. It's mine." He lightly tugged the form from her grasp. "I authorized Mulder to take this to you." Mulder's mouth opened, a dissent half-formed on his lips. Skinner cut him off, his voice low and controlled. "In certain situations, the buck has to stop somewhere. And in this case, it's me." "Oh please!" Gwen cried in frustration. Both men stared at her, expressionless. "You don't know what you're saying!" "The responsibility of this falls to me, Gwen. Charges have been laid. I can censure Agent Mulder for his involvement, but I am not about to drag in a third party, and certainly not someone who is as respected within the Bureau as you. I can't touch you. I wouldn't. I won't. That's that." Skinner nodded to Mulder. "Agent Mulder-," he said, indicating the piece of paper. Mulder tore the form into several small pieces and then tore those up. The Assistant Director held the trash basket out to him and Mulder sprinkled the paper into it like confetti. "You are no longer connected with this or any investigation of the offices of the ninth floor, Dr. Gardiner." Skinner replaced the trashcan and sat down at his desk. He laid his hands flat on the blotter and spoke at them. " What's left is between Agent Mulder and I. Bureau business." Gwen sleepwalked towards the door, her mind reeling. Her damp hand closed around the cold metal of the doorknob. Mulder looked up after her. "I appreciate your help, Gwen." She nodded dumbly and left. Gwen had wandered in and out of the Hoover building's pallid and maze-like corridors for a while, not wanting to leave. She knew her distant abode would not provide the remedy to the malaise that had seized her. Instead she roamed in and out of hallways and offices, a vague look on her face, feeling homeless and disjointed. She had barely understood the subtext of her meeting with Skinner and Mulder, and she replayed the scene again and again in her head. She had fought so long and hard to keep herself out of Mulder's crusade that now that she had been barred from it, she was hurt. Then, in a flash of inspiration, riding up in the elevator, she had reached through and between the other agents that stood between her and the buttons and jabbed at "B" violently. The basement. Her fellow passengers tried not to stare at her and gawked instead at the numbers lighting up over the door like they'd never seen anything like it. The elevator had emptied out by the time it had sunk to the subterranean level. Even the doors seemed to open reluctantly, but Gwen strode out and managed to retrace her way to Mulder and Scully's office. Scully was there when she arrived, sitting amidst a stack of reports. She looked up and Gwen could see she'd been worrying. "Hello Gwen." she smiled weakly. She looked pale. "Mulder's in a meeting with-" "-A.D. Skinner. I know." Gwen went and sat down opposite her. "I was just there." Scully made a grimacing smile, her lipstick the darkest thing on her face. "How was it going?" Gwen shrugged. "I can't tell. Walter was pretty tightlipped." Scully sighed and folded her file shut. "I'm worried." She bit her lip and stared off. Gwen said nothing. "I'm worried that he'll go and get himself fired. I'm worried that he'll push Skinner too far." She looked down a moment. "I know. I tried to explain how everything happened but... I don't know. I didn't get a chance." Scully nodded sagely, her orange hair bobbing. "You were against Mulder's involvement from the beginning - do you think that Skinner is angry at you? Will that jeopardize your visits with the assistant directors?" "I don't think so." She bit her lip. "He was trying to protect me, somehow. But he wasn't pleased, and he was quite...quite...." Gwen trailed off dubiously, lost at how to explain Skinner's harsh forgiveness. Scully seemed to know, though. "Yes." She smiled wanly. "His manner of questioning can be tough. He's precise." Scully looked at her hands for a second. "But he's fair." Gwen nodded in agreement. Scully looked away and Gwen knew she was concerned about Mulder. "Did he really hit someone?" Scully asked suddenly, and Gwen knew who she was talking about. "Yeah." She took a deep breath. "And they hit back. It was a brawl. Mulder started it for certain, but nobody behaved like a gentleman. Did someone reallly press charges?" Her mouth hung open for a minute with no answer, and then Scully began again. "Yes. I can't-" she cut herself off sharply and took a deep breath. "-I can't lose him, Gwen," she said at last and seemed to fret herself a shade paler. Gwen got up and grabbed Scully's mug off of her desk. She disappeared for a moment to the coffee-maker, leaving Scully to clear her emotions, and refilled her cup. She took her time getting back to her with the coffee, acting like she was trying hard not to spill, and when she returned, Scully had pulled herself together. "I know he's important to you..." Gwen murmured softly. Scully nodded. "Yes." She accepted the coffee from Gwen and took a deep sip. "An important friend." "Just a friend?" Gwen asked quickly and it prompted the expected reaction. Scully's cheeks glowed imperceptibly pinker and she blinked a few times in mock digust. "Mulder-?-" Scully's voice was incredulous. Her eyes twinkled and she suppressed a grin. "You've got to be kidding...!" Relief flooded through Gwen at seeing Scully's morose mood lighten. "Why not?" "You've been at me about this since day one!" Scully laughed merrily. "You date him!" "Not my type." "Oh right." "Seriously." Soon the two women were bantering and laughing like high-school girls, and Gwen delighted to see Scully relax a little. In her heart, she was worried for Mulder as well, but she could see that Scully clearly had more to be thrown about. Then during a sudden gale of laughter, light and lilting, the door opened and Mulder stormed in. Frustration radiated off him like heat and it fell like a bucketful of damp sand on Gwen and Scully's crackling mirth. The giggles and retorts plummeted soundlessly from their lips as they watched him march to his desk and unpin the poster that had hung behind him so long. He rolled it up briskly, his expression twisted with anger, the paper rattling like thunder. The words "I Want To Believe" were the last to disappear and then they too were snapped up. Scully was the first on her feet. She went over to Mulder and caught his arm. "Mulder, what happened?" His expression black, Mulder slipped from her grasp and pulled down a cardboard box from atop the filing cabinet. "With Skinner?" He sat down at his desk and yanked open the top drawer. "It's 'wait and see'." Gwen stood up as well. "Wait and see what? What's there to know?" Mulder threw the contents of the drawer with haphazard bitterness into the box. "'Censure, suspension and potential reinstatment upon recognizance of my inappropriate behavior'." He tossed a ufo-shaped pencil sharpener into the box. "Oh God, Mulder..." Scully moaned weakly. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to quit," he said and pulled the second drawer of the desk open. This time he tugged it free of the desk and turned it upside-down, emptying it over the box. "Maybe the Lone Gunmen'll give me a job." With his other hand he snatched his expose off of his desk and threw it towards Gwen. The glossy photos fluttered out and slid over the floor. Gwen caught the article itself. "I can't believe that Assistant Director Skinner would leave you with no option-" she stammered, clutching the paper with one hand and picking up the photographs with the other. "-Believe it. He can't touch you, Gwen. He's not your boss." Mulder sat back in his chair a moment, running his hands over his face. "Wait and see or don't wait at all." Scully was still in shock and she stood as if bolted to the ground. "Mulder - what about the people upstairs, all the fake stories, your expose-?- You're just going to leave?" Mulder stared at her levelly for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, saying nothing. Gwen had the feeling that somewhere deep within him a small churning reaction was happening, but his expression was blank and unchanging. Scully did not move. Then suddenly, as if he were made of elastic, he snapped a pen to his desk and tugged out a sheaf of paper. A hand groped for his glasses, sitting atop his inbox and they were blindly set on his face. "You're right, Scully." He set to writing. Scully looked to Gwen, slightly mystfied. As if unaware that anyone else was in the room with him, Mulder began to read as he wrote. "-'To the Editors of the Washington Post. Dear sirs, I have been forced to resign my post as an Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the course of my investigations I have gained knowledge of government activities designed to shamelessly manipulate public opinion..." Mulder's eyebrows were knotted with determination as he wrote, mumbling softly to himself. Gwen glanced over at Scully. She stood there helplessly, watching Mulder scribble, her arms dangling loose by her side. Her expression was sorrowful, her lips were parted slightly, as if she were still about to say something. "I'd better go..." Gwen murmured softly to the woman standing next to her. Scully's eyes did not leave the top of Mulder's head nor did the agonizingly pained look waver on her face. "Let me know what happens...." She shuffled towards the door. Mulder wrote like a madman seized with divine inspiration, and Gwen saw a bead of perspiration twinkle on his forehead. "Look out for my letter...." he said, an absentminded parting shot. As she reached the door of the office, she glanced down at her hand. She still held Mulder's article and photographs. "Oh Fox, your expose-" Mulder broke his delirium for a moment to look at Gwen, barely taking the pen from the paper. "Keep it." He dropped his head back to his composition. His pen resumed its scratching. "It's old news now...." Gwen smiled wistfully, but noone saw it. The scene in the room was disjointed and bizarre. Mulder sat hunched over at his desk, scribbling furiously, like an inventor on the precipice of a new creation, and Scully stood numbly watching, a wax statue of herself, unmoving, transfixed with dismay. Frowning, Gwen turned her back on them and went quietly. Noone noticed her leave. In her deserted, forested refuge, sandwiched between mountains and sky, Gwen quietly remained. Days passed silently, and she managed to wade through a sea of theses, losing herself in lengthy arguments, distancing herself from the events of the days before. Although she was happy to reimmerse herself into her work for the university, Gwen could not put her experience at the Hoover Building behind her. She worried about Mulder and Scully, and existed in anxious fear of Mulder's resignation. Regardless of what Skinner had done to nominally erase her participation, nothing eased the feeling that the fault of it all was somehow hers. Daily, in the calm stretch of early morning, Gwen would awake, dress, and march to the edge of her property in the golden dew to retrieve her morning paper. Then, over herbal tea in the kitchen, the new sun reaching through her large windows, she would search the paper, section by section, page by page, to find Mulder's letter. For the first four days after she had been requested into Assistant Director Skinner's office, there was no sign of anything from Mulder in the Washington Post. Then, at last, on the fifth day, she finally found it. There, sitting demurely at the bottom of page G-12, was a short letter entitled "FBI's media conduct misleading". Gwen dribbled tea down her chin in her excitement and snatched up the paper, reading voraciously. She blindly grabbed her dish cloth and dabbed at her chin. Her eyes sawed back and forth over the article, and gradually, she let the dish towel drop, her eyes widening. "Huh?" she said aloud, rising to her feet, her incredulous voice ringing off her bare walls. She moved towards the stairs, still reading, picked up the phone, and hit the speed-dial for the Hagerstown Uneeda Cab company. It was noontime in Washington when Gwen stepped out of her taxi on Pennsylvania Avenue, the heat and humanity swirling around her as she paid the driver. Her long cotton skirt billowing lazily around her legs, she dashed up the front steps of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, pushing past the immaculate agents in suits heading out for their lunch hour. She pulled her visitor's pass out of her straw shoulder bag, clipping it to her blouse self-consciously as she moved towards the security station. She signed in, walked through the bleeper and retrieved her folded copy of the Washington Post from the X-Ray machine tray. Instead of waiting endlessly for an elevator going to the basement, she slipped into the stairwell and jogged down. When she arrived at the end of the narrow and damp hallway, the door to Mulder and Scully's office was shut tight. Gwen hesitated, suddenly imagining the door swinging open and seeing the office dark and bare, nothing left but two empty desks sitting alone in the dust. The image profoundly saddened her, and she caught her breath for a moment. At that instant, the door flew open and Mulder, about to stride into Gwen, stopped short. "Gwen!" he cried, grabbing the doorframe for support as he nearly slid into her. He wore a small shoulderbag and his coat was over his arm. "Look, I've got to get-" She didn't wait. She held the newspaper up to him. "-Fox - is this what they did to your letter?" He took the paper from her and glanced at it briefly. "Yep." he grimaced. "For a full transcipt of 'FBI's Media Conduct Misleading' write to me at-" "But what is this?" Gwen cried. "'Misleading'? What about illegal! How could they-?" Mulder patted Gwen's shoulder. "Look, Gwen, Scully and I have to be on a commuter flight to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in a half-hour-" Gwen saw his lips moving but she didn't hear him. "-Nobody cared? What about CNN? What about Sixty Minutes? The foreign press? Didn't anybody-?" Mulder shook his head at her. "-No." The lights in the office went out and Scully came to the door. She smiled wearily at Gwen. Even though she looked tired, the haunted look she wore the last time they had met had disppeared. "Hello Gwen, you caught us on our way out." Gwen was still a subject behind. "And Assistant Director Skinner didn't suspend you...?" "I'm still here..." An ironic grin twisted Mulder's mouth. He glanced back into the office. "Hang on-" He ducked back into the darkened office and pulled something off of his desk. Scully looked at her watch. "Mulder, hurry up. We're going to miss our-" "-Yeah." Mulder re-appeared in the doorway to the office with a newspaper in his hand. He handed it to Gwen. "Here, you can read this while we're away. It's an advance layout copy of tomorrow's Washington Post. It was given to me, now I give it to you. Enjoy." He touched the side of his nose and then headed briskly off down the hall. Scully nodded at Gwen. "Sorry we couldn't talk-" she began. Gwen opened her mouth to say something but Mulder interrupted her. "-Hey Scully, come on, you're making us late!" Scully groaned apologetically and waved at Gwen. "See you-" She turned and ran after Mulder, her hollow footsteps ringing down the hallway. Gwen stared after them, a thousand questions still in her mouth. She looked at the newspaper blankly. Indeed it was the next day's paper with empty squares where some articles would be and gibberish for headlines. The weekly columns existed in their proper formats, and only one headline and photo on the front page was complete. It was the second story. "FBI Opens Doors to Media" was the header. "Today the FBI unveils its new open-door media policy," Gwen read, "designed to facilitate communication between the public and the Bureau. Jeffery Howse, Associate Director of Media Relations, explains: 'Up to now, the public has been kept outside of most of the Bureau's business. Sometimes they are confused about the nature of our work. We recognize the important role that the citizenry plays in our investigations. With their help, many criminals have been brought to justice and it is imperative that they be kept abreast of our activities.' Howse proudly boasts of a new 250 line faxing system that will allow the FBI to notify media outlets at a moment's notice-" Gwen quickly folded the paper under her arm as if it contained dirty photos. She ran to the elevator. On the fifth floor of the J.Edgar Hoover Building, Gwen was addressing herself to Assistant Director Skinner's secretary, trying to schedule an appointment, when Walter Skinner himself emerged from the office. It was as if he had borrowed Scully's haunted look. Gaunt and concerned- looking, he nearly walked by Gwen, lost in thought until she held up her hand. "Gwen-" he began, caught off-guard. "You didn't make an appointment-" She showed him the two copies of the Washington Post. "-Do you know about this?" Skinner's jaw tightened. He glanced over her shoulder. "Yes," he said quietly. He looked a little awkward. "Listen, I'm very busy-" "-What's going on? You know that this article is full of lies-" "I can't talk right now-" he said firmly, his voice low. Gwen continued to stare at him expectantly, refusing to budge, waiting for an answer. The Assistant Director took her arm and gently tugged her to a corner of the office. They spoke over a large potted plant. "I was given a choice. Sacrifices were made. It came down to either Mulder's job or a cover-up and having the charges dropped." Skinner looked over her shoulder again, his eyes scanning the landscape. "And you decided that Mulder would stay." Suddenly it was clear to Gwen. "You got the charges dropped? There's no case against him?" Skinner nodded solemnly. "I know I made the right choice-" he said, his voice hushed. Suddenly, something in him tightened and he stood straight. It was as if he was a television and someone had changed the channel. "I can't talk right now-" he said in his regular speaking voice. Gwen's face knit with puzzlement. "-Is something wrong?" Skinner stepped away from her and into the center of the reception area. "Some other time, Dr. Gardiner...." he said distantly, staring out the window that looked out into the corridor. A man in a grey suit came through the door and paused in front of Skinner. Their eyes locked. The man drew a cigarette out of a pack and slipped it between his lips. He snapped a match in the assistant director's face and lit it, inhaling deeply. Sulfur smell stang Gwen's nostrils. The Assistant Director turned abruptly, opening the door to his office and disappearing inside like Gwen had never been there. The smoking man turned to her and his eyes travelled down to the two newpapers that she held under her arm. He exhaled slowly, smoke lazily drifting from his lips and curling into the air. He moved towards Skinner's office and then paused, stepping close to her. The whites of his eyes were yellowed and slightly bloodshot, and she found his skin a dead shade of lifeless grey. He leaned in slightly to share a confidentiality with her. The suit had an ashtray smell and the leaden-coloured fabric seemed insubstantial and thin, as if it were composed of smoke. He held her gaze intently for a moment and then dragged from his cigarette again. When next he spoke, the words seemed to spell themselves out in his exhaled smoke. "You should learn to take people's advice." He smiled a razor-thin grin at her and went in to the office, shutting the door slowly behind him. Gwen shuddered. Fin.