From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 8 Sep 2004 10:27:02 -0000 Subject: NEW: Insight V- Overload - 1 of 3 - by Joann Humby by Joann Humby Source: direct Reply To: jhumby@lineone.net TITLE: Insight 5 - Overload RATING: R (violence) CLASSIFICATION: X A DATE: September 2004 SPOILERS: Starts during FaD and takes a new direction ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Ephemeral - yes. Others please ask. AUTHOR: Joann Humby - jhumby@lineone.net LEGALLY: Legally these characters belong to some combination of 1013, Chris Carter and Fox. SUMMARY: Trapped by a serial killer, Mulder's paying the price for his gift. BACKGROUND: Suppose Scully arrived at the hospital two minutes later in Folie a Deux. After two years working apart, Mulder and Scully need to work together again. But Mulder's got a secret that keeps getting in the way. My thanks to my beta readers Ann, Sana, Kel and Betteanne. As always, the mistakes are mine. Previous parts of the Insight series can be found at: http://www.cbcasa.com/apb.htm So now the end is near... And so we face the final story Regrets? My thanks to all of you who've joined me on the ride. My special thanks to those of you who wrote with words of encouragement along the way. It was appreciated. On with the show. =========== Was this how it was supposed to end? Would it even be an ending? Knowing what he knew now, how could it be? The sharp odor of singed hair was followed by the sizzle of burning flesh. And Mulder wondered if with a little more effort - or perhaps a little less - he could suffocate himself on the gag that blocked his screams. Vernon Penton was laughing. "I thought you were supposed to be smart." John Lee Roche's voice was filtered through a smirk. "Still trusting psychos - you just don't learn." --------- The reports were starting to blur together; it was time to take a break. Stretching back in her chair, Scully let her thoughts unwind. Skillen's careful science, his university contacts, his relationships with instrument makers and technology leaders had built a web, as elegant as any spider's - funneling information on the who, what, why and where of genetic investigation back to him. If the right centrifuge went to the wrong lab - he knew. And if Skillen knew, it was Scully's puzzle piece to use. Give Cathy Bridges a few requisition forms and a couple of NATO part numbers and she could tell you a story. Of army bases with too many female civilians and not enough children. Of nursing homes that didn't need TVs or newspapers to distract or amuse their patients. The other two agents were working on a different kind of X- File. A minor diversion from the heavy work of saving the planet. Flying home this morning. Hearing the sound of approaching feet Scully opened her eyes and sat up straight. Mick Saunders appeared in the doorway, all Marine Corps shoulder line and impossibly shiny shoes. She beckoned him into the office. Mark Watson was close behind. The grin on Watson's face said it all. Scully gave him the opening. "I take it that Ivan the Incredible wasn't so incredible after all." "Only to the truly credulous," said Watson, directing his look at Saunders. Mick scowled. "So the mind-reading thing was a scam. What do you care? You've got him on twelve counts of defrauding little old ladies." "Mick was the star of the matinee performance. He read you like a book, didn't he?" Watson pressed his fingertips to his forehead as if inspired. "I see - men - buildings - people - shouting." A sudden gasp, and his hand descended in a theatrical sweep. "I see - I see guns." Mick laughed. Looking back, Scully knew she shouldn't have been surprised to discover that the ex-marine was the believer of the team. Nor even that Mark Watson's conjuring skills could be every bit as useful to a skeptic as Skillen's biochemistry. They left together, Watson finding a silver dollar behind Saunder's ear as they moved. The twinges of jealousy still surprised her. She envied the easy camaraderie of the X-Files agents. They'd been Mulder's perfectly dysfunctional family for the past couple of years and there were moments when she couldn't help but feel like the wicked stepmother. An outsider in her own office. And not, so far as she could tell, because of any hostility from Mulder's people. Mulder's people? Hand picked by him, for him. Maybe she should get some of her own people in here? She took a deep breath, stunned that she might even consider breaking up a winning team just to recruit herself some friends. She'd had friends. Before the X-Files. After them too. Though that two-year assignment in New York already sounded like a page from someone else's history. The X-Files had this habit of consuming her life. Yet Cathy had a husband and two kids and liked it now that the eldest could make breakfast for his little sister on a Sunday morning and give mom an extra hour in bed. Mick still played football and had the bruises to prove it. Watson liked to wow the occasional club audience as well as numerous FBI agents with tricks from his portfolio. Even Skillen had another life as Mark's prop builder and occasional roadie. What did they talk about when they left the office? How did they block out thoughts of alien Armageddon in their homes? How could they look at pictures of babies bred for slaughter in green slime vats during the day and then go play ball at night? And how the hell could Mulder have walked away? She blocked the thought. She shouldn't think like that. He'd told her this, right at the beginning. Save billions of people in a decade or save a couple of people today? She had no right to make him choose. And though both his priorities and his methods were perverse to watch and impossible to justify, she couldn't deny that he'd made a difference. Skinner had tried to help her settle into the role, but Mulder was both the glue that brought it all together and the shadow that blotted out any possible joy. Joy? Scully struggled with the word, stunned at the implications. Lonely? Much? Krycek's involvement in the "solution" of the Clyde Bennett case had almost destroyed the fragile new connection she was building with Mulder. Mulder's refusal to discuss it had widened the gap. Krycek had been there again, when Mulder and Saunders raided that research lab and brought back Kenneth Soona. Coincidence, Mulder had said. Coming from a man who didn't believe in coincidences it had sounded like an insult to her intelligence. ---------- From Mulder's perspective, it had started a day or so ago. The day that Vernon Penton went from being a wanted man to a dead one. Tom Gibbs brought in the file, a sudden leap from the bottom of the inbox to its top. "He's taken another woman. Straight from a supermarket. Baltimore PD found her car and the groceries abandoned less than a mile away." "What do we know from the first one?" "He took his time with her - several days - so he's got a place to work. A vehicle too - he dumped the body parts across the city - we still don't have them all." "She went missing last night?" Tom nodded before stating the obvious. "Chances are she's still alive." Mulder didn't like it, but then he didn't have to like it. No one was supposed to like it. He was just supposed to be good at it, and he was. He studied the photos of the first victim, those parts of her that they'd found, dug deep to see past the horror story and into the evidence. Butchered. The word suited the crime rather too well. The killer had burned lines on the first victim's body to mark out the pattern and then killed her by following the tracks with an electric saw. A pathology too deep to come from a novice. Gibbs scoured computerized police files looking for recent releases from jails and mental institutions. Mulder suggested the parameters that would narrow the search. When they found Vernon Penton's file and saw that the man's father had run an abattoir, the search was over. "History of minor assaults, hints of something more serious but nothing proven. He got out of jail a year ago. He went back inside on a parole violation, came out again after three months. His father and brother died in a house fire - they were under investigation over the death of his estranged mother - she died while Vernon was in jail. Hmm - nice family." "What was the parole violation?" "Killed a dog." "Want to bet he chopped it up afterwards?" "He denied touching the animal. They didn't find any remains. Just some blood in his yard." Mulder quickly skimmed the rest of the notes before reeling off his instructions. "OK. Extreme caution. We've got an address and a car to track him with. When they find him, they follow him. He could lead us straight to her. If he stops somewhere, we need surveillance and a tactical unit ready to roll. They should approach him only if they have to. If he bolts, or we have to make an arrest, we may never find her." Six hours later, Vernon Penton was dead following a collision with a bridge support. The agents in the unmarked Bureau car swore that they had done nothing to provoke him into running. A photograph of Linda Ashton, the missing woman, stood at the center of Mulder's desk. Images of the first victim, Kim Foster - dead and alive, intact and not - covered most of the rest. Vernon Penton sneered up at him from his mug shot. Where would he have taken her? It was something worse than a needle in a haystack. He told the agents who'd been sent to look at Penton's old addresses, workplaces and other known haunts to tread carefully. That even in death, the killer was the type who might have another surprise up his sleeve. If he could have summoned up Kim Foster, he would have done, but this gift, this thing of his, had never worked like that. They came if they wanted to: their timetable not his. Sometimes, if he had their pictures in his hands, it seemed to draw them out. But mostly what he wanted was unimportant. By the time he fell asleep, his heart was set to panic and his brain was at a standstill. Vernon Penton was waiting for him when he woke up. The killer spoke without preamble. "You sent them after me." Mulder nodded. "You think I'm scum," the man added. Mulder didn't respond, moved directly to a question of his own. "What are you doing here?" "This is where we start paying for our sins, isn't it?" "What do you mean?" "That's why it's you, isn't it - why you can see me. So I can start making amends." It sounded so good, so right, and Mulder so wanted to believe. He just didn't seem to have that amount of belief left in him. "So tell me where Linda Ashton is." Penton nodded and though Mulder's suspicions rose, so did his hopes, and hoping had always been a Fox Mulder specialty. Within minutes he was briefing a roomful of agents and preparing to put on body armor. "If Penton realized he was going to get caught, he would have tried to take more people with him - we may have denied him the opportunity. But there's a risk that he arranged things in advance, in case he didn't get back." Dave Clarke, the Hostage Rescue Team's boss, looked across at Skinner and seemed to find encouragement there. The other HRT agents paid close attention. "You're saying that he may have booby trapped his hideout?" Something like that. There had to be a good reason why Penton was quite so determined to help. Mulder could see the appeal - the idea that death itself might transform the soul. It was just that from what he'd seen of it, the dead were basically the same people as the living. Those who wanted redemption perhaps sought it out a little more actively than when they were alive, a luxury born from having nothing to lose and everything to gain perhaps. It seemed improbable that Penton had gone from pathological to repentant overnight. More likely then that Penton had one final trick up his sleeve. "Penton may have had an accomplice." It was rare for a serial killer to work with a partner, but not unknown. And something had inspired Vernon Penton to visit Mulder sooner rather than later. A killing partner would not only offer the prospect of revenge, he'd also be someone who Penton might expect to have by his side, even in death. The HRT agents accepted the warning. Whatever uncertainties they had related only to the general weirdness of the deal - how could Mulder be so sure about where the woman was being held? He wasn't; he admitted it, but it was still their best shot. The agents accepted his words without debate. Orders were orders and they'd been well trained. They headed to the address that Vernon Penton had supplied to Mulder. The explosives dogs ran through the near deserted warehouse and raised no alarms. Convinced that it was not that kind of trap, the HRT broke up into teams of four. Mulder tagged along with the men who were heading for the basement. Vernon Penton kept whispering in Mulder's ear about the woman, about how she was dying down there. No food. No water. Just the rats to keep her company. The urge to tell him to shut the fuck up was hard to resist, but the headset he was wearing meant that anything Mulder said would be on instant relay to the rest of the team. "She'll die down there," snarled Penton. At Mulder's request, the team leader ordered them to silence and they waited, absolutely stationary, trying to tune their ears to pick up on anything that wasn't just building noise. In the distance, a woman's cries, barely audible but there. "She's below us," announced Mulder. "Told you so. Take a left," said Penton. "Left," said Mulder, and he and the other agents in his group started to move. The voice of the team leader boomed back through the earphones. "It's a dead end. Go right, it'll get you to the service access to the basement and sub-basement." The HRT agents hesitated, momentarily drifting out of their usual tight formation before training and common sense cut in and the group headed off in the wrong direction; leaving Mulder frozen in place, still arguing furiously over the headset with their boss. Mulder turned, hearing movement behind him, but didn't get his weapon on target fast enough to do anything about the baseball bat that slugged into his shoulder and hammered him to the ground. His gun rattled across the floor and, as he dived towards it, something solid slammed into the back of his neck, something strong-smelling closed over his mouth and nose, and muscular hands dragged him quickly away. The air in the old sewer was putrid with death and decay. Stagnant puddles of something dark on the floor looked horribly fresh to Mulder. Blood, too much for one corpse. Months of it. Years maybe. How many had died down here before anyone had noticed? Had they minced them up? Linda Ashton's eyes begged Mulder for a sign of hope, but he was too dazed and too horrified to deliver. Her body shook as they manacled Mulder to the floor next to her. Not a rescuer, another victim. Mulder wondered if he was going to throw up, whether the gag in his mouth would kill him before the men even started work. The woman had already been marked out for slaughter and, as the older man moved in with a bone saw to attack her elbow, Mulder closed his eyes. Blood spattered onto his face, sizzling as it hit the hot metal that was the other man's tool of choice and which was currently burning its way into Mulder's flesh. He tried to ignore it, knowing that it was nothing compared to what Linda was going through, but knowledge wasn't enough. Vernon Penton laughed - wild eyed and relishing the scene. "Meet the folks," he chuckled. "You thought they were dead, didn't you? Not so clever as you think you are!" "Swift and efficient," said Penton Senior as if he was expecting congratulations on his handiwork. "You," he said, prodding at Mulder's chest with the temporarily silent electric saw, "You - I'll do nice and slow. The old-fashioned way - no power tools for you, Mr. Feebie. You killed my boy. Hey - open your eyes! Now! Unless you want me to gouge them out and stuff them down your throat. Fancy a little snack - Feebie?" Did it matter? Of course it mattered. It always mattered. The HRT boys could come flying through that cast iron gate at any moment. Mulder opened his eyes. Vernon Penton's twin brother used skewers to keep the eyelids in place. ---------- END of 1 of 3 I've loved, I've laughed and cried. I've had my fill; my share of losing. ============== Part 2 of 3 Skinner left it to his secretary to tell Scully that Mulder was in the hospital, and that he would stop by her office on the way to his car. She was already waiting at the door when he arrived. A couple of phone calls as they drove told them that Mulder was not in any immediate danger and should be waking up soon. It was all they needed to know. "I thought we'd moved past this." Skinner stared down at the man lying in the hospital bed, feeling vaguely ashamed that the bandages covering Mulder's eyes seemed to have removed his right to privacy. Knowing he wouldn't have dared look at the scars if Mulder could have caught him in the act. "What are they?" Scully's fingers traced the air over the lines that shone as angry welts against his pale skin. "It's as if - " "Cutting lines." Skinner's voice trailed off. Saying it made it real. He looked away, swallowing hard. Mulder continued the explanation. "They used a wire, hot, like a branding iron. Every time they cut her, they burned me to match." The shock of Mulder's intervention and its icy delivery left Skinner momentarily short of air. They were the first words Mulder had spoken since he'd been rescued. The first admission that he was actually conscious, though the doctor had suspected as much. Mulder had been on a chase for a missing woman. He'd found her killers. Which meant he hadn't only been tortured, he'd witnessed the murder. Or perhaps not. "Your eyes?" Mulder's reply was dismissively factual. "They pinned them open." Skinner shook his head, desperate for some privacy of his own, but unable to leave the room. Scully gave him permission. "Sir - may I have a few minutes alone with Mulder." He nodded, moved fast to get out of the door as if afraid that she might take the offer back. She turned her attention to Mulder, pulling the chair close to the head of the bed so she could whisper vague words of reassurance and ask meaningless questions like, "Will you be all right?" Tense and breathing hard, his jaw moved in angry hesitation before he found a safe reply. "I'll be fine." "Mulder." She sought out undamaged skin, found a clear space between ribs and belly button - fingertips stroking unconsciously, carefully, over the curve of flesh as it shivered under her touch. Her head swam, suddenly too heavy for her shoulders. She rested her face on the pillow, close enough that she could hear him breathe. Close enough that Mulder could hear her breathe. Could feel her by his side. Soft fingers stroked their way across his skin and silky Scully hair brushed lightly against his cheek and Mulder struggled to hold it all together, feeling so brittle that he knew that if he moved now then he'd fracture into a thousand pieces. "Such a pretty little thing," said Vernon Penton. "How do you suppose she'd look without her arms?" Silence was his only defense and he drew on it, dragging the silence through his body until his muscles stilled in response. He focused his attention on Scully, on the smell of her, on the soft sigh of her lips. Ignored Vernon Penton, Penton's father and his twin brother Mitch. Ignored John Lee Roche, Gerry Schnauz and Carl Wade and a hundred more voices all baying for his blood and laughing at his failure. Roche snarled into his ear. "You'd sooner kill her than let her go. You'll suck her dry. And for what? You couldn't even save that woman today and she was lying right next to you. Just like this one. Trusting you." Mustn't move, mustn't speak, mustn't even think. He feigned sleep for Scully, knowing that it was all he could offer. It had been a long time since someone, any living someone, had touched him like this. He held his breath and tried to commit the sensation to memory. ------- Scully cornered Skinner as soon as she left Mulder's room. "What did you mean in there? You said you thought he'd moved past this." "I was wrong. I didn't have all the facts." "What?" "I thought he'd gone in without backup." Tom Gibbs appeared from the other side of the vending machine. "He did. I should have been with him." Mick Saunders, still wearing body armor, was right behind him. "You shouldn't - you couldn't - you haven't had the training." Gibbs looked angry. "Training! They'd had so much training they nearly got him killed. They got her killed." Skinner stopped the argument dead. "The responsibility for that woman's death lies with the killers." Gibbs snorted, froze into silence for an instant, then sighed, bowing his head, deflating fast from the tension fed high, looking embarrassed by his lapse. "Yes, sir." Scully tried again. "What happened?" Skinner made it sound simple. "There were twenty HRT agents in the building. Agent Mulder was with a search team. He advised them to go left. The team leader overruled him, said that Mulder was heading for a dead end." Scully nodded, guessing the outcome. "They followed the team leader's orders. Mulder didn't." "Agent Clarke was working to the current plan of the building. He didn't know about the service access to the old sewerage system." Mick Saunders took over when Skinner stopped. "It looks like two men came out of nowhere, clubbed him, chloroformed him, dragged him out. It took us a couple of hours to reach him." Scully took a deep breath, thought of the scars on Mulder's body, the murder of the woman he'd been trying to save. A long two hours. "Were you there when they found him?" Mick nodded. "I got a call from one of the guys on the HRT as soon as they lost contact with Mulder. I just took off." He frowned for an instant, finally adding, "I guess I should have informed you," as if it had only just occurred to him. She couldn't blame him for not bothering to contact her. Mick didn't know. How could he? As far as he was concerned the duo were scarcely even on speaking terms. And as for telling her because she was his boss? There was no way Saunders was going to give her the chance to order him off. She stuck to the facts. "And the killers?" "They ran off down the tunnels. A couple of us went after them. Vernon Penton's brother and his father - seems like they didn't die in that house fire after all." Saunders shook his head, considering it. "They won't be coming back from the dead again." Now it was Skinner's turn to question Scully. "How is he?" "Asleep." ---------- With the car to themselves, Scully attempted to question Skinner again. "What did you mean about Mulder - moved past this?" "It wasn't his fault; it was mine. I should have gone there myself. I was tied up in meetings. I should have left Mulder in operational charge." "Why didn't you?" "You know why. There was a woman dying out there. Mulder would have risked himself. He can't do that any more." Skinner shook his head, found himself trapped by the need to confess. "He's too valuable. To the X-Files. To the behavioral work." He snorted, a distantly amused chuff of a sound. "The fact is - I'm not his boss, not really. They moved my office to Quantico so I could protect him. I thought that was what I was doing. I told Dave Clarke to run things by the book." "Meaning don't let Mulder go in alone." "But that's not what I told Clarke. He didn't know. He's only just come back to DC. Some of his team knew - but they're trained to operate as a unit. They couldn't break formation. I guess that's why one of them called Mick Saunders when they realized Mulder was gone." Didn't know? Didn't know Mulder? Didn't know how many cases he'd solved? Didn't know Mulder the way they did - the way Mick did. "Because Mick wouldn't have left him - orders or not. God. I had him working on some fraudster while Mulder..." Skinner shook his head. "Saunders works on X-Files. He's not Mulder's bodyguard." "He doesn't even have a partner." -------- When they returned to Quantico the world was waiting for them. Skinner was summoned to an urgent meeting with his boss and the public relations team. A media feeding regarding the deaths would do no one any favors. Scully was immediately surrounded by technicians from the forensics lab asking her how she wanted to tackle the sewer. Initial analysis suggested that it had witnessed at least six other murders. Then there was the question of who had actually died in that house fire that was supposed to have killed the two men. Plus there was the comparatively simple problem of the three dead bodies now awaiting autopsy and the need to prepare evidence for the FBI panel that would investigate the shooting of the killers by the HRT officers. A couple of hours later another call from the hospital demanded Skinner's urgent attention. This time, Scully met him at the car. As soon as they walked onto Mulder's floor, his doctor stepped forward to greet them. "We believe he's conscious. But he won't talk to anyone. I'd have called for further tests except that you claim to have heard him speak." Skinner almost growled. "We did. He was lucid and the information he supplied was accurate." "Then why is he unresponsive now? He won't cooperate when we move him. Won't talk. Won't eat. We're having to administer medication through the IV line." A flicker of sudden recognition and the tension in Skinner's jaw grew. "He's only responding to the voices he knows. I'll make sure that someone stays with him - to introduce your staff to him." "He's got to cooperate - or I've got to act. We can't fight him every time we need to clean him up or take his temperature." "I'll stay with him," said Scully. The doctor nodded, looking confused by their apparent lack of concern. He still seemed to want to argue the case for a trip to the CAT scanner or the psych unit but the agents stood their ground. Scully waited until the doctor was out of earshot before speaking. "Sir?" "He can't see. He doesn't know who to trust unless we're there to tell him." "This has happened before, hasn't it?" "After the Pincus case. The hospital in Chicago." "So you're going to ignore this as well? Just pretend there's nothing wrong?" "What he's been doing - it's not just some statistical fluke." Skinner paused, grinding the words out as if each one hurt. "I had a choice today - put Clarke in charge or give Mulder the job. Clarke had a choice - go with Mulder or go by the book. The only person who didn't have a choice was Mulder - because he's always right." Scully's soft exclamation of disgust could have been for Skinner or it could have been for Mulder. "So he's right to ignore the medical staff?" "Whatever it takes for him to stay alive. That's all." They walked in angry silence to Mulder's room, announcing their presence as soon as they crossed its threshold. Skinner got straight down to business. "Mulder - I'll make sure there's always someone around to introduce you to the medical staff as they come in." "Thanks." Taking her lead from her boss, and trying to avoid taking her anger out on the wrong target, Scully stuck to the practicalities. "Do you want something to eat?" He shrugged. "A sandwich maybe." "Something you can handle by yourself?" "Yeah," he confirmed, sounding grateful that she'd understood that he couldn't let someone feed him and that he wasn't ready to try his hand with cutlery. Skinner just looked grateful for the opportunity to escape, vanished to the cafeteria, promised that he would soon return. Scully sat at the edge of the bed. "Why didn't you ask us, Mulder? Why didn't you tell us what you needed when we saw you before?" He shook his head. "Couldn't." "Because we should have guessed?" "Couldn't." He paused, shaking his head again. "It doesn't make sense." She offered him a glass of water. She pretended not to notice that his hands were shaking, just helped him to hold the drink steady instead. ---------- Doctor Wendy Adams was surprised to see Scully at her door, less surprised when she heard that Mulder was the only topic that the agent wanted to discuss. "You think his conduct at the hospital was a kind of self-punishment for failing to save Linda Ashton?" Scully frowned. "Maybe. Partly. A challenge, too. To find out if we care." "And do you?" "This isn't about me." "Then why are you here?" "I'm worried about him." "Is that all?" "I'm angry - that he'd risk his health like that." "You risk your lives every day by the nature of the work you do." "That - it's necessary. This - not letting the staff help him at the hospital - refusing to talk to them - not telling us what the problem was when we saw him - it was - " "Only necessary to Mulder?" Scully studied her hands before replying. "I don't know." "And is that the real problem?" "I don't know him anymore." "Yet you went to him. You stayed with him for hours. Walter said that you spent the night there. You care enough to come here to talk about him, even though it makes you uncomfortable." "He's still the same man." "But?" "I don't know." Scully paused, sought inspiration in the flowers behind Wendy's head. "He's got a secret," she said at last, almost whispering. "Something terrible that he doesn't think he can tell me about." "And you think he might have told me?" "No." Scully smiled, shaking her head. "You seem pretty confident about that. You know him that well. So, is he wrong about you - can he tell you his secret?" Scully shrugged. "Skinner says that Mulder's never wrong." ---------- Wendy had been right about one thing at least, Scully had spent a lot of time with Mulder in the last two days. More time than they'd spent together in the past two years. Not much had been said. At least not much of any great significance. She'd told him about New York, about her job, about her family, about the man in her life who she hadn't seen for the past four weeks and who she'd scarcely even spoken to on the phone. It already sounded like someone else's story. Mulder had responded in kind, told her the sequence of events that had put him in charge of the ISU, supplied her with his version of how he'd recruited Mick Saunders and the others. "He doesn't really look like him, does he?" Him? Deep Throat. She'd agreed, but then remembered the last time she'd seen Mick's father, a tall figure in a dark coat. Saving Mulder's life, pushing her away from danger with an urgent tone that spoke of humanity and care. "I can see the resemblance," she'd finally said. It had taken the death of an innocent and Mulder's near death to make it happen. Maybe it had had to be that way. They'd lost one another in a hospital. Perhaps they had to find one another in the same place. Much as she rebelled against the idea of fate, it seemed as if its hand was at work. ---------- The meeting that reviewed the conduct of the HRT agents at the warehouse was tense. The shadow of Linda Ashton's death haunted it, moderating the words and softening the tone. Dave Clarke, the team leader, undercut any possible argument by taking responsibility for the operation and praising the other agents involved for their swift and professional response. The tape recording of the operation made it obvious just how fast things had happened. Mulder demanding that the group go left, saying it as if there was no reason for debate. Clarke, managing the movements of five separate groups, checking the drawings of the building and telling them to go right. A brief stand-off before they followed orders. "Section Chief Mulder was separated from our people for around a minute." That had been all it took. "We thought they might have had a vehicle that surveillance had missed. We lost time at the start of the search. Even once we got a handle on where they might have taken him, we had to cut our way in. They'd locked some storm gates. We didn't have drawings of that part of the system so we couldn't determine another route." Skinner frowned, his expression betraying him - he'd heard it all before. "Did Agent Mulder indicate why you should go left?" asked Scully, hoping there was a logical explanation. Clarke shook his head. "No, he didn't know the building. He said we'd be going in blind." "Did he explain why he thought she was there?" "Not really. Just a possibility, he said." "A possibility worth approaching with a twenty man team?" "We didn't have anything else to go on. I don't know how he knew - but he knew." ---------- Clarke's words hit home. Hit her harder than she'd thought possible. Harder than she wanted. In the rush of anger, fear and sympathy that had followed Mulder's hospitalization, she'd forgotten her doubts. She'd forgotten quite how often people had told her that they didn't understand how Mulder could have just known something. How often those words had come to her as she'd read through the X-Files, as she'd studied some of those ISU cases. She didn't know - and she had to know. Whatever it cost, she couldn't live like this. They couldn't live like this. Her fingers trailed over the manila envelope that had nearly destroyed her faith in him. The photographs - stills taken from a security video, showing Mulder accompanied by Alex Krycek escorting Clyde Bennett from a mystery facility. The images of Bennett as he'd been found soon after, in a ditch at the side of the road, executed at point blank range. And really nothing had changed, despite the strange closeness they'd shared in his hospital room. And this case. Just how well did Mulder know the Pentons? No! Foolish question. How could he have known them - it just wasn't possible. But then, how could he have known about their dungeon underneath the warehouse? They'd talked, talked for hours at the hospital, but actually in retrospect he'd told her nothing. Was this secret of his really such an awful thing? She brooded over Wendy's question - would his secret be safe with her? It would have to be. The truth could be no worse than the nightmare she was conjuring up. She picked up the phone and called Skinner. "Sir - you said that you aren't really Mulder's boss. Who is?" --------- Deputy Director Madeley was a dangerous mix of authority and anger. Even Mulder looked subdued. The incident had left more than one kind of scar. Seven people had been murdered in the sewer, two more had died in the house fire that had allowed the Pentons to be declared dead. Yet no one had really paid much attention until an ordinary housewife vanished while doing her ordinary shopping. Even then, it was little more than a missing person's report until body parts started to show up around the city. Mulder's presence at the final murder made it personal. All three Pentons were dead. The formal analysis of the events was over. The temptation to make the HRT agents into the scapegoats had been resisted. All that remained was the business of making sure it didn't happen again. Skinner, Scully and Mulder were the only people invited to hear Madeley's verdict. "Agent Mulder." Mulder looked up at Madeley, but said nothing. "This can't happen again. I'd like to tell you what you did wrong - but I don't know. I do know what I'm going to do about it." Madeley addressed his next words to them as if he were dictating a memo. Making it clear that in his opinion there was nothing to debate, and that it was his opinion that mattered. "If the Section Chief of the ISU chooses to go on an action, then I'll assume it's because the behavioral factors make his presence essential. Accordingly, his orders will carry my full authority. An agent will be assigned to provide personal security to him during such operations. Any questions?" Skinner shook his head. "I think it's a good idea." Mulder remained impassive, so Madeley tried again. "Well?" "Understood." It wasn't really an answer but Madeley seemed to ignore that detail. "I don't want you back in the office before next Monday. Understood?" Mulder nodded. Madeley turned his attention back to Skinner. "Make sure he understands." To Scully's surprise, Mulder didn't get angry or even look indignant, simply exchanged an embarrassed shrug with Skinner. Madeley closed the discussion. "Assistant Director Skinner, Section Chief Mulder - thank you for your time. Agent Scully - if I may have a word with you." Madeley remained silent until they were alone. "Do you have something to say, Agent Scully?" Did she? "No, sir." "Off the record?" She shook her head. "You think I'm making the wrong call and I want to know why." She'd asked to meet Mulder's boss, but this wasn't quite the meeting she'd visualized. Somehow, the attack she'd prepared to launch on his indifference to Mulder's mental and physical wellbeing seemed inappropriate. The warning she'd wanted to give on Mulder's conduct seemed like treachery. Besides which - exactly how was she supposed to tell a FBI Deputy Director that one of his men might have sold his soul to save some lives? She stuck to the basics. "I'm concerned for Agent Mulder's health." He nodded. "We all are. If he's right about where this conspiracy stuff's heading - we need him. No, actually we need him - period. Is there something else?" "No, sir." "You don't want to talk to me? Fine. Let's see if I can guess why not. Off the record, of course. You think he's spooky. Oh, don't look surprised - everybody thinks so. Director down. We look at those cases he's cracked and we're not stupid. We wonder - is he psychic, telepathic, alien? Take your pick. We all agree he's a freak. But the only person who'd have the guts to put that in a report is Fox Mulder - so he's safe. Or are you going to prove me wrong - do you have something to tell me, that makes my new standing orders regarding the head of the ISU wrong?" "No." "We live in the land of denial, Agent Scully. Don't ask, don't tell. It works." No. It didn't. It didn't work for her. - END Part 2 of 3 What the hell we fighting for? Just surrender and it won't hurt at all You just got time to say your prayers While you're waiting for the Hammer to Fall. ============== Part 3 of 3 It took time for Mulder to push Vernon Penton and the other monsters out of his waking hours. The walls and filters he'd built to protect himself had all come crashing down and he'd had to fight to put them back. Linda Ashton continued to haunt his thoughts, but she had never come to him, never given him the chance to apologize. No matter how often he replayed the events at the warehouse they always came out the same. He'd done what he could to prepare the HRT agents. He'd known that Vernon Penton was leading them into a trap. Yet - if he had the choices to make again - he couldn't see himself acting in any other way. He would still stop and argue. The Pentons would still win. And they had won, Mulder had no doubt about that. The Bureau could argue that three killers were dead and that there was some resolution, some justice in that, despite the tragedy it took to get there. But all Mulder could see was Linda Ashton's blood. All he could feel were the shudders as her body faded from desperate struggle, first to jerking submission and then finally to the ugly stillness of horrific death. The killers had gagged them both, trading the pleasure of hearing them scream for the more mundane joy of evading capture for a few minutes longer. He ignored the scars on his wrists, tried to pretend that the ones on the tops of his legs didn't itch like hell. A fucking itch - he should be grateful. The coffee cup hit the wall with a resounding crash, satisfying him for a millisecond before his shoulders started to shake and he buried his face in his hands. Conscience - the voices of the dead trying to save him from his own damnation? Fucking crap job they were doing. He was slipping away, inch by inch, drip by drip - dying slowly from the inside out and no amount of last minute rescues or near death experiences was going to get him off the hook. The hospital stay had been nice. Sudden laughter mixed with the tears and he almost choked on the image of himself telling some Bureau appointed shrink about that particular fleeting thought. Didn't make it a lie though. Scully had treated him like he was a combination of cut glass and high explosives. Handle with care. But at least she'd handled him. And the laughter threatened to turn to hysteria as the accidental innuendo danced through his brain and made him feel lightheaded. Was trying to do the right thing enough? He didn't even know what the right thing was anymore. Was he just another well-intentioned soul who'd fallen for the easy fix and the path of least resistance? The well-trodden road that had carried men like his father to their doom. Were his intentions any better than the Smoker's? He gave himself credit for the idea that his methods were not the same as theirs. Not quite. Not yet. -------------- If Mulder seemed stunned by the suggestion that they meet for dinner, he seemed amazed by the fact that she'd invited him to her home. Seeing him standing on her balcony, leaning on the rail, his body unmoving except for the slow rhythm of his breathing, she was surprised too. After those first days at the hospital when she'd spent hours by his side, she'd scarcely spoken to him. Certainly, since his release, she'd tried hard to delay the confrontation that she knew was going to come. That would have to come. Anger would drive him away, so she'd forced the fear that fed the anger down, steadily rebuilt her reserves of calm. They needed to clear the air, not start a war. She'd struggled to find a way to approach him, draw him into a discussion without raising his defenses. If she could relax a little then perhaps Mulder would do the same. Physically, he was recovering fast. Dark glasses on his eyes, antibiotic creams on the scars, and as many painkillers as he needed to gloss over everything else. He was fine. He said. She handed him a cup of coffee and waved a hand vaguely across the view of the Potomac. "You like?" "I should have known you'd be near water." He didn't look at her, kept his eyes fixed on the ripple of lights below. "Are you all right?" "Are you?" "Getting there." "It'll take time." "Don't," he said, turning slowly, "Don't stretch this out. If you're going back to New York, just tell me." Going back? She could honestly say that it hadn't even occurred to her. It annoyed her that it had occurred to Mulder. "I'm not going anywhere." He nodded. "Then why?" He pointed at the table, neatly dressed with crisp white linen, sweet-smelling flowers and freshly polished glass. Why? Because that's what normal people did? Just because they hadn't done it before, that didn't mean they couldn't do it now. "Because I wanted to talk. Without any heart monitors ticking away, or autopsy reports on the desk, or slideshows on the wall." "I thought you liked my slideshows?" She snorted a laugh and he shook his head, smiling at her reaction. Relief. As if she'd been afraid to breathe. As if he had too. Two years holding her breath. For the briefest moment she wondered what it would be like to pull him into her arms and welcome him home. He'd probably have a coronary. She opted for something a little more neutral. "Why didn't you ever move apartments?" "Don't know. At first I thought I was going to go back to DC, back to the basement." "Do you miss it?" "Don't you?" Not fair. She'd asked first. She dodged. "I've got better access to the labs here. Forensics specialists. There's just so much information coming in - I don't know how you handled it." Mulder shrugged. "I didn't." "It's almost too much, and I don't even have to deal with whatever's coming in from those informants of yours." The words came from nowhere, slapping the softness out of the night and leaving the room short of air. "Krycek." She thought she might have lost him then, pushed him too hard, that he might just turn on his heel and walk. He didn't. "I've taken help from anywhere I could." "Is that the secret you're protecting?" He shook his head but didn't speak, turned back to look out into the darkness again. Blood in the water - her interrogator instincts caught the scent, couldn't resist moving in for the kill. "What is it then? What could be worse than you teaming up with Alex Krycek?" "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you." "Try me." "So you can ask Skinner why I'm still working? Or so you can tell Wendy how messed up I really am? Or so you can hint to Madeley that he shouldn't trust me?" "So I can understand." A single beat of laughter fell from his lips and he smiled, declared the interrogation over by closing his eyes briefly. When he looked at her again, all openness had vanished from his expression. "I can't help with that. I don't understand it myself." ---------- A long holiday weekend, not that she'd seen much of it. She'd taken work home, but at least she'd gone home and planned to stay there. A concession to her mother. In any case, perhaps the change of surroundings would help. Out of the office. Away from all the people who were so assiduously turning pragmatically blind eyes to the facts of Mulder's life. Did she have the guts to deal with what she'd seen and read? Madeley's words still grated. They'd become a challenge - and Scully was always up for a challenge. She scribbled notes as she read through the files; itemized, classified and categorized the points that gave her the most problems; highlighted the sudden leaps and bizarre twists; underlined the names, dates and places. Mulder - in a cell in LA, talking to people who weren't there. Mulder - seeing things, according to the Gunmen. Mulder - carrying an infrared thermometer like it was a lifeline, surrounding himself with surveillance cameras. Mulder - struggling to focus, looking straight past her as if she was blocking his view of the game. Mulder - in a hospital bed, refusing to talk to strangers. The miracle solutions to cases came thick and fast. She looked for patterns - focusing initially on some of the cases she'd witnessed for herself. How had Mulder known about the Pentons' hideout? How had he known Daryl Musashi's special codes and passwords for communicating with Kenneth Soona? How had he known that Clyde Bennett was using other men to kill for him? How had he found so many of the conspiracy's secrets? Informants? A powerful word full of promises and doubts. But who were these people? And why were they coming to him now? She looked for the things the cases might have in common. The extreme possibilities and unexplained processes that might supply a key both to a government lab and to a murderous family's torture chamber. Psychic, telepathic, alien? Daryl Musashi was dead. No one got out of the Pentons' lair alive. She sighed, blinked hard to clear the tiredness from her eyes - unconcerned about sleep that wouldn't come. There was a pattern here. She knew it. And yet, in the end, despite all the lists she'd made and connections she'd drawn, as far as she could see, the only thing the cases had in common was death. And Mulder. ------------ He hadn't seen anyone all day. Sunday of a holiday weekend - why should he see anybody down here? Anyone alive. He could always go up to the cafeteria if he really wanted to, but he didn't really want to. It was quiet in the ISU offices and the pictures on his walls, matched the photos on the desk, tied in with the images on his computer, suited the steady stream of dead who came around to visit. He made another pot of coffee and decided on a change of location. The burns at the top of his thighs still made sitting uncomfortable. Perhaps he could lie down for a while. He headed to the couch. Linda Ashton came forward slowly, coughing politely to get his attention, as if she didn't want to bother him. He sat up fast, ashamed to have succumbed to injuries too trivial to admit. "Mrs. Ashton." "Agent Mulder. I'm going to be leaving soon. I wanted to see you first." Mulder didn't pry, didn't ask her what "leaving soon" might mean, incapable of curiosity as he looked at the woman whose face he'd only seen for a few seconds before he'd been manacled to lie down beside her. "I'm sorry," he said. "So sorry." "Thank you." There was something in her eyes, something familiar - a request. He spoke reassuringly, gentle encouragement in his voice. "Is there something I can do for you?" She nodded, apologizing for the tears that she'd been carefully holding back and which now started to flow so freely. -------- NEXT DAY It had taken all his nerve to invite her, but Scully hadn't hesitated when Mulder asked her to join him on a trip to see Linda Ashton's twelve-year-old son. He'd done this kind of visit dozens of times before but they didn't get any easier. The only thing that made them possible at all was knowing that delay just made them worse. They were best done fresh; the cleanest cut was while the wound was still open. Dillon Ashton said nothing when they arrived, but his eyes never wavered from their focus on Mulder. Desperately sad, bitterly angry - his expression was cold, tightly focused as only hate could be, piercingly honest as only a child could supply. His grandparents tried to paper over the cracks, offering coffee and comfortable chairs and radiating an intensity of emotion that burned like fire. Scully steered Mulder towards the couch and he wondered why, getting his answer when she sat too close and allowed her leg to brush against his. Swallowing hard, he tried to share the words between Linda's son and her mom and dad. Knew the words were puny and trite, even as he identified them as correct and necessary. "I'm sorry about Linda. We did everything we could. I'm sorry we weren't in time to help her." Linda's father nodded before asking the big question. "You're the one who... You were with her when..." "I was. She was wonderful. You should be so proud of her. She asked me to come to see you." All four of his listeners gasped. "She loved you all very much," he said, keeping it moving because he knew that if he stopped now he would never be able to start again. "She wanted you to know." He moved swiftly through her final recitals of gratitude and love before focusing his attention on Dillon. "There are some letters for you. From your father. There's a bank account in your name with all the money he sent to her over the past three years. She said that if you want to see him again, spend time with him, she would understand - that she's sorry to have kept you apart." Mulder looked up at Linda's parents, relieved to see forgiveness in their eyes rather than anger. "The letters and bank details are in a folder, under the bedding in the chest in her room." Linda's mom nodded, gave Mulder the kind of reaction he'd been desperately hoping to hear. "We've spoken to John. He told us that he'd written. She never said. I thought perhaps she'd thrown them away. I'm glad. He's still Dillon's father." Mulder returned his attention to Dillon, whose gaze had never faltered and still stung Mulder with its force. "And she loved being your mom. She was proud of you. She wants you to be everything you want to be - she wants you to play ball, go out on dates, go to college, be happy - she's just sorry that she can't be with you for it." Dillon's lips moved, twitched downwards as his eyes went misty with pain. Mulder rested his hand briefly on Dillon's shoulder, felt the furious emotions boiling up beneath his fingertips, saw the anger in the twelve-year-old's eyes drown in the sadness. The boy bolted then, and Mulder shook his head to discourage his grandfather from following him up the stairs. He tensed, hoping that he was making the right call. Hoping that Dillon needed just a little time alone, maybe needed to see those letters from his dad. Linda's father nodded. "I'll give him a few minutes." The men shook hands and avoided each other's eyes. Scully moved to shake hands with Linda's mother, but their fingers became entwined instead. Mulder kept it all together until they were safely back at the car. Scully already had the car keys and he was grateful as the doors clicked open without him needing to pause or speak. He slid silently into the passenger seat and hid his face against the window. It took twenty miles of silence before she cracked. "I thought you were both gagged." "We were." "Then how?" It wasn't just that Mulder wouldn't answer. He didn't have an answer. The frustration in her voice came in loud and clear. "How the hell did you know that stuff?" "Not hell." If not hell, then what? Linda Ashton didn't deserve hell; she didn't deserve any of it. She'd moved on, confident that he would deliver her message to her son - sure that one visit to Mulder's office would be enough. She was right. Who would he turn to when his time came? What about his unspoken words - who would relay those? He could have died in that sewer too, only the bizarre pathology of his attackers and his own freakish luck had saved him. Did everybody have secrets? Did everybody have regrets? Was that hell? They drove for another thirty minutes before Scully stopped the car. "Let's get something to eat." "Why?" "Because I'm hungry." Mulder shrugged, taking the lie as a good excuse. He doubted Scully was interested in food. Still, he did his part, ordered himself the all day breakfast special and another cup of coffee. "How did you know where she kept her letters?" "A hunch?" he suggested, automatic defenses answering her question before his brain overruled them. He'd brought her along today for a reason and it wasn't just so that she could play taxi driver for him. He took a deep breath before offering her the options. "I guess there are three possibilities - before, during or after her murder." "Your report said the first time you saw her was in that sewer and that both of you remained gagged the whole time." She studied him as he played with the too hot coffee. "Did you lie on the report?" He shook his head. "You're saying that you spoke to her afterwards?" "You said it, not me." "I don't understand." "Nor do I." The loneliness swirled through his body, sapping his strength. He'd been alone for the past two years, but he'd never felt quite so lonely as he did right now. He'd opened the door to his soul and could feel the void inside. There was so little of him left. Stretched thin over hundreds of dead bodies and desperate survivors. No wonder he could talk to the dead - he was almost dead himself. Her silence didn't bother him as much as he thought it should. It was reassuring in a way. If she didn't talk to him then the chances were she was still alive. He took a sip of coffee, wondered where it went if he was empty inside. Almost laughed at the way the metaphors messed with his head and distracted him from the desolation. He heard Scully swallow and looked up at her as she composed herself to speak. The Federal Agent had gone missing in action; she sounded like a little girl. "I saw my dad. The night he died." He gasped at that, sucking in air and seeing the void for what it was, the calm eye at the centre of the storm. The world spun and his hands clenched into fists to keep the giddiness at bay. Impossible to admit how easy this had been. That the fear that had stopped him from approaching her for two years had vanished in the face of a handful of barely whispered words. Yet here he was, using those words as fuel, filling himself up with some heady mix of emotions, conjured up from his dreams, drained from all the people he'd ever known. He studied her pale features, saw his vampire reflection in her red-tinged eyes. Felt the swirling confusion fade as he sought and found clarity in the clear blue of her gaze. There was nothing he could do to stop it now. They were in it together. He'd never really had a choice. He watched her smile grow steadily brighter until it lit up the whole of her face, saw his own smile reflected in her eyes. Knew that this was right. She'd never really had a choice either. END