An Interested Bystander (1/1)
Maria Nicole
Rating: PG-13
Category: S
Spoilers: The Beginning, the movie
Keywords: none
Summary: Events of the movie and up to the premiere, through Skinner's
eyes.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine. They belong to Fox and 1013.
In the day and place in which he'd grown up, little boys wanted to be
firemen, or policemen, or astronauts. Maybe doctors, maybe pilots,
maybe soldiers, maybe spies.
Skinner's list had, if he recalled, included all of these at one time
or another. He'd been a soldier and, in a way, a policeman ("special
agent" would have sounded so exciting to the child he had been).
"Bureaucrat," though, had never been on his list; he didn't think it
was on anyone's. Yet that, he had long since admitted to himself, was
what he was now. Administration, for a man who had had a certain degree
of contempt for administrators ever since Vietnam, where he had learned
that most didn't give a damn about what they did to those under their
command, had forgotten or never known what it was like to be under
fire. Him, a bureaucrat.
It had come as no surprise to him or those who had promoted him
that he was good at it. Skinner had always been competent at what he
chose to do. He was a bit surprised (and maybe his superiors had been
as well), at how good he was. The sections and investigations under
his command got results, quietly and efficiently, with a minimum of
personality conflicts. He was well-liked by most of those under him;
more importantly to him, he was well-respected
The biggest surprise had come when he realized that he liked this job.
Not because of the prestige. Not because of the larger paycheck, or the
larger office, or the administrative assistant (although he appreciated
all these things). Skinner liked seeing the work take shape, like
seeing younger agents grow into their jobs, liked solving problems.
While he wasn't fond of bureau politics, he was proud of the fact that
he was doing good work, and enabling others to do the same.
In this carefully constructed section of the universe, Mulder and
Scully were grenades who exploded periodically in everyone's faces,
including their own. Skinner might have come to hate them for making
him and everyone else casualties in their war, had they not sustained
the bulk of the damage themselves.
Every so often, Scully's letter of resignation would crackle in his
pocket when he shifted. The vinyl hospital couch outside the OR wasn't
at all comfortable, and he shifted often. He wanted to pull out the
letter, wave it in the faces of the government conspirators, and yell,
"See, she's leaving. Whatever you're doing to her, it isn't necessary.
She's quitting."
He had no concrete proof that Scully had been taken again, except that
she was not in the hospital, waiting for Mulder's craniotomy to be
finished. He could envision no circumstance in which Scully would not
come to Mulder's side if he were hurt, unless she couldn't. The text
of the 911 call from Mulder's apartment was positive evidence but
circumstancial; it was because of absence, Scully's absence, that he
believed.
Unfortunately, no anonymous smoker came to threaten or cajole him, and
so Skinner had no one to whom he could tell his conclusions, no one to
whom he could trade another patch of his soul.
Maybe that was for the best, as his last deal had done neither himself
nor Scully any good. It had been Mulder's recklessness and the smoking
man's manipulations that had provided the second implant, and Scully's
own stubborness that had kept her alive and covering Mulder's back
until he had returned from the dead with her life in his hands.
"How's he doing?" The voice was female and unexpected. He looked up to
see Assistant Director Cassidy, and moved a little to make room for her
to sit.
"Okay. He's in surgery right now. At the moment, I'm more worried about
Agent Scully."
"You don't think she would have gone back to Texas to gather some
further information?" He was fairly sure that that was polite mockery
in her voice.
"Not with Mulder in the hospital. Did any of the neighbors see
anything?"
"No, but then, they're evidently used to activity around Agent Mulder's
apartment. You would not believe his current security deposit. There's
something else, Walter."
"Yes?"
She handed him a folder. "It appears that Agent Scully may not
have been entirely incorrect in her assertions about SAC Michaud."
A sentence worthy of a Scully report, when the evidence pointed towards
the paranormal end of the weirdness scale. He skimmed over the report,
feeling slightly sick.
"How conclusive is this?" he asked. Shit. When the word had come down
from on high that the X-Files were to be shut down, Skinner had used
what leverage he did have to argue for them to stay together in
Domestic Terrorism. It wasn't a bad assignment, and they would be
working under Michaud. Skinner hadn't met the man often, but he'd
seemed to be a good soldier. Not someone who would take too much of
Mulder's crap, but someone who would treat them on the basis of their
work, not their reputations.
And, from what he could tell, it had worked out okay, on the whole.
Mulder hadn't shown evidence of his unnerving deductive leaps and
intuitive brilliance (until, perhaps, Dallas), but he hadn't gotten
involved in any fiascos (until, definitely, Dallas). And Scully, who
had always paid attention to method and detail, had flourished. They
had both seemed to respect Michaud, who had, if the report he held in
his hand was true, constructed the bomb that had killed himself and
four others.
Unless, as Scully claimed, those others were already dead.
"It's pretty conclusive. Public relations wise, it looks bad."
"It would have looked worse if schoolchildren on tours were there
when the building went up," Skinner responded automatically, but
Cassidy didn't seem comforted.
"The people whose offices were destroyed are focusing on what did
happen, not on might-have-beens."
He let it go. "Any explanations of why he may have done it?"
He no longer had any doubt that Michaud had let the bomb go off.
Possibly, though, the rest of it was a little convenient, a frame up to
put the blame on someone who was only partially responsible.
Cassidy shook her head. "We're looking into that. His financial records
don't show anything odd, except..." her voice trailed off.
"Except what?"
"There are no large payments, or evidence of small payments
leading up to this. And it's hard to believe that this would be a first
time shot, not for someone like Michaud. If he were on someone's
payroll, they would have started him off with smaller errands. Unless
he were doing this for reasons other than profit, out of some political
motivation—but we find no evidence of that, either."
"So what was there evidence of?" Skinner asked impatiently.
She didn't like being rushed. "For a period of five years, ending
six months ago, Michaud's wife Renee had cancer. She's in remission
now. She says that his insurance paid for her treatment, but the
payment records show that several of the more experimental treatments
and medications during the last year of her cancer were paid for by a
company called Roush."
"Roush?" Skinner repeated, as the narrative suddenly became clear.
"While that does provide a connection with Section Chief Blevins,
it may be just an anomaly. A company might be willing to subsidize
treatment or cost of medication if the patient was willing to take part
of a study. But I interviewed Renee myself, and she doesn't remember
anything of that sort." She frowned. "It's almost certainly just a
coincidence. We'll continue looking into the matter." She stood. "Call
me if Mulder knows something about Agent Scully's whereabouts when he
wakes up."
Skinner nodded and watched her turn to leave. "What kind of cancer did
Renee Michaud have?" he asked abruptly.
She looked back at him curiously; she wouldn't think it a relevant
question. "Ovarian, I think she said."
Of course. He could tell that Cassidy wondered why he had asked, but
she didn't question him.
Roush. Skinner remembered Kritschgau, telling them about the death of
his son. He remembered Scully, weaker and paler by the day, and the
deep reds of her nosebleeds throughout the cancer months. He remembered
Mulder, passionately and desperately denouncing Blevins while Scully
lay dying. And he remembered several months later, Mulder on a bridge
looking for a burned victim of the chip in her neck.
So. They'd helped Michaud's wife recover from cancer, and he would bet
they knew about cancer of the reproductive organs better than anyone.
And then they had owned Michaud.
Skinner could feel sympathy; he wasn't as lily-white as he'd once been.
But there had been one hell of a lot of people in that building when
Mulder had had his hunch.
***
When Cassidy called him the next day, he was at the hospital, waiting
for Mulder to wake up. The surgery had gone well, but Mulder was still
unconscious.
Last night, he'd called Mrs. Mulder, who had been disoriented and
groggy, telling him that she'd taken a sleeping pill for the night.
She hadn't offered to come up, and Skinner hoped that she even
remembered the conversation today.
Something about the intonations in her voice had troubled him.
He'd called Mrs. Scully as well, to find that Jana Cassidy had
already done so.
Today, he simply waited. Earlier, he'd stayed inside the room, reading
Mulder sections from the morning paper and feeling like an idiot for
doing so. One of the nurses had suggested that a familiar voice might
be just the thing Mr Mulder needed to hear, and Skinner hadn't wanted
to explain that his wasn't the voice that Mulder needed. The beeps of
the machines, and Mulder's silence, had driven him out into the
hallway, where he had gone into a spate of phone calls. The bombing
wasn't his only responsibility, after all.
"Skinner."
"Jana Cassidy here. Skinner, are you joking?"
"What?"
"About Roush. I read the X-File on it. Surely this is a joke?"
Cassidy was in charge of the investigation, she had been made an
Assistant Director before him, she probably expected politeness, and
she could just go fuck herself. He made his voice hard. "What is it
that you find funny?"
"This file suggests that a company, in collaboration with mysterious
forces in the US government, kidnapped Agent Scully and many other
women, experimented on them, and put a microchip in the back of their
neck that keeps away cancer. I don't find any of this funny. I find it
ludicrous that this was proposed by two of our agents, and I find it
deeply disturbing that you seem to accept it."
"Disturbing? What I find disturbing is that no explanation, besides
Agent Mulder's, has ever been offered for Scully's disappearance. Three
months, and then she shows up in a hospital room with her bloodwork
showing some extremely strange anomalies. This is three months after a
young agent, Krycek, disappears as well, only his disappearance seems
to have been voluntary. And no one...except Agent Mulder...has ever
even tried to explain that."
"Just because there's not a ready explanation doesn't mean that one
doesn't exist. And it doesn't mean that every farfetched assertion of
theirs is correct. They've never provided any concrete, proven
evidence..."
"That," Skinner growled into the phone, "is what they went back to
Texas to find.
"They didn't." Her voice was furious.
"No. And now one of them was shot, and the other is missing...
someone took their farfetched assertions seriously."
"The idea that that someone was in some sort of secret government
that's collaborating with medical companies and aliens to boot... you
know, I've always thought you made a good AD, even with your support of
the X-Files. But you're falling into their delusions. Word of
advice...find a pet project worthy of your backing."
"Or what?"
There was a long silence, and then she said, still furious, "Call
me when Mulder wakes up," and hung up.
Skinner pressed the disconnect button harder than necessary. Self-
righteous bitch. Looking up, he thought he saw movement and half turned
to see the backs of three men scurying around the corner.
Shit. Had they been listening? Skinner almost started after them, but
he had no proof that they had been trying to get at him, or Mulder.
Even if they were, it could be a ruse to get him away from Mulder, into
another stairwell.
He waited instead, standing guard.
***
Around three, a few green agents showed up, sent by Cassidy. They
brought copies of relevant documents, sealed from their eyes.
Anonymous dark-suited men walked the halls every so often. They avoided
looking at him a little too carefully.
Cassidy was right; he was delusional. He'd been in this hospital for
too long, staring at the walls.
He waited until another dark suit had passed, and a nurse was in the
room, before going on a much needed bathroom and coffee break.
Drinking the coffee gratefully, he gave himself a rest from reading
over files that gave him no information as to where Scully was, only
where she wasn't, and less information regarding Mulder's shooter.
The phone rang when he was getting up to return to Mulder's room.
Probably Cassidy again.
"Skinner."
"Mr. Skinner? This is Tina Mulder." Her voice was crisp and held
nothing of the drugged sleepiness of the previous night. "I was calling
regarding my son."
"Yes...he's doing well, the doctors say. He's still unconcious, but
they expect him to wake up soon."
A shaky sigh. "He'll be all right, then."
"They think so. Hold on, I've got the hospital number right here."
He read the number, which she repeated in a precise voice before saying
goodbye.
It was only when she had hung up that Skinner realized that she'd said
nothing about coming to see Mulder, or asked if they'd found who had
shot her son. And he realized that what had been missing from her voice
last night had been surprise.
Feeling very uneasy, he started back up to Mulder's room.
Through the glass in the door, he could see that there were three
men in the room. Worse, Mulder was both awake and plainly agitated.
Cursing himself for leaving, Skinner burst through the door.
It was immediately obvious that Mulder didn't consider these men
threats. Only one was in a suit, and none of them carried guns. It was
also immediately obvious that a head wound had not knocked any sense
into him, as he insisted on getting up and looking for Scully himself,
despite Skinner's protests.
"What can we do?" asked one of Mulder's friends, startling them both.
For a second, Mulder looked lost, disarmed as always by help more than
by resistance. Then a gleam came into his eye. "You can strip Byers
naked."
Byers was apparently the suit; he did not look pleased.
Their plan was hasty and incomplete, but it seemed to work.
Another dark suited man had drifted by the door, and they froze before
quickly dressing Mulder. He wasn't much help, as he rambled on about
bee stings and Scully self-diagnosing as she fell to the floor. Even
concussed and disoriented, he still wasn't surprised that the official
investigation had gone nowhere. And then he, Short, and Blond were
gone, leaving Skinner and alone with a hospital gowned man who looked
very suspicious of him.
They stared at each other for a moment before Skinner's cell phone
rang.
"Skinner."
"It's Jana Cassidy."
It took him a moment to place her tone. Anger was easy to pick up
on, but the anger was mixed with something that sounded like fear.
"Anything new?"
"The brakes in Renee Michaud's car failed today."
Talk about overkill. Talk about hubris. How many bodies did these
people think would go unnotice? "Was she killed?"
"No, luckily. Her neighbor was driving her to the funeral home in
Renee's car. The driver's side slammed into an abutment. The neighbor
is in surgery for internal injuries, but Renee's okay. Bruised, and
they gave her a sedative."
"What was the cause of the brake failure?"
"The car's totaled. It's hard to tell the cause, but the brake
lines may have been cut. What the hell is going on here?"
"Is Renee in any condition to talk?"
"She doesn't know anything; Michaud kept his work life separate."
"I'd still like to talk to her."
"About Roush."
"Yes. And Dallas."
"She doesn't know anything about Dallas."
"Someone may have tried to kill her. They didn't do it for the
hell of it, and the Roush connection is on record. She may know
something."
"Fine. Fine. We're at St. Joseph's. You know where that is?"
"I'll be there in half an hour."
She expelled a breath harshly. "The car accident will probably end
up being perfectly normal."
"The dent in Mulder's head isn't," Skinner replied. "I'll be there."
He thumbed the off button and looked at the man lying in the bed.
"Uh...I don't know how you were planning to get out of here."
"I'm assuming that the others will bring me clothes."
"A nurse just came. I don't think she'll be back for awhile yet.
I need to leave. Watch out for the men in suits."
The other man was almost wide-eyed, as if surprised, although Skinner
couldn't figure out why. Any of Mulder's friends would have to be a
little paranoid, he would think. Talk of mysterious men in suits
couldn't be that astonishing.
The door opened and Skinner spun around, but it was only the other two
men. They stalled abruptly in the doorway.
"Mulder get out all right?" he asked.
The short man nodded. The other man just stared at him, as if he
suspected that Skinner was going to whip out handcuffs and arrest them
all for being Mulder's friends.
"I need to go now. The nurse shouldn't be back for awhile. If you find
a pair of scrubs and dress Byers in them, you should be able to get
past the guard." They all glanced worriedly at each other when he
mentioned Byers by name, as if this would reveal all their secrets. It
irritated him. "Be careful," he snapped, and walked towards the door.
The speed with which Short and Blond cleared out of his way pissed him
off further.
***
His second hospital room of the day was no more cheerful than the
first. Renee Michaud was doped up and hazy, and Cassidy had already
convinced herself that nothing beyond bad luck was going on, that she'd
panicked by calling him over. It was an unproductive interview, with
Jana sitting disapprovingly in the corner and Renee answering questions
by rote. No, Darius had never talked about work with her. No, he had
never mentioned Agents Mulder or Scully. No, no one had come to the
house whom she didn't recognize in the last month, the last six months,
the last year. No, no one who smoked Morley brand cigarettes had ever
come to the house. No, he had not reacted differently the morning of
the bomb threat. Yes, he had been distracted, but he always was when an
emergency call came. Yes, the car had had a tune up last month, and
yes, the brakes had been replaced a year ago. No, there had been no odd
phone calls, but then she never answered his cell phone.
Roush? She had no memory of that (she was lying). Her treatment had
been experimental and recommended by the doctor. Darius handled all the
insurance forms, as he handled all their financial records. They would
have to talk to the doctor for details.
He sat back and admitted momentary defeat. He couldn't push her out of
the lie, not with her on a mild sedative. Jana would pull his ass out
of the room if she thought he were being rough.
"Did Darius ever mention Section Chief Blevins to you?"
"Is he...he committed suicide? Darius was very sorry to hear
about that. He was always depressed when an agent committed suicide."
"Had they ever worked together?"
"I...well, you would probably know that better than me. I don't
think so, at least not closely."
His next question came out of nowhere, surprising him as well as the
two women. "Did you ever know a woman named Cassandra Spender?" He
listened to himself in disbelief. Had he started channeling Mulder?
But Renee looked horrified. "I...no. No. No."
He kept his tone as non-threatening as possible. Two people,
having a conversation. "What about a woman named Penny Northern?"
He searched his memory. "Or Betsy Hagiopian?"
In the corner, Cassidy shifted. Renee's eyes were wide and a little
wet. She shook her head mutely.
"Have you ever experienced a period of missing time, Renee?"
Cassidy kept herself seated, but barely. Skinner knew that part
of her recognized the shift in the room, because any trained
interrogator would. Most of her was probably appalled.
Probably even more so when Renee bowed her head and tears slipped down
her face. Skinner waited a beat, letting the tension build, silently
thanking Cassidy for backing him up with her silence. "Have you ever
experienced a period of missing time?"
She sobbed, "He told me..." and then her shoulders seemed to crumple in
on themselves.
Cassidy came forward, sitting beside Renee on the hospital bed.
One hand touched Renee's shoulder in support. "What did he tell you?"
Her voice was gentle, compassionate; her face when she looked up at
Skinner held neither emotion.
"He told me never to tell anyone. He told me it was all over." She
looked up, bewildered, face distorted by grief and tears. "It was all
over, it's so long in the past, before I married him...how could it
have any bearing on Dallas?"
***
Renee Michaud slept, finally.
"It's an unbelievable story, Skinner," Cassidy told him wearily.
"I know," Skinner admitted. "And I'm not saying all of it's true.
Just that it's pretty damned coincidental."
Cassidy shook her head. "I agree with that, but not to little green
men."
"I never said I did."
"We'll check into her story tomorrow. I've put guards on Renee's
room. Why don't you head home? There isn't anything else you can do
now."
"I may check on Mulder first." Cover your ass, his first partner had
always said.
"I'm heading over there myself," Jana said. "I'm not sure that he
really needs guards, but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to
station some, just in case."
"That sounds like a good idea. Well, if you're taking care of that,
I'll just head home."
He mentally practiced a tone of shock and horror for the call he
expected to get when she got to the other hospital.
***
His tone worked wonders. Jana didn't seem to suspect that Mulder might
have left voluntarily, or that Skinner might have helped him. He went
back to the hospital, where there wasn't a trace of Mulder, his
friends, or any dark suited men. He hadn't found it hard to feign a
tone of concern; he was worried for Mulder, who could have collapsed or
been shot by his supposed ally or headed into a military base by now.
He was downright scared for Scully.
Later, he sat at home, skimming over paperwork, TV on to distract
himself. When his cell phone rang, he momentarily prayed it was Scully
herself, calling unharmed to rip him apart for letting Mulder leave the
hospital.
"Skinner."
"The Holiday Inn, room 23, on Merchant and Taylor streets. Do not
bring anyone and make sure you aren't followed." The voice was
unrecognizable, the click a definitive sign that questions were not
encouraged.
Sighing, Skinner got up and reached for his gun.
***
He was only half surprised, although genuinely relieved, when the hotel
door opened to reveal Mulder's friends. Mulder himself stood by the
window with its shades drawn, with a restless look on his face that
told Skinner that he was only temporarily staying still.
Blond, Short, and Back-in-a-Suit looked none too happy to see him.
"Mulder. Did you find anything out?"
Mulder went into motion as if the words had triggered him. "I need
to leave soon. He said I didn't have much time. 96 hours. It's gonna be
cold down there, I need gear..."
"Gear for where? What are you talking about?"
"Antarctica, we think," said Short.
What?
"I need to get on a plane, I need to get down there, they'll know
I talked to him, maybe they already knew."
"What are you saying?"
Byers had asked that, but Skinner also wanted to know. He had the
feeling that Mulder had just about hit his limit, physically and
mentally.
"I don't have time to sit here arguing with you all! She doesn't have
time!"
Skinner moved towards the desk, where a crumpled paper and a syringe
were sitting. "What are..."
Mulder was across the room and trying to push him away, yelling, "Don't
touch that! That's her life, don't touch it, you sonovabitch!"
Skinner let Mulder push him back, more out of surprise than because the
other man had any real strength, feeling his own temper rise and
tamping it down. "Mulder, calm down. What are you talking about?"
Glowering at him, eyes glittering with fever, Mulder touched the
syringe with one hand, lightly.
"What's in the syringe, Mulder?"
"He told me it would save her," Mulder replied stubbornly.
"He won't let us test it," said Short.
"I told you guys, I don't have time for that."
"You don't even know what it is," said Suit.
"From what the man said and our own information, we can make some
guess," Blond added.
"Jesus, Langley, this is Scully, we can't make guesses," Short snapped
back.
Skinner closed his eyes briefly and listened to the Trio begin to argue
about proper testing procedure and vaccines. Swearing silently, he
opened his eyes: he was in a room with three conspiracy freaks who were
talking about the scientific possibilities of a bee-carried virus and
one injured man who looked like he was starting to sway on his feet.
"Be quiet!" He had long learned how to make his voice carry. All four
of the men focused on him, with varying degrees of suspicion in their
eyes. "Mulder, sit down before you fall down." Mulder's eyes cut to the
syringe and then back to the other men; he didn't move. "If the
syringe is that important to you, take it with you to the chair, but
sit," Skinner added, as patiently as possible. Mulder appeared to
consider the ramifications of this possibility, examining it for hidden
tricks, before he reluctantly sat.
"Ok." Skinner sat on the edge of the bed. "Ok, now tell me what's going
on. Start at the beginning—Scully was over at your apartment and you
made a 911 call. What was that all about?"
"I don't have time to make a goddamn report..." (Could the man not sit
still for more than two seconds?)
"Sit down!" Skinner roared. "If you don't have much time, then hurry it
up and tell us what happened so that we can help you."
"He's right, Mulder," said Blond, with an expression on his face that
said that those words didn't come easily, "We need to know what's going
on."
Mulder regarded them all for a moment unsteadily before he sat and
buried his face in his hands for a few seconds. When he looked up
again, his eyes were clearer and somewhat calmer. "Never thought I'd
see the day that you agreed with the government," he said to Blond, and
then turned his eyes to Skinner. "All right, sir, a report, *sir*." (It
was possible that other agents besides Mulder and Scully had found a
better way to turn the word sir into a curse translating roughly to
fuck you, but Skinner hadn't come across them yet.) "After the initial
hearing on the Dallas bombings, sir, I went to a bar to get as drunk as
possible, sir. At the bar, a man named Kurtzweil approached me, sir."
"Kurtzweil?" asked Short. "He's on our mailing list."
"Yeah, well, not anymore. I think he was...well, that's later."
"Kurtzweil. Should I know him?" asked Skinner.
"Not unless you're in need of a good gynecologist."
They all listened intently as Mulder wove his tale of bees and
morgues, Kurtzweil and viruses. As Skinner had thought he would, Mulder
relaxed once he was into his narrative, the college professor rattling
off a lecture on information with which he was long familiar. Skinner
had heard much of this before in their official reports, although
Mulder had kept Kurtzweil's name out of it. The Trio were nodding and
interspersing comments every so often; they seemed to find very little
of Mulder's story fantastic.
"She came over to my apartment after the hearing, and we were talking
in my hallway when she...kind of jumped and said she'd been stung. And
then she, uh, she started to collapse. Started listing symptoms as she
went down. I thought it was anaphylactic shock, but she said that she
didn't have any allergies. I called 911, and when the ambulance came, I
told them it might be a virus. They wouldn't let me ride in the back,
so I went to the front to ask what hospital we were going to. He had
the window up, and he didn't answer and, um, I started to duck. He shot
through the window." Mulder was examining his clasped hands, the floor.
"It was the same man who was the vending repairman in Dallas. I just
didn't connect his face until then."
It was clear to everyone in the room that he would not easily forgive
himself for that.
"So I ended up in the hospital. You all know more about that. When I
left, I called Kurtzweil, and agreed to meet in the alley behind the
bar. When I got there, though, a different man was there. Two different
men. One I've met before. He was the one who warned Scully that someone
would kill her, when Melissa was shot instead. And I've met him before
too, one time when everyone was looking for Krycek— about the time you
were shot, sir."
Skinner nodded in acknowledgement. The sir was simply a title this
time, not a curse.
"They were...they were closing the trunk of the car. The other man, he
was the driver. The man I knew...we drove around; he was telling me
about...lots of things. He said that that, what's in the syringe, is an
experimental vaccine to a virus. That they've taken Scully to these
coordinates. That I have 96 hours."
"Where are the coordinates?" Skinner asked.
Mulder didn't answer. Suit explained, "We checked an atlas.
Antarctica."
"It's the only lead anyone's offered," said Mulder.
Antarctica. "Did he say anything else?"
"He said that they wouldn't want him telling me this. He shot the
driver, and told me to get out of the car. When he was getting back in,
it exploded."
God almighty. This story was getting stranger by the second.
"I need to get to Antarctica. The guys can help me get there, but
I need to leave behind the coordinates with someone, in case you don't
hear from me."
"You think this man is credible."
"It's the only lead I've got," Mulder repeated. "The official
investigation hasn't come up with anything new?"
"Not on Scully." Skinner looked at the three men, who were watching
them avidly, and took a step further into grayness. "Evidence shows
that Darius Michaud probably constructed the bomb in Dallas."
"How good's the evidence?"
"Pretty good."
"That's pretty convenient."
"You think they're trying to pin all the blame on him?"
"Maybe. One person instead of many. We know they have someone else
who knows bombs, anyway."
"Maybe. Also, Renee Michaud's brakes failed, probably tampered with.
Cassidy uncovered a connection with Roush. Renee had ovarian cancer,
and they paid for her treatment."
"They bought him," said Blond.
"She's in remission?" asked Mulder.
"Yes. But there's something else. Renee Michaud was originally
Renee Payton."
"Hot bloody damn," he heard Short murmur. The others were puzzled.
"She once claimed to be an alien abductee...member of MUFON, all
of that. The abductions inexplicably stopped once she married him. He
told her that she would be safe now, that he knew people who would keep
her safe."
"I suppose he thought he was selling his soul for a good price," said
Mulder softly. "I need to get to Antarctica."
It did not seem to be a non sequitur.
"If what you say is true, they'll be watching the airports,"
warned Skinner.
Mulder looked at his friends, looked at Skinner. Skinner was familiar
with many Mulders: the lecturing professor, the frantic lost soul, the
GQ professional, the sulky adolescent, the fascinated child. But the
Mulder who gazed back at him now was the collected soldier, cool and
determined; for a moment, Skinner saw Scully in his eyes, in the same
way he sometimes saw Mulder's impulsive passion in Scully. "That won't
be a problem."
***
Skinner ended up being the one to drive Mulder to the airport, as the
Trio were busy arranging things at the other end of the flight. There
was a wait when they arrived, and they sat in the uncomfortable plastic
chairs, falling into silence after the frenetic pace of the last few
hours of planning.
Mulder fidgeted, hands tapping restlessly against his knees. Both men
kept looking around. Skinner was trying to spot anyone who might have
followed them. Mulder, he thought, was wired and not really paying
attention to anyone, although he might have noticed anyone following
them out of some drummed-in instinct of paranoia.
Mulder had paid for the tickets in cash. He's paid for everything in
cash, and he was carrying a lot with him. No gun, since he was
travelling under a different name, but he would be able to buy one if
he needed one; these things were always available for enough money.
Skinner hadn't asked where either the money or the fake passport had
come from.
"You're sure your head's ok." A stupid thing to say. His head wasn't
even remotely okay; it simply didn't matter to him.
"Yeah." Mulder didn't look at him, but at the surrounding people, and
then craned his neck to check the clock on the wall. "They should start
boarding soon."
The flight was going to be hell, Skinner knew. Mulder didn't handle
waiting well when Scully was involved, and he was injured. The last
thing he needed was a trip that would last damn near an entire day,
trapped in a series of uncomfortable seats, with an enormous headache
and without medical attention.
I am sending a man to his death, he told himself. I am helping him
commit a messy, expensive, futile suicide. By now, there was little
chance that Scully was alive. Even if she were, there was less chance
that the directions Mulder had been given would lead him to her.
This is hopeless, he told himself, but he couldn't bring himself to try
to persuade Mulder that the risks were too great.
"Antarctica," Mulder commented, and started to shake his head.
He stopped abruptly. "Un-fucking-believable."
"You think that the information is real, though?" Odd, that he hadn't
really asked that before, but Mulder's drive had carried them all
through the earlier planning without question of cost or authenticity.
Or perhaps they'd all had the questions, but not the heart to ask them
of Mulder.
"I don't have any reason to believe him. Except that they thought it
worth killing him for, but that's not conclusive evidence. Scully would
write that the unidentified man's claims could not be substantiated
without further investigation. But...Antarctica? Why the hell else
would they send me *there*? There would be easier ways to get rid of
me."
The evidence of that was behind the small, square bandage that Short
had insisted on putting on Mulder's temple.
The plane started to announce pre-boarding. Mulder shifted restlessly
and began to stand, slinging his carryon over his shoulder.
"You have everything you need?" Skinner stood as well.
"Yeah...my, uh, friends, are arranging for things in Australia.
I don't trust the FBI lines. They know to call you if I call them."
If, not when.
"Has someone called Scully's mom?"
"When you were still unconscious. She..." Skinner wondered how
he could put Mrs. Scully's controlled, and almost resigned, panic into
words. But Mulder just nodded; he knew.
"There is one thing." He hoped that Scully had been able to tell Mulder
this before she'd been stung, as he didn't feel like being the bearer
of more bad news. "Scully came to see me yesterday."
"To hand in her resignation, I know." Mulder laughed a little,
bitterly. "A day or two late, huh?" He glared momentarily at Skinner,
another swift mood shift, and his eyes still looked feverish. "And
Utah? Utah? You wanted to send a Catholic Navy brat to the middle of
the Mormon desert? Where were you gonna send me, South Dakota?"
Skinner glared back. "I believe you were going to be offered the option
of resignation or back to wiretapping. Something in DC, where they
could keep an eye on you."
It was true that North Dakota had been discussed as an option.
Mulder hitched his carryon on his shoulder and looked away.
"I haven't processed her resignation. I'll sit on the paperwork
until...this whole thing is resolved."
"Yeah. Oh...her gun should still be at my apartment. They handed it to
me when they were putting her on the stretcher. Her ID...shit, I hate
what concussions do to my memory...I think I was carrying that, I think
I figured it had her insurance card in it." The plane had started to
board, and they moved to stand in line.
"It's probably with your things at the hospital, then."
"I think so, yeah. Damn, they probably have my gun, too."
"I'll check around for it."
Skinner's cell phone rang. "Bet someone saw me in a supermarket
somewhere," muttered Mulder softly.
"Probably the same people who routinely see Elvis," Skinner said
sourly, and answered the phone to be told that Mulder and Scully were
both still missing, and Renee Michaud had recanted everything she'd
told them.
As he listened, he watched Mulder board the plane and knew that this
would probably be the last time he would see one of the X-Files
division alive.
***
He recovered Scully's gun and Mulder's ID; he heard theories about
their disappearance that rivaled anything they had ever produced for
wildness; he reinterviewed Renee Michaud, who was tight lipped and
silent. He talked to Jana Cassidy, who hovered between stubborn
resistance and ambivalent fear, swinging towards resistance. He slept
and ate.
At one point, he went down to the basement and stood in the sanitized,
empty office, which smelled faintly of smoke and new paint; only later
would he realize that he had been grieving for people whom he had, in
the end, considered friends.
It was when he returned to his own office that he heard, in the
detached and cheerful voice of the radio announcer, about a massive
seismic disturbance in Antarctica.
***
"Skinner."
"Same place, same room, make sure you aren't followed."
Suit, the only man who had met him this time, clicked the play button
on the tape recorder, explaining, "This came an hour ago."
"Lone Gunmen."
Scully's voice, tinny with distance: "Langley, turn off the tape."
Skinner stared at the other man in shock, half listening to the
commotion on the other end, the babble of questions and answers from
the Trio and Scully and Mulder.
"My God," he said softly, "He did it."
"They did it," replied Suit, in the tone of a man who had learned
never to underestimate Agent Scully.
He accepted the correction, repeating, "They did it."
Six days later, he stood outside the conference room once again,
waiting for Mulder and Scully. The last week had been a melange of
phone calls, faxes from an Australia hospital, and endless meetings.
Mulder and Scully had flown in last night, but had refused to stay in a
safe house, saying only that they would be in touch in the morning.
Skinner had seen quite a few people exchange significant glances at
that one, despite the improbability of the idea that the two were
engaging in hanky panky instead of a bout of paranoia.
He'd kept his mouth shut, though, as he often did, knowing that he had
little leverage and that that had to be applied carefully. These last
few weeks had left a bitter taste in his mouth. Standing and waiting
for events to happen so that he could record them, sitting guard over
Mulder's room instead of finding out the identity of the dark suited
men, feigning a careful detachment at the news that the two agents were
alive...these things had left in him a residue of something
uncomfortably close to shame. Understanding that Mulder had gone to the
ends of the earth to win this game had left him achingly aware of how
he had let his own movements be circumscribed.
He heard footsteps, and then they were around the corner, their heads
up and their faces tense. Both their faces were gray with exhaustion,
Scully's splotched red with frostbite. She was more obviously damaged,
but Skinner had seen the hospital reports. Mulder might appear
healthy, his hair hiding the bullet graze, but his back and shoulder
were essentially one large bruise. And the biggest harm to Scully was
also unseen, the damage done to her throat and esophagus and digestive
track, only now healing.
For all that, her voice was strong. "Sir."
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine, thank you."
"They want to talk to Mulder first. You're after lunch."
"What can we expect?" asked Mulder.
He looked at that cynical, shadowed eyes and hesitated. "People
want to cover this up. They don't want to believe in space aliens, or
whatever else you think you've uncovered. Everyone wants to believe
that one agent went off the deep end, and that Mulder was shot by a
random mugger."
"How the hell do they think Scully ended up in Antarctica?"
"Well, they don't believe aliens took her there."
"Aliens *didn't* take her there, it was..."
"Regardless, Mulder. You're gonna have to provide them with
evidence. They don't want to hear speculation."
Skinner was right; they didn't want to hear speculation. He could tell
that the others were shutting Mulder's story of monsters and alien
gestation and spaceships off, focusing more on his breaks in protocol
than the events in Antarctica.
Almost more troubling was Mulder's attitude. He could be a charismatic
man, radiating an energy and passion that created a force field around
him. That force field had electrified the hearing after his reported
death, lending an urgency and an odd credibility to his accusations
against Blevins. But the Mulder of today's hearing was hollowed out, as
if the lightning he carried had turned around and burned him out.
***
"He left the scene of the crime," said Roland Nieves.
"His partner was in jeopardy, and he was injured," said Skinner.
"He broke the law, and it's hardly the first time. He's gotten
away with too much," argued Michael Tranton.
"At the moment, I'm equally curious about Antarctica. Even if we
dismiss most of what he said—we don't even know that he was seeing and
comprehending clearly, given the head injury—there are Agent Scully's
injuries to contend with," said Cassidy.
"So because he presents us with a puzzle, he gets off? He and Agent
Scully lied their way into a morgue, went back to Texas without
authorization, he left the scene of a car bombing. Not to mention
breaking protocol and going into the wrong building in Dallas, which is
where we started this whole damn mess," said Tranton.
"If he hadn't gone into the wrong building, though, a lot of people
would have died," commented Richard Everhart. Everhart was the most
recent of the ADs, though, and Nieves and Tranton were out for blood.
"So he has one of his spooky hunches, and we're supposed to absolve him
of everything? I think we should fire him immediately. He's brought
the bureau nothing but trouble. Jesus, look at his record..." started
Nieves.
"He'd had a lot of commendations," interjected Everhart, but Nieves was
continuing.
"The Roche incident, the Ronnie Strickland fiasco, any number of
disciplinary problems...hell, he even punched Skinner."
"The water supply at his building was being tampered with at the time.
It wasn't..."
"Let's not get sidetracked here," said Cassidy sharply. "The Attorney
General's office has made it clear that we can't afford to fire either
of them. Does any of us really want the one agent who did find the bomb
going to the press and telling them that we sacked him for it? We're
looking bad enough with Michaud, we can't be accused of scapegoating
someone the press might just see as heroic."
"So he gets away with insubordination again," muttered Tranton
belligerently.
"No one's getting away with anything. We are here to determine the
responsibility for Dallas," Cassidy reminded them. "We'll break for
lunch and then hear Agent Scully's version of events."
***
Scully walked in as if she owned the room. Nieves and Tranton, who had
leaned back in their chairs during Mulder's testimony, crossing their
arms against his truth, straightened up.
She was clear, and concise, and she would not let them sidestep the
inconvenient facts. She threw her abduction in their faces in a voice
that was still slightly raspy, daring them to ignore it. She gave them
Texas, the bright green grass an inch down and the unimaginable
beneath. She gave them white domes and cornfields and ghost trains
moving through the airless desert night. She gave them the appearance
of the virus under the microscope, with a scientist's precision. And
she gave them cold and gray and green, the chaos of tunnels and snow.
It was she who explained that Mulder had performed CPR on her at one
point; Mulder had glossed over this, saying only that Agent Scully had
had difficulty breathing.
She told them of the amazement of the geologists who had come from the
nearest site and found them, hypothermic and huddled in a Sno-Cat, near
a large gaping hole in the ice. And she finished with the medical
reports for both herself and Mulder, and the fact that nurses at the
Australia hospital had consistently "misplaced" her bloodwork.
She tied it all together and wrapped it in the bow of science, and
Skinner could tell that no one wanted to believe her. Excuses were
forming in their eyes, and it was true that her account was muddled in
places.
Looking at Scully, Skinner knew that she also saw resistance. Anger
flickered and began to bloom in her eyes, and a certain contempt as
Jana Cassidy began to dismiss the connections she had made.
"...the holes in your account leave this panel little choice but to
delete these references to our final report to the Justice department,
until such time hard evidence becomes available that would give us
cause to pursue such an investigation."
When Scully rose and crossed the distance over to Cassidy, Skinner
thought that she would pull out another neatly typed resignation, kin
to the one that still rested in his wallet. Instead, she pulled out a
small vial and placed it on the table.
A bee. It was small, dwarfed by the vial that Scully could have hidden
in the palm of her hand. It was a tenuous link to Texas, to Antarctica.
It was, maybe, more evidence than they'd ever escaped with.
"I don't believe the FBI currently has an investigative unit
qualified to pursue the evidence in hand."
***
Cassidy was thoughtful.
"Are we supposed to believe that this holds the key to life, the
universe, and everything?" asked Nieves dismissively.
"The idea that insects carry viruses isn't new. Whether or not the
virus is extraterrestrial in origin isn't really as important as if
this is a public health threat," said Skinner.
"From bees."
"Something happened to Agent Scully."
"Plainly, she survived," said Tranton.
"The firemen from Dallas didn't," said Everhart.
"If it was the same virus," interjected Rose Bonham quietly.
"Maybe we should get a pathologist to check those bodies," offered
Skinner.
"I already checked on that," Cassidy said, frowning. "Military has
declared those bodies completely off limits."
"Why?"
No one, it seemed, had an answer to that.
"Walter, the X-Files were in your division. What's your take?"
Cassidy asked.
Putting him on the spot, dammit, but at least she seemed to be
listening. "I think that Agent Scully was right. We don't have agents
capable of handling this. But I don't want the military claiming
jurisdiction because we're afraid to tackle this, because the evidence
is inconvenient. One of our own planted a bomb, and we have no real
explanation as to why. Another of ours was shot. A third went missing,
to the ends of the earth. We don't have to accept every detail of their
accounts to want further investigation into these matters."
"So you're proposing we reopen the X-Files?" said Nieves incredulously.
"I think he's right," said Everhart.
"So we let Mulder and Scully back to their old tricks?" snapped
Tranton. "Because they're the only ones willing to look into these
things?"
"But they're not," said Bonham. "I know of three or four agents who
have expressed interest in the X-Files."
"Mulder and Scully do have the most background," said Skinner.
"The number of ways they've broken protocol in the past five
years is staggering. They faked his death, they've lied to review
panels, and everyone knows they've been sleeping together for years."
"Excuse me, Michael, but this panel wasn't gather to penalize agents
based on bureau gossip," said Jana.
"Oh, for God's sakes. Mulder may be crazy, but why else would Scully
stay with him? Skinner, you were their superior. Can you say with
certainty that they're not sleeping together?"
He wondered if "I don't know and don't care" would be an acceptable
answer. "I've heard the rumors, but I've heard them about every male-
female team. As for why she stays with the X-Files... Scully is a fine
agent. I think that suggesting that she does her job only out of
loyalty to Agent Mulder is insulting to her as an agent. And I think
that suggesting that the only reason she would feel that loyalty would
be if they were sleeping together is insulting to her as a person."
He'd turned around to face Tranton; in his peripheral vision, he saw
Cassidy repress a smile before she spoke. "Tranton, let's drop the sex
issue. It's not relevant. What we need to decide is the future of this
piece of evidence, and the X-Files. I have a meeting with the Attorney
General in half an hour, but we'll reconvene here tomorrow to decide on
the future of the X-Files division, and its future staffing."
***
He woke from slumber into a cold, teal dreamscape. With the secret
knowledge of dreamers, he knew he was back in Vietnam, although lush
greenery and heat had been replaced by grey metal tunnels.
He was unsurprised to find in his hands the gun that he had used when
the child had come to them.
"We need to get out of here," yelled Tony, who was in any world except
that of his dreams dead, and he could see that Tony was terrified.
They were all running, slowly and sluggishly, losing each other behind
trees and other, more sinister structures that contained... out of the
corner of his eye, he saw movement, and although he couldn't stop
running he knew what they contained.
They had stopped in the clearing, a mistake. Tony and the others were
joking, unconcerned, but Skinner knew that if he turned around he would
see what they were being hunted by, the VC who were nothing like any
Viet Cong had ever been.
He turned around in fear, yelling a warning that they could not hear,
feeling the weight of the gun that he had used when the child had come,
and he had been the only one close enough. He felt the weight of the
gun, and the figure stepped into the clearing.
It was not the dark alien they were hunting and being hunted by, but
his fear only increased.
The figure, human and familiar, stepped into the clearing, and he
couldn't see them but knew the grenades were there. He raised the gun
and blew Mulder's face away from a distance of 10 yards.
***
He was early to arrive at the conference room, having slept badly.
Cassidy was already there, sorting through files.
"Walter."
"Jana."
She stacked the files neatly in a pile and looked up at him. "This
is going to be a short meeting; the Attorney General has already made a
decision."
He sat down slowly, and his dream returned to his mind. "What was
decided?"
"They're reopening the X-Files, but they don't want Mulder and Scully
anywhere near them right now."
"Where are they being reassigned?" He braced himself.
"At the moment, Domestic Terrorism again. It didn't seem politic
to transfer the two agents who did find the bomb."
"Who's getting the X-Files?"
"That remains to be decided. This panel is done; we've closed
the record on the bombing. Another one will be set up to explore the
staffing of the X-Files. I believe Wendie Malick will be in charge. I
don't know who else is on it. Alvin Kersh, I think. Anyway, I believe
that both Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender are being considered for the
X-Files."
"Spender?" Jesus. He didn't want to see Mulder's reaction to that.
Jana seemed uncomfortable. "I'm not sure where the directive on
that one came from. There seems to be a lot of pressure from somewhere
to put him in that position."
"I've encountered that kind of pressure concerning him before."
"Yes," she said carefully, "so have I."
She rearranged the files once again. "They might take this better
from you, if you want to skip the meeting and inform them."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not their direct supervisor
anymore."
"It won't do them any good to hear this from Nieves and Tranton."
"Right. Fine."
"This is the right decision, Walter."
"For who?"
"For everyone. I may not like the Spender angle, but Mulder and
Scully shouldn't be in charge of the X-Files. It's dangerous for them
and everyone around them. This is for their own safety as much as it is
for the bureau's."
He remembered, fleetingly, his dream, Mulder the figure of danger and
his own reaction to shut down that danger at whatever cost. But he'd
had no choice in his dream. "Maybe," he told Cassidy, "but the two
times Scully's been taken—both times, it was when the X-Files were
shut down. If you think that this will keep them or us safe, you're
wrong." He turned to leave.
"Walter."
"Yes?"
Her eyes were serious and troubled. "Watch your back."
***
He called them to their office, their ally and their betrayer. The
latter was a familiar role; he'd acted as a mouthpiece for others'
decisions many times before.
He handed Scully her resignation across the desk. "I never processed
this, for reasons of medical insurance as much as anything else. You
may want to resubmit it."
"Actually, sir," she said, looking at Mulder and then back at him, "I'd
like to withdraw this. Circumstances have changed."
"Yes, they have. The Attorney General has made some decisions."
"Regarding Scully's assignment to Utah?" asked Mulder, with both
hope and fear in his eyes.
"They're keeping you both in Terrorism."
What they exchanged in their glance at each other was layered and
deep; he probably understood more of it than any other outsider, and
perhaps more than they realized. He'd been their observer for a long
time now.
"What's the bad news?" Mulder asked.
"They're reopening the X-Files."
Confusion, in both their eyes. "But that's good," said Mulder.
"There's going to be a panel to review staffing needs."
Comprehension, and the same stunned loss he'd seen in their
eyes the night of the fire.
"Who?" Scully demanded.
"It's undecided, but Spender's name came into it."
"Spender?" Mulder came out of his chair at that one, a frustrated
jack-in-the-box. "Spender? That pipsqueak? That weasel? That..."
Scully simply stared incredulously.
"He's a..." There were evidently no words bad enough. "He's
totally unqualified, he's a...a spineless, sniveling, would-be bully,
he doesn't have any idea what the X-Files even are, he..."
"Sir, whose decision was this?"
"The Attorney General's. Beyond that, it's difficult to tell.
Mulder, sit down."
Mulder sat. "You know, I worked my ass off to get those files opened in
the first place. I paid my dues in Violent Crimes, and Scully and I
have paid in every currency imaginable since then. And now Spender gets
them?"
"It's not definite."
"Damn right it's not."
"Sir," said Scully levelly, "I hope you understand that whatever
our assignment is, Agent Mulder and I aren't going to let the events of
Dallas go. We've seen too much, done too much, had too much done *to*
us. With or without the X-Files, we want the truth."
He met her eyes, the clear steady gaze of this woman who had become as
much of a wild card in this game as Mulder, and warned her as Cassidy
had warned him. "Watch your back. Both of you."
"Yes sir. Agent Mulder and I have doctor's appointments, if you'll
excuse us. Thank you for holding onto my resignation."
"It's a pleasure not to have to process it."
"Thank you."
"Yes," said Mulder, "thanks. And for the hospital, too."
"I doubt I could have stopped you," said Skinner wryly.
"You could have tried."
They were almost at the door when Mulder turned around. "Oh, by
the way, the guys wanted to thank you for not arresting them."
His eyes as he turned to walk out held a gleam in them that worried
Skinner.
The sudden sound of Scully's laughter behind the closed door worried
him even more.
Four days later, Skinner received his first issue of a year-long free
subscription to the Lone Gunmen in the mail.
End