Title: Falling Down in Four Acts
Author: Anubis
E-Mail: AnubisLM@aol.com
Rating: R
Disclaimer: The X-Files, Mulder and Scully are the property of Carter et al at 1013. No
infringement is intended, no profit was made.
Category: SRA and E for Evil
Keywords: None
Spoilers: through S.R. 819
Distribution: anywhere.
Summary: The backstory to Mulderıs funeral.
Timeline: Inspired by S.R. 819 and other elements of season six. You should assume that
this universe is an alternate post-Tithonus branching. No One Son/Two Fathers.
Falling Down in Four Acts
By AnubisLM
Ring Around the Rosy
---------------------------------------------------
Massachussetts
Steel and pistols and smoke-stained tonsils--that's what criminals are made of. Brass and
teak and mahogany chic--that's what funeral parlors are made of. The expensive ones,
anyway. The two skirted each other uneasily like boxers in a ring fashioned from ill-gotten
gold. Rockefeller versus Jesse Ventura. Carnegie meets Rambo.
"I thought he was Jewish," Krycek remarked. He shifted his weight to the left foot, which
conjured the illusion of symmetry to his one-armed body.
His companion snorted. "He's dead," he replied. "What's it matter?"
They stood in the back of the large parlor. In these surroundings, even the black Armani
that hung off them like a second, better-cut skin couldn't disguise the roughened toll of
years spent above the law.
More people had dared to show their faces than Krycek had expected, undoubtedly hoping
to pin the tail on the donkey who'd killed their chicken little package, their oh-so-easily-
manipulated 'wayward' agent. They'd had bigger plans for Fox Mulder, Krycek knew.
They hadn't expected this.
Or at least, they expected he'd have done it himself before anybody else could.
Council Elders and their lackeys, indisinguishable in their grey suits, sat throughout the
room, mostly near the back. "I knew Bill Mulder," they'd probably said gruffly, if anyone
asked them. It was better than Capitol Hill on State of the Union night, and Krycek
wondered if they'd deliberately left someone back in New York like the single cabinent
member. Just in case someone thought of blowing this room sky-high.
He'd considered it. These men would kill him as soon as look at him, why not return the
favor? But oh, how much more delightful to stand in the back of the room, to throw that
cigarette-smoking bastard a wink and a smile, to duck his head at the first elder, knowing
they couldn't do a damned thing.
They'd probably think he was the man they were looking for, that he'd killed Fox Mulder,
but they'd never be able to prove it and besides, he knew too much. Despite what the
gangster flicks say, you can't kill a man who knows too much, not if he's smart. If he's
smart, he's scattered the knowledge like seeds around the soil of the world, and his death
is the water they need to grow. Fox Mulder hadn't been very smart, but Krycek was.
His eyes panned around the room, searching the faces of the grieving and the not-so-
grieving. His gaze settled on the partner, the sidekick and probably lover, though he'd
heard rumors Mulder was a fag. He'd expected her to be sitting with the family, next to the
dead man's mother, maybe, but she was sitting all by herself, halfway back. She wore one
of the same black suits as always, like a cartoon character or a superhero, recognizable
even though he was used to looking at them from a distance. On surveillance. The seats to
either side of her were unoccupied, as if everyone were afraid she'd bite, or maybe she'd
gotten up and moved.
When the procession of mourners and gloaters made their way past the coffin, Krycek
didn't join them, but folded his arms and leaned back to watch. Mulder's mother, stoic and
handkerchiefed, placing a single lily on the coffin. Skinner (who hadn't seen Krycek),
wiping the back of his nose on his hand and pinching his eyesockets with thumb and
forefinger. Spender Junior trying to emulate his father's impassive stare as he gazed at the
coffin lid.
Scully got in line with the rest, though further back. Her composure was flawless--she
might have been a plastic mannequin for all the emotion she displayed. Oh so distant, like
a star, how I wonder what you are.
Krycek would've gotten in line himself, but he was too interested in watching her. In
pretending he could see inside her head, imagining it full of anguish and imagining it full of
nothing and trying to guess which one fit better inside her red-capped skull.
When she reached the coffin, he decided on nothing and everything both.
She reached for the lidıs edge and pushed up slowly, despite the fact that the body's pretty
head was gone. No one dared stop her, though the room immediately fell silent. At the
hush, she turned back to look at the room, swivelling her gaze slowly from one corner to
the other, eyes resting with brief coolness on half-a-dozen old men as if she could ferret out
a confession with a teacher-like stare. They all looked away first, and she turned back to
the coffin.
Her back was to him; he couldn't see her face, but her shoulders didn't move. One hand
tripped along the edge of the box as she gazed down into it, and then it crept slowly up to
the back of her neck, where it was joined by her other hand. For a second, Krycek thought
she was going for the implant, but Scully had never been a drama queen. Her porridge
was always just right.
He realized at the same time everyone else did that she had unfastened her necklace. As she
lowered it into the dark confines of the box, it glittered and danced, casting gold shadows
around the room, marking the cheeks of the guilty. And then she closed the coffin with a
soft click, turned and strode down the aisle, right past Krycek and out of the funeral home.
Everyone, including Mulder's mother, exchanged nervous glances.
******
Three shots of vodka and two beers hadn't been enough to shake the musty stink of the
funeral parlor, and Krycek was contemplating something stronger. Since no one knew
who or where he was, drugs might be safe. Might.
Worth the risk anyway. Heıd used up the stash heıd picked up at the pyramid in Vegas but
he knew where he could get more, erase that fucking funeral, those dead fucking legs heıd
seen peeking from the Scully-opened coffin.
No. He was tired, and standing already in front of the latest home sweet home, room
number 563 at the Grand Franklin. A couple more shots and he'd be sleeping like a baby
on the treetop. Go with it.
As he put the key to the door handle, he felt the cool muzzle of a gun at his neck, heard the
telltale click of the safety snapping off.
Pop! goes the weasel.
"Get inside, Krycek." It was Scully. Of course it was Scully.
She shoved him in with more force than he would have expected from her tiny stature, and
then she ran her tiny hands all over his much larger body, finding even the pistol tucked in
the front of his waistband. He tried to sigh, to pitch a joke, to act nonchalant, but there
was something furious about her that made his vodka-soaked throat too dry.
"How'd you find me?" he asked at the same time she asked "Did you enjoy it?"
He decided that as long as she had the gun it was better to answer her questions first. "I
don't know what you're talking about. If you think I killed him, you're wrong."
"I saw the tape, Krycek," she hissed, shoving him down onto the bed, gun still trained on
the spot between his eyes. She stepped backward, into the glare of the red neon sign
outside his window. Hell could have spawned her.
She spread her feet, hopscotch-style, and continued. "You didn't know they taped it, did
you? You trusted the wrong men."
"I never trust anyone," he answered, but looking into her dark, fierce eyes, her sunken
zombie cheeks, it began to dawn on him that this was a Scully he had never met. And that
he was, at last, a dead man.
"Cops and robbers," she whispered, and it was the last voice he heard. "Cops and
robbers."
As the bullet rammed through the base of his skull, plunging him into darkness, he felt at
last an inordinate peace.
---------------------------------------------------
Georgetown
Scully crossed the threshhold of her home and her shoulders slumped. She shed her
clothes as she limped into the bathroom, leaving a breadcrumb trail for any who dared to
try to save her. But there was no prince for this sleeping beauty, not in this flawed fairy
tale.
Naked, she gave the long, thin handle in the shower an upward tug, then slumped inside.
Blood spatters stained her hands and face, her neck, but as she stood under the hot stream,
they dissolved away into the redness of her skin. She didn't notice when her own blood
began to flow, trickling down her chin and onto the white formica surface below her feet.
_Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes_
Her legs quivered and she sank to her knees, wet tangles of hair falling into her face. The
water beat down on her spine like the judgement of God.
_Hic est enim calix sanguines mei novi et aeterni testamenti_
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
Her breasts sagged against her belly. There was no forgiveness, no father. Her lips found
the shower handle, closed around it in a grotesque parody of love.
_Qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum_
She began to weep, and it was the first time since they'd called her. The first time since
she'd seen her partner's dead body, with the blood-soaked towel draped over the remains
of his head. She'd focused on the hands, on those long slender fingers, because, apart
from his face, they were all she could remember of him. And his face was gone.
_Hoc facite in mean commemorationem._
As was he.
******
Skinner picked the lock when there was no answer, and when he found the clothing on the
floor, clues pointing to a lover's tryst, he feared for a moment that there was someone he
didn't know about. Was that possible? Could she have had a man if it were not Mulder?
But she was alone in her bed, sleeping with her cheek pressed to the back of her hand like a
child's, rhythmic breaths raising and lowering the cotton comforter. She looked so small,
and like a father he reached out to stroke one stray, damp tendril of hair back from her face.
She slept on, oblivious.
He walked back into the living room, picking up underwear and clothes as he went.
Folding them neatly, he laid them onto the kitchen table, and that's how he saw the VHS
tape lying there. Labeled "Fox Mulder," and the handwriting wasn't Scully's.
Jesus Christ.
He glanced right and left as if there might be someone there to see him, then swallowed
hard and moved to the television. Popped in the tape.
He jumped when the volume came on high, hit the mute button fast and waited to see if
she'd heard. But the bedroom stayed silent.
His heart pounding against his chest, he pressed "play." A darkened room, a tall, familiar
figure rummaging through a box. Mulder, in silhouette, through the grainy eye of a CCD
security camera. _Look behind you, Mulder,_ Skinner found himself thinking, as if he
could through telepathy stir the younger man to action.
But it was too late. Another figure had entered the room. Tall, muscled. The stranger
raised the gun, pointed, and just as Mulder turned, mouth open in disbelief that his luck
had finally run out, there was a flash and then Mulder's mouth was gone. His body fell to
the floor like a marionette whose strings were cut.
Skinner had to bite the back of his hand to keep from crying out.
The figure turned, and Skinner knew that in a moment or less he'd see the face of the
murderer. Half a second stretched into minutes as the figure turned, slowly, slowly, and
then there it was. Recognizable.
Oh, God.
Skinner dropped the remote and rushed back to the bedroom, any courtesy abandoned.
Scully slept on, unaware of him, but he shook her shoulder roughly and she came awake
with a groan of protest.
"Why are--who--"
He cut her off. "Scully, where's Krycek?"
She recognized him and relaxed, dropping back into the pillows. Her eyes slipped closed
again. "He bumped his head and went to bed," she murmured, singsong.
Skinner swallowed hard. "Scully...."
"Go away, Skinner," she ordered as she turned her head. Her voice was muffled by the
pillow.
He knew then that she'd done it.
******
She dreamt of red twirling swirling around like a lollipop, the big yellow kind with the red
or blue dyes that you buy at carnivals. As it twirled, it dragged her toward a sucking
center, a vacuum, a drain, ring around the rosy.
A Pocket Full of Posies
---------------------------------------------------
Four months later
FBI Academy
Quantico, Virginia
Scully removed the last two pages from the laser printer and stacked them neatly with the
rest, aligning first one edge, then the other. She snapped a plastic clip onto the pile and
tucked it into a manilla envelope already addressed to the head of pathology. Six o'clock.
Time to leave.
She shut down her computer and pushed the keyboard on its rolling tray back under the
desktop, where it belonged. Replaced a pencil she'd been using in the small cup whose
sole purpose in existing was to hold pencils. She didn't keep photos in her office, or she
might have dusted them off.
She shrugged into her coat and smoothed the lapel, buttoning each button from bottom to
top, then shouldered her laptop bag and exited, snapping the lock in the door handle on her
way out. Before she left, she gave the handle a tug to confirm it was locked.
"Hey, Dana," said a voice, and she looked up to find Rick Peterson, leaving his own office
two doors down. "How's it going?"
They were all so nice to her. So, so nice. She knew they'd heard all the stories.
_They're all true,_ she wanted to tell them. _Every single one of them is true. Except the
ones where we were sleeping together. Not those, but all the rest. So stay the hell out of
my way._
"Fine, Rick," she answered. "How're the kids?"
He shrugged. "It's Michelle's weekend with them."
_See? Everyone has problems. Save your pity--don't waste it on me._
"You look like you could use a drink."
She stopped hard in her tracks, the proposition startling. "Maybe some other time," she
said slowly, recovering. "Some other time. I have to--I'm meeting some....friends."
"Oh," he said, and she knew he didn't believe her. He believed the stories. "Okay. Some
other time then."
The conversation should have ended there, but for some reason she felt compelled to add,
"Nothing personal. I just think it's best to separate work from...social activities."
"I understand," he agreed stiffly, and started walking in the other direction. "Have a good
weekend."
"You too," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. She knew what he was thinking now, that
sheıd been fucking Mulder and Mulder was dead so now she separated. Fine. Fine.
She'd parked across the campus, not in the garage. She liked to take a long time crossing
the concrete sidewalks. She'd developed a habit of looking down when she walked, one
foot in front of the other--looking ahead was still too hard. Precision, that was the key.
Step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back.
Frohike let her in with the usual rigamarole of passwords and deadbolts. Byers took her
coat and gestured her toward the armchair she knew they'd deliberately cleared off for her.
She took the seat and they gathered around her like lackeys to the queen.
"Do you have anything new on Hatherton?" she asked, directing the question at Langley.
But Byers answered. "Hatherton's a dead end, Scully," he said, looking down at his
nervous, shuffling feet. "A decoy. We can't tell who he was working for but I think
someone wanted to make you think he was money. His accounts are dummies, and he
drives a Honda Civic."
Scully's brow furrowed and she folded her hands in her lap. "That's all you've got? I
pulled that name out of Rex Kowlowski four days before he died. He had to have been
leaking something or he wouldn't be dead."
Frohike folded his arms over his chest. "Or they thought he was. Or even wanted you to
think he was. You know how they do things."
"Of course I do," she snapped, and felt immediately sorry when Frohike's jaw tightened.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. It's just been a long day. And I don't have forever."
Simultaneously, the three men looked away--Byers at his feet, Langley at Frohike, Frohike
at the door.
She continued without acknowledging their discomfort. "Can you tell me what else you've
got on him?"
"There may be one thing," Langley said, meeting her eyes again, but the hesitation in his
voice made it clear that this was a source of disagreement. "Something your inside source
might be able to clear up for us."
"I can't use him for everything," she said. "He's in danger too."
But she took the list of numbers from Langley anyway, as well as the pile of papers which
Byers insisted concerned one of Strughold's aliases, and could eventually lead her to the
elusive German himself. But theyıd had such leads before, and sheıd used up her lifetime
allotment of optimism.
Because she'd promised to last week, she stopped off at her mother's, even though it was
so late that Matthew would surely be sleeping, and Tara and Bill were leaving in the
morning. The new parents, blinded by yuppiehood, hugged and kissed her like good
siblings, and Bill even asked her how she was holding up, clapping her on the shoulder
like a fellow sailor. He was a good brother, even if he was secretly glad that her partner
couldn't drag her into danger anymore.
Not that she wasn't doing quite well on that front by herself, but he didn't need to know
that.
Scully let the other three talk and they left her alone because she took her nephew in her
arms and sat with him beside the window. It made them think, she knew, that she was
reflecting, treasuring the new life, resting peaceful. Matthew, ever oblivious to ulterior
motive, curled up against her breast and slept, his yearling cheeks sucking at a nonexistant
nipple, eyes rolling lazily behind closed lids. He was like a hot little sandbag in her arms, a
liveweight demanding simultaneous disinterest and love beyond reason.
³Theyıll have to shut down part of the base,² Bill was saying to their mother. ³We may be
relocated.²
Stupid, stupid Bill with his trivial concerns. If only he knew the sky was falling.
³Oh, my,² said her mother.
Scully stared out the window at the grey evening light, at the frothy clouds behind the
house across the street. A cherry tree grew in the front lawn and she remembered her
father planting it, wanted suddenly to chop it down and take it with her back to New
England. Oh, my.
Here was her motherıs hand on her arm, big brown eyes and lined face demanding
attention. ³How are you doing, Dana?² she asked.
³Iım fine, Mom,² she said, just like always.
³Itıs so hard, honey,² her mother said. ³I know itıs so hard. Please--talking about it
makes it easier.²
Scully didnıt want to think about her Little Boy Blue. Certainly, she didnıt want to try to
explain it to her mother. _Oh, Matthew, if only you knew what sins these hands of
mine._
"Dana, he's gone,² Maggie said. ³The problem is, I think you've followed him."
Scully sighed, turned her face back to the window, considering that. "Well," she said after
a humorless pause. "That's my job, I guess. He's Jack, I'm Jill."
"Dana," Margaret said, firm and motherly. "He's _dead._"
"Whatever," Scully replied.
Margaret pursed her lips together and her fingers tightened on the arm of Scully's chair.
Scully didn't turn, an unequivocal dismissal.
***
She spent the night on her motherıs couch: Bill and Tara already had the guest room. She
dreamed again of the last words sheıd said to him, over, of all pathetic things, a cell phone.
³Weatherıs supposed to be chilly,² sheıd said.
³Yeah,² heıd replied. ³Iıll meet you at the airport.²
³Thanks,² sheıd said, and then, without thinking, ³Bye.²
He hadnıt shown up at the airport and the police called her cell phone while she was in the
taxi. Was it her fault? Had she tempted fate with the careless use of that word they never
said?
In her dream, she woke and he was sitting beside her on the couch, cramping her ankles
against the cushions with his hip. ³Itıs chilly out,² he said.
³Mulder,² she breathed, because she didnıt feel like she was dreaming.
³You should dress warmer,² he told her. ³I failed, you know. Iım sorry.²
³No,² she said. ³No, you didnıt, it was me, I should have made you wait for me, I
shouldnıt have let you go in there alone I shouldnıt have hurt it I should have gone
myself³
But there was no one there. The living room was silent and empty but for her own
heartbeat.
She felt the tickle beneath her nose before the flow got too strong, and made it to the
bathroom without damaging the couch. After the bleeding stopped, she cleaned her face
and dressed, wrote a note to her family and left before they woke.
Nine, ten, do it again.
She kept the list the Lone Gunmen had given her crumpled in her hand against the steering
wheel like a talisman. A pocket full of posies.
Ashes, Ashes
---------------------------------------------------
One Week Later
Mannassus
³Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.²
Scully was almost out of priests. She tried hard never to go to the same one twice, and so
sheıd had to fan out across the greater D.C. area, sometimes even venturing all the way to
Baltimore just for confession. She hoped they never compared notes.
Today wasnıt as bad as the days when she had to speak of murder and endure the turmoil
of the frightened priest. Today was simpler.
³I am guilty of blackmail, Father. I have gathered the secrets of a man to make him tell me
more secrets.²
³For what purpose?² the priest asked. He didnıt understand yet, of course. Didnıt
understand the necessity of some evil.
By the time sheıd done explaining he was insisting she come to his office for counselling,
demanding promises that she stop. She had to leave quickly, to say however many Hail
Marys she could squeeze into the car trip on her way back to D.C. It wasnıt exactly peace
with God but God would understand. And if He didnıt, well, there were more important
things. She would sort that out with God later.
After another slow and precise day at Quantico she picked up the latest from the boys,
which confirmed what sheıd already suspected. Hathertonıs killer had been Yeats, and
now heıd have to die too.
---------------------------------------------------
Georgetown
Skinner was smoking a cigarette out on the balcony watching the sun set beyond the
buildings that blocked his potential view of the Potomac. The days were getting longer
again. Unfortunate, that. He preferred to sleep.
He took a long drag on the cancer stick and pressed his cold toes into the balcony floor. It
was so fucking cold out he couldnıt tell his breath from the smoke. Everything, these
days. Everything felt cold.
He jumped when he heard the machine gun knock that could only be Scully. He wasnıt
ready for her, not tonight. He hadnıt prepared. His fingers tightened on the cold railing
and he waited until she knocked a second time before he dropped the cigarette onto the
frozen concrete and went, resigned, to answer. Sheıd pick the lock otherwise, and if she
found him here sheıd be angry.
He hated it when she was angry.
She blew in like a wind and folded herself into a seat, as usual. She was dwarfed by the
chair she chose, making her look deceptively like Goldilocks. Her voice betrayed her,
though--dry and serious, a contralto scalpel dissecting issues he didnıt care to think about,
mincing names he knew but didnıt want to hear.
It took him ten minutes to understand that she wanted him to do it.
³We have enough now,² she repeated. ³Enough to nail that smoking bastard to the
Whitehouse wall. Thatıs how far this goes. Yeats is the only thing, the only one in a
position to protect him. Theyıll give him up if Yeats is dead, and Yeats gave the order to
have Hatherton killed.²
Skinner sighed, sinking into the chair across from her. ³Who was Hatherton again?² he
asked, weary and a little frightened, Jack-be-nimbled.
She gave him a severe frown. ³Skinner,² she said, like a teacher. ³You know exactly
what Iım talking about. We need Yeats out of the way. My positionıs compromisedI
donıt have access. But you know people. You can make the alibi I canıt.²
She wanted him to kill this man. Of course she did. He shouldıve known it would come
to this. Jack be quick.
Jesus, God, he was tired.
"Why, Scully?" he asked, rubbing his forehead. "Can't you just let it go? Why do you
have to keep shaking the Tree of Good and Evil?"
She smiled--a stunningly beautiful smile--but her eyes darkened. "Because Iıve got a thing
for apples."
The image of a grinning wolf superimposed itself over her elegant features in Skinner's
mind and he looked away, wishing for a moment he could put Scully in a pumpkin shell.
She leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. When he looked back at her, her face
was a mask of concern. "Walter," she said, quieter now. "I don't mean to scare you. But
don't you see? We have to bring them down. No one else will. Look what they did to
you! Krycek had his fist around your balls, he would've killed you as soon as blink.
How can you be so complacent?"
He looked away; his eyes fell onto the magazine on the coffee table. When did he start
getting _Business Week?_ He couldnıt remember.
"It doesn't matter," he croaked. "It doesn't even matter what they did to me. You--"
Her intensity unshaken by the trembling in his fingers, she squeezed his knee. "Then do it
for me," she urged. "You owe it to me, Walter. You owe it to him."
Oh, yes, _him._
She didn't mean what she was saying--he knew that. She had become as adept and
devious a manipulator as...well, as _Krycek._ But he looked into her eyes, where he'd
always imagined he could read her depth from the blueness, and saw no trace of deception.
Only earnest intensity. Only Dana Scully, whom he admired, respected, pitied. Loved.
She was right, even if she thought she was lying. He did owe it to her, and to Mulder.
Her slippery hand was tripping up his knee, along his thigh, and despite himself the blood
rushed to his groin. She saw the lump in his pants and slid forward, onto the floor,
stroked her hand over his hardening crotch.
He hissed; it was almost like pain. ³Scully,² he chided, removing her hand. But she was
slithering up him now like a drop of water on glass, easing herself onto his lap by the
force of surface tension alone. Her palm lay flat against his chest like hot iron, like a
brand, and as her lips captured his he found he couldnıt resist her.
He never could. Scully was quantum, Scully was gravity, Scully was mass and
acceleration rolled into one.
She might as well have her finger on the same button Krycek had. He thought this only
after she slept, her naked limbs woven between his like something more innocent than the
devil. Like trust.
But she could kill him too.
****
Scully woke in the middle of the night to find herself alone in the big bed. Skinner was
probably out on the balcony, smoking a cigarette again. He thought she didnıt know about
his secret habit, but she tasted it on his breath every time she kissed him. Heıd started it
just after Mulder died.
Not died. Was killed.
³It wasnıt your fault,² Skinner had told her, and thatıs why sheıd kissed him. Why the
first time, anyway. For knowing, recognizing, why Mulder had gone back into the DOD.
It was nice of him to lie to her.
She touched again the scar on the back of her neck, its jack knife edges and still-swollen
cords. She heard her fatherıs voice in her head: ³Donıt pick at it, honey.² Remembered
the scabs on her knees and elbows, sheıd always been a tomboy. She should have listened
to Daddy.
Skinnerıd helped her through the first round of chemo, his heavy hands holding her head
over the bucket that received the offerings of her ravaged stomach. Heıd picked her hairs,
the color of dried blood, off her pillow when he thought she wasnıt looking. Heıd cradled
her when her own cells gave up on her, surrendered to the brutal, primitive drugs.
Such was the worldly treatment for an otherworldly disease. Then, her body wracked with
pain and her rebellious innards refusing all nutrition, then was the only time she hadnıt
wished for Mulder back, because then she was getting what she deserved.
When Skinner didnıt come back to bed, she decided it was time to end his silly little game
of hide and seek. It was only nicotine, after all. It only gave you cancer.
She buttoned one of his white starched shirts around her middle. She liked the way it
dropped below her knees, the teenage nightshirt feel of it. It reminded her of her father.
The living room was dark and she couldnıt see the telltale red spark on the balcony, but a
jack-o-lantern flame flickered from beyond the kitchen door. What was he doing, writing
by candlelight?
She tiptoed into the kitchen, hoping to surprise him, but he wasnıt there and all that was
left was the single candle, tall and cornflower blue. She hadnıt pegged Skinner for a
candle man.
Below the candle, though, was a note crumpled like tissue, and at the sight of it her bowels
twisted. She lifted it with trepidation, straightened it and drew it close to her eyes.
*
Scully,
You're right. I do owe you. But I've never been
good at doing the right thing. Youıre better than
this, but Iım not. I killed Mulder, because Krycek
had his fist around my balls.
-Skinner.
*
Scully heard Krycek's voice pounding against her brain, just before she'd blown away his.
_I wasn't even there!_ (Bang, bang, you're dead, fifty bullets in your head.)
Skinner. Skinner had been there. Mulder's body, slumped on the ground, Mulder's
blood, Krycek's blood. Melissa's blood. Christ's blood, and now Skinner's. Bang,
bang.
Skinner's face, his eyes glazed and the muscles of his neck straining, teeth bared like an
animal's as he pounded into her and she had felt nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing but
the nothing she felt now.
Mulder had been walking, leaning over the shelf, looking for her name. Sheıd seen the
tape! He starts to turn and then thereıs the figure, bang!, Mulderıs dead, the killer--and
then she saw how it could be. Krycek's face had only been a blur, a few seconds of
damning tape. Whose body supported that face? A wider one, a broad-shouldered one, a
profile she knew as well as her own.
The paper fell from her hand, its corner catching the edge of the candle flame and curling
inward. Scully swallowed as she watched it burn.
Had Krycek put him up to it? Had Skinner acted on his own? Had--
She slammed her hand into the table and smeared the ashes across its formica surface.
They had lied to her.
Skinner had lied to her.
Scully turned in a slow half-circle, was propelled back to the balcony on unwilling feet.
Her lover lay crumpled like the note he'd written, the blood still flowing hot and slick.
Someone must have heard the shot, someone must have called, and the police would come
soon. Far below, the noises of morning traffic chugged to life, and she thought she heard
a not-so-distant siren.
Scully reached down beside what had been Skinner's head, gently pried the bloody
weapon from the limp fingers. She wrapped both hands around the weapon's base in a
grip both tender and tight, then bent her head over it as she would an erect penis. Opened
her mouth wide, relaxed her throat, prepared to see how deep she could go.
But the first touch of metal on her tongue reminded her of the coppery blood which still
coated the weapon, and, repulsed, she pulled back, spitting. There were better ways to go
about this.
She brought the gun to her temple and clicked off the safety.
"Scully," Mulder said.
She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth. He wasn't real.
"Scully, don't," he insisted, and it sounded like he was right behind her. She heard a
bizarre keening noise and realized to her shame that it was coming from her own lips.
"I'm sorry, Scully," Mulder continued, his voice so gentle. "I'm sorry I ditched you this
time."
Unable to help herself, she spun around, and there he was, standing in the doorway to the
balcony. He wore just a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and she suddenly remembered she was
wearing nothing but Skinnerıs thin shirt, but couldn't seem to move to cover herself.
"I'm going insane," she breathed, her voice wavering.
Mulder nodded gently. "Yes."
She shook her head back and forth, slowly, never letting her eyes leave his face.
"Mulder," she whispered, at a loss for any other words. "I miss you so much."
He stepped forward, reached out to touch her cheek and she gasped, for his fingers were
just as warm and smooth as she remembered them. "I know," he answered. "I know."
"Skinner--" she began, but couldn't finish, only gestured wordlessly to their feet, where
his body lay.
Mulder's hand slid down to her shoulder, inside the enormous shirt, his thumb making tiny
caresses against her skin. He didn't answer her.
Scully's eyes brimmed with tears. "You're just in my head," she accused.
"Who you trying to convince?" he asked. A faint, familiar grin played about his lips.
Scully dropped her eyes and shuddered, and Mulder stepped closer, pulling her into his
arms. One hand crept up to her hair, the other traced broad circles over her back, and at
last she started to cry. The gun dropped from her hand onto the ground.
"Shhhhh," Mulder soothed, rocking slowly back and forth. "Shhhhh, Scully, we don't
have much time."
"I don't know what to do!" she whispered, open-mouthed against his shirt, and this
confession was larger than any she'd ever made.
"You'll figure it out," Mulder assured her. "You always do."
"Mulder, I didn't even figure out who killed you. I didn't--"
"Shhhhh," he insisted, pressing her closer. He felt so warm, so solid, so real--he even
smelled like she remembered Mulder smelling. She squeezed her eyes shut and heard even
the steady pounding of his heart.
Too soon, though, there was a loud pounding at the door, a loud policeman's voice.
"Open up in there!"
Mulder pulled back then, looked down at her with familiar hazel eyes.
"I don't want you to go," Scully breathed.
"I'm only in your head anyway," he assured her. He stooped down, and just before he
kissed her cheek he added, "Your head's not going anywhere."
She felt the cool pressure of his lips, the warm, firm grip of his hands on her shoulders, a
ghost kissing a crazy woman over her lover's dead body, and then he was gone--she was
alone with the pounding on the front door.
We All Fall Down
---------------------------------------------------
Another funeral. At least there weren't many left for Scully. Little Bo Peep had lost her
sheep but she knew exactly where to find them.
She thought of her necklace, six feet below the rough New England soil.
In this churchyard was a playground, and there she saw two little boys, playing on a
swing. The older pushed the younger, back and forth, back and forth, and the younger
tried to pump his legs in rhythm but couldnıt get it straight. His legs went out when the
swing was at its lowest, went in at the same place next time around, an unfaithful
pendulum.
Children at play, innocent of the evil surrounding them, innocent of death. They didnıt
know that the man inside the church was Walter Sergei Skinner; they didnıt know what that
meant, to be Walter Sergei Skinner. The man who killed men.
They didnıt know what it meant to be Dana Scully, the woman who did the same.
_Itıs so easy,_ she thought. _So easy when youıre young and the world is a safe place.
The nasty secrets of adults, the greed and power which beget only more greed and power
and never bring satisfaction or happiness--how do we come to be trapped in this infinite
loop when we know it's so simple to break?_
She shook her head, turning away from the example of the children and starting toward the
church doors like all the other government-issue suits. She was halfway there when her
nose began to bleed again.
³Shit,² she muttered, stopping and turning away from the door. She pulled a handkerchief
from her coat pocket, tried to cover up her nostrils. Second round of chemo was in two
weeks.
She saw him a moment later and her eyes narrowed. She hated in that moment the cancer
more than ever, hated how it prevented her from looking at all menacing.
But he was only smiling at her around his Morley, smiling that placid, flaccid smile he
always smiled, and she wondered if she drew her gun now whether God would forgive
that too. Then she wondered if she cared.
³Agent Scully,² the cigarette-smoking man said, closing the distance between them. ³I
didnıt expect to see you here.²
Scully kept the handkerchief at her nose. ³I donıt see why not,² she said around its mass.
³He was my friend.²
³Or so you believed,² the man said, still smiling.
³Fuck you,² snarled Scully, surprising even herself.
"Perhaps we could make an arrangement," the smoking man suggested, offering her a
clean handkerchief. "Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak."
Scully didnıt reach for the new tissue, but before she could respond, she heard a child start
to scream. They both turned toward the small playground.
The older boy had pushed the younger boy straight off the swing and was laughing now,
saying something, taunting. All Scully heard was ³baby.² The younger boy was kneeling
on the dust in front of the still-rocking swing, crying.
The smoking man leveled his innocous smile again at Scully and nodded. ³Consider the
offer, Agent Scully. Consider the offer.²
Scully turned on her heel and walked away, but she knew we all fall down.
Epilogue
---------------------------------------------------
Agent Jeremy Drake had always been a good judge of people, and heıd known from the
moment he met her that she was not someone he could trust, but that she could give him
answers. Would give him answers.
But he didnıt know why.
Still, he was onto something here, something big. His stomach rumbled with anxiety but
he had the green assurance of a gun in his holster, a badge in his pocket. He was going to
nail the truth to the steps of Capitol Hill.
They met in the Watergate parking garage, just like always. Sheıd signalled him that
afternoon, by turning down the picture of his wife on his desk. As always, he could barely
see her above the trenchcoat that hid all traces of a figure he suspected to be withered. She
was old, he guessed, but not as old as she looked.
³Here,² she said, handing him a manilla envelope. ³This is a case youıll want to open.²
He took the envelope between two cautious fingers. ³Iım working on something else right
now,² he told her.
³Well, youıll want to work on this,² she said with a shrug. ³The answer is in the cards,
and if you keep looking up youıll see what youıre looking for. Unless you trip, of
course.²
Drake frowned. He disliked her games. ³Can I open it now?²
³No. Wait until Iım gone.²
He heaved a sigh. "Why?² he asked. ³If itıs so dangerous, why are you doing this? Why
are you helping me?"
She leaned in close enough for him to smell her breath. "Because I used to be you," she
hissed, then gave a small self-deprecatory laugh and added, "More or less."
Drake rolled his eyes. This routine was getting old and heıd risked his life more than once.
What was she risking, anyway? "You think these cryptic 'clues' are helpful?² he
demanded. ³What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"
"Think of it like a hockey game," she suggested with a twisted smile.
"What, I have to slip one past the goalie?"
"No," she answered, firm and cold. "You're not a player. You're the puck."
She turned on her heel to leave.
Drake's hand snapped out and clamped around her arm, spinning her back around. "What
the fuck does that mean?" he hissed. "Donıt you walk away from me. I'm not your
pawn."
She blinked, slow and menacing like a cat. "No," she agreed. "You're not. Chess
analogies are wholly inappropriate."
She clasped her hand over his, and for a second he thought she meant to comfort him, to
confirm some sense of union he didn't feel, but then she was lifting his hand, pushing it
back into his own territory. Her grip burned like hot steel, an electric claw.
Drake had always been a good judge of people. As he watched her walk away from him,
he saw in the line of her figure a woman who had withstood plagues far darker than he
could imagine. Why, then, was he following her?
END
We are not who we are.
AnubisLM@aol.com
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