I Want To Believe
by Cadillac Red
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and Walter Skinner et al do not belong to me; they belong to Chris Carter and Fox. I mean no harm and will make no money from their use.
Spoilers: None to speak of.
Setting: Seventh Season.
Rating: PG. Discipline, no slash.
Author's note: This story feels like it took an eternity to complete, for many reasons. I want to thank Phoebe and Diane for beta-reading it - over and over again! Thanks to both of you (and a lot of encouragement from Samantha) this baby finally got birthed!
Summary: Mulder's having horrible nightmares again. Could it be something more than his subconscious at work?
AD Skinner's Office
FBI Headquarters
Saturday, June 28, 1999
Walter Skinner glanced up from his desk and smiled at what he saw. It was a quiet Saturday and the AD was in his office trying to catch up on things. He'd brought Fox along, knowing it would be quiet in the building and that no one could possibly see the almost three year old and figure out it was Special Agent Fox Mulder. He resembled Mulder but the reality was so preposterous no one's brain would go there without a serious push.
Now Fox was lying on the floor of the office, crayoning in his coloring book with a look of concentration that was pure Mulder. He chewed on his lower lip as he worked and every now and then he paused to consider his creation and choose a new color out of the Crayola box.
"What are you working on over there, pal?" Skinner asked him.
The child looked up. "I am making a 'pitcher' for you," he said solemnly.
Skinner smiled his appreciation then let Fox finish as he turned back to the file on his desk. A serial killer was working the Midwest states, leaving tortured, mangled bodies in his wake. Some of them were young adults but most were merely teenagers. It was a horrific crime pattern that no one had been able to get a handle on, despite teams of profilers and behavioral psychologists and investigators working every angle they could identify. The AD's people were doing their damnedest but Skinner was becoming worried they'd never find the clue that would break this thing.
"See," a small voice broke into his thoughts. Fox was standing beside him, holding out his picture.
Skinner quickly closed the file, concerned the child would see the awful photos. "Let's see," he said slowly, then a wide grin dawned on the man's face. There was a bright red sun, and a lot of yellow and purple trees surrounding a garden of multi-colored flowers. "This is a wonderful picture, Fox. Should we put it on the refrigerator when we get home?"
"No, it's for your office," the boy said. "So you don't forget Fox when you go to work."
Skinner leaned over and picked him up, depositing the boy in his lap. "I could never forget you, kid," he said. Then he tore a piece of scotch tape from the dispenser on the desk and turned the desk chair around to the wall behind them. "Where should we put it?"
Fox pointed out a spot and they taped the drawing in place. "There. That looks great," Skinner said, giving him a kiss on the forehead before depositing him on his feet. "Now, why don't we go get some lunch, huh? You've been a very good boy this morning."
Fox took his hand eagerly and they headed out of the office. "Daddy?" the boy asked suddenly. "Will a lot of people see it there?"
Skinner laughed. "Yes, Fox," he said as they exited. "A lot of people will see it. And when did you turn into a publicity hound, huh?"
They returned about forty-five minutes later, after Fox and he had feasted on McDonald's for lunch and then spent about twenty minutes in the park across the street. The AD still had a few hours of work to accomplish but he knew the boy needed to expend some energy after lunch before taking his afternoon nap. When they returned to the office, he gave Fox a throw pillow and took a small cotton blanket out of the bag they'd brought. In a few minutes, the child was sleeping peacefully on the couch and Skinner went back to work.
Fox generally napped about an hour and a half so the AD spent the next hour at his desk. When Fox began to stir earlier than expected, he knew the boy needed more sleep so Skinner got up and went to sit beside him, placing a hand on Fox's back. That contact was all it took to soothe him and soon he was slumbering deeply once again.
The AD made himself comfortable on the couch next to the boy, balancing the file he was reviewing on his knees which were propped up on the coffee table.
A noise in the outer office got his attention soon after. "Assistant Director?" a man's voice called in.
Skinner rose quickly, checking to make sure Fox hadn't been disturbed. Then he walked out of his own office into the anteroom, half-closing the door behind him. Agent Westbrook was waiting there.
"I heard you were in the building, sir," the agent said. "Sorry to disturb you. I . . . heard from the guards you have one of your nephews with you."
"Yes," Skinner replied. The guards had made that assumption when the two of them arrived this morning and Skinner just let them keep thinking it. "He's sleeping-"
"I just wanted to drop off the latest autopsy results," Westbrook said, handing him the file. "Agent Scully completed the notes earlier and faxed them in. It's just as bad as the others . . ."
Skinner's face was grim as he took the report. "Any break at all yet, Charlie?" he asked the agent.
"Sir, we're stumped. There's not even a hint of a clue we can follow. Every time we think we've got a lead, it ends up in another dead end."
Skinner nodded. "Keep at it, then," he said quietly. "The answer's gonna be in some detail we've overlooked."
Westbrook nodded, too, then he sighed and left. Skinner stared at the autopsy results and photos another minute before returning to his office. To his surprise, Fox was awake and on his knees next to the coffee table, sifting through the stack of photos there.
Skinner's heart lurched and he raced over to take them away, but miraculously, the pictures Fox held were not of bodies or autopsies. They were merely photos of crime scenes, taken after the crimes had been committed, when the bodies were being removed or already gone. Not amusement for a three year old, but not likely to traumatize Fox.
He gently removed them from the child's hands and tried to distract him with a book he'd brought from home. But Fox reached out for one of the photos.
"Gween hat," he said with a smile.
Skinner frowned in confusion.
"Gween hat," Fox repeated, pointing at one of the photos. There was a young man with long hair wearing a green hat with a symbol on the front.
"Oh, yeah," Skinner said, smiling back at him. "He's wearing a green hat. That's very good, Fox." The child had been given a couple of 'Where's Waldo?' books and he amazed everyone with how quickly and confidently he could find that funny little character in the confusing mass of bodies in the illustrations.
Fox nodded. Then he picked up another picture. "Gween hat," he said, giggling a little.
"Yeah, honey, you're right. That's a green hat, all right," Skinner said. He sat back on the couch and began to read the autopsy results again. In a moment, Fox was sitting next to him, offering the photo again.
"Gween hat," Fox said once again. "Look. Gween hat!"
Skinner was growing impatient, but he tore his eyes away from the report, taking a deep breath. "I know, Fox," he said quietly. "You already showed me. He's wearing a green hat-" He stopped in mid-sentence. This was a different photo than the one the boy had shown him earlier. And it was not the same man as before. This one was an older man, with a mustache. But he was wearing the same green hat. And this was a different crime scene, in a different state from the one Fox had previously shown him. As he stared at the second photo, Fox picked up yet another.
"Gween hat!" he giggled giddily. He held up his right hand, three fingers showing. "Fox find fwee gween hats."
Skinner's mouth was hanging open in surprise as he stared at yet another crime scene. This one in Nebraska. And a third man was watching the police work, also wearing the strange green hat. He looked at Fox, poring over the stack of photos.
"Gween hat," the boy exclaimed, pulling another one out of the stack. "Four gween hats!"
But Skinner was already on his feet and at his phone. He punched out the extension he wanted. "Westbrook," he said. "Get up here. I think we found our clue . . . ."
Office of the X-Files
FBI Headquarters
May 3, 2000
Special Agent Fox Mulder leaned forward in his desk chair, placing his elbows on the desk and pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets. He had a monstrous headache, resulting from not having a solid night's sleep in more days than he cared to recollect. He sighed wearily until the sound of the door opening roused him. He sat up quickly.
"Hi, Scully," he said, too quickly.
She gave him an odd look. Special Agent Dana Scully had a sixth sense about not much, truth be told, but her partner's wellbeing was one of them. And he was decidedly unwell right now.
"What's wrong, Mulder?" she asked, trying to keep it light. "Tough night?"
"Yeah. So many women, so little time," he answered, trying to keep the same tone. He didn't really want to explain.
"Are you okay?" she pressed. His face was gray and drawn and the lines around his eyes had lines around them. She was surprised that Skinner let him come in today.
"Yeah," he responded immediately. "I just didn't sleep that well last night." (Or the night before that. Or the night before that . . . .)
"Maybe you should go home-"
"I said I'm fine," he broke in, determined to put an end to this line of inquiry. "Hope you brought your latex, Scully. 'Cause the Gunmen got a line on a possible EBE and Frohike will let no one but you conduct the autopsy . . . "
Office of the A.D. Skinner
FBI Headquarters
Late afternoon
Skinner finished his meeting with Agents Arnold and Carney, sighing as he closed the file folder before him. It had been a long couple of days. First a trip to the West Coast, where he'd worked nearly round the clock. Then the red-eye flight back to DC last night, arriving in time to drop by his apartment, shower, change and head to the office. Then budget meetings all day long.
"Have a good evening, sir," Agent Carney interrupted his train of thought.
"Oh, you too, Agent," he answered automatically. He followed the two other men out into the front office, intent on dropping the folder on Kim's desk so it could be filed. He now knew more about next year's budget than he had any desire to know. He heard Carney greeting Mulder as he appeared in the doorway.
"Mulder! Haven't seen you in a while. How are things?"
"Fine," Mulder responded, grinning and shaking hands with the other agent. Carney had been one of the few other FBI staff Skinner had let know about Mulder's recent childhood. "I'm . . . taller, since you saw me last, that's all."
That earned him a strange look from Agent Arnold as he passed. Only Carney, Delaney and one or two others in the building had ever been apprised of Mulder's recent foray into a second childhood.
Skinner was staring at him, too. The younger agent looked awful. Exhausted and ashen. Worse even than Scully had led him to believe when she'd phoned earlier in the day. The AD shook off his momentary surprise, picked up the message slips that Kim was holding and headed back into his own office. Mulder followed a moment later.
"Welcome back," the young man said. "How was sunny California?"
"Raining," Skinner replied succinctly. "Are you all right, Fox?"
"Scully called you, didn't she?" Mulder shot back, a look of annoyance on his face. "I told her I'm fine-"
"You don't look fine," Skinner cut him off. "You look like you're about to fall over."
"Gee, thanks," Mulder replied, realizing that it would be better to make light of this concern. "I do try to keep up appearances-"
Skinner walked past him to the office door and shut it forcefully. "Cut the shit," Skinner told him firmly. "When was the last time you slept?"
Mulder stared at him for a second, then he dropped his eyes to the floor. "I-I've been having a little . . . trouble sleeping, that's all. It's no big thing."
Skinner softened his tone immediately. "Listen, why don't you head home. I'll be leaving here a little early tonight myself. We'll . . . fire up the barbecue and have a quiet night. The playoffs are on . . . ."
Mulder bit down on his lower lip. It sounded good but . . . .
"Fox, I'm making this an invitation," Skinner said finally. "But it could be an order, if that's what it takes."
Mulder sighed dramatically, then he smiled despite himself. "Well, in that case, I'd love to."
Skinner arrived at the McLean house around 6 o'clock bearing a grocery bag with a couple of good, marbled steaks, some potatoes and corn on the cob. Steak with homefries and corn was one of Mulder's favorite meals as a kid and as an adult. The AD was pleased to find him snoozing on the couch in the den, Yoda curled up on the floor beside him. He suspected the younger man had probably crashed the minute he'd gotten there. He let him sleep as he changed his clothes, then went about preparing their dinner.
When it was all ready, he went into the other room and gently shook the younger man awake. "Fox. Dinner's ready," he said quietly.
"Wha-what? What happened?"
"Nothing happened. Except I've got steak done just the way you like it waiting. Eat something, then you can go back to sleep if you want."
But Mulder seemed to revive somewhat over dinner. He had what seemed like a million questions about the case in California, the terrorist bombings. Mulder wasn't officially assigned to it but he somehow managed to know a lot about certain kinds of cases, whether they were in his scope or not. And he often made connections no one else made, so Skinner listened to him. He was always pleased to find out a lot of other people did, too, even if they were loathe to admit it publicly. Despite their efforts to keep their personal connection out of the office, the AD quietly burst with paternal pride whenever one of Mulder's insights provided a break in a case.
"So, what are they going to do with the profile now?" the younger man was asking as he swallowed down the last of his beer. "I mean, their entire composite was built on what turned out to be unrelated evidence. . . ."
"I sent them back to the drawing board," Skinner replied, leaning back in his chair. This was a sore point for the AD. He'd let it be known he was disappointed when the team's profile turned out to miss on every level. And he was taking his team's inability to solve this case as a personal failure.
A number of acts of terrorism had occurred in various locations around the country over the past year. The perpetrators had left virtually no trail on most of them but twice they'd messed up. At least, that's what the investigating team thought. They left behind evidence on which the profilers built their model. They caught the two skinheads responsible for those incidents only to realize with sickening clarity that they were neither capable of the rest, nor did they have the access or know-how to pull off the other crimes.
The Assistant Director had not been pleased to learn they had to go back to square one, after releasing information to local law enforcement all over the country. The last thing the Bureau needed was to look incompetent. And on Skinner's watch, it never had.
The entire case was tremendously puzzling, though. The buildings the terrorist group destroyed were old and usually abandoned. Places where homeless people and runaways nested for as long as they could get away with it. No going enterprises with political connections, no people with power were ever hit by the destruction. Yet the messages from the terrorists in the wake of each bombing crowed about their achievements in the war against the "capitalist pigs of American business." The messages were trite and immediately got the FBI's antennae up. But no other connection between the sites bombed, or the owners of those buildings, had been established.
Mulder sensed Skinner's great frustration but he had no leads to offer either. And it wasn't his case anyway. He asked a few questions that elicited nothing from the younger agent but head-shaking confusion and the two of them finished their meal.
They cleared the dinner dishes and retreated to the family room to watch TV. But Mulder was struggling to stay awake and, after waiting for him to decide to go on his own, Skinner finally nudged him and suggested he turn in. The younger agent looked a little uncertain, and protested he would go home to his own place.
"Absolutely not," Skinner said, putting his foot firmly down on that idea. "You are in no condition to drive. You're exhausted. Go to bed and get a decent night's rest."
"But, I didn't bring a bag-"
"And what do you need that you don't have here? There are four suits and a half dozen clean shirts in the closet upstairs. And underwear, socks, pajamas. Anything else I can provide if you don't have it."
Mulder pressed his lips together. "But I'm . . . just not sleeping well. I don't want to keep you awake-"
"You always sleep well here, don't you, kid?" Skinner reasoned with him, trying to figure out what this hesitance signaled.
Finally Mulder sighed. "Yeah. I . . . usually do. Okay, sir," he replied, getting up and heading out of the room. "I get the feeling if I don't stay willingly, you're gonna chain me down anyway."
Skinner's eyebrows rose at that last statement but he let it go. The younger man was beyond the point of exhaustion. Who knows what that was doing to his overactive imagination.
But several hours later, the A.D. had just gone to bed when screams awoke him. He was up in a flash, grabbing his gun and unlocking the safety as he ran out of the room toward the origination point of the blood-curdling screams. It was Fox's room. But when he opened the door, the young man was alone except for Yoda. Fox thrashed and called out in his sleep as though something were killing him. And the he dog sat on the floor beside him, watching anxiously and whimpering.
"NO! Don't do that! Don't do that to her! PLEASE! She's just a little girl! Pl-please . . . " he sobbed, breaking down even as he still slept. "I-Please. Take me. . . . Take me instead! Don't hurt . . . ! Don't hurt them, PLEASE!"
Skinner dropped his gun on the dresser and ran to the bed to wake the younger man. "Fox," he spoke urgently yet gently. "Fox! Wake up! It's just a nightmare. Wake up, son . . . ."
Fox's eyes popped open but he was still in the grip of his dream. "No. No, please! I have to-I have to go get her! I-" This time he startled to consciousness, immediately chagrined by whatever it was that had drawn the Assistant Director. He began to shake.
"Fox, it's all right," the AD was saying. "It was just a dream. It's okay. . . ."
Fox nodded spastically, looking around the room as if to root himself in the reality of where he really was at the moment. "Yeah," he exhaled forcefully. "Just a d-dream. Just a . . . dream. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to wake you."
"Fox, don't apologize. It's unnecessary. Let me get you a glass of water," Skinner replied immediately. He left the room, then returned momentarily with a filled glass that Fox took and drank down greedily. "Do you want to tell me what that was about?"
Mulder looked at him quickly. "No," he replied. "I-I can't really . . . remember much. That's how it is with these . . . ."
Skinner was relatively certain from what he'd heard that Fox had been dreaming about his sister, Samantha. But he was unclear whether the young man really couldn't remember. Or just couldn't bring himself to relive whatever was in the nightmare long enough to talk about it. He decided to let it go and let Fox get back to sleep.
"Can you sleep, do you think?"
"I should go home-"
"Don't even think about it," Skinner cut him off. "I asked if you could sleep. If not, I'll stay with you-"
"No! No, that's not necessary," Mulder replied quickly. "I-I think I can sleep. I'm s-sorry-"
"I said there's nothing to apologize for and I meant it," the AD answered concisely. He stood and let Fox slide back down into the bed, then he adjusted the covers over Mulder. "Sleep well, kid."
Skinner returned to his own room. He was disturbed enough to lie awake for a while, trying to decide on a course of action. He'd had his own bout with sleep problems a number of years earlier, horrific dreams that made him feel like he was losing his mind. And he had been riding a desk by then. Mulder was still a field agent, his life potentially in jeopardy every day. And now he was seriously sleep deprived and suffering from nightmares that were debilitating, from what the AD had seen. The father in him told him Fox needed help fast, not to mention a good long rest. The Assistant Director concurred and added that Special Agent Mulder was probably not fit for duty in his present condition. He could be a danger to himself and his partner.
Skinner was mentally debating how to handle the situation when the sound of a floorboard creaking on the stairs captured his attention. This time he didn't take his gun, certain what it was.
He went out into the hall and saw the door to Fox's room was closed. He suspected Yoda was on the other side of it. Then the AD crept to the top of the stairs. Fox was almost at the bottom, slowly inching his way down. He had pulled on a pair of sweats and was carrying his sneakers.
"Where do you think you're going?" Skinner barked.
"Oh! Oh, shit!" Mulder exclaimed, nearly missing the last step. His hand flew to his chest. "You scared me-"
"You surprised me," the AD growled. "I'm certain I said you weren't going anywhere."
Mulder sank down onto the second step, looking up in resignation. "You did. I just thought . . . ." He sighed. "Never mind . . . ."
"Come on back up," Skinner called down. Then he disappeared from the top of the steps.
Mulder sighed again and lightly banged the back of his head against the wall behind him. Then he stood and walked slowly back upstairs. He could hear the AD in his own bedroom, and the younger agent stopped for a moment in the hallway, not certain whether to return to his own room or not.
"In here," Skinner called, answering his question before he voiced it.
When Mulder walked in, he was surprised to see Skinner taking a box off the top shelf of his closet. It was small, smaller than a shoe box. Mulder stopped in the middle of the room, curious about what the other man was doing rooting around in his closet in the middle of the night.
His heart dropped to about knee level when he saw Skinner open the box and take out a hairbrush. It was polished wood and oval and looked kind of familiar. Mulder hated the hairbrush almost more than anything else. Not because it hurt the most but because it was a decidedly childish punishment that Skinner left for times when he failed to think like an adult. Or act in a mature, adult manner. Like the flawed thinking that told him he could solve anything by trying to run away from home tonight.
"I'm sure you know the penalty for blatant disobedience," Skinner was saying. "I don't care how tired you are, you understood what I told you. And you defied me anyway. Not to mention the danger of trying to drive in the middle of the night in your exhausted condition. Putting yourself in danger is another violation I won't tolerate, Fox. You know that."
He took a seat on the bed and motioned for Mulder to come over.
"Please. . .," the young man said, shaking his head. "I-I wasn't thinking! I didn't mean to . . . ."
Skinner looked directly at him, demanding eye contact. Demanding honestly. "Are you saying you didn't realize you were disobeying? Or that trying to drive home in your current condition was irresponsible and dangerous?"
Mulder's eyes stared directly into the AD's. He tried to summon the strength to respond that he hadn't realized . . . . But he couldn't blatantly lie to the man, not any more.
"No, sir," he whispered. "I-I'm not saying that."
"Then let's go," Skinner answered immediately. He wanted to get this over. His heart was telling him Fox needed comforting but his head told him that would have to come after a well-deserved spanking. Mulder nodded, took a tentative step toward him, then stopped again. Skinner watched him, wondering which way the battle inside him would come out..
For his part, Mulder was angry at himself, for making a decision that was so misguided it would land him over the other man's knees, getting his butt blistered. Part of him wanted to run and part of him wanted to protest that he didn't deserve this. But in his heart, he knew he did. He shook his head angrily, berating himself for not having thought better of trying to escape. He muttered something to himself about being 'stupid,' then he pressed his lips together resignedly and walked the rest of the way over to Skinner.
"Good choice," the AD said quietly, acknowledging the internal debate he'd witnessed.
Mulder's eyes filled with tears. This man knew him so well. He bit down on his lower lip, then sank to his knees and let himself be guided over the AD's long, muscled thighs.
Skinner placed one hand on the small of Fox's back. He could feel waves of tension coming off the other man's body, and a tightness that worried him. He rubbed Fox's back gently to reassure him. "It's okay, kid," he said, wondering at this strange response from someone he'd spanked many times before. He was immediately glad he'd chosen to take the younger agent over his knee tonight. He needed to know what was happening with him, physically and emotionally.
In response, Fox first tensed a little more, then he relaxed as the other man's hand rubbed slow circles on his back. He calmed himself, and his head dropped as a single sob escaped.
The Assistant Director lifted his hand from Fox's back and ruffled his hair from behind. "It's gonna be okay, son," he said in his most reassuring voice.
"I . . . know," Fox whispered. A couple of tears were already working their way down his cheeks. "I know, D-Dad."
Skinner exhaled, letting go of the breath he'd been holding unconsciously. Then he pulled on the waistband of Fox's sweat pants, bringing them down below the younger agent's butt cheeks. "What's this spanking for, Fox?" he asked, bringing the younger man back to the moment with the traditional question that began all punishments in the Skinner family. He lifted the hairbrush in his hand and smacked the upturned butt in front of him a couple of times.
"For disobeying you!" Fox responded quickly. "Oww! Ouchh! That stings!"
"Stick with the program, Fox," Skinner replied, biting back a smile. The AD grasped the hand that had flown back to cover his bottom and pinned it to the small of the young man's back. "What else?"
"Ohhh! Oucchhh! F-for not thinking about my safety. Owww! And trying to drive ho-home! AHHH! OUUUCCHH!"
"One thing at a time, son," Skinner said, meting out a half dozen smacks for the personal safety thing. The two of them had been working on this issue since the beginning and it meant more to the AD than just about any other violation now. "I never (SMACK) never (SMACK) NEVER (SMACK SMACK) want to have to punish you for that one again!" (SMACK SMACK SMACK)
"I know! I know, s-sir!" Fox gasped. This message was getting through loud and clear. "I pr-promise you w-won't have to!"
"And what about driving, when you're exhausted?" the older man asked as he rained another half dozen smacks down onto Fox's bottom.
"I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!" Fox cried. He was overcome with sobs now and Skinner practiced ear told him it was time to bring this spanking to a close. He issued another half dozen smacks with the back of the brush, then he stopped and laid it down on the bed. Fox slid off his lap immediately, hitting his own knees, then leaning forward to bury his face in the AD's chest.
"I'm s-sorry!" he choked out. "I'm sor-sorry!" He hiccuped twice as he spoke.
Skinner could tell he was beyond exhaustion. He helped him up to the bed and into a horizontal position, thinking he might fall right to sleep. But the young man continued to babble apologies.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wake you again-"
"Stop if, son," Skinner cut him off firmly. He pushed Fox slightly, indicating the younger man should scoot over to the other side of the bed. He moved over, but Skinner could see two wide, hazel eyes watching him warily. His hands went to his hips in a posture that brooked no nonsense, but his voice softened. "I don't want to hear you say you're sorry again, do you hear me? Else I may just have to put this hairbrush back into service . . . "
Mulder's eyes widened further in alarm. "I'm sor-- I mean . . . Okay. Yes, sir."
Skinner grinned. He picked the brush up and placed it on the night stand behind him. Fox's eyes followed it, narrowing slightly.
"That looks . . . That looks familiar," he said slowly.
"Yes, I imagine it does," the AD said quietly, taking a seat on the other side of the bed. "It belonged to your mother. She . . . sent it to me . . . before she died." He picked up the box that was sitting on the foot of the bed and pulled a piece of paper out of it. She sent me a note, asking me to keep it for you-"
Mulder's gaze flew to Skinner's face. It wasn't hard to miss the fact he was fearful about why his mother had done that. And what she suspected about his relationship with Skinner. After all, he'd been an adult again before she died.
"Don't worry, Fox," Skinner chuckled. "You'll remember she . . . loaned it to me a couple of times when we were in Greenwich. When you were a kid. She asked me to hold it for you, until you had kids of your own."
That news stunned the younger man and he sank into a heavy silence, touched and saddened by her gesture. Then the reality hit him and he choked up. "Like that'll ever happen," he snorted, his voice cracking with emotion.
"Never say never, kid," Skinner told him softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the younger man trembling from fatigue and emotional overload.
Mulder had gone completely still and the AD thought for a moment he'd fallen into unconsciousness again. Except his eyes were open. He waited, letting Fox take the lead on what came next. Sleep. Or talk.
"Do you think you'll ever have any kids?" Fox asked him quietly a moment later.
Skinner pulled his hand off Fox's shoulder and used it to brush back the sweat-soaked hair that had fallen over the younger man's forehead. "I think I've got my hands full with the one I've got now," he said gently.
A ghost of a smile passed over Mulder's face, and he sighed quietly. The silence between them stretched into half a minute, then Mulder spoke again. "I've been dreaming about Samantha," he said finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. "About the years when she was held captive. And the . . . the things they did to her. The experiments she was subjected to . . . ."
Skinner nodded. He'd wondered how long it would take before this happened. The events described in the diary were horrible. They'd given him a few waking nightmares and he'd never known Samantha Mulder. He had been waiting for Mulder's mind to begin to digest that information, not sure how it would manifest itself. Only that it would, eventually. Mulder's prodigious memory wouldn't let it fade without detailed analysis.
He let Fox talk. About the nightmares. The scenes that ran through his brain of Samantha, chained down to a metal table. Being subjected to unspeakable abuse, experiments that pushed the limits of what any human being should be capable of doing to another, and still be considered human. Skinner's heart tore with pain as he listened to Fox detail the horrors that had been filling his dreams of late.
"I understand, son," Skinner breathed. "I can only imagine . . . how it must feel to know what happened. I know if something, anything like that, happened to Jean . . . . I'd want to kill someone."
Mulder's eyes brimmed with tears. "I want someone to pay. . . . I just wish I knew who to kill," he said. "Cancer Man is out of reach. My father's . . . dead. My mother. . . . I don't know how to find the rest of them. I don't even know who they were! And because I can't do anything about it. . . , I guess my brain just keeps going over it and over it. Looking for a clue I've overlooked. Or failed to see the importance of."
The Assistant Director nodded. "I can see that. But . . . the one thing I know for sure is, Samantha wouldn't want you suffering like this. The one good thing in what she wrote, was when she talked about you, Fox. About remembering she had a brother. You didn't have to read too deep to know she loved you, kid. And you said yourself, she knows . . . you're okay now. She's at peace because she think you can be, too."
Several tears ran down Mulder's cheeks as he listened. "I wish . . . I just wish there was something I could have done," he choked out before his emotions got the better of him.
Skinner reached over and pulled him into an embrace, nearly smothering the younger man with the force of his hug. "I know, son," he whispered. "But you've spent your career doing something about it. It was too late to help Samantha. But you've made a difference to so many others. . . ."
Fox cried out his pain for what seemed like ages, the AD thought. Then, spent of all emotion and the ability to think any more, he laid back down on the other side of the bed and looked as though he would fall into unconsciousness.
"Just let yourself relax," Skinner told him quietly. "You need sleep."
"Feel like singing?" the younger man joked through a gigantic yawn. "I'm kinda partial to 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' you know."
Skinner snorted. When Fox was a child again and first living with him, the boy had experienced night terrors for a few weeks. Skinner had been at his wit's end trying to figure out how to calm the child and get him to sleep one evening. The AD didn't know word one of a single lullaby and, in fact, he didn't really sing anyway. But one night, in a near stupor himself, the words to 'Puff the Magic Dragon' came to him and he went with it. It became a regular routine for them over the next few weeks, and well into his second childhood Fox would still request 'Puff' when he was sick or afraid.
"Well, too bad. My singing days are over. But I'd be happy to clock ya upside the head, if that'll help," he said affectionately.
Fox grinned back at him even as his eyes fluttered to a close and he fell into a heavy sleep that the other man hoped would prove restful. In a little while, Skinner laid him down gently, then rose and got a spare blanket out of the closet which he used to cover Fox on the other side of the king-size bed. He'd had fallen asleep on top of the covers and he didn't want to take a chance on disturbing the younger man's desperately needed sleep.
A few hours later, Skinner was sleeping peacefully but Fox began to stir again. He thrashed a little on the other side of the bed and murmured uneasily in his sleep. Skinner sat up and placed a hand on his chest, and spoke to him quietly.
"It's okay, Fox," he whispered. "It's okay. Go back to sleep, son."
The younger man didn't waken, he merely settled down and slid back into a dreamless slumber. Skinner furrowed his brow with concern as he laid back down and tried to go back to sleep.
Office of the Assistant Director
The next afternoon
Skinner closed the file in front of him and leaned back in his chair. He sighed and closed his eyes, reaching up to rub his forehead just over the eyebrows. That's where today's headache had settled.
He'd just spent the past hour reviewing the copies of Samantha Mulder's diary in her file. The images and experiences she described were disturbing and a part of him had hoped to never have to read it again. But today something was niggling at him. Fox had described scenes from the diary last night, the ones that were haunting his dreams. Only many of the details from his nightmares were not anywhere to be found in this file. She never described being 'chained to a table,' Skinner saw. She was held in a quasi-medical facility and restrained at times when the tests were painful. But no chains, at least none she mentioned.
Yet that image was prevalent in Fox's nightmares. Some other 'tests' he described were not mentioned in this document either. He picked up the phone and placed a call.
"Nora. It's Walter," he said as soon as his sister-in-law answered.
"Hi, Walt! Nothing's changed for the weekend, has it?" she immediately asked. The Skinner siblings, all of them, were planning to get together the following weekend. Jean and Oliver and Joe and Nora would come for a visit on Saturday. Now that Andy and Eileen were living in northern Virginia, this project had been made a little easier. They'd all have dinner on Saturday. It was something they tried to do several times each year. This time Nora had arranged for Fox, and Dana, to attend as well, much to the pleasure of the rest of the family.
"No! We're still on target," he answered. "I wanted to . . . pick your brain, if it's okay. About . . . dreams."
Nora smiled on the other end of the phone. Her degrees in psychology came in handy occasionally. Outside of the clinical work she did with troubled kids, that is. "Are you okay, Walter? Is Fox?"
"Well, Fox is having trouble sleeping. Nightmares, really debilitating ones. About his sister, Nora, and the things that were done to her."
Nora's eyes filled with tears. Despite her years of training, she responded initially as someone who loved Fox Mulder as a member of the family. "I can only imagine," she whispered. "What you and Joe told me, it was chilling. I can see him having nightmares. How do you deal with knowledge like that? And the inability to do anything about it?"
"Exactly. Only . . . Fox's nightmares are not . . . 'accurate' on the details, Nora. I mean, the things he describes happening to Samantha, they're not in her diaries. Why would his subconscious add even more horrible details? The reality's bad enough on its own-"
"Well, dreams are not generally 'accurate' depictions of reality, Walter," Nora explained. "They're the way the subconscious works out things it can't understand or accept. So archetypal images, for example, often replace the mundane, 'real' ones-"
"That's not what I mean though," Walter cut her off. "It's the mundane details that are different. Things like what Samantha's wearing. And . . . what specific things they did to her. . . ."
Nora didn't respond immediately and it was clear she was considering it all. "Well," she finally murmured. "In his work, Fox has seen a lot of other horrible things. Maybe these are details from other cases, creeping in and working themselves out in the same way."
Skinner nodded and sighed wearily. "Yeah. That could be it," he said. "Listen, thanks for the advice, Nora. Don't say anything to Fox, okay? And I'll see you on Saturday morning."
Skinner hung up the phone and sat there, staring out the windows of his office. Something was bothering him. Something about Fox's dreams but he couldn't put his finger on it. He shook off the feeling and buzzed his assistant to send his next appointment in.
Later that day
Main auditorium of the Hoover Building
Walter Skinner entered the auditorium from a rear door and took a seat in the last row. He'd promised to drop into this conference. There was a case that the BSU had been tracking since last year, but the task force assigned to it had hit one roadblock after another. In fact, the summer before they'd gotten a big break, when a three-year-old Fox Mulder spotted a green hat in several crime scene photographs. It had led them to a trucking company and a couple of arrests. But the rest of the operation had closed down and disappeared as soon as the first agent walked through the door of the Tennessee location. The organization had folded its tents in five separate states in a matter of hours. And left no trail.
The authorities ceased finding the bodies of young people, too, so it was counted as a small victory. But the agents on the case had wanted to bring someone to justice. The couple of drivers they arrested were involved, but they were not the masterminds. In fact, they knew nothing more than what their instructions had been. To leave bodies in places where they might be found and stick around to make certain they were discovered. They were all small-time criminals whose cooperation could be bought with money and who offered the investigators nothing more because they knew nothing more.
Now the case was being put through a review, at Skinner's behest. He hated it when his people didn't fully resolve a case. That meant that a new team would be assigned to go over it all again, to bring a fresh perspective. This team came out of Skinner's operation, not the Behavioral Sciences Unit. Before BSU had the lead on the investigation and Skinner's people were the field agents who collected the data that they worked with.
The people in the auditorium were all seated in the first dozen rows and Kendall was running through slides of various autopsies now. Skinner sat in the back and listened.
"All of the victims we were able to positively identify were presumed runaways. Some families insisted they'd been kidnapped and given the ages at which some of them disappeared, it's a possibility. All had markings on their body that indicated they'd been chained down at some point," he said, pointing to abrasions on the skin of several different bodies. "Here. . . . here. And here. It was clear they had had been tortured-"
"AD Kendall?" a voice called from down in front. It was Sean Delaney, a young agent for whom Skinner had high hopes.
"Yes, Agent Delaney," Kendall nodded at him. "You have a question?"
"I'm certain you must have considered the possibility that the victims had been subject to some kind of . . . medical experimentation, rather than senseless torture. Was there any analysis about what kinds of tests would create these injuries? And what they might be for?"
Skinner's head had popped up as this discussion proceeded and now he was staring at the image on the screen. (That's it! This is what Fox was describing! These are the . . the kinds of procedures he dreamed about Samantha being subjected to!)
Skinner stood up and slipped out through the door from which he'd come earlier. He strode purposefully down the hallway and punched the elevator button, impatiently waiting for it. He turned it all over in his brain. Mulder had never worked on this case, other than to see the photos in Skinner's office last summer when he was a child. He didn't work with BSU any more, except for the odd case where his participation was officially requested. And they'd never asked for him on this case. Not that he'd been available much of the time they were working on it.
He reached his own office two minutes later, surprising Kim with his quick return. "Get me everything on the case we're taking over from BSU, Kim," he said. "All the files. And set up a meeting with the lead agents on this case. As soon as humanly possible. And Kim. I want Mulder and Scully at the meeting, too."
Kim knew that meant today. She began making phone calls and at just past 3 p.m., the group was assembled in Skinner's office. The lead agent, a woman named Marianne Quinlan, was reviewing the facts of the case. Skinner watched Mulder's face as she got to the salient points. He began to sweat and pulled at his collar a couple of times, as though he needed air. Skinner quietly poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table and slid it in his direction. The younger agent took it gratefully and swallowed it down in one gulp. Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke.
"Were there . . . ." He cleared his throat and began again. "Were there puncture marks on the victims' arms? Like they'd been given medication, or hooked up to IV's? And had they been . . . violated, perhaps given internal examinations of some kind?"
"Yes," Agent Quinlan answered immediately. "All of them. The males and the females. How did you know that?"
Mulder swallowed and looked at Skinner for a moment. Then he looked back at Quinlan and spoke, his voice firmer now. "I've been having . . . dreams. About people I know being held captive and being subjected to this kind of experimentation. "
Skinner's eyebrows rose at the use of the word 'people.' But Mulder was studiously avoiding eye contact with him now. He continued to speak to the rest of the investigative team. "My sister. She was . . . abducted many years ago. She's in my dreams."
"Is it possible one of these victims is your sister?" one of the other agents asked, his voice quiet and concerned.
"No," Skinner replied quickly. "I've already . . . checked that possibility. None of the unidentified victims fits the description of Agent Mulder's sister."
Mulder and Scully had both paled at the original question, and now she gave Skinner an appreciative nod while Mulder simply began to breathe again.
"You said 'people,' Agent Mulder," Quinlan interrupted, probing his last statement. "Who else have you dreamt about?"
Now Mulder dropped his eyes to his hands which were clenched in his lap. "The other person . . . is the younger brother of a friend of mine. He . . . died a number of years ago, when he was a child. Around nine years of age. There was no doubt that he died so . . . his presence in my dreams doesn't make any sense."
Quinlan's face reflected her confusion. "I'm not sure any of this makes sense, Agent Mulder," she said slowly. "But I think you should look through the file, see if anything else stands out for you. That is, if AD Skinner agrees."
Skinner had been shocked by Fox's admission and he took a second too long to respond. It wasn't noticeable to anyone except Mulder though. The AD announced that course of action had his blessing and the meeting dissolved within a few minutes. The team headed out, with Scully on their heels, intent on poring through the autopsy findings herself. Mulder was right behind her.
"Agent Mulder?" Skinner called before he could get away. "A moment, please."
Mulder stopped in his tracks. Scully gave him an inquiring look but he merely nodded for her to go on. Then he turned around. He closed the door, then leaned against it, as though keeping distance between himself and Skinner was a way to avoid what would come next.
"You've been dreaming about Jeremy?" Skinner asked immediately. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Mulder shook his head and unconsciously bit down on his lower lip. He was reluctant to answer, but the silence stretched between them and forced his hand. "I-It didn't make sense. I was dreaming about all these . . . terrible things happening to him. Things that couldn't possibly have happened! I know that. And I. . . I just didn't want to admit that my mind, my psyche, would conjure up something like that. And put your brother in the middle of it. I-I still can't believe it myself."
Skinner saw a tear slide down Mulder's cheek as he spoke and he instantly walked over to the other man and wordlessly pulled him into a hug. He rubbed the back of Mulder's head gently and felt the younger agent's face come to rest on his shoulder in a gesture he'd often done when he was a child.
"It's okay, Fox," Skinner told him quietly. "You can't be held responsible for what you dream. Whether the dreams mean something or not, they're just dreams. Jeremy . . . may be a symbol of something else. Or a stand-in for somebody else. I . . . I just wish you trusted me enough to have told me-"
"I do trust you!" Mulder responded emphatically. "I . . . just didn't want to hurt you. Or . . . make you think badly of me. . . ."
Skinner pulled him into a tighter hug, one that threatened to squeeze the breath out of him. "Fox," he sighed. "After all we've been through, how could you worry about something like that?" He felt Mulder relax completely, releasing all the fear and tension he'd been carrying for days now. Then the AD playfully thumped him on the back of the head. "What's it gonna take to get it through your thick skull anyway? That I love you? That you're the closest I'll ever come to having a son? Huh? Am I gonna have to beat you senseless to get that through?"
Mulder snorted. "That won't be necessary," he said, straightening up and giving Skinner a grateful smile. "I promise."
"Good," the AD answered with a smile. "Now go wash your face before you go outside. I try not to have more than a couple of people a day leave my office in tears. And I've already hit my quota for today."
Mulder laughed. "Who--?" he began, before being summarily turned around and pointed in the direction of Skinner's private bathroom.
"None of your business," the AD said, giving him a firm swat on the butt to get him moving.
Several days later, they'd discovered that much of what Mulder had dreamed was in the files of this case. But not all of it. Once he was sure his subconscious was not manufacturing these things, Mulder's investigatory instincts kicked in. He was one of the Bureau's best minds when it came to pulling seemingly unrelated evidence into whole cloth.
A through trace of the FBI crime database showed that the rest of the detail from Mulder's nightmares, the parts that didn't match the "Green Hat Case," came from another unsolved case. This one involved terrorist bombings around the country. The one that had been bothering Skinner so much of late, that had sent him to the West Coast the week before. On the surface, it appeared the two were unrelated but a little bit of digging on Mulder and Scully's part, given this new information from Mulder's dreams, brought a revelation.
"The bombings are just to throw us off," Mulder announced with certainty at a joint conference of the two investigative teams a couple of days later. "Their plan for disposing of the bodies was discovered before, when the Green Hat guys' cover was blown. They're still at it, whatever experiments they were doing before are still going on. But now they're blowing buildings up, trying to cover the disposal of bodies by placing them in the abandoned buildings before they bomb them. The were victims in all of these recent bombings were dead before the explosions. Only we didn't discover it because no one knew what to look for."
He paused and looked around the room. "We've seen this before," he said.
Skinner and Scully knew exactly what Mulder was referring to. A bombing in Dallas several years earlier, the one Mulder and Scully had been temporarily blamed for. It had been a ruse to cover up the disposal of bodies. Now it appeared someone was using the same MO. For much the same purpose.
"The Consortium, Mulder?" Skinner asked, drawing curious gazes from the rest of the assembly.
"I don't know, sir," he replied succinctly. "But these victims were all used for some kind of experiments. It wasn't apparent unless you knew what to look for."
Once the connection between the two cases was established, the geographic correlations made it possible for them to hone in on several possible sites. The FBI obtained warrants and, along with local law enforcement, raided two locations simultaneously the next morning. They found a total of sixteen kids, boys and girls between the ages of ten and sixteen, alive. The rescues were barely in time for several of the kids, and they were all hospitalized in high security locations, their families on the way to be with them, to help them begin their recoveries. Scully thought they'd been used for hybridization experiments but luckily, none of them seemed beyond the hope of return to full health.
And Mulder slept soundly for the first time in weeks the night after they were found. He woke, refreshed and well-rested after a fourteen hour sleep on Friday morning in a motel near one of the sites that had been raided. By late afternoon, he and Scully and the rest of the team had returned to DC, had been congratulated by the Director, and begun the long process of wrapping up the details and putting together a criminal case against the people they'd found running the two laboratories.
Mulder dropped by Skinner's office in the late afternoon, just to check in.
"Mind if I disturb you for a minute, sir?" he said, popping his head into the AD's inner office.
"Not at all," Skinner replied, waving him in. Kim had gone for the day, and he was in the process of clearing things up himself. "You look a lot better. You must have gotten some sleep."
"Yeah," the younger agent said, parking himself in a guest chair. "I think Scully came into the room and stuck a mirror under my nose once or twice, just to make sure I was still breathing!"
"Well, I probably would have done the same thing," Skinner smiled.
"I know," Mulder conceded. He smiled tentatively. "Are you still mad? About me not telling you the whole truth about my dreams?"
Skinner leaned back in his chair and gazed at the young man he'd come to think of as a son. "I wasn't 'mad,' Fox," he said quietly. "I wasn't even angry. I just wish you'd been completely forthcoming. But with your lack of sleep, I guess you weren't thinking too clearly. So I'm not planning to punish you, if that's what you're wondering."
Mulder smiled gratefully. "I did wonder," he said quietly. "But there's something else. I-I just wanted to tell you I had another dream last night."
Skinner's eyes widened but he said nothing.
"I was just sitting in a park or something, by a lake. And Samantha and Jeremy came and sat down with me. They . . . they said they were glad they could help us find those other kids. Before it was too late." He stopped and glanced at Skinner in his chair on the other side of the desk. He was trying to determine if the AD would think he was hallucinating, perhaps from sleep deficiency. But the other man didn't betray his thoughts with any change in his facial expression.
Mulder cleared his throat and proceeded. "They . . . they were laughing and happy, kind of like we feel when a case gets solved. Giddy. Except kids show it more than we do."
Skinner chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then he sighed. "Do you think . . . Samantha and Jeremy are a manifestation your mind created, to give a face to whatever your subconscious was coming up with?"
Mulder gave him a lopsided grin. "You're the lawyer, sir. I'm the psychologist, remember?"
Skinner looked sheepish. "Well, what theory do you have to offer?"
Mulder closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. Then he looked directly at Skinner again. "Well, it could be exactly what you just said. Or . . . it could be Samantha and Jeremy, their spirits or souls or whatever you believe in, really did visit me. Because a bunch of other kids were suffering. And they had a 'connection' on this plane that they could communicate with-me. They'd . . . come to me before so they took a shot it would work again."
Skinner eyed him curiously, not certain what to say. He got up from his chair and walked around his desk, coming to stand right in front of the guest chair in which Mulder was sitting. He leaned back onto the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Which theory do you believe?" he asked finally, very softly.
Mulder gave him a weary, half-smile. "I know what I want to believe," he said.
Skinner felt his eyes mist up and he nodded his head silently, accepting the full import of what Mulder was saying. He reached out a hand and laid it on the younger man's shoulder, then squeezed gently. "I
want to believe too," was all he said.
Canastelli's Ristorante
Washington, DC
The following Saturday night
The large party at the big, round table in the back looked to be having a grand old time. They couldn't really be described as raucous but one wave of good-natured laughter followed another as the crowd worked their way through a post-concert meal. At just before midnight, they were finishing up a few shared desserts and coffee, and waiting for after-dinner drinks to be served.
They appeared to be five couples. Three of the men were brothers, as anyone could tell in a brief glimpse. Two others didn't seem to be related and yet the easy way they talked and laughed with one another said something else. You would never guess the five, physically very different women were related at all. But they too were at ease in each other's presence and good-natured about the ongoing teasing that seemed to flow back and forth and around the group.
"Well, I'm glad we finally got the whole crowd together," Joe Skinner said, leaning back in his chair as the waiter placed a small glass of honey vodka in front of him. Joe's eyebrows lifted as the familiar aroma hit his nostrils.
His oldest brother noticed his reaction immediately. "I gave Gino Canastelli a bottle of Dad's home-made honey vodka," Walter told him conspiratorially. "I told him it's a traditional end for a meal in our family."
"And Gino is nothing if not the best host in the world," Andy Skinner chimed in from the other side of the table. His wife Eileen smiled beside him.
"How many times have you met Gino anyway?" she asked him.
"I've been here lots of times with Walter," Andy protested good-naturedly. "And Mulder. And now I come here with business associates regularly."
"Well how come our 'business lunches' always take place at McDonald?" Eileen asked him, giving him a look of mock annoyance.
Andy chuckled. He and his wife had been working partners when they met and she continued to be his best confidant and counsel when it came to his work in internet security. "Because we always have three kids to feed during our business lunches," he said. Then he leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, to make sure she didn't hold a grudge. Which she didn't.
"And besides, a Happy Meal is Andy's idea of the perfect food," Fox Mulder added. It gained him a momentary glare from Andy but the youngest Skinner brother couldn't keep up the pretense. He laughed along with the rest of the table.
"I want to offer a toast," Walter Skinner Jr. said as he lifted his glass. The entire group had been served now and it was time. "Here's to the best family a guy could have. It's great you could all make it for the weekend. Jean and Oliver, where does the time go? Your kids are both grown now so I expect to see you here more often. Joe and Nora, I know you've still got two at home but you can always bring them with you, you know! We've got plenty of room here, with my place. Andy's. Fox's . . ."
"Ah, you may live to regret an invitation like that," Joe answered warmly.
"I'll never regret it," Walter replied quickly. "Andy's got plenty of room . . . !"
The laughter died down a moment later and he turned to his youngest brother and sister-in-law. "Andy and Eileen, I never realized how much we missed seeing you when you were in Chicago. It's great to have you nearby again."
"And Fox. I can't put my finger on it but you're as much a part of this family now as anyone. I-" he faltered a moment. "I wanted to say that, tonight."
Mulder's eyes had filled with tears and he looked down at his hands, afraid to let the others see how much that meant to him. To have Skinner say it, here, publicly, with his family. He couldn't see it, but beside him Dana Scully glowed. She reached out a hand and laid it on one of his in a gesture of support that made him tear up once more.
"And to Fiona and Dana, you're welcome additions to the table. And the family Even if you just balance off Andy and Fox's corny humor, you'll always be very welcome!"
Beside him a back under control Mulder leaned back in his chair and flung one arm casually over the back of the chair beside him, the one in which Scully was sitting. He laughed at the jibe and exchanged a knowing glance with Andy Skinner at the other end of the table.
"We'll get you for that on the golf course tomorrow," Andy said, attempting to sound threatening.
"Oh, yeah," Mulder echoed the sentiment.
"In your dreams," Skinner responded with a big smile. He lifted his glass a little higher and finished his toast. "All I can say is. . . it doesn't get any better than this."
"Hear, hear," the people around the table responded as they tossed the warm, sweet vodka back into their throats and slammed their empty glasses back onto the table.
Fox Mulder caught Skinner looking right at him as he opened his eyes after downing the fiery brew. "No, sir," he said softly, letting the chatter that had resumed around the table cover his words. "It doesn't get any better than this."
THE END