Title: What Happens In the Field

Name: Branwell

E-Mail: COMBS-BACHMANN@WORLDNET.ATT.NET

Date Finished: August 2001

Rating: R, for obscene language and violence

Category: X, A, Skinner POV
X-Files story, Angst, Skinner POV

Spoilers: Through the Season 8 finale "Existence"

Archiving permission: Anyone may archive this. Just keep my
name with it.

Disclaimer: Chris Carter, Mitch Pileggi and Ten Thirteen
productions created and own the characters you recognize. My
writing is for fun, not profit.

Setting and Summary: In Season 8, during the events of
"Existence," Skinner approaches a boundary.

Thanks: I owe thanks to Deep Background and CarriK's scripts. I
also thank bugs for friendship and beta assistance, and for the
beautiful website she created for my stories. See the URL below.

http://underthewing.com/branwell/

------------------------------------------------

Mulder has no sense of self-preservation.

He reminds Skinner of the lieutenant who punished his men for
being noisy on patrol. He thought they should be eager to
surprise the Viet Cong. That asshole. A live rat got trapped in his
rucksack. He had to be sent out of country for the whole series of
rabies shots.

Skinner should have put a rat in Mulder's briefcase a long time
ago. Instead he sits and stares at the video grab of Billy Miles,
while he braces himself for more chaos.

Mulder looms over Skinner's desk while Doggett protests. "His
body was taken to the morgue in a little box, for God's sake."

"Like I told you. You can't stop him," Krycek whines from the
couch.

Hanoi Hannah couldn't have said it better. "You can't win, GI
Joe. You can't win."

Skinner gets out from behind his desk. His office is big, but it
feels cramped with three of them milling around in it. He moves
carefully to avoid bumping into the flags standing against the
wall. He holds himself stiff, as though he were armored, to keep
from lashing out and crushing Krycek's windpipe.

Skinner tosses the picture of Billy at Krycek's lap and glares at
him. Yeah, that's going to impress him.

"I told you -- he's a human replacement. Some new kind of alien
created to aid in the repopulation of the planet," Krycek says.

"Which Scully is a threat to," Mulder pursues.

Mulder should know better. The last time Skinner listened to
Krycek, he had to go back and tell Scully her partner had been
abducted.

"If she has that baby," comes the veiled threat.

"Well, I don't care who he is, or what you think he's made of,
there's no way he's going to find her. No way." Doggett says with
desperate certainty.

Krycek trumps him unanswerably. "Well, maybe he's not, but
there are others out there just like him. And it's only a matter of
time before they will."

The pointless conversation ends with a knock on the door.
Doggett charges off, called to some meeting that's more
important than solving the resurrection of a human/hybrid alien
killer. After he leaves, Mulder asks for a key card to his old office
so he can make a private call to Langly. Skinner hands him the
card without asking any questions.

When Mulder hurries out, Skinner retreats behind his desk. He
watches Krycek lounge on the couch, taking genteel pulls on a
can of soda.

Krycek hasn't once flourished the device that controls the
nanocytes. Skinner assumes he has it in the pocket of his black
coat, which must be too warm in the stuffy office. Yet he seems
to be off guard. If Skinner jumped him, he might not get to it fast
enough. But then what? Could he make Krycek answer some
questions if he got serious?

He imagines Krycek twitching uncontrollably, spasming with
each painful electric shock, clay-gray under a glaze of sweat.
Skinner has to swallow hard to hold down the bitterness of his
last cup of coffee.

In a different country, he'd never asked when a chopper went up
with three prisoners and came down with none. Sometimes a
few men took a suspected VC sympathizer away from the camp,
out of sight. One of them would be carrying a field telephone with
extra wire attached. Someone else carried the generator. Later
they would turn up with new information about mine placements
and ambushes.

Other men were violating their consciences to save his unit's
collective ass. He didn't know what to do about it.

Skinner forces himself to look away from Krycek, focusing
instead on the framed flag that hangs on his wall.

"You must like flags," says Krycek. He jerks his head toward the
American and FBI flags that stand by Skinner's desk.

"You probably don't like flags much, do you Krycek?" Skinner
snarls back. "They're for people who know what law and loyalty
and honor mean."

Krycek tilts his head and assumes a thoughtful expression. "Did
you like flags when you helped me set up those videocams in
Mulder's office?"

Familiar waves of frustration and rage sweep over Skinner.
"What's your guiding principle, Krycek? Money? Evil for evil's
sake? Do you ever compromise for love or conscience?"

"You just won't admit it, Walter Sergei," Krycek answers with a
sly smile. "We're all trying to survive on a battlefield. Mulder and
Scully carry the colors and draw the heavy fire. You and I, we're
smarter. We know how to stay flexible. To give some ground for
a strategic advantage."

"You don't know anything about battlefields," Skinner replies. He
starts to twist around to look at the Marine corps motto behind
his desk. Then he remembers not to turn his back on Krycek.

"Shouldn't it say 'Interdum Fi'?" Krycek asks with round, innocent
eyes. He shifts on the couch, and then re-settles himself. "If the
FBI had gotten to Afghanistan, the way the CIA did, you and I
might have met back in the eighties. On a battlefield. You
wouldn't have recognized me. I was kind of naove." Krycek
smirks. "They called us 'worms' when we were just from a plane.
But I wasn't going to let some dukh send me home in a can. I
learned fast."

"Shut up," Skinner snaps. He sits with an intense frown and
pretends to study the file on Billy Miles. The memories he tries to
bury pop out of their crypts like opportunistic ghosts.

Skinner had never cared much for his middle name. At boot
camp on Parris Island, they tried to use it against him. Walter
Sergei became "Pussy Pinko" or "Ivan" to the drill instructors. It
didn't work. No matter how much shit they gave him, Skinner
flourished in boot camp.

Some men fell behind on three-mile runs with rifles and packs.
Skinner was one of those who could carry an extra pack to save
his platoon from discipline. His targets always got their third eye,
even when he'd lain on his belly in hot, red dust all day. He stood
unmoved when the DI screamed obscenities an inch from his
face. Keeping a neat, organized living space was no hardship for
him.

Skinner liked the structure. The absolute discipline gave him
absolute freedom from responsibility. "If the Marine Corps wants
you to think, you'll be issued a brain," the DI had told them on the
first day.

They never issued the brain, but the structure had begun to
decay from the moment they'd landed at Da Nang. In the
aftermath of a rocket attack, the airfield lay in confused
darkness. The new arrivals were herded into transports and
warned to check under their seats for grenades planted by
infiltrators. Those infiltrators might be Vietnamese women who
did laundry on base, or the men who sold very strong Pall Mall
cigarettes in the market. There was no sure way to tell an ally
from an enemy.

It took a day to straighten out his paperwork. At dawn on the
second day, Skinner stood in ranks for the regimental CO's
welcome. The officer studied the sweating lineup of grunts and
held up a copy of the "Landing Party Manual." "You've all studied
this manual," he drawled.

"Yes, Sir!" they answered, pleased for the first time to see the
familiar, hated book.

The CO seemed to ignore them while he tore out page after
page with slow, deliberate care. He let the torn papers flutter to
the ground into a trash heap at his feet. When nothing remained
between the covers he waved them in the air. "This is what
applies to Vietnam," he said. His wet, heat-reddened face
showed no sign of mockery or amusement.

Within the next few weeks, Skinner discovered that Marine
forces would be drawn down by almost half in the coming year,
and that no one believed the war could be won. He learned that
you didn't shoot a bad sniper even if you could, because he
might be replaced with a good one. That firefights could be so
intense that even Marines abandoned their dead.

It wasn't what he'd signed up for. Skinner found that he hated a
world without rules.

Mulder rushes in to return the key card, and tells Skinner he's
got a lead on Billy's trail from the morgue.

"See you later." Mulder nods a casual farewell to both Skinner
and his restless visitor.

Skinner is puzzled by the lack of rancor in Mulder's manner
toward his betrayer. It's all Skinner can do to restrain himself
from beating Krycek to death. He wonders if Mulder's attitude
would be different if Scully had been the tortured abductee. Then
he remembers when she was.

"Stay, and maybe I can answer some of your questions," Krycek
offers in a low, promising voice.

"Sorry. I don't think you've got anything we can use." Mulder
responds in almost cheerful tones, as he disappears out the
door.

After a few seconds of silence, there's a squeak of couch
springs. Krycek is getting up to stroll over to the door. He gives
Skinner an assessing glance.

"Sit down, Krycek."

Krycek drops his empty soda can into the trash, and sneaks a
look into the hall. Then he crosses the office to the opposite door
with noticeable speed.

Skinner jumps to his feet and follows him. "Hey! What'd I tell you!
Hey!"

While Krycek makes his exit, Billy Miles appears at the door, still
stalking the living with his thousand-yard stare. Skinner isn't sure
which he wants more -- to escape Billy Miles, or to catch Krycek.
He tears out the door in time to see him enter the elevator at the
end of the hall.

"Krycek! Krycek! Hold the door!"

The last thing Skinner remembers when he wakes up in the
hospital is the sight of Krycek's face between the closing elevator
doors. He has the same look of demented anticipation that
Skinner had seen on the face of that ten-year-old boy. The one
who walked into their camp wearing a harness of chicom
grenades. Skinner had thumbed the safety on his M16 to
automatic and blown the kid's head off in one reflexive
movement.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Waking in the Washington hospital is calm and orderly, like
waking up in the hospital at Saigon. He doesn't remember how
he got his head wound, but he's sharp enough to keep to himself
the part about being chased through the halls of the FBI by a
dead man.

His nurse, a dark, sullen-faced young woman named Rhee, tells
him that Agent Mulder had waited at the hospital for hours. He'd
made quite a nuisance of himself, Skinner gathers, with his
insistence on staying during medical procedures. She says he
stayed until the agent with the ears showed up. Then the two of
them went off, leaving Agent Harrison to guard his room.

Rhee rolls her eyes at Agent Harrison's failure to assert herself
when Skinner signs himself out Against Medical Advice. But
Skinner knows the way down this road. The doctor has to
protest, and Skinner has to override him. It's all a matter of rules
and procedure.

Skinner takes a taxi back to his office. The overhead lights make
his head hurt worse. He turns them off, choosing the softer glow
of his lamps. He means to scrutinize Billy Miles' file, but finds
himself studying the framed flag hanging on the wall.

The flag is the one that draped his father's coffin before they
lowered it into the ground fifteen years ago. His father had seen
action overseas in The Big One. The only stories he told were
raucous accounts of leave time taken in Paris, or frantic midnight
efforts to sneak various WACs back into their barracks
undetected. He never spoke of the Belgian Ardennes or the
November rains.

But then Skinner had never told his father about what happened
in the field. What happened in the field, stayed in the field. He'd
learned that early in his tour.

He'd never told Mulder either, even when Mulder was fighting to
save him from a murder conviction. Mulder trusted him when he
didn't trust himself, but he still doesn't know how to tell it. There's
no connection to the rest of his life. He remembers it like a movie
about someone else.

Skinner's uniform was saturated with sweat before he'd walked
twenty yards. He expected his brain to leak out of his ears like
melted wax. Sixty pounds of flak jacket, rifle, grenades,
magazines and canteens taxed even his young strength. In the
shade of the jungle canopy it was a hundred and three degrees.

On a different day they might have moved more slowly. But the
night before they'd lost Roosevelt, right in the center of camp, to
sniping from a free fire zone. They had a holy mission to waste
the gook that had killed him while he was drinking a cup of coffee
in the center of camp.

They'd dropped leaflets from helicopters days ago. Anyone who
was left in the village was a stupid motherfucker who deserved to
get shot.

Sky and Benny wrung the necks of a few scrawny chickens.
Tony shot a water buffalo. No one found a human being until
Skinner entered the biggest hooch. The tiny old woman who
squatted inside wore black pajamas. She sheltered a small bowl
of rice in twisted brown hands.

Skinner couldn't read the expression on her flat, seamed face.
He couldn't read the tilted dark eyes of anyone who lived in this
alien land.

"Where are you hiding the sniper?" he screamed at her. "The
VC. Oo aay VC?"

"No VC," she sing-songed back at him, bobbing her head
agreeably. "No VC," she repeated, while she reached one hand
out of sight behind a rolled up straw mat.

His shot took off the top of her head, spraying brains and blood
across the dirt floor. When he had walked carefully around the
body and the mat, he saw what she'd been reaching for. There
was a piece of yellow cloth with three red stripes behind the mat
-- the freedom flag of South Vietnam. Next to it was the red cloth
with a lone yellow star that she would have reached for when the
VC entered the village.

He'd made a mistake, but not one that would cost his life, or the
life of a fellow Marine. Skinner ducked out the door and lit a
small chunk of C4, tossing it onto the roof of the hooch. He
notified the lieutenant that the patrol could claim another VC KIA.

They ended up burning the whole village. The sniper had
probably fled before sunrise.

Skinner sits very still when a shadow moves past his door. He
doesn't speak until he recognizes Doggett picking up the phone
in the outer office. "Agent Doggett?"

The man jumps like a guilty intruder, but he questions Skinner's
presence instead of explaining his own.

"What are you doing here?" Doggett asks. He enters, shutting
the door behind him and narrowing his eyes against the lamps.

"They let me out of the hospital tonight. What are you doing
here?"

"I got Mulder down in the parking garage. Watching Alex
Krycek." Doggett turns his back on Skinner and picks up the
phone.

Skinner's head throbs with pain. "What the hell is Krycek doing
here?" he says.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Doggett answers. He's
intent on a voice Skinner can't hear. "He's here with Agent
Crane." There's a pause, and then he says "That's a damn good
question. He doesn't."

It's Skinner's own phone, dammit. He picks up the extension.

Mulder is in full paranoid flight, but who could blame him? His
leaps leave Doggett behind. "I don't understand. In on what?"

"Fooling us, Agent Doggett. Into chasing after Billy Miles. Into
believing that we could protect her."

Skinner is confused for a moment. Didn't Krycek say it wouldn't
do any good to protect Scully from Billy? Maybe Krycek betrayed
everybody.

Mulder goes on talking, so he has to stop thinking to listen. "Yes,
they know where she is."

"No, no, no. Only I know where she is," Doggett insists, serious
as a telegram.

Mulder exhales just loudly enough to be heard before he
explains. "You and Agent Reyes. You called her from a phone
inside the FBI, didn't you?"

Skinner interrupts the speculation with a fact. "There's no way
Crane can tap calls in here, Mulder. He'd have to have access to
the communications system."

"Skinner's here with me." Doggett jumps in to explain Skinner's
entry into the conversation before he's stopped speaking.

There's a moment of silence.

Mulder's voice is neutral. "Maybe this goes even higher. Listen to
me, I've got to get to Scully."

Skinner puts down the phone. He doesn't want to know where
Scully is. Nothing but evil could come of his having that
information. He needs to leave. And then he realizes what he
has to do. Skinner takes his gun out of his desk drawer and
pockets it.

The argument between Doggett and Mulder goes on. Suddenly
Doggett is shouting. "Mulder!"

"What level is he on?" Skinner asks. The pain in his head has
moved outside his skull. It refracts the light like a haze of smoke
in his eyes.

There's a moment of hesitation before Doggett says "2nd level,
east." Then he shouts "Mulder!" into the phone again.

The seven flights go by in a blur. When Skinner exits from the
east stairwell he forces himself to walk slowly, heel to toe.
There's an SUV and a pillar between him and the voices in the
corner. He gets close enough to make out the words without
being seen.

Krycek is breathing fast, as though he's stressed or aroused.
"You think I'm bad. That I'm a killer. We wanted the same thing,
brother. That's what you don't understand." He gestures
erratically with a gun as he talks.

Mulder doesn't seem to have a gun. He dismisses Krycek's
verbal foreplay. "I wanted to stop them. All you wanted was to
save your own ass." He moves toward Krycek with no hesitation.

Every indifferent movement screams justification to Skinner. He
had known Mulder couldn't kill Krycek to save his own life.
Skinner pulls his gun out and takes a broader stance.

"No. I tried to stop them. Tried to kill . . . Scully's baby to stop
them. It's too late. The tragedy's that you . . . you wouldn't let it
go. That's why I have to do this. 'Cause you know how deep it
goes. Right into the FBI." The gun shakes as much as his voice.

"You want to kill me, Alex, kill me. Like you killed my father. Just
don't insult me trying to make me understand." Mulder looks
down at Krycek like a Buddhist monk watching a mosquito feed
on his arm.

Perhaps Krycek doesn't like the demeaning insect role. Skinner
sees his finger tighten on the trigger. He watches the whole thing
from outside the hurting that shrouds him.

Krycek falls to the ground, trying to shield his bloody right arm
with his clumsy plastic limb. Then he's up, staggering, but his
stare at Skinner is a dare, as he rises and reaches for his
dropped gun. Krycek screams when the second bullet hits his
wounded arm. He falls again.

The immediate threat is neutralized.

Skinner tries to think through the agony of throbbing caused by
gunshots crashing off concrete. Blood soaks the black sleeve of
Krycek's jacket like purple ink. He keeps talking and talking, and
Skinner twitches with sensing a booby trap behind soft,
insinuating words.

"It's going to take more bullets than you can . . . ever fire to win
this game. But one bullet... and I can give you a thousand lives."
Skinner has seen Krycek's expression before, above a harness
of grenades, between two sliding steel doors. "Shoot Mulder,"
Krycek says.

Skinner is terrified of finding doubt in Mulder's eyes, but he can't
stop himself from looking. Mulder gazes back at him with the
same calm he's shown throughout the encounter. Skinner is
trying to interpret it when Krycek lurches to his feet in one
spasmodic movement, reaching and reaching for the gun.

There's another loud crack as Krycek receives his third eye.

The sound assaults Skinner from every direction. It squeezes the
pain back into his head. He stares at the hot-barreled gun in his
hand.

"I'm going to go to the airport. I need that location from Agent
Doggett," Mulder says. He stands at the open car door as though
he expects Skinner to do something. "Skinner, are you with me?"

"You just go. I'll get him," Skinner answers.

Mulder doesn't object. He starts the car and drives away, leaving
Skinner to consider his options.

The body lies there like any enemy KIA. Skinner could use a
chunk of C4, if he had any. But there are other ways. He knows
the rules well enough to know how to get around them. There's
an emergency phone in the elevator. He'll make up the report as
he walks back to it.

Everything happens in the field now. It has been for a long time.

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End of "What Happens in the Field"