Title: Look Back In Anger
Author: White Star 2 (hila-p@barak-online.net)
Rating: PG
Classification: SA
Distribution: Just ask.
Spoilers: DeadAlive, and sorta my interpretation of Existence
Keywords: Post-ep
Summary: Short on time and pressured by Krycek, Skinner makes
the wrong decision.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I just borrow and torture.
Author's Note: Maybe after Three Words this'll seem wrong to
some people. But, you know, I think that under the right
circumstances, Doggett and Mulder would've treated each other
with a little more respect than two male kangaroos fighting over
a mate.
Later Author's Note: This was written back in... June, I think.
Or maybe even before. It's so long ago I don't even remember. I
found it about a week ago, and finally decided to post it,
despite the fact it's so old. Anyway, here it is.
* * *
Skinner turned into the room knowing exactly what he was going
to see. Or, at least, exactly what he expected to see. Mulder,
hanging on to life by a thread. But that wasn't the only thing
he saw.
"It's hard to believe, isn't it," Krycek said, calm as ever.
Skinner could do nothing but resist the urge to punch him out.
"That Mulder could ever possibly get out of that bed?"
"I need the vaccine, Alex." It was half an order, half a plea.
It was hard to accept that he needed a favor from Krycek. But he
had to do it, for Mulder's sake.
"Yeah. Time is wastin'."
He wanted something. Skinner was sure of it from the start. It
was just a matter of what. Krycek held his life in his hand. Now
he wanted his soul, too. "What do I have to do?"
Krycek stepped closer. "Simple, really." Instead of comforting,
the words only tightened the knot in Skinner's stomach. Krycek
was never to be trusted. "Make sure Scully doesn't come to
term."
"You're out of your mind."
"She can't have that baby."
Skinner didn't dare ask why. He didn't know what it was about
Scully's baby that made Krycek and his employer of the month
feel so threatened. First there was that whole misadventure
three months ago and now this. Before his lips could move to
form the word "no," that resonated so loudly in his head, Krycek
said, "I'll let you think about it."
At the door he stopped and said, "Time's a wastin', Walter."
* * *
"Agent Mulder?" Doggett asked, surprised when he opened the door
to the X-Files office. "What are you doing here?"
"Same thing you are."
"Weren't you supposed to be resting?"
"Probably." He shrugged. "But I don't really have time for that
right now." Doggett shrugged off the annoyed response. He
couldn't really blame Mulder. Waking up to his face must have
been quite a trauma, he chuckled inwardly. And having to hear
about everything that's happened in the last six months,
especially about everything that had happened to Scully, from
him... Doggett didn't blame Mulder for looking like he wanted to
slug him.
"Did you find anything else at the crime scene?"
Doggett took a sip from his coffee. "Nothing," he said finally.
"No fingerprints there but Skinner's. Nothing to indicate there
was anyone there but the two of them, plus the man that found
her there."
"What about him? We should look into that."
"Agent Mulder," Doggett put the styrofoam cup down on the desk
that, he assumed, would now be shared by the three of them. "I
know it's hard to accept, but in light of the evidence we do
have, I think we need to focus on A.D. Skinner's motive."
Inwardly, he sighed. He didn't want to blame the assistant
director, either. Skinner was a good man. Doggett thought he'd
gotten to know him over the past six months. But the evidence
chain lead to him. There was no one else present at the scene.
There was nothing to point at anyone else. And no one had been
able to reach Skinner for almost 31 hours.
"Skinner would never do that to Scully," Mulder said firmly.
"Yes, well, somehow I doubt that she rolled herself down that
stairwell."
Mulder went silent for a moment. Then he said decisively, "I
want whatever information they can scrape on the man that found
her."
"This is not our case," Doggett said. "It's still officially run
by the local PD."
Mulder picked up the handset of the black office phone. "Yeah,
well," he said while dialing, "They can consider this a favor."
* * *
"... And he said there was a woman that fell down the emergency
stairs and she needed help," Doggett heard the asian nurse tell
Mulder the exact same thing she'd told the police 33 hours
before, with the exact same clinical detachment that can be
found only in a hospital. "I told him to stay here, that the
police may want to talk to him, and went to check the stairs.
When I got back here, he was gone. No one saw him leave."
"Can you describe him for us, please?" She nodded.
"Agent Mulder, can I talk to you for a moment?" Doggett
whispered. The composite artist flipped his drawing pad open.
Mulder allowed himself a smile. "As long as you weren't sent by
Dr. Carber to convince me to readmit myself for observation."
"Naw," Doggett smiled back, "Though I can't say I disagree with
her."
Mulder's face turned serious again. "Excuse me," he said
apologetically to the nurse. He followed Doggett down the hall a
few yards, just far enough to be out of earshot of anyone. "What
is it?"
"I had a little hunch," Doggett began. He endured a
less-than-friendly glare from Mulder and continued. "Scully was
pushed and Skinner disappeared right about the same time that
the vaccine appeared in your hospital room."
"You think there's a connection?"
Doggett replied with a sharp nod of the head and continued. "I
lifted prints from the vile the vaccine was in. Wasn't easy.
Whoever handled it was very careful. I got two completes and one
partial. I'm guessing they won't check out in the database, but
they did match--"
"The prints you found at the scene," Mulder cut him off. "Same
guy."
Doggett leaned over the artist's shoulder and, along with
Mulder, examined the unfinished drawing. "Anyone you know?"
"Alex Krycek," Mulder hissed. He drove his palm into the side of
the reception counter with an agonizing thud. He covered his
face, scarred and long-since-shaven, with both hands, then
pulled his hands up into his hair.
Doggett was *not* going to be the one say something to him about
taking a day off.
"What's this guy's interest in you?" Doggett asked. Mulder
finally raised his gaze from the floor. He shook his head.
Doggett frowned, straining his memory. "I saw him walk out of
your room. I passed him in the hall. Skinner was pretty out of
it after that."
"What would Krycek want with Skinner?"
"To give him the vaccine, maybe," Doggett suggested.
Mulder nodded slowly. Doggett could see the wheels turning
inside that head. A little rusty, perhaps, after six months, but
still in working order. "Krycek must have offered him a deal,"
Mulder said. Doggett wasn't completely surprised. "My life for
Scully's."
"Why Scully?"
"They've tried to kill her before. They think it'll stop me."
"Who's 'they'?" Doggett asked, hoping for any answer but "The
aliens."
"*They*," Mulder let the word roll off his tongue, "Were a group
operating outside our government to manipulate the American
people and conceal a global conspiracy of alien colonization."
Even though he'd read this before in the X-Files, Doggett found
it hard not to laugh. At first he'd found it hard to believe
that Scully could call herself skeptical, but compared to this
guy, she was a regular Dietrich. "But it doesn't make sense,"
Mulder said out of the blue, interrupting Doggett's line of
thought. "They've been dead for almost two years."
Oh. *That* 'them'.
"But if this man Krycek worked for them, maybe now he's just
trying to look out for their interests even after the group is
gone."
"No, Krycek isn't loyal enough to do that. He looks out for
himself or for whoever pays him at the moment." He paused. "So
we need to find out who pays him."
He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket and dialed. "Frohike?
I know this isn't a secure line. I'm sorry. No, I just need you
to look something up for me. I need to know who has Alex Krycek
on their payroll. Other aliases? Try Artzen. Yeah. Try the
Russians, if you can. A Comrade Alex Artzen. No, I'm not crazy.
I'm just concerned for Scully. I know you are, too." There was
silence on both sides of the line. "Let me know as soon as you
have something," Mulder said finally.
He replaced the phone in his pocket and closed his eyes. To
Doggett, it looked like he was trying his best not to smash some
nearby inanimate object.
"Maybe it wasn't Scully Krycek was after," Doggett offered. Just
a thought. It couldn't hurt. "Maybe it was her baby."
"Why would they want to kill her baby?"
Doggett knew he should mention the possibility Scully herself
had been so worried about. He pursed his lips and convinced
himself that he had to say it even though it was contrary to
everything he believed. "Because of the possibility that it
isn't human."
Mulder stopped. He seemed to be considering the possibility
before accepting it. Doggett was starting to get curious as to
whether or not Mulder will accept that as plausible enough to
warrant investigation. Unfortunately for his curiosity, a woman
in a white lab coat grabbed their attention with a soft "Excuse
me".
"Are you Agent Mulder?" she asked him. He nodded. "She's coming
around."
* * *
When she finally woke up, she had a tube down her throat. She
was dimly aware of sounds and sensations around her. Voices were
mumbling around her. Her feet were bare and cold. Her throat was
dry. And everything else was suspiciously numb. She guessed it
was painkillers.
She waited, counting breaths, counting heartbeats. But she
couldn't feel the baby move. She couldn't feel the baby at all.
She panicked. She blamed it on the painkillers. She convinced
herself that until she got her eyes open, she couldn't know what
was going on.
When she finally forced her eyes half open, she realized that
she was in a neckbrace and her only possible field of vision
included a hospital room ceiling and a bit of wall. She let her
eyelids drop.
After what seemed like an eternity later, her fingers recoiled,
an reflex reaction to a touch on her hand. It was warm and
gentle, and quite a welcome change from the dull aches she could
feel through the numbness.
Opening her eyes was slightly easier this time. They went from
half-shut to wide open with joy and wonder the moment she saw
who it was. She held back the tears because she knew that they'd
serve for nothing more than blur her vision and convince her
that the man standing above her was nothing but a
morphine-induced hallucination. She tried to smile, but the tube
made it both difficult and awkward.
He smiled down at her, and she could see tears welling up behind
his eyes, too. She wanted more than anything to tell him how
much she's missed him or how overjoyed she was. She squeezed his
hand, the only form of communication she could manage with all
the hospital equipment. But he just looked down at her and
suddenly she noticed a moroseness in his smile.
And suddenly she felt pain - real, piercing pain - through the
wall of numbness in her abdomen. She panicked again. She tried
to lift her head but that did nothing more than send a stabbing
pain down her spine.
She felt the traces of joy slowly melt away from her face. With
effort greater than she could have imagined, she raised her hand
to her stomach. It was sore. It was tender. It was flat.
She raised pleading eyes at Mulder. She had him back now. It
couldn't have been an exchange like Skinner had said...
Mulder shook his head with an anguished look. She couldn't stop
the tears any longer.
She felt... she wasn't sure what she felt. It wasn't really a
loss. It as an emptiness and disappointment, like something
she'd worked hard at didn't pan out. It's the drugs, she told
herself. She would be feeling much, much worse later.
Somehow that was comforting.
There was a ring. A phone ringing. "Yes?" Doggett's familiar
voice said outside her field of vision. Then a long moment
later, "I see." She shut her eyes. "Are you absolutely positive
it's A.D. Skinner?" Another pause. "I see. Of course. We'll be
there. Come on, Agent Mulder."
Mulder squeezed her hand, a silent goodbye. Then he let go. She
heard his voice, further away now, ask, "Who was that?"
"The Baltimore county morgue."
She let herself slip into unconsciousness.
* * *
"Mulder, can you get down here?" Langley asked. Byers listened
with another handset, one not tapped and scrambled.
"This isn't really a good time, boys," Mulder replied. While,
honestly, all three of them were very eager to see him, (seeing
is believing, right?) this was also not the line to talk about
this over.
"We found something you're going to want to see," he pitched in.
"But--"
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'll be there."
And he hung up. Byers replaced the handset.
"What's the matter with him?" Langley asked, still glowing from
the ecstasy of having successfully hacked into Pentagon files.
"I don't blame him for feeling crappy," Frohike chimed in from
his fortress of unboxed computers. His hand, waving about a
screw driver, dived back down to work.
Langley rescrolled through the files grinning. Byers occupied
himself with editing this week's publication until Mulder
arrived.
After an attempt at a joyous reunion, which Mulder didn't seem
at all in the mood for, Langley got to the point. "Here," he
picked a stack of papers off the printer and handed them to
Mulder.
"Personnel files?" Mulder said, disappointed. "You rushed me
down here for personnel files."
"Yeah," Langley replied sarcastically. "It was just a SMOP to
hack the Pentagon. You don't have to thank me."
"These files are a chain of evidence," Byers tried to explain.
"Smop?" Mulder asked.
"Simple matter of programming," Frohike said.
"Six months ago," Byers continued, hoping to go on
uninterrupted, "One Mr. Artzen applied for a job with the CIA."
"Krycek?" Mulder asked.
"The picture in the file would suggest so. Mr. Artzen was
promoted quickly, reasons not stated, and became Mr. Tom Azner,
and later Joe Alper, who no longer holds a job at the CIA and
receives his salary from the Great Shrub himself."
"What we can't figure out," Langley interjected, "Is what the
President's office has against Scully."
"No," Mulder said, "I think the question is what the CIA has
against Scully's baby." Byers, along with Langley and Frohike,
gave him a questioning look. "You have an address on his Joe
Alper?"
* * *
"Joe Alper?" Doggett pounded on the old building's door. It
seemed to Mulder like it could collapse under his bare fists.
"Open up!" Mulder noted that, no matter how many years Doggett's
been with the Bureau, the man still thought like a New York cop.
Maybe it was good for violent crimes, but not the X-Files. "Open
up! This is the FBI!"
"I guess he's not in," Mulder said. "Step back." He shifted his
balance to his right foot.
Doggett realized what he was going to do right away. "You
shouldn't do that, Agent Mulder."
"You think we'd get probable cause?" Mulder asked. Standing
longer than he'd intended in this position, he was starting to
feel much like a stork.
"Probably not," Doggett replied with the naive sense that he'd
convinced Mulder to do or not do something.
"Too bad," Mulder replied and kicked the door in.
It took them less than thirty seconds to see that there was no
one in any of the four small rooms of the apartment. Mulder, so
curious he couldn't help himself, dived straight for the
contents of the work desk bare handed.
There was nothing there. Nothing of importance, at least. Some
documents with a White House header, army intelligence, that
day's press releases, a transcript of what was said in the press
room, and a White House paperweight. He slipped the last into
his pocket. Krycek could get another one any time he wanted.
"Hey, Mulder!" Doggett called from inside the bedroom. Mulder
poked his head in to see he shorter man in latex gloves and
holding something pink and lacy. Doggett smiled. "His?"
Mulder smiled. "Did you find anything?"
"Well, his bathroom's a mess. Other than that, no. You?"
"Nothing in his desk."
Doggett nodded again, slowly and confidently. Suddenly, his head
perked and his eyes focused on something behind Mulder's head.
Mulder turned around, looking for what caught Doggett's
attention. He couldn't find it.
Doggett stepped over to the dresser, and from under a shirt
pulled out a thick black book. He passed it to Mulder. Mulder
looked at the blank covers, then opened it at one of the
bookmarks. "'Chapter twelve: Extraterrestrial Genetics and
Creating Hybrids'... that son of a bitch."
"Let's get out of here, Agent Mulder. We haven't found anything
that will let us arrest this guy."
"You don't understand," Mulder spat an agitated reply and kept
flipping through the book. "Men like Alex Krycek can't be
brought to justice. They're above the system."
"Then what are we doing here?"
"Trying to understand why."
"Trying to find the truth?"
"Yes."
* * *
The nurse told her that in just a few minutes they'll be taking
the tube out of her throat. She would have sighed in relief if
she could have. Now all she wanted was the permission to sit
upright and stop counting tiles on the ceiling.
And the removal of the tube would grant her the ability to
speak. And ask about her baby. Right now she just needed to
know, before she could begin to grieve for any kind of loss.
She closed her eyes and tried to pray. It was how she passed the
time since she woke up. She was distracted by another touch on
her hand, soft and gentle. She smiled. Mulder and Doggett were
back with answers.
She opened her eyes to realize she couldn't have been more
wrong.
"Long time no see, Agent Scully," Krycek said. In his voice
there was the slight air of gloating and she closed her eyes
again, hoping that he'd just go away. He didn't. "I hear you're
going to be okay. I'm glad."
She opened her eyes and gave him an angry look that, with the
addition of the hospital equipment, probably looked ridiculous.
Still, he seemed to see the hate burning in her eyes. He smiled.
On anyone but Alex Krycek it wouldn't have looked like a
malicious smile.
"I have to say," he almost managed to look concerned for a
moment, "That Skinner chose a method more," he paused and
touched the neckbrace, "Crude than I would have. But that was
his choice. He didn't have to take that deal."
Of course he had to, Scully told herself. Skinner couldn't have
let Mulder die. And she wouldn't have forgiven him. But then,
she couldn't forgive him now, either.
"Your baby was a miracle baby," Krycek said and got up. "It's
more important to the great scheme of things than you'll ever
know. That's why everyone, not just you, is better off this
way."
And he disappeared from her field of vision. The door of the
room opened and closed. Then it opened again and a doctor told
her to take a deep breath and try to relax so that they can
extubate her.
* * *
"You're Agent Mulder?" the medical examiner's eyes didn't leave
the book he was reading. Mulder went for his badge, but the ME
didn't wait for an answer. "You want to see the Scully baby?
This way." He raised a hitchhiker's thumb in the direction of
the door.
Mulder pushed the metal swinging doors gently and felt a chill
go down his spine. He told himself that it was because the
morgue was cold as a freezer. The ME strode past him toward the
wall of drawers and unlocked one of them.
He pulled it out only a foot, which was more than enough. The
body thing on the metal surface was tiny and dead. The sight of
the dead baby pinched his heart, and it hurt more, knowing it
was Scully's baby. He only had two days to get used to the
thought of her pregnant, and now to see this...
It was stitched all over, not too neatly, on lines Mulder
recognized from watching countless autopsies. "Can I have a copy
of the autopsy report?" Mulder asked. He could read it, then
decide whether or not to show it to Scully. He could decide
what, and how much, to tell her.
"I haven't had the time to type it up yet," he said. "What do
you want to know?"
Mulder brought his hand up to the back his neck and felt at the
small, vertical scar there, what must've seemed like a gesture
of embarrassment to the ME. He couldn't flat out ask if it
wasn't human. He had to walk the line on this one. "Was there
anything unusual about it?"
"Was that why you asked for a complete autopsy?" Mulder nodded.
"I did my best to look, but it's perfectly normal. Bloodwork and
everything. Genetics put aside, that is the healthiest baby I've
ever seen."
Rage welled up inside Mulder. He was going to kill Krycek. All
the talk of secrets and conspiracies, all those worries about an
alien baby had no basis to them. And he knew that. All he did
was try to make her miserable. And he succeeded.
"Then how did it die?" Mulder asked.
"A combination of two things. One is suffocation. It was
deprived of oxygenated blood through the umbilical chord after
the mother took the fall. The second is this," he pushed the
baby's left shoulder off the table and circled an area on the
back of its head with his finger. "This contusion right here was
probably caused by the fall."
"I see," Mulder said. "Is that all?"
"Yeah," the ME shrugged. "What did you expect? A genetic mutant?
Life isn't a science fiction movie, Mr. Mulder."
* * *
Mulder left Scully's hospital room. She was sleeping, or at
least pretending convincingly enough. She'd said nothing when he
told her. She hadn't cried at first. She'd just stared silently
at the ceiling, then turned her gaze away from him. He suspected
she'd wanted to turn away completely, to shut him out, but the
neckbrace prevented her from doing that.
He'd covered her hand with his. Her face had twisted into a
grimace, and tears started flowing. She had yanked her hand free
from under his and wiped at her tears. That was when he'd
decided to leave her to herself. She needed some time alone.
He glanced at his watch. More than enough time to go home and
change into a suit, then drive over to Arlington. He still had
Skinner's funeral to go to.
It was one of those days.
* * *
Author: White Star 2 (hila-p@barak-online.net)
Rating: PG
Classification: SA
Distribution: Just ask.
Spoilers: DeadAlive, and sorta my interpretation of Existence
Keywords: Post-ep
Summary: Short on time and pressured by Krycek, Skinner makes
the wrong decision.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I just borrow and torture.
Author's Note: Maybe after Three Words this'll seem wrong to
some people. But, you know, I think that under the right
circumstances, Doggett and Mulder would've treated each other
with a little more respect than two male kangaroos fighting over
a mate.
Later Author's Note: This was written back in... June, I think.
Or maybe even before. It's so long ago I don't even remember. I
found it about a week ago, and finally decided to post it,
despite the fact it's so old. Anyway, here it is.
* * *
Skinner turned into the room knowing exactly what he was going
to see. Or, at least, exactly what he expected to see. Mulder,
hanging on to life by a thread. But that wasn't the only thing
he saw.
"It's hard to believe, isn't it," Krycek said, calm as ever.
Skinner could do nothing but resist the urge to punch him out.
"That Mulder could ever possibly get out of that bed?"
"I need the vaccine, Alex." It was half an order, half a plea.
It was hard to accept that he needed a favor from Krycek. But he
had to do it, for Mulder's sake.
"Yeah. Time is wastin'."
He wanted something. Skinner was sure of it from the start. It
was just a matter of what. Krycek held his life in his hand. Now
he wanted his soul, too. "What do I have to do?"
Krycek stepped closer. "Simple, really." Instead of comforting,
the words only tightened the knot in Skinner's stomach. Krycek
was never to be trusted. "Make sure Scully doesn't come to
term."
"You're out of your mind."
"She can't have that baby."
Skinner didn't dare ask why. He didn't know what it was about
Scully's baby that made Krycek and his employer of the month
feel so threatened. First there was that whole misadventure
three months ago and now this. Before his lips could move to
form the word "no," that resonated so loudly in his head, Krycek
said, "I'll let you think about it."
At the door he stopped and said, "Time's a wastin', Walter."
* * *
"Agent Mulder?" Doggett asked, surprised when he opened the door
to the X-Files office. "What are you doing here?"
"Same thing you are."
"Weren't you supposed to be resting?"
"Probably." He shrugged. "But I don't really have time for that
right now." Doggett shrugged off the annoyed response. He
couldn't really blame Mulder. Waking up to his face must have
been quite a trauma, he chuckled inwardly. And having to hear
about everything that's happened in the last six months,
especially about everything that had happened to Scully, from
him... Doggett didn't blame Mulder for looking like he wanted to
slug him.
"Did you find anything else at the crime scene?"
Doggett took a sip from his coffee. "Nothing," he said finally.
"No fingerprints there but Skinner's. Nothing to indicate there
was anyone there but the two of them, plus the man that found
her there."
"What about him? We should look into that."
"Agent Mulder," Doggett put the styrofoam cup down on the desk
that, he assumed, would now be shared by the three of them. "I
know it's hard to accept, but in light of the evidence we do
have, I think we need to focus on A.D. Skinner's motive."
Inwardly, he sighed. He didn't want to blame the assistant
director, either. Skinner was a good man. Doggett thought he'd
gotten to know him over the past six months. But the evidence
chain lead to him. There was no one else present at the scene.
There was nothing to point at anyone else. And no one had been
able to reach Skinner for almost 31 hours.
"Skinner would never do that to Scully," Mulder said firmly.
"Yes, well, somehow I doubt that she rolled herself down that
stairwell."
Mulder went silent for a moment. Then he said decisively, "I
want whatever information they can scrape on the man that found
her."
"This is not our case," Doggett said. "It's still officially run
by the local PD."
Mulder picked up the handset of the black office phone. "Yeah,
well," he said while dialing, "They can consider this a favor."
* * *
"... And he said there was a woman that fell down the emergency
stairs and she needed help," Doggett heard the asian nurse tell
Mulder the exact same thing she'd told the police 33 hours
before, with the exact same clinical detachment that can be
found only in a hospital. "I told him to stay here, that the
police may want to talk to him, and went to check the stairs.
When I got back here, he was gone. No one saw him leave."
"Can you describe him for us, please?" She nodded.
"Agent Mulder, can I talk to you for a moment?" Doggett
whispered. The composite artist flipped his drawing pad open.
Mulder allowed himself a smile. "As long as you weren't sent by
Dr. Carber to convince me to readmit myself for observation."
"Naw," Doggett smiled back, "Though I can't say I disagree with
her."
Mulder's face turned serious again. "Excuse me," he said
apologetically to the nurse. He followed Doggett down the hall a
few yards, just far enough to be out of earshot of anyone. "What
is it?"
"I had a little hunch," Doggett began. He endured a
less-than-friendly glare from Mulder and continued. "Scully was
pushed and Skinner disappeared right about the same time that
the vaccine appeared in your hospital room."
"You think there's a connection?"
Doggett replied with a sharp nod of the head and continued. "I
lifted prints from the vile the vaccine was in. Wasn't easy.
Whoever handled it was very careful. I got two completes and one
partial. I'm guessing they won't check out in the database, but
they did match--"
"The prints you found at the scene," Mulder cut him off. "Same
guy."
Doggett leaned over the artist's shoulder and, along with
Mulder, examined the unfinished drawing. "Anyone you know?"
"Alex Krycek," Mulder hissed. He drove his palm into the side of
the reception counter with an agonizing thud. He covered his
face, scarred and long-since-shaven, with both hands, then
pulled his hands up into his hair.
Doggett was *not* going to be the one say something to him about
taking a day off.
"What's this guy's interest in you?" Doggett asked. Mulder
finally raised his gaze from the floor. He shook his head.
Doggett frowned, straining his memory. "I saw him walk out of
your room. I passed him in the hall. Skinner was pretty out of
it after that."
"What would Krycek want with Skinner?"
"To give him the vaccine, maybe," Doggett suggested.
Mulder nodded slowly. Doggett could see the wheels turning
inside that head. A little rusty, perhaps, after six months, but
still in working order. "Krycek must have offered him a deal,"
Mulder said. Doggett wasn't completely surprised. "My life for
Scully's."
"Why Scully?"
"They've tried to kill her before. They think it'll stop me."
"Who's 'they'?" Doggett asked, hoping for any answer but "The
aliens."
"*They*," Mulder let the word roll off his tongue, "Were a group
operating outside our government to manipulate the American
people and conceal a global conspiracy of alien colonization."
Even though he'd read this before in the X-Files, Doggett found
it hard not to laugh. At first he'd found it hard to believe
that Scully could call herself skeptical, but compared to this
guy, she was a regular Dietrich. "But it doesn't make sense,"
Mulder said out of the blue, interrupting Doggett's line of
thought. "They've been dead for almost two years."
Oh. *That* 'them'.
"But if this man Krycek worked for them, maybe now he's just
trying to look out for their interests even after the group is
gone."
"No, Krycek isn't loyal enough to do that. He looks out for
himself or for whoever pays him at the moment." He paused. "So
we need to find out who pays him."
He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket and dialed. "Frohike?
I know this isn't a secure line. I'm sorry. No, I just need you
to look something up for me. I need to know who has Alex Krycek
on their payroll. Other aliases? Try Artzen. Yeah. Try the
Russians, if you can. A Comrade Alex Artzen. No, I'm not crazy.
I'm just concerned for Scully. I know you are, too." There was
silence on both sides of the line. "Let me know as soon as you
have something," Mulder said finally.
He replaced the phone in his pocket and closed his eyes. To
Doggett, it looked like he was trying his best not to smash some
nearby inanimate object.
"Maybe it wasn't Scully Krycek was after," Doggett offered. Just
a thought. It couldn't hurt. "Maybe it was her baby."
"Why would they want to kill her baby?"
Doggett knew he should mention the possibility Scully herself
had been so worried about. He pursed his lips and convinced
himself that he had to say it even though it was contrary to
everything he believed. "Because of the possibility that it
isn't human."
Mulder stopped. He seemed to be considering the possibility
before accepting it. Doggett was starting to get curious as to
whether or not Mulder will accept that as plausible enough to
warrant investigation. Unfortunately for his curiosity, a woman
in a white lab coat grabbed their attention with a soft "Excuse
me".
"Are you Agent Mulder?" she asked him. He nodded. "She's coming
around."
* * *
When she finally woke up, she had a tube down her throat. She
was dimly aware of sounds and sensations around her. Voices were
mumbling around her. Her feet were bare and cold. Her throat was
dry. And everything else was suspiciously numb. She guessed it
was painkillers.
She waited, counting breaths, counting heartbeats. But she
couldn't feel the baby move. She couldn't feel the baby at all.
She panicked. She blamed it on the painkillers. She convinced
herself that until she got her eyes open, she couldn't know what
was going on.
When she finally forced her eyes half open, she realized that
she was in a neckbrace and her only possible field of vision
included a hospital room ceiling and a bit of wall. She let her
eyelids drop.
After what seemed like an eternity later, her fingers recoiled,
an reflex reaction to a touch on her hand. It was warm and
gentle, and quite a welcome change from the dull aches she could
feel through the numbness.
Opening her eyes was slightly easier this time. They went from
half-shut to wide open with joy and wonder the moment she saw
who it was. She held back the tears because she knew that they'd
serve for nothing more than blur her vision and convince her
that the man standing above her was nothing but a
morphine-induced hallucination. She tried to smile, but the tube
made it both difficult and awkward.
He smiled down at her, and she could see tears welling up behind
his eyes, too. She wanted more than anything to tell him how
much she's missed him or how overjoyed she was. She squeezed his
hand, the only form of communication she could manage with all
the hospital equipment. But he just looked down at her and
suddenly she noticed a moroseness in his smile.
And suddenly she felt pain - real, piercing pain - through the
wall of numbness in her abdomen. She panicked again. She tried
to lift her head but that did nothing more than send a stabbing
pain down her spine.
She felt the traces of joy slowly melt away from her face. With
effort greater than she could have imagined, she raised her hand
to her stomach. It was sore. It was tender. It was flat.
She raised pleading eyes at Mulder. She had him back now. It
couldn't have been an exchange like Skinner had said...
Mulder shook his head with an anguished look. She couldn't stop
the tears any longer.
She felt... she wasn't sure what she felt. It wasn't really a
loss. It as an emptiness and disappointment, like something
she'd worked hard at didn't pan out. It's the drugs, she told
herself. She would be feeling much, much worse later.
Somehow that was comforting.
There was a ring. A phone ringing. "Yes?" Doggett's familiar
voice said outside her field of vision. Then a long moment
later, "I see." She shut her eyes. "Are you absolutely positive
it's A.D. Skinner?" Another pause. "I see. Of course. We'll be
there. Come on, Agent Mulder."
Mulder squeezed her hand, a silent goodbye. Then he let go. She
heard his voice, further away now, ask, "Who was that?"
"The Baltimore county morgue."
She let herself slip into unconsciousness.
* * *
"Mulder, can you get down here?" Langley asked. Byers listened
with another handset, one not tapped and scrambled.
"This isn't really a good time, boys," Mulder replied. While,
honestly, all three of them were very eager to see him, (seeing
is believing, right?) this was also not the line to talk about
this over.
"We found something you're going to want to see," he pitched in.
"But--"
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I'll be there."
And he hung up. Byers replaced the handset.
"What's the matter with him?" Langley asked, still glowing from
the ecstasy of having successfully hacked into Pentagon files.
"I don't blame him for feeling crappy," Frohike chimed in from
his fortress of unboxed computers. His hand, waving about a
screw driver, dived back down to work.
Langley rescrolled through the files grinning. Byers occupied
himself with editing this week's publication until Mulder
arrived.
After an attempt at a joyous reunion, which Mulder didn't seem
at all in the mood for, Langley got to the point. "Here," he
picked a stack of papers off the printer and handed them to
Mulder.
"Personnel files?" Mulder said, disappointed. "You rushed me
down here for personnel files."
"Yeah," Langley replied sarcastically. "It was just a SMOP to
hack the Pentagon. You don't have to thank me."
"These files are a chain of evidence," Byers tried to explain.
"Smop?" Mulder asked.
"Simple matter of programming," Frohike said.
"Six months ago," Byers continued, hoping to go on
uninterrupted, "One Mr. Artzen applied for a job with the CIA."
"Krycek?" Mulder asked.
"The picture in the file would suggest so. Mr. Artzen was
promoted quickly, reasons not stated, and became Mr. Tom Azner,
and later Joe Alper, who no longer holds a job at the CIA and
receives his salary from the Great Shrub himself."
"What we can't figure out," Langley interjected, "Is what the
President's office has against Scully."
"No," Mulder said, "I think the question is what the CIA has
against Scully's baby." Byers, along with Langley and Frohike,
gave him a questioning look. "You have an address on his Joe
Alper?"
* * *
"Joe Alper?" Doggett pounded on the old building's door. It
seemed to Mulder like it could collapse under his bare fists.
"Open up!" Mulder noted that, no matter how many years Doggett's
been with the Bureau, the man still thought like a New York cop.
Maybe it was good for violent crimes, but not the X-Files. "Open
up! This is the FBI!"
"I guess he's not in," Mulder said. "Step back." He shifted his
balance to his right foot.
Doggett realized what he was going to do right away. "You
shouldn't do that, Agent Mulder."
"You think we'd get probable cause?" Mulder asked. Standing
longer than he'd intended in this position, he was starting to
feel much like a stork.
"Probably not," Doggett replied with the naive sense that he'd
convinced Mulder to do or not do something.
"Too bad," Mulder replied and kicked the door in.
It took them less than thirty seconds to see that there was no
one in any of the four small rooms of the apartment. Mulder, so
curious he couldn't help himself, dived straight for the
contents of the work desk bare handed.
There was nothing there. Nothing of importance, at least. Some
documents with a White House header, army intelligence, that
day's press releases, a transcript of what was said in the press
room, and a White House paperweight. He slipped the last into
his pocket. Krycek could get another one any time he wanted.
"Hey, Mulder!" Doggett called from inside the bedroom. Mulder
poked his head in to see he shorter man in latex gloves and
holding something pink and lacy. Doggett smiled. "His?"
Mulder smiled. "Did you find anything?"
"Well, his bathroom's a mess. Other than that, no. You?"
"Nothing in his desk."
Doggett nodded again, slowly and confidently. Suddenly, his head
perked and his eyes focused on something behind Mulder's head.
Mulder turned around, looking for what caught Doggett's
attention. He couldn't find it.
Doggett stepped over to the dresser, and from under a shirt
pulled out a thick black book. He passed it to Mulder. Mulder
looked at the blank covers, then opened it at one of the
bookmarks. "'Chapter twelve: Extraterrestrial Genetics and
Creating Hybrids'... that son of a bitch."
"Let's get out of here, Agent Mulder. We haven't found anything
that will let us arrest this guy."
"You don't understand," Mulder spat an agitated reply and kept
flipping through the book. "Men like Alex Krycek can't be
brought to justice. They're above the system."
"Then what are we doing here?"
"Trying to understand why."
"Trying to find the truth?"
"Yes."
* * *
The nurse told her that in just a few minutes they'll be taking
the tube out of her throat. She would have sighed in relief if
she could have. Now all she wanted was the permission to sit
upright and stop counting tiles on the ceiling.
And the removal of the tube would grant her the ability to
speak. And ask about her baby. Right now she just needed to
know, before she could begin to grieve for any kind of loss.
She closed her eyes and tried to pray. It was how she passed the
time since she woke up. She was distracted by another touch on
her hand, soft and gentle. She smiled. Mulder and Doggett were
back with answers.
She opened her eyes to realize she couldn't have been more
wrong.
"Long time no see, Agent Scully," Krycek said. In his voice
there was the slight air of gloating and she closed her eyes
again, hoping that he'd just go away. He didn't. "I hear you're
going to be okay. I'm glad."
She opened her eyes and gave him an angry look that, with the
addition of the hospital equipment, probably looked ridiculous.
Still, he seemed to see the hate burning in her eyes. He smiled.
On anyone but Alex Krycek it wouldn't have looked like a
malicious smile.
"I have to say," he almost managed to look concerned for a
moment, "That Skinner chose a method more," he paused and
touched the neckbrace, "Crude than I would have. But that was
his choice. He didn't have to take that deal."
Of course he had to, Scully told herself. Skinner couldn't have
let Mulder die. And she wouldn't have forgiven him. But then,
she couldn't forgive him now, either.
"Your baby was a miracle baby," Krycek said and got up. "It's
more important to the great scheme of things than you'll ever
know. That's why everyone, not just you, is better off this
way."
And he disappeared from her field of vision. The door of the
room opened and closed. Then it opened again and a doctor told
her to take a deep breath and try to relax so that they can
extubate her.
* * *
"You're Agent Mulder?" the medical examiner's eyes didn't leave
the book he was reading. Mulder went for his badge, but the ME
didn't wait for an answer. "You want to see the Scully baby?
This way." He raised a hitchhiker's thumb in the direction of
the door.
Mulder pushed the metal swinging doors gently and felt a chill
go down his spine. He told himself that it was because the
morgue was cold as a freezer. The ME strode past him toward the
wall of drawers and unlocked one of them.
He pulled it out only a foot, which was more than enough. The
body thing on the metal surface was tiny and dead. The sight of
the dead baby pinched his heart, and it hurt more, knowing it
was Scully's baby. He only had two days to get used to the
thought of her pregnant, and now to see this...
It was stitched all over, not too neatly, on lines Mulder
recognized from watching countless autopsies. "Can I have a copy
of the autopsy report?" Mulder asked. He could read it, then
decide whether or not to show it to Scully. He could decide
what, and how much, to tell her.
"I haven't had the time to type it up yet," he said. "What do
you want to know?"
Mulder brought his hand up to the back his neck and felt at the
small, vertical scar there, what must've seemed like a gesture
of embarrassment to the ME. He couldn't flat out ask if it
wasn't human. He had to walk the line on this one. "Was there
anything unusual about it?"
"Was that why you asked for a complete autopsy?" Mulder nodded.
"I did my best to look, but it's perfectly normal. Bloodwork and
everything. Genetics put aside, that is the healthiest baby I've
ever seen."
Rage welled up inside Mulder. He was going to kill Krycek. All
the talk of secrets and conspiracies, all those worries about an
alien baby had no basis to them. And he knew that. All he did
was try to make her miserable. And he succeeded.
"Then how did it die?" Mulder asked.
"A combination of two things. One is suffocation. It was
deprived of oxygenated blood through the umbilical chord after
the mother took the fall. The second is this," he pushed the
baby's left shoulder off the table and circled an area on the
back of its head with his finger. "This contusion right here was
probably caused by the fall."
"I see," Mulder said. "Is that all?"
"Yeah," the ME shrugged. "What did you expect? A genetic mutant?
Life isn't a science fiction movie, Mr. Mulder."
* * *
Mulder left Scully's hospital room. She was sleeping, or at
least pretending convincingly enough. She'd said nothing when he
told her. She hadn't cried at first. She'd just stared silently
at the ceiling, then turned her gaze away from him. He suspected
she'd wanted to turn away completely, to shut him out, but the
neckbrace prevented her from doing that.
He'd covered her hand with his. Her face had twisted into a
grimace, and tears started flowing. She had yanked her hand free
from under his and wiped at her tears. That was when he'd
decided to leave her to herself. She needed some time alone.
He glanced at his watch. More than enough time to go home and
change into a suit, then drive over to Arlington. He still had
Skinner's funeral to go to.
It was one of those days.
* * *