The last time I wrote fanfics about the XFiles I didn't even know what a fanfic was, but obviously the 11th season has brought back many ideas and inspirations.
As shocked and upset as I was for the revelation in "My Struggle III", a part of me sees the potential story lines in that: and after "Ghouli" this little idea has not left my mind.
It was past midnight, and given the events of the past few days he had very little doubt as to who the person banging on his door might have been. It didn't make things any easier, being woken up in the middle of the night never was to begin with, and the time it took him to cover the distance between his bedroom and the door was not enough to figure out a proper strategy.
When he opened the door, Skinner was not surprised to see Mulder standing in the hallway, but he still was unsure about the reason of that late night visit. Which, if anything, helped him with the only approach he had had been able to come up with.
Play dumb.
"Agent Mulder, what are you doing here?" The first question was predictable, therefore easy. "Is there anything new about-"
"He's not my son, is he?" Mulder's voice was barely a level above whispering, but his sombre and serious face was screaming out loud. "Jackson, William…I am not his father."
Skinner felt a cold chill running underneath his skin, baffled by the simultaneous defeated and determined expression on his face. He had seen Mulder in hanger and fear, outraged and out control, desperate to get to the truth and blinded by the power of his quest; but he had never seen him afraid of what he might find at the end of the road.
Not until that night.
He gulped down a nervous lump in his throat, trying to make eye contact with Mulder and not at all reassured to see he was avoiding doing so. Then he carefully stepped aside and gestured him to move forward.
"Maybe you should come inside," he offered.
"Will you answer change if I do?"
It was a moment, a passing instant in which Skinner could see the agent willing to fight back whatever he thought he was about to face. It was hiding behind a touch of sarcasm, but it was thin a see-through barrier and it fell shortly afterwards, when Mulder stepped inside. Skinner closed the door and noticed Mulder only took a couple of steps inside his apartment, not taking off his coat. Whatever he was hoping, fearing or simply expecting to hear, he wasn't going to make himself comfortable. Perhaps because there was no way for that be anywhere near close to be as such.
Which meant it was better to cut to chase. Mulder looked like he had his mind made up already, standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm and only waiting for someone to give him the final shove.
"How do you know?"
Skinner felt like he was giving up as he uttered those words, but that was a battle he couldn't really win. And even if he had any doubts about it, they vanished when Mulder sunk his hands in the pockets of his coat and shrugged, helplessly, then leaning with his back on the wall.
"You've been tiptoeing around us since Scully's accident, stiffening up at the mere mention of William. And I could recognise the smell of those damn Morley from a mile." He glanced up at him quickly, taking in the way his superior winced with no reaction that Skinner could see. "The visions, the dreams…all the connections with William have come through Scully but not me, and his DNA only showed matches to hers. These past few days I have been a mere spectator of what was going on, and it had me wonder if I wasn't more clueless than what I thought. My good old paranoid instincts kicked in, and I am not exactly familiar with good things happening in my life." He shrugged again, in the deem light of his apartment Skinner caught a bitter sweet smile on Mulder's face and he thought that if the agent was trying to tough it up and act like he had come to terms with it he was doing an horrible job at that. "And now this Crossroads Project. It wouldn't be the first time for Scully to be the subject of invasive experimentation… It just all makes sense."
Skinner clenched his jaw, wondering if he was about to witness some serious meltdown from a man he had rarely seen not in control of his own emotions. Yet again, the few times he could recall such phenomenon had been about Scully, and to find out he had wrongly believed to be a father for an odd twenty years sure called for some degree of desperation.
"It makes sense, but it's a tough pill to swallow," Mulder spoke again, his voice less steady now that he wasn't listing cold facts and reasoning. "I figured you must have known something_"
"My…source, isn't what I'd call a reliable one," Skinner tried to offer, but Mulder scoffed.
"But you believe him," the agent pointed out.
Skinner could tell there was more behind those words, a statement rather than a question. The question itself was perhaps too hard to ask, no matter how much Mulder had come to terms with the painful revelation. For weeks the AD had been conflicted, torn apart by what he had learned and how, questioning the news and the source. In his mind there was no doubt that he had kept his mouth shut for their sake first of all, but now looking at Mulder slumped again the wall of his living room he could see how his own point of view was a difficult one to share.
Coming to his aide, or sort of, Mulder took a deep breath and straightened up against the wall, finding another way around the uneasy question.
"When you told me to let this go, to stop it…who where you protecting?" Skinner didn't want to give him the wrong idea, but the question left him puzzled enough to give Mulder an enquiring look. "Was it me, us, from the truth? Or was it your source?"
"Agent Mulder, there are many things I have done over the past years thinking I was protecting you and Scully that I couldn't help but question," he confessed, but he meant every bit of it. "I am not sure what this is, but given the circumstances I thought this was one to play to close to the chest until I'll know what is really going on."
Mulder took his time to process the answer, scanning through all the different layers of that convoluted response mixed with the years spent trying to place Skinner's allegiance to them. Then he nodded convincingly to himself and let out a long sigh. To Skinner's surprise, Mulder then stepped away from the wall and toward the door, ready to leave.
"Thank you," he muttered, but Skinner carefully stepped in the way.
"Are you going to tell Scully?"
It killed him to ask and he feared the answer, surprised when Mulder shook his head.
"These past few days…she has found and lost her son more than once, I can't do this to her now."
"Mulder I know this isn't easy, but perhaps you should think about it." Skinner could tell by the look on Mulder's face that his remark needed further explanations. "Those visions she had…a few weeks ago she was hell bent of finding William because she believed it was the only way to save your life. If you're not his father it changes everything-"
"For me maybe, but not for her." Mulder's simple and straightforward way to put it left Skinner somewhat unsettled, a concern that didn't get any better when he smiled bitterly. "He's still her son, nothing is going to change that."
With that said Mulder grabbed the handle and opened the door, stepping back in the hallway where the light made him look like he was 20 years older all of a sudden. Thoughtful, Skinner followed him shortly massaging his forehead, not sure he wanted him to go.
"Agent Mulder." Mulder turned around, looking tired like a man who had spent the past week of so chasing a truth he didn't want to find would look. "That poster in your office…I used to make fun of it, like everybody else. When we started to work closely and it began to piss me off, it was like a slap in the face for all the people like me who thought you had the talent to achieve great things in the Bureau." For a moment Skinner expected Mulder to roll his eyes, annoyed at hearing the old riff after so many years, but the agent didn't budge. "Then I got you know you, you and Scully, and I realised that poster was a statement for you, a declaration of intent. The FBI might have thought they'd hid you away in the basement but that was where you wanted to be, and you were going to own it. And since your abduction I discovered the true meaning of it, I started to share it." He looked down at his own feet for a moment, clearly gathering the courage for the last stretch before looking back up at him. "Some things though, some I really don't want to believe."
Mulder held his gaze for some long and silent seconds, processing his words and piling up on all the things he had been through over the past few days. Eventually, probably relying on the last bit of energy and self-control he had left, he nodded at Skinner with a reassuring look.
"Good for you sir," he said, and Skinner could feel how much he had wanted someone to say the same to him in that very moment. "Good for you."
As he watched Mulder walking away, his back now straight and his walk stead, Skinner felt confused. He had come to him crushed by a possible revelation, and somehow the feared confirmation had relieved him of that weight.
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