Skinner's first Witness is Jeffery Spender, Smoking man's other son and Mulder's half brother. He walks into the courtroom and resolutely approaches the witness chair. His appearance is jarring, he is badly scarred, Kallenbrunner looks a little sick and Kersh actually looks down, a bit ashamed.

Spender turns to look at Mulder and Mulder nods his head at him appreciating he came, Spender nods back.

Skinner asks him to state his full name,

"Jeffrey Frank Spender."

Over the corse of Skinner's questions we get a sort of recap over the history around Mulder, the X-Files, CSM, government conspiracies, alien existence, and even Samantha.

Kallenbrunner stands his chair scraping behind him, "Objection. There's no government conspiracy that I've seen established here, this is about a murder." Kallenbrunner argues,

Kersh is quick to agree, "I don't see where this is going." He tells Skinner,

"If I can prove this conspiracy, it will justify Mulder's actions and you will have no choice but to acquit." Skinner explains,

Kersh raises one of his eyesbrows surprised this is the strategy Skinner is going with, "I hope this isn't the entire basis of your defence, Mr. Skinner." He says a bit tauntingly.

Skinner looks hesitant and glances over at Mulder to make sure he is comfortable with him going this direction. Mulder doesn't look worried and Skinner takes that as a sign and continues on turning back to Spender.

They go over how Spender and Mulder are related and also touch on how Cigarette Smoking Man ordered Alex Krycek to kill Mulder's father.

"Why did your father have Agent Mulder's Dad killed? Was is to silence him?"

At this Kallenbrunner starts looking concerned, he hadn't really expected there to be so much more to this than what was obvious, and finds himself getting a little nervous.

"Mulder's father lived his life in shame. Not for the conspiracy but for a terrible decision he made." Spender answers alluding to Samantha.

Skinner nods picking up on this, "Involving Agent Mulder's sister?"

Spender nods, "The aliens distrusted their human collaborators. Members of the conspiracy were made to surrender family members as human collateral."

"So, Mulder's father gave up Mulder's sister. His own eight-year-old daughter..." Skinner still found that hard to believe himself, he had seen first hand how much certain parents were willing to sacrifice for their children *Thinking of Scully*

"Mulder witnessed his sister being abducted by aliens. It haunted him to no end. It's why he pursued the X-Files." Spender explains.

"What became of her? Samantha?" Skinner asks.

"She was returned..." Spender replies disappearing into his thoughts briefly, "She was sent to California where we were raised together. She was taken many more times and suffered horrible tests."

A sad forlorn look comes over Mulder's face as he thinks about Samantha.

"Mulder spent years looking for her... several times thinking that he'd found her but he was tricked... Samantha was part of a cloning experiment done by the conspiracy. She herself died in 1987."

"By your own father's hand essentially." Skinner comments, letting his distaste for CSM show.

"When I went to work for the FBI, I didn't know of my father's crimes. and when I stood up to him, he shot me."

Spender looks down still feeling haunted by the horrific deeds of his father,

"When I didn't die he subjected me to the same horrible tests." Spender admits.

The witness is turned over to the prosecution for questioning,

Kallenbrunner steers the questioning to Spender's early case reports, he characterized Mulder as arrogant, a control freak widely disliked by his peers.

Spender tried to explain those were written before he knew the truth but Kallenbrunner had already managed to sow doubt.

"Tell me, during your time with the X-Files, did you ever work with an Agent Scully?" Kallenbrunner asks, Mulder sits up slightly worried not wanting her named dragged through the mud, momentarily forgetting none of this is on the record.

"Just on a couple cases, I was partnered with another agent." Spender answered.

"A Diana Fowley?"

"Yes."

"During the times you did work or interact with Agent Scully and Mulder, did you become aware they were lovers?"

Skinner stands up, "objection, what is the relevance of this?"

"The relevance?" Kallenbrunner asks, "The relevance is that it seems to me everyone Fox Mulder comes into contact with quickly becomes infected with his paranoia, following him and his crusade against, what... aliens? a secret government cabal? Is anyone keeping up with all of this? Isn't it far more likely that the one person that was brought in to help reign in Agent Mulder actually ended up being his undoing?"

"I'll allow the questioning to continue." Kersh instructs,

Reluctantly Skinner sits back down,

Kallenbrunner turns back to Spender, "Do you need me to repeat the question?"

"No, they always acted very professional with each other, I was unaware of any romantic elements to their relationship and just assumed they had a close bond due to their partnership."

"Why? Why would you assume that? I mean Diana Fowley, your own partner also used to have a close relationship with Mulder despite them being partners at the time, they even married, didn't they?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"So why when you knew Mulder's reputation of crossing the line with female coworkers did you assume there was nothing inappropriate happening between him and Agent Scully?"

"I don't know" Spender reluctantly replies.

"Could it be because Agent Scully had a bit of a reputation," He looks down in his notes, "Uh, Ice Queen, I believe was her nickname."

"Was there a question in there?" Spender asks.

"I'm just saying that Mulder was Scully's partner for wow, 8 years... and then she has a baby and poof he goes off the deep end, disappears only to be found months later breaking into a secure facility and killing a man, Isn't is possible that instead of all these conspiracies and super soldiers, aliens for crying out loud, that maybe it's just as simple as Mulder wanted his female partner, as he has in the past, but she refused him and he could live with that as long as she remained the ice queen and turned down everyone it wasn't personal, right? But then she had a baby and suddenly it is very personal, it's no wonder he snapped really. I mean he worked along side this woman for almost a decade, why wasn't she the first witness called? That's right, because she's not even here... No further questions."

Skinner knew calling out Dana's absence made them look bad, even if they could prove the child was Mulder's he was certain neither Fox or Dana would want James mentioned here among these men so regretfully he had to let Kallenbrunner's theory remain unchallenged.