CHAPTER 6
He has seen this woman before. He knows what she does and that she is one of five people in this profession who work for the FBI. There are three women and two men, and this woman could possibly be The One. He hopes like hell she isn't. There are two other women; the odds have to be in his favour.
Christ, what if they are not?
What is he doing here to start with? Damn Skinner and his deals. Mulder would be better off under his coffee table, seizing all day long and suffering the accompanying headaches. Today, he has the usual headache, but he is filled with enough anxiety that he could lapse into a catatonic state without any help at all. He would swear this is terror. Not the kind he knows when dealing with monsters but the kind that comes with a phone call from someone saying, 'I've got some bad news or someone saying, Mulder, we have to talk. Or, Mulder, I have cancer. That kind of fear.
Even walking down this hallway was particularly difficult. He usually doesn't care about snickers or looks from the other; people have heard and made up their own stories for years. But this sight, him walking into this office –this would justify all of their stories.
She looks at him but doesn't give anything away. She is good. She might know his underwear colour, she might not. But that file on her lap is thick. She keeps leafing through a section printed on blue paper. He doesn't want to think about what part of his life has been committed to blue paper. The good stuff probably; the kind they can bury you with and never blink.
And how can he find out if this is The One without actually asking if this is The One. Because if this is The One and a mistake has been made, then he is booting it the hell out of here on the perfectly legitimate grounds of Conflict of Interest. Even Skinner can't spin this technicality, and it will buy Mulder a little more time.
And what about Scully? She probably knows he is here. And if he walks, she will be the first to find out. And this is where he is screwed silly. He said he will do what it takes to help her and this includes sitting through this bullshit. So, he will do it for Scully.
She is still shuffling papers. Mulder has been a part of these situations before; he should know the signs, what every gesture means. He may have even invented some of them. But for the first time, he is the sitting duck, not the well-prepared goose that can tap dance around the rest of them. He could be that well-prepared goose if he just knew if the woman in front of him was The One.
Experience tells him he should offer up the first few sentences if he wants to keep his position of power in this game. Now, he isn't sure he can even open his mouth. He is sitting, legs open, hands folded, almost locked. His left foot is bouncing. Christ, what if he really isn't in control here.
So far, she is still not giving anything away. She goes over his history with the FBI, then the years before, reading the highlights from the page, and then glancing up at him for a confirmation or denial of the facts.
Then she plucks a sheet from the yellow paper, held together with a broken butterfly clip. Figures. The Bureau will spend millions on public image but nothing on office supplies. He used to bring his own paper clips during the Bush administration.
"I understand you experienced some seizures recently."
Medical. Yellow. He should have known. In his most matter of fact voice, he doles out the medical details of his weekend. Agent Scully is only mentioned, peripherally, twice.
"And how are the medications working? There are some heavy side effects with these."
She is unthreatening and gentle. If he didn't know what she did for a living, he would think she might be from a church volunteer group. But there is a strength about her that he will not underestimate.
"Just headaches." He doesn't mention the monster that is forming in his head at this moment.
She notes this on one of the forms. By the looks of the paper from his vantage point, there are a lot of notes in a lot of corners in a lot of different handwriting. "Sleeping?"
"Not much."
She finally reaches back and drops the folder onto her desk. She swings back around in her chair and gives Mulder her undivided attention. Game time is over.
"I know you were somewhat resistant to being here but I'm glad that you came."
He tries not to seem as irritated as he feels. "I do what I'm told."
"Not from what I hear," she tells him with a glimmer of a smile, just enough to let him know he is among friends. Suspicion is the first wall she encounters from patients in this building. It is usually the hardest rock to break. After that, paths seem much clearer.
"I've been told that this is a part in a series of things I need to accomplish before I'll be let back in the field."
"Your partner is going on medical leave soon, I understand." She crosses one knee over the other.
It is now or never, Mulder thinks, sucking in a tight breath. "Is she one of your patients?" He cannot believe he has just stuttered. His throat is tightening up on him and soon he might as well speak in sign language.
Dr. Kosseff nods. A slight resignation in her voice tells Mulder all he needs to know. "Yes, she is."
Mulder sits up a little straighter. He's got a little gas left after all. "Isn't that a conflict of interest?"
"Normally, yes, but AD Skinner thought that this might be a better route considering Agent Scully's relationship with you."
Relationship? What the hell did that mean?
"And the current time frame she is dealing with."
This one takes him a moment longer to translate. 'Scully may not have much time left so let's not waste it reinventing the wheel.'
"What are your thoughts about this?"
A loaded question. He raises his hands as if to question the entire situation itself. "I don't think it is particularly necessary but if my being here helps Agent Scully then I will comply."
"Well, it's also a condition of your return to the field."
He nods. "I'm aware of that."
She says something he cannot quite make out. It is as if her voice is slowly floating away. He wants to ask her to repeat what she said but a sudden swirl of activity in his head sends him bolting forward instead. Like all the others, this attack takes him out of time and space until, mercifully, it begins to subside.
What frightens him the most when he finally comes out of it is that he is no longer in Dr. Kosseff office. He is in Skinner's office, sitting on Skinner's couch, drinking from a bottle of Skinner's water. And Skinner's voice is slowly drifting into his radar.
"…Mulder…"
Skinner's face is almost nose-to-nose with his. Mulder looks around to see who else is watching him but the room is empty
"Mulder, can you hear me?"
"Maybe if you weren't yelling in my ear," he manages to groan. Skinner pulls a chair over to the couch and sits a polite distance away. "Do you know what happened?"
He plows both hands through his hair. "I had another seizure?"
"We're not sure."
"We?"
"Doctor Kosseff thought it seemed more like an anxiety attack."
Oh, please tell me I didn't start sobbing, he prays to any being with power who might be listening. He is about to ask what Skinner means when a worse question pops into his mind "How did I get up here?"
"Don't worry, nobody saw you. We used the Director's private elevator."
Mulder nods, grateful for this gift of privacy. Anybody seeing Spooky Mulder being loaded into the director's elevator would have had a field day. And the first order of business would have been telling Mrs. Spooky.
Skinner shoves the bottle of water back in his hand. "Finish this. Then I want you to get checked out by your doctor."
This might be a little tricky, he thinks to himself.
"You do have a doctor, don't you?"
Has the decency to look a little embarrassed. "Unofficially, it's Scully."
"I'm not going to lie to her, Mulder. And neither are you."
He pushes himself forward to stand up. In a moment, he is on his feet, and holding onto Skinner's arm before he teeters over. "If there is nothing else, Sir, I'd like to go home and lie down."
He makes it as far as the door and thinks he may have a clear pathway to freedom but Skinner's hand is flat on the door.
"Just sit down a minute, Mulder."
There is a mixture of authority and concern in this order so he does as he is told without the usual resistance.
Skinner sits strategically on side of desk, hovering above him, but not in the usual you-have-screwed-up way. "I'll rebook you another session with Doctor Kosseff."
"I can take care of that," Mulder informs him quietly.
"No, I will. I'd like the appointment made up by the end of day tomorrow, not the end of next month. "
"I can't tomorrow."
"Oh, you have some place to be? You're suspended from work, Mulder. If you want to get back to work, you'll be where I tell you and when. "
The door to the office almost flies open and Scully enters, followed by the pissed off secretary. She can usually control most of the bureau when it comes to the AD's privacy but Mulder and Scully are a different story. One of these days, they will take no for an answer, or, better yet, die trying.
"Great," Mulder moans sharply to himself.
"Mulder, what happened?" Scully demands, ignoring Skinner.
"I'm fine, Scully."
She faces their boss. "Doctor Kosseff says he'd had another attack."
"Anxiety," Skinner adds.
"Ketamine," Mulder corrects. Neither listens to him.
"I knew this was going to happen."
Mulder leans back. "Kill me now," he begs to the ceiling
"He is fine, Agent Scully," Skinner informs her. "We got him up here, he's had some water and I'm about to drive him home."
"I can do it."
God no, Mulder thinks. Being alone in a car with Skinner will be bad enough with nothing but silence. But Scully - there would be too many questions, too much doubt, too little trust in his ability to look after himself. Or her.
"No, Agent, you have work here. I will take him." The tone in his voice is enough to tell her that he isn't budging on this point.
"I'll call you later, Scully" Mulder promises. "Don't call me, if I don't answer I'll be asleep and you'll panic."
"I don't panic, Mulder," she informs him, clearly irritated..
He will let this go because he is a gentleman and she is only trying to help.
"Fine – well – I'll be in the office if anyone needs me." The Agent is resurfacing but not quickly enough for the Doctor to lean over and put the back of her hand on Mulder's cheek. He is cool. She will take this for what it is – a good sign – and hand over control to Skinner. She doesn't like leaving things this way – she would like to know how his health that morning has been, what brought on the attack, was it like the one she stumbled over behind the gas station or was this one medically induced.
But Skinner has the situation under control and she will quietly step over the metaphorical crumpled paper on the floor.
There is one parking spot left in front of the building and Skinner slides into it before an indecisive Honda can grab it.
"We're here," he says, ignoring the glare from the Honda driver. He has always been a 'you-snooze-you-loose' kind of a guy.
Mulder is staring far, far away out the passenger window. Skinner turns to see if there is anything to look at but there is nothing. Whatever has Mulder's attention is not in this world.
He call's Mulder's name one more time. When Mulder still doesn't answer, Skinner jams his elbow into his arm. "Mulder – we're here. Do you need any help getting upstairs?"
"No," comes the automatic reply. He does not need help getting to his apartment, getting through the day or getting through the rest of his life. He will no longer rely on anyone to do the job for him.
When Mulder turns back around, Skinner sees a disturbingly destroyed look in his eyes that scares the hell out of him until he realizes, with relief, what he is finally seeing.
"I'm so scared I'm going to lose her," Mulder barely whispers.
"I know, Mulder." Skinner says.
"What are you doing here?"
Mulder stands in the doorway for a moment, shakes the strangeness out of his head and continues into the office. Scully is looking up from the desk with a rarely seen look on her face.
"Nice to see you too, Agent Scully. I used to work here. You?"
She pushes glasses back on her head and sits back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap."
He drags a chair across the floor with an annoying screech and sits down. He is not used to the view from this side of the desk. The wall behind looks like a catchall for lost and found. In a way, he decides, just like he is.
"How did you get in here?" she asks
"Bribed a guard with my video collection A-C. I'm bored, Scully, there's nothing to do at home that I can't do here."
"Yes there is. It's called resting. You have never been able to grasp that concept here; I hoped you might latch onto it at home; where you have a bed, a couch; a coffee table to put your feet up. Any of this sound familiar?"
He ignores the sarcasm and leans forward to see what she is doing. There are forms under her writing arm, and if he didn't know better he would swear they were 902s. "What are you working on?"
"Paperwork." She puts her glasses back on and leans towards the computer again.
"What kind?"
"Skinner wants a complete report on our activities last weekend. Well, yours, to be specific."
His eyes narrow. "They aren't still going to lay any of this on you for not disclosing my condition sooner, are they?"
"Skinner managed to talk them out of that."
"It was a Sunday and you were off-duty. Whichever Federal Zombie you choose to chase around Rhode Island is your business." Mulder nods towards the paper on the desk. He is an equal opportunity pencil pusher. "Let me do it, Scully? I'm not fit for anything else."
She's not moving from behind the desk. "I've got it. Go home, Mulder. That's part of the deal."
The deal. Everyone in the building seems to have a stake in this deal. He goes, she stays. She goes, he stays. And life takes a radical turn towards hell.
"Besides," she adds without much thought, "You still need rest." She puts her glasses back on and resumes starting at the computer screen. "How are you feeling by the way?"
"Better."
"You don't look it." She shakes the mouse impatiently. This computer drives her crazy, it is so slow. Mulder won't replace it.
"Uh, you don't look that great yourself, Scully. Get much sleep, did we?"
"Shut up, Mulder, I'm not the one who …. " She looks up. The glasses come off again and land in a heap next to the mouse. "Never mind. I don't want to argue about this, it's a waste of time. Mine and yours."
"Of which I seem to have plenty to waste now."
She stares at him with deadly accuracy "Well, I don't."
He's not ready to play ball with these kinds of truths today. Instead, he yanks the legal size forms from under her arm and takes a look. Request for Medical Leave forms. She has made it halfway through the first one and included a start date.
It is for next Monday.
"Christ, Scully."
She reaches across the desk with her right arm stretched to the max but it doesn't help. He has leaned back in the chair and is studying the forms closely.
"Please give me the forms back, Mulder."
"You saw the file Skinner passed to me." He gets up and grabs it from the corner of the desk where she has conveniently buried it with less obvious books. "Have you even looked at this?"
Her eyes glance quickly at the file in his hand. "No."
"Why not? This is the one I told you about the other night." When I was trying to talk you back to sleep after you had a nightmare at my place. Remember, he wants to blurt out. Remember those seconds when we were normal?
She doesn't answer. She is too tired to go through this with him in person; she has exhausted herself with the conversations he wasn't present for. Now that the real thing is here, there isn't any energy left.
"Okay." He says in quiet defeat. He doesn't know where to look and his eyes dart everywhere but on her. "Well. I'll see you."
Scully just nods.
Mulder realizes that, for the first time in days, she is going to let him leave a room without warning him about his health, asking if he has a temperature, and warning him to take the medication. She hasn't even asked about side effects. Depression is nothing. Supreme irritation, that is what he's living with.
But now, she is going to let him leave this room un-nagged. Because he has put the pressure on her, she doesn't dare stick it back on him. Nevertheless, he wishes she would send him away with one parting instruction. It would make him feel less like his world is crumbling apart in tiny, invisible pieces. But her face is buried in the computer again and likely she will not show it again until he is well out of the building.
She can hear the elevator open. An unfamiliar male voice booms, "How's it shaking, Spooky!"
Scully pulls her glasses off and delicately places them on the desk so that she doesn't miss anything. There is no immediate reply from Mulder. This is good. She has never once seen him rise to the bait.
"You down here for a reason, Collins?" Mulder sounds tense.
Scully swings the chair towards the door.
"They told me this is where old desk lamps come to die."
"Go back to the main floor, take the west elevator. It opens in storage".
Silence.
"Do you really work down here, Spooky? They always said you were tucked away out of sight, I just thought that meant an abandoned men's room someplace."
More silence. Scully can hear footsteps approaching and she swings the chair back to the desk. And pretends to be working.
In a moment a man called Collins is at the door of their office.
"Can I help you?" Scully coolly asks, folding her hand tensely.
"You gotta be Scully - well, Mrs. Spooky to the rest of us. We've heard a lot about you."
"Have you now?"
Collins takes a step inside and looks around the office with wonder. "So this is it, huh? You guys give tours?"
Mulder appears behind Collins just in time to see his partner's eyes narrow in for the kill.
Scully stands up and walks up to the man. He is Mulder's height and twice the width. She could squash him like a bug but today she will go easy on him.
"Turn around and go back up the elevator from where you came or every agent in this building will hear a story that I knee'd you in the groin and made you cry. Understand, Agent?"
Collins looks between her and Mulder. Mulder is staring at Scully as if she has just turned into cheese. Both men are edging away from her, with slow, cautious steps.
Finally Collins turns and sniffs. "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky. Pair of you belong down here." An elbow into Mulder's arm and he is meandering out the door, trying to keep whatever shreds of cool he has left.
Mulder stays where he is, almost gawking at her with a mixture of fear and respect.
"Go home, Mulder," is all she has to say.
"No," he says. "We're not letting dicks like Collins come in here just so we can roll up the shop and walk away. We still have work here to finish, Scully. And this is right up your line of expertise."
"I don't know if you've noticed at all but I'm not 100 percent these days, Mulder. I don't have it in me to go into one of these endless loops of planes, towns, rental cars to chase something or someone that will inevitably elude us in the end anyway."
She has floored him. She now considers their work a game of hide and seek that has been rigged from the beginning. A handful of trick candles on the cake that drop them on their asses each time they try to blow them out. A stronger man would ask when she stopped caring. He is not a stronger man today.
She looks away from him and down at the desk. "Please don't do this, Mulder. I am doing the right thing for me."
He slams the file down on the desk and storms out of the office while Scully sits there, not believing she could be so carless to let the forms go anywhere near him. Letting Mulder down is something she has no experience with; she has spent the last four years trying to convince herself that this isn't the case. That she can let anyone down – even Mulder – and not wade in guilt.
Is she doing the right thing? He doesn't think so. But isn't it time to move beyond what he thinks is best for her. Skinner said the same thing when she told him she would be leaving next week. You do what you think is best for you. Code for, it's a crappy idea.
END OF CHAPTER 6