Title: What He Knew

Author: Gillian Leigh

Disclaimer: See an earlier chapter.

Author's Notes: I find myself begging for your forgiveness once again. My senior year is difficult, busy, and it hasn't been helping me with the creative process. This chapter, and what will be chapter fifteen were originally going to be posted together, but I got to the midpoint and realized that I had neither the time nor the creativity to make this any longer. But I felt that I owed it to you all to post SOMETHING. I don't know how long it will be until the next chapter, so I hope that you enjoy this one!

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Kimberley Fitzgerald believed in Christmas miracles. Sitting before her, in perfect health, was someone she hadn't expected to see alive again. Walter Skinner, although pale and a little underweight was sitting up in his hospital bed, having a conversation with her. For a while, the doctors had all but given up hope that he would ever recover. But at Agent Reyes and Agent Scully's insistence, she'd allowed a man, someone named Jeremiah Smith, to come in and perform a laying on of hands. That had startled her a bit a first, that Agent Scully, the cold, scientific skeptic would actually recommend such action, but now she'd begun to wonder if it had had it's merits after all. How could she question any course of treatment at all, seeing him now?

When he had awoken, she'd immediately called Scully, knowing she and Mulder would want to be updated. At 5:30 on Christmas morning, she found her reason to believe. And at 5:35, she'd understood why Agent Scully stopped. Mulder was comatose, and his condition was deteriorating rapidly. Now, at just after eight, Scully was on her way up from visiting Mulder, insistent on talking to the Assistant Director.

Kim rose out of her chair at the light knock, and opened the door for the agent. It took a moment for Skinner to see her, with Kim obstructing his view as she gave her a hug, but he was shocked when he finally saw her. She was pregnant.

"The new chip worked," he muttered to himself. She'd gotten her fertility back. At least some good had come from it.

"Sir," she said, forcing a smile. "It's good to see you again." He found himself staring at her midsection even as he greeted her and asked her to sit down. "I'm assuming from your reaction that Kim didn't tell you about my current... condition," she said, sinking into the chair beside his bed. Skinner cleared his throat.

"No, she said there were some things you wanted to tell me about yourself... apparently this is one of them," he replied, a smile tugging on the corners of his lips. "Is it a boy or girl?"

"One of each," she replied, smilingly. His eyebrows went up a little. "Twins," she confirmed.

"Congratulations," he replied.

"Thank you," she said quietly. Suddenly, what she had come here expressly to talk to him about seemed more difficult than ever.

"What is it you needed to talk to me about, Agent?" Skinner queried, inwardly cringing. He should've called her 'Dana' or 'Scully', this wasn't the office... Oh well, he thought, old habits die hard.

"Sir, I don't know how much Kim has told you about Mulder's current condition, or what we believe caused it, but that's what I need to speak to you about."

"Kim's told me that Mulder has brain cancer like yours, and that he's in the final stages, but she's said nothing about what might have caused it..." he said. Scully's troubled expression told him there was more involved here than even Kim knew.

"Mulder's cancer is a result of the removal of a microchip from the base of his skull. Everything he's experiencing is just like what I went through, but it's all happening much faster. I need to find a chip," she said. "There's nothing else that will cure his illness."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Skinner said, trying to remain calm, even though his mind was spinning. What had They done?

"Sir," Scully said, lowering her voice. "Before Mulder became too ill, we discovered that you were involved with the men in the Syndicate. You don't need to play dumb." She tried to put a damper on her anger, but she felt it boiling up in her chest.

Skinner's heart was hammering. She knew?

"Agent Scully, I don't know what you're talking about...." he said, looking her in the eye. She rose up out of her chair, and he flinched as her hand came up, fearing being hit. She instead balled it into a fist and hit the rail of his bed as her face reddened and tears welled up in her eyes.

"He's going to die!" she yelled. "Every minute you sit here and lie to me is one less minute I have to find out how to save him!" She leaned forward until her face was unbelievably close to his. "Tell me the truth. You owe it to me. You owe it to Mulder."

He closed his eyes. He had been able to keep his alliances a secret from most everyone, especially his agents, but now that Mulder and Scully had found him out, he couldn't lie to her. He did owe it to them.

"I've been involved with the Project since the spring of 1974. Bill Mulder and CGB Spender recruited me through their positions at the Defense Department when I first became an Agent. They promised me power, and many years of success in the FBI. I was young, but I wasn't about to refuse. I was foolish as well. I didn't realize then what the price would be for this power. When the abductions occurred in November of that year, I didn't know anything more about the people being taken than their names. I didn't know anything about Mulder and his sister before they were abducted..."

Scully was startled. Had she heard him correctly? Both Samantha and Mulder were abducted? Her look of surprise prompted him to answer the question she hadn't had a chance to voice.

"Every member of the Project who had spouses and children was forced to make a decision of which to give up for experimentation. You already know all of this I'm sure. But at any rate, the reason for choosing a member of his family to give to the Project was not to send them away for horrible testing and to torture them, it was, initially, to protect them from the viral apocalypse, which we knew of even back then.

"Or rather, that was what we were led to believe. Bill and Teena Mulder wanted both of their children to be protected, so they set up the entire event. I spoke to Bill once or twice before the abductions, and he explained to me what they had explained to him, that the children would be given something to knock them out, and they would be taken to the facility where they would be tested, the appropriate samples would be gathered, and then the chips would be surgically inserted into their necks. They were also given the false memories that Mulder and other 'abductees' have experienced, to assure that no one else found out about the testing and research."

"But," Scully interjected, needing to make sure she understood. "Why wasn't Samantha ever returned?"

"Once the actual abductions occurred, a change was made. Long-term testing was needed, and the members were forced to give up a family member. Bill Mulder chose Samantha. We're not quite sure why, but most of the speculation I've heard is that Fox was his favorite, and he sacrificed his daughter to the cause." Scully felt sick to her stomach. To know that this man was willing to give up one of his own children.

"But if the purpose of Mulder's chip was to protect him from the viral apocalypse, why was it removed?" Scully asked, studying Skinner intently.

"That I don't know for sure. The men of the Project began distrusting me back when Mulder experienced the strange brain activity while you were in Africa. They could sense that I was reaching the breaking point, and that I felt a certain loyalty to you and Agent Mulder. I was effectively out of the loop. But I think that the idea behind removing Mulder's chip was to correct the problems he was experiencing with his brain," Skinner said, his brows knitting together in concentration.

"But its removal led to his cancer, just like the removal of my chip did. Why would they have wanted to take the chip out, unless they wanted him dead?" Scully said, rising out of her chair.

"No, if they'd wanted him dead, they would've done it some other way. They don't waste time, Scully. You know that," he said, watching her as she walked around the room. She still walked with some grace, but her posture had changed due to the added weight and shift in her center of gravity. She sighed and braced her back with both of her hands. She stopped her pacing, and turned to look at him.

"But why you?" she queried, studying him critically. "Why were you taken?" Skinner's eyes met hers.

"I wasn't taken, Scully. I volunteered myself."

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