Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000

Title: MEMOIR: YEAR TWO
Author: Laura Castellano
e-mail: laura@ddgallery.net
website: http://www.8op.com/laurita

Rating: PG-13
Keywords: MSR, Character Death

BIG OLE FAT WARNING: Mulder and Scully are both dead in this
story--it assumes Scully died immediately after Je Souhaite
and nothing after that episode happened. You really need to
read Memoir: Year One before starting this one, since this
is a continuing series. Year One can be found at
http://www.8op.com/laurita/memoir.htm The story is written
entirely from Mulder's POV. This part has spoilers for just
about every Season Two episode.

Distribution: Sure, but I'd like to know where it goes.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be.

-----
Memoir: Year Two
by Laura Castellano

I'd been on my own for just over a month, working on the
most deathly boring cases imaginable. Skinner told me later
that Cancerman had ordered that for me--I guess he thought
he could make me quit if the working conditions got bad
enough. Spender obviously had no idea of my tenacity,
although he should have--life got a lot worse at the FBI for
me and Scully both when we were working under Kersh, but we
didn't quit then, either.

Scully had been sent back to Quantico, where she was once
again working in her specialty, Pathology. She was giving
lectures to the new recruits, doing autopsies, and whatever
else they needed her to do. She hadn't been on the X-files
as long as I had, and the only dissatisfaction she was
experiencing was in the fact that we were separated. She
still wanted me for a partner, I found to my surprise, but
she wasn't all that upset that she was no longer required to
chase after ghosts, werewolves and government conspirators.
It wasn't her quest, after all. Not until they killed
Melissa. And she found out about Emily.

I was going crazy, and Skinner says he knew that, but at the
time there was nothing he could do about it. He'd come
across as a real hardass at first, he tells me, because the
smoking man had filled him full of expectations where I was
concerned, expectations that turned out to be unfounded.
Once Skinner determined for himself that I was a good agent
in my own way, rather than the loose cannon I'd been
made out to be, he was in my corner. He couldn't always show
it as openly as he and I both would have liked, but he did
the best he could. Okay, I guess I was a *bit* of a loose
cannon, but nothing like you'd expect, having heard some of
the stories about me.

They had me working on what I described to Scully as "white
bread cases," things that have to be done but are usually
reserved for agents with less experience than myself. It
was clearly a punishment, being busted back to that
position, but I took it in silence. There wasn't much else
I could do--I had to pay the rent, and I was too depressed
at the time to even think about looking for another job. I
didn't really know what else I'd do anyway--I'd been with
the FBI since I graduated from Oxford.

Anyway, I was plugging my way through the days, hating every
minute, living for the rare occasions when I could speak
with Scully. I was afraid that by contacting her I might
be endangering her, so I kept my distance as much as I could
bear. The murder of Dr. Carpenter and her family had shaken
me to my core; if I'd believed it was just a game in the
past, I knew better now. I wasn't going to risk Scully's
life for the simple satisfaction of maintaining our
friendship, so we had very little contact during those
months, at least at first. She finally persuaded me that it
was safe for us to communicate, but I was always nervous
about it. On the other hand she was my best friend, the
only friend I had with whom I could discuss FBI matters
freely.

I remember I was having a particularly bad day. I'd been
assigned to wiretap duty--the lowest of the low for me. I
was suddenly being treated like every other FBI agent, and I
didn't like it one bit. If that sounds conceited maybe it
was, but we did good work, Scully and me, on the X-files,
important work. They had shut us down not because of
inefficiency or the lack of necessity of our work, but
because they wanted to get to me, and to make us drop our
investigations.

Scully had left me the signal that she wanted to see me, and
by prearranged plan we met in the parking garage of the
Watergate Hotel late that night. It was a short meeting,
basically just so she could check up on me. It seems she'd
passed me that morning and I had ignored her, but the truth
was I never even saw her. I was probably returning from my
lunch break, steeling myself to transcribing the wiretap
tapes I'd collected so far. Some days it was all I could do
not to fling myself beneath a passing bus.

Scully snapped me out of it though, at least a little. She
reminded me that the truth I'd been searching for was still
there for the finding, and that even though our separation
was a serious setback, it didn't have to be the end. When I
went home that night, I was determined to find a way to
continue my investigations on my own time.

I had no more arrived at home and begun to undress when one
of Senator Matheson's aides arrived. All he said was,
"We're going to the Hill," but those five words got my blood
pumping furiously. If the Senator wanted to see me badly
enough to make certain I was escorted to his office at this
late hour, it had to be something big.

It was. He gave me a printout of a transmission received at
the abandoned SETI project in Aricibo, Puerto Rico. He told
me I had twenty-four hours to get down there and gather all
the information I could before the blue beret retrieval team
showed up. They had orders to use terminal force, Matheson
said, and I knew what that meant--this was highly dangerous,
and if I wasn't fast enough, I'd end up dead.

I wanted to take Scully with me, but there was no way I was
going to endanger her in that manner. Not her career or her
life. Instead, I left a couple of clues that I hoped she'd
be able to follow, should I not return, and took off for
Puerto Rico. I guess I covered my tracks pretty well--they
couldn't find me.

Scully, once she learned from Skinner that I was missing,
was frantic. It would have been nice if I could have left
her explicit details about what I was doing, but I knew that
would be a bad idea. Instead, I relied on her intelligence
and good judgement, and it's a good thing I did.

I got to Puerto Rico in time, all right, and spent hours
there gathering data, some of it in the form of printouts,
some on magnetic tape.

I discovered a Puerto Rican national by the name of Jorge,
who drew a picture on the wall with my pen--a typical alien
head, the type we see in those tabloids at the supermarket.
At first I was suspicious that he was a plant, but remember,
I was suspicious of everything and everybody at that point.
It became clear to me soon that poor Jorge was no government
agent. He was a working man, probably a farmer, who had
found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still
don't know what he was doing there, my grasp of Spanish
being fundamental at best, but I do know he died. And I
still believe he died of fright, after all these years, I
believe that Jorge saw something that scared him so badly he
couldn't handle it.

I saw the same thing, and it scared me enough that I passed
out cold. I remember firing my weapon--or trying to, at
least. Nothing happened. It was as if I was firing an
unloaded gun. I pulled the trigger over and over again with
absolutely no effect. I don't remember exactly what I
saw--I wasn't sure even then what it was, but it seemed to
be a being of some sort, humanoid, with very long legs. The
light behind it was blinding, which could account for why I
have such a fuzzy recollection, but I'm pretty sure I fell
over in a dead faint about then.

I do know that when I woke up, Scully was there, and the
Blue Berets were only a couple of steps behind her.

I was frantic--here again was proof, and yet I had nothing
to show for it. I wanted to take Jorge's body, but Scully
rationally informed me we'd never get it out of the country.
I was sorting through the printouts, trying to find the
pieces that would be most convincing, when we heard the
Retrieval team approaching. Finally, as a last resort, I
grabbed a reel of tape from one of the recorders. It had
been running at the time--surely there would be proof there.

We ran outside and jumped into the jeep Scully had rented
just before the Retrieval team arrived. They shot at us,
but I steered that jeep directly down the hillside, hoping
we wouldn't run up against a tree, and somehow luck was with
us. We managed to make it to the airport and jump the next
flight back to the States with less than fifteen minutes to
spare.

I must have looked a sight, and I know I smelled of sweat
and fear, but Scully just held my hand as our plane took
off, squeezing it tightly, as if to reassure herself that
we'd made it.

"I was worried about you," she said at last, and I gave her
a little smile.

"It's a good thing for me you were."

She just nodded, and I don't think we even discussed it any
further. I leaned back in the seat and went to sleep, and
when I woke up we were almost ready to land.

I went home, showered, slept for a couple of hours, then got
dressed and went to work. I knew I had to face Skinner
sometime, and the sooner I got it over with the sooner he
could fire me. I was fairly certain that would be the
result of my trip--after all, I'd gone AWOL on the wiretap
thing.

He reamed me good, for at least twenty minutes, all in front
of that cigarette smoking bastard. I just stood there,
taking it--there wasn't much I could say. I had abandoned
my position, I had unlawfully trespassed in a place I had no
business being, and I had damn near gotten myself and Scully
killed.

It made an impression on him, though, when I told him my
phone had been tapped. I could tell that revelation brought
him up short, and he didn't seem to question whether or not
to believe me. Maybe by then he'd already learned the
smoking man was bad news. I know Skinner had never been as
eager to shut Scully and me down as the man pulling his
strings.

When I went into that office, I expected to lose my job. I
was informed in no uncertain terms that I had at least
earned myself a suspension, but when I left, the worst thing
that had happened to me was being sent back to wiretap duty.

Maybe Skinner had figured out more by then than I gave him
credit for. In fact, I was almost ready to believe he
didn't hate my guts when he gave me my next assignment.

It was a couple of weeks later that I was pulled from the
wiretap to investigate a murder, at Skinner's order. I was
thrilled, at first--until I discovered what the crime
entailed. A dead body discovered in New Jersey's sewer
system...as I waded through the muck in the high boots
they'd given me to wear, I seethed inwardly, and once I saw
the body--what looked like an obvious gang hit to me--I was
ready to tear someone limb from limb.

I contented myself with making an ass of myself in front of
several "high up mucky-mucks" who were meeting with Skinner.
I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd fired me then and
there, the way I strong-armed my way into his office,
ignoring his secretary and rudely insisting he see me
immediately. Instead, he gave me what I asked for, and the
next thing I knew I was standing in front of an office full
of suits, explaining to Skinner that I didn't think the case
he'd sent me on justified the Bureau's attention. I'm not
sure what all I said, but I seem to recall an unfortunate
remark about being assigned to scrub the bathroom floors
with a toothbrush. As angry as Skinner was, I'm surprised
he didn't tell me to do just that. Instead, he firmly and
coldly informed me that I was to carry out my assigned
duties, and brusquely dismissed me.

I was so pissed off I never even went back to work that day.
I went home and showered, then called Scully to ask her to
meet with me. She was my sounding board at the time--the
only one I had. The only place I could turn when I was
frustrated, which was often.

That was the night I told her I was thinking of leaving the
Bureau, and when I said it, I didn't even think of how it
might affect our relationship. What relationship, you might
ask? Well, I was frequently asking myself the same
question. I'd decided that cutting and running might be the
least painful way to separate from Scully on a permanent
basis; she'd shown no inclination to take our friendship any
further than friendship, and I was almost ready to admit to
myself that I was in love with her. A bad move, I
repeatedly told myself, falling for the one you work with.
'Don't put your meat where you make your bread,' as Reggie
would have crudely put it. Unfortunately, I couldn't help
myself. But still, even though I'd considered making a
clean break before, I didn't intend to do it right then. My
words surprised even me.

I remember she offered me a carrot then, suggested I try to
transfer back to the Behavioral Sciences Unit so I'd be
working at Quantico. We'd be closer together.

I was terrified of making a move like that--remember, I'm
the one who didn't even want to meet with her out in public
for fear of endangering her. I reminded her they didn't
want us working together, but I didn't know that for a fact.
They didn't want us working on the X-files, that much was
certain, but if we'd been together, working on things that
didn't threaten them, perhaps they wouldn't have cared.

In fact, if I'd taken that road, all those years ago,
transferred back to BSU, maybe we could have had that normal
life together that we always wanted. Maybe I wouldn't have
had to send her home that night, because maybe her home
would have been with *me*. On the other hand, I might have
ended up like Bill Patterson.

Whatever the reason, I knew I couldn't go back to BSU.

Scully offered to autopsy the body they'd found in the
sewer, and after an initial protest, I reluctantly agreed.
The only reason I did was because I was still positive there
was nothing to that case. Someone had to do the autopsy and
confirm my suspicions--why not her? How dangerous could
that be, after all? And then she'd feel she was helping me,
and maybe she'd stop suggesting steps I was afraid to take.

That was when the calls from the man I only ever knew as 'X'
started happening. At first I blamed Scully, thinking she
must have commented to one of her co-workers about how
distressed I was, because all he told me was that I had a
friend at the FBI. Well I knew I had at least one
friend--Scully--but at the time I sure didn't know of any
others. I was sullen and silent most of the time, and those
who worked around me learned to keep their distance. I was
deep in the throes of self-pity at the time, with no inclination
to pull myself out.

I know I was incredibly rude to that poor doctor when the
sanitation worker was attacked by what Scully and I used to
later refer to affectionately as 'Flukie.' Of course, at
the time we still hadn't figured out what was responsible for
the killings, and I did all but tap my foot in impatience
when I made my obligatory visit to talk to the man who'd
been attacked. I'm sure it was obvious to the doctor that I
was less than interested in the case, but she was
unfailingly polite anyway, for which I was grateful, later
on when I recalled my behavior and was ashamed. It wasn't
her fault I was being screwed over on the job.

In fact, I was talking to the man when the first call from X
came, and I had just spoken to Scully. My mind naturally
connected the two, which was why I assumed she'd been behind
the odd phone call. When I confronted her about it later,
gently but firmly asking her not to try and "help" me, she
was honestly bewildered. She told me she'd never betray a
confidence, and I felt another rush of shame at my actions
that day. Of course she wouldn't. Wasn't she the only one
I knew for certain I could trust? Again, she was too kind
to make me apologize. That woman was simply too wonderful
for words, and in spite of all the things about her that
drove me crazy, I think her kindness was the thing I most
admired.

I wish I had told her that before she died. I told her I
loved her, of course, often after we became intimate, but I
never told her all the things I loved about her. I hope,
somehow, she knew. Maybe she knows now.

I'd love to be able to say I can feel Scully's spirit here
with me as I write, but the truth is, I feel nothing. I've
tried, too--sitting quietly, opening my mind and my heart
and wanting, oh wanting so badly to feel her. If she is
here, she's very quiet. Maybe I haven't listened hard
enough. Or maybe I should just get some sleep--it is after
midnight, and the nurse will be here at nine to do her daily
inspection.

I want to finish up writing about this case first, though.
Anyway, Scully showed me the worm she'd pulled from the
corpse--about six inches long--and I showed her the photo of
the wound on the sanitation worker's back.

She almost laughed, telling me the flukeworm was a tiny
little thing and that bite mark was enormous. In fact, she
didn't even believe it was a bite mark at first, but I did.
I knew--just knew, looking at the fluke she had in the jar
and the picture of the bite, that we were looking for
something weird. I could feel my blood beginning to pump
faster through my veins; in spite of their efforts, they'd
sent me to work on an X-file. I still wonder, after all
these years, if Skinner is being honest with me when he says
he had no idea it would turn out that way. He insists he
thought it was just a routine murder case, something he gave
me in order to "evaluate" my work. Personally, I like to
believe he's lying. I want to believe that Skinner knew,
even then, before we became friends, that Scully and I and
the X-files division were something special, and that he saw
the potential in the case and handed it to me because of
that potential.

It's a nice thought, anyway, even if Walter insists it's all
in my imagination.

The next day, I got a guided tour of the sewage plant. Let
me tell you, you haven't lived until you've seen firsthand
how shit is processed. Okay, that was crude, but I gotta
say, it takes a special kind of person to become a Sewage
Engineer, or whatever they're called. The man who guided me
around the place even proudly told me how many people a day
"called his office on the porcelain telephone," as he so
grandly put it. I just tried not to lose my breakfast.

Then something happened. One of the workers yelled that
he'd found something, and the next thing you knew, old
Flukie was trapped in a pipe. It was incredible--a true
mutant. More incredible than Eugene Tooms, really, because
this mutant didn't even look human. Not entirely, anyway.
It was...well, like a giant flukeworm, except that its face
had human characteristics. He had arms and legs, but no
visible genitalia. Flukeworms reproduce asexually.

We confined him in a psychiatric hospital--we didn't know
what else to do with him. We certainly couldn't leave him
in the sewer pipe. He crouched behind a piece of furniture
in the dark, and Scully, when I showed her, was as amazed as
I had been.

You know what I remember most about that day, what made the
biggest impression on me? When Scully arrived at the
hospital, she gave my hand a quick squeeze. That little
gesture said nothing and everything, and lightened my heart
immeasurably. It was fast, unobtrusive, but it made my
day. That was also the day she told me she'd consider it
"more than a professional loss" if I decided to leave the
Bureau. It never occurred to me, at the time, that she was
dealing with her own unacknowledged feelings for me. I just
assumed she didn't want to lose a friend. I was quite often
an idiot in those days.

She told me about the tabloid newspaper that had been
slipped beneath her door, carrying a story about a monster
on a Russian ship. We stared at each other in
confusion--who had sent this clue, who cared what we were
doing, who wanted us to find the truth behind this story?

I was scared to death, sitting before Skinner while he read
over my report, keeping me waiting in true managerial style.
He meant to intimidate me, and it worked like a charm.

Well, I didn't get the story of Flukie finished before
bedtime, after all. I was typing along when suddenly the
memory of Scully, her beautiful face, so well-rounded and
healthy back in those days before she was stricken with her
cancer, wouldn't leave me alone. All I could think of was
the fact that her last seven years of life were filled with
danger, and trauma, and sorrow, and it was all because of
me. If I had only...there were so many places along my path
where I could have said "enough," but I never did. At first
I didn't realize the danger, and once I did, I was so
hopelessly tangled up in her that I couldn't send her away.
And she wouldn't have gone.

They had separated us, and yet our bond was stronger than
ever, and the next time they tried to rip us apart, Scully
went so far as to resign from the Bureau. I don't know
exactly what her plans were, we never got so far as
discussing it, but they sure as hell didn't include Salt
Lake City.

But I'm jumping way ahead, and there are too many precious
memories wrapped up in these files for me to do that.

I think the Flukeman case was the first time I really
thought Skinner might not hate my guts. Up until then he'd
been cold, sometimes openly hostile to both Scully and me,
but when I angrily informed him that--had the X-files not
been closed--Scully and I might have solved the case, he
agreed. "We all take our orders from someone," he told me,
and I knew, of course, that he was talking about that
cigarette smoking bastard. I just didn't realize at the
time how involved in our futures he would be.

And now, I don't think I want to write about Flukie any
more. He was a joke throughout our years together--Scully's
example of our worst case ever, which was a joke in itself,
since she was never officially assigned to that case.
'Flukie' became a word in our vocabularies, a special,
shared, inside joke between the two of us. I always used to
tease Scully that I was going to have a t-shirt made for her
that read, 'Kick a Little Flukie Ass.'

Anyway, Frohike is coming to take me out to the cemetery
this morning, and if I know myself, I'll be in no condition
to write for the rest of the day.

I have to get cleaned up and ready. I'm going to wear the
gray shirt today, the one Scully always loved to sleep in.

----------

The cemetery is beautiful this time of year. All the
flowers--the living ones, flowers relatives have planted
over the graves of their loved ones--are in bloom. The
grass is green, and today it was freshly mowed. The sun was
warm--it was a gorgeous spring day. I sat there in my
chair, parked on the sidewalk that borders Scully's grave,
and cried like a baby. Well okay, not really like a baby.
I mean, I wasn't sobbing or anything, but once the first
tear escaped, I simply couldn't hold back the rest.

I cried with grief and loneliness, but also at the
unfairness of it all. We were both so young, and now our
lives are over. This beautiful day--Scully should have been
here to enjoy it. She always loved days like this, and even
though we never spoke of such things, I could tell. We'd be
out of the office, investigating a case, and walking through
the fresh morning air, she'd throw back her head and inhale
deeply, a tiny smile gracing her lips, and I knew. She was
never meant to be a doctor, practicing inside sterile
hospital walls day after day--she was meant for this.

Maybe there was some happiness in her last years, among all
the pain. I know there was happiness when we finally got
together. Not 'together' but 'Together!'. You know what I
mean. Well hell, since I'm only typing this for myself, I
should say *I* know what I mean. When we became lovers.

Anyway, seeing the beautiful day, filled with angst for me,
reminded me of another, similar day. I'd all but forgotten
this case, one of the few interesting ones I worked without
Scully, and even then, I wasn't truly without her. She was
involved, because I involved her. We were
keeping in contact by email at that point--safer, we both
felt, than telephone calls. Scully had ceased believing
there was any danger in our seeing each other, but I hadn't
completely given up my paranoia. I couldn't forget how they
had tapped my phone, and probably hers, how they had bugged
her pen and our apartments. How they had killed the
Carpenter family and Deep Throat. It was clear to me that
they were, shall we say, deadly serious.

So I was remembering the day, and suddenly had a mental
picture of myself running along a sidewalk--something I'll
never do again, and something I'll never stop missing--and I
remembered a case I'd completely forgotten about. I don't
have any notes from it, for some reason, but it was the one
where people in a small town were killing each other, and
bashing electronic devices to pieces at the same time. It
was the spraying, the LSDM, and the subliminal messages.

We never did discover who was sending the messages--although
it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that,
ultimately, our benevolent government was behind it all--or
why they were prompting people to kill, but it worked like a
charm.

end part 1/4
--
Subject: [MTA_Stories] Memoir: Year Two 2/4

I'd been told during the Flukie case, by my mysterious
caller, that reinstatement of the X-files must be
undeniable. There had to be a reason for them to reopen our
division, and I wonder now if this case was contrived in
order to give us something to investigate, to prove our
value to Skinner and the others involved in making the
decision.

Sounds awfully conceited, doesn't it? On the other hand,
there hasn't exactly been a rash of this type of thing going
on since we solved that case--and I use the term "solved"
very loosely.

I hate to think so many people died because of us, but maybe
I'm wrong about that. A very wise woman once said to me,
"Not everything is about you, Mulder." At the time I didn't
realize how truly self-centered I was. It took a ghost to
point that out to me, but that was much later. Yes, I said
a ghost. I know you never believed in them, Scully, but I
did. Still do. I've seen them and talked to them and I
know they exist, and how on earth I could have ever
reconciled that knowledge with the belief that there was no
afterlife amazes me. I guess I was in heavy denial. On the
other hand, it wasn't really the idea of an afterlife I
couldn't accept, it was the whole thing about Heaven and
Hell and a God who really gives a damn what we do in our
everyday lives. Somehow the idea that disembodied beings
are roaming the planet making mischief seemed more logical
to me. Go figure.

We solved the case, but naturally didn't catch the killer.
We closed the book on it, anyway, and the murders stopped,
and that was the important thing, at least to the people in
that small town.

About five minutes after that case was shut, someone left a
cassette tape of a 911 call on my doorstep, and I met Alex
Krycek. He certainly changed our lives, and not for the
better, but the things he did to us drew Scully and me even
closer together, so I guess there is something to thank him
for. On the other hand, Krycek was never in charge, he was
just a flunky--sometimes the smoking man's and sometimes
someone else's, but always working for another party. I
haven't seen or heard anything from or about Krycek in
almost three years. Maybe he's dead. I can always hope.

I took the tape to Skinner, hoping he'd allow me to
investigate the case, and he said he'd think about it.
Later that day, Krycek came with the 302, only it had his
name on it as well. He informed me he'd opened the case an
hour before me, so he was working on it with me.

Needless to say, I didn't take to this information well.
I'd given up any pretense of amiability by then--I didn't
care of my co-workers all thought I was a shit. The only
one who mattered didn't even work in the Hoover building any
longer. Here came this young agent, so clean cut he
practically squeaked, informing me that the case I'd been
handed was, in fact, his. I was less than enthusiastic.

I lied to him, ditched him, and went off on my own
to investigate. "Ditched him." That's a funny term--not
one I ever would have used in conversation, really, but
Krycek accused me of it, which was the truth, and Scully
accused me of it, which wasn't, but things were messed up
that day anyway. It was a planetary thing, you wouldn't
understand. I barely did.

Anyway, Krycek insinuated himself into my life through that
case, but I didn't like him--in fact, I could barely be
civil at first. Finally I told myself that if I had to work
with him, we should at least be on friendly terms, so I was
a touch more polite. He seemed so eager, so fresh, and I
wonder still if it was a ruse, or if he was really that way
at first. I wonder if they sent him through the Academy for
the sole purpose of using him, or if they managed to corrupt
him later. I do know he actually graduated--I investigated
him, talked to a few of his instructors...Krycek, had he
been honest, could have been a great agent.

This was an important case, for not only did I meet Krycek,
I met X--I never knew his name, and in his line of work it's
conceivable he no longer had one--who informed me that he was
the successor to Deep Throat. Who assigned these men to
feed me information? I'll never know that, I suppose.
Doesn't matter anyway. I'm certainly no use to them now.

If Deep Throat had been friendly, almost a father-figure, X
was entirely the opposite. He was angry, sullen, cryptic,
yes even more so than Deep Throat, and made it clear he
didn't want to be involved. Since he ultimately paid with
his life, I can certainly understand his feelings. What I
don't understand, what I never understood, was why he did
what he did. That's why I believe someone higher up was
pulling the strings.

There was nothing about Krycek while we were investigating
that case that should have given me pause--other than the
fact that he was a little too nosy for my tastes--it was
just a feeling I got from him. A creepy feeling, as if he
looked like a civilized man on the surface, but beneath the
mask of civility lay a sewer rat. Funny, isn't it, how that
feeling turned out to be correct? If only I'd known he was
completely untrustworthy from the beginning, Scully might
not have ended up with that damned chip in her neck. I
suppose it doesn't matter now; I didn't, and she did. I
trusted him to at least want to save the life of a fellow
agent, and I was a fool, and she was taken.

-------

It's been a difficult few days for me. The trip to the
cemetery was harder this time, for some reason. I always
talk to Scully while I'm there, but I haven't cried like
that at her graveside in a long time. I've also been trying
to come down with a cold this week, so I've felt a bit like
death warmed over. Then I found the hair.

Maggie knitted me this afghan for Christmas last year. It's
warm and soft, with stripes of blue and grey, and I love it.
For some reason, even though I have no feeling in my legs,
they get cold. Go figure that. On the hottest day of the
summer, my legs will feel chilled. Maybe it's all in my
imagination, maybe it's like the phantom pain an amputee
will experience in the missing limb, but for whatever the
reason, my legs get cold. So Maggie made me this afghan and
I've been using it for months, and then yesterday...

Do you know, I still have the damned thing? Taped it to a
piece of paper so I wouldn't lose it, and it's lying here
beside my computer right now. Coming on the heels of the
cemetery trip, it was a bit much, and I fell apart when I
found it. A long red strand, woven into the yarn, as if it
had fallen there ages ago, perhaps when Scully was visiting
her mother. I can picture the bag of yarn sitting at the
end of the couch where Maggie always seems to keep it, and
Scully leaning against the arm of the couch, sleepily
conversing with her mother, and a loose strand of hair
dropped from her head into the bag.

Then, almost two years later, or maybe even longer, Maggie
digs out the yarn and decides to make me an afghan, and
there is Scully's hair, woven into the yarn, unnoticed by
either of us until yesterday. Nearly tore me apart, I can
tell you. I think that might be why I'm coming down with
this blasted cold--I've been awfully emotional lately, and
my natural defenses are down.

Katie has been clucking over me, and left me some over-the-
counter cold meds, but I haven't taken them. They make my
head fuzzy, and I want to be clear. I want to write this.
Lately, it's all I live for.

Katie's a nice girl, and funny as hell. She has a twisted
sense of humor that always takes me by surprise.

The first time I met her was on my first evening here. The
guys and Skinner had gotten me pretty much settled in my
apartment, but I had nothing to eat, and hey, three meals a
day are included in the cost of this place anyway, so I
decided to go to the dining room.

Being unfamiliar with the layout, and still getting used to
the chair, I was struggling up the ramp toward the front
door of the dining room.

Let me tell you something about wheelchair ramps--they're
fine going down, but they can be hell going up, especially
for a novice, if you don't have someone pushing you. I was
on my own, motivated by my hunger and a determination, after
two failed attempts, to beat that damned ramp, when I heard
a little giggle behind me.

"Can I give you a hand?" asked a young woman with a long
blond braid, and quickly pushed me up the ramp to where it
leveled off outside the door.

"I have a hand, thanks, but I could use a couple of legs if
you've got 'em," I answered.

That's when her sense of humor took me. She got a very
serious look on her face, held up her hand as if about to do
a magic trick, waved it over my legs and said, "Poof!"
Then she looked down at my legs with a puzzled look, gave a
disgusted grimace, and said, "Stupid magic wand. Guess I'll
have to send it to the repair shop again."

I stared at her for a minute, unable to believe what she had
done, before breaking down in laughter like I hadn't known
in weeks. Katie waited patiently while I collected myself,
then introduced herself and wheeled me into the dining room.
She sat by me and made small talk, since I didn't know any
of the other residents yet, and after dinner she showed me
the easy way to get in, from the back way, where there was
no ramp to deal with. That's when I learned she was going
to be the nurse assigned to me. I see her for about fifteen
minutes a day, and she's always a bright spot. She's even
learned to put up with my occasional moodiness.

This is a nice place I have here. Of course, most of the
residents are over eighty, but I like them anyway. They're
interesting, and always willing to talk. Any time I get
lonely, I can leave my little apartment and go hang out in
the common room, which is like a giant living room with
little enclaves of sofas and chairs and fireplaces, or in
the library, which is a real one, very well stocked with
everything from encyclopedias to children's books--to read
to the grandkids when they come to visit.

I can either take my meals in the dining room, where they're
included in the cost of living here, or I can whip up
something in my tiny kitchenette, if I'm so inclined. No
stove top, but a small refrigerator/freezer and a mean
microwave. A place like this is expensive, but it's worth
every penny, and between my pension, disability, social
security and my savings, plus the fees I get from my
occasional consulting jobs for the Bureau, I don't have to
worry about where my next meal is coming from.

I live in what's known as a 'wheelchair unit,' which
basically means that everything is below waist height for
a standing adult. This apartment, and those like it, were
built with a wheelchair bound person in mind, and they're
great. Plenty of space, everything low enough, and it's all
mine. They can't kick me out, unless I don't pay the bill,
and I can stay here for the rest of my life, however long
that may be. Medical care on call, transportation to
grocery stores and malls on a regular schedule, and even
weekly trips to movie theaters or restaurants, or wherever
else senior citizens might want to hang out.

As I said, it's really very nice, and at least I don't have
to be in my old apartment, with all the memories of Scully.

I nearly lost it when the guys plugged in my VCR and out
popped the tape which had been in the slot all the time I'd
been in the hospital--'Caddyshack.' Langly caught it as it
ejected, and turned to find my face ashen, I'm sure. He
seemed to catch on quickly, and asked if I wanted him to get
rid of it. I thought of saying yes at first, but then I
decided I was brave enough to conquer that demon, so I took
it from him and placed it carefully on the shelf where my
other videos would eventually go. I did destroy it later,
as I believe I've mentioned. And no, Scully, I do not have
a collection of porn flicks here in this apartment. They'd
only make me jealous, anyway.

-----

I think I already mentioned that Krycek was never officially
assigned as my partner. We did the case together where I
ditched him--a difficult case, too. It dealt with more of
our government's atrocities, this time against a unit of our
own soldiers during the Vietnam era. These men had been
the subject of a sleep eradication experiment, one which
turned out to have deadly results. The boys no longer had
to sleep, but they went a little crazy in the process.

Sleep is a restorative. I once heard someone say that
dreams were a way of safely allowing your mind to go nuts,
so that when you awakened, you were your usual, sane self.
I was told that everyone needs this release, and without it,
a person would begin behaving in bizarre, abnormal ways. Of
course, the man who told me that was talking of people
deprived of sleep for a few days, not twenty-five years.

Krycek stole the report that X had given me about the
experiment out of my car--at least I've always assumed it
was Krycek. Someone took Scully's copy, too, and we were
again left with no proof of what we'd found.

Two days later, I met Duane Barry.

I remember, I was swimming in the pool at the Hoover
building when Krycek came to fetch me. He said there was a
hostage negotiation about to take place, and that the
hostage-taker believed he was being controlled by aliens.
Well, naturally, who ya gonna call? Spooky Mulder, that's
who.

Krycek looked me up and down when I climbed out of the
pool--can you believe there were rumors that the guy was
gay? Not that I cared, one way or another, but Krycek never
struck me as preferring men over women. Maybe he was
jealous--he certainly couldn't have missed the fact that I
was a bit...er...excited, even after swimming in cold water,
but what he didn't realize was that I'd dived into the pool
in order to take my mind off thoughts of Scully.

I'd only been partially successful. And I hope Krycek *was*
jealous.

Anyway, back to the hostage negotiation--I went down there,
pissed them all off when I informed them that they should
take Mr. Barry seriously, and promptly ended up trading
myself for one of the hostages. A man had been shot when
the lights went off and Duane had fired in a panic, and if
we didn't get him out of there, he was going to die.
Another agent and I dressed in paramedic uniforms, wired, of
course, and went inside. While the other agent, whose name
slips my mind completely now, tended to the injured hostage,
I tried to talk sense to Duane.

I guess I talked a little too much sense, because the next
thing I knew, I was tied to a chair along with the
psychiatrist Duane had kidnaped, and he was telling me about
his abduction experiences.

It's hard to describe how I was feeling at that point.
Scully had been taken from me, and the X-files, and my hope
of ever finding my sister had been almost crushed. Really,
it was only my occasional contacts with Scully, and her
positive outlook, that kept me from going completely off the
deep end and doing something incredibly stupid.

Life is very precious, and the only times in my
adulthood that I've considered ending mine have all revolved
around her. However, I'm not willing to accept that ghostly
ass-kicking I'd get from Scully if I did it now, so I'll
wait until my time is up. And hope it isn't much longer.

Anyway, feeling about as low down as I could possibly feel,
I remember talking to Duane Barry about the other abductees
he'd seen, how they were little girls sometimes, and how the
tests hurt them badly. I even tried to get Duane to take me
and leave Dr. Hakkie alone, but he wouldn't hear of it. I
thought maybe if he took me, I'd have a chance to discover
something new about Samantha, maybe even find her.

I've often wondered just how far that incident was planned
out, how much of it was by design and how much accidentally
fit into their scheme. Did they simply take advantage of
Duane escaping from the institution where he was
incarcerated, or did they direct him to do everything
through his implants?

Most certainly they got me involved knowing Scully would
follow, and they were more than right about that. I've
wondered, sometimes, what would have happened if I'd simply
refused to get involved--would they still have taken Scully?
And then I tell myself...of course they would have. I could
no more not involve myself in that case than I could refuse
to involve myself in any other--it was my job, and there was
someone in need, innocent lives that were at stake. It's in
my nature. Besides, if I'd refused the assignment, I'd have
been in trouble, and I sure as hell didn't need any more of
that. Not when I was finally off that damned wiretap duty
and back to investigating cases that had a little meat to them.

The story of Duane Barry is a long and complicated one.
He'd been an FBI agent before he was shot in the line of
duty, a good one according to his record. Then he was
injured, unable to work, lost his job and family and
eventually ended up at a correctional center for the, shall
we say, mentally unstable. I saw Duane's medical and
criminal records after he died, and the man was a sad case.
He'd descended further and further into psychosis,
eventually losing touch with reality altogether, until one
day he'd gone to an elementary school playground and begun
shooting at kids. Said he was "protecting" them. He
injured a few, but didn't manage to kill any, thank god, and
was found to be emotionally disturbed and sent to a criminal
corrections facility for people with emotional disturbances.
A "hospital for the criminally insane," as they would call
it in one of those old horror films they used to make back
in the seventies, the kind where the guy would eventually
escape and begin hacking up fornicating teenagers. Come to
think of it, Duane wasn't all that far off the mark--it just
wasn't fornicating teenagers, and he didn't hack. He did
whatever they told him to do.

He was supposed to remain in that place for the rest of his
life, or until he regained sanity, whichever came first, but
then he got the chance to escape and take Dr. Hakkie
hostage, and as I said, I don't know how much of that was
Duane and how much was Them, controlling him through his
implants. Either way, it resulted in Scully's abduction,
and that was back when I thought I could still trust Krycek
to at least want to help a fellow agent in distress. I knew
he was sleazy, but I had no idea he worked for Them. As
I've said before, I was an idiot.

The hostage negotiation ended when Duane was shot, and Dr.
Hakkie and I were released. Duane was taken to the
hospital, and again, I don't know if the actions he took
then were of his own design. He escaped from the hospital a
couple of days later, made his way to Scully's
apartment--and how did he find out where she lived? Like
any smart woman living alone, Scully wasn't listed in the
phone directory. Did They tell him? Was Krycek involved?
Or did they simply lead him on, unknowing of what his final
destination would be, as they'd led him to the travel agency
where I was taken hostage? These are questions I'll never
know the answers to, and they don't really matter now
anyway, except that I'd like to understand.

The part that hurt the most was knowing I'd gotten her
involved. I'd phoned her, originally, to tell her what I
was looking into and to have her dig up some background info
on Duane. I wanted to know about his abduction experiences,
but she found things in his medical history that made her
believe I was in serious danger. Again--real or planted?
Obviously the details of what he'd done were authentic, but
what about the other, about the "moral center of his brain"
being destroyed? He seemed to have a fair grasp of right
and wrong when I met him--oh, he knew that what he was doing
was wrong, but he felt he had no choice. He was a tool of
them as surely as anyone ever was, and in the end, when he
was no longer of use, Krycek killed him. He was nothing but a
liability then.

The agent in charge of the hostage negotiation, an Agent
Kazdin, called me down to the hospital two days after Duane
was shot. I thought she was going to reprimand me for
disobeying her orders, but instead she told me that some of
what Duane said may have been true. She still didn't
believe in alien abduction, of course, but the marks on his
body corresponded with his story, and they'd found several
implants in him. She gave me one, and I took it to Scully
at Quantico right away. I wanted to have it analyzed.

She called me, later that night, and was in the process of
leaving a message on my answering machine when

-----

That was rough. I had to stop because my hands started to
shake. I had no idea what going through these old case
files would do to me. I got myself a glass of water, then
went for a "walk" around the grounds.

It's a beautiful place, with gardens out back, complete with
wheelchair paths so people like me can enjoy them. The
grounds are well kept, and the staff is wonderful. It sure
beats the hell out of my old apartment building. I know
spending the last bit of their lives in a retirement home is
supposed to be an awful thing for the elderly, but believe
me, it isn't because of the treatment here. Although I've
seen many of the residents watch hopefully, week after week,
dejected when no family arrives to visit them. That's the
really sad part.

I have my share of visitors, and I've always done well on my
own anyway, ever since Samantha was taken. I drew into a
shell, and few people have coaxed me out of it. Scully did
the best job of them all.

He took her while she was talking to me. That memory still
sends chills down my spine, hearing her scream my name,
asking for my help, just like Samantha had done when she was
abducted.

Naturally I raced over to her apartment immediately, but it
was way too late by then.

I probably wasn't supposed to figure out where Barry was
taking her, but eventually the pieces fell into place for me
and I pinpointed Skyland Mountain. I'm certain Krycek
received last-minute orders to keep me away from her at all
costs, because he killed the tram operator in order to stop
me. He halted the tram, and when I climbed out on top, he
started it up again. I learned all this later from
Skinner, of course, but I suppose Krycek was trying to kill
me then. I managed to drop onto the top of the car and ride
it the rest of the way to the top of the mountain, where I
discovered I was too late. All I found of Scully was her
cross.

We took Duane Barry into custody, and I lost my temper and
got a little rough with him, but Krycek is the one who
killed him. I know that as surely as I know my own name. He
went into the room with Duane, and a few minutes later the
man was dead. How hard is that to figure out? Especially
once we'd discovered just what a snake Krycek really was.

I even tried to get Senator Matheson's help, but instead of
the Senator, I found X waiting in his office. He basically
told me I was screwed, that this went beyond all of them,
and that I might as well forget about Scully. I remember I
had driven there in Krycek's car, and when I left--I don't
know what made me open the ashtray, but I found a Morley
butt there. Krycek didn't smoke. Would you believe that
was the first time I realized Krycek was working for them?
All the pieces fell into place then, and I went to Skinner
with my suspicions, but Krycek had already disappeared.

That was when Skinner reopened the X-files.

-----

My first case back in my basement office, and I was
unfaithful to Scully.

Isn't that an odd way to phrase it? There was no commitment
between us, no physical relationship, not even an
"understanding," as they used to say in olden times, and yet
I still think of what I did as being unfaithful.

I certainly didn't have any feelings toward Kristin Kilar,
other than the natural desire to protect someone whose life
was threatened, nor did she have any toward me. What we did
that night was nothing short of good, old-fashioned screwing.
A release of tension, a roll in the hay, so to speak, but I
felt like hell for days after. The only problem with that
was, I felt like hell most of the time, so I didn't
recognize the feeling for what it was--guilt--until much
later.

end part 2/4
--
===================================================\

Subject: [MTA_Stories] Memoir: Year Two 3/4

That was one of the strangest cases I ever investigated, and
while I knew there were those who called themselves
"vampires" and enjoyed the drinking of human blood, I never
thought to meet up with an actual creature out of legend.
This guy didn't wear a cape and sleep in a coffin, but he
was an authentic vampire, nonetheless. Contrary to his
claims, he *could* be seen in a mirror, but he also melted
in the sunlight. But the really weird thing was, somehow he
came back together again. I always thought once a vampire
melted in the sunlight, he turned to dust and blew away--at
least that's the way it always works in the movies. Maybe
the problem was that John didn't completely melt. That's
gotta be it.

Anyway, as I told the officer who suggested I go back to my
motel and rest, I didn't sleep any more. It was almost
literally true, too. Too many nights of hearing Scully in
my dreams had cured me of the desire, and I was functioning
on barely two or three hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour
period. It was only due to good luck and good instincts
that I didn't get myself killed, but at the time, I almost
hoped it would happen.

Scully's voice on my answering machine, screaming for me to
help her, was the most bone-chilling thing I'd heard since I
was twelve years old. I'll never forget the sound of it as
long as I live. Thank god she didn't call me by my first
name--I don't think I'd have been able to stand hearing
cries of "Fox! Fox!" again. That would have been the final
nail through my heart. It was difficult enough knowing
another person who meant everything to me had been taken,
calling for my help, and I had remained powerless.

So knowing Kristin was in danger I went to her, offered to
take her into protective custody, and when her seductive
voice and soft hands and the loneliness I felt all became
too much, I had her right there on the bathroom floor. It
was fast and furious and only marginally satisfying for
either of us, but we were both trying to purge ourselves of
sadness. Sex is never going to achieve that, but still,
people try.

And a couple of hours later she died, and of course I felt
guilt over her death as well. I was wallowing in the stuff
by then, driving friends to distraction and pissing off
co-workers on a regular basis. I didn't care about any of
it. Life was not worth living without Scully.

To say I was devastated without her would be an
understatement. I was in the depths of hell. I spent my
days moving through work as if in a dream, finally,
reluctantly hauling myself back to my apartment well after
midnight, only to be behind my desk again by seven a.m. Some
nights I didn't go home at all, I just dozed a bit in my
chair. Dozing was all I did those days, because any
prolonged sleep was certain to bring about dreams which I
was not prepared to face. Occasionally I would remember to
eat something, but my appetite had long since departed. I
don't know how much weight I lost during that time, but it
was noticeable.

And then she came back.

It was just a few days after Maggie had called and asked me
to accompany her on an errand. She wisely neglected to tell
me just what it was about until we were almost to our
destination, and by then it was too late for me to run. I
listened to her reminisce about Scully, biting my cheek on
the inside to hold back my emotions, but when the grave
stone was unveiled, I had to turn away. I never wanted to
see Scully's name on such a stone.

Now I see it every week.

There is no way I can ever describe how much she meant to
me. Men love their women, and women adore their men, and
it's a common thing in our world in spite of the high rate
of divorce and separation. There are still good
relationships out there, ones that last lifetimes. Our
lifetime was just too short, and after all the years of
loving her, I was amazed to discover she felt the same. I
knew it in my heart, but never dared believe it to be true.
Women like Dana Scully do not, as a rule, fall in love with
men like me. So even though what we had was special, it was
certainly not unheard of. To me, however, it was a miracle.
I never believed in all those years of worshiping
her that she'd ever let me get closer than a hug.

No one was more amazed than I when we became intimate. But
that was years later.

Anyway, there I lay on my old leather couch, idly
fast-forwarding through some porn flick in the vain hope
that I could get some dreamless sleep before dawn broke.
The phone rang, and I answered it half-heartedly--it had to
be Frohike at that hour, nobody else would have called me
then.

It was Maggie. I was up and out of my apartment almost
before she finished speaking, throwing on my jeans and
running for the car, making it to the hospital in record
time, only to find Scully in a coma. She was alive, all
right, but not expected to remain with us for long.

I think I went a little crazy, and when the doctor told me
Scully had been bathed since her arrival, thereby destroying
any trace evidence we might have been able to gather, I had
to restrain myself from punching him. I knew it wasn't his
fault, but I wanted so badly to strike back, somehow.

It was Skinner who gave me the chance, although he never
admitted it. He won't admit it to this day, and I don't
know if he's still afraid of what might be the results of
such an admission or if he's just being ornery, but I know.
I knew then and I know now. He was a true friend to Scully
and me both, even though there were times I questioned that.

I asked him for Cancerman's address, and he told me he
didn't know how to contact the man, but managed to get it to
me in a pack of Morley cigarettes, of all things. I had
just told Melissa I felt responsible for Scully's condition
when the opportunity to put a bullet through the head of the
man I blamed above all others fell into my lap.

I'd already seen a man murdered by X, someone who had
tried to steal a vial of Scully's blood--the gunmen had
analyzed the pages Frohike had stolen from her chart, seen
the branched DNA in her bloodstream, and effectively told me
there was no chance she would live. I still don't know who
wanted the blood--was it one of theirs, someone X killed on
his own in order to stop them carrying out any further plans
with Scully, or was it from a rival group of some sort,
perhaps another faction working on their own vaccine? I'll
never know the answer to that.

Skinner called me into his office and asked me pointed
questions about the incident, to which I replied with
obvious lies, and it was just after that he gave me the
address.

I left the hospital immediately and went to confront the
smoking man, but in the end I didn't have enough anger in
me to pull the trigger and kill a man who wasn't threatening
my life--not even that one. I wanted to, oh how I wanted to
do it, but the last bit of sanity I had remaining warned me
that no good would come of it, and Scully would still be
dead. I could never track down her murderers from a prison
cell.

Then X gave me the clear means to kill the men responsible
for Scully's condition, but I couldn't take that either--not
because I didn't want to, but because I had a choice to
make. Spend Scully's last few hours at her side, or waiting
in a darkened apartment to commit murder. Melissa shamed me
enough that I began to think clearly. I owed it to Scully
to be with her, to talk to her, to tell her how I felt even
if she couldn't hear me.

I never actually said that I loved her that night, but I
poured every bit of emotion I could into the words I did
say. Toward morning I left the hospital and went home,
expecting to receive the call confirming her death at any
time. I didn't feel right, somehow, sitting in that room
with her mother and sister, and I knew her brothers were
both on their way. I didn't belong. And besides, I didn't
think I could stand to be there when she actually slipped
away. Some things are too difficult for even the strongest
of men. Reminds me of that movie, 'Steel Magnolias.' God,
I can't go there yet.

I went home and found my apartment in a mess, as X had all
but promised--they'd ransacked my entire living quarters
looking for the information they thought I had on my
computer. How the hell they managed to do it without making
enough noise to get the cops called, I'll never understand.

I cried that morning, cried for real--loud, wrenching sobs
of despair and loneliness. She was not yet gone but I
missed her so terribly, and the cruel hope I'd felt when I
first learned of her return had been completely shattered.
It was losing her all over again, and I didn't know if I
could survive it--the pain in my heart was unbearable.

I cried for a long time, and finally dragged myself over to
the couch and sat, just listening to the silence, doing my
best to make my mind a blank so Scully's lifeless face would
not float through my consciousness anymore.

Then the phone rang, and it was Maggie, and I almost didn't
answer, I almost let the machine pick it up, but at the last
second I told myself to be a man, take the bad news and get
it behind you, and Maggie said Scully was awake.

Scully and I rarely exchanged gifts, but we usually took
each other out to lunch or dinner on our birthdays. Earlier
that year I'd taken her to one of her favorite restaurants,
which happened to be in a mall--walking past the video
store, I'd joked with her about how I'd forgotten to get her
a present, and while she was eating I'd sneak out and pick
up a video for her. She laughed and said not to bother, I'd
probably get some stupid sports thing that she'd hate
anyway. It was just a joke, harmless teasing, but when I
saw 'Superstars of the Superbowl' on the shelf next to the
checkout stand at the market, I put back the flowers I had
planned to purchase and grabbed that instead. She would
understand.

She did, and gave me that special smile once more just
before making a smartass crack. That's my Scully, never at
a loss for words. I felt self-conscious again, tongue-tied,
like a little boy asking his first girl out for a date, so I
got out of the room pretty quickly, but when Scully stopped
me, said something that made me know she'd heard my words
the night before, I gave her back her cross. I can hardly
believe what an amazing piece of symbology this little wisp
of gold has been for us, but I wear it still. I'll take it
to my grave, and then maybe Scully and I can be together in
a way we never could in this life. Maybe we can let down
our guard and just enjoy one another's company and be happy
together.

I left the hospital in a daze that morning, not really
remembering the drive home, and managed to get the first
restful sleep I'd had in months. I slept for seventeen
hours straight, and by the time I woke up, Scully had
already been released from the hospital. Her recovery was
nothing short of miraculous. I still wonder if Cancerman
manipulated that somehow by the chip in her neck. I think
he wanted to push me, see how far I'd go, see if I'd sink to
his level. You know, it just occurred to me this very
second--maybe it wasn't Skinner who left that address for
me. Maybe it was the smoking man himself. Maybe he wanted
to see if I'd really do it.

I'll have to ask Skinner next time I see him.

If I had lost weight during her abduction, Scully had gained
a bit. Of course we didn't learn why until much later--I
figured it was because of inactivity. She wasn't fat, mind
you, but her face was attractively rounded and her breasts
had grown larger. So sue me, I noticed. When I discovered
the real reason for her weight gain, some years later, I
wanted to kill them all over again. Of course, that was a
common feeling with me.

You know, I've often wondered why they didn't just have us
killed, or at least have *me* killed. Scully would have
mourned and moved on, as X suggested I do for her. She
would no longer have been a threat at that point. After
Emily, after Melissa, I think she'd have remained determined
to bring them down, but back then, when we were both still
so damned innocent, she'd have backed off. We got into a
lot of trouble, and our lives were threatened more than
once, but never seriously.

I know, we were shot at, abducted, beaten, etc, but never
*seriously*. If they'd wanted us dead, they could have
completed the job. They certainly didn't have any trouble
with Deep Throat, or X, or Diana, and Marita definitely went
through hell. Sometimes I wonder just how much old C.G.B.
knew--did he know that boxcar had an escape route built in
when he ordered it burned? Did he deliberately tell the
person who shot through my apartment window at Scully to
barely miss? Why didn't he just have someone come into my
apartment some night while I was sleeping and shoot me dead?
In my line of work, it wouldn't have aroused much suspicion
in his direction.

This is a question I have pondered for years, and I know I
will never have the answer. But I'm getting ahead again,
and Scully had just come back.

The very first case we worked on after her return to work
was fascinating, but naturally the evidence Trepkos had
gathered which seemed to indicate the discovery of a
silicon-based life-form disappeared, like so many other
evidences we uncovered over the years.

I find, looking back, that I no longer care so much about
such things. Instead, I remember the month-long quarantine
Scully and I had to face after that case. We had a lot of
time alone together, and we got to know each other much
better than we had before. We didn't have a lot to do,
although diversions were supplied for us, so we talked. And
talked, and talked. We talked more during that month than we
did in our entire relationship, before or after. Once we
got back to civilization, it was as if the usual reserve
came over us, but there was always a much deeper
understanding after that.

I remember I could barely take my eyes off her during that
case, and I was so over-protective, I'm surprised she didn't
shoot me. Maybe that's what she was really thinking of when
she did pull the trigger, later on the next year.

That's a joke. Scully would never have hurt me if it hadn't
been absolutely necessary. She probably kept my ass from
going to prison with that bullet of hers.

Scully always called the Trepkos case 'The Case of the Giant
Asparagus Stalks,' and damned if that wasn't what they
looked like, those things that would suddenly burst out of
an infected person's throat. It was really quite horrible,
but we saw a lot of horrible things, and we saw a lot of
innocent people die, and humor became our only defense
mechanism. A bit morbid on the surface, perhaps, but
necessary to our survival.

-----

Skinner is a bit of a dark horse at times, and after all
these years, the man can still surprise me. He came by to
visit last night, and when I told him my theory about the
note in the cigarette package, he just gave me an odd look
and said he wondered why it had taken me so long to figure
it out.

Just one more piece of the puzzle that was Cancerman--a
puzzle I never managed to fully put together. I wonder what
ever became of old C.G.B.? Skinner told me he died, but
then...we thought that once before.

I was going to work on this more today, but this cold is
really getting me down. I think I might bow to the
inevitable this morning and take those meds Katie keeps
pushing at me. I didn't sleep a wink last night because it
was so difficult to breathe, and right now, even
drug-induced rest sounds attractive. I've been coughing a
bit, too, and if she finds that out, she's probably going to
haul me down to the clinic. Maybe I can ward this off
before it gets any worse if I dose up on the Nyquil right
now.

The memoirs will have to wait.

-----

Well, it's amazing what a couple days of sleep can do for a
body. I still have the cough, and my rib muscles are a bit
sore, but I can finally breathe through my nose again!

I wanted to go to the cemetery again this morning, but Katie
nixed that when she visited. Skinner was already here,
ready to load me in his car and drive me when she arrived,
and damned if he didn't listen to her when she said I needed
to stay inside for a day or two. It's spring, but the
weather has been unseasonably cool, and Katie's a worrier.
I tried to tell her I was fine, but she listened to my chest
and heard some noises in there, so...here I sit, before my
computer instead of beside Scully.

I always miss her, but sometimes it's such a weight within
me that I feel certain I can't bear it for another day.
It's been like that since I began this project. Katie's
even noticed I'm not my usual, chipper self, and that's not
a good thing. She's a sweetheart, but if she thinks I'm
getting depressed, I'll be back in therapy, and I hate that.
I endured it for about three months after I came here to
live before I flatly refused to attend any more sessions.

I don't need help getting over Scully, because I never
*will* get over her. There's no point in trying to force
the issue. I'll still see her face and hear her laughter
and talk to her as if she was right here in the room, and
sometimes she is.

Ethereal, like a ghost--that's how she appeared to me in the
first few weeks after her abduction. The dreamlike quality
of at last being able to touch her, talk to her,
had not yet disappeared when our quarantine ended and we
headed off to Wisconsin for our next case. I could still
barely take my eyes off her, and I remember sitting across
from her in a restaurant while on that case, and wiping a
bit of barbecue sauce from her mouth with a napkin.

To quote a popular movie of several years ago, "It was the
most erotic experience of my life--at least up until then."
It was certainly one of the most romantic moments in our
lives, and we were far from romance at that point. At least
on an outward level.

That was the case where we found the good doctor injecting
all the kids in a small town with Purity Control, the stuff
we'd found in the Erlenmeyer flask--when Deep Throat was
killed and the X-files shut down. Nothing ever came of it,
of course. It was one of those cases where we were able to
puzzle out what was going on, but unable to obtain and keep
even a shred of evidence to prove our point. Just one more.

It was obvious, looking back, armed with what I now know,
that this was an early attempt at creating a hybrid, but it
failed just as so many of their other experiments failed.
We may have been instrumental in shutting this particular
project down, but it was like putting out a small brush fire
while the forest burns.

We never had a chance.

After that, it was off to Massachusetts to investigate a
supposedly haunted nursing home, which turned out to be a
case of too much of a good thing. An orderly at the nursing
home, Asian by birth, had been feeding the residents who
suffered from Alzheimer's disease, a medicine he made from
dried mushrooms and an assortment of herbs. It would have
been great except for the fact that some of the residents
were a little impatient, and broke into his supply in order
to double and triple dose themselves.

We solved that one, all right, but sadly, it meant the
residents went back to their Alzheimer's afflicted lives.
Nobody else died, but none of those senior citizens were
really living any longer, either.

Scully wanted so badly for that marginal treatment the
doctor was using to be the cure, but when it turned out to
be Eastern medicine, she backed off quickly. She'd never
come out and say she didn't believe herbs were effective in
treating illness, but given the choice between herbs and
Western medicine Scully was going to take Western medicine
any day. A scientist to the core, was my Scully.

We were getting tired. It had been a stressful year for us,
and Scully hadn't given herself time to fully recover from
her abduction. I was still at my less-than-optimum because
of the shape I'd gotten in while she was missing. And
although we had been well cared-for while in quarantine, it
was still difficult on us, being confined for a month.

We needed a vacation, and there was no break in sight. We'd
had two cases without a moment to breathe in between, and as
soon as we closed the book on the nursing home case, we had
to fly down to Aubrey, Missouri to look into the discovery
of the body of an FBI agent who had disappeared in 1942.

It was an odd case--hell, all of our cases were odd, but
this one more than usual--but what I remember the most was
B.J. Morrow kneeling over me, holding a straight razor to my throat,
and Scully pointing her weapon at B.J. I know if Cokeley
hadn't died when he did, releasing B.J. from his influence,
Scully would have put a bullet through her without a qualm
in order to save my life. I knew, lying there on that
floor, that I wasn't going to die--not with Scully so close.
The moment I saw her, I was no longer afraid.

That's not entirely true, of course I was afraid--I had a
sharp razor digging into my neck, and I could already feel a
trickle of blood where B.J. had cut me, but I knew as soon
as I saw my partner that I was no longer in danger of dying.
Not then, and not there.

It turned out B.J. was Cokeley's granddaughter--she was
possessed by him, by the evil that still resided in him even
though his body was weak and infirm. Through her, he was
able to continue his terrible deeds, and there is no telling
how many people might have died if he hadn't been killed by
his own evil. I don't know if he was conscious of it or
not, but somehow the evil in him transferred itself to B.J.
when she became pregnant.

Scully was quick on the draw with that one--she correctly
guessed that B.J. was pregnant with the married Lieutenant
Tillman's child when such a possibility never crossed my
mind.

"A woman knows," she told me smugly, munching on some snack
or other, and I remember feeling glad that she was eating,
thinking she was still too thin and needed to put on a
little weight. I snitched a piece of the snack from
her--what was it? Crackers? A little packet of cookies
from a vending machine? I don't remember, after all these
years, but I do remember the secret smile she gave me when I
shared her food. These are the things that were never
written down in any case files, and these are the things
that were, and still are, Scully to me. These are the things
I want to be able to remember when I'm old, or to pass on to
anyone who might be interested when I'm gone.

I wish I could have passed them on to our child.

We were tired. I think I mentioned that. Katie returned a
little while ago and insisted I have a deep breathing
treatment; it's left me a little dizzy, but I don't want to
stop right now. Maybe I'll take a nap later on.

About five seconds after we closed the book on the Aubrey
case, we were off to Minnesota, where we met up with one
Donald Pfaster, a lovely young man who enjoyed relieving
women of their hair and fingers--sometimes helping them into
their death in order to collect his treasures.

He's dead now because my Scully put a bullet in him, and as
I watched her do it, all I could feel was relief that he
could never threaten her again. I knew Scully would feel
guilt at her action, but I did all I could to reassure her
she'd done the right thing. Besides, I always told her, if
she hadn't shot the bastard, I would have. And that was the
truth.

But that was several years later--first we had to learn
about him, find him, and put him in prison, and we did. Not
before he managed to get his hands on Scully, unfortunately,
and I doubt anyone can begin to imagine the empty despair I
felt when I discovered she was missing again. I had the
hardest damn time holding on to that woman!

She was really freaked out by that case, and if we weren't
so thoroughly bonded by then, the Pfaster case would have
been the one to drive her away from me, I've no doubt.

I have to admit, in spite of all the things we saw in our
careers, there's just something gross about a man who cuts
the hair and fingers off dead people. Somehow it was easier
for Scully to accept demonic possession and flukemen than
the perfectly human, although thoroughly unnatural fetish
that ruled Donnie Pfaster.

I've never seen her so disturbed by a case, and it was odd
that she could take so many unusual, weird, hell, downright
*impossible* things we encountered in stride, but Donald
Pfaster should throw her so. Of course, she was still in a
somewhat fragile emotional state after her abduction,
although she didn't want me to know that. She thought I
wasn't aware that she was making regular visits to a Bureau
therapist, but if I hadn't known, I'd have been insisting
she go.

You have to understand--this is a woman who routinely cut up
dead people. I once saw her root around in a container full
of medical waste without batting an eye. There wasn't a
squeamish bone in her body--at least not that I ever
saw--except when we dealt with Donnie Pfaster. Somehow, the
idea of a man who objectified women to the point that he
would kill them in order to slice off their fingers and
hair and store them in his deep freeze...well, that just was
a little more than my Scully could handle. Hey, we all have
something--ask me how *I* felt about digging around in
medical waste. Had it been anyone but Scully who asked me,
I'd have been out of there like a shot, but for her...well,
I'd have done a lot worse. I did do a lot worse.

end part 3/4
--

Subject: [MTA_Stories] Memoir: Year Two 4/4

I knew she was disturbed when she insisted on going back to DC that
afternoon--it was obvious she wanted to get away from
Pfaster and everything about him for a while. There was a
perfectly good lab right there in Minneapolis where she
could have performed her autopsy. I also suspected she
wanted to meet with her therapist, and she confessed to me,
years after the fact, that I had been correct.

What I never suspected, what there was no way for either of
us to know, was that Pfaster had already set his sights on
Scully. Guess he liked her hair color. I was always
partial to it myself, and let me tell you something--that
was a natural red. In all the years I knew her, I never
knew Scully to color her hair, and believe me, during our
last months together, there was nothing about her I didn't
learn. Besides, I'd seen pictures of her as a kid.

It didn't take us very long to find her, thank god, but
without Bocks' help--I don't know. I was pretty...well,
let's just say after losing her once, I was barely hanging
on to myself. If Bocks hadn't been so cool and collected, I
might have lost it completely, but he had a grounding effect
on me. Damn good thing he did. Good thing for Scully too,
because something Bocks said clued me into the direction we
should be looking, and that's when we found her.

Scully hated weakness in herself--she could accept it in
others, but not herself. It nearly killed her that I saw
the very few tears she allowed herself to shed when we
finally found her, but let it be known that Scully was right
in the middle of trying to free herself when we burst
in--she wasn't cowering in a corner somewhere waiting for
the big ole men to rescue her. She'd kick my ass if she
ever heard me say anything like that. Hope she's not
reading over my shoulder, or I might be in for that ghostly
ass kicking one day after all.

Was that a cold breeze?

I'm joking again.

Ah...Satanism, witchcraft...this was the stuff of a true
X-file.

Scully had barely gotten over her abduction at Pfaster's
hands--and I *know* she was still seeing that
therapist...what was her name, anyway? Karen something, I
think...when we were sent off to New Hampshire to
investigate the murder of a teenage boy in what had been
described to us as "classic ritualistic style." Whatever
the hell that means.

Scully had no patience with the local sheriff--his dismissal
of heavy metal as "the devil's music" or some such nonsense
made her roll her eyes, but she was more than a little
irritated at the shoddy investigative work they'd done.
Hey, I couldn't blame her--when you call in the FBI and the
first thing the agent does is pick up a scrap of paper, very
likely a clue to solving your case, that your own people
missed, that's gotta be embarrassing. Only thing was, he
didn't act embarrassed.

Every now and then, you have one of those perfect moments in
time, when you're in the middle of trying to make a point
and--through no doing of your own--it gets proven for you.
I can probably count the times that's happened to me on one
hand--maybe even one finger, but I never forgot this one.
It makes me laugh even now, remembering the expression on
her face, and damn I played it cool!

She was busily telling me how the local folklore, which
according to the sheriff held that these woods were a
popular place for witchcraft-ish activities, had probably
been used deliberately as a backdrop for the murder when, no
shit--I am not making this up--frogs began to fall from the
sky. Okay, it was raining that morning--I remember we had
our umbrellas out--and there are any number of scientific
explanations for what happened, but can't you just picture
it? There's the very logical Dana Scully--the Enigmatic
Dana Scully, I used to call her, after Max Fenig used that
phrase once--expounding upon the probable explanation that a
perfectly common murderer had killed a kid, using local
folklore to stir up suspicion of devil worship or
witchcraft--and *frogs* begin to fall from the sky all
around us!

She could only stare, with that expression that can make me
howl after all these years. God, I'm laughing just
remembering it. I made some smart-ass comment about frog
legs, I think, as if we were having a completely
run-of-the-mill investigation, and walked away, leaving her
there with her mouth hanging open.

I loved it. One of my favorite Scully memories.

You know another thing I enjoyed about that case? Oh, now
that just sounds sick--people died, and of course I wasn't
happy about that, but we were surrounded by so much
death...I already mentioned the humor-as-defense-mechanism
thing. But what really got me going, what gave me chuckles
for years afterward, was that Scully had to actually admit
there was a supernatural force at work. Of course, she
didn't admit it *officially* and if I confronted her with it
today, she'd probably deny it ever happened, but I knew.

It was odd, that case. Those *people* were odd--they'd
disliked what they viewed as the hypocrisy of Christians, so
they'd gone the other way, into Satanism. Only it wasn't
"official" Satanism, if there is such a thing. I'd say they
made it up as they went along. They got enough of it right,
unfortunately, to summon up a power that they were unable to
control, and it nearly killed Scully and me as well.

The times I pictured myself in the shower with Scully, it
never involved us fully clothed and tied up, about to become
sacrifices to Satan, I must confess. They managed to
overpower us because we were outnumbered, and after tying us
with ropes, dragged us across the floor of the high school
gymnasium into the shower room. They turned on the
water--to wash away the blood? I suppose so--and we were
about to become ex-FBI agents in every sense of the word
when one of them managed to gain control of his own mind--I
guess Paddock couldn't control all of them at once very
efficiently. Anyway, he shot his two colleagues, and then
himself, leaving us to work our way free from the ropes and
go back for Paddock, only to find her missing.

Paddock, it seemed, was the evil they had conjured up--but
maybe that's giving them too much power. I suppose they
didn't really conjure her up. What probably happened was
that a very powerful demon witnessed their puny, laughable
efforts at Satan-worship and decided to have a little fun.
They were never, in *any* sense of the word, in control of
Paddock. She disappeared, leaving a humorously cryptic note
on the blackboard, and no one ever saw her again.

And right after that came the case in North Carolina,
dealing with Haitian immigrants and voodoo, and what I still
swear was the ghost of ten year old Chester Bonaparte, and
Scully had had enough of the supernatural to last her for
the rest of her life.

And then my sister came back, or at least I thought she had
for a while, and I nearly died, and Scully saved my life.
Again.

-----

It's so hard to write about what came next.
Samantha--somehow I knew from the beginning that it wasn't
really Sam, that it couldn't be her, but I wanted to believe
so badly that I allowed myself to be taken in. I let myself
sink into the fantasy, for just a little while, that my
sister had returned to us. So did Mom, although I don't
really believe Dad was ever fooled. I think he recognized
her immediately for what she was, but then Dad, I believe,
had always known Samantha's fate. I had to find it out for
myself, and I've never known what Mom knew. And she died
before I could ask her.

I knew I loved Scully, I've already said so. I was even
past denying it to myself, most of the time. But when the
alien bounty hunter captured Scully, and wanted me to trade
the Samantha clone for her--what do you do in a situation
like that? I was reasonably sure it wasn't Samantha, okay,
I can say that right up front, but I wasn't *sure* sure. I
wasn't positive. There was still a part of me that was
hanging onto the belief that my sister was back, and now I
had to choose between her and Scully.

Of course, that wasn't the plan--the plan was that Skinner
or the sniper he'd brought with him would kill the
sonofabitch, but they were never able to get a clear shot at
the only safe place to shoot him--the base of his neck.
Anywhere else, and his blood would be toxic to Scully, held
so tightly in his grip.

I had no choice, not really--I was uncertain about Samantha,
but I was absolutely sure I couldn't live without Scully.
Notice how, even then, it was all about *me*? That's not
entirely true, though--it wasn't just about me and the
person I couldn't live without. It was about Scully, and
all she'd already been through because of me. I didn't want
her to suffer any more simply because she'd had the bad luck
to be the one fingered by Blevins, and the integrity to
stick with me after she'd said 'yes' to the partnership.

She was a truly remarkable woman. I can't believe how much
I still miss her. You'd think the pain would diminish over
time, but it doesn't. Not as far as I can tell, anyway.

They dragged the river for the bodies of the bounty hunter
and the Samantha clone, and found hers--which then dissolved
into a mess of green goo--but not before I told my father
I'd lost Sam again and he chewed my ass out for what he said
it would do to my mother.

I was like a small boy standing before him, confessing my
sins, waiting for my punishment--for with Dad there was
rarely absolution--and I swear, I fought back tears while I
was telling him. I felt his disappointment in me, an
emotion with which I was both intimately familiar and
horribly unacquainted--it had been years since I'd allowed
myself to have enough contact with Dad to disappoint him.

This is the man who died in my arms, with a plea for my
forgiveness on his lips, but that's another story.

I managed to get a message to X, and he met with me,
reluctantly, and basically told me to drop the whole thing.
He said I couldn't win this battle and I was wasting my time
in fighting it, but by then I was motivated by personal
reasons--whether or not the alien bounty hunter had killed
my sister or a clone of her, it was still Sam, in a way, and
I still loved her. I wanted to find him and kill him, so I
took off for Alaska, where X said he was to be picked up,
and got there just in time to get my ass kicked, my shoulder
dislocated, and my body infected with what Scully was busy
discovering was a retrovirus.

If I'd taken her with me, we'd probably both have died--I
comforted myself with that later, after I recovered and she
was giving me hell for leaving her behind. While I was off
chasing aliens in Alaska, she was pinpointing what had
killed Agent Weiss and ultimately almost killed me, and
because of her efforts she was able to save me once she
located me. In the nick of time, no less. It's always more
dramatic that way, and our lives were nothing if not
dramatic.

I woke up in a military hospital, where Scully said I'd been
unconscious for over a week, to find her at my side
flashing that brilliant smile that the world saw so little
of. She told me later that she'd found X in my apartment
building, that she'd tried to get the information about
where I'd gone out of him and failed, but that Skinner had
managed to beat it out of X. I wish I'd seen that--god
knows, X beat the hell out of me once. On the other hand,
the one time I tried to take on Skinner, I didn't last five
seconds before he had me in a headlock.

At least I could plead drugs as my excuse.

I'd say, in the course of our careers, we experienced just
about everything at least once. Lucy Householder said that
to me, or something very much like it, and it's funny how
much it applies to our lives. Our next two cases, for
example, dealt with time travel and premature aging,
respectively. Once again, we nearly died, and once again,
Scully saved us by keeping a journal of our rapid aging.
That helped the doctors isolate what was happening and
reverse it--without her record, we'd probably not have made
it. After having experienced old age once, if only briefly,
I'm not sure I want to go there again. Especially now that
I'm confined to a wheelchair.

On the other hand, if this damn cold doesn't go away soon,
it's going to be the death of me. I'm gulping over the
counter cough syrup, but Katie has no idea how much I'm
really hacking away here. If she did, she'd pack me off to
the hospital, and I don't want to go there. Catheters and
IV poles and respirators--no thanks, I've had enough of all
that stuff. Of course, catheters are still a part of my
life and always will be, but at least I can't feel them now.
Any nurse ready to start an IV on me still makes me shudder.

Katie can be a lot scarier than the sideshow freaks--and I
use that word in the kindest manner possible, but hey,
that's how they described themselves--we encountered on our
next case.

We'd been a few weeks recovering from the aging thing, and I
was terrified we'd retain some symptoms even afterwards, but
both of us made a full recovery. Miraculous, you say?
Well, we encountered a lot of things in our investigations
that the general population might describe as miraculous.

Sometimes we encountered things that were just gross.

Such was the case with the Conundrum. You know what a geek
is? Nope, not a computer nerd. I personally saw this guy
eat live crickets and a raw fish he'd caught with his bare
hands--pretty good sized one, too; some fishermen I know
would have been jealous.

Another one of my favorite Scully memories happened while we
were investigating that case, and it again involved me being
cool. Damn, I could be good at times! Other times...well,
tongue-tied might be the proper term for me then.

Okay, let me just say, I've always considered myself pretty
open-minded. I mean, I believe in *aliens* for god's sake!
I'm not a racist, a sexist, (although Scully might argue
that I was overprotective of her, it had nothing to do with
her being a woman, and everything to do with her being *the*
woman I loved), nor do I look down on those who physically
differ from what we might arrogantly call "the norm." So
when I asked Mr. Nutt, the midget who ran the trailer court
where we stayed, if he'd done much circus work, I truly
didn't believe that was all he was good for due to his
size.

He was on the defensive from the beginning, I feel I must
point that out in my own defense, but perhaps I could have
been a little more...tactful in my questioning. At any
rate, I meant no harm, and I would have apologized if I'd
been able to get a word in edgewise, as my grandmother used
to say, but Mr. Nutt heard my question and he was off and
running. Figuratively. He'd obviously been mistaken for a
circus performer once too often for his taste.

After listening to a rather long tirade about not judging
others based solely on physical appearance, during which he
sarcastically informed me that he had done the same to me
and concluded that I was an FBI agent, I took deadpan
delight in whipping out my badge.

I noticed Scully discreetly covered her mouth so Mr. Nutt
couldn't see her amusement, but I thought she was going to
burst before we got away from him and she could let it all
out. Going over the events of the day in her trailer that
evening, anyone eavesdropping might have thought we were
drunk, from all the laughter they'd have heard.

The whole case was just too absurd, and true to the nature
of the X-files in general, it involved a rather odd type of
killer. We never found him, and Scully and I never
discussed what we thought really happened--I don't know if I
should even write it down, it was so gross...but what the
hell, this record is just for my eyes anyway, although I
might be persuaded to leave it for someone to read after my
death. All the people involved will have probably passed by
then, anyway, so it won't matter.

The Conundrum ate Lenny's brother, I know he did. Scully
knew it too, although neither of us ever actually gave the
thought voice. I wanted to--it was gross, but kind of cool,
really, in a sick sort of way--a guy who would eat literally
*anything*--Scully wasn't much into the unusual, though. She
didn't even want to see Mr. Van Blundht's tail when we had
the chance. Although it wasn't really Mr. Van Blundht, Sr.,
it was his son, Eddie; I've no doubt when Eddie morphed into
his father, it was complete with tail intact.

I wrote about myself playing it cool, but I could have sworn
Scully ate a live cricket on that case. Turned out it was a
sleight-of-hand trick, and a damn good one; fooled me,
anyway. When Dr. Blockhead offered us his jar of squirming
insects, I couldn't hide my revulsion, but Scully just took
one, pretend to put it in her mouth, and politely thanked
him. It wasn't until we were walking away and she produced
the cricket from behind my ear that I knew for certain she
hadn't chewed and swallowed it. That woman was good.

It's funny, the cases I've almost forgotten and the ones
that are etched indelibly into my memory. I know we dealt
with so-called "evil twins" on more than one occasion, but
the case of Charlie and Michael Holvey still makes me
shudder. In fact, I don't even want to write much about it,
because it's almost time for me to get some sleep. These
cold meds give me weird nightmares at the best of times, and
I just have to take them. The thought of another night
sitting propped up against pillows and breathing through my
mouth is very unappealing.

Anyway, short summary: it looked like a child abuse case.
Munchausen-by-proxy, Scully called it, meaning the parent
would hurt the kid in order to gain attention for himself or
herself. I thought she might be on the right track at
first, until I saw the grandmother with Charlie. She was an
oddball, Grandma was, but she was clearly trying to protect
the boy.

Then I met the Calusari--a group of gentlemen tasked with
making sure all the good little Romanians in the area
followed their Romanian religious beliefs properly. Seems
Mrs. Holvey wasn't real open to those beliefs since marrying
an American, but I've always been open to almost anything.

I stood in that hospital at the foot of Charlie's bed,
holding the child's ankles firmly in position while the men
chanted and painted on his chest with something--chicken
blood?--until Charlie stopped looking like a demon and began
looking like a boy in pain. Then I let go, and one of the
men yelled at me to hold him. "It tricks you!" he informed
me, so I grabbed hold once again.

Ever seen levitation? I have. Plus a few other things I
don't care to remember, but the thing about the Holvey case
that chills my blood even to this day is the final thing the
old man said to me before leaving. "You must be careful.
It knows you."

I've never known if this spirit of evil has pursued me
further, but there are times, lying in my bed all alone at
night, hearing the winter wind howl outside my window, that
I wonder if it has found me at last. Maybe that spirit
caused the driver to run into us. There could be no worse
punishment for me than living without Scully, unless it's
living without Scully while confined to a wheelchair.

I only hope I don't have long to wait before I can see her
again.

And now, meds and bed.

-----

I didn't dream of the Calusari last night, but I dreamed of
Scully. She was standing atop her grave while I sat beside
her and talked, hearing every word I said to her. I don't
believe for a second that I witnessed Scully's ghost last
night, but the dream has made me want to go and visit her
badly. Skinner won't take me, not with my cough the way it
is, so I think I'll call Langly. He can usually be counted
on to be discreet.

_____

Langly didn't want to do it, but he did. It was raining
outside, a steady drizzle, and he looked at me as if I must
be crazy when I told him I wanted him to park me by Scully's
grave and give me half an hour alone. He tried to protect
me from the rain by covering my head with my afghan, but the
damn thing got soaked and so did I. I didn't care. I
really needed to talk to her.

Scully and I had a long chat, during which she told me to
stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with the therapy,
so I'll try my best. Katie shook her head when she listened
to my chest this morning, and I have a nasty suspicion the
hospital beckons, so I'd better hurry.

The case after the Holvey one dealt with more of our
government's lies, plus exploding sores, and I don't even
want to talk about it. Suffice to say it was disgusting,
and I feared for Scully's life while she was quarantined in
that facility. Thank god she came out of it all right.

I do know Skinner tried to warn me to be careful on that
case, but I wasn't listening. I had no idea how close to
doing away with both of us they were at that point.

It didn't help that our next investigation dealt with a
government secret as well. By then, I suppose X had gotten
tired of the mention of my name, but I imagine he was told
to rein me in. I don't know if they knew we had any contact
at all, but I do know he lied to me on that case. I could
see it in his eyes.

One of the saddest things about the Banton case was the loss
of Scully's friend. Kelly Ryan had been a student of
Scully's at the Academy, and had called on her old
instructor and friend to help her out with her first real
case. Oh, we helped, all right. Helped Kelly right into
her grave. And that was my fault, too, because I'm the one
who steered her in the right direction. I knew she didn't
have the knowledge or experience--hell, even I wasn't sure
what we were dealing with at first--but I told myself she
would be fine.

Scully was hurt when Kelly ordered us off the case, even
though Kelly really had no choice, but I knew when we walked
away that we were leaving her open to danger. All I can say
in my own defense is that I tried to stop it. I did manage
to save Scully's life--she was moments away from being
sucked into the dark matter that was Banton's shadow when I
shot out the light.

Old southern term put into play. Hey, that was a joke.
Give me a break, it's hard to be funny when your chest hurts
and your head is fogged.

I didn't have a bit of trouble believing Banton when he said
he was afraid of the government's "mind suck," but you
should have seen Scully's face at the time. Sometimes I
wonder just what happened in that particle accelerator. Was
it Banton who was killed, or Banton's partner. Is our
benevolent government "mind sucking" Banton even now. I
hope not. It's been years. Maybe they've killed him by
now.

_____

Katie gave me a dirty look this morning when she took my
temperature, and informed me she knew I'd gone out
yesterday. I just shrugged. I'm not a prisoner here, after
all, even though I think she'd like to change that, at least
temporarily. She gave me the antibiotics the doctor
prescribed and ordered me in no uncertain terms to stay the
hell in bed. That's where I am now, and I feel sleep coming
on quickly, but there's one more case I want to mention
before I sleep.

Cannibalism is a really odd thing to me--oh, I've studied
all the reasons why certain cultures practice it, but the
idea of eating human flesh is so repulsive that my emotions
get in the way of any reasonable argument. Not that I ever
intend to try it as a delicacy, mind you.

The people in Dudley, Arkansas (home of Chaco Chicken, or at
least used to be) seemed on the surface to be reasonable,
normal people. The sheriff was helpful in our investigation,
even if he didn't want to drag that nasty river, and up
until almost the end, I thought he was on our side. I
thought Mr. Chaco was our enemy, and he was, but not the
worst of them.

Once again, Scully nearly died, and once again I fell apart
after the crisis was over. I remember lying on the bed in
my motel room, curled into a ball and shaking like a leaf.
She knocked on my door and I couldn't even answer. She had
to get the motel office to open my room for her. Then she
wanted to take me to the hospital, but I was an ass about it
and she finally gave in.

Instead she covered me with a blanket and lay next to me,
holding me tightly, talking soothingly until my shock
diminished and I could believe we were all right once again.

This is getting more and more difficult, and what we learned
on our next case, coupled with the fact that Scully believed
me dead for a while, makes me want to take a while to think
about it before I write.

I swear Katie slipped something into my meds besides
antibiotics. I'm just so damned tired.

End Memoir: Year Two

feedback to lauritaC@excite.com
--

"Consciousness is that annoying thing between naps..."

************************************
Laura Castellano's X-Files FanFic
http://www.8op.com/laurita
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