PhaHks Series by GenieVB "I know something about False Memory Syndrome. This could very easily be that." Kurtzman flipped through his appointment book. Scully wasn't sure what to think about Kurtzman. He had spent many years in his field. His office wall was crowded with degrees. His shelves lined with books, some which he himself had penned. He would do all that was required of him as Chief of Psychiatry at Walburg Institute. But would he take Mulder under his wing? Would he look beyond the clinical and find the suffering man inside? That's what Scully wanted. It's what she'd hoped to find here. Wasn't sure if she had in Kurtzman. "You haven't even discussed what happened with him, how can you be sure what it is yet?" "From what _you've_ told me regarding his memories about his sister, it's in the report you provided. His history of mental and emotional disturbances is all right there. Not a year prior to his disappearance, he was admitted for psychiatric observation upon claiming the ability to see a monster that "hides in the light". You made your own statement in that report regarding his ordeal as a hostage. He was in a confined situation - beaten during the incident if I remember correctly. He claimed that only he and certain individuals already dead possessed the ability to see the monster. His direct superior added a statement that included what he himself witnessed of Fox Mulder's actions. Another Illinois field agent stated that his behavior had been erratic." "I also submitted an addendum to that report stating my belief that Agent Mulder was in fact sound of mind and that I myself was later able to substantiate certain aspects of his claims." Kurtzman stopped and looked at the woman sitting across from him. This lady was, also, a doctor, albeit a pathologist. She had seventeen years under her belt working in a variety of positions as an agent of the F.B.I.. This new patient was her former partner and close friend. Kurtzman wanted to be clear with her. "Medical aspects, yes, you did. Your report from the hospital room, however, was vague. You saw a "large, dark form"." She stared back. Looked away. "I will do my best with him, Doctor Scully. But I can make no predictions about how he will respond to treatment." "I know." There was no choice anyway. It was Kurtzman or nobody. Kurtzman adjusted his frameless glasses. "The report stated his memories about his sister's disappearance changed post hypno-regression therapy under Doctor Verber and that later he began to doubt his own recollections about what happened that night. He blamed himself for it, is that correct?" He looked at her. Scully nodded. Kurtzman seemed to want to review the facts with her. Scully knew what that thick folder said. The picture it painted of a highly intelligent but disturbed man who believed in the paranormal and who blamed aliens for his sisters abduction (and now his own as well). Who was so ridden with guilt over his own perceived inability to act that he could only cope by finding some kind, any kind, of explanation. Even a supernatural one instead of the simplest one; that his sister had been taken by a pedophile and lay in an undiscovered shallow grave to this very day. Scully knew that's what others saw in Mulder. She had five more minutes with Kurtzman. Not enough time to explain how that report was wrong. Not enough time to convince him with reasonable words that she also had experienced things and seen things no one else on earth had. No time. No proof either. Yet, if Mulder was to come back to her, she had to let Kurtzman try and help Mulder. She had to trust him. "Over the years there were other periods of obsessions." Kurtzman was saying. "There's a whole cauldron of reasons to suspect he's imprinting or rather painting a picture of what happened to him instead of actually remembering the facts for reasons that should become clear, not least of which would be that it was a frightening, painful and a prolonged incarceration." Kurtzman was trying to be sympathetic and show her he was not an unfeeling guy. "And from what I've read of his psychological profile and periodic mandated therapy during his F.B.I. years, Mulder exhibits Chronic Victim tendencies. He's a lonely individual?" Scully had to nod. "And he made a lifetime work out of studying abduction victims, seeking out proof of the existence of Extraterrestrial's, trials and UFO's...well,..it's just an educated guess at this juncture, but I don't believe he's showing us anything new." She couldn't help herself. "So you're conclusion is that he's faking all of this? Is that the basis upon which you'll treat him? The polygraph showed no evidence of deceit or intent to deception." "I am not minimizing his symptoms or that he is in a disturbed state of mind. However, all a polygraph proves is that he believes what he's telling us." "He has scars, Doctor Kurtzman, from non-self-inflicted wounds, some that might have been fatal had someone - I don't know who - not provided medical aid." "I didn't say he wasn't held captive, I didn't say he hasn't gone through something horrific. But I think what he believes happened and what actually happened are two different things. With the amnesia he's suffering, a somewhat selective amnesia, that's not a big surprise." Kurtzman was wrong. The reports were wrong. She had nothing to show him that Mulder was not lying or imprinting or selectively deleting aspects of his eight year absence because they didn't fit the abduction claim. IF he was, it was because they were too painful for him, not because they would expose his abduction claim as false. Scully wanted to yell: We don't know ANYTHING! If she were in Kurtzman's shoes, she'd be mouthing the same stuff he was. She'd be placating and polite but firm in her assertations that Mulder was mentally ill and that what he said should not be taken at face value. Her eyebrows would be twitching too at the friend of Mulder sitting across the desk attempting to convince the doc that the man brought in for treatment for mental disturbance was not actually crazy. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to bend over and laugh at the top of her lungs. He might not have her committed if she did, but he would wonder. Kurtzman would certainly wonder. "His sister was abducted at eight years of age. In the investigation, was the possibility ever explored that-" "-Mulder killed her? Yes. And no evidence what-so-ever was found to substantiate it. He was, in fact, so traumatized he was catatonic for four days and suffered complete amnesia about the events of that night for over two decades." "Catatonic? Amnesia? I see..." Scully flushed. She'd said those things to support Mulder's complete innocence in the disappearance of his sister, Samantha. Now even she had to concede the possibility at least...-No! "Mulder didn't kill his sister." She knew him too well. Random, unprovoked, violent act? Not Mulder. But Kurtzman had enough crap in that fucking file to write another book with Mulder as the main character. "But he did live with the guilt for more than twenty years. Maybe he simply made up his abduction - I'm sorry - the _reasons_ behind his abduction to allay his guilt. Maybe he just couldn't live with it any longer. There's no doubt he was kidnaped and that he's suffered a great deal, but perhaps he feels some sort of atonement now. Perhaps in his mind justice has been satisfied. I'm not saying that is so however." Reasonable. Logical. Made sense. Wrong. If Mulder had been walking the edge of some kind of emotional knife prior to his disappearance, he had showed no sign of it. Which meant nothing, really. She had seen no sign, but they'd both been swamped with caseloads and paperwork and she'd been on loan to Quantico in between. They'd seen little of each other since Antarctica. Could he have murdered Samantha? She refused to believe it. Did Mulder hate himself? Very possibly. Self esteem had never been his watch-word. None of it, however, answered the question about where he'd been and with who. Or what. "How will you treat him?" Scully asked, leading away from the conversation that was disturbing her more than she liked to admit. She didn't know what happened to Mulder. No one did. But he was not insane (at least, he never used to be), and he was not lost. She just knew. She had the DNA evidence, whatever it really meant. Unidentified genetic string that had no business being there. //"Fifth and sixth Base Pair. That is, by definition, extraterrestrial."// "Meds, and a group that meets four times each week. Each patient has been through similar traumas and I've found it has helped them to open up. It's not always easy. Most are long term. I also give private therapy but that's not covered under his insurance plan..." Kurtzman left it open for her to decide which course for Mulder. She didn't have to choose. There was no money for private counseling. "The group will be fine. I've provided both Bryant and Munroe copies of Mulder's medical report and recent psychological work up." Carefully edited copies. What would any of these professionals think of her discovery of Mulder's out-of-this-world DNA? "If you have any questions or need anything from me or if he asks to see me,...please call me right away." "Of course." *** "I'm going back tomorrow afternoon. I have to see him once more before I head back to Washington." Skinner set his jaw at the other end of the phone line. He was back in Washington and trying to be understanding about his former doctor/agent's misplaced self-blame. "You had to do it, Scully. Mulder was on the proverbial edge. He might have done anything." "Well, now he's over the edge if I understand Kurtzman's meaning. They've got him on Thorazine and two or three other drugs. They want to start him right away on group therapy with Bryant because they think the sooner, the better. I suppose I should be delighted with how much good I've done him." Biting sarcasm. "Everything's just peachy." "What could you have done? Kept him warm and fed? Lock him in his room at night? Be afraid every minute you're away that you might come home and find his brains all over your kitchen floor?" Mulder was insane. "Gee, don't hold back or anything, Skinner, tell me what you actually think." Director Skinner strode around his bigger, more expensively decorated office. Leather chairs, marble floors, oak desks...the place was a monument to F.B.I. Old Horses. "I think you should go visit Mulder, see that he's being taken care of and then take the first flight back to Washington and your own life." Mulder was now a ward of Walburg Mental Institute. He would be in Walburg for a long time. Walburg was in Boston. It was the best thing for him. It was the best for all concerned. Skinner was certain it was best for Scully. He heard Scully sigh at the other end of the too distant conversation. She sounded defeated and angry. "Thank you for helping me get him there." At least she also sounded resigned to facts. Skinner knew Scully had exhausted every last penny of the Mulder's personal family money to set Mulder up for a year of intense treatment and therapy at Walburg. He wondered if it would be enough. "Don't forget. I'm always here if you need anything." Scully would be returning to Quantico and their paths would again diverge. "Thanks. That means a lot." Sounding like she meant it, she hung up. Skinner replaced the receiver. Nothing had been accomplished by his call to her except antagonism. Pouring himself his eighth cup of coffee of the day, he tried to concentrate on work. After twenty minutes of turning pages of the report in front of him and retaining not one word of it he gave up and placed a call to Dulles, arranging a flight out for that afternoon. It was always best to do these things in person. **** "I'm here to see Fox Mulder. I was told Doctor Bryant would clear my visit." Scully announced to the Receiving Desk nurse who looked annoyed at the "not-visiting-hours" visitor. "Just a moment." Nurse pressed a button on her multi-functional phone. "A Ms. Scully to see Patient Mulder. You cleared this, she says." After gathering a reply in the positive, Scully was soon stepping into a private visiting room where Mulder was already waiting. Bryant had him brought down as soon as he heard she was waiting. A uniformed Orderly locked the door behind her. Scully cautiously without being too obvious about it took stock of Mulder. He'd only been in the place four days. She'd last seen him two days previous. He looked normal. Tired. Hair combed and face shaved though. Hospital issue boring whites rumpled. With the exception that he didn't look at her he seemed usual. "Hi Mulder." Start simply. Don't ask how he is. Don't get excited. Don't judge. Don't find fault, don't place blame, don't try to figure it all out. That's what Bryant had advised. It was standard stuff. She'd read it all in a pamphlet he'd given her. She'd read through it before coming today. She wouldn't hurt him. "Hey." He answered, looking at her. Not a smile but not tight- lipped either. She sat opposite his slump. Stiff-backed, she folded her coat neat and square in her lap. "I guess,...I just wanted to see you before I left." He nodded matter-of-factly. "Standard goodbye visit." He commented. Scully flushed. Swallowed. Remained calm. It was so hard. "I didn't know what else to do, Mulder. You...were scary." Don't blame. Don't hurt. "This is hard for me too." "Of course. I frightened you. Well, I'm pretty fucking scared too." He raked his hair with his left hand. His right wrist was encased in plaster of Paris and remained resting on his knee. "I guess you might say frightened, petrified, terrified, shaking in my Nut-House slippers. Do you sense a pattern emerging here, Doctor Scully?" He was being defensive. Combative. Bryant said he would be. It was expected. It was on page twenty-three. //"_Mulder_ might be antagonistic, huh?" She'd asked Bryant ironically. "Well, I'll keep that in mind."// "Mulder, look, I'm going to be flying here every second weekend because I want this to work. This isn't a punishment. We're trying to help you..." "You can help me by getting me out of here right now. Today." He stared at her and for a second or two he looked just like Agent Fox Mulder of the F.B.I. and not a proclaimed abductee who had two days before tried to kill another man and then cripple his own arm by slamming it again and again into a locked, metal door. "I can't. No matter how much you hate me for this, I can't. I won't let you destroy yourself." Fuck the Manual. "I won't let you hate yourself for something you couldn't prevent or change or...escape from." Mulder didn't answer and, figuring the conversation was done, Scully rose. Slipping her arms through the coat sleeves, she gathered her good intentions and reached down to take her briefcase. Mulder had his face buried in both hands, the right one awkwardly because of the cast. His shoulders shook. His whole body shook. God, she wanted to run away from this; the whole responsibility of it. If she didn't love him, she would have. But instead she squatted before his sharp knees, he was still so thin, taking his hands in hers. "I wish I could make this better. I wish I could make it all go away, everything, these last eight years, all of it." His face screwed up tight from the force of his spilling pain, it was always so hard to watch him cry. She had never gotten used to it. "Please don't leave Scully." Shit. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. It was the hardest request to refuse. "I have to Mulder. You know I have to. I have a job, I can't ignore it forever." And there are doctors bills to pay. "Please don't leave me in here. Bars on the windows, fucking padding on the walls of my "room". I'm wearing white pajamas for Christ's sake. I sleep on a..a..m-mat!" Humiliating. "That's only temporary, Mulder. When you stop being a danger to yourself and others they'll move you to a regular ward. You almost killed that man - you choked him." "Because I knew I was being locked in." "Would you have killed him?" He stared at her. "To get out? Yes." "That's why there are bars on your windows and padding on your walls. Look at your wrist, Mulder." He sighed deeply. Bone-weary resignation. "I didn't ask for much, Scully. Just some time. That's all I wanted. It's what I need. I'm forty-five years old." Forty-five and being fitted for a straight-jacket. Who wouldn't be terrified? "I wish it could be different-" Mulder needed a controlled environment, where he could feel safe. "-Scully. Don't you get it?" The tears came slow and silent and without any secondary signs of distress. He was calm but not okay. "I'll die in here." "No, you won't." It was her doctor's voice. Assured, rational. Controlled, calm and convincing. Her best trick whenever Mulder had appeared to be teetering on the edge of too far "over there". He laughed but not because he thought it funny. It was a "You know dick-all" laugh. "Yes, I will." Scully looked at the scuffed, linoleum floor, yellow from years of old wax, the grainy walls were in need of painting. She'd done the best she could. The last of his assets had been sold. His things which she had kept in storage all those years, his car, his bank accounts. The Mulder summer house on Rode Island - enough to pay for one year's worth of intense psychological and medicinal therapy at Walburg. She prayed to God it was enough. I'll come visit every day, she had wanted to say but it would have been a self-comforting lie. Every second weekend was about all she would be able to manage. As long as work didn't interfere. "Some of these injuries could have been self-inflicted." Doctor Bryant had said after reading the edited information she'd provided, leaving out the blood work-up and what they suspected of his DNA. Self-inflicted. That had occurred to her of course. It was one of a whole range of possibilities she'd thought of. One in particular she didn't like to think about was that Mulder had made no attempt to contact her or anyone for the very reason that he hadn't wanted to. That he'd been kidnaped - abducted, taken, whatever - was clear. But by who was not. And if it had been by your average human, earth- bound psycho, it was possible that somewhere along the way Mulder had escaped and then just not come home. He might really have gone crazy after that, some of the cuttings and the wounds done by his own hand. The lack of communication with hearth and home perhaps because of fear or shame. When one takes up a knife and separates one's own skin and watches as one's own blood flows - well, a difficult thing for anyone to own up to. But people get lonely, hungry, cold and tired. So eventually, he'd come home and guess what? Abduction. Aliens did this to me, Scully, I was taken away. I've been held captive on another planet for eight years. They're the ones who cut me. Of course these things had occurred to her. She'd rejected them. Some of the wounds had been deep and impossible for him to have done himself. Especially the right shoulder wound. Very deep. Arteries had been severed, a fatal wound that would have pumped blood out in quarts. Whoever had delivered that blow had wanted to see him die. Yet Mulder was here and still breathing so help must have gotten to him somehow. Had he caused the other injuries though? Believing Mulder had done all this to himself would mean eight years of her own life had been kidnaped as well. She'd hung on, thinking as they all had that he had been taken and kept away against his will. So she'd waited and hoped for most of those years. Tough but she'd done it. Believe that he had been taken, escaped and then stayed away willingly would mean those years had been wasted on a falsehood. That was so much worse. Scully had rejected Bryant's words. For many reasons. Some because she wanted to believe Mulder was telling the truth. Others, known only to her. Mulder was home. Maybe he was fighting for life. Whatever the truth was they would find out or they wouldn't. He had good doctors. Munroe, general practitioner. Bryant, therapist. Kurtzman, shrink. The room was chilly. Walburg reminded her of herself and of Mulder. Worn out, tired but still functioning. She would hold onto that. He was mute, beyond hearing. Trying to scare her?, she wondered. Manipulate her into removing him from this place and taking him home where he just might lose himself one day and air-condition his skull with a bullet. She rose. "Mulder. Take your meds, go to your therapy, talk to Bryant and Kurtzman. I'll see you in two weeks. You are not going to die." Scully knocked on the secured door. The orderly appeared and let her out, relocking the door by turning a key from his collection on a ring the size of a hula-hoop. Scully chanced a look back at Mulder through the wired-meshed window. Mulder was sitting very still, crying. He looked skinny and white and sick but he was not shaking anymore. **** Mulder was returned to his room and he went immediately to the tiny, thick-glass window, his only view of outside. The forbidden world. He wanted to see her. She was so tiny against the enormous trees that hadn't yet shed their leaves. A faint dusting of snow softened the late September landscape. The beauty of the grounds and the parking lot hid the ugliness of inside. Her coat fell around her knees, touching her, tickling his senses. Her soft, pretty hair the color of autumn leaves moved under the fingers of the wind. Someone was walking up to her. A man. She turned and walked over to meet him. Someone she knew. Mulder squinted. They stood by her car. She spoke to him. They briefly embraced. Mulder knew the man too. He stepped back from the window and curled himself up on the thin mattress, shaking in terror. ******* When the next shift rotations went into effect, Ian made sure his and Janice's start-time/quit-time overlapped. It meant he would see that much less of Gary for the next two months but he had the feeling it was important that he be there to keep an eye on Fox during the evenings. Janice's concern over the troublesome patient had grown and she fed that concern to Ian through looks and the occasional crucial conversations they managed to grab whenever their coffee breaks coincided. "He hardly eats and throws up most of it. Munroe just keeps feeding him antacids and gravol. I think he prefers ordering the gravol 'cause it slows Fox down." "What's he been doing?" "Fox? Nothing. I mean, no fights or anything, it's just the throwing up and hysterics when anyone touches him. Problem is, to clean him up, he has to be touched, y'know? To give a shot, even meds...but those meds keep him pretty out of it most of the time." "Why the hell hasn't Munroe ordered some Upper GI's or something on him to figure out what the hell is wrong?" "He did and you should have seen that battle. They had to pump the barium shit in through a tube. He had to be tied down in each position for the slides. It took forever." Ian could picture it. Fox was sick and weak but he was a fighter. "Did they find out anything though?" "Oh, yeah, he has a hiatus hernia. Nothing major, millions of people have them and it accounts for the vomiting I guess..." "Fucking Munroe is a prick. Maybe Fox really can't stomach the food. Jesus, he might have allergies to preservatives or something." "Hmm, anyway, our little Fox has tricks." Janice raised one eyebrow and waited. "Tricks?" "He has a stash." "What?" "A stash of goodies. Food. Someone's been sneaking him in sweets. Chocolate mostly. And nougat. Barb brought me a whole wad of wrappers he'd shoved in the bedsprings." "Caffeine. Sugar. Stimulants. Unhealthy shit. Who'd be doing that? He only ever gets one visitor and she'd never,..she's a doctor or something so no way in hell. One of the staff?" "I dunno." Janice shrugged. "And nobody knows where the hell he's hiding it. They keep tossing the wards." "Is he at least eating his oatmeal?" "Mnn-hum. That and soup. Whenever they make him eat anything else, either funnel or pump, he barfs!" "Poor son of a bitch. No wonder he keeps trying to run." Every few days or so, one staff member or another would catch Fox trying to pick the lock of the ward doors or his room (if he was confined in solitary), or trying to smash through the wire- meshed bathroom windows. No one knew how he was managing to sneak around unnoticed. Ian knew. The staff didn't watch the patients nearly so closely as they claimed to. Many hated the work and put out the minimum. Besides Fox had been FBI, hadn't he? He'd probably learned to be sneaky. F.B.I.'d wrote the book on Sneaky. "Well it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here." Janice quipped and rose from her seat in the small cafeteria. "Wait. When are you off? Bring me up to date for today." "Tell you on the way." After he dutifully had consumed his stew (he did sometimes cooperate. The dead were experts on knowing when to give in), it was time for meds and he palmed them. This time it worked. He could spend the evening looking at and actually seeing the white layer of frost that had come that morning and stayed. It made the life outside look strangely alive while stilling it. Unlike him, beautiful. Like him, dead. He, living or not, could still appreciate pretty things. "Hey, Mulder." A voice dropped from above him and, along with it, something fell in his lap. He was cross-legged in the corner of the main hall. A sitting area where patients came to sit or watch T.V.. The window sill was just low enough to afford a view of outside if he craned his neck. He fingered the Butterfinger as Ross, a frequent bearer of such gifts, walked quickly away. Alms. It was as much association with a corpse as anyone would want, he supposed. As before he didn't question the gift and tucked it under his shirt. Such secret repasts hurt less than the kitchen's offerings and tasted better besides. Joseph, a fellow patient, resented the little favors Fox was receiving from the enemy and made it his business - not to snitch because snitching to the staff was like one chicken complaining about another chicken to the weasel - but to make Fox's life miserable at every opportunity. Joseph choose his left-over grape juice this time and pitched the half-full plastic cup at Fox's head. It hurt, a little, but the mess was everywhere and soon Ross was back and escorting him to the showers to clean up while someone went to lecture Joseph about playing nice. Eyes at his back, Fox washed up and was given clean pajamas, which was all he was ever allowed to wear. His repeated escape attempts had behooved the staff to forbid him anything resembling street wear. Pajamas were noticeable on the outside. It didn't stop him from trying though. That night he got as far as the back fence. He had managed to steal a small pair of sewing scissors from a new and not too bright nursing student, picking the locks on three sets of doors including the chains on the rarely used rear exit before the dozing night watchman noticed him on the monitors and punched the claxon. *** "It's the norm for him." Ramsey was referring to the patient who'd been dragged away to the infirmary. Besides his cast, Fox had a new bandage on his hand and Ramsey had heard that an orderly, Ross, was sporting butterflies on his temple, though the injury was minor. Two staff now tagged courtesy of their most destructive patient. "Oh. He always like that?" The student asked, a new nursing assistant. It was her first week. She was in the Cage with Ramsey, looking over the front desk. "Mostly." Fox had tried to escape the night before and been caught, so rebelliously had refused his meds that morning. It was needle time. And tube time too because the recalcitrant patient had also refused his breakfast. "I wish they'd just give him everything through a needle. His screaming just gets all the others going. What are you looking for?" "My scissors. I heard he used to be F.B.I., maybe it got to be too tough. I wonder what happened." "Who cares what happened to a suit. Rich dad - some government cheese. Old money. Just try working in a place like this for twenty years. _This_ is tough." To Ramsey, rich folks in expensive suits were the enemy. "As far as I'm concerned, he belongs right here in Club Fucked." The little student nurse stole a peek into the infirmary. The dark haired patient was strapped down and though he was bucking like a bronco at his restraints, the drugs were already taking him down. "Maybe he just doesn't like the rules." Ian crouched down beside the table where Fox was, once again, drugged with a gallon of Thorazine. They'd shot him full of enough of the shit, Ian figured, to fell an elephant. It was only Fox's second month. He studied the man and wondered. Fox was curled up his side, no need for straps when muscles were sludge and wouldn't obey. His eyes were open but didn't look at Ian at all. Looked passed him or through him, drugs blurring reality into something manageable. Ian spoke softly. He didn't want to startle him or alert any curious staff who might be wandering passed Isolation's slightly ajar door. "I don't know what all hell you've been through to bring you here, but we've got to get you better." Ian touched the man's face. It was cool and pale. The drug. "I see that lady who comes to visit, the one you refuse to speak to. I think she cares and I think she wants you to come home." Ian fingered the man's dry, wispy hair. It looked like someone had cut it with a weed-eater. The staff barber must have had an off day. Whether his gesture of kindness made any impact, Ian couldn't tell. Fox's eyes remained empty. "If I wasn't so insanely crazy about Gary, I'd go for you myself, you seem about my type. They say you're here because you're insane. Violent too. I don't know why but I don't believe that. There's just something about you." He withdrew his hand, grabbing a blanket bunched around Fox's feet. "I think you need to get better, Fox, and go home. She's been here every two weeks like clockwork. She must care about you a lot to keep coming." Ian stood and checked him over, being careful of Fox's thin wrist where the cast used to be and where was now a loose square of gauze. The flesh of that hand was pebbled and flaky. Arranging the blanket around the staring mummy, he said "At least think about it." ***** Someone was talking. If it was to him, it wasn't loud enough for him to hear through the demons so it was ignored. They'd bandaged his hand today (the scissors had turned traitor and jabbed back at him) and would force solids down his gullet later, but because he was dead to them, they could not know that it hurt to eat. He looked alive. Very well. But upon his wakening, that day at the roadside where the moon had hung in the sky and the breeze blew, had come his second death. Had he known that it had been a false moon, painted stars and cardboard trees... He'd come to death and walked like a deadman; no where in particular but, where ever that was, yet un-alive. Presently: bars, drugs, straps. The lake of fire had burned in her eyes at his pronounced state. He was made of sand, his insides molten, is heart stretched as tight and thin as a fiber of glass. She was scared of him. She had every right. He'd seen his reflection in her fear that morning. The bath water had rinsed his skin but a man was more on the inside than the outside and if soap and a scrub brush were instruments of faith or healing, they had failed him. He had not been cleansed. The taint was simply easier to see now. Her mirror had exposed him; unreceptive. She tried to save him the next day again, with food and soft cushions. She'd even laundered his clothing. He knew it had been a hopeless attempt but he wanted to please her at least and had eaten the food and answered the questions. And the next ones and the next. Salvation through saliva. Finally gotten angry and tired. Sick of all of it when they decided that doctors could help him, change what happened, cure the rot, flight him with wings to a resurrection. Virgins could not know what it was like to have a demon eat your soul in teeny bits. They would never know what it is to be released only to find that you ought to have stayed in Hell because at least there you fit in. He'd walked on home soil, smelled the air, saw her beauty and unmarred heart. Unobtainable things now. Things to be admired but never reached for. Perfections with which he had no connection. To understand that had freed him. With that truth his soul had shrunk to the size of a molecule, exited his flesh and taken up residence elsewhere. If still they wanted to believe he was undead and was not decomposing before them... ...So be it. But speak? Even to fool himself or them into believing that he was alive and clean enough to touch? That was out of the question. A person could make a study of crazy and not be destroyed as long as you were on the right side of the mirror. But step out and look back and you might see what they saw... Talk about being driven insane. Liberating in a way, being dead. At least expectations were minimal. Hands touched him. Gently. A tease. It was torture to be reminded of nice things and feelings but he was too weak to slap it away or even get mad. It hurt to be tempted to swing that way and allow the maybe in again. He'd given up on maybe. Dead people don't hope for anything. The hand kept it's touching and the voice kept up it's noises to drive him mad. If both became tainted with him, he couldn't help it. Don't they know I can drain life? "You're wasting your time." He wanted to tell Nice Voice. His lips moved but he wasn't sure if any words escaped. Nice Voice spoke through the years of other deafening screams: "What? What, Fox?" But Fox wanted to sleep and forget there was such as thing as a world where worthy words could be found or any truth other than what the Thorazine daily preached. The next day, Fox was up and walking around the ward with some of the other patients. This was where he, they all, came to pass the time in between meals (where it was announced over the loudspeaker for those enough in the here and now to comprehend and obey. Those who were not were escorted), meds (where one waited in line at the dispensing window), washroom privileges (at specific times and only three patients allowed at a time with two escorts), and to just wait out the day until bedtime and glorious unconsciousness. Fox didn't mind the waiting times so much. None of the patients bothered him and he didn't bother them. "Cards?" Joseph (suicidal schizophrenic) was asking him, the grape-juice toss from two days previous forgotten. Joseph loved card playing. Thin, gray haired, he'd been in one institution after another since he was thirty. He also hated everyone but was a crackerjack card player as long as you didn't point out that he was cheating. Fox didn't mind and it helped pass the day as well as anything else. Bradley (delusional psychotic "with violent acting out"), on the other hand, like to disrupt the peace and harmony as often as possible. He took great pleasure in producing shock effect by masturbating in the corridors, especially when there were visiting doctors or, better yet, new nurses. Martin (manic depressive), a motor mouth who bitched and moaned like a politician when he was on a "high", about his hemorrhoids in particular, and who sat in the corner and sulked a lot when he was on a "low". Not everyone moved about with free will. Thomas had been in a terrible MVA, and had left a respectable portion of his brain on the shoulder of Highway 23. How he had survived was anyone's guess and now he had a plate in his head, was blind in one eye and tended to ignore everything that went on to his left. He talked but only in gibberish and needed help with everything, from defecating to eating. He spent the majority of his days wandering around the ward, making right turns. Fox (whom few of the staff liked and who didn't like them, who spent much of his day sleeping or sitting and staring through the bars of the huge ward windows, who fought and screamed at meal and med times, whom the staff liked nothing on him better than restraints, needles and feeding tubes) sat and played cards with Joseph while Martin complained in a normal voice - not yelling yet, it was too soon after his morning pills - about his unique physical state. "Goddamn cold floors are bad for my health. Don't you know this floor is poison.?!" He snarled to a passing nurse who sped up his pace, the sooner to get out of earshot. "The linoleum. I know, I've been in lotsa places before this, there's deadly chemicals in the wax. Makes my hemorrhoids bleed. They're like sausages now, god dammit." He shook his fist after the retreating representation of good health. The place suffered from things common to public institutions, it was overcrowded, understaffed and the heating went out on a regular basis. In the enclosed environment, germs happily multiplied and mutated. Nearing the end of the week two orderlies, three nurses and four patients were all down with influenza. "They moved Mulder to the infirmary." Janice informed Ian as soon as he arrived for his Thursday afternoon shift. "Flu'?" Ian asked. Fox had been unusually docile. Nothing like an illness to sap the fight from a person. "Yeah. He's got it really bad though. Woke up this morning, took a couple of steps and puked up all that Ensure they'd pumped into him the night before." Nothing unusual. "That makes five sick." "Sick-ER." She said, teasing. Ian smiled for her because she was his best source of information on what happened in the place and especially things regarding Fox, but it wasn't funny really. He looked in on Fox later when all but one nurse went for lunch. Fox looked like absolute shit. Ian touched his forehead, he was as hot as a stove element, flushed from fever and the oxygen mask on his face told the rest of the tale. "Pneumonia huh? How did you manage that so fast?" Later, Ian heard that his doctor friend, Scully, had phoned for for her tri-weekly update on Fox's therapy and general state of health. When she heard he was down with pneumonia and flu, she'd told Munroe she was flying out though it was not yet Saturday. Ian had smiled at the grumpy face Munroe wore after that phone conversation. The Doc' didn't like questions, especially interfering questions from another doctor and even less when that other doctor was a woman. "Bitch." Janice had heard the Doctor's expletive and like a good little snitch told Ian all she knew about it. Ian was liking this doctor Scully more and more. Anyone who managed to get under Munroe's thick skin was someone he wanted to meet and made a point of finding out when this Scully would arrive. *** The place was as crowded and dingy as she remembered. The fellas weren't. Langley had chopped his hair to a brush cut and wore clothing that was actually passable. Byers was married, had a five year old son and had cut his dinner with the family short to come and meet with them. Frohike had suffered a massive coronary three years previously and was attending the meeting via his comfy retirement condo across town. "Could something like this have been manufactured?" Scully corrected herself. "That sounds crazy." "Assembled? I understand they've completed the genetic code for a salamander and certain species of fish." She'd come seeking their input on the impossible condition of Mulder's genetic invader. By habit, Byers answered first. "My work with the Justice Department allows me discreet access to all current medical advancements. But _we_ know there has been and still is work being done that is kept from the common people. The salamander is common knowledge. They've also had limited success with warm blooded creatures, mice, bats..." Langley shook his head. "But what they've accomplished is nothing but fitting Flange A into Slot A, square peg in the square hole. Genetic cross-word puzzling." "SCULLY'S TALKING ABOUT THE BUILDING OF DNA. MANU- FACTURING IT. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A PROCESS OF CREATION. IF IT'S BEING DONE, NO ONE I KNOW KNOWS ABOUT IT." Frohike's voice over the computer voice line. "Nobody but the CIA." Langly corrected. "The creation of DNA," Byers added, "would elevate humans to gods." "I'm not sure humanity's ready for that, look what they've done with television." Scully said. "If they've done it, if that's what this is, I can only think of one reason for "Them", she underlined the word, "to have done this to Mulder." ""THEM"?" Frohike asked. "The same." She said. "Control. That's why they've done this. That's always why." Byers said. There was no need to remind the group that Scully still carried her own physical evidence of "Them" and their control. The chip was still nestled in place. The knowledge of how her own DNA having been invaded, her immune system ravaged and then her body left to compost the "garbage" had not been forgotten by the room's occupants. "IF they've done it and, anyway, it doesn't explain the scars." Langley reminded them. Scully cleared her throat. "The problem is I can see no reason why they would feel the need to control Mulder or harm him the way he's been harmed. I was hoping you might have heard something that would explain the spurious code we're seeing." Langley looked at Byers who looked back at her. Both shook their heads. Frohike muttered a far away "sorry" and was silent. "How is Mulder?" Byers asked. Scully gathered up her coat. "I haven't seen him for two weeks. The last time, he was...there was no visible change. I'm flying out tomorrow and staying until the weekend." "IF THERE'S ANYTHING MORE WE CAN DO..." Frohike said, "CALL US ANYTIME, DAY OR NIGHT." Scully smiled. "Thanks, Frohike. Thanks guys. I'll say hello from you." For all the good it'll do, she thought. *** Dana Scully had finished arguing with the admitting nurse and was now having a polite if strained conversation with Munroe. Bryant was at a conference and not available to "discuss Mulder with her". Kurtzman was not a ward doctor and though was responsible for prescribing medication to Mulder and had access to Bryant's notes on Mulder, he had no direct authority in the Infirmary. "How are you treating the pneumonia?" Munroe stiffly laded out for her the standard treatments being administered and now she was in the infirmary, seeing for herself. Mulder looked horrible. As far as she was concerned as bad as that first day. Worse, even. No thinner (thank god!), but still flesh less and pasty and he couldn't or wouldn't look at her over his oxygen mask. There were other patients almost as bad off but they didn't have masks or I.V. drips. Scully wanted to touch Mulder but had no idea how he would react to it. Sitting on her hands, she simply watched him. Occasionally, watery, droopy eyes would open but not look her way. Munroe told her what he knew about Mulder's therapy, emphasizing he was not the attending psychiatrist. But as for progress, there was none. Mulder had attended four of Bryant's group sessions during his lucid hours when he would actually emerge from himself and speak. Those times being arbitrary and rare, he usually just turned violent. The first two sessions he had refused to speak. The third time, when he did, he made his opinion clear about what the hospital and doctors could do with their Group Discussions: <<<"Do you have something to say, Mister Mulder?" "Yeah, can we stop all this genuflecting please. I have a weak stomach." "If you have something to add, we'd like to hear it." ""We"? I didn't hear anyone else say Aye." "This group which includes you collectively agreed to hear each other out and then discuss things. Nothing is hidden here." "You believe that?" "Say what you want to say, Mister Mulder, we always encourage each other to get in touch-" ""Yes, I've heard: Get In Touch With My Feelings." I get "in touch" with myself every night for five minutes before I go to sleep. You're right, Doc', it helps." "Communication is encouraged but we'd appreciate it if you would refrain from the profanity-." "Jesus! "Communicate" this!" "-and crude gesturing as well. If you have nothing to add to our group discussion, you can leave." "I HAVE something to add - this is a crock! - half of these slobs are so stoned on cocktail they don't know if its their tongue or their dick hanging out. The only reason they're here at all is because you wanted the job and their families wanted hope and the fucking pathetic thing is, they're not going to get even that! Jesus Christ, you ask me to share my feelings and you think you're exploring something profound?? Have you even looked at these people?? They're drugged until they're zombies, kept under lock and key, spoon-fed pablum, look at them! - they're sitting here in the middle of a working day in fucking pajamas! - And then they send YOU in, to try and infuse them with "human dignity" and "self-worth"! Holy shit, don't you see how fucking ridiculous this is!!??">>> The last time he had "participated", he'd smashed the window with a chair and tried to push, first himself and the then orderly called to subdue him, through it, bars and all. "Hey." Scully said, expecting no response and getting none. But he looked right at her, however, and even that tiny acknowledgment made her heart sing. "You will get better, you know." Wanting so badly to touch him, she hoped her words might. "I know that's hard to believe, Mulder, but I think there's still some fight left in you, and I think you want to get well. I just wish you would talk to me." No answer. He continued staring at her though. Was there recognition there? Gladness, even? Her cell phone rang. "Scully." "Scully?" It was Skinner. "Sir?" She hadn't told him she was coming to Boston. He wasn't her direct superior after all and there was no need to keep him informed of her movements. Except for that she knew he cared and would want to know. "How's Mulder?" Skinner asked from D.C.. She stood and moved to the window. Heard Mulder's nasally breathing in the background, slow and steady. "Okay I guess. Sick though. Flu'. Pneumonia complications." She heard Skinner sigh. "Anything I can do?" Scully smiled. A tiny one. "No, not really. He's getting all the anti- biotics he needs. I recommended a few new ones." They both knew why. The "fingerprint." They still didn't know what it was and they could hardly just arbitrarily announce that the man had "somehow" been exposed to "unidentifiable genetic matter" without there being everything from scoffing to outright alarm in the halls of medicine. "But thanks, Walter..." She still wasn't used to calling him that despite their almost physical rendezvous..."Thank you for calling." "I'm concerned about you both." She knew he was still waiting for a decision. But, in truth she hadn't allowed herself to think about a relationship with Walter Skinner. She hadn't even explored her own feelings for Mulder lately, being too tired from work and worrying about him and dodging her mothers inquiries. She just didn't feel like justifying herself to mom or anyone. No time or room enough. "Listen, I've got a flight out in a few hours. Do you want to meet and discuss the latest?" She was referring to the continuing research the Lone Gunmen had been doing for her about Mulder's second seemingly dormant genetic string. Scully was convinced it was a lurking monster that sooner or later would rear it's grotesque head to devour them. "Good idea. When?" Scully checked her watch. "Umm, nine P.M.? Usual place?" "See you then." Skinner hung up. Scully turned back to Mulder. He had his eyes closed. Sleeping. She had to go. Took a risk and kissed his forehead very softly before quietly leaving the room. Ian intercepted her as she was waiting for the down elevator. "Doctor Scully?" Over a quick coffee in the windowless cafeteria, Scully was feeling a little better about her visit. Her sudden impulse to fly out had been right and not just because of Mulder's illness. She'd been feeling anxious over him without cause. At least cause beyond that he was in a mental institution. Now she was less anxious. "I'm glad to know he has someone here who's watching him, looking out for him." This Ian seemed to like his work with mental patients and he'd brought her up to date on Fox. Not the medical side, but the human one. "Sometimes he has lucid moments. Yesterday he was playing cards with Joseph. He's fine unless he's touched. And he can't eat certain things without throwing them back up." Ian was explaining. "I know. Munroe told me." "You know, if there's anything I can do, all you have to do is ask. I'm only here four days per week, afternoons and evenings, but I kind of took to Fox right away. I know it sounds crazy but, I have a sense about people. It's not psychic or anything, but I get vibes..." he laughed at himself. .."sentience maybe. Fox is sane, somewhere in there, but I think just afraid to come out." Mulder's unofficial nurse was a believer in the paranormal or one who had experienced it. Scully was amused and pleased too. Mulder attracted strange things and people. Ian wasn't strange but he wasn't normal, in the psychological sense, either. He "sensed" things, whatever that meant and truly cared about the sick, whether directly under his charge or not. And he seemed to possess infinite patience so, as a care giver for Mulder, Ian was perfect. "Thank you." She had a thought. "Listen. Here's my number." Handed him a card. "It's my personal cellular number and," scribbling on the back of it, "my home phone number as well." Ian accepted it. "If anything happens that you think I should know about, would you call me? They don't always keep me up to date unless I get Bryant or Munroe on the phone and argue like hell. The "I'm F.B.I. and I can ruin your life" threat's wearing a bit thin." He smiled. "Sure. I'd be glad to." They parted. *** "Where's Mulder?" Ian asked the next day at the ward station. "Isolation." He found out why later from Ramsey. Wished he could have talked to Janice but it was her day off. "Ten minutes out of the Infirmary he got a hold of a lighter somehow and burnt himself." Ramsey said. "Accident?" With his usual charm, "Fuck no. He set that thing to its highest flame and held it to his forearm 'till he screamed. Fuck, man, until the flesh was black and smoking and bubbling. Snap, crackle, pop." Ian swallowed. What had happened between yesterday and today? Jesus. "He'll lose the feeling in a couple fingers, they figure and have one hell of a scar for the rest of his life." Ramsey sounded pleased. A call for help. A protest. Ian had read about stunts like that. That's what they meant. A mute's plea. Hadn't anyone noticed if Fox had been acting unusual? Ian immediately shook his head at the dumb question. Nobody looked at or heard a patient unless they had to. That night, though it was late, he called Dana Scully. No, the doctors hadn't called her about it. She was understandably upset but couldn't fly out again until the next weekend. She asked Ian again to keep a close eye on her friend and if anymore happened, to please call her immediately. She thanked him and Ian pressed the "end" button on the phone. "Who was that?" Gary asked, slouched on the sofa. He was finally back on days and enjoying his late evening television again. "Doctor Scully." "Fox?" Gary asked, by now familiar with the goings-on of Ian's newest human concern. "Yeah." "Listen, I found out some stuff on him. But I don't know if it'll do any good. What has this Scully told you anyway?" "Nothing personal. I think she wants to protect his privacy. I don't blame her, I mean he's her friend. Probably more." "Well. Little Luddy dug up some stuff for me and broke some laws doing it." Ian returned from the kitchen with the cordless in his hand. "What did he find out?" "This Mulder _was_ F.B.I., but what we didn't know was the kind of work he did. Weird shit. Everything from serial killer hunting to ghost tracking to chasing UFO's. He was a hell raiser, this guy. Maybe the work drove him bananas." Ian tried to mold the destroyed soul he saw on an almost daily basis with the crusader Gary was describing. It wasn't easy. "What else?" He scooted close beside his lover. "We dug up his file. His case. He went missing for eight years. Just showed up again two and a half months ago. The medical report would make you want to hide. No wonder he's where he is." When Gary gave Ian some details, the room went cold or he did. "Christ." "You might be biting off more than you can chew with this guy, Ian. He might really be crazy. I know how good you are but all I'm saying is be careful." **** Bryant's sessions seemed to be doing little good in Kurtzman's opinion. As much was reported to Doctor Scully who in turn managed to come up with the extra money to cover the costs of Kurtzman's fee's so he could take Mulder as client on a limited basis as well. Personal attention was the key. "Why don't you tell me what lead you to burning your arm like that?" Mulder heard the doctor's words. Bothersome. Doc wanted another book for his shelf. Nothing had made him do it. He'd chosen to. It was all about free choice. Bryant had said it. "If you just want to, you can get well." He had _wanted_ to do the burning. A thoughtful visitor had provided the Bic lighter unawares and he'd done it. That was all. No hidden agendas. Nothing to tell Kurtzman about reasons except that it had been important, necessary and afterward, he was better. Played cards all afternoon with Joseph with the burn hidden beneath the sleeve of his PJ's. Shit, though burned up, he'd kept Martin from wackin' his weenie in front of the female visitors who'd passed them on their way to which crazy belonged to who. He'd performed a vital service to them. The hole was a monument. He looked at it a lot. Hadn't hardly felt the flame. Kurtzman sighed. Mulder smiled only to himself. Kurtzman wanted a play by play from center court. -Fuck you!- Mulder, from a discreet distance, watched as Kurtzman dropped his mouth open to speak. It was often the way it happened when patients refused to cooperate with the learned methods of psychiatry; answer for the patient. It was not in the Manuals but doctors did it all the time anyway. Fox had had a PhD. Once. "I think you did it to get back at me..." Oh, yes. Switching places at center court, that was also done. It was necessary to keep things in their proper order. Doctor here and patient there. Just in case the patient forgot who really was the important one. "..or to punish someone,.." Wrong. "..the hospital maybe, to gain a bit of control,.." Wrong. Wrong. "..any kind of control over your life." Wrongwrongwrong! Brilliant. Patient in rags eating through a tube is upset at having lost control over life. Burns his arm to get it back. God, if that was true, he was the Fire-king of his own kingdom - his flesh. His death. It had felt marvelous. Kurtzman sighed. Time was up. Wrote out a prescription for an increase in the TriptoZac he had Mulder on. Mulder wandered out into the Day room. Martin was there along with a few others. He moved towards Mulder without looking like he was doing it on purpose. Mulder's reputation was powerful. He hit Orderlies, Doctors. Anyone. That was to be respected and feared. "Kurtzman?" Martin said. Mulder nodded but said nothing in reply. Enough to show that he wasn't going to speak and Martin understood, obliging by moving off in the other direction before their accidental meeting collided. Mulder wanted to sleep but the wards and the beds in them were off limits between lunch and dinner unless by special request from a nurse or doctor who determined you were ill enough to lie down. Designated "Activity Time", the afternoons were nothing other than mental doldrums. Made to keep patients from too much physical lounging, they made up for it in mental sleep. Lethargy in all its forms was abundant and many of the patients were fat from it. Except him. It was called the Puke Diet. Trouble was, there was nothing to do but slouch around and be crazy. No exercise program to speak of at Walburg. No "activities" provided either. No one on his ward even colored with crayons, the stylus's ending up in patient's stomachs. Paper, another material coveted by the bored inmates, was forbidden because of him. He played with flame. Paper burned. **** "Dana?" Mom Scully was being extra careful with her words. She did not want her daughter leaving. Dana needed this time. Bill and Tara and the kids, Dana needed to see these things. Family. Maybe some peace for just one evening. "Yeah, Mom?" Dana rose from the couch and her novel. At least she was reading something besides progress reports on Fox. "Would you make some coffee, my hands are floured?" Cherry pie crust. Canned cherries. Cool Whip. Ready-Make-Do because she did not want to be in the kitchen too much for Christmas and Dana on the couch alone. "Sure." Margaret Scully watched her daughter. She did not want Dana to stop thinking of Fox, she just wanted her to think of other things too. Every day, normal things. Happy things. Anything besides Fox in That Place. She cared, too. "He's not getting any better, mom." Dana offered the unsolicited information just as the coffee began to drip through the filter with maddening slowness. Margaret felt a pang. He'd been a good man. Fox deserved better than this. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She refrained from hugging her, Dana didn't seem to want it lately. She'd lost weight. "It's been almost four months, is there no improvement at all?" Margaret asked and rolled dough. "None that I can see. Four months isn't long, though..." Margaret bit her lip. "..Not after eight years." Had to say it. It was eating her up. "I don't want to see you alone forever, Dana." Dana stirred her coffee idly, watching the tiny oily patterns shine under the ceiling light. "How long would have been too long?" She turned to face her mom. "For you? When Dad went away? When it was war and you had no idea how long it would last? No idea if he would even come home? If he'd gone missing in action? How long would have been too long for you?" The dough was rolled thin and lifted to be flipped to it's other side. Roughly slapping the table. "This isn't the same and you know it." Staring back at her daughter with all the stubbornness she'd passed down to her. She folded the dough. "Maybe you should prepare yourself-" "Don't. Mom, don't even." Dana poured them both coffee's and took hers away onto the couch again. Picked up her book and buried all thought in the author's world. Margarete leaned against the counter, fighting the need to scream. Yes!, she'd cared for Fox. But goddamn it, he had no right to hold this power over her daughter! Margarete wanted to scream and beat at him and send him back to oblivion. She wanted to scream: Get well or die! Fox's illness had spread to Dana, and mother and daughter'd had more than just today's discussion over him. Dana loved him. Yes, she understood that. But that was the _old_ Fox Mulder. The new and decidedly not improved version was a canker in her life. Margrette was not unfeeling. Pity, sorrow, sympathy, heartache for that man stirred around in her. Empathy for her daughter who loved him bitterly. Who could not let go. Even Bill knew better than to raise the subject of his chosen nemesis with his sister at any time lest he be shot down faster than Enemy Aircraft. Even Bill knew when to leave well enough alone. It was going to be an unhappy Christmas. **** "Come on, hurry up." Mulder was showering. He'd had to obtain special permission because at this time of night the showers were supposed to be closed and locked. But he'd woken up covered in his own vomit. Normally, he would have simply shed his garments and curled up on the linoleum. But the night orderly who made his rounds of the wards had taken to kicking him in the back if he found a bed dripping in mess and the occupant curled up on the floor underneath. So, after wiping off as much of the sour smelling liquid as he could with a square of the clean part of the sheet, he'd walked to the "Cage", where the guards and night staff hung out, drinking coffee, chatting or reading. One whiff of him and they'd sent him off with two of the staff to guard him as he sluiced himself down in one of the rusted stalls. Fox saw who one of them was and felt better; Ross, the source of his candy supply. It was the only solid food that stayed down and sometimes even filled the echoing hollowness within. "Aren't you done yet?" They didn't usually call patients by name. Usually didn't call them anything but "Hey". Mulder switched the water off and felt strangely exposed as he had to walk the length of the shower room to find a towel. In typical institution fashion, the towels were all the way across thirty feet of freezing tile. He dried himself, shivering. Water vapor condensed and dripped off the walls and him. He wondered if he would be made to change his own bed sheets. Hands grabbed him from behind and slammed him against the wall, driving the breath from his body. Words were whispered in his ear that at first he didn't understand. When a hand grabbed his hair, it yanked his head back, stretching his throat until darkness threatened. Another paw clamped over his mouth, stifling his startled cry. Wicked words polluted his ear and he understood. "After all I've done for you, you stab me? I've got a scar on my face because of you." His hair was pulled harder and he felt some separate from his scalp. "You been enjoying those candy bars, haven't you Crazy Fox? Do they taste good?" He was pulled away from the wall and slammed back again. "Well, I'll bet you taste good. I'll bet you taste just as sweet. Sweet and hot and wet." He was forced to the floor while hands stilled his arms and a heavy body sat on his thighs. Demon noises and gorilla breath assaulted his ears and nose. He tried screaming through the cloth that was shoved into his mouth. Gagged. It hadn't occurred to him that Ross might be angry about what happened. That stabbing this two-legged creature who brought him food and cleaned up his messes might not have been appreciated; that it might have, in fact, hurt and angered it. But he'd stopped thinking in the terms of living creatures. Being dead himself, he tended to view those around him the same way and his own actions unrelated to potential consequences because he was no longer alive and didn't matter. Nothing did. Ross getting mad hadn't even crossed his mind. Fingers groped him, spread his butt cheeks, found the tightly clenched hole and an agony invaded. A baton, in and out that left gifts of stinging slivers. A hundred reminders that he was a convenience and nothing else. The candy? - tokens free of life or even pity. A price paid to gain his trust. He'd come cheap as usual. Fox screamed but the sound was impossibly muffled. If anybody heard it, it would be dismissed. The crazy always screamed. He heard a zipper and sounds of yanked clothing. Something tore. "Fuck." Candy-Man cursed, whispered into his ear, "I know you like candy, that's why I brought it for you. Now it's time for you to give me yours, Crazy. I'm gonna take what's owed, darlin'. I've been thinking about it for a while now. How sweet you look. I've been getting ready for a long time." The Candy-man spoke harshly to his assistant-rapist. "Hold him still!" Mulder bucked and fought for the leftover crumbs of his sanity. "Santa's got something special for you." The baton was jerked in and out once, twice and again. Then another weapon made of demon-turned-human-flesh was there. Smooth but it would hurt worse in the deeper parts of him, where it still counted. Not-again-notagainnotagainnotagain! His silent pleas were replaced by screams through the washcloth as Candy-Man penetrated him dry, forcing the instrument of death passed his sphincter without a care in the world and certainly none for the corpse he was violating. "Oh, yeah, yeah, baby. Fight. Fight! Makes it sweeter, makes it tighter!" "Hurry up." Other voice said. "I haven't had a turn yet and it's almost A.M. Counts." Fox twisted and gagged. A baton pummeled his rib cage and he surrendered his small cups of air in screams. The cloth was shoved in deeper until whole breaths came only every second or third try. Grunts and groans from above and behind. Jerking and stabbing knives from inside. Fox felt like he would split apart, his mind screaming and screaming, his lips sealed with dirty rags as senses reeled from the feel of blood dribbling down the crack of his cold ass to bath his scrotum in heat. Real death must come now, he knew. It was as inevitable as his shame at the pleasure/pain he felt as the demon-shoot licked at his gland and caused his own member to harden. Fox screamed for pain and the for mind-destroying pleasure that came with a sodomizing rape. Mostly pain. But he couldn't be glad over that. It was not enough to balance the scales. He was still left wanting. He would die. Candy-Man shuddered and sighed. Fox felt filth spray into his body to remain for all time. Poison to kill him. The thing inside him lost its power and was withdrawn. One presence changed places with another and the nightmare of pain and disbelief started all over again. But this time escape was possible. Fox felt himself die. ************ "Hey." Ian, on morning/afternoon rotation stopped by the ward of his favorite charge. Fox was curled up on his side on Martin's bed. "Hey." Ian shook his shoulder just a little, aware of how much Fox hated being touched. Fox didn't stir. Ian pulled back the blanket Fox had wrapped himself up in. He wasn't wearing any pajamas. "Hey, Mulder. Come on, buddy, you're in the wrong bed. Do you want Martin's hemorrhoids to get worse? Where the hell are your clothes?" Ian shook him harder, eliciting a groan from the slumbering patient. Fox felt hot. "You sick again, Muld-" Ian noticed a stain on the sheets beneath Fox and looked closer. Blood. Ian went for help. Mulder was moved to the infirmary, his privates and anus examined, blood and fluid samples were taken, the slides checked. Confirmation made. Antibiotics injected. He was cleaned up. Ian put a call through to Doctor Scully. There was no answer either on her cellular or at her home. He took a chance and called another name on Fox's emergency contact list. Walter Skinner sounded sickened by the news and assured him, though it was the holidays, he had a good idea where she might be and would relay the information to Doctor Scully immediately. Ian felt a bit better after hanging up the phone. Fox had people who cared at least. Maybe they cared enough to get him out of Walburg. *** "Two types of semen. Anal trauma..." Scully felt sick to her stomach. It was all she could muster to keep the contents of last nights dinner to herself. " Bryant's monotone went on. "...He has a cracked rib. They worked him over pretty good." Scully heard the unspoken. "Not only on the surface." She underlined. "Who did it?" "We don't know." **** Martin came out of his "down" and shuffled the corridors until he found him. The one they all liked. Never throw food at this one. It was an accepted rule of the patients, one learned without actually being taught. "I saw who done that to him." Martin announced in his "down" quiet way. Ian looked up from his duty with Thomas who was having trouble finding his bed among the dozen in his section of the ward. Ian was gently guiding him. "What was that, Martin?" Ian looked around surprised to find Martin speaking during a downer, but didn't stop his movement down the hall with Thomas. Once one got Thomas accelerated into motion, it was always prudent to keep it that way, lest he decide that sleeping or going to the bathroom right on the spot was the grander notion. "I saw who hurt him. Who stuck that thing up 'im." Ian called over his shoulder to Ramsey who took over the guidance of Thomas after a bit of moaning. Ian took Martin aside and spoke quietly. "How do you know that, Martin?" "I saw. I wanted to sit in the water..." Ian understood. Martin sometimes slipped out of his bed at night. One of the night Orderlies would be convinced to unlock the bathroom so he could flip up a lid and sit his cheeks in the cold water. Thank god for Martin's piles, Ian thought. "And I was in there when they come in to shower him. Then they started..." Martin swallowed. "They stuck one of their sticks up him and then did...other things. He bled a lot. I was too scared..." Ian went pale. Where the hell was Ross today? He had not showed up for work it was soon discovered. Neither he nor his joined-at-the-hip pal. Ian added his voice to Martin's in the way of character witness. Yes, Fox often threw up at night. And, no, Martin was not a fibber, he often sat in the toilet. Serving their time through "Community Service"; Ross and his fellow rapist. "That's why they've been working at Walburg." Bryant later explained to Scully, adding, "nothing like this has ever happened before." She knew he meant "at Walburg". Because it certainly _had_ happened before. It was an old scenario replayed over and over through-out the social structure. In long term institutions of all variety. In the education system as well. Who hadn't heard of an all boys school coming forward with it's awful tales of abuse and molestations twenty years after the fact? Who hadn't heard of that or something like it? So why the hell not a mental hospital? The visitors would be less abundant and less frequent - Scully felt an especially guilty pang - the environment even more isolated and controlled. And, under the very circumstances that made a mental hospital _mental_, claims of victims would hardly be believed. Scully had comprehended these things. As an F.B.I. Agent, she'd encountered similar inhumanities. Now she empathized. Understood all too well those relatives and parents who had said: "I can't understand. I trusted them! How could they _DO_ this? Why would they hurt my child/husband/wife/parent?" "When will he be well enough to travel?" Scully asked. Bryant took one look at her and knew he had nothing to say in protest to her obvious decision to move the patient out of there. Charges would be laid against the perpetrators when they were apprehended. An investigation of the facilities by, he didn't doubt for a second, the F.B.I. itself would soon commence. "Two or three days." Scully made a quick visit to Mulder's recovery bed. He was heavily sedated. She was glad for it. Mulder had been experiencing significant pain before Nurse had come with her injections. Mulder was still the color of milk. The other small physical signs of trauma were there as well in the aftermath of the attack- -rape. She wanted to die. *** Skinner opened the investigation on Walburg himself. Being Director certainly had its uses. There were few times in his life he'd indulged in revenge. He didn't know what this one would taste like. *** "How can you afford it?" He watched Scully tossing her clothes into suitcases from the hotel dresser. Flight out of Boston in two hours. They'd been in Boston for four days and Mulder was ready to be transferred back to D.C.. Scully had found a place. It was private, expensive and Mulder would be a fifty minute drive tops. "I'll find the money. Walburg will have to reimburse me in part." "That won't come anywhere near to covering what this other place costs." She stopped. "What the hell does money have to do with anything? I said I'll get it." He watched her fold blouses, slacks, underwear. "I don't like seeing you throw your life away." Regretted it the second it escaped. He knew what it had sounded like but it was not what he'd meant. Bras were furiously jammed into one corner of the Airliner carry-on. Her voice matched her determined hands. "The last time money was a concern, it got Mulder beaten and hurt." Didn't have the courage to say the other word aloud. Tone lower, more steady. "I'm not throwing anything away." Skinner had been sitting on the bed, bouncing up a down a bit by her rhythmic stuffing of her suitcase. Now he went to stare out the window and listened as she laid it out for him as he knew she would. Scully carried arguments to their conclusion. "I'll cash in my own securities. My retirement funds, sell everything if I have to, borrow, beg..." "And leave yourself what if it doesn't work?" He came back to the bed and stood in front of her, blocking her assault on the travel case. "What if Mulder doesn't get well? What if he's in there or somewhere else for the rest of his life-?" "-I put him there!" Her words mowed his down like an AK 47. "So I lose my money. I don't care. Don't you get it? Mulder's lost everything! Even his choices. He has no options now except what I can give him." Where did Skinner get off thinking because they'd seen each others privates, he suddenly had the right to question and argue? she wondered. Skinner grabbed her arms, firmly. Gentled. Rubbed them. "Scully..." She collapsed into him and sobbed like a child. Sex wasn't the on-ramp to a solution but she wanted him. His steadiness. His good, comforting, ready to take charge saneness. Mulder. Mulder, what have you done to me?! Her mind screamed then felt guilty for thinking it. "If - IF - he is your responsibility, then just remember that it's not your fault. Recognize the difference." He said the useless words knowing she wouldn't believe them. *** GREENLAWN RECOVERY CENTER. WASHINGTON, D.C. Office of Doctor Carl Petrillo. Doctor Petrillo had an hour before his next appointment. A rare period to unwind - to hell with the paperwork sitting neglected beside his In Box- and soothe his headache with a mug full of Masala Chai and the walnut muffins and aspirin his wife always packed for him. Yeah, doctors felt shitty sometimes too. He put his feet up and leaned back, relishing in that useful but rare thing: free time. It niggled at him though, that thick yellow folder sitting center desk. He had to admit he was curious. It wasn't often a private case came his way. Petrillo sat forward and opened it, muffin crumbs sprinkling the printed and hand-written notes under his eyes. Doctors reports, medical conditions, past and present. Recent history, as much as was known: Mulder. Fox William, Petrillo read for many minutes, flipping pages and going back to re-read, checking physicians notes, initial diagnoses, drugs administered, reactions to medication, alternative treatment. ""Treatment-s"." Petrillo muttered aloud. He frowned. Re-read aloud a few things that refused to sink in. ""eight years,... suspected violent...beating-s",..." Petrillo gulped his tea. "..."mental and physical abus-es"..." Plenty of plurals in this file. Read the childhood history (dysfunctional), educational background (Oxford PhD). Some of the family history. "Sister disappeared age eight when boy was twelve. No clear memory...catatonic state for four days post-event...child abuse thought factor...". Psychological Profile: Photographic memory. Genius I.Q. but long running stress/sleep disorders interlaced with self- destructive behaviors. Few friends. Obsessive. "There have been episodes of cognitive disassociation"." An obsessive, self-destructive genius with few friends. Less extraordinary than people knew. Genius - a high functioning brain - by its very nature was obsessive. Self- destructive because patience lacked in a mind that left most others in its dust. Few friends because people didn't like being left behind and shown up as mediocre. Petrillo skimmed his new clients work history. ""Dedicated but insubordinate, brilliant, arrogant,"..." Yet his "closure rate" (he recognized the law enforcement terminology) had been high. Partner in Bureau: Agent Dana K. Scully, MD. Pathologist. Now he understood why the file was so complete. Partner, and doctor. She wanted this guy to get well and had handed Petrillo all the ammunition she thought he might need. Friend to the genius. No dummy herself or she wouldn't have gone the distance. He read some of the later details regarding the events at Walburg. Petrillo shook his head. "Whew..." Wondered if he could refuse the case after all. It was a lot to bite off. At the back of the file he found a note paper-clipped to the inside. It was a hand-written missive from Doctor Scully: //"Doctor Petrillo, I have given you all the information available regarding F. Mulder's case. I would appreciate it if you and I can maintain a running dialogue on his treatment and progress..."// She thinks there'll be progress. It's always good news that clients and their families had confidence in one at least. It was more than he felt about his ability to treat this new client thus far. The case was not to be believed. //"...If you'll forgive me, I have researched your work history.."// Ah. She would naturally. F.B.I.. //"...and you come highly recommended by certain individuals. Please understand that my friend - Mulder - will be a difficult client. He has had good reason to mistrust authority and the medical profession in general..."// Oh, that must have been quite a high wire working relationship. //"...and will probably not cooperate with you. After what happened at Walburg, I am sure you can comprehend his reluctance. As well, there are things about him, that is, his medical condition, that are known only to select people including myself. At this time, we feel this cannot be shared until we have more concrete confirmation. But the condition to which I refer is not contagious in any way. I have included a medical report on his general physical health to support my statement, however if you intend a second, independent examination, I would only ask you inform me. We want him to get well. If you feel this case would entail too much of your time which I know is limited, please tell me now. I would also appreciate this letter be kept between you and I alone. Thank you, Dana Scully."// Petrillo's eyebrows climbed his forehead. He would take the case. It sounded too interesting not to. ****