What is the first thing you should do upon being released from a psychiatric ward after being held in restraints and menaced by monsters? I don’t know. Here’s the first thing I do, though. I dismiss Scully with a curt “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and I go out cruising.

It never takes me long to find what I’m looking for, because all that I’m looking for is willing flesh. Tonight is no different. I find it, and convince it to let me take it to a motel room to fuck it stupid. I’m so incoherent that he probably thinks I’m drunk. I don’t do anything to dissuade him from that thought. The drunker he thinks I am the better. It’ll make what comes next easier to accept – maybe. My kind of loving isn’t all that gentle at the best of times – at least when it comes to men. I wouldn’t – couldn’t – hurt a woman, but men…they’re different. They’re the dark side of me, and I hate that side of myself, and I hate them for provoking it.

This one reminds me of another body, with dark hair, green eyes, and a pretty face…Alex Krycek, the prettiest lay I’ve ever had. I never liked Alex, but the passion was so hot that the steam almost came out of our goddamn ears. I was never gentle with him, even back at the start when I halfway loved him. He knew just how to press all the right buttons in order to make me come at him with my fists. He knew where it would inevitably end up. We never talked; we just got on with it. Whenever I run into the bastard now, it starts all over again. My fists itch to plant themselves in his face, in his flesh. It’s all I can do to express the desire, because I won’t fuck him now. I can’t. He betrayed me. He gutted me like a fish, took my insides out, and left them hanging there. To think I mistook what we had for love. I’m a fool.

Thinking of Alex just makes my mood uglier, even worse than usual. When I get like this, I’m not kind, and I make no pretense of it. I don’t have time for all that phony friendliness shit tonight, not after what I’ve been through. My urgency, and need for violent release are easy to see, even in the dim light of this low life bar we’re in, so don’t feel sorry for my pick up. He’s no victim du jour. He’s a big guy, and just like Alex, he could hand it out as easily as he could take it if he wanted to. I pick them that way on purpose. If I get any inkling that a man doesn’t want what I have to offer, I stop right then and there. I’m no kind of monster. I have an instinct about picking the “right” guys.

Needless to say, tonight’s Mr. Right pays the price for the dubious pleasure of a night of passion with Fox William Mulder. I give him a session of kicking, scratching, biting, and bruising lovemaking that leaves him looking like he’s gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. As for me, I look like shit as usual. One of these days maybe I’ll pick one up who’ll turn the tables, and end up killing me. I don’t give a damn about that. It’s one way of dying.

I slip out of the bed in the early hours, when the fury inside me abates, and fade back into the darkness. I never told him my name. I never do. I pay for the room though – he deserves that much.

I take a shower to wash the scent of sex from my body, and examine the wounds: scratches, bites, and bruises. Our angry passion has taken its toll, but the release was so good. I needed it. I’ve had a goddamn hard-on since my boss wrestled me onto a desk a few days ago. How the hell should he know that’s my idea of foreplay? Then, just when he got me aroused, he consigned me to limbo – tied to a bed in a psych ward, at the mercy of monsters. I wasn’t even able to get rid of the damning evidence by jerking off because of those restraints. It’s no wonder that I needed a frigging release. It’s no wonder that I took it out on the first man who’d let me.

I re-work the scenario in Pincus’s office in my head as I stand in the shower, only this time it ends the way I want it to. Skinner pushes me down; I slap him with all my force. He bites my neck, my shoulder, while I run my fingernails down that broad back, until the blood flows. He pulls me up, hits me, hard, and I riposte with a kiss that makes his lips bleed. Then I fuck him, or he fucks me, because I don’t care which, and I walk out and never see him again. Only I can’t do the last part, because I work with him. I made that mistake once before. One night stands are much better.

I jerk myself off to this fantasy, with the water and tears running down my cheeks at the same time. I just wish I didn’t like him. I don’t want to like him. I wish he wouldn’t do the stuff he does – selling himself to Cancerman to find a cure for Scully, saving my butt on more than one occasion, proving he cares in these little ways that tug at me, and make me resent him for it.

I get into work late. Fuck it. I figure they owe me. Scully had to go into the lion’s den by herself. I’m not sure what she told him, and I don’t really care. I just know that I don’t want to see him right now. If I close my eyes, I can remember how it felt to have him hold me, and my arm jerks involuntarily, throwing the punch, starting the fight/foreplay. I’ve been here before, after that time in the hallway, when I was out of my head on drugs. They made me lose my inhibitions. Luckily for me, he didn’t understand that it was foreplay for me that time either. The anger and the sex are irretrievably combined for me. I couldn’t separate the two out if I tried. It’s easier by far not to have sex at all. That’s the way I usually deal with it. As for the anger – ah, well, I’m not so good at dealing with that. It spills out all the time, in little ways, gets me into trouble. I can’t help myself.

Six days later, Skinner calls us into his office just after lunch. He’s his usual stunning self. I don’t bother fighting the attraction any more because it’s been there from the moment I first saw him. It’s just another part of me, another layer, and it’s so well hidden he’ll never see it. He’s watching me, those dark eyes wary and tense. He doesn’t know where I’m coming from any more. Maybe he never did, but he doesn’t give up trying to find out all the same. I should probably be grateful. A lot of bosses would have kicked my disobedient ass out of the Bureau a long time ago.

“There’s an emergency situation.” He examines a file he’s holding, but he isn’t reading it. He’s reading me instead. I smile, disarmingly. Last time I sat here, I was “monster boy”. Today, I’ll be “model agent” I think. Why not? One of my teachers once described me as “mercurial”. My mother was surprised. “He’s very quiet at home,” she replied. Well of course, I would be. Anyway, Skinner quits studying me when he realizes I’ve noticed, and I raise an inquiring eyebrow at him. Scully, in turn, raises one at me. It’s Eyebrow City in here today. I wait for Skinner to raise the stakes with both eyebrows, but instead he clears his throat, looking concerned.

“It’s a…” he pauses, looks directly at me. I smile encouragingly, “…hostage situation.” He doesn’t look happy about it. “A man is holding nine people hostage in a convenience store in Leesburg.”

“I’m not disputing the seriousness of this situation, but it doesn’t sound like an X File. How does this concern us, sir?” Scully asks smoothly, shooting me a glance.

“This guy is nuts.” Skinner looks at me. I make the connection. He thinks I’m nuts too. “It may not be an X File, but the hostage taker has specifically requested that…he…that is, he read some article about the Duane Barry case…”

“He wants to talk to me.” I say for him, since he’s taking so long to get to the point.

“Yes. I don’t think it’s a good idea though.” Skinner pauses. “Mulder, you’ve just come from one hostage situation. I’m, uh, concerned…”

“About the effect it’ll have on my mental health? Don’t be.” I smile at him, whisking the file off his desk. “I’ll be fine. And if this guy won’t talk to anyone else I don’t have a choice, do I?” I get up, preparing to leave immediately. Skinner nods, exchanging a worried look with Scully.

As I leave the room I hear him say: “Watch out for him, Scully. Please.” And something inside me feels squeezed, making it hard to breathe. I have to get some air as soon as possible, so I run out of the building, and into the street, gulping furiously. I love her, and I love him. I don’t know what stops me from saying it. I know I make them anxious, and that they worry. I know that I seem crazy, that I run off, and do strange things. I know all that. I wish I could stop. I wish I wasn’t moody, and often inexplicable. It’s the curse of my hopeless, fucked up past, and my hopeless fucked up brain chemistry. I hope, I really hope, that they see beyond that, that they remember the times I’m fun and entertaining. Most of all, I hope they realize that even though I’ve left scores of broken lives in my wake, I don’t want theirs to be among them. I love them both too much. Sometimes that love seems like an ache. If I could just…I picture my lips on his, biting, tearing…if I could get that out of my system, if I could have that one night with him, letting the passion overwhelm us both, then maybe that would be enough. I don’t know. It’s a kind of loving. The only kind I can give.

“Mulder.” Scully’s hand slips into my arm. “Are you okay, Mulder?”

“Sure, I’m fine!” I smile brightly.

“How do you feel about this?” She points at the file. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Of course. It’s my job.” I say reassuringly as we set off. “Anyway,” I wink. “It’s great to be in demand!”

She gives a tight little smile, as we get into the car. She isn’t fooled. She never is.

The guy has them holed up in a convenience store opposite a motel. He’s going crazy by this time, screaming that he’ll kill one of the hostages if he doesn’t get to speak to me. It’s been over three hours since the crisis began, and it’s now nearly 5 p.m. The motel reception area has been turned into our operations room, with tables, chairs, blackboards, phone systems – the normal stuff. A tall, blond guy, with a long nose and an expression of distrust on his face, shakes my hand.

“Agent Mulder. I’m Agent Gallagher. I’m the SAC of the Hostage Rescue Team.”

“And you’re really pissed he wants to talk to me and not you, right?” I take off my jacket, sling it over the back of a chair, pick up the headset and put it on, then fumble for a packet of sunflower seeds in my jacket pocket.

“We have to go along with whatever he wants.” His words merely answer my question.

“What do we know about him?” I lean back, throw a seed into the air, and catch it in my mouth. I can see a little nerve in Gallagher’s neck start to twitch.

“Not much. We thought at first it was a hold-up gone wrong…maybe the cash register didn’t have enough in it to suit him, and he decided to see if he could collect some ransom money. But now we’re not so sure. He hasn’t made a ransom demand yet…and he doesn’t appear to know, or really care, who his hostages are, the way you’d expect him to if kidnapping them had been his primary objective. Until we got more information, and you got here, we were at a loss as to how to proceed. It’s not even as if we can starve him out, or send people in with food to see what’s going on in there. The convenience store has enough supplies to keep them all fed for weeks.”

“Well let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I joke.

“That’s up to you,” Gallagher shrugs, but his statement is a challenge.

“I’m aware of that,” I reply softly. “Now tell me more about the hostages.”

“There are nine of them – the convenience store had a staff of four – they’re all in there. In addition there were some people paying for their gas – a mother and her daughter, three guys. “

“There’s a kid in there?” Scully looks at Gallagher, her eyes showing something that only I understand.

“Yeah. A little girl, about 8 years old,” Gallagher reads off his list. “Lisa Perry.”

Lisa. I write the name down on my pad, and make a butterfly of the “i” with the dot being the head. Lisa.

“Do we know who this guy is?” I ask. Gallagher shakes his head.

“Just that he’s called Pete, and he’s got a gun. We’re running DMV checks on the license plates of all the cars in the parking lot, to see if we can get some more information on him. With any luck he was dumb enough to drive his own car.”

“Run those checks faster,” I snap, and his face tightens. I’m not making a new friend here.

At just that moment, all hell breaks loose, as a shot fires out of the convenience store opposite, cracking some glass, and glancing off of one of the vehicles in the forecourt.

“Next time that’s someone’s head,” a voice yells in my ears, and reverberates around the room on the speaker. Silence falls as the various milling people stiffen, become alert. “I want to talk to Mulder. Now.”

I glance at Gallagher, and he nods, and flicks a switch. I can speak directly to “Pete” now.

“Pete, this is Agent Mulder,” I say, as calmly and soothingly as I can.

“How the fuck do I know if that’s true?” he demands.

“You asked to speak to me, Pete, and now I’m here,” I tell him. “How can I prove it to you?”

“You’re not that other jerk-wad are you, disguising your voice?” I glance at Gallagher. It’s a good description of him.

“No, Pete. I really am Agent Mulder. You read about me in a magazine?”

“Yeah. You spoke to that guy? The one who heard voices in his head?” Pete’s voice is a whisper. Like someone else not a million miles away, he really wants to believe. “They said that you were the only one who listened to him, and believed him. Well, I hear voices too, Agent Mulder.”

“Oh shit. He’s a schizo. Great,” someone in the room mutters. I ignore them.

I know the rules. Acknowledge the delusion, but don’t enter into it. That, apparently, was my mistake with Duane Barry. So they kept telling me at the time.

“What do the voices say, Pete?” I ask him softly.

“They tell me that we have to prepare to die. They tell me the little ones must die first. They say the children will be saved in the afterlife.”

Fuck. This isn’t looking good. I draw something absently on my pad, lost in thought.

“Pete, you don’t have to believe the voices,” I tell him. “I don’t think you really want to believe them, do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe. Maybe it would be better for everyone if I just shot my brains out. Maybe I should just let one of you shoot me,” he says, and he sounds desperate.

“You can believe me, Pete. I know what it feels like not to be believed, and to have everyone turn against you. I’ve been there, Pete. If the voices are starting to help you remember your past, like Duane Barry’s voices did, I can help you remember safely. No one has to get hurt. Why don’t you put the gun down, and come on out. We could talk about this more face to face.”

Gallagher clearly doesn’t like this approach, but I’m going with it.

“No. I don’t know whether I should listen to you, or to them,” he whispers.

“Me, Pete. You asked for me. You know I can help you. You should trust me.”

I don’t know how long this conversation goes on for. An hour or more, and always the same. Me coaxing, him stalling. Sometimes I can hear sobbing in the background. Maybe the kid, maybe her mother. Or one of the guys. Hey, men can cry too. I should know. Finally, Pete stops talking. Says he needs time to think.

“You’ll be here though, Agent Mulder. Won’t you?” he begs.

“Yes, Pete. I’ll be here.”

“You won’t let me down? I can trust you?”

“Yes, Pete. You can trust me.”

“If I want to talk to you…?”

“I told you, Pete. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

He hangs up, and I lean back with a sigh.

“It’s going to be a long haul,” Scully says, handing me a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

“Thanks.” I murmur, hoping I’m up to it. It’s only been an hour, but already I’m exhausted by it. I have enough delusions of my own – entering into other people’s warped minds isn’t good for me, but I’ve already started to do that. Scully knows it, and she isn’t happy.

“Careful, Mulder. He may not be what you think he is. Remember, Duane Barry talked a good game too,” she says. I nod, ignoring the food, drinking the coffee. On the pad in front of me, a dozen or more butterflies are sketched in black ink. Absently, I pick up the pen, and draw a cage around them.

They give us rooms in the motel, although we don’t have a change of clothes. This could all be over in hours, or it might take much longer. The word “Waco” springs to mind. Pete calls intermittently, and I talk to him, try to persuade him to let the hostages go, but he isn’t playing ball on that one. Scully is rushing around, talking to the local police, and conferring with the Hostage Rescue Team to see if there’s anywhere that they can get a clear shot of Pete. There isn’t. He’s at the back of the convenience store, and he rarely moves anywhere near the front, where the cracked glass shows evidence of the gunshot he fired. They position themselves anyway, just in case.

“Just keep out of sight,” Scully warns. “We don’t want to push him over the edge.”

“He’s already there,” one of the men comments. “Fruitcake.” He makes a spiraling motion with his finger next to his head.

“He’s crazy, but he’s not stupid,” I tell them. “Don’t make that mistake. If he sees you, then we are in big trouble.

“He’s certainly delusional. Maybe schizophrenic…” Scully begins.

“Which is all the more reason for not leading him in his suggestible state,” Gallagher interrupts, glaring at me.

“Do you have a problem with the way I’m handling this case?” I flare, angrily. That anger again. I can’t keep it inside if I try.

“Hell, yes. He’s delusional, and you’re just helping him create even more of a fantasy world than he would on his own.”

He doesn’t back down in the face of my anger, and that just makes me worse.

“So, Pete isn’t the only one who’s read about my performance in the Duane Barry case – right?” I ask.

“Right,” he growls. “You’re pulling the same bullshit you pulled with the Duane Barry situation. We have a lunatic with a gun threatening to shoot little girls, and you’re worried about their kidnapper’s experiences with little green men. Now this guy’s nuts – so we have to accept that he’ll only talk to you. But I’m the SAC in this case, and you’ll do what I say. I won’t tolerate you going off on some personal crusade. There will be consequences if you do.” He’s practically red in the face at this point, and his long, thin, nose has gone white, right at the very tip.

“I don’t know what you’ve read about me…” I begin.

Gallagher positively glowers at me. “I’ve read that you took Duane Barry to UFO International Airport to chase after little green men. I’ve heard rumors that your actions may have caused the injury of one of the hostages, and the abduction of your partner. The poor judgement you exercised in that case shows that you’re more used to chasing after things that go bump in the night, than sitting down and getting results the hard way. You don’t have the training or the experience for this. If you’ll do as you’re told, we might just get those people out alive. If you don’t – well I hope you can handle the guilt, Mulder.”

I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face. Scully is furious. She pulls Gallagher arm, hisses: “A word with you in private, sir,” and whisks him away. I bury my face in my hands, and rub my eyes. Fuck. Can I handle the guilt? Isn’t that my life story?

“Why don’t people ever like me?” I whine plaintively to Scully when she returns.

“I like you. I know what you went through for me,” she smiles, and that warms my heart, but we don’t have much time to talk because she hates being idle, and sets about following up the leads on Pete. A few hours later, she returns with an impressive file of material. Unfortunately, so does that prick Gallagher. Only the file he has isn’t on Pete. It’s on me.

“I don’t know what the hell AD Skinner thought he was doing – sending you down here to me, but this time last week you were in restraints in a psychiatric ward. And frankly, that doesn’t surprise me,” he rants, glancing at his colleagues. They’re on his side of course. They’ve already decided I’m as nuts as Pete is. My reputation has preceded me, as always. I’ve given up fighting it, but I feel weary, dejected. It’s hard enough keeping up with Pete’s demands, without having a battle with the people who are supposed to be on my side.

“You don’t want me here. Fine. I’ll go.” I fling down the headset, and make for the door. I don’t mean it though. I wouldn’t leave Lisa or the other hostages hanging out there. Scully knows that, and I know it too. Pete’s built up a rapport with me. I get to the door, kick it, then come back, and sit down again.

It’s at precisely that moment that he decides to put in an appearance.

He’s looking furious. His eyes are flashing behind the wirerims, and he has that angry set of the mouth that pulls his jaw taut and always gives me a clue to the fact that I’m in deep shit. Only this time his anger isn’t directed at me.

“Agent Gallagher…” he locates Gallagher with unerring accuracy – it must be a trick they teach you in AD school. “I’m Assistant Director Skinner.”

Gallagher looks worried – he’s obviously hoping that Skinner wasn’t outside the door a few moments ago when he made that crack about him.

“I got a call to say that things weren’t going too well down here.” Skinner’s face is positively incandescent with controlled rage. “Not only that, but I’ve been informed by my office staff that a personnel file on one of my agents has gone missing. Now, I don’t know what the hell is going on, and I don’t care. I’ll be taking over control of this situation from now on.” He holds out his hand for the file and his expression just dares Gallagher to argue with him. Predictably, Gallagher doesn’t, and sullenly hands it to him. “Fill me in, Agent Scully.”

He puts the file into his briefcase without even looking at me. He just takes off his coat, throws it down on a chair, loosens his tie, rolls up his shirtsleeves, and gazes expectantly at Scully, who is clutching the file of material she’s gathered on Pete. My stomach is in knots. Just great. Now that he’s here, I can disappoint the two people I care about most in one, easy, efficient step. I shoot Scully a poisonous glance. It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out who called Skinner. She shoots me back a poisonous look of her own, not prepared to take my censure on this subject. The name “John Lee Roche” might as well be written on her eyeballs. Last time Skinner told her to keep an eye on me, I ended up letting a serial killer loose on the public. This time she wasn’t taking any chances on what I might do. I can’t really be angry with her, though, especially as she’s responsible for getting Gallagher put in his place. I bite my lip, and nod at her, and taking it for the capitulation that it is, she nods back.

She turns her attention to our surly rescuer, and answers in calm, measured tones that show she’s not about to be bulldozed by any man in this room. Way to go, Scully. That’s what I like best about this woman. She’s half the size of most men, and twice as strong. She’s got balls.

“His full name is Peter Anthony Lomax.” She puts a picture down on the table. I’m surprised – he’s younger than I thought, and darkly attractive, almost pretty, with delicate, boyish features. He reminds me uncomfortably of Alex. “He’s 31. He used to work as a long distance truck driver but he had a breakdown a couple of years ago, and he doesn’t do much now.”

“A breakdown?” I glance at her.

“A nervous breakdown,” she shrugs. That’s all the information she has on that.

“No voices?” I push.

“Not that we know about.”

“Did anything trigger the breakdown?” I ask, feeling my way around this, trying to get a handle on it. I can sense Skinner’s eyes on me like a kind of X-ray vision, boring into me.

“Yes. Pete was abandoned as a child. He was brought up in a Catholic children’s home. A few years ago the home was investigated, and some of the priests there were brought to trial on charges of abuse and neglect.”

“They were acquitted, right?” I guess the scenario accurately. Scully nods.

“Pete gave evidence. He had to relive the experience in the witness stand. After that, he fell apart.”

“Poor bastard,” I murmur, absently crunching on a sunflower seed.

“Yeah – a poor bastard who just happens to be holding nine other poor bastards hostage,” Gallagher cuts in. “I know where my sympathies lie, Agent Mulder.”

“It’s not a question of sympathy,” I turn on him angrily. “Pete’s as much a hostage as those people he’s holding, Agent Gallagher. The only difference is that he’s a hostage to his past. He was screwed up, and fucked up when he was just a kid. You don’t have any sympathy with him now because he’s 31, and he’s holding a gun, but imagine he’s 9 years old, and someone’s beating up on him, or worse, and nobody will listen. I bet you’d kick ass to help the 9 year old, but it’s too late – you weren’t there then, and neither was I. His cry for help came too late. Now he’s 31, and we can dismiss him as crazy. If he was 9, we’d want to scoop him up, and take care of him.”

They’re all staring at me, and I shut up. Way too much information, Mulder, I curse myself, my eyes falling on Skinner, and seeing the compassion there. I have a brief fantasy of hitting out, of a tangle of our bodies, his hard flesh against mine, his manly face wiping out every memory of Alex’s boyish good looks, and then it’s gone. I get up, unable to stand still, pacing around the room for a moment.

“You can’t become too involved, and you can’t turn this into some stupid UFO case like last time.” Gallagher looks to Skinner for confirmation but he refuses to take sides, like the good little AD he is.

“Becoming involved is my modus operandi,” I inform Gallagher tersely, ignoring his swipe at the X Files. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to resolve this situation, and get those hostages out of there as much as the next person.”

“That’s a given, Mulder,” Skinner says softly. He’s gotten up too, and he’s flicking through that file of Scully’s, but as he wanders past me, he puts a hand on my shoulder, and brings me back to the table, placing the file in front of me. I sit down, but he doesn’t move his hand. I can feel the heat in it, boring through to my shoulder blade, and, strangely, it calms me. I read what he’s pointing at.

“I don’t think the convenience store was a random hit,” he informs us. “I think he came back here for a purpose.”

“Back?” Gallagher glances at Scully. She nods.

“His last known address was somewhere in Montana. He’s moved around a lot, but this is his home town. And the convenience store…”

“Oh shit.” I check the addresses and look at Skinner, and then at Scully, for confirmation.

“That’s right,” Scully shrugs. “They closed the children’s home after the trial. The building was condemned, and pulled down.”

“The convenience store stands where the Home was?” I can feel my breath catch in my throat. This is more dangerous than I thought. There may not be ghosts, or aliens, but this will require just as much of me as those quests do.

“Yes,” Scully nods again.

“I bet he didn’t know that. He came back here looking for closure, something he didn’t get from the trial, and even that’s been denied him. He found a convenience store instead of what he was looking for – that’s what sent him over the edge.” I state, understanding at least some of what must be going on inside Pete Lomax’s head.

“Oh come on. All this crap about closure,” Gallagher shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, Mulder. All you have to do is talk him out of there without anyone getting hurt. You’re not here to psychoanalyze the guy. A satisfactory outcome to this situation, as far as I’m concerned, is if we can shoot this guy through the window, but I expect Agent “bleeding heart” Mulder would be against that.”

“Stop pouting about getting your wrist slapped, Gallagher,” I snap back. “A hostage negotiation is always a quasi-therapeutic endeavor, and you’d be using the same strategy if you weren’t so pissed at me. And another thing – I wouldn’t be against anything that got Lisa and the others out of there alive.” I’m getting more and more angry as I speak, and Skinner’s hand tightens warningly on my shoulder.

“I think that’s what we all want, Mulder,” he states softly. “Agent Gallagher, when was the last time you had some rest? You’re looking worn out. Why don’t you go and grab some sleep? I can take care of things here.”

Gallagher knows he’s being dismissed, and nods grouchily, shooting me an angry glance as he goes. He’s obviously convinced that not only have I ruined his career, but also that all the hostages will be dead by the time he returns. It probably wouldn’t surprise him if I pulled the trigger on them myself.

“And you, Mulder. It’s been 17 hours.” Skinner sits down again, that hand finally relinquishing its place on my shoulder. I want to pull it back. “You need some rest.”

“I can’t.” I point to the headset. “He calls at random intervals, and he expects me to be here to talk to him.”

“He must need sleep too.” Skinner points out.

“He takes naps,” Scully explains, stealing one of my sunflower seeds. “He’s got the hostages tied up in there so they can’t overpower him while he sleeps.”

“And food.” Skinner glances at the discarded sandwiches and chips in front of me. “You need to eat, Mulder.” He knows, without being told, that I’m not eating. He reaches for the phone and orders take out from a restaurant in town – the whole works, vegetables, rice, and a tempting choice of main dishes.

It’s at that moment that the boy pushes his way through the throng of people, accompanied by a tall dark-haired man, with a worried frown on his face.

“Sir?” The kid addresses himself to Skinner. “Are you Agent Mulder, sir?”

“No. I am,” I tell him, smiling disarmingly, or so I hope.

“I’m Timothy Perry.” He bites on his lip, and looks up at the man accompanying him. “He’s got my mom, and my sister.”

“You’re Lisa’s brother?”

He nods. “This is my uncle. My parents are divorced. I don’t know where my dad is. I was in the car – Mom went to pay for the gas, and Lisa wanted to use the bathroom so she went with her. I didn’t know what to do.” His face crumples. “I ran. I should have gone to help them.”

“No.” Scully shakes her head vehemently. “You did the right thing, Tim. If you’d gone in there, you’d be a hostage too.”

“I wish I was. I wish I was in there instead of Lisa. She’s just a kid. She’s only eight, Agent Mulder.” He’s looking at me beseechingly. “Get her and mom back. Please. I’ll do anything for you.”

“I’ll get them back, Tim,” I tell him. “I promise.” It’s a stupid thing to promise, but if I fail, being lied to by a federal agent will be the least of his problems. “How old are you?” I ask. He smiles, attempting bravado, not wanting me to see how scared he is.

“Twelve.” His uncle puts his hands on Tim’s shoulders, pushing him back into the throng of people milling around in the small room, but Scully and Skinner are exchanging glances, and I can feel myself grow cold.

“Mulder.” Skinner’s voice is low and insistent, demanding my attention, pulling me back from the abyss of my own wrecked childhood. “Mulder – don’t let any of this influence you in what you’re doing.”

“What’s the matter? You think that just because I can’t get my own sister back, that I can’t get his back either?” I taunt. Unfairly. His eyes, his damn eyes, speak volumes to me, and I don’t want to hear any of it. I’m not going to allow Lisa to die in there. Tim will get his sister back if it kills me, or Pete, or both of us.

Scully eats the meal that Skinner ordered for us, talking to him in low tones. I don’t join in. I’ve turned the bars of the cage around the butterflies into a net. It looks much better. And a cage was stupid anyway – they’d just fly through the bars. Skinner sends Scully off to crash out for a few hours, and then turns his attention back to me.

“You’re not sending me off to bed too, are you, sir?” I joke, winding some noodles around my fork.

“Without supper?” he says pointedly, glancing at my full plate.

“I’m not hungry,” I murmur.

“That doesn’t matter.”

He isn’t angry, but he’s not going to back down either. Not for the first time, I feel the force of his will. It’s as strong as my own, but so very different. If I’m mercurial, filled with the energy of fire, rising and falling in peaks and troughs, then his strength is calm and understated in expression, but equally intense. He rises and falls with me, matching me in pace, but he won’t be ridden out. He’s the rock that my storms rage around, and pound down on. Unyielding, always there, always strong enough to bear the brunt of me.

“Just eat it anyway, Mulder,” he says softly, and, inexplicably, I find myself obeying, forking the food into my mouth, chewing on it without pleasure, swallowing it down. I’m rewarded by a softening of the lines around his mouth and, for the first time, I know that he loves me.

It’s not a startling revelation. It’s just something I know, have known maybe, for a long time. I have never given the slightest thought as to whether Walter Skinner might be gay, straight, bisexual, or have necrophiliac tendencies. I don’t know whether his love for me is avuncular, paternal, or sexual. I just know that it is. It exists. And it warms my soul, because I love him too. It isn’t just sexual either, although he attracts me like a stray cat to a hearth. And like that cat, I want to bask in his warmth for just a moment, before I have to go back out into the wet and cold once more.

His eyes don’t leave my face as I eat, and somehow I know that I’ll swallow every last thing on my plate for him, even though it tastes like mud washed down with brine. I’ve just finished when we get another call from Pete.

“Mulder. Buddy.” He sounds brighter than I do.

“Hi, Pete. Look, when are you going to come out and talk to me?” I respond in kind, as if we’re old friends.

“Not yet, Mulder. I…wanted to see the kids, Mulder.”

“Yeah, Pete. I know. But they aren’t there any more, are they?” I hold my breath, wondering if he’ll notice that we’ve done some digging on him.

“I just wanted to help them.” Pete’s mood has changed abruptly. “I didn’t want them to cry any more, buddy.” In the background, I can hear the sobbing again. “Stop that!” Pete snaps. “Nobody needs to cry any more. Stop it.” He sounds out of control, and I will whomever it is to be quiet. Instead the voice becomes a high, keening sob. “I said shut up!” Pete yells, and the next thing I know there is a sudden thudding sound, and the sob stops. Abruptly. Pete returns to me. “I shut her up,” he informs me.

“Was it the kid?” I ask, trying to keep the frantic note out of my voice. “Did you hurt the kid?”

“No. Her sniveling mama. I hate all that sobbing crap, Mulder. I’ll pull the blanket over my ears so I don’t have to hear it, but sometimes they hit me, and then I stop. I hit her, and she stopped.” My hand grips my pen so tightly that I nearly snap it in two.

“Pete, please – she’s scared. If her sobbing upsets you, why don’t you just let her go? Let them all go, Pete. Then we can talk.”

“You’re my friend, Mulder, you understand,” he tells me. “You’d know why I had to shut her up. I can’t stand the fucking crying. I can’t fucking stand it.” And he severs the connection again. I feel a hand close over mine, and glance down. I’ve torn great rips in the paper with my pen, and my hand is still moving, back and forth, but he stops it with his own, pressuring me gently to drop the pen.

“Some people, when others cry…it can seem like a sign of weakness. For some people – it makes them angry. Irrationally angry. They need to exert their power, crush the person they perceive as weaker. They can’t stop themselves,” I whisper. “But it’s their own demons they’re crushing, their own weakness they’re afraid of, their own tears they’re trying to hide.”

Skinner nods, his hand still covering mine. Maybe he’s not even aware of it, but I am. His heat is flooding through me again, calming me.

“Agent Mulder – I need your objective opinion now. He’s already hurt one of the hostages. We don’t know how badly. Do you think we should risk taking him out?” His dark eyes are earnest. He’s very concerned about those hostages, and he’s concerned about me, and the effect this is having on me.

“It’s dark.” I stare glumly out of the window, forcing my brain to work. “We stand less chance of getting a clear shot in these circumstances. I don’t think he’ll hurt anyone else.”

“You don’t think?” Skinner’s raised eyebrow makes it clear that isn’t good enough.

“No. He won’t hurt them,” I say more firmly. “I don’t think he really wants to, but he will if we push him, or if they push him.”

“Is there seriously any prospect of talking him out of that building, or of talking him into letting the hostages go?” Skinner asks, in a business-like tone, finally removing his hand from mine.

“Yes,” I reply without hesitation. “He really believes I’m on his side, that I’ll help him. He wants me to talk him out of this situation.”

“Fair enough,” Skinner nods. I get up, and stretch, my bones cracking back into place.

“You must be beat.” Skinner shakes his head.

“I can’t risk going to bed. He might call,” I tell him, and he puts his head on one side, considering this.

“You could take a nap. Like he does – we’ll wake you when he calls.”

“I can’t,” I shrug. I’m too worked up to sleep. He nods quickly, anxious not to disturb the clearly fragile grip I have on my temper right now.

“All right. Sit down.”

He points to the chair, and gets up as I obey his command. Then I feel his fingers dig into my shoulders. I stiffen, as my muscles protest.

“Let your head roll forward, Agent Mulder. That’s right. Just relax – this is a Skinner special, and I’m pretty good at it.”

I allow myself a wry smile at the thought of AD Skinner being good at giving neck rubs. I can just see the writing on the men’s room walls across D.C.: “Expert massage. Burly Assistant Director offers personal attention…” That’s not a good thought. It brings me images of us, in a bed, attacking each other with our tongues, hands, cocks…fighting, kissing, loving…as it was with Alex, or any of the other men I’ve bedded. Too many of them to remember, too many of them with names I never bothered to find out.

His fingers feel good, probing my shoulders, relaxing me. I want more. The other members of the team are hanging around – talking, eating, smoking. Nobody pays us any attention – there’s nothing intimate about what he’s doing. We’re both fully clothed, and I’m clearly tired, and on edge, after a long and difficult day. They’re wrong though. It is intimate. In a room full of people, standing on the brink of a nightmare, he’s making love to me with his fingertips, caressing my soul with his heart. I can feel his body pressed against my back, and that heat floods through me again. I can smell his scent, the cologne and deodorant now no longer able to hide the raw smell of his sweat. He leans forward, and his breath is warm against my neck.

“Let it go, Agent Mulder,” he murmurs. The massage becomes a low, constant caress, and my eyes shut.

“You’re a fucking fag, Mulder.”

“Mulder likes to take it up the ass.”

“Hey, pretty boy, Mulder!”

“What’s the matter with you, cocksucker?”

“Fox the faggot.”

“What?” I sit up with a start.

“You were dreaming.” Skinner is sitting opposite me. He’s taken his tie off, and his glasses, and undone the top button of his shirt. His appearance is the same as it was at the police station during that business with the call girl, only this time he doesn’t have that haunted expression in his eyes. He looks calm, capable, and in control.

“I was asleep?” I ask incredulously, staring around the room. “For how long?”

“Half an hour or so,” he shrugs. “Cat naps are all he’s giving you, Mulder, so you need to take them when you can.”

I shake my head, stagger to the bathroom to pee, and glance at myself in the mirror. Shit, I’m a mess. Unshaven, unkempt. My hair’s sticking out at all angles, and there are dark shadows under my eyes. I collect some water in my hands, and splash it over my face. My teeth feel furry. I wonder if anyone here has a toothbrush. It’s an absurd thought so I brush it aside, and return to the operations room.

Skinner gives me a faint ghost of a smile as I walk back in. In my mind’s eye, I can see his naked body, twisting under my none too tender ministrations, and the words of my dream come back to haunt me. They’re all taunts that have been thrown at me in my time – a legacy of my looks, my strange interests, the fact that I “run like a girl” as the school basketball coach once told me. Only in my dream, the person taunting me was my father.

A few minutes later, Pete is on the line again, and I’m find myself stepping back into his world.

“The bible says…” his voice is strained. “The bible says that the little children must suffer, Mulder.”

“It doesn’t say that, Pete.”

Scully has come back into the room, and her eyes meet mine. They’re pained.

“Suffer the little children,” she quotes in a whisper, “to come unto me.”

“Yes it does!” he yells. “Brother Michael showed it to me, in black and white. That’s why they hurt me. God told them to.”

“Pete, that’s not what it means.” I don’t know where to go with this one. How can I explain the language? And how the hell can I shake this conviction?

“This kid should suffer, as I suffered. All the children should suffer. And all these people should know, they should feel what I felt.”

Pete rambles on for several long minutes, and nothing I say makes any inroads into his tortured mind. Finally he hangs up. I curse, feeling my whole body start to shake.

“Damn those bastards for what they did to him. ‘Suffer the children…?’ Of all the screwed up…” I kick the table, clenching my fists tightly. Then I feel a wave of guilt, noticing the look on Scully’s face. I don’t mean to sound like I’m criticizing her, or her religion.

“It’s all right, Mulder,” she shakes her head. “There are bad apples everywhere, in every institution. It’s not always obvious who they are, or what evil they’re capable of.”

She’s trying to reassure me, but all that makes me think of is Alex. How the hell did he get into the Bureau? Why didn’t anyone notice what he was, or what he was capable of?

I close my eyes, and put my head back, but all I can see is an image of children suffering. Lisa crying out as Pete hurts her mother. Samantha calling my name, begging me to rescue her. Caitlin counting up to twenty, with Roche’s gun pointed at her. And me…me crying in the dark with a pillow over my head so that he won’t hear me, and come and silence me in his own brutal way. My tears are like a signal to him, they set off something inside him that makes him want to hurt me, by any means possible, and they confirm to him how weak I am. The little faggot son he’s rearing – it sticks in his craw, and chokes him.

Suffer little children…I’m not even aware of the anger as it takes over, and I send a chair flying across the room with one flick of my hand. The crashing sound makes everyone jump, and the tip of Gallagher’s nose turns white again. I have an image of another chair, in a different place, a long time ago, spinning and spiraling away from me as I ran for the door, trying to escape my father’s anger, and the smell of whisky on his breath. I didn’t make it to the door that time. I almost don’t make it to the window this time, but Skinner, guardian angel to the fucked up, has seen what’s going on. He propels me over to the window with one hand, and with the other he has it opened, just in time for me to retch my guts out.

He stands behind me, blocking the view, and I can just bet that he’s got an expression on his face that’s forbidding the assembled voyeurs from staring at me. I finish heaving, and stand upright, feeling shaky, leaning against the wall for support, and find a glass of water thrust into my hand. I gulp it back in one go, and finally meet his eyes. Not because I want to, but to reassure him that I’m okay, that I can continue with this. He’s worried – I can see it clearly. Worried because he thinks I’m so crazy I might fuck this whole thing up. And worried about me, too. About what’s going on in my head, and what screwed up memories all this is dredging up for me.

“Okay now?” he asks softly, and for one brief second his hand cradles the side of my face. It doesn’t stay there for long enough to be intimate, but all the same, it is.

This is all too close to home. I want to give up. I would give up if it weren’t for Tim. I can see him sitting in the far corner of the room. Someone gave him and his uncle permission to stay – Skinner probably. He isn’t so obsessed with protocol that he won’t bend the rules occasionally, in order to be compassionate. Compassion. That’s what I’m seeing in Skinner’s eyes right now. It’s as if he knows every single thought that’s going on inside my brain. I hope for his sake that he doesn’t. I hope he doesn’t see the way I’m making love to him, the dark, frenzied passion I want to draw him into. If he knew, he’d loathe me, the way my father loathed me, the way I loathe myself. I draw myself back from that abyss, and look at Tim again. He never takes his eyes off me. I hold his entire life in his hands, or at least, Pete and I both do, between us. I know how helpless he feels. I know how useless he feels. I know how guilty he feels, running off, not stopping to be taken hostage himself, becoming a different sort of hostage instead.

I walk shakily to the table, and sit back down again.

“Mulder?” Skinner sweeps away yet another crop of dead butterflies, and turns over a fresh page on the pad. “I never took you for an artist,” he jokes, attempting to jolt me out of my mood.

“I’m not,” I snap, suspecting a hidden insult, an inference that butterflies aren’t a macho kind of doodling, or some crap like that. Crap my father was an expert at handing out. Skinner’s eyes register only concern at my brusque response, and I immediately feel guilty.

“I can see what he’s thinking, but I can’t make him stop thinking it,” I muse out loud, trying to rectify the situation. Skinner nods, encouraging me to talk it through. “I know why he’s doing this, but that won’t help us get Lisa or the others out of there. I know he’s scared, I know that in his state of mind he’s a kid again, that he doesn’t believe he has any power except what he’s getting from that gun.”

“Just our luck,” Skinner shakes his head ruefully, and I give him a questioning look. “He’s been running and hiding from this for most of his life,” Skinner explains. “Now he’s decided to face up to it, only he’s picked a hell of a way to do it.”

“Yeah,” I nod in agreement. “Despite what all the best psychobabble says, maybe it would have been better for us if he’d kept his past sealed inside, gotten over it, and gotten on with his life.

“Only, forgive me, I’m not a psychologist, but I’m under the impression that doesn’t work?” He gives me a searching look. “That it finds a way to come out? The pressure builds up until it finds an outlet? In his case, an explosive one.”

“Psychologists? What the hell do we know? We’re full of crap.” I can’t meet his eyes, and my pen starts demolishing another set of butterflies.

When Pete returns, he seems to have got himself back together.

“Mulder – I’ve decided to let someone go,” he whispers hoarsely.

“That’s good, Pete.” I nod.

“It is?”

He sounds pathetic, not sure whether he’s doing the right thing. That’s the card I’m playing right now. If I can get him to listen to me, and not to the voices in his head, then my version of reality might win out. He’s obviously seeking approval. I can imagine the scared kid he was, cowering in some dormitory, hoping not to draw attention to himself, trying not to make anyone angry. That kid isn’t very far below the surface now.

“Sure it is, Pete. I’m proud of you, buddy. Now why don’t you let the little girl go, huh? Why don’t you let Lisa and her mom go?”

I can see Skinner nodding, beckoning someone over, and whispering a hurried instruction.

“I…I’m not sure.”

“Yeah, you’re sure, Pete. You hate it when kids cry, don’t you? You’d hate it if Lisa cried. She’s a brave kid, but she’s only 8. You remember what it was like being 8, don’t you, Pete?”

He’s silent for a moment.

“I remember,” he whispers after a long while.

“Then let her go.”

“I need to think…” he murmurs.

There is silence for a moment, and then I hear a whoop over by the window. Skinner rushes over there, and then turns to me. I’m drawn to his face, to that large body, like a magnet, finding it instinctively and unerringly in the throng of people. He puts both his thumbs into the air, grinning broadly at me, a grin I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

“She’s safe, Mulder. You got her out,” he says.

“And her mom?” I ask. He shakes his head.

“Just Lisa. But it’s something, Mulder.”

I should be pleased, but my heart, inexplicably, sinks. I feel a shiver of foreboding creep along my spine. Someone is going to die here before this is through. I just know it. Skinner is back at my side, a casual slap of his hand against my shoulder, and the hand stays there too long. They’re small, these gestures of support, of encouragement, of love, but I don’t miss any of them. Each one creeps silently under the walls that shield my heart, and worms its way deep into my soul. When this is over…when this is over, I promise myself I’ll do more than devour him with my eyes.

Scully swiftly takes charge of Lisa, coaxing all manner of information out of the little girl. Lisa has two dark braids, and solemn dark eyes. I see my sister everywhere – in Scully, in Diane – I even saw her in Phoebe, god help me. Maybe that’s why I find relationships with women so hard to sustain. Maybe that’s why I want men. Or maybe I’m a cock-sucking little faggot after all, like I’ve been told for most of my life. I inevitably see Sam in Lisa. Skinner knows it. Those dark eyes never leave my face as I watch Scully find out as much as she can from the kid, before she’s whisked off to the hospital with her brother and uncle by her side. She hasn’t been hurt, but she’s badly shaken up, and in shock.

“Get my mom back too, Agent Mulder,” Tim says, and I can see the hero worship already beginning in his eyes. It makes me want to laugh. Don’t worship me, kid, I feel like saying. I’m a screwed up fag who has had at least twenty flashes of homosexual desire while sitting at this table, staring at his boss. Yeah, even while I was getting your sister back, one part of my brain was fucking Walter Skinner. I’m most definitely not hero material. He is though. Skinner. I’ve delved into his war record, for my own perverted purposes, and he’s the genuine article. He’s a brave man, a good man. And I want to hurt him.

Continued in Chapter 2