TITLE: Dendrite - Chapter Three - Vapor Trail

NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/Sk
RATING: NC-17. M/Sk. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. Not suitable for children, Baptists or Republicans.

SUMMARY: First time M/Sk. Do you need any more information? Well, I guess you do. I know what this story appears to be...but please, please bear with me. It's gonna' be okay. They promised.

ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Okay...hmmm...no specific spoilers for specific eps. Back in the good old days when Skinner was still their boss, nothing had been burnt and no one's best friends had died needlessly for the sake of ratings or to jump sharks.
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Skinner NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, and all other X-Files characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and 20^th Century Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use. I personally think Chris Carter, et al, should just give them to me, since they're not using them anymore, and anyway, I treat them much, much better, but there you are.

Author's notes: See Chapter One for assorted notes, credits and ramblings. They will be omitted henceforth to save virtual trees.

If you like this, there's more at https://www.squidge.org/3wstop

If you didn't like it, come see me, anyway. Pet the dog.

Dendrite - Chapter Three - Vapor Trail

by Mik

Well, there it was. The 'oh, shit' moment.

A former...well, late friend of mine from the MPDC Bomb squad once described the moment where you knew something was about to go fatally wrong as the 'oh, shit' moment. He said it was usually the last thought you had before the kinetic energy of the explosion met the inertia of your body and you became part of a Johnny Mercer song.

Mine came when some cement-for-brains refused to listen to me when I said to move away from a building, and shoved us both through an unlocked door. There was a click, a hiss, and a second of deafening silence. He looked at me, I looked at him, and I saw it on his face, and he must have seen it on mine. Oh, shit.

But it still wasn't the way I expected it. After all, I was awake, and aware, so 'oh, shit' wasn't my last thought. Maybe I was wrong about there being bombs set in that building, but I don't think so. I do remember the sound of glass breaking. I remember screams from the crowds. I remember...something else. Skinner, mostly. That's what I remember; opening my eyes and Skinner was looking down at me.

Explosion or no, it couldn't have been all that bad, despite Skinner's kind of terrified expression. I wasn't in any particular pain. I thought, at first, it was shock, and then I feared a spinal injury. But no, there just wasn't any pain. I must have been knocked around a little, but not enough to cause any pain. I must have been unconscious a while because, except for that moment when I looked into Skinner's eyes, I don't remember much of the scene.

Naturally, having lost consciousness at some point, the paramedics wouldn't let me get up. Ignoring my protests that I was fine, and could walk, they put me on a stretcher. I remember that. And I remember Skinner staying right at my side all the way to the ambulance. I think he was holding my hand. I remember seeing blood on the cuff of his shirt as he walked beside me.

There was no siren, which surprised me, when the ambulance jerked away from the curb. There was a lot of senseless jabber on the radio, and the road was rough, making me bounce around on the stretcher. It wasn't all that uncomfortable, it was just a state of high confusion. I was trying to sort it all out but there was just too much sensation for me to make sense of it all. I must have been more disoriented than I thought. Then there was nothing for a while. No memories, no thoughts, no theories. No fear, no pain, no worries. I was aware, but aware of nothing. It was a nice place to be.

Eventually, memories and thoughts and worries started drifting back to me. I should have been trying to figure out who planted those bombs and why, but instead I was trying to remember why I had taken something away from Samantha. An old memory, it came back into focus slowly, first the sounds of gulls, and then the salty smell of the air, and the feeling of my feet pounding on hot sand as I ran. It all became piercingly real again. I was laughing, and my lungs were burning, and I was holding something of hers, and she was wailing and trying to catch me. A book...a photograph...something firm in my hands, and I was exulting at the feeling of having taken it from her.

And suddenly, there was my father. He didn't step up to me, or call out and command me to stop. He was just suddenly there, in front of me, a brick wall I couldn't pass, and I skidded to a stop so sharply that I toppled backward, and lay there in the sand. He was frowning down at me, and his words came from such a long way away, but the disapproval in his voice could still cut me even all these years later. "Why do you take such delight in tormenting your sister, Fox? A man doesn't treat a girl that way, especially not his sister."

The frown in his face shifted, and the look went from disapproval to fear. I tried to reach up to him, because the idea of my dad being afraid of anything was unthinkable, but then he wasn't my father anymore. It was Skinner's face again. And there was rage blending in with the terror.

And quickly as he appeared, he was gone, and I was thinking of another moment with Samantha, one of the last. It was earlier in the day before that fateful night, and we were arguing about whether or not she could move into my bedroom when I went away to school in the fall. Went away...I'd forgotten that. Until that night, I was supposed to go to preparatory school in Virginia. I had been excited to go. It was practically guaranteed that if I could keep out of trouble and maintain my grades, my next step would have been West Point. My dad was so proud and more than anything, I wanted my dad to be proud of me. Of course, after that night, there was nothing I could ever do to make my dad proud of me again.

The fighting with Samantha that day was making my mother cry. We should have stopped, both of us. We knew what our squabbles did to her, but neither of us would let it go. We yelled at each other upstairs and down. I'd threatened to bolt my door shut so no one could get in but me. She threatened to get an ax and chop down the door. I laughed and told her she was more likely to chop off her own head. She shouted back she'd rather chop off mine. My mother put her hands to her face and ran out of the room, sobbing. And then my dad was there, standing in the doorway, saying "I'm very disappointed in you both. Have you no consideration for your mother's feelings?"

Samantha started to cry under his rebuke, and ran out of the room with her hands over her face the same way my mother had done. It was just my dad and me then, and he stood there waiting for a response I didn't know how to give. I wanted to find words to apologize, but my throat closed up and I could only hang my head miserably. I wanted him to go away, or hit me, or something. Just standing there looking at me was torture. When I dared look up again, it was Skinner, and he was furious at me.

Oxford. A horribly cold day. A biting fog that blanketed the campus and corridors with an inescapable chill that pervaded my senses even in recollection. I had found yet another place I didn't belong, didn't fit in. It was nearly the end of my first term, and I hadn't made any friends among the teachers or students. Some instructors favored me, that was true, but even they found me irritating and irreverent. And to the rest of my class, I was just odd, a bit of a freak. I knew too much and didn't know how to use it. I didn't drink, I was bad at smoking, I was hopeless with women. I couldn't grasp the concept of cricket, and my idea of football was absolutely laughable to them. I preferred solitary pursuits, locking myself away in parts of the library where I wasn't supposed to be. And from my quiet perch above everyone else, I could read old texts and listen to the whispers and rumors about me; about my sister, about my idiotic and unwavering notions of spacemen, and monsters from Mars.

There was only one person who seemed to understand. I don't remember his name, not sure I ever knew it. I never saw him in any of my classes, or around campus or town. He looked as if he didn't belong, either. He rarely spoke, but he was always there when I was alone and suffering. There was always comfort and comprehension in his sad eyes. Sometimes he put his hand on mine. Once, he held me, rubbed my shoulder, touched my hair, all in somber silence. That day he only stood there, looking at me, his eyes full of sorrow only the two of us could appreciate. I wanted to tell him I was grateful for him, that he cared, that he understood. But when I looked at him again, it was Skinner. And his eyes were welling with tears.

Skinner's office. The man whom I jeeringly called a beacon in the night was hovering over me as I slumped in a chair. He was calling me Fox. He was speaking gently, but firmly. I wasn't listening to him. I seldom did. Skinner just didn't get it. He was so by the book his spine was probably leather bound. There were other people there, as well. And vague and not so vague threats were flying over my head, but none of them mattered. I just wanted to think, and Skinner was keeping all the threats at bay, even as I ignored his advice. I know he told me to go home, to sleep. I know he told me to stay away from a case, but of course, that didn't matter. He told me that before. Dozens of times. Hundreds. He never heard me explain why it was important to go on. I never heard him tell me not to go on.

And then there were arms around me. Holding me up or holding me down, I don't know, it doesn't matter. The important thing was the strength of those arms. I counted on that strength even as I struggled against it. I could never fall as long as those arms were tight around me. I could never fall, I could never fail, I could never...

...die.

And when I looked up again, there were tears spilling over his cheeks, his hands fell away and he left.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I must have slept. Time had passed, the light was different. Brighter white, yet more diffused. I got up, with effort and moved out into a hallway. It was empty. No doors, no windows, no people, just a long white hallway. I looked up and down, for some sign of humanity, and for just a moment I felt anxious. How could I have been left alone? Where was I?

For a moment I wondered if I had died, and everyone was wrong about what it was like. I've interviewed hundreds of people who'd had near death experiences, and they always spoke of seeing their loved ones welcoming them, of being drawn to a warm and beautiful light. Were they wrong? Were they lying? Or did I have no loved ones to greet me? Or did I go someplace else? My grandmother once said I'd go to hell for the things I did, the way I teased my sister, and tortured my parents, the way I refused to acknowledge an Almighty God. Was she right? No, if I was dead, my grandmother would have queued up to shake her finger and smirk, "I told you so." Her absence was a comfortable assurance that I was alive.

It was just a dream. It had to be. A very vivid dream, where I could feel the splinters of wood in the frame of the door, and smell the staleness of an unventilated room. A dream where I could taste old coffee on my tongue and feel the sting of dust in my eyes. These things were all real and tangible. They weren't theories or fables or wishes of people who want to believe there's more to life than ashes to ashes.

I laughed to myself and came further into the hallway. I moved slowly, heavily, as if trying to walk through wax. It seemed strange to me that Scully wasn't nearby. I wondered if she'd been hurt in the blast. That wasn't possible. I was nearer the explosion than she and I was fine. Perhaps she was being debriefed. If I could find Skinner, he'd tell me where she was. That made sense.

What didn't make sense was why my thoughts kept coming back to Skinner. It seemed he had been wrapped into all my thoughts, memories and dreams the last few...hours? Days? How long had I been asleep? What day was it? What time?

I reached the end of the corridor at last, feeling a bit lightheaded for all the effort. I leaned against the wall and looked up and down, wondering which way to turn. There were still no other signs of life, but there was a hollowness to the hallway now that gave me the feeling I was deep underground. I thought about calling out, but it didn't seem right to disturb this silence. I turned and walked up another empty corridor.

The fluorescent lighting was starting to bother my eyes. I blinked several times for relief, but they continued to burn. First nurse I see, I promised myself, I'll get some Thera-Tears. Now, what makes me assume I'm in a hospital, I wondered. I hadn't seen one doctor or nurse, I hadn't seen a single room that had a clinical function. I hadn't heard any pages, bells, or codes. I hadn't seen a patient, a gurney, a discarded BandAid. I'd seen white walls and fluorescent lighting and assumed I was in the bowels of a hospital.

Not an unreasonable assumption, Mulder, I promised myself, trying harder to walk faster and only succeeding to wear myself down. You were in an explosion, you lost consciousness, where else would you be? Wal-Mart? No, if it was Wal-Mart, I'd be seeing yellow smiley faces everywhere.

I turned another corner, feeling a slight incline to the floor. I was going up, and still seeing nothing but white walls. I let my hand trail along the wall, finding it cool and comforting as I forced one foot in front of the other. You couldn't feel the bumps and dimples of a bad paint job if you were dead, after all.

Dead, I have to get that idea out of my mind, I scolded, pausing to catch my breath at the end of the corridor. As I straightened, I looked over my shoulder and saw the first sign, the first clue of where I was. It was a small, black banded sign with an arrow pointing down the corridor from which I had just emerged. MORGUE.

Ridiculous. I shook my head sharply, and it made it ache. There was a reason I was down there. Perhaps I was supposed to identify a body. Perhaps I just got lost. Perhaps, I misread the sign. Perhaps, I really am dreaming.

I could hear sounds as I came around the corner, the first indications that I was not alone in that vast building. Voices, indistinct, coming from close by. A buzzer, a bell, the squeal of loose wheels on a heavy cart. There was a short flight of steps. I climbed them as if I were climbing Everest.

There she was. Standing alone, a manila file clenched in her fingers. She was standing next to a counter, with a bubbled glass window that had been drawn closed. Her head dipped forward, and her palm rubbed over the file, and she turned slowly, as I approached. Her eyes showed neither pleasure or relief in seeing me.

I stood over her, feeling clumsy, heavy, awkward. I wasn't entirely sure how I'd come to stand in that empty white corridor with Scully, but I didn't question it. Nor did I question her. She looked thoroughly distraught, with a great desire to tilt her head back and wail, with a need to claw and scratch and swear, and demand answers, demand changes. These things were all evident in her face, and banked down like fires in her gut, but all she did was stand there, staring at that white wall, letting a thin stream of tears spill over her freckled cheeks.

Impulsively, I reached out and brushed a tear away with my knuckle. Only, it wasn't my hand. It was my brain that had sent the impulse to wipe her tears away, but it was someone else's hand that obeyed. I thought I knew that hand.

Scully turned sharply, staring up at me as if she couldn't believe I had done such a thing. I was staring at that hand, and she was staring at me, and I had the eeriest feeling she was seeing someone else's face, just as I was seeing someone else's hand.

"Did you see him?" Her voice was that typical crisp, in control yet on the verge of tears voice Scully always used in times of personal crisis. It told me she was in emotional agony, and I didn't know how to help. I only nodded. That is, my head nodded. I didn't tell it to. I didn't know who I was supposed to see, or whether, somehow without realizing it, I had seen him. But my head nodded, just the same.

"Was he...is he..." She didn't go on.

My hand, or rather, the hand that had touched her cheek, dropped slowly and deliberately to the hand that rubbed nervously over the file, to hold it still.

"I don't know..." She looked down at the hand and then up at me. "I don't know how I'll go on." Her mouth worked for a moment and she jerked in a sharp breath. "I know I will. I have to. I mean..." she frowned at some point in time, some place in history that she resented mightily, "we are trained for this. But still, I don't know how..." her voice broke and she didn't finish.

Those fingers curled around hers and squeezed. Gently. I could have broken her fingers with that hand. There was so much strength in it. I could feel her hand tremble under it.

She swallowed and nodded. "I should see him."

"No." The voice wasn't mine. The answer wasn't mine. Yet I felt it pass through my lips. "You don't need that. Let's go home."

That's when I understood. It was all a lie. My grandmother. All those people I'd interviewed. Everything. It was all a lie. There were no loved ones waiting to guide me, there was no warm, embracing light. There were no vindictive relatives to gloat I'd come to a bad end. There was just the heartbreaking sadness of someone I cared about.

I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't all right. I was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. Didn't they understand I was right there? Couldn't they hear my heart thudding with fear? Couldn't they hear the screaming in my head that said "Listen to me, I'm here! This is all a mistake! Don't leave without me!"

She nodded again. "You're right. Let's go home." She pulled her hand free of mine, and she straightened up, squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin. It wobbled a second and then went firm. She took a step or two away, and looked back over her shoulder, her blue eyes clear and full of sadness. They reminded me of the fellow I knew at Oxford.

I reached out for her, but pulled back when I saw the little dribble of red on the cuff.

She smiled, wanly. "Thank you, Sir."

End 03