by Ursula
Walter rubbed at his eyes, exhausted, hardly believing that he had finally
dozed off. He blearily stared at the uniforms; the blank bland faces... and
the man in the suit extended his hand to give something to him.
"We have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Fox Mulder." The man
said.
"Mulder? Mulder's not dead." Walter argued. "The aliens took him."
A half pitying, half contemptuous expression passed over the elegant
Greco-Roman profile. The handsome man pushed back his wavy, glossy brown
hair. His blue eyes shone with a fanatic light. Here was a cop bred to the
bone. "Yes, sir, that's what you kept telling everyone. We found him. We
found the body just where you left him..."
"You have the right to remain silent."
"Hangman, hangman, hangman, slack your rope a while
Scully asked, "What happened?"
Walter replied, "I don't know. They said they found Mulder, but I'm sure it
was a trick. It's happened before. I know it can't be him."
Scully said, "I'm on my way there now. Walter? Could it be him? Did you
really see him taken?"
Walter said, "Of course, I did. Scully, someone is springing a trap."
Scully nodded and replied, "I hope you're right. What possible motivation
would you have to kill Mulder?"
"Sister did you bring me silver; sister did you bring me gold
No, I didn't bring you silver, no, I didn't bring you gold
Thinking rapidly, Walter replied, "It's not him, Scully. Don't you remember?
This has been done before."
Her voice low and passionate, Scully replied, "Don't you think I thought of
that? I ran his DNA. It was Mulder. It was Mulder!"
A moment later, the red mark of her slap still hadn't faded. It burned on
his cheek. Burned soul deep.
Walter barely made it back to his cell. Staggered to the antibacterial
covered slab of thin rubber. His legs gave out. His massive hands clamped to
his mouth. He could not breathe. It welled up inside him. Mulder, dead.
Mulder gone forever...ah, God! My God, and Walter felt despair. It was a
cold, clammy heaviness in his bones, his heart as heavy as lead. His mouth
was filled with caustic acid.
And he had nothing but the shreds of his dignity and the shards of his
courage to keep from screaming his agony to the gray, cold walls.
Hangman, hangman, upon your face a smile,
Walter looked at the chains on his wrists. Grim faced Oregon detectives
accompanied him. In the end, the District of Columbia had yielded its bid
for jurisdiction. The murder had happened in Oregon. DC's claim was based
solely on the residence of the alleged murderer and victim. He had shuffled
aboard the plane, his ankles chained, wrists secured to a belt on his waist.
They handled him like a dangerous animal and Walter felt like one. He would
gladly have gnawed off a limb to escape this trap.
Walter stared out the window. Clouds whipped by. Too fast, like his life
being sucked away. He reached his hand up to rub his forehead, forgetting
the chains. He ended up staring in shock at the cuffs. This couldn't be
happening to him.
Closing his eyes, Walter shut out the stares, closed his ears to the
speculation. He remembered Mulder, frustrating, elusive, beautiful man. And
in the corner of his mind, he wondered what Alex was doing. Was this yet
another cruel game? Had the nanobytes not been enough?
Alex had come to him and said that he wanted to meet with Mulder. That he
had information and didn't feel like being beaten in the process of giving
it. Walter didn't need to see the palm pilot. He could feel how confident
Alex was.
The strange thing was when he held Mulder back from hitting Alex; he wasn't
solely motivated by his desire to protect the ex FBI agent. His gut level
reaction had been simply to prevent Mulder from hurting the man they had
both loved at one time.
Alex had followed him silently to his car after that meeting in his office. He had slid
into the car seat as if invited. Walter had slumped behind the
wheel; ready for anything, but mostly anticipating the small harbinger of
torture, the palm pilot.
Alex had reached into his inner pocket and produced it. He said, "I took it,
Walter. I took it and the schematics. This is the last working model. I
spent six fucking months in a Tunisian prison for refusing to tell Spender
what I had done with this and the data needed to build other nanobytes
controllers." Alex flipped the device casually. Walter's eyes followed the
toss; he wondered it he was quick enough to take it?
Alex remarked, " I'm at the top of my game. I know what I want, Walter. Do
you know what you want?"
Alex had handed him the box and said, "Is this all you want? Is this it?
Because if that's all, take it. You're free."
Walter took it. Not many men get to hold the instrument of their death in
their hands. He turned it over, hopeful, but suspicious. He asked, "How do I
believe you, Alex? How can I tell if it's real and if this one is the only
one?"
Alex gazed at him with eyes the color of a jade Mayan sacrificial knife.
"Try it. Push a button if you don't believe it's real. And as for it being
the only one, guess, Walter."
Walter had believed him. Alex only told useful lies. He'd asked him, "What
do you want, Alex? What am I selling this time?"
"Yourself...your body...your bed. Let me in, Walter. I want you tonight just
like it used to be." Alex said, voice an instrument of heat and seduction,
eyes veiled and lips remaining parted as if for a kiss after the last word
had been thrown down like a gauntlet.
If Walter were a consummate liar, he would have told himself that it had
been just a bargain. But he was not that lost. His cock had leapt at the
invitation. His mind surged with memories that could not even be killed by
dying and coming back again. He had started the car and driven home. Alex
had followed him in, voiceless like a shadow of the past come to life.
Walter moved automatically toward his liquor cabinet before remembering that
Alex seldom drank. He turned around instead, slipping Alex's jacket off his
shoulders. The linen shirt followed. The abomination of the truncated limb
surprised him, but Walter was tough. He'd seen worse. He freed the straps
and laid the artificial limb on the coffee table. The plastic fingers turned
upwards imploringly.
The rest of Alex's clothing took moments to remove. There he stood, his only
hand on his ruined shoulder. Head slightly bowed. His body was scarred and
gone lean, as if he had shed every extraneous ounce of flesh. He was
beautiful the way some ancient excavated statue would have been, worn clean
of paint and etched to the purest lines by nature and time. Even the
mutilation was almost beautiful...a study in contrast to the whole.
Walter looked at him and felt desire, remembered the deceitful boy. The
sullen anger of the filthy angry man that Mulder had deposited on his
doorstep like a cat depositing a rat at his master's feet. And that last
incarnation, the terrifying deadly beauty of the killer, cruel with power and
remorseless. He was fascinated, drawn in. He embraced them all. He
accepted their connection, their doomed dance of love and hate.
Mulder was always the wild card, the diamond mote that brought the machine
to a halt. Of course, he decided after all to talk things out after that
meeting. He'd used his key and walked right in on Walter and Alex. Walter
fell from ecstasy to the vision of Mulder's face, as beautiful and vengeful
as an archangel's; his fiery sword was his service revolver aimed at both of
his former lovers.
Alex, for once, had no comment, no sarcastic goading. He stared at Mulder
from the wreck of Walter's bed. Something made Mulder lower the gun. He
looked at Walter, but his words seemed for both of them. "How the hell could
you do this to me?"
Alex spoke only one word as their lover walked out the door. His voice
sounded regretful, harsh with desire. "Mulder."
Mulder stopped and looked back. He took one step toward them and then shook
his head. He turned to leave; his words falling behind him, "No, Alex. No."
The next day, Mulder and Walter had argued. Fought really. Or rather Mulder
had flung wild blows and bitter words. Walter defended himself, using only
enough force to keep Mulder from inflicting too much damage.
By the time they left for Oregon, Mulder had reconciled to what he had seen.
He had almost been convinced to give Alex a chance. See whether Krycek
really meant to help them this time.
But when Mulder had seen the alien ship; he'd been drawn like a moth to a
flame. Walter could only watch as his lover was drawn up, face beatific,
hands reaching as always to grasp the unknown.
Walter concluded that someone had set them up. Was it Krycek? Or was it
Alex's puppet master.
Hangman, slack your rope;
Mackenzie's objection may as well have been the cooing of the pigeons
outside in the courtyard.
Walter felt numb. This was not real. It was Mulder's idea of a joke. A
morbid, complex farce...
Kimberly Cook was dressed in black. Walter remembered the day he chose her
as his personal assistant; he had thought her a drabber copy of Agent
Scully. He'd hired her for her skills, her competence, and her air of
self-containment. He needed quiet efficiency not fluttering, hovering
intrusion on his work. Kimberly had been the perfect assistant. He'd grown
so used to her presence, relaxed more than he should have done.
Their eyes met once across the courtroom. She turned away. Her eyes fixed on
a spot over Walter's head...a trick as old as the books, taught in courtroom
101. He heard her qualifications...and her job title, assistant to acting
Assistant Director Dana Scully. He hadn't heard that she had taken his
place. Good for Dana, Walter thought without venom, keep her out of the
field during her pregnancy.
Walter let his mind drift as Kimberly answered questions about her
relationship with him, how much time they spent together, and how open he
was with her.
"Did Agent Fox Mulder frequently meet with Assistant Director Skinner?"
Cleveland asked.
"Yes, sir." Kimberly's voice said faltering.
"More frequently than other agents?" The district attorney questioned.
Kimberly offered, "Dana Scully also often reported directly to him."
Tireless, his voice carefully neutral, Cleveland asked, "As frequently as
Agent Mulder?"
Kimberly shook her head and then remembered to speak out loud. She replied,
"No, Agent Mulder met with AD Skinner more than any other agent."
Gently, Cleveland asked, "And were any of those meetings at unusual hours?"
Kimberly said, "Sometimes. AD Skinner worked very late and often on
weekends. Occasionally I would come in to help him on a Saturday or stayed
after closing. He didn't demand it. I volunteered."
Cleveland grimaced, perhaps not wanting the jury to see Walter as the
dedicated man he had been. He said, "Were you aware that Agent Mulder saw AD
Skinner outside of the work environment?"
Kimberly blushed, her face beet red. She said, "I heard it mentioned in
office gossip, but I never saw anything."
Cleveland turned his dark predatory gaze on Kimberly who literally shrank
away from him. His voice quiet, mock whispering in a piercingly intimate
tone of voice, which drew intense attention to his question, Cleveland
asked, "Did you overhear arguments between Mulder and Skinner?"
Kimberly wrung her hands and said, "At times. I did hear Mulder raise his
voice. Seldom, AD Skinner."
Cleveland asked, "Over the last two weeks before Mulder disappeared, did you
hear the two argue over anything unusual. Say a name, for instance?"
There was a brief time out in which the issue of leading questions was
negotiated. A lot of good the favorable decision was! Kimberly still said,
"I heard Agent Mulder shouting about Alex. He said, "Skinner, you had no
right to start sleeping with Alex again." Then I heard noises as if someone
had knocked furniture over. A while later, Mulder came out. He looked
disheveled. His tie was hanging loose and he was holding his shirt as if the
buttons were broken. AD Skinner hurried after him. He looked upset. His nose
was bleeding."
"Was that the only time that you heard shouting from AD Skinner's office
when Mulder was in there?" The district attorney asked.
Kimberly stared at her hands, finally looking up and briefly, pleadingly
meeting Walter's eyes. She said, "I heard it many times."
Walter watched his privacy, the part of his life he had guarded from
everyone but Alex Krycek and Mulder, erode away. Waiters testifying from
restaurants where he and Mulder had eaten, held hands... they had thought
discreetly under the table. Neighbors, who had seen kisses exchanged,
telling the court that they frequently went into one apartment or the other
and didn't exit until morning.
Walter's older brother, owner of his own construction business, turned
pale-green and ran from the courtroom during this testimony. Walter cursed
himself. Not for loving Mulder but for hiding the truth and holding his job
and reputation more dear. Walter turned to Marvin Mackenzie and asked, "Can
you call a recess...I need to talk to my brother."
Walter still had some privileges. He sat in the client meeting room and
marshaled his thoughts to try to get Chuck to understand. He shook his head.
The last time Chuck and he had agreed on anything was the day Walter got his
shipping orders for Vietnam. Chuck, even more massive than Walter would
later be, had towered over the tall, skinny, and homely teenager that Walter
had been and boomed, "I'm proud of you, Walt. I really am."
Walter had grown two inches on hearing that. Although later, he
wondered...he wondered what there was in that stinking jungle...where every
step could be your last...where a friend's laughter ended in a single shot
and heads exploding like rotten fruit. Where you could hardly tell a friend
from a foe. Where a child could be used as a booby trap...what was there to
make Chuck proud?
The door opened. Walter startled. Big brother still had this stupid effect
on him despite two tours in Vietnam, a doctorate in Criminology, and a life
spent as a tough cop and a tougher FBI agent. He looked up, ready to try to explain. To
plead for forgiveness although his sin was hardly the one his
brother imagined.
It wasn't Chuck. Alex Krycek darkened the door. Walter looked up at him and
asked, "Where's my brother..."
Alex slithered in. He looked at Walter with his lethal glittering eyes. He
shrugged, the one side slightly off kilter. "Half way back home to Chicago?
I think you shocked him, Walter."
Walter felt his body shake with helpless laughter. He was trapped in an
Absurdist play. He said, "When do you turn into a rhinoceros?"
Alex was quick. And besides, the three of them, Alex, Mulder and himself had
spent a Sunday afternoon in bed, watching the obscure movie confected out of
Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoceroses". They had munched on popcorn and nibbled on
each other.
Walter's two beautiful lovers had asked him to referee a debate on whether
Gene Wilder was sexy or not. Walter had refused to vote, turning the
argument into tickling and from there into another round of sex. Those were
halcyon days...brief golden hours before Alex lowered his mask and gazed at
them with the face of betrayal and death.
Alex said, "The question is when did you notice everyone else around you had
become one already?"
Walter said, "About two weeks ago" He asked, "What do you want, Alex?"
"You." He said, "What I've always wanted, you, Mulder, Spender's head on a
platter. Walter, you can walk out of here with me. Let me save your life."
Walter took a breath. Walk away. Walk away from the humiliation and fear.
God, to not have to go back to that steel coffin, the odor of his own urine,
sweat, and feces imbued in the air. To be spared the tightening grip of this
trap and shake off the strangling snare...
Walter weighed it in his hands. His life was a dance of compromises, a
little white lie yielding to a gray one until lately his words all tasted of
dark ashes. Still, he couldn't do it. He was a cop, a glorified one, but
still here was where he had led others. Justice...the due process of law...
Walter could remember when he believed every word. Still, he shook his head
and said, "Thank you, Alex, I really believe you mean to help me...what ever
strings you intend to attach. I won't be going. I didn't kill Mulder. The
aliens did take him." Walter felt a stir of hope and asked, "Alex, do you
know something about it? Is there any way to prove Mulder is alive?"
Alex's approach was a stalking, a sidling cautious movement. He ended behind
the small table. Walter couldn't help flinching even though the memory of
making love to Krycek was as recent as the argument that issued with Mulder
when he caught them in flagrante delicto.
Alex suddenly knelt or did his knees go weak and fail him? That face still
beautiful offered its shadowed planes to him. Alex said, "Walter, you know
how that would go. If I could bring you proof, it would disappear like
everything Mulder or Scully ever got their hands on. Just come away with me,
Walter. We can find Mulder. I know we can."
Walter reached out and tenderly stroked Alex's shining hair. He said, "Thank
you, Alex, but no. I've compromised enough in my life. I have to do this one
last thing by the book."
"You're as big a fool as Mulder." Alex replied. He rose from the floor. His
human hand stroked Walter's cheek and he said, "I love you. I'll ask you
again if it doesn't go your way."
O, the prickilie bush,
The day the Smoking Man showed up, a part of you started to die. But you
were never easy. Even death went to a split decision with you. So for every
step that evil old man pulled you deeper, you took one back. And when you
hit the mat, you struggled back to your feet and you went just one more
round.
But losing Mulder was a deathblow. When Alex betrayed them, they were two
ends of rope useless without the middle. But they had knotted up the pain,
shortened their sights, and made a life without him. But the rope was
unraveled now. Walter had come undone.
Hangman, slack your rope;
The rest of the words rolled over him. Walter stood like a soldier. He
wouldn't let his agony and confusion show. "To be remanded to Oregon State
Penitentiary there to await your death."
But life had finally poleaxed Walter so the sentence was a farce. He stood
there a strong man, a brave man...dead on his feet, only too stubborn and
proud to know he had received the deathblow.
Slack up the rope, slack up the rope,
Father Martin made his move on the tiny travel chess set. He made Walter's
moves too as Walter was not allowed anything with such sharp little parts.
His life was forfeit to the state now. And how carefully he was watched lest
he cheat that impersonal entity of its' justice.
Father Martin was old, living under nature's death sentence. His hands were
leopard spotted with age, quivering with spastic twitching of the
Parkinson's disease that robbed him slowly of sensation and motor control.
He had fluffs of white hair, like cotton bolls on his mostly bald head. He
had the largest ears that Walter had ever seen with black hairs growing from
the caverns inside.
Father Martin made a classic defense to Walter's assault. He paused for a
moment because his hand was trembling wildly and also because his thick lips
quivered as if struggling to keep back words.
Finally, he said, "I'd be remiss if I failed to tell you that you should
allow your family to visit."
Walter said, "I won't let them start the wake before I die. I won't let them
serve this sentence with me. Maybe I'm just too vain to be seen like this.
Don't spoil it, Bill."
The priest closed the game. He said, "Your mother asked me to tell you she
wishes for you to confess. To go in peace and receive Extreme Unction."
Walter said, "What should I confess to, Father? To love? I love Mulder. My
sin was to deny that and hide that, not in the act or the feeling that I had
for him. And I didn't kill him. There are things you don't know. Things
beyond what you teach in your catechism, Father."
Father Martin said, "My son, it's not my place to judge you. Only to forgive
you and to help you forgive yourself."
Walter stepped closer, touched the bars, aware of the guard's attention as
he violated the rules. He said, "Tell me how to forgive myself for losing a
battle. For having a lover taken. For being framed. Tell me how!"
The guard said, "Skinner, step away from the bars."
The man in the cell next to him, a serial killer who loved to recount to the cellblock
all the struggles of his victims, the way he dealt them slow
death, laughed wildly. He said, "He's innocent. The big faggot-cop didn't do
it. He's innocent. I'm innocent. We're all innocent." And his demented
laughter sent Walter crashing away from him to cover his ears in the corner
of his cell.
Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
Now he understood. Now he felt the relief of knowing it was at an end.
Duller wits might cling to the understood pattern of the days. Might hold
tight to a life of sleeping and waking, eating and shitting in a cell only
slightly larger than his bathroom had been at home.
Walter listened as they read his death warrant. The prison superintendent
stared at him as Walter bowed his head, uttering a heart felt, "Thank God."
For the remaining forty-five days, Walter endured. He ticked off the days in
his head, dwelling now in better times. Dreamed of Mulder and of Alex.
Wondering if Mulder was dead...had they killed him? Would Walter be greeted
not by a Valkyrie robed in white armor and linen, but by Mulder's sardonic
grin, his eyes crinkled with humor, and his voice full of tender laughter
saying, "Now look what I've gotten us into!"
Mackenzie tried to have him declared insane for refusing appeal. Walter
found himself arguing for his right to be killed. Small Pyrrhic victory for
a fighter going down for the last time, Walter won the right to die.
It took another two months. Another long stretch of stiff denim, cold
showers, harsh lights, and featureless walls entombing him. Walter laughed
at himself as he shadowboxed in the yard. Alone always. Separated from the
other inmates of death row because he was a former FBI agent...their enemy
despite the common circumstances.
The one carelessness...deliberate Walter thought, on the part of a guard who
had aspired to be a police officer...there had been a certain pleasure to
knowing that he had not gone entirely soft. His punches sent the two men who
tried to assault him to the hospital. There were no charges. And after that,
the malicious guard had been transferred, relieving the row of his jabs and
small tyrannies. All in all, a welcome diversion that gained Walter an odd respect
from the other walking dead men.
Four days to execution...to freedom as Walter had come to see his execution
date. The cell was even smaller. He measured it with his paces. Seven by
seven...larger than a coffin but not by much. Walter tried to shut out his
thoughts. Goddamn body revolting at last. He wanted to live. He wanted to
fight back and it was too late. Too late for anything but regrets and loss
Hangman, slack your rope;
Sweetheart, did you bring me gold,
Strange on the other side, as an officer of the law, Walter never realized
how odd that was. A prisoner had to be sane to be executed. Sane, when the
moments dragged on you, a water torture of time, second by second closer to
this little box, this coffin before final breath. He didn't know how the
others did it. He had given up. Foisting his execution off with endless
appeals did not.... appeal.
Walter paced, feeling the swing of his still powerful body. He had dreaded
getting old. A modest man, he had never drawn deliberate attention to his
strong arms, his legs like pylons, his chest, more defined than it had been
when he was twenty. Now, irony, he would never know how he would deal with
the ravages of ages. Never have the chance to go gently into that good
night.
Great, the priest, head bowed, bible and rosary in hand. Did Walter want to
see him? His sins had long been confessed. Not to good Father Martin whose
company he eschewed in these final days. He had spoken them to Mulder. To
Mulder even though he had often wondered whether he truly was mad. Had he
killed Mulder, closed those soulful eyes, stilled that mouth that gave such
pleasure and annoyed him as greatly with gibes and arguments?
As the priest walked nearer, accompanied by a hulking acolyte, Walter
realized that this was not the familiar one. Not the old man with the battle
scarred eyes, the weariness expressed in each muttered word. This one was
young...every color of the rainbow in a dark mink luster of hair and a
ribald walk suggesting a crow's insolence mixed with a wolf-like grace.
Walter's recognition was like a cascade of sensation, waking every cell from stagnant
sleep. Krycek, so his old enemy had come to gloat or perhaps his
perversity said, his old lover had come to bid him a futile good-bye.
Fleetingly, he wished to shrive not his soul, but his body. To scald himself
in Alex's love. Spend the remaining hours of his life not in prayer, but in
tempestuous acts of passion.
The guards moved away. Far away. Certainly if any of their superiors watched
they would have gone on report. The two men turned their backs. One of them
said, "All right, Mister. You paid for this. Just don't get any fancy ideas.
You can't get him out of here."
Krycek's eyes danced and he said, "I get what I paid for and you get the
gold. And don't worry. Two came in and two of us will leave. You'll get your
show in the morning. Now, get the hell out of hearing range. I have things I
need to say to Skinner."
Walter drew near the front. He said, "Alex, I thought you had given up."
Alex said, "You know I don't give up easy, Walter."
Walter nodded. He wished he could touch Alex. Now the hate was burned away.
All he wanted was to touch him, to feel that silken hair, the satiny rounds
of his ass, and the soft skin of Alex's lips beneath his.
Another Verse:
Yes, I've brought you gold;
Walter leaned his head against the barrier and replied, "Even you can't get
me out of this one, Alex."
Alex grinned and said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Pulled you from
the gates of hell one time. I can do it again. Hey, Walter, ever wanted a
twin."
Walter had hardly looked at the man with Krycek. He was built like a weight
lifter, stalwart jaw, teeth that looked as if he could open cans with them,
massive forehead and eyes as expressionless and gray as stainless steel. The
man reached for the lock. Alex snapped, "Stand clear."
Nothing dramatic. Nothing to even cause the guards to look. But the cell
door hung open. The man reached and touched his face. A moment later, his
reflection looked back at him, eyes staring wildly from sunken pits, a
complexion gray and dismal from lack of sun, and the stubble of yesterday's
beard still unshaven.
The man shed his robe and handed it to Walter. He wore an exact copy of the
clean denim shirt, the stiff new jeans. Walter grabbed it and put it on. A
moment later, he groaned and said, "I can't let him take my place. Even if
he is a clone or an alien."
Alex chuckled and said, "Don't worry. The drugs won't affect Smith. He'll
fake your death for you and then we've arranged a little accident. Your body
will be cremated before your loving family can claim it. Just one of those
gruesome mistakes that occur in the best run of establishments."
Walter shot Alex an angry look. "My family does care, Alex."
Alex agreed too easily, "Of course, they do. But no one, no one loves you
the way I do."
Walter believed it. He fucking believed it now.
Alex said, "Now, you have to look like Smith. Hold still."
Alex's hand fitted a mask over Walter's face. The latex stretched over his
head and face. Makeup added verisimilitude. The mask wouldn't have passed a
close inspection, but Walter didn't expect one.
Alex's jagged smile challenged him. The husky voice asked, "Now, are you
coming, Walter?"
"Hell, yes." Walter replied, stepping out.
His look-alike shut the cell door and promptly started yelling, "Get the
hell out. I don't want a priest. I have nothing to confess. I didn't do it."
Krycek winked and said, "I'm sorry, my son. If you change your mind, Father
Martin will be here for you."
Each clanging door lifted Walter's spirits more. Finally, they stepped out
into a parking lot. Walter drew in the night air in great gasps. Now, after
all of this, he started to shake. Alex said, "Just a little longer"
True love, have you found my golden ball,
I have found your golden ball,
It would have gone smoother except Walter could not stop ravaging those
lying lips, that mouth that prevaricated so often except for a handful of times. The
times when Alex Krycek said, "I love you" to him.
Alex huskily asked, "You going do me right in this car? I have a hotel room
a few miles down the road."
Walter threw the vestments in the back seat. "Now," he said. He tore off the
suit jacket, cursing as he undid the buttons of the shirt. His lips found a
rigid nipple and fed off the sweet flesh.
Alex arched and tossed his head back. Alex purred, "Oh yeah, okay. Good
thing that I rented a caddy...Can we get in back? Shit, I haven't done this
since I was sixteen..."
Walter tumbled out the door dragging Alex with him. He finished undressing
his lover and himself, shedding every fragment of the last year. He kissed
Alex again, reclaiming his lover, reclaiming his life.
Alex whispered, "You feel so fucking good. You make me crazy, Walter. I want
you."
Alex's mouth slid down, nibbled at this chin, suckled on his throat. He
stopped to travel crosswise, burrowing through the tangle of hair to find
the broad brown peaks of nipples.
Walter pushed at the silken hair, reminding Alex, "It's been a year. Don't
tease."
Alex looked at him. Just looked at him for a long heated moment. He said, "I
won't tease and you never, never do anything that stupid again!"
"Got'cha." Walter groaned as Alex's tongue outlined the weeping head of his
cock. A moment later, Alex swallowed him deep. Walter gripped the caddy's
seat, closed his eyes and let the sensation envelop him. One hand slid down,
alternately gripping and caressing Alex's hair. He gasped, "I love you."
Alex only reply was to swallow again. His throat worked and Walter was
coming. He roared as the pleasure swept through him, dissolved him, and he
was free. He realized he was completely free.
Before Walter had even caught his breath, he traced Alex's hot,
sweat-streaked flesh downward to claim him. The taste of him, his unique
scent, the sound of his welcoming whimper...he remembered. He remembered
what they had. What they would steal back...
As they dressed again, shivering in the cold, Walter said, "I'm not the
assistant director anymore. Not even an FBI agent anymore."
Alex cast him an apprehensive look. For a moment, Alex was a ghost, the
ghost of an illusion with whom he fell in love. Walter saw the affection,
the wistfulness of the young agent he thought he adored. Alex whispered,
"I'm sorry."
Walter met Alex's look. He replied, "I'm not. No more blackmail. No more
suits. No more rules. We're going to get them, Alex. Every last lying, black
hearted bastard is going down."
Alex smiled. "Damn right." Then getting behind the wheel, Alex said, "But
first I have a hotel room and a bed. A bed that needs us in it so we can do it right. If
you're up to it, old man..."
Walter laughed, a laughter that rolled out of him, gave him strength,
renewed him. "I have more than one year to make up, Alex. You're the one
that better hope you don't fade before I do."
Much later, in a room far away, As Walter looked out on a dawn that he
never expected to see, Alex came behind him. His new arm, the one that Smith
had healed, was pale fleshed. "Mmm, beautiful dawn. Red sky. Who should take
warning now?"
Walter grinned and said, "The ones that took Mulder. We'll get him back,
won't we?"
Alex replied, "Yeah, we'll do it."
Walter turned around. He gripped Alex's arms, walking him step by step
toward the bed. He said, "We'll start tomorrow. Today, I'm going to spend
every moment forgetting that fucking hole. Forgetting this last year.
Forgetting everything, but these lips, this body, this man, my lover, my
savior. Alex..."
Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
Think I see my friends coming, Riding a many mile.
Friends, did you get some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my dear friends, To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?
ssistant Director Skinner?" Voices sounding like jackboots.
I think I see my sister coming over yonder stile"
Scully made it to jail before Walter's lawyer did. She had either taken
the time to comb her hair and put on make-up or she had been out very late.
It made Walter conscious of the fact that he had not brushed his teeth; of
the sharp odor of the pesticide they had sprayed on him; of the livid color
and wrinkled confinement of the jail overall. His ass stung from rough
fingers. The search left him feeling sickened, violated. He felt like a
steer prodded to the slaughter.
Or did you come to see me hang, hang on the gallows bold
I have come for to see you hang, hang on the gallows bold"
And when she returned, Scully's face was the white of a snowdrift. Her eyes
were cold stone blue. She said, "The ballistics came back. They matched your
gun, Skinner. Three bullets...three bullets in the skull. Why three,
Skinner? I'll never see his face again. You splattered his brain, Mulder's
beautiful brain, all over those Godforsaken woods."
Pray tell me that I'm free to ride,
Ride for many mile, mile, mile.
Last time he traveled this way, he had been with Mulder. Breaking the rules
with him. Breaking his heart over him.
Will you slack it for a while?
For I think I see my brother coming;
He's riding over yonder stile.
Brother, did you bring me gold,
Or silver to pay my fee,
For to save my body from the cold clay ground,
My neck from the gallows tree?
No, I didn't bring you gold,
Or silver to pay your fee,
But your sister and I have come today
To see you on that hangman's tree.
"The defense asks for a motive. It is my intention to present in a clear,
cogent, and convincing presentation that the defendant had a motive, one of the oldest
motives known to mankind. The defendant had a turbulent and
secretive relationship with a subordinate. A relationship invaded by a third
party, which threatened to expose the defendant. The defendant would do
anything to conceal the affair. Including murder."
It pricks my heart full sore,
And if ever I get out of the prickilie bush,
I'll never get in it any more.
You live your life. You're far from perfect, but God knows you've
tried. You were a good cop, a good agent, and at one point, you knew you
were going to be the one. Yes, the one to clean it up. Make a difference.
Will you slack it for a while?
"Walter Sergei Skinner, you have been found guilty in a court of law of one
count of premeditated murder, the murder of Agent Fox Mulder, a Federal
Agent in the commission of his work."
And wait a little while.
I think I see my father a-coming,
Out on that roving wild. Father, have you found my golden ball,
And have you come to set me free?
Or have you come to see me hung,
All on this linden tree?
I've not found your golden ball,
And I've not come to set you free.
But I have come to see you hung,
Out on this linden tree.
Walter knew it was Wednesday. He had been issued clean clothing and Father
Martin was here. Walter liked the Father. Not for his prayers, but because
he played chess. Walter hated the idleness. He had no interest in his
brother's guilt gift of the TV that hung out of reach in his cell. He
listened more often to the tinny radio that he tuned to the all-sports
station or to a local jazz channel, but lately even that held no interest.
Think I see my friends coming,
Riding a many mile.
Friends, did you get some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my dear friends,
To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?
Walter had been to one execution. He had forced himself to answer the
challenge sent by one of his earliest convictions. They had been using the
chair then. Walter remembered his sick horror at the ceremony and also his
wonder that the man was so docile as they prepared him in swift order for
the electrocution.
of dignity.
Will you slack it for a while?
For I think I see my true love coming;
He's riding over yonder stile.
Or silver to pay my fee?
Or have you come to see me swing
On that gallows tree?
Walter's fingers brushed over his head. He had reached for his glasses,
which had been taken as a risk for self-harm. He laughed, causing the guards
to stare at him. Walter said, "Don't worry. I'm not going for a last moment
incompetence hearing."
I brought you silver to pay your fee.
No, I could not bear to see you swing
On that hangman's tree.
Alex asked, "You ready now? You played it your way to the last spin. Didn't
find your justice, Walter. Dirty hands deep everywhere. Now, do you want to
die in some misguided sacrifice or play it my way?"
And have you come to set me free?
Or have you come to see me hung,
Out on this linden tree?
And I have come to set you free.
But I've not come to see you hung,
Out on this linden tree.
When Alex pulled over on the shadowed country road, Walter's mood had
shifted. His tears forgotten, he tugged at the encumbering folds of the
vestments. He growled as he found the suit beneath the robes. That had to
come off soon too.
