Blood of Abraham - Chapter Twenty Three
by Mik
Skinner found me upstairs, slumped against the wall at the foot of my bed, staring into a very miserable blankness. He stalled at the door, hands shoved deep into pockets, frowning over those shiny wirerims. "You okay?"
I slanted an embarrassed, irritated, almost grateful glance in his direction. "You heard?"
He shrugged and tilted his head faintly toward the stairs. "Rachel overheard a little and she told me."
"I'm sorry you missed it. Some of it was quite spectacular...in the sense of being a spectacle." I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. "I wouldn't be surprised if half the building overheard a little of it."
He hovered awkwardly. "So...Samantha wasn't your sister?"
I scrubbed at my eyes, they had been tormenting me with the possibility of tears for hours. "She heard a lot, didn't she?"
"I understand you weren't exactly quiet about anything." He took one step into the room. "That's surprising, given your mother was part of the conversation. She always struck me as the dirty laundry stays in the house kind."
I nodded, my head still in my hands. "That's my mother."
"I repeat," his voice was still that deep, rough edged sound that defined Assistant Director of the Whole Fucking Eff Bee Eye Skinner, "are you okay?"
No. How in hell could I be? "Yeah." I pulled my head upward, trying to look okay. "I'm good."
He tugged a hand free and pushed at the bridge of his glasses. "You told your mother about...about us?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. "How did you know that?"
Another shrug. He's the only man I know who can shrug and not convey lack of conviction. "She told me."
"What does she use, parabolic ear or a glass to the door?"
"I'm sorry." He actually looked sorry. "Rachel was concerned for you. Evidently, justifiably so. She felt that I should be aware of the...ah...nature of the visit."
"There was nothing natural about it." I thought about standing up, about going forward as if nothing had happened, but somewhere between my head and my heart my will had failed me, and I stayed where I was. Where should I go, anyway? What was I supposed to do? There was nothing left of who I thought I was.
"I know it's a little early," he began carefully, "but...perhaps you should see someone?"
It wasn't a command, for that I was grateful. But I wasn't grateful for the implications. "I don't need to."
His voice got conciliatory, which irritated me. Skinner was only conciliatory on the job. That politic tone should never be used in our personal life. "Mulder, this must have been quite a shock to you, you might want to consider-"
"Therapy is overrated," I cut in. If I were to try and explain this to any reputable therapist, he'd have me on a seventy two hour hold before I could get to the part about finding Bram on the doorstep. "Besides," I tapped my chest, "I am someone. I can see me."
His expression was similar to a father explaining
to a child that just because his name happens to
"If you don't mind, I think I am capable of determining what I need." I finally levered myself off the bed. "What I need is to...."
"Yes?" He sounded so damned concerned, so eager. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Yes." I was surprised how quickly it came to me. "Is there any way you can substantiate her claims?"
He goggled at me. His mouth came open so I could see that sharp row of lower teeth that seemed more like a shark's than a human's. "You think she'd lie to you? Your own mother?"
"If she is my own mother," I countered.
"Do you think-"
I waved off my remark. "No, I'm pretty certain she is actually my biological mother. In fact, it's the only thing at this point of which I am certain."
"But you think all the rest could be a lie?" He still sounded as if it defied all maternal programming.
"She lied to me for almost forty years about my father," I reminded him. "Lying about my sister would be a minor consideration in comparison. Wouldn't even show up on the guilt radar." I rubbed the back of my neck. It ached from trying for hours to hold my head upright with the weight of all this new information. "But I need to know if it's true, and if it is, if she's going to try an end run around it to get custody of Bram."
His mouth snapped shut, his stance became almost menacingly defensive. "I'd like to see her try."
"Patience, grasshopper." I eased past him and out the door. "You will."
He caught my upper arm roughly. "Mulder..." he stopped. His eyes, hot as steam, went over my face.
I saw the unasked questions in his eyes. "I know." This curse of mine, this need to make others comfortable in my discomfort, made me lean in and kiss him. Not quite his mouth, just to the side, as if accidentally missing his lips. "It will be all right," I lied.
The lie worked and his grip on my arm loosened enough that I was able to slip away and go downstairs.
Rachel was stirring something at the stove. Steam, hot as Skinner's eyes, made wisps of her hair bounce around her down turned face. She knew I was standing there, but she didn't look up. Stirring that pot was the most important thing in the world. I wanted to say something, explain away what she'd heard, make excuses for my mother, for myself. But what could I say? I turned around. As I reached the threshold, she murmured softly, "I'm sorry."
"Yeah." I turned around. She was still stirring. "I'm sorry you had to hear all that. But," I tried to laugh it off, "you had to know things were a little bizarre here to begin."
"Bizarre?" She looked up and brushed back those steam limp strands of hair. "What is so bizarre? You love your son. That much is obvious. She doesn't. That's also obvious."
That hurt. I don't know why. One would think hearing 'I don't love you' from a parent or lover, no matter how ambiguously worded it might be, would be infinitely more painful than a stranger making the same observation, but the idea of someone, anyone knowing that dirty little secret was shameful to me. What was truly bizarre, however, was her notion that I loved Bram. Well, I suppose I did, but not the way a father should. Not the way I should.
"I'm sorry, Sir," she murmured, sensing she'd offended me. "It wasn't my place to say-"
"No, no, it's all right." I patted the air around her arm mindlessly. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't upset. Excuse me." I backed out of the kitchen.
Behind me, across the foyer, I could hear fussing from the nursery. I didn't want to go in there, but there was nowhere else to go, unless I left the apartment. Truth was, I'd been avoiding him more than usual since my mother's departure. Somewhere in the cluttered back room of my brain was the conviction she had managed, in those few moments alone with him, to tell him every terrible truth about me, even the ones I didn't know myself.
Still, there was nothing for it. As if he knew I was standing just outside his door, he ratcheted up the fuss noise to a minor chord wail. I pushed the door open, trying to make the same kind of reassuring sounds I'd heard Rachel and Skinner and even the Gunmen use in his presence. "Hey, kid, did that old lady scare you?" I asked, coming up to the crib. I didn't understand it. He looked so much like Samantha to me. Was it possible I'd had a fling with my own...well, whatever she was? And if I had, when?
No. My mother was probably right. Samantha probably
was dead, and if she was still alive, she was back in
Bram continued to look as if something was sticking him, but the decibels were dialed back. I put a hand down near him, hoping he'd take my finger the way he reached for Skinner's all the time. Instead, one of those angry little fists knocked my hand away from him. "Like father, like son, hmm?" I felt so empty inside and at the same time so full. I wanted to die, I wanted to rage, I wanted to howl, I wanted to hold my son and I wanted to never see him again.
But I didn't run from him this time. I stood there, looking down at him, listening to the broad range of sounds he could make, the gestures, expressions, kicks and flails. He was very talkative, in his way. Occasionally, he would grow quiet and tilt his head back as far as his neck would bend and roll his eyes up, searching what constituted his sky. I guess, seeing no stars, his fussing would renew in disappointment. Now and again, I'd venture a hand toward him, and rarely, I'd even touch him; patting his stomach, brushing his hair back, catching one of his feet - although generally that would start the wailing and kicking with renewed vigor. I just wanted to connect with him. However, it was not a desire he shared.
Finally, Rachel got tired of listening to him complain, and knocked on the door. "Time for his supper," she announced, not quite pushing me aside, but certainly supplanting me at his side.
"Right." Pushing my fists into my jeans, I backed out of the room like a spurned suitor.
The sounds from the nursery ceased.
Skinner was coming down the stairs, and must have seen something in my face that I didn't put there. He detoured from his intended destination. With a face that was half regretful frown and half supporting smile, he slid an arm across my shoulders. He didn't say anything, he just stood there, with that lopsided expression.
I leaned back into his support for a moment, sighing. "It's all changed, isn't it? It will never be the same."
Sometimes when he says my name it's a bark of impatience, or a tone of voice meant to indicate my position in the interaction, but sometimes, such as this time, he could turn my name into an avowal of certainty. "Mulder, something in our lives changes every day. Sometimes the changes are so small we barely notice them, and sometimes we have days like this, when it feels like the world shifted out of orbit and left us suspended in space. Tomorrow something else will change, and the world will spin back in our direction."
"Promise?" What kind of question was that? I was asking this man, this almost stranger, this part time partner and occasional lover, to guarantee that my life was going to scrape together the shattered pieces of my perception and make a whole picture for me again. How could he? How could he even know if it could be done?
He surprised me by leaning in enough to rest his brow against mine. "Yes, I do."
I knew it was a lie. I knew it was impossible. But, oh, my God, I loved him at that moment for the impossible lie.
He gave my shoulder a little squeeze, that reassuring gesture fathers give sons, friends give friends, and Assistant Directors give Special Agents. Then he released me. "Feel like a drink?" he offered, as he left me for the bar.
"I feel like several," I admitted. I followed him into the living room and dropped into a chair. "What do you think? Is she dead? Is she really not my sister? Is my mother lying again?"
He didn't look at me but I could feel every other sense trained on me. "I thought you said you didn't think it was a lie."
"I know what I said...I was just talking." I watched his back as he prepared things. "What do you think?"
Ice dropped into glasses. "Well, it's a pretty big secret to have kept all these years."
"And pretty easy to expose now everyone's dead and no one can refute it," I retorted. "Oh, I suppose it is all true. There's no profit in her lying about this now. She's something." I sat forward, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. "All these years preaching about the importance of family, and it turns out everything I knew about my family, about myself was a lie." I sat up and reached for the glass as he crossed the room. "And after all that she actually had the nerve to be angry at me because she had to own all those lies." We tipped our glasses together. "I don't know which upset her more; that I forced her to tell me the truth about Samantha, or that she forced me to tell her I'm gay."
He sipped and considered things . "Well, either way, you challenged her delusions about her 'perfect family'."
I chuckled grimly. "Now you sound like me." But what he said made sense. More sense than he realized. More frightening that he realized. I put the glass down with a sharp report of glass on glass. "I'm going to call Scully. We have to prove he's my son, and we have to do it fast. Now. Immediately."
He was there to catch my shoulders as I jumped up. "Easy. We've proven that. Relax."
"No." I pushed at him. "We have to figure out where he came from. She's going to try and take him away from me. I have to get his mother, whoever she is, involved. That's the only way."
"Now calm down." His hands tightened on me. "Your mother can't take Bram away from you. She has no right, no authority. You're his biological father. She can't change that." He tried urging me back into the chair. "Sit down. Relax."
"No...you don't understand. She's got her own connections. I know she does. Cancerman. She knows him, they were-"
"Mulder, stop it." He gave me a push and I dropped into the chair. "It doesn't matter who she claims to know. The law is on your side. However," he bent and collected my drink, "it wouldn't hurt to figure out where his mother is." He pressed the glass into my hands. "Or even who she is."
End Chapter Twenty Three