TITLE: Wolfsheim

NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/Sk
RATING: NC-17. M/Sk. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. So, if you don't like that type of thing - STOP NOW! Forewarned is forearmed. Proceed with caution. Of course if you have four arms you can throw caution to the wind.
SUMMARY: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
ARCHIVE: Only with my permission.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Nnnnnnnnnope.
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'd rather say that they really are mine, but I've been advised to deny everything. But when I become king...

Author's notes: Wolfsheim is German for Wolf's Home. Also a really great industrial band from Germany.

More notes: Happy Birthday, Jaxon

More Big Fat Notes: Danger! Danger! Will Robinson, this story contains a depiction of Mulder having a consensual sexual relationship before he reached his majority. If that kind of thing curdles your pudding, STOP HERE! If you proceed and you hate it, don't come crying to me.

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.

Wolfsheim

by Mik

One -- Childhood Cruel

"...one of the shoddiest pieces of investigative work it's been my misfortune to supervise. The evidence was right there in the postage stamp, but you overlooked it, as usual, because you wanted to find something supernatural about the case. The only thing supernatural about this case was your inability to get the job done." Each statement was emphasized by a finger stabbed into the desktop. "Agent Mulder, a Boy Scout could have..." Skinner paused. His brow furrowed slightly more than usual. Something besides disciplinary disapproval quirked around his mouth.

He remembered.

He continued. "A Boy Scout could have figured it out." He slapped the report on his desk. "Get out of here. Both of you."

Mulder's first response was to smile, smugly, because he'd seen that telltale reaction. But the smugness was flooded away by fear. So he remembers, he thought. What will he do? He put the smile back in place because it was expected of him, and unfolded himself from the chair, kept his eyes away from the desk and the man behind it, and moved to open the door before Scully could get her hand on it.

Scully was responsible for making sure it didn't become a scene, a scene he'd been dreading for twenty years. She was murmuring all the appropriate responses, observing protocols. She shivered slightly as they passed through the antechamber. "He's always so cold to you," she observed, still murmuring. Over the years the two had developed a manner of speaking so quiet that Mulder was convinced only he and neighborhood dogs could hear her. "He's never like that when you're not around."

Mulder's smile was still in place, still affected for her sake. "Ah, you know me, Scully. I bring out the best in everyone."

"That crack about Boy Scouts was pretty low," she continued, jabbing the elevator call button.

"I don't know, he may have been right. Don't discount the deductive abilities of Boy Scouts." Mulder pushed the button, as well, impatient to get off the fifth floor. "A lot of law enforcement is recruited out of the Eagle Scouts."

Scully tossed a pursed lipped scowl in the direction they had come. "Oh, then I'm sure Assistant Director Skinner was a Boy Scout."

The door slid open and they stepped into the elevator shoulder to shoulder...well, side by side. On her best day, in her highest heels, Dana Scully couldn't stand shoulder to shoulder with her partner. "He was," Mulder assured her cheerfully, already relaxing as they dropped down and away from the most immediate threat. "In point of fact," he added as the doors opened at basement level, "so was I."

"You?" Scully laughed. A genuine laugh, which was a rare sound down in their dark hideaway from Bureau politics.

"I was," he repeated, allowing a slightly wounded tone into his voice. "I made it all the way to Life Scout rank. I was working on my Eagle Scout rank when I-" he cut himself off. "When I left to go to Oxford."

"Why, Mulder, I am surprised." Scully put her portfolio on her desk and dropped her pencil into the cup with all the others. Both her brothers had been Boy Scouts, but hadn't risen that high before moving on to ROTC. "You and Skinner have something in common."

"Well, we weren't exactly in the same den, you know." Mulder picked up his coffee cup and looked down into it woefully. "I think when he was in Scouts they met in real dens. Wolf dens."

Scully giggled one last time. "Really, Mulder." She reached for the empty coffee pot. "I didn't miss the hint, by the way. I'll make the coffee, but only out of pity after the way you got reamed just now."

Mulder settled into his chair. "Oh, that was nothing," he murmured, too low even for Scully to hear.

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Thatcher Island sat off the coast of Gloucester, a narrow harlequin of rocks and woods, and crowned by the original twin towers, two aging lighthouses. The island was only accessible by small boats, but it had a large bunkhouse, formerly used by the Coast Guard, which once maintained the two lights, and provided assistance to ships in distress. His Scout troupe had used the facilities for a summer camping event, and now a handful of them had come back to help catalog the history of the lighthouses, as one had been deactivated and the other was about to be automated. It was his community service task to earn his final rank as an Eagle Scout. He was determined nothing would stand in his way. His father wanted this badge more than he did, and for once in his life, Fox 'Marty' Mulder was not going to disappoint his father.

Summer in Massachusetts could be uncomfortably humid, but he didn't mind. The work alternated between physically demanding and intellectually stimulating. The lighthouse records went all the way back to the mid eighteen hundreds, and there were even a few mysteries to solve amongst the notes and incident reports. And when he wasn't helping to erect the standards for the solar panels or poring through yellowed log pages, he escaped the heat by disappearing into the wooded half of the island. It only took a few minutes to completely lose one's self in those thick firs and mangroves.

Mulder preferred to be away from the rest of the Scouts when he wasn't working. He'd never felt a part of them and things had only gotten worse the last year or so. Most of them were achieving a physical maturity he despaired ever knowing. He didn't think he'd gained an inch or a pound since his thirteenth birthday. It wasn't so bad when he was younger, but here he was, just weeks away from his eighteenth birthday and he was the smallest, skinniest member of the den. Even some of the tenderfoots were taller than he was. He was starting to become a victim of pranks.

Most nights, after bed check, he snuck out of the bunkhouse and took a blanket and his radio down to the shore. Lying there, staring up at the stars, he'd comfort himself with promises to become more than just scrawny Marty Mulder, the kid who was so smart he was almost a freak, the kid whose sister got abducted, the kid who hated his name so much he lied to everyone and called himself something else.

He didn't comfort himself with dreams of leaving the island and going home, however. Home was worse than anything the Scouts could do to him. Ever since Samantha was taken, his father drank and snarled abuse at him, called him worthless and useless and sometimes said the wrong one got taken. His mother had been no help. She was so busy trying to live up to appearances for the neighbors that she had no time to protect her son from his father's outbursts. And last year it got worse than ever. His parents split up. So now he was that kid whose parents were getting a divorce.

He didn't want to go home. His mother wanted him to stay in Massachusetts and go to Harvard. His father wanted him to go to M.I.T. Neither of them seemed to hold any illusions that he'd be of any use to society, but as long as he did something besides daydreaming, it would be an improvement.

The project came to an end too soon for Mulder. He was packing up reluctantly, when he became aware of foot traffic outside the bunkhouse, an unusual amount of foot traffic. Leaning out the window above his bed, he saw three small boats tied up at the dock, and a group of perhaps twenty people, mostly men, collecting duffels and rucksacks and marching toward the assorted outbuildings around the lighthouses. They all bore serious, anxious, eager to impress expressions, looking around, taking in details. Most of them walked with the stiff shouldered correctness of recent military or academy training, but one man, broad shouldered and bespectacled, moved with something akin to a swagger, swinging his large black duffel over his shoulder the way most men would swing a jacket or a towel.

Mulder watched them all until they disappeared around the back of the barracks, then returned to his packing, startled to find his den chief sitting on his bed. "Who were those guys?"

"Police academy graduates. They're using the island for some tactical training before they go into duty." He fingered through Mulder's unsorted socks and rumpled tee shirts, thoughtfully. "That's why I came to see you. They're going to accept a couple of our guys as interns. I thought you might be interested."

Mulder nearly dropped the pile of books he was bringing to his bunk. "Me? Are you serious?" Police academy? Law enforcement? That might impress his father.

His chief, a serious young man only a year Mulder's senior, nodded. "I know you've taken a lot of crap from..." he paused, remembering it was against the unwritten code of Scouting to criticize a fellow scout. by name, "from some of the guys. I thought this might be a way of making it up to you."

Mulder went on alert. It sounded like another prank in the making. "What would I have to do?"

The chief shrugged. "Run errands, take notes, lend a hand here and there. Pay attention. Learn something. Don't embarrass the den."

Mulder gave it only a moment's thought. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Great." He received a slap on the shoulder. "I'll go let their commandant know. Someone will send for you."

Mulder nodded and settled back on his bunk. It was like an answered prayer.

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"Seriously, Mulder. Do you want this or not?" Scully was holding the pot precariously over his lap.

He focused on her. "Scully, you are an answered prayer." He reached for his cup and maneuvered it under the upraised pot and let her fill it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She put the carafe back on the warmer. "Where did you go?"

"Nowhere," he sniffed the coffee, "I've been right here."

"Well, your body may have been here, but your brain was definitely somewhere else." She gestured with her own cup. "You completely ignored the telephone." His expression was dismissive. "And me."

"Now that I am sorry for," he conceded. "What were you saying?"

"Nothing important." She settled at her desk and opened a file. "You seemed a million miles away."

"Less than a thousand, actually." Mulder smiled at her. "It was all that talk about the Boy Scouts. I was thinking about my last summer with them."

"Good memories?" she asked. It was asked in that tone of voice she often used when she felt compelled to continue the conversation even though her mind was on something else, in this case the stack of folders on her desk.

Mulder recognized the tone. "Yes." He gave it one last moment of thought. "And no."

"Sounds a lot like my last year of med school," she said, with a grim smile. She began gathering files together. "And no, I don't want to discuss it." She stood. "I'm taking these back to archives. Do you need anything?"

Mulder put down his coffee and reached for a folder on his desk, simply to look busy. "Aside from extensive therapy? No. Thank you."

"Seriously, Mulder," she repeated, rolling her eyes. She left.

"Seriously," he repeated as the door swung closed.

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Working with the new graduates was the most exciting thing Mulder had ever done. To experienced law enforcement officers, they would have seemed young and bumbling and careless, but to a not quite eighteen year old boy, they were all heroes in orange safety vests. He followed them around, got in their way, asked annoying questions, and saw everything. And he learned things. He learned how to break down, clean and reassemble several kinds of weapons. He learned how to sweep a crime scene for evidence. He learned how to ask the right questions to unlock answers in witnesses who didn't think they were witnesses. Before very long everyone was talking about him. Most of them were complaining about him, to be sure, but some were seeing something...some spark of potential in him.

There were those Mulder avoided. Two of the graduates had spent time in Vietnam, and they were different than the others; older, harder, more intense, with a cruel sense of humor. He irritated them easily and they usually responded with threats that lacked the jovial tone of the others, and while not as violent in description, were more ferocious in intent.

One of them was short and broad, with a wide face that some would call open, and others might call menacing. He told dirty jokes in a loud voice and a wink that made everyone listening an accessory to his behavior. Mulder had been warned, in the mildest terms possible, to avoid him. And he did.

The other was that man he'd noticed the day they arrived. There was something about him that made him stand out in this particular crowd. While he seemed to have a careless disdain for his fellow graduates, and took on every assignment with ease, there was something dark and severe about his demeanor, something that made people get out of his way when he moved. There was a rumor that he had practically died 'over there'. One of the female graduates poetically suggested he had left his soul there. Mulder couldn't shake a feeling that he and this man shared an understanding of loss and terror and regret, and, while he made every effort to stay out of his way, Mulder studied him, surreptitiously, hoping to learn something that would make his own path easier to walk.

His path got a lot harder to walk four days after the graduates arrived. The facilities hadn't really been set up to allow for both genders, so it was understood men got the showers in the morning, and the women got them in the evening. Because Mulder had no rank in this group, taking a shower in the morning usually meant waiting until all the other men had theirs, and finding no hot water left. Since there were only three women among the numbers, Mulder decided to wait outside the showers until they were finished, and take his very late in the evening. He found he liked the privacy and luxury of having that large tile room to himself. There was something secret and special about moving around so freely at that hour. He'd always loathed taking showers with the other guys, especially recently, when everyone else was maturing and he was not. He had become very shy about his body.

On that particular night, he had soaped up, shampooed, rinsed off and then let the hot water pour over him while his thoughts traveled back over the day. It was a good way to think, leaning against the tiled wall, blissfully alone, the water pounding his aching shoulders. Lost in his own reverie, he didn't hear the loud protest of the rusting door hinges, nor the steps on the creaky wooden floor beyond the shower stall. It wasn't until he heard the deep chuckle behind him and the amused, "Great minds apparently do think alike," that he realized he was no longer alone. Worse, he was in the showers with that mountain of a man with no soul.

And a mountain he was. Mulder didn't mean to look. He didn't want to look. But he did. His eyes went over every inch of the man and saw things that made him blush and grope for his towel, clutching it against him.

The intruder smiled at him, watching him struggle to drape his towel around his hips in a nonchalant fashion. Unable to contain himself any further, he reached for the towel in Mulder's hands, snapped it straight and wrapped it around him, knotting it neatly. "You need a better ratio of body to towel to carry off that look, kid. You need to get some meat on these skinny bones."

Mulder nodded jerkily, looking everywhere but the man's impressive groin. "Yessssssir. Thank you." He backed out of reach, one hand clutching at the knot as if he was certain it was about to give way, and scrambled to the edge of the showers.

"You seem to get into everything around here," the man observed, reaching for soap. "What's your name, kid?"

"Mmmmmarty." It was the best he could do, under the circumstances.

"Marty." He nodded. "I'm Walt. Walt Skinner."

"How do you do?" Mulder didn't wait to find out. He blurted out the obligatory response and bolted, snatching up his clothes from the bench outside and running for the bunkhouse. At the back door, he leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, wondering what had come over him. Maybe it was just the idea of being that close to that much naked man. He felt himself blushing all over again. Ridiculous. He wasn't interested in guys. That guy Skinner just scared him, that's all. He struggled into his pajamas and went inside. But lying in his bunk, every time he closed his eyes, he could see every inch of Walt Skinner. And he had this horrible fixation that he wanted to do it again.

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"Mulder?"

He opened his eyes. Scully had nudged him lightly. "Hmm?"

She was leaning against his desk, her eyes dark with concern. "You can't tell me you were still with the Boy Scouts?"

He wondered if he was blushing still. "Sort of. Not exactly." He rolled his neck, trying to release some tension. "Sorry. Just one of those days when one thing reminds you of another and then another..." he waved it off. "Must be the weather. What do you need?"

"Me? I need to go home, finish my taxes and take a long hot bubble bath. But I think you'd like to see this. I just pulled it off the AP wire." She handed him a sheet of paper.

It took Mulder a moment to focus his eyes on the printout. It looked interesting, a series of abductions in rural Wisconsin. There were no injuries reported by any of the abductees who all reappeared several miles from where they were last seen, with no idea they had been missing and no explanation for where they had been. "Sounds right up your anal probe," Scully observed.

"Nah." Mulder tossed it on the desk. Actually, he'd been following this case online for days, and it intrigued him, but the idea of having to file paperwork with his boss put the case out of bounds for him.

Scully saw the gleam in his eye. She saw the desire that was dampened by the greater desire to stay under Skinner's radar for a few days. She glanced at her watch. "I could run the paperwork up myself, on the way out," she offered.

Mulder weighed the possibility of having to encounter Skinner against the chance to get out of town even for a day or two, and reached into his drawer for a form. "What about your taxes?" he asked, even as he started filling in blanks.

Scully shrugged. "I'll take them along with me."

Mulder finished the form with a flourish, and drawing another file from his desk drawer, attached several copies of news items to the request. "There you go." He began shoving things into his desk in preparation to depart. "Call me if you get the okay." He slid his arms into his suit jacket. "Otherwise, have a good weekend and good luck on the taxes. Hope you have to pay," he added with a wicked grin, "I need a raise."

"Like you're going to get one," Scully scoffed, picking up her own coat. "Talk to you later."

"Right." Outside the office door, Mulder took a right toward the garage exit, and Scully took a left back to the elevator. Oh, I hope we get this case, he prayed fervently to whatever higher powers might be listening, I need to get out of here for a while. I really need to get out of here

Ordinarily, with a potential case in the offing, Mulder would stay in town, since he always kept a bag packed in his car for emergency assignments. But these unexpected memories were creating a tension within him he needed to relieve, and he could only do that at home. The memories weren't that unusual. They had floated back into his thoughts now and then over the years, but he'd never given himself time to really analyze them before. It seemed imperative to do so now, with Skinner's confrontation imminent.

Two -- Youth and Grace

Skinner sat back in his chair, palms flat on the desk, his eyes still fixed on the chair across from him and slightly to his left. The chair was empty now, yet full of something unexpected. He shut his eyes tight, and opened them. The empty chair continued to accuse him. He removed his glasses and pinched his nose hard, trying to stop himself from recognizing the inevitable truth. "Unbelievable," he said to the world at large. "Fifteen years."

His door, left slightly ajar by the departure of his two Special Agents, was filled again by the form of his most able assistant, Kimberly. "Did you call me, Sir?"

Skinner sat up straight and frowned down onto his desk, disappointed to find there was not one sign of activity for him to use as a response to her question. "No. Just muttering to myself," he confessed at length. He slid his glasses back into place, and Kim's features tightened into focus again. Funny he'd never noticed it, but without his glasses, it would be easy to mistake Kim for Agent Scully. "Did you get that directive upstairs for me?"

"Yes, Sir." Kim's voice was impassive. Asking her to do something was the same as doing it himself, in fact perhaps a bit more effective. Whatever he hit her way, she fielded expertly and got it back across home plate. And she never complained that after all these years, he still had to ask if she'd gotten it done.

"Thank you." He cocked his head a little, so that he could see the clock on the wall of the antechamber behind her. "I don't have anything else today, Kim, why don't you go on home? Beat the commute crowds."

Kim's face betrayed a moment of eagerness, but she schooled it away. "Oh, no, Sir. I've got some filing I can do, and you might-"

"Go home," he said decisively. "The filing will still be here on Monday, and I can go get my own coffee if I decide I need some." He pushed back from the desk and stood. "Go on, now. How many times have you missed the last train home finishing things up for me? I think this once you can have a couple of hours on the government's dime."

"Well...." it was obvious she wanted to accept. "If you think it's all right."

"I do." He took steps toward the door and made a shooing gesture, the kind Sharon used to make when he was annoying her and she was trying not to lose patience. "Go on now. Have a good weekend."

Kim made up her mind at that point but she continued to make small protests and offers, even as she packed her things and gathered her coat. Skinner stood in his doorway, watching like a tolerant uncle until she was waving goodbye. He stood there a long time after she'd left, as if he expected someone else to show up now that she was gone and he was free to think. Or talk.

But no one came. Feeling self conscious, he picked up a cup from the tidy coffee bar Kim kept for him and filled it with the last of the coffee in the pot, turned away, and at the last moment turned back to flick the switch off. "That's all I need...to burn down the building with a coffee pot left on all weekend."

He took the coffee back to his desk but did not sit down right away. An unexpected disquiet was gathering force inside him. He paced the generous dimensions of his office, dropped into the chair Mulder had lately vacated and stared at his own chair, wondering what people saw when they sat here, looking at him. He had a pretty good idea what Mulder saw.

"Fifteen years," he repeated, standing. "Unbelievable."

Well, perhaps it wasn't totally unbelievable. After all, he hadn't really worked with Mulder all that time. He'd seen him around the Bureau, he'd heard of his meteoric rise in VCU, and wondered about the rumors of his near breakdown. And it had happened five years before that.

Back then, being responsible for the X Files was a strictly titular job and a laughable one at that. The X-Files were just a box of bizarre cases no one had even thought about in forty years. Then one day, a memo came across his desk that someone was going to reopen the files and he had a new agent coming into his command. An earnest, driven young man with a reputation for ignoring rules to get things done. Fox Mulder had been with him for months before he ever spoke to him, and their first few meetings were very much like their last few. Mulder irritated him, and he was never sure why.

Until now.

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He was starting over. He had come home from Vietnam in pieces. For two years his life had been devoted to forgetting by any means possible. He'd tried alcohol, drugs and other destructive behaviors. He'd nearly gotten sent up on an assault charge. He had lost all his friends, and quite a lot of his family as well. Only Sharon stood by him. Sharon, the prettiest girl in school, still wanted him when he came back, a bitter shadow of himself.

It was Sharon that convinced him that law enforcement was the only way he'd ever feel any sense of justice, any sense of justification for himself. Her uncle managed to gather enough character references for him that he was admitted to the Academy, despite his run-ins with the law, and his less than stellar performance on the admission exams. But once he was enrolled, the courses and the discipline fired something in him, the last vestiges of the man he meant to become, and he began to slowly crawl out of the crater of his own destruction.

At the end of the ten month training, there was a tactical assignment. It was set up on an island up in Massachusetts. Skinner had never heard of the place and he hated it on sight. He didn't like water, anyway, and this island had little else to recommend it. It was little more than some draughty white bunkhouses, bad food and two decaying lighthouses and he was going to spend a month there.

The only thing that alleviated his boredom was terrorizing the two Boy Scouts that had been chosen to intern with the graduates. One of the Scouts was a poster boy for white supremacy; tall, blonde, square shouldered, with a dimple in his chin and a sparkle in his eye. He was obsequious and cloying, spending most of his time in view of the commandant, just trying to look good and never really doing anything. The other boy was something else all together. There was no nice way to say it; he was scrawny, from a distance he appeared no more than twelve or thirteen. And easily spooked. He stammered when he spoke, he darted out of the way as if he feared being trampled, he had a dozen nervous habits like scratching at his arms or biting his lip. But he was smart and willing to work. He made some of the Academy graduates look like Sesame Street dropouts. He wasn't there to show off and be noticed. He was there to learn.

Skinner teased and tormented him worse than anyone, but he was developing a grudging respect for a kid who was continually kicked into the mud and got back up, every time. While he took pride in being known as the meanest mother in the entire graduating class, he began to secretly look for ways to discourage others from torturing the funny looking kid who didn't understand the word quit. He took care that no one ever noticed when he moved potential pitfalls from the kid's path or helped draw attention to some piece of evidence or some task that needed to be done that would encourage appreciation in others. Slowly, while continuing to complain and criticize the boy, he was enabling other members of the group, including the commander, to see him as an asset, a useful tool.

He started out with his typical impatient disregard for the kid which grew into a sort of fraternal affection for him, well hidden of course. Skinner had two much younger sisters who had always looked upon him with adoration, even in the worst of his moodiness and anger. But he'd always wished for a brother. He'd had comrades in the Marines that he thought of with the love of a brother, but it was not the same on this side of the ocean. And anyway, most of those men were gone, now. So, it wasn't that self indulgent to occasionally spin plots of baseball games and lessons in car repair, or introducing the kid to one of his sisters. Of course, he never revealed these ambitions to anyone. In fact, he doubted he'd even remember them once he got off that Godforsaken rock, but it was a pleasant enough way to work through a dull afternoon.

That fraternal affection began to shift a few days into the assignment. Late in the afternoon, he had returned to the bunkhouse to change his shirt when he heard what sounded like furtive steps in the commander's room. He backtracked as quietly as he could, and looked through the slightly open door.

The kid was on his knees between a couple of pasteboard boxes, sorting books. It was obviously an assignment, because he was consulting a list that Skinner could see from the door bore his commander's distinct handwriting. He would have dismissed it then and gone on to his own room but something about the kid's expression hooked him, and he stood there watching, fascinated.

He was in profile, his longish brown hair hanging down into his eyes, and every few moments, he'd give his head an impatient toss to shake the hair out of his way. His eyes seemed fixed on the works in front of him, and his hands caressed the leather bindings the way one might caress a beautiful woman. Sweat made his brow, cheek and neck glisten. But it was his mouth that captured Skinner's attention. It was the most incredible mouth he'd ever seen. Why had he not noticed it before? Lips parted, teeth set lightly on the full lower portion, it seemed almost obscenely lush and desirable. Occasionally, his mouth would move, teeth setting that plump flesh free, and a dark pink tongue tip would flick out over it, leaving it gleaming for a moment. And then the process would begin again.

And that is when he ceased to be a scrawny kid in Skinner's eyes, and became an object of longing.

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"Sir?"

Skinner sat up sharply. Kim was in the doorway. He scowled, flustered. "Didn't I send you home?"

"Sir?"

He groped for his glasses again. "Oh, Agent Scully. Come in." He stood as she crossed the threshold, his eyes staying on the door, waiting for her partner's appearance.

She took her accustomed position in front of the chair to the right and waited.

"Where's your partner?" he asked, eyes still on the door, even as he indicated she should sit.

"Oh, I just wanted to run this request up to you, Sir," she said carefully evading his question. "We could leave this evening, if you approve it." She slid a packet of papers over the desk.

He looked at the door again. Mulder wasn't with her. He wasn't sure if he should be disappointed or relieved.

"Kim's not out there, Sir," Agent Scully said, misinterpreting his glance. "It appears she's gone for the day."

He nodded. "Yes, I sent her home a little while ago." He sent a quick glance over the request. He recognized Mulder's scratchy handwriting and the attempt at thorough documentation to justify the request. As usual, it wasn't enough. Still, it might be a good idea to get him out of town for a while. Sooner or later the two of them were going to have to address this. He would prefer not to do it until he'd had a chance to think it through, catalog his memories, sort out his feelings, determine the need for and level of his remorse.

Mulder knew he knew. He'd seen that tiny, almost triumphant gleam in those compelling eyes. How long has he enjoyed toying with me? Skinner wondered. Of course, he recognized me from the beginning. He must have, with that photographic memory of his. And except for a little less hair and a little more gut, I haven't changed, not nearly so much as he had.

"Yes, I think you should go," he said firmly, reaching for his pen. "Get right on this." He signed it. "Let me find someone to make you a copy." He started to stand.

Agent Scully put out her hand. "I'll do it, Sir. I don't mind." She sounded quite determined.

He pushed the packet over to her. "Two copies, please, Agent. And thank you."

Agent Scully smiled her Bureau smile. "Thank you, Sir."

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From that moment, Skinner was lost. He had known he was gay as long as he had understood sexual longings, but he had never allowed himself to act on that knowledge. He had been raised to believe it was wrong, and that prayer and strength of character and the love of a good woman could change those unnatural longings. It wasn't until he was in 'Nam, when it was, if not common practice, at least understandable to seek a little comfort from your best buddy that he even considered it remotely possible. After all, doing things like that there didn't make you gay, one could argue. It only made you human.

That night, with sleep evading him, Skinner escaped his bed and sought the relative coolness of the bunkhouse steps. He tried every ploy he could think of to keep his mind off the kid with the amazingly erotic mouth. He reminded himself that such longings were unnatural, that this wasn't the jungle of a godless country, and that this was just a kid, barely more than a child. He thought of his impending marriage. He thought about his parents. He thought about all the mistakes he'd made that he was trying to undo. The only thing he didn't think about was whether or not his thoughts might hurt this kid.

As he sat there, he became aware of stealthy movement at the far end of the quad between the outbuildings. His senses went into high alert. He watched the figure, moving in shadows, wishing he'd thought to bring his service weapon or at least a flashlight. A moment later, when the moon broke through the clouds, he was glad he'd had neither. It was none other than the subject of his thoughts, creeping toward the showers. Smiling to himself, he got up and went back upstairs. He wasn't really aware of making the decision, he just found himself with his robe and towel slung over his arm.

Skinner spent a long time in the locker room just outside the showers, watching him soap up and scrub. There was nothing sexually enticing about his body. In truth, he looked a bit like the currently popular depiction of an alien. His legs, feet and hands were disproportionately long compared to his torso, but his face distracted the casual observer from his awkwardly developing body. There was something serious, sad and sensitive about his expressions that defied his years. There was an appearance of wisdom that suggested he knew things the rest of the world desperately needed to know, and that the knowledge was a great burden for his slim shoulders.

When he finished his ablutions, he leaned against the wall and let the hot water run over that ungainly body, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, those incredible lips parted slightly. Skinner watched as long as he could stand it before stripping off and stepping into the shower. He had no idea just what his intentions were, except to initiate some kind of contact with the boy. He was still insisting to himself he wouldn't touch the kid, but nevertheless, there he was, naked, in the showers with a naked boy. "Great minds really do think alike," he said, to announce himself.

The sound of his voice jerked the kid out of his dreams. His eyes widened with panic as he groped for his towel, obviously trying not to look at Skinner's body. But Skinner was gratified that, despite his best efforts, he was looking. Skinner reached over and arranged his towel around his narrow hips. "You need a little meat on those bones, kid," he told him, trying to sound friendly.

Up close, those eyes were almost as remarkable as that mouth; oddly cast, the same grey green as the Atlantic in winter, they were by no wise cold. They were darkening pools of fomenting feeling. There was terror, and bewilderment, and something else; something he could almost hear, as if the boy was saying, 'I understand. I really do.' Skinner released the towel and stepped back. "You seem to be getting into everything around here," he said, trying to sound casual as he reached for the soap. "What's your name?"

"Mmmmarty." Shit, even his voice was beautiful, husky and soft and the stammer only added to the allure. Skinner smiled. "My name's Walt. Walt Skinner."

Marty answered with a sharp nod, and practically vanished in a puff of smoke. Skinner stood under the hot water and continued to smile. There was a lot of potential in that boy. Skinner decided that he was going to be there to realize at least a part of it.

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There was a sound at the door. He ran a hand over his face, as if wiping away the last residue of water from that twenty year old shower. "Come," he called, reaching for a file to flip open and give the appearance of activity.

Agent Scully came in. She had two packets of paperwork, neatly clipped together, still smelling of copier toner and heat. "Here you are, Sir. One original, and one copy for you." She placed them on the corner of his desk.

Skinner risked one good long look in her direction. Did she know? he wondered. Those two were so close, it didn't seem possible Mulder had not told her about his previous relationship with their supervisor? And if he had, how did he color it? Did he romanticize it? Unlikely. Did he paint Skinner with a black brush of callousness? Probably. Possibly deservedly. Did he lay accusation, blame or anger at Skinner's feet? If he did, they had both kept it remarkably well concealed. Even now he couldn't read the young woman's face. What did she know? What did she think? Could she be so respectful if she knew he'd seduced her partner when he was younger? He didn't think it was possible, even from such a prototypical agent as Dana Scully. "Thank you, Agent. Will you go out tonight?"

She nodded. "Mul-Agent Mulder made tentative travel arrangements in case we got your approval this afternoon." She shifted the packet in her hands to consult her utilitarian wristwatch. "We'll be leaving in just a few hours."

"Very well." He flicked his hand dismissively. "Safe flight, Agent. And please try not to get the Bureau any further in debt to the local law enforcement agencies."

A little bit of color came to her cheeks, but her voice never lost one iota of its respectful reserve. "Yes, Sir." She backed toward the door before adding, "Have a good weekend, Sir."

Three -- Approaching Lightspeed

Mulder sat in his car, ungloved hands cupped around his mouth, shivering. Upstairs was a warm flat, with hot coffee and a phone for ordering pizza. Upstairs was a lumpy sofa, grainy porn, and an internet connection. Upstairs offered comforts and distractions. He wanted both. He needed to avoid both. His psyche had received a blow, and like anyone who has been hit on the head, he needed to keep his thoughts and memories awake for a few hours to rule out a concussion, or any deeper, more dangerous damage.

The memories were rolling at him like a tsunami, rising from the obscurity of the seeming calm of his historical sea. There was a great, black wall of words, images, sensations, longings roaring around him, crashing down on him, sucking him under again, years after he had fought his way up to air, struggled not to drown in the disappointment, shame and sorrow of those days.

Funny, he hadn't thought of those days for years. He dealt with the man almost every day and managed to only know and not remember, not wonder, not even entertain the odd fantasy. It was an interesting distinction, one he wanted to ponder, but he couldn't. No, those luxuries were gone for a while, if not for good. He knew now. Mulder saw it in his eyes; disbelief, horror, disgust. It was the disgust that hurt. Deeply. Dangerous damage.

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After that night in the shower, after that night spent awake in heart pounding terror (not, as one might expect, fearing the man's remarks and gossip or worse, but the terror of realizing he wanted to stay there, stay and listen to him, look at him, study what a man was like), Mulder had tried to avoid the big man with the unpredictable manner. But it had been impossible. Never certain if it was by Skinner's design or his own, their paths crossed several times a day. It seemed that every time he turned around, there was the man with wide shoulders and deep eyes. Mulder, who had never been a poster boy for inner tranquility, was those days wound more tightly that a child's first watch and more sensitive than a bomb's tripwire.

Even that one corner of solitude he'd once carved for himself in his late night trips out to the showers had been invaded by Skinner's presence. Every night, Skinner seemed to 'happen' upon him at some point in his routine; going to the showers, during his hasty ablutions, his furtive trip back to the barracks. Usually it was on the way back. Skinner appeared to enjoy stepping out for a smoke about the time Mulder was darting back toward the doors.

Of course, it could be argued that Mulder might easily avoid Skinner by changing his habits but somewhere in a place Mulder hadn't yet acknowledged inside himself was the fact that he would be disappointed not to see him each night. That nod, smile, word or two was becoming the best part of his day.

Once such night, shivering because an unexpected early fall front had come across the island, as Mulder stumbled back toward the clapboard building, he heard the spit-hiss of a match being struck in the damp air and he jerked to his left in time to see Skinner's face lit in the flame. He was standing back further into the mangroves than usual and Mulder wouldn't have known he was there were it not for that match. Just as suddenly, he was gone.

Impulsively, Mulder picked his way across the gravel path, hobbling as the rocks jabbed at his bare feet. "Who are you hiding from?" he asked, not even considering it was none of his business. And then it occurred to him with crushing clarity that perhaps the someone was himself. Perhaps those 'accidents' were just that, and Mulder had been unwittingly invading his solitude. "Me?" he squeaked.

"Nah." The big man laughed and stepped back a little further, drawing Mulder deeper into the shadows without a word or gesture of invitation. "Just felt like a little privacy."

Mulder couldn't help think he'd chosen the perfect place...while the route from the showers to the dorms was visible from there, his position was not visible unless he revealed himself, as he had just done. "Well, I'm sssssorry I intruded." He started backing up.

"You didn't." Skinner dropped a hand on his shoulder and felt him shiver. "Didn't you bring a jacket? It's close to freezing out here." He stuck the cigar between his teeth and let his jacket fall down his arms. In another moment, it was swept around and over Mulder's thin shoulders, still warm from Skinner's back. "Better?"

Mulder thought his knees might give out, and he nodded so hard his teeth chattered. "Th-thank you."

"It's nothing." He pulled the cigar free and considered the tip of it. "Feel like a smoke?"

"I..I d-don't..." Mulder stammered to a stop, knowing he sounded like a little kid. "Sure."

Skinner reached forward, dipping his fingers into the inside pocket of his coat, his hand brushing over Mulder's chest. "Here you go." He pulled out a fat, dark hand rolled cigar that smelled like weeds and beer and spice to Mulder's uneducated nose. Skinner hitched a scary knife from his pocket and clipped one end and pushed the spear of tobacco at Mulder's trembling mouth.

Mulder took it between his lips tentatively. It tasted bitter and he nearly ruined everything by spitting it out, but he held still, breath held, eyes fixed, as Skinner dragged another match across the back of the matchbook.

"Now, this isn't like a cigarette," he explained as he brushed the tip of the cigar with the flame. "You don't want to draw too deep. Just pull a little smoke into your mouth." He nodded encouragingly. "That's it."

Mulder's mouth burned as the hot, foul smoke filled his mouth, and his eyes began to tear up. But he'd never admit that to Skinner. "It's g-good," he gagged around the intrusion.

"Yeah, this is a good one," Skinner admitted with pride. "I get them up in Canada, where Cubans are still legal." He put a finger to his lips. "We don't need to mention that around here, do we?" He put a hand on the back of Mulder's neck. "Everyone's entitled to a little vice, don't you think?"

Mulder wanted to get rid of the cigar, he was afraid he was going to be sick, but he couldn't do either. After all, Skinner was treating him like a man, not a kid. "Yeah," he said, roughly, willing himself not to cough. "We are."

"That's good." Skinner rubbed his neck lazily.

They stood there for a while, smoking in silence. Skinner smoked, that is. Mulder just tried not to vomit. There was something unexpectedly comforting about that hand on his neck. It conveyed both paternal concern and affable camaraderie. He hungered for both, and therefore remained still, struggling not to embarrass himself with the cigar, unwilling to break the spell.

It was Skinner who adjusted the mood. It happened abruptly, when he cursed under his breath and flicked his cigar into the damp brush. As one hand fell away from Mulder's neck, the other came up to catch his chin and tip his face in Skinner's direction. And then Skinner was kissing him, his lips as bitter as tobacco leaves, his breath smoky and stinging Mulder's lungs as if he'd dragged the cigar's smoke deep into his body. He wasn't sure if he should struggle or kiss back. But he didn't want to struggle, and he didn't know how to kiss back, so he stood there, and let Skinner's fingers press ten perfect bruises into his shoulder and chin, and let his tongue plumb the depths of his mouth.

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When his mobile rang, it sent a guilty jolt through his entire body so intense he nearly wasted the erection he was mindlessly caressing with fingertips full of heated memory. Scrambling for the phone, he jerked a window down to let icy air into the almost steamy atmosphere of the car. "Mulder," he croaked.

"We got the go."

"Oh...uh, Scully...good." He leaned out the window to cool his burning face. "Good. I'll...shall I pick you up?"

"No." She was moving around, multi-tasking, picking things up, examining them, putting them down. Typical Scully sounds. "I'll meet you at the airport. See you there." He could hear her zip her bag shut. "Mulder?"

"Yes?" He let his fingers run over his crotch one last time, making sure his fly remained closed.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I am," he told himself more than Scully. "Why would you even ask?"

"You sounded kind of sick, that's all," she said wryly. "I thought maybe that greasy sandwich at lunch had gotten to you." He heard her door open. "I'm on my way."

"No, I'm fine." He reached for his keys and twisted them in the ignition. "So am I. See you there."

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The illicit meetings continued for the rest of the week and into the next, nights of smoking and sexual contact in the mangroves. He knew it was wrong. He knew Skinner knew it was wrong. He should have tried to stop it. He should have stopped going there. He should have settled for cold showers, but he couldn't. He knew Skinner wanted him, and he wanted to be wanted. Being wanted was enough to keep him warm even lying naked under a tree on a misty night in autumnal New England. Being wanted was enough to not struggle when Skinner's weight made it impossible to breathe. Being wanted was enough to endure the burn of Skinner's beard against the most sensitive parts of his flesh. Being wanted was worth everything.

It went from kisses to intimate touches, to oral copulation within twenty four hours. He would have probably resisted more if Skinner hadn't been so willing, even eager to reciprocate. Every thing Skinner did inflamed him, made him feel magic, made him feel as if stars were shooting out his ears and ass.

And after.

Oh, and after.

That was the best part. Afterward, Skinner would wrap them both up in a sleeping bag and talk. Nothing particular, nothing profound, just long, lazy, friendly conversation. Everything he did in those hours of darkness was kind and possessive and protective. Just the opposite of his daytime demeanor. Marty Mulder wanted those hours to last forever. But at the first greying of the sky was the signal for them to get up, clean up and walk away without looking back.

It was never discussed, Skinner never suggested that he not mention their meetings to bunkmates, friends or superiors, he never made promises, he never even said some silly, trite thing like 'see you tomorrow night.' It was just understood that this was between them, something not to be shared with anyone else.

During the days, Mulder tried to focus on the tasks he was given, but mostly he was listening to conversation around him, hoping to hear his lover's name. Lover, for he was just romantic enough then to think of the imposing, cigar chomping man as his lover. He even smiled to himself whenever he contemplated a future with him...they could go into some sort of business and no one would think anything about them spending so much time together. They could spend their nights tangled up in the middle of an actual bed, talking about sports and history and forensic science.

He would hear Skinner's name here and there in the course of the day; comments about his skill, his horrific experiences in Viet Nam (which were mostly rumor and speculation-Mulder might be the only person on the island who knew the truth); his beautiful and very influential girlfriend. He tried not to be concerned with the rumors, or the girlfriend. Surely she would be something in the past now that they had met. He'd made it very clear where his interests lie. He might not have expressed romantic intent, but Mulder didn't need declarations of love. He didn't believe in them. To him, fact was what mattered, and facts depended upon actions. Neither were disputable. If Skinner acted as if he wanted him, then it was a fact that he did, and that made the beautiful and influential girlfriend moot.

By the end of the weekend, Mulder was close to panting. He seemed to be in a constant state of arousal which required Herculean efforts to conceal from the others, and even more to conceal from Skinner himself. He had an innate understanding that their sexual wrestling was reaching that point of no return. Twice Skinner had tried to initiate more than oral satisfaction, and twice Mulder and squirmed out from under, figuratively and literally. It wasn't that he wasn't willing, he just wasn't...well, he didn't know what he wasn't, but he knew he wasn't something. Not yet. And still, he wanted more. Maybe he knew Skinner wanted more and he wanted to give him what he wanted. Skinner hadn't rebuked him, questioned him or rejected him over his refusals so far, but he knew that the big man's patience was wearing thin. Sooner or later he was going to have to give in. He just wished he had a better idea of what he was giving in to.

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Scully was waiting for him at the pre-boarding gate, checking her watch and looking impatient. When she caught side of his awkward lope through the Friday night commuters, she gave him an exasperated "There you are," and turned to signal to a staff member, who let a gate swing open. "Come on...we nearly missed it. They only promised to hold the flight another fifteen minutes. And there isn't another one until tomorrow night." With the hand over which her trench coat was thrown she was shoving him through the gate. With the hand over which her carryon was slung, she was shoving tickets into the hands of the waiting agent. "Federal agents," she announced roughly. "Show them your badge, Mulder."

Mulder had a million questions for her, and not one of them involved the case. Actually biting his tongue, he let her push him onto the plane and into their seats. No sooner had he gotten his safety belt into place, but she had opened her carryon and was handing him files and paperwork. "What's all this?"

"I requested the local office's files, and they faxed them over while I was waiting for the travel arrangements to be processed," she answered matter of factly, digging into a pocket and producing neon colored markers. "Here." She handed him a bright yellow one. "I thought we could review it on the flight."

"Of course." He dipped into his breast pocket for his glasses and centered them on the bridge of his nose. "Did you...ah...see Skinner before you left?" he asked with a great show of casual disinterest, hoping the good doctor next to him couldn't hear his heart trying to pump blood out of his ears.

Scully's tone was still tattered with impatience. "Of course." Her nose was already into a file and the plane hadn't even begun to move. "I got the 302s signed, didn't I?"

"Yes," he mumbled and added a belated, "thank you." He flipped through one of the files in his lap. "He wouldn't have done it for me." Nothing on the pages was registering with him.

"I don't know why not." She didn't even look up. "He didn't seem to have any problem with the case in particular or us working it. He was quite cordial." She slid the marker across a line firmly, making it squeak. "In point of fact, he seemed in a very good mood. He'd even let Kim go home early."

"Really?" Mulder looked down at the top of her bowed head thoughtfully. What could have put him in such a generous frame of mind? Could it be he had found the impetus to finally rid himself of an unwanted Special Agent? On what grounds? He was Assistant Director Skinner, now...he wouldn't have trouble manufacturing sufficient grounds. Then again, he had always been good at getting rid of annoying Mulder shaped problems. "Unusual for him. He's normally so sour."

She chuckled and turned a page. "Only with you, Mulder. Only with you."

Four -- Leave No Deed Undone

Skinner looked at his watch. They should be on their way now. They were finally out of his airspace. He could emotionally exhale at last. Carefully, methodically, he closed up the case files he had used in an attempt to distract himself, put them away in a drawer. He put on his jacket. He locked up his briefcase. He turned off the lights. He closed the door.

He pulled on his gloves. He slid a scarf around his neck. He dropped his topcoat over his arm. He walked down the corridor, nodding to the others who had nothing else to do, either, and, like him, worked every Friday night. He said goodnight to the cleaning crew. He did everything exactly the same as he did every night. He would not allow anything to change just because he'd changed. No, his life must stay the same. That was imperative.

It wasn't until he was in his car, topcoat in the backseat, briefcase in the passenger seat, safety belt strapped snug across his chest, key in the ignition that he deviated. He drew one deep breath, and squeezed his eyes shut. His head was pounding. He forced the breath out the tight O of stiff lips. In his ears, something whispered two words with the softness of a caress, and the power of a hammer, 'What if?'

What if? What if he had stayed? What if he had chosen that kid as his future, instead of Sharon? What if they had had all these years together? What if, indeed.

Clearly he wouldn't be the man he was. He wouldn't be where he was in the Bureau. He wouldn't have been driven to escape the mistakes he'd made, the unwise choices, doing the perceived right thing, which had turned out to be so wrong for him. His life might still be a mess, but a different mess, not the sterile shambles his wife left behind, the tidy destruction of a man determined to make even his wrongs appear right. And, maybe, just maybe, his life might be hot and desperate and full of noise and passion, instead of the cool silence found only in churches and morgues and his bedroom.

But would that have been right for Mulder? Was he responsible for the man Mulder had become? From outward appearances, that would be a compliment. People who didn't know him well admired him, admired his uncanny sense of phenomena, his brilliant leaps over logic. But those who knew him intimately, or as intimately as he allowed, came very near to pitying him. Had his own selfish actions made Mulder a pitiable figure? He'd never even considered what damage he could have done to an impressionable young man.

Skinner left the parking structure in a mental fog. His mind was lost in a time before he had drawn his own life into sharp focus. Now he wondered if it hadn't been out of focus until that afternoon. How was it possible to have worked so closely with this man all these years and not realized that he was man that boy had become. And for all the details of law and morality, he had been a boy. Perhaps more a boy in spirit than in the eyes of the law, but he had been immature both physically and emotionally and Skinner had been the one who had forced him to grow up.

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He wanted him. The kid had something about him, something wild within him, like a caged animal, and he wanted to be the one to swing the cage door open wide. He wanted to be the one to feel excitement birthed within that skinny, awkward body. He wanted to see fireworks explode in those indefinable eyes.

It wasn't an easy conquest, however. The men he'd bedded during his two tours had been willing, needy, perhaps even eager. For them it wasn't about being gay, it was about being human and horny and even being afraid of death. But this kid...he played it coy. He kissed like a starving man, he melted into the slightest embrace, he gave and took oral sex like a child with candy. But there was a line he wasn't letting Skinner cross, and the more barriers he put up, the more determined Skinner was to getting through them all.

The last Saturday on the island, there was a disciplinary action for some cutting up the night before. Because Skinner was with Marty, the two of them appeared to be innocent of the activities, and gave one another alibis (which, oddly enough, raised not even a curious brow much less red flags of warning) and were therefore assigned to mind camp while the rest were taken on a march with full pack.

It was just the opportunity Skinner had been waiting for. He coaxed the kid up to the top floor of the barracks, to the infirmary, the one place they could lock doors and be assured of being totally alone.

Marty didn't seem to full understand Skinner's intent until Skinner propped a piece of cardboard over the slotted windows of the door, and pushed the bolt into place. "Get your clothes off," he instructed.

Marty was reluctant. He kept looking at the door with the hastily covered window, and the feeble slide bolt, missing two screws. Hands trapped under his skinny arms, he kept mumbling about them getting caught.

"What are you afraid of?" Skinner demanded, seated on the cot, unlacing boots. "Afraid someone will think you're gay? I thought we discussed this. This isn't about being gay. This is about...two men who need a little release and there are no available women. Right?"

There was a flash of something in Marty's eyes...something that was wiser than either of them expected. It was as if, somewhere in an undeveloped understanding, he knew that they weren't fooling one another...or themselves.

It made Skinner blush. But Marty didn't see it. He was still looking at the cardboard and the lock. "I just don't want to get in trouble," he whispered.

"How could we get in trouble?" Skinner stripped his shirt off and smiled to himself when Marty turned in time to see the way the muscles tripped across his chest. It was his turn to blush and the color added an uncomfortable youth to his pinched features. "Unless...hey, how old are you?"

"S-seventeen." Marty's fingers stumbled around the buttons of his own shirt. "Why?" There was hope and horror in his face. "That's old enough, isn't it?"

"Yes." Skinner stopped thinking at that point, stood and unbuckled his belt. "Now get those clothes off before I take them off you."

He still hesitated. Skinner had seen him naked before, but only flashes of skin in moonlight. He wanted to see Marty's bare body in daylight, but he hugged himself into his clothes, making him seem smaller and more awkward than ever. It was clear Skinner's size intimidated him and he kept turning his face, but Skinner saw the way he tried to sneak peeks under his lashes. Finally, impatiently, he got the kid's clothes off and tossed away, and pushed him down on a cot.

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Behind him a car honked. Skinner looked up at the green light, wondering how long he had been sitting there. He rolled out into the intersection just as the light changed. The car behind him swerved around him and sped ahead, the driver honking and gesticulating rudely as he passed.

Skinner smiled, forgiving the rudeness, understanding the impatience. He had just reflected on a time, an event where he felt exactly the same way. He could still feel it; that urgency, that need. He had never felt it before or since Mulder. Those few days with him had colored his desires for men and women since. Even now, underneath the shame and fear of this event rearing its ugly, dangerous head, Skinner was stirred deeply, to have rediscovered his first, greatest sexual passion.

Of course, nothing could come of it now. He wasn't a stupid man, and if he had ever been, the years had taught him great lessons against the dangers of making stupid decisions, taking foolish steps. He would count himself lucky if Mulder decided to keep the details of their previous acquaintance to himself, but certainly there could be no revisiting that acquaintance.

Of course, that was the biggest question. Would Mulder keep those details to himself? He would tell his partner, of course, but would he feel a need to report the events to someone else? Laws now allowed for 'recovered memories' to extend the statute of limitations, but as he had technically not broken any laws, that was not his ultimate concern. There was no disputing he'd acted inappropriately, and a word from Mulder could damage his career and his reputation.

Skinner felt bile rising. Was that it? His concern was greater for his own reputation than the well being of one of his direct reports, the welfare of the man he'd taken advantage of so many years ago? He'd always thought himself a better man than that. But a better man wouldn't have done what he had done.

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Already erect, the head of his cock furiously red and wet, he rubbed roughly against Marty's body, his hands trying to find the key on his body to unlock his own desires. "I'm going to fuck you," he rasped against his ear. "You know that, don't you?"

Marty twisted under him. "Wh-wha? Oh, no, I don't-oh!"

Skinner's hand had found a place on his neck that made his entire body quiver like jelly. "Yes." He rubbed harder, finding his way toward that previously well defended entrance. "Okay?"

Marty's eyes were shut tight. "Okay." His mouth said the word, but his voice didn't concur.

Skinner lifted up and arranged his limp body into a position that should have been comfortable for both of them, and settled into place, sucking, rubbing, caressing. Marty remained still, barely breathing, waiting, eyes shut tight.

"Come on," he commanded. "Work with me."

"Okay." Again, his lips moved but no sound came.

Impatiently, Skinner turned him, kissing him roughly, rubbing, prodding, poking.

Marty trembled under him but didn't move. "What do you want me to do?" he whispered.

Skinner was still devouring his mouth. "You know what to do," he encouraged. When Marty still didn't respond, he pulled back. "Don't you?"

Those wild sea eyes darted away from him, and he jerked his head in the tiniest possible denial.

"Shit." Skinner pushed Marty away from him as if he'd burst into flames. "You've never done this before?"

"I-" Marty swallowed and flicked his hair back from his eyes. "I don't understand. I can do it right if you just tell me what to do." His eyes were darkening with pain. "Just tell me what to do."

Skinner had to look away. "Get out of here. Now. Go." Skinner reached under the bed for the kid's clothes. "Get out."

Marty pulled back against the wall, drawing his knees up against his chest, as if to protect himself, his brow rolled up in bewilderment and disappointment. "I don't understand," he protested in a flat voice. "I thought you w-wanted me."

"Oh for the love of-" Skinner rolled his eyes Heavenward and shoved the khaki shorts toward the bed. "You're too young for this. It's against the law. I could go to jail. Now get dressed."

Marty rolled over and pulled his shorts over his lap. "I'm seventeen!" he argued. "You said that was old-"

"You're a virgin. That changes everything." Skinner dragged his fingers through his hair. Shit. He could see his career twirling around the porcelain pool. "Will you please get your clothes on before someone comes along?"

Marty lay there, covered and yet still stubbornly naked. "Why should it change anything? If I'm old enough, I'm old-"

"This is Massachusetts, kid." He ran his hands under the cot. "The age of consent might be seventeen, but in case you weren't paying attention, there's a clever little bit of law known as Act 272, specifically section four. You can't entice someone under eighteen to have intercourse if he's still a virgin." He found Marty's tee shirt and tossed it toward him. "Now, will you please go?"

Marty was still half sitting half laying where Skinner had abandoned him, frowning. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe not, but it is still the law."

"So, you don't want me," Marty concluded, and took the tee shirt, shaking it out and pulling it over his head.

"On the contrary, I do want you," Skinner said, exasperated. "What I don't want is to be arrested. So, get out of here. Come back when you're eighteen." Something about Marty's face nearly broke his heart. Something about that lanky, alien body nearly broke his resolve. "When will that be, by the way?"

Marty was awkwardly trying to climb into his shorts without getting off the bed. "October," he said distractedly. "October thirteen."

"Fine." Skinner unlocked the door. "Give me a call on the fourteenth. We can continue this conversation then." He started to pull the door open.

"Wait." He sat up, chewing nervously on his lower lip. "What if...what if I said I wasn't?"

Skinner's hand fell away from the door. "What?"

He licked at the spot he'd been chewing, that nervous pink tongue tip dragging along that obscene flesh. It was the very gesture which had undone Skinner at the start. "What if I told you I wasn't...you know...a virgin?"

"But you are."

"What if I said I wasn't," he persisted, his face almost pink with embarrassment. "Then it isn't against the law."

His erection, which had sagged into insignificance with Marty's revelation, was starting to stir again. "But you'd be lying." Skinner had to get that kid out of the room immediately.

"Maybe I was lying before," Marty suggested, flicking a hand at the bed as he slid to the floor.

"But you weren't." It was too damned tempting.

"You don't know that." His chin jerked up, the first sign of defiance Skinner had ever seen in the kid. "How could you know? Could you prove it?"

"It doesn't matter if I could prove it...it doesn't matter if anyone could. If it ever ended up in court, I'd have to testify that you told me at one point you were. Even if you recanted, it could be suggested you recanted under duress." He shook a fist in the kid's direction, not in anger but in emphasis. "No thank you." He ignored the way Marty flinched at the motion. "I'm working hard to have a career in law enforcement, I'm not going to derail it for a little fresh tail." He reached out and caught the collar of the kid's shirt. "Get," he pushed the kid across the threshold, "out."

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He had been haunted for years by that broken face, that crushed expression into which he'd slammed that door. How many times had he castigated himself for being so cruel? When he'd heard some of the kid's story, he realised that Marty just wanted to matter to someone, he just wanted a little kindness, a little tolerance, and he was willing, even desperate, to do whatever it took to have that.

"All these years," he muttered, as he rolled into his parking space. "That broken kid was Mulder, and all these years I've been adding to the damage." He killed the engine, pulled the brake, but couldn't make himself step out of the car. Now that he knew, how could he make amends? Now that Mulder knew that he knew, how would it affect their relationship?

As relieved as he had been to get those two out of town while he reflected on the situation, he knew he had to resolve matters between he and Mulder before they could work together again. It was taking over his thinking, it was overwhelming his awareness. There was no choice. He was going to Wisconsin.

Five -- I Won't Believe

The hotel room was down to Mulder's usual standards. The uniform décor bordered on tacky; eighties style pastels making it look like a retirement home for Miami Vice cops, while the wind tossed snow against the single paned glass of the windows behind the threadbare drapes. It was clean, in that sort of loose definition of two star motels...the bed was made and the soap, while dusty, was still in its wrapper. How, Mulder wondered, flipping off the light in the bathroom after dumping his dopp kit on the counter, could a bar of soap collect dust?

The peeling wallpaper, water stained carpet, and the howling wind beyond the window all suited his melancholy tainted anxiety, however. He couldn't have taken that awkward and ugly step backward in the comfortable safety of his own space. The psychologist in him knew he had to step back and look at the entire picture. The man in him wanted to avert his gaze until the entire picture was curling and shrinking and turning to ash on an open blaze.

There was a tap on the connecting door and Mulder flicked the lock as he passed on his way to the bed. Only as an afterthought did he hope that it was Scully in the adjoining room.

It was. Having lost the buttoned up suit, and serious shoes in favor of sweats and a tee, she stood, barefoot, tousled and adorable, holding one of those tiny coffee carafes that elicit giggles by the boast that they held four cups of coffee. Sure. In Munchkinland. "Want some?" she asked, waggling the empty pot at him with one hand and the foil packet of hotel brand coffee flavored coarse ground brownness with the other. "I thought I'd use up my ration tonight and finishing reviewing the files."

Mulder tugged his watch over his hand and put it down on the bedside table. He couldn't have company for what he had to do. He didn't need caffeine to stay awake. And the bile in his throat would only make the coffee taste worse than usual. "No thanks...I'm going to try and get some sleep before we go out to the site tomorrow." He stretched, arms over his head, feeling his jacket protest. The thing was perfectly tailored, but not for playing volleyball, or pretending to relax. "You should as well." It made his chest ache to look at her like that, so...human, so normal, so untouched by the monsters and demons in the world. Perhaps it was her faith that protected her, he wasn't sure, but he loved her at that moment for that purity of soul. He had to protect her better. From the known, the unknown, and even from himself.

"You?" She did a classic Scully double take. "You're going to sleep before we start a new case? Who are you and what have you done with my partner, the insomniac?"

"Yeah, it's the new me." He kicked one shoe off and then the other. "Doing all the right things...like sleeping at night."

"Hmm," was her reply.

"No, really." He stretched out on the bed, and stared up at the stained acoustical ceiling. "Who knows? I might actually be more effective with a good night's sleep."

She looked at him, stretched out on that hideous coverlet, still fully dressed, right down to his tie, and cocked her head to one side. "He really got to you, didn't he?"

Mulder feigned a weary yawn. "Whom?"

"You know whom." Scully's eyes twinkled wickedly. "The leader of the pack. Boyscouts?" She sighed. "Our boss."

"Oh. A ha ha ha." The false laugh came out nearly falsetto when his heart lurched up at the mention of Walt Skinner. "You're so clever. Seriously. Get some sleep."

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He didn't go down to the showers that night. He didn't want to see Walt. He didn't want to see anyone. He was scared. Hurt. Confused. Mostly scared.

He had an intellectual understanding, even acceptance of Walt's repudiation. After all, it was a matter of law, and Walt was a cop. But shouldn't there be exceptions? Especially when they both consented? Especially when they both lo...no, he wouldn't go that far. But an intellectual understanding is cold comfort for a battered ego or a broken heart.

He sat huddled up in his bunk, long arms wrapped around skinny knees, aware of the resentful looks and whispers around him. It was just like school. It wasn't his fault the others broke curfew to get drunk and set one of the outbuildings on fire. It wasn't his fault they got sent on an enforced full pack around the island more than once. But he knew he was blamed for being allowed to stay behind. He knew he was being singled out as a freak.

He knew something else. He knew someone knew.

As he had left the infirmary, brushing tears of humiliation from his face with his shirt, his shorts hanging loose and open on his hips, someone had seen him. He knew it. He'd heard the step on the loose floorboard, he'd heard the sharp intake of breath. He didn't know who, but he knew someone had seen him. That someone must have seen Walt leave moments behind him, looking hot and angry.

For a while, the puzzle distracted him, trying to figure out who would have the cunning to get out of the hike and back to the barracks, or who would have ingratiated themselves enough to the commandant to be excused. But after a while, the puzzle just made him more afraid. Someone cunning or with the commandant's ear was even more dangerous to them.

He wanted to warn Walt, but he didn't want to see him. He couldn't face him. He didn't want to see how much he'd let Walt down. He didn't want to see the reflection of his failure in the man's big, friendly face. Maybe he could write him a note. Maybe he could sneak over to the other barrack while Walt was outside having a smoke, and leave it in his bag or catch him at the showers, and hide it among his effects.

Pretending to need a trip to the head, he rummaged around for a notebook and pencil and slipped them inside a dog eared copy of one of his magazines. Of course he had to endure catcalls about that decision. Only Marty would take Scientific American for jacking off. He didn't care, so long as they assumed that was all he was doing.

Behind the locked door he lifted the window carefully and peered out. No sign of Walt, no scent of cigar hanging heavy in the misty air. He sat, perched on the commode, and tried to compose a simple note that wouldn't be dismissed as melodramatic yet would convey his very great concerns. Finally, he settled on facts. Someone saw us leave the infirmary.

Tearing the page from his notebook as quietly as he could manage, he tucked it into the waistband of his shorts, and pushed the window open a little more, casting a calculating look downward. The draughty bathroom was on the first floor, but the barracks sat up on stilts to avoid the restless waters of New England winter storms, so the drop was at least ten feet. Hiding the magazine, notebook and pen behind the ice cold radiator, he hoisted himself up and slid over the sill, and after counting to six for courage, let himself drop to the grassy sand below.

It was a bright night, and the moon was casting long shadows across the beach, the dock and the common area between the barracks and the mangroves, which were broken periodically by the light swirling around from the mirrors and lamps in the lighthouse. Sending a glance up and down the open beach, he brushed hair from his eyes and darted toward the showers. The dried sea grass pricked his bare feet and made him hobble and hop toward clear patches in the sand. Somehow, he had to get to the showers and back to the barracks before anyone, especially Walt Skinner, saw him.

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It was morning. Mulder only noted this fact because, as he paced restlessly by the window, the heavy, light blocking drape shifted and sent a bar of light across the floor at his feet.

He crossed the floor again and picked up his watch from the bedside table. It said the same thing the clock radio and the light on the floor told him. Morning had arrived. He had paced all night.

He felt rumpled, weak, exhausted, dirty. Impulsively he began to tear at his clothes. He had to clean his body, he had to clear his mind. He didn't want these memories anymore. Damn Walter Skinner for remembering and forcing him to remember as well.

Scully knocked on the door just as he dropped his trousers and kicked them savagely out of his path. "Hey, Mulder, I heard you muttering all night long. What happened to..." she stopped, physically and verbally, and stared.

Mulder didn't care what she saw. He dragged a hand through his hair, resisting an urge to pull. "Yeah?"

She seemed a bit wary, and it could be heard in the uncertainty of her voice. "Mulder, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he snarled. "Fine." He yanked his shirt over his head, not caring that buttons popped and scattered. Pulling the shirt free, he saw she was still standing there, only her head visible at the door. "What do you want?"

She opened her mouth, but when she found she had nothing to say, her mouth snapped shut again. "Sorry." She backed up, disappearing, pulled the door almost completely closed, and pushed it open a fraction at the last moment. "Mulder, you can't let him get to you. He was unreasonably angry and he took that anger out on you." Her brow was pulled down in a scolding frown. "You know better that to let that bother you."

"And you know better than to stick your nose into to someone's personal business," he retorted. "Especially when you have no idea what you're talking about."

The frown was replaced so quickly by a look of astonished pain that one might fancifully believe it was a completely different face. She ducked her head and mumbled something he couldn't hear, and shut the door quickly.

He should have been devastated by her expression. Yesterday he would have. It would have broken his heart to see the hurt there. But that was yesterday and this day the only hurt he knew was his own, and his heart had already been shattered beyond repair. He let her shut the door without a word of remorse. He let her back out, stifling her grief with her hand. He didn't even contemplate what he would have to say to her the next time he saw her. He didn't want to see her again. He didn't want to see anyone again. He didn't want to see anything. He could shut his eyes but that wouldn't stop the memories rolling like an old fashioned projector, splashing jerky and slightly out of focus, popping and hissing as it played out all the scenes he'd meticulously edited from his thoughts for twenty years.

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Bright moonlight and the swath of white from the six thousand candlepower lighthouse illuminated the way to the back of the barracks, but if he could get that far without being seen, he'd be safely ensconced in darkness the rest of the way.

"Hey, Mulder, where ya' heading?"

He stopped, still, eyes shut, cursing silently. He knew that voice. It belonged to the recruit he'd been warned to avoid, one of the ringleaders of the ill advised bonfire the week before, a man who made up for his short stature with a large ego and a loud voice. He was renowned for his cruel sense of humor, and Mulder had been the butt of more than one of his pranks during his assignment. "Oh, hey, Officer Milton. I was just..."

"Come on, it's after hours. It's all right to call me Jim." He came out of the shadows as he spoke, draping a muscular arm around Mulder's shoulders and squeezing. Mulder might be only an inch shorter, but he was easily half Milton's weight. "Come on down to the dock. We've got some beer."

"I...no..." He hadn't seen anyone at the dock and while a couple of beers might seem fairly benign compared to the pink elephant party they'd put together the week prior, it was still against regulations, and he didn't want or need the trouble. "Really, I just want to...I..." he tried to twist out of Milton's grasp. "No."

"Aw, come on," Milton wheedled as he walked, dragging Mulder along beside him. "Don't be so unfriendly. We want to get to know you better. We heard you can be really friendly if you try."

"W-we?"

He laughed, meanly. "Okay, you got me." They cleared the edge of the mangroves and there was the dock, lined with dinghies, all with the appearance of being empty. "Me." He gave Mulder a shove and he stumbled forward, his foot catching at the edge of the dock. He landed flat on his face, air escaping his lungs like a prisoner.

Dizzily, Mulder tried to turn, to see what was happening, but the automated beam of light swung around, blinding him. He felt hands on his shirt, his shorts. He heard ugly, impatient laughter. He panicked, he protested, he kicked, he tried to crawl away. He fell into a dinghy, banging his head on the seat.

Milton jumped down into the boat after him, making it sway sickeningly. Mulder tried to sit up, to make words that would express his confusion, his fear. His head hurt, his gut sloshed around ominously, his exposed limbs and torso were cold and shrinking back from hot, impatient hands. The only sound he could manage was a weak, unintelligible protest that seemed to die before it made it from his throat.

Milton seemed to take this as permission to go on, and he pushed, tugged and rolled, trying to get Mulder into a more convenient position, banging his shoulder on the seat, letting an oar fall against the back of his head.

Mulder was stunned by the blow, but coherent enough to understand that things were going very wrong. This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted kindness, he wanted affection, he wanted to belong. He wanted Skinner. He started to scream.

Milton pushed a fist against his mouth, cutting off his cries. With his free hand he picked up a beer bottle sitting at the edge of the dock. It was already open and he tilted his head back and let the liquid pour into his mouth, while Mulder squirmed beneath him. For a moment, the world went quiet for Mulder, even the screaming in his head was silenced, as he watched Milton have a leisurely draught before continuing his assault. The only sound on the entire planet was the off key tone of a buoy bell at the top of the quay.

Having slaked his thirst for the moment, he let the bottle fall into the bottom of the boat, with a satisfied grunt, while he tore at the fly of his jeans. Mulder felt the cold beer splash on his legs, testicles, anus but he ignored it. All that he could focus on was what Jim Milton was pulling out of his jeans.

He began to struggle more. He bit, he clawed, he kicked, he screamed. One of his kicks landed effectively, causing Milton to double over, his face as red as a storm warning flag, both hands clutched between his thighs. Suddenly free, Mulder sat up and tried to scramble out of the rocking boat.

"You fucking little whore," Milton swore, grabbing his flailing leg as he tried to pull himself up onto the dock. "Think you're too good for me, huh? Well, I know better. You're not good enough for me."

Mulder was dragged backward, the weathered wood digging into his thighs, his groin, his belly. He felt cold air in places that should never feel cold air, fingers going where fingers should never go. And then...

He screamed. He kept screaming. He kicked, he lashed out backward, trying to slap or claw, he tried to close his legs, he tried to resist. Nothing stopped it. Even when Milton climbed over him onto the deck and kicked him back toward the boat.

He wanted to die. He wanted to let the ice cold ocean swallow him. He had never experienced so much physical pain. He had never known such complete humiliation. This was his punishment. He knew it. He was being punished for being with Walt Skinner. Now Walt would hate him for what happened. Now everyone would know about him. Now they wouldn't just whisper about his sister being abducted. Now they could talk about him being raped with a beer bottle. He just wanted to die.

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The shower washed away most of the tears, and the phantom pain, but his memory was a raw wound. He didn't think he could face Scully again. And certainly he could never face Skinner again.

He completed his morning routine emotionally bent under the burden of all the memories he had collected through the night. Heavy handed and heavy hearted, he shaved, dressed, combed his hair, checked his briefcase. He considered, momentarily, checking out and disappearing. Even calling out sick would be preferable to working side by side with Scully after he'd abused her that way. He couldn't. No matter how raw his emotions were, he had obligations; to Scully, to the Bureau, to the victims, even to...to him.

Falling back on that overused device of a deep breath to steady his nerves, he knocked softly on the connecting door. He felt slightly faint, and decided that the device might be more effective if he'd exhale, eventually. "Hey, Scully?" he called, trying to keep his voice gentle and with only a little hint of the remorse that threatened to drown him. "Ready to go?"

He could hear her rise from the side of the bed. He could hear her sniffling, coughing to clear her throat, and he didn't need to hear it to know she'd dabbed efficiently at her eyes and drew her own deep breath before she opened the door. "Yes," she said, without looking at him. She backed away from the door. "I'll get my bag and meet you downstairs."

"Scully, I'm sorry," he said in a rush. "I had a bad night. I...have no excuse for speaking to you like that. I'm sorry. I...am...so..." he heard her hall door shut, the distinctive metal clunk resonating in the silence she left behind.

Chapter Six -- Find You're Here

Skinner did something he rarely did, he used his position with the Bureau to bump someone from a flight. Under other circumstances, he would have taken a seat in Coach and suffered the cramped space and the bitter flavor of instant coffee, but this night he needed creature comforts.

Frankly, it was surprising to find that First Class was full for a flight to Milwaukee on a Friday night, or even that one could get First Class service on a flight to Milwaukee, but upon finding both to be fact, he had no qualms with flashing his badge and citing Bureau business to get the extra legroom, a decent meal, a drink and a place to spread folders out and pretend to look busy while he planned what he was going to do and say when he saw Mulder again.

In the first place, he wasn't completely decided about seeing Mulder. He just wanted to be in the vicinity should he decide it was the right thing to do. And in the second place, he couldn't really plan what to say when he didn't know if he was going to see him.

After finally connecting this man, this brilliant, broken agent to the brilliant broken kid he'd known all those years ago, he wondered how Mulder functioned. How could he deal with the inhumanity on display every day? How could he read victim statements, look at crime scene photos, interview witnesses? How could he get inside a monster's head after being the victim of a monster himself?

And what had his own role in all this been? Had he been a part of the problem or any part of the solution? The kid had left Thatcher Island first, and had made no arrangements for them to meet again. For years, Skinner had felt if Marty had needed or wanted to see him again, he'd have made the effort and that his silence was just his version of goodbye. But now he had to wonder. Did Mulder come to the Bureau to be near him? Or did he, like Skinner, have no idea they'd ever end up working together?

After all, Mulder had gone to university in England - that didn't sound like someone who intended to go into law enforcement in any form. Upon reflection, it almost seemed as if he had attempted to get as far away from Skinner as possible. And if that had been the case, why had he allowed himself to be transferred to Skinner's command? How had he endured all these years?

How had he looked at Mulder day after day and not seen him? Skinner should have recognized him. Skinner should have taken responsibility for his well being. Skinner should have taken pains to get him to another department. Allowing him to remain under Skinner's authority all these years was like raping him all over again.

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Skinner settled back against the trunk of the tree and lit another cigar. It wasn't like Marty to be late. He lifted his watch to the moonlight spilling in through the tree tops and confirmed what he already knew. That lanky kid with the storm green eyes and impossible mouth wasn't coming. Just as well, he decided, sucking at the narrow stem of the cigar. They were playing a dangerous game. Both of them clearly wanted to cross that last and absolutely illegal boundary. But he was the adult. It was up to him to stay strong in these times of temptation. Bless Marty for having the sense to-

He paused and cocked an ear toward the clearing beyond. Nothing. For a moment, his heart had actually seemed to leap inside him when he thought he heard Marty's muffled voice calling him. But there was nothing there. The only thing to be heard was the mournful bell of a buoy out in the bay and the hiss of wind in the tops of the firs overheard.

Skinner lifted a hand and twisted enough to get a sliver of moonlight to land on the dial of his watch. I'll give him five more minutes, he thought, in a mixture of irritation and relief. He hoped the boy wouldn't show, but he hated the boy's thoughtlessness about being on time. And under those two emotions was a faintly disturbing desperation to see the kid, anyway. Every time they were together, he wanted him a little bit more; he ached to hold him, kiss him, stroke his hair. These feelings, these needs were so alien within him that he almost resented Marty for inspiring them.

With another draw on the cigar, he let his head fall back to rest against the tree. There was another sharp call. He sat up and listened for the sound of footfalls in the clearing but none came. Probably some dumb sea bird, he decided and looked at his watch for the tenth time, pulling himself to his feet. As he did, he heard that sound again; sharp and plaintive. And then a splash. He broke into a run.

As he cleared the trees, something-someone brushed by him and disappeared into the mangroves. He gave it no notice, his senses uniformly focused on finding the source of that cry. The boat dock was empty, but the black water around it seemed to be boiling. He looked around sharply. There was no sign of anyone. But, along the dock were scattered what appeared to be pieces of clothing and empty beer bottles and a blanket. It appeared that someone had been having quite a party. So...where were they?

The water splashed, and he heard another strangled sound. Under the dock he thought he saw the white flash of someone's flailing hand. He charged in as far as he could, climbed into one of the small, rounded bottom boats tied there and pushed it down to the deeper end of the pier. "Hang on," he muttered, forcing the boat out against the tide. The hand thrust out of the water again, and he caught it, and gave a great heave and hauled upward, tumbling a body into the boat. "Marty?"

The kid coiled up in the bottom of the boat, shivering, coughing and gulping. He flinched when Skinner tried to touch him.

"Marty, what the hell were you doing in the water?" It actually took Skinner that long to realise that he was naked and probably going into shock. Skinner fumbled for one of the oars and used it to push the boat away from the dock and let it ride the tide back to the sand. "Marty, answer me. What were you doing in the water?"

Marty's only answer was to cough up sea water.

Skinner jumped out and dragged the boat up on the sand and then grabbed the blanket from the dock. The broken pieces of a portable radio tumbled out. Skinner dumped them into the sand impatiently, and leaning over the edge of the boat, held out the blanket. "Marty? Can you stand? What the hell were you thinking, swimming in this weather...and alone? Are you really that stupid?"

The boy continued to shake and cough.

It finally dawned on him that Marty might not have gone into that icy water voluntarily. He dropped the blanket over the shivering form at the bottom of the boat and looked around the open perimeter. Someone must have pushed him and run-quite probably that someone who had bumped into him.

He started collecting the clothing at his feet and was disturbed to find that most of what he picked up was Marty's camp shirt, torn into several pieces. He clenched them into one fist, fury rushing over him, burning away his ability to reason.

Behind him, Marty moaned and fumbled around trying to get up. Skinner returned to the side of the boat and reached in to help. Marty was trying to cover himself, navigate the slick wet bottom of the boat, and brush his hair, which clung to his face like a starfish, from his eyes.

Watching him struggle to hide his awkward body, blue white in the moonlight, Skinner couldn't contain a gasp of horror. On Marty's pale skin were ever darkening stains of violence; handprints around his throat, his upper arm and his thighs. "My God," he exploded. "Who did this to you?"

Marty ignored his question and reached persistently for his shorts, in Skinner's other hand. He resisted all of Skinner's efforts to lift him out of the boat until he had managed to stumble into them. Only then would he let Skinner touch him, ease him over the side of the boat, wrap the blanket around his shoulders.

"Marty, who did this?" Skinner repeated. He was surprised Marty jerked away and refused to look at him. "Marty, you have to tell me."

Marty's response was to take a couple of wobbly steps away, his shoulders jerking as if he was fighting off sobs.

That's when Skinner saw it. Four long, dark fingers of blood reaching down the inside of Marty's leg, beyond the hem of his shorts. Blood seemed to explode in Skinner's brain. He was assaulted by the memories of his comrades still upright, eyes wide, twitching, maybe even taking one more step before the gaping hole where their gut once was released their soul and the body dropped into non existence.

He charged at Marty and scooped him up. His cry of animalistic pain echoed off the buildings wildly. "Son of a bitch!"

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Clearing security at General Mitchell was a relatively easy task with a badge in hand. At the taxi stand, he pulled his copy of their travel voucher, extended a hand, and a Yellow Cab swept to the curb. He slid into the backseat, barking the name of his agents' motel. The driver looked over his shoulder, gave him something like an up and down doubletake, then pushed the flag down. "You need a new travel agent, Mister," he declared, and jolted away from the curb, barely missing a hotel shuttle. "Hang on."

A few blocks away, Skinner understood the comment. "Is there a..." he peered out the window. Snow was falling lightly, but the area still managed to look old and dusty, "better alternative?"

"Hang on." The cab seemed to lurch sideways, back into traffic. "Hope you didn't pay with a credit card, they'll charge you the full stay whether you check in or not."

"Well, after all, they have to do something to maintain that exclusive ambiance," Skinner countered, tucking the paperwork back into his briefcase. He smiled to himself. He sounded just a bit like Mulder for a moment.

The driver didn't appreciate the effort. He turned up his radio and listened to a shouting match between a sports columnist and a listener about the Brewers' upcoming season.

In just a few short minutes, the snow was starting to blow furiously around the taxi, and it seemed to jerk to a stop compelled more by forces of nature than applied mechanics. He found himself in front of a nationally respected chain motel, not five stars, not even four, but dependable providers of the basic amenities. Climbing out into the snow storm, he paid the driver, thanked him for the insight, and turned his collar up against the wind pushing flurries around under the porte-cochere.

From his room on the fifth floor, he could look down the expressway and see the back of the motel where Mulder and Scully were staying. There were a couple of windows still lit, and he wondered, as he loosened his tie, if Mulder was in one of those rooms, remembering.

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The government had nothing on that little group on Thatcher Island when it came to cover ups. Somehow the violent assault on a Boy Scout in the care of the Police Academy never made it into even the local press. Somehow not even the boy's parents were made aware of his injuries or the potential damage to his emotional well being. Instead of requiring his parents to come up and remove him from the island two days before his scheduled departure, they were advised he was extending his stay by at least a week, to finish up a project and earn his final badge. Instead of advising his parents that he might need counseling, he was advised never to discuss the incident.

Even the Boy Scouts were complicit in the story, backing up the Academy and praising the boy's eagerness to stay. And his parents never spoke to him, never questioned him, were never even aware that he was in the infirmary, shivering and shaking and following advice to the letter. They were allowed to be puffed with pride for the splendid job they had done raising him, and never shared in his devastation.

That is not to suggest that the incident passed without consequence. There was enough evidence at the scene to identify his assailant, even if he refused to name him. Skinner himself was willing to creep right to the edge of perjury himself and identify James Milton as the individual he saw running from the scene. He'd heard rumors that Milton was something of a chicken hawk, and had overheard some of Milton's inappropriate comments about Marty specifically, so it was easy for him to believe, when learning that items at the scene belonged to Milton, that he was the perpetrator.

Whether it was true or not, and Skinner believed that it was, Milton certainly paid for it. He was discharged from the Academy for cause, and while the specific charges were valid, they paled in comparison to his battery and rape of a minor, yet that was never mentioned in his record and, while he lost the opportunity to become a law enforcement officer, he did not spend one night in jail.

The discharge did not quiet Skinner's pent up rage, however. It went beyond the injustice, there was a deep, ineffable sense of having been violated himself. Something he prized, something he longed for, and considered his when the time was right, was taken from him, and irreparably damaged.

His only comfort came in visiting Marty. Being his rescuer, it was not unreasonable that Skinner would check in on the kid now and again. He even volunteered to stay behind when the rest of the Academy returned to the mainland, just to 'lend a hand'.

Although Marty refused to discuss the incident, and refused to speak at all to almost anyone else, he did seem to welcome Skinner's visits. They would talk basketball and music and investigation techniques, he found Marty to be his usual curious and enthusiastic self. Occasionally, Skinner would try to slip in a leading question to see if Marty was ready to discuss what happened, to even express some emotion about the incident, but it never worked. All he would get was silence, while Marty turned to stare at the wall. Once Skinner changed topics, however, Marty would reengage and they would have a very nice conversation until the medic returned and ended the visit.

One of the most frustrating pieces of the puzzle was the rumor spreading after Milton's departure; that the Mulder boy had been attempting to blackmail Milton for previous advances. It had been whispered that among the evidence collected at the scene was a scrap of paper torn from a regulation school notebook which read 'They saw us.' Skinner never saw this paper, but the possibility of its existence chilled him. Perhaps Marty had been trying to blackmail him? No, he wouldn't believe that. It was more likely that Marty was trying to warn him about a threat, real or perceived, and not having the stones to meet with him face to face, had attempted to deliver a message that was intercepted when Milton caught him on the grounds after lights out. And from that conclusion, he accepted full responsibility for Marty's injuries.

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Dawn came, grey and sullen, and his memories left a taste as bad as instant coffee on his tongue. Even all these years later, he could not absolve himself of his guilt. He had to face Mulder, to admit his part in the damage inflicted on him as a boy. Skinner had to look him in the eyes and say "I was wrong.' But it would require a superhuman strength of character that he wondered he possessed. He had another kind of history with Mulder now, one of superior to underling, one where he struggled daily to keep that position of superiority despite every challenge the underling threw at him. To admit weakness, to admit fault even for something which had taken place twenty years ago, would be to undermine his authority for all time.

And there was the very real possibility that, once forced to come face to face with that history, Mulder might want to file charges against those persons responsible. The laws were much more fair to victims of molestation now than they were in those days. The statute of limitations in most states did not run out until a period after the victim recognizes the damages subsequent to the molestation. Mulder could easily claim he did not know the cause of his damage until their conversation. Even if there was no legal support for his claims, such accusations could destroy Skinner's career. He didn't know if he was brave enough to face that prospect.

Still, it had to be done. He had enough strength of character to recognize that. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he picked up the phone, and held it in his hand as if it were alien to him. His actions were alien, he knew that. He could not come crawling to Mulder, begging forgiveness. He had to take control. He had to address the issue in a firm, no nonsense 'what's done is done' manner, and trust that it would be enough for Mulder. He must express just enough remorse to ease the burden of his conscience, and to not appear a monster to Mulder, but not so much as to feel pathetic, or give Mulder a sense of control over him. It must work that way or it would not work at all. He And, he decided, returning the handset to its cradle, it must be done face to face.

Chapter Seven -- Scars Remain

It is said some people are like bloodhounds for doom. If that is true, Mulder held a lengthy pedigree and had probably taken Best in Show his entire career, if not his entire life. Others would have considered their extraordinarily difficult life as a reasonable cause for the heaviness of dread dragging them down as they faced a new day, but not him. He just knew there was something terrible about to happen, and he went out, teeth gritted and eyes slitted, muscles braced to leap out of the way of whatever horrible fate was lurking around a corner waiting to befall him. Once Doom had done its duty, he'd grab a beer and make snarky comments about Doom's technique, and try not to dread the morrow.

The fact that his partner greeted him coolly, and kept her remarks and glances to a minimum didn't help. He knew he'd hurt her with his outburst, but as with most human beings in pain, he felt justified in his reaction and didn't understand why she couldn't understand why he had behaved as he had. If she had any sort of compassion, in his opinion, she would be trying to comfort him, rather than wandering around looking as if she'd been verbally crucified.

The snow had slowed to those slushy crumbs from clouds that were already far less threatening than they had been the day before. Plows had pushed most of it into depressing, muddy piles at the side of the parking lot outside their motel, successfully blocking their anonymous government rental agreement sedan in the process. Annoying and inconvenient as this was, it was not enough to qualify as the disaster he knew must be imminent, it merely eliminated his ability to get out of the way fast enough.

He stood there, his glare almost hot enough to melt the drifts, hands on hips, keys clenched in one fist, while she, ever practical, merely groaned, turned on her heel and marched back inside to demand that someone find someone to come out and rescue their car. Alone, wondering what else was going to go wrong, he shuddered a shudder completely unrelated to the snowflakes sliding down his collar. He knew something bad was coming. Badder than his usual bad. He would not have had his life stroll by at a leisurely and painful pace if something terrible wasn't about to happen.

It was as if Doom's partner, Death, was looking down from the second floor windows, smirking, just waiting for the right moment to give Mulder a fatal flick behind the ear, and Mulder resented mightily that he was taking his time. It wasn't that Mulder wanted to meet Death, he had no great desire to quit that sphere, it was more that he hated waiting. Always had.

Scully appeared from beneath the sagging awning, looking determined. "They're sending a truck. Let's wait inside."

Mulder had to allow that it was a generous gesture to come out and inform him, so he responded with a curt nod and a painful twist of his mouth that was supposed to be a smile, even though it really wasn't even close. "Good idea."

Scully turned, mid step, and returned to the shelter of the doorway, feeling she had done her duty and there was no further need for her to stand outside and be part of nature's Slurpee, not even for Mulder.

Mulder didn't follow her. It wasn't that he was avoiding her. It wasn't that he liked the weather, or cherished a secret pleasure of slowly getting soaked all the way to his shorts. It was just that he remembered another snowy, slushy morning.

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It was a freak storm. Snow just didn't make an appearance in early September. It wasn't done. But a hurricane along the Carolina coast drove a very moist low north, at the same time that Canada had sent an icy high south. The result was snow and wind and the choppiest seas known in those parts in fifty years. The few people left on the island, all planning to get back to their lives by Labor Day found themselves stranded on an island with few supplies and only a small generator not designated for running the new light.

To conserve energy, it was decided that the commander, Skinner, Mulder and the doctor left attending him all bivouac in the officers' quarters. It was a small cabin originally intended for a single occupant but had been converted to two even smaller rooms, each with one bed, chair and table. A common head, sink and oil stove were on an enclosed porch behind.

Skinner and the commander, a gruff, self important man named Leith, braved the unnatural winds to bring two more cots, one bearing their patient, from the barracks to the officers' quarters. Mulder was cocooned in almost every blanket left on the island, feeling slightly seasick rocking back and forth between the two men. Even the short distance between the back door of the barracks and the exposed entry to the cabin seemed like an Atlantic crossing in December to him, but mummified as he was, he couldn't reach for the bedrails to afford himself even the merest sense of balance, and had to find his reassurance in the broad shoulders of the man in the lead.

Head bowed, dark hair whipping back in the wind, Skinner defied nature's forces to get them to that door.

Once inside, Mulder's bed was crammed into the larger of the two rooms, next to the bed assigned to the medic, a man whose fingernails were always dirty and whose face was so scarred by acne it was hard to imagine he had any capacity for soap and water, much less medicine.

Mulder would have preferred to share space with Skinner, the doctor made him anxious and uncomfortable; feigning concern for his injuries and yet leering at him when no one else was looking, as if to say 'I know all about you, faggot.'

Lying on his bed, still hopelessly entangled in blankets, he was left alone, once the furniture had been pushed around to accommodate him. The others gathered in the second room, talking softly. Mulder could hear their voices but not their words over the wind that slammed against the wall almost rhythmically. He called out once or twice, hoping someone would be sent to unwrap him, hoping even more that it would be Walt. But no one heard him. No one came.

What little daylight the storm had allowed faded and he was not only alone and trapped in blankets, but in total darkness. Cruel memories began to creep out of corners to taunt him; memories of the night his sister was abducted, memories of his father's disdain for him; memories of those few nights of illicit pleasure with Walt, memories of what happened that night on the dock.

He began to scream.

He didn't want to. He wasn't, by nature, one to display his fears and pleasures, but this terror exploded out of places in him he thought too scarred over to ever be ripped open again. The sound that came out of him was high pitched and pained, more like a banshee than a boy.

The door burst open and all three men struggled to enter at once. It would have reminded him of the Three Stooges if he had been in any state to make such observations. Walt managed to break through first and crawled across the doctor's bed to reach him. "Easy, easy, it's okay. It's all right. You're safe." He pulled Mulder into his arms and rocked him roughly. "You're safe."

The moment he heard Skinner's voice he was ashamed of his lack of control, and shut his eyes tight, simulating fitful sleep.

"What's wrong with him?" Leith demanded, also trying to climb over the other cot.

"Whoever thought he could be part of this program?" the medic complained. "He's a baby."

"He's been terrorized and assaulted and by someone who had authority over him," Skinner snarled, still rocking him. "This kid's been through more violence than a lot of guys saw in 'Nam." He began clawing at the blankets around Mulder's body. "I'd like to see how well you'd handle being raped and tossed into the ocean to drown."

Mulder shuddered at the words. They were true, but he never wanted to hear them spoken. He wanted to pretend. He wanted to believe he'd had a bad fall, been knocked around a bit, been too clumsy. But if someone said those words, he couldn't pretend anymore. He groaned.

"Shh, easy," Walt murmured, his voice roughened with anger. "Go on, get out of here," he snapped over his shoulder. "I'll look after him for a while."

It was clear that the doctor resented his remarks, and that Leith resented his take charge attitude, but it was equally clear that neither of them wanted to take further responsibility for the care of a snot nosed kid who couldn't keep out of the clutches of a pervert. They backed out of the narrow doorway.

Mulder opened his eyes, staring up into the darkness that rushed in between Walter's face and his own once that door was closed. He knew there were tears mingling with beads of sweat on his face, but his hands were still wound into blankets and he couldn't brush them away. He squirmed to free one hand. "Thank you," he whispered, turning his face away. Now it was spoken, now it was real, how could this man stomach looking at him?

"Are you all right?"

It was a stupid question. How could he be all right? How would he ever be all right? But somehow, Mulder felt the underlying, ineffable concern that was so deep and strong there was no way to express it, no way to ascertain what he needed to know, and in such cases only inanity exists. "Yeah," he whispered. Now that he had one hand worked out of the wraps, he rubbed tears away from his face, wishing he could rub away the humiliation and sense of loss at the same time. "You...you don't have to stay with me. You can go."

"And talk to them all night?" Walt moved around, making himself comfortable. "No thank you." He worked at the blankets as well. "They're colder than that blizzard."

Mulder chuckled weakly. How could this man shatter all his precious pretences and then make him laugh? Seemed unfair. And...wonderful. He felt his body flush with shame and something else for which he had no word, something as unnamed as the concern Skinner had felt for him. He might have called it a crush, but that was as simplistic and inane as Skinner asking if he was all right. But it was deep, powerful, feeling as it had a will of its own. He almost sighed.

"There. Is that better?"

"Hmm," Mulder said, not trusting his capacity to control his tongue at that moment. Later on his life he would claim that the sudden overwhelming of passion and longing he felt for Walter Skinner was his subconscious way of avoiding the reality of his assault. At the moment, however, he only knew he wanted to be held, to be kissed, to be told he was loved by this man; part super hero, part savior, part lover, part mountain.

"Too bad there's no light in here," Walt said, shifting heavily on the bed. "We could play cards."

Cards? Of all the options Mulder could have listed for spending time in a bed in the dark, cards would never have made the list. "Well, we could always play liars poker," he suggested.

"And how could we do that? No way to prove our hands."

Mulder managed to squirm up against the wall. "It's not hard, just have to remember what we played in the hand before."

"Remember every card either of us said we played?" Skinner said, doubtfully. "Too hard."

"I could remember. After all," he shrugged, "there are only so many possibilities."

"I bet you could remember," Walter said with a touch of admiration in his voice. "You have to be the smartest kid I've ever met."

Kid. He wanted to focus on the praise, but all he could hear was that word, a word that pigeon holed him as inconsequential, powerless and without appeal. He wanted to appeal to Walter Skinner. He wanted it very much.

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The blast of a horn had a physical impact on him. He nearly jumped straight up. Instead he turned to the right sharply, in time to see a tow truck backing toward him. He did an impressive little sidestep in time to avoid being scooped up by the lowering blades, and righting himself, saw Scully's smile of grim amusement. He resisted an urge to scowl back at her and instead walked around in a tight circle, fists shoved into coat pockets, impatiently. How the hell could she laugh when he was in mortal peril? And he was, he had no doubt. He didn't know when, and he didn't know where but he knew he was about to meet Doom face to face, and the least Scully could do would be contain her glee.

The tow truck pulled the car out of the cradle of snow with much grinding of gears and grating of fenders and let it settle on the sticky, wet ground with a plop. The driver leaned out his window and suggested in his best fish out of water Brooklynese, "you want I should jump it for you?"

Mulder reached for a door handle. "No, we'll be o-"

"Maybe you'd better," Scully interrupted. "Honestly, Mulder, you grew up in the northeast, you know what winters can do to an engine even overnight."

"Right." He shoved the truck into a new, and previously unheard gear with a thunk, and jerked the truck, the car, and very nearly Mulder's hand a few more feet forward.

Mulder cradled his hand against his chest and transferred his glare to the tow truck. "Right," he repeated darkly.

The driver slid from his truck and came around to unchain the car. Fingers working hooks and cranks, face turned to the gunmetal sky, he allowed, "Don't know whys you'd want to go anywhere anyways. Gonna be another twelve inches by this afternoon."

Mulder opened his mouth to argue that the worst was long over when a blast of cold wind dumped frozen razor blades down the back of his coat. Damn Doom and his quirky sense of humor! "Well, we don't have any choice. We're government agents, and the government doesn't stop for snow, no matter how deep it gets."

"Well, you ain't Wisconsin government," the driver chuckled, "'cause they believe in staying off the roads on days like this." He climbed back into his truck. "You'll need to move, ma'am."

Scully skittered carefully over the snow to Mulder's side, her hands pushed deep into her overcoat, new flakes of snow already splashed across her nose and cheeks like freckles. Mulder resisted an urge to brush them away. "Think we can get him to discuss the matter with..." He wanted to say Skinner, but the name stalled on his tongue, "our boss?"

"To what end?" She ran the back of one wooly blue glove over her face. "It's just snow, Mulder. We get it all the time in DC."

"Yeah? I start my own damned car all the time in DC." He jerked the car door open and slid under the wheel as the tow truck was maneuvered into a position to run a heating block to the engine. "How long's this going to take?"

The driver shrugged. "What you got there...four cylinder? 'bout an hour. You really should have had one running all night." He shifted his disapproving frown from Mulder to an apologetic smile to Scully. "Might as well go inside and get a cup of tea, ma'am. No sense standing out here getting snowed on."

"Yeah, ma'am," Mulder drawled from behind the wheel. "Go inside before you freeze up and blow away in the wind."

She smiled back at the driver, gave Mulder an 'I'll deal with you later' look that as actually more chilling than the air, and, head down, strode through the increasing whiteness toward the hotel doors.

Mulder didn't see the smile, the threat or the snow. He was still mentally stammering over his boss' name. And he was starting to suspect that Doom was going to look an awful lot like Walter Skinner.

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Mulder had tried to sleep when Skinner told him to, but left alone in that bunk, listening to the wind doing the big bad wolf routine just inches from his head, made sleep out of the question. He wanted to wedge himself into the room next door and take part in the discussions. He wanted to be an active participant in some part of his future. He wanted to be more of the solution than the problem. Mostly, though, he wanted to sit next to Skinner and feel the strength radiate from him like body heat. Or sit opposite him and watch his face as he thought, as he spoke, as he listened.

This summer had been the best and worst of his life. He had been promised a life changing experience, and it had lived up to and far beyond its promise. He had finally understood many inconsistencies in himself, and even for a boy who longed to be one of the crowd, to not stand out in any way, this discovery had been a good one. He knew who he was, and that was knowledge he had been searching for most of his life.

Yes, he'd been harmed. He had been violated. He had been used, accused and probably came very close to being killed. But on the other side of that horror, he had learned he could survive anything. Even more, he'd learned that he could matter to someone. And let someone matter to him again.

It made no sense, and even at that not quite tender age, Mulder liked reason and rationale, he liked the numbers to add up and the aquatic fowl to be in straight lines. But even though he was battered inside and out, crammed into a cot in the middle of a freak snowstorm, unwanted by three quarters of the population, he felt...well, if not good, at least hopeful. Something inside him thrummed with anticipation. Walter Skinner, for all his brusque nature, and burly manner, had shown him kindness, had held him in esteem, and had betrayed a longing for him that defied Code of Conduct, which for a man like him, was more binding than Biblical tenets.

Listening to the low rumble of his voice in the other room, Mulder struggled and failed to contain a small, smug smile, there in the blackness. The blizzard might be raging outside, but in that tiny, dark room, a normally stormy heart was peaceful.

After all, section four didn't matter anymore, did it?

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"Hey, buddy." The knuckles rapping at the window was more disconcerting than his raspy shout. "You're good to go."

Mulder started, twisting around to meet a face only inches away, the ice encrusting his scraggly beard made him look even more like a member of ZZ Top. "Thanks," he yelled, fumbling under the wheel for the ignition, and when he looked again, the face, the cap, the beard were all gone, and there was nothing but swirling snow and black sky. Doom was definitely on his way. And probably bringing friends.

Eight -- Now I Fall

Skinner wrapped his scarf around his neck with care that there would be precisely two inches difference in the length of each end. He patted it, to assure himself that it was as he intended it to be, and then tucked it into his topcoat. He slid the left lambs wool lined glove onto his hand with his right, looking down at the bed, virtually untouched after a night of memories, pacing and doubt, and considered the efficacy of that leather aviator with its fox fur ear flaps. In D.C. he wore a suede snap brim fedora, as befitted his position and demeanor, or, in extreme weather, his trusty FBI knitted cap. But this was not D.C. And, it was cold out there. It would not aid him in his attempt to resolve this matter in the most efficient and least dramatic manner possible, for his ears to fall off in the middle of his solemn address.

He put on the second glove and looked at the hat again. He wasn't sure why he had packed it. He couldn't even remember buying the thing. It must have been since his divorce. Sharon was adamantly anti-fur. But, there it was. Hanging in his coat cupboard forever what seemed like forever, he'd grabbed it in deference to weather reports blaring from the other room as he had packed.

Reluctantly, he pulled it on and turned toward the mirror. "I look like an uncircumcised dick," he decided, aloud, and pulled it off his head. Digging through his pockets, he produced the FBI cap and tugged it on firmly. Then he removed one glove so he could pick up the key card and his wallet. Shoving those into his breast pocket, he struggled to get the glove on again. And, lastly, he patted his trouser pocket, to make sure he had forgotten nothing. He was nervous. He didn't like being nervous. It unsettled him, broke up his rhythm, disturbed his routine.

He knew he didn't want to go out that door. He knew that the moment he was face to face with Mulder, the man he'd created all those years ago, there would be more emotions, memories and anger than he could prepare himself for. He'd spent the night processing his feelings and memories, and even his own anger, but now he must accept that Mart-Mulder would have his share, and knowing Agent Mulder as he did, he would not be shy about having his say.

He wondered for not the first time why in all these years Mulder had never spoken up. He wasn't shy. Was he afraid for his career? Was he afraid for his person? Had he forgotten? Oh, no, that knowing little smirk last night had said it all. He knew. He had known for years.

Finally, with a huff of a sigh, he marched toward the door, snatching his fedora from the coat hook, and forcing it on over the knit cap. Well, it was cold out there.

In the grass green and brass lobby, he happened to note a large clock over the front desk. He checked his own watch and confirmed that it was full eleven o'clock. Surely they were on scene now, and he'd only get to their hotel to be forced to wait for their return. If he had to wait anywhere, he'd rather do it with a decent cup of coffee, and CNN. He turned toward the hotel coffee shop, pulling the fedora and knit cap off, as he crossed the threshold.

He knew he was stalling, but in a way befitting his position and demeanor.

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He should never have held the kid. Lying there in the dark, Marty cradled in his arms, squirming to get closer, all he could think about was what he would do if those two assholes in the other room suddenly disappeared. It enraged him to witness the callousness displayed by so called superior officers. It cemented in him a desire to avoid upper echelon posts as actively as he would avoid breaking laws. Management, he decided, was only for ineffectual egomaniacs, and as he wanted a meaningful career he would avoid management.

It was hard to think about the future with Marty in his arms. There were so many intimate details about the boy that pervaded his senses; the smell of cotton clothing and plain soap, the softness of his hair, the thudding of his heart against Skinner's arm, the way he wriggled and twisted as if trying to climb inside Skinner's flesh, the husky, self conscious laughter when he spoke.

When he could stand it no longer, he left the kid in the dark, and joined the other two men in the other room. It was far less pleasant there, even with the light, the stove and the coffee. They were playing cards, and invited Skinner in, but his mind just wasn't on the decorated pasteboards in his hands and everyone knew it. In fact, it was very likely even Mulder knew it from the other room. His cock was hard, his skin was heated, his breath was labored and his mind was fixed on activities that broke laws in almost every state in the union.

"Damn," Leith complained, slamming his cards down on the table in disgust, "I would have sworn you weren't paying attention."

The medic sniggered as he began to tally Skinner's cards. "Comes of playing cards in the jungle, right, jarhead? Have to keep one eye and both ears on the world around you."

Skinner muttered something noncommittal, wondering if he'd heard the kid cry out again.

"All right, what's the damage?" Leith pulled a fistful of change from his pocket.

"At a penny a point, you owe him...four dollars and nineteen cents," the medic announced, and scooped the cards together. "Another game, gentlemen?"

Leith dropped change onto the uneven table, causing coins to run off the side. "Yeah, but this time let's play something I have a chance of winning, okay?" He made no effort to pick up the money he dropped, turning toward the stove. "Fire's dying...we need some more oil."

"Toss some of that coffee in there," the medic laughed pushing his half full cup across the table. "That'll do."

"Yeah, if you don't like it, Murphy, you can get off your butt and make it yourself."

"Let the Marine here do it. Marine coffee's got to be less offensive than Navy coffee."

Skinner only belated realized he was being spoken to. "I wouldn't get my hopes up over that," he warned. "Marines aren't Boy Scouts, we weren't always prepared. You don't want to know what went into our 'coffee' sometimes."

"Boy Scouts," Leith grunted, as he poured the last of the oil into the pump. "That even sounds obscene after what happened." He looked over his shoulder at Skinner. "How do they let kids like that into Scouts?"

Skinner straightened, flushed with anger, too fast to realize he was being baited. "What? You think it was the kid's fault? Milton was a pervert and he could have killed that kid, but he got away with a slap on the wrist."

"Well, at least it wasn't his limp wrist," Murphy chuckled, dealing cards.

"Murphy," Leith said warningly. "What happened to the boy was tragic, but Milton must have had some notion he wouldn't be rebuffed. The kid did sneak out to meet him. It was clear they were partying and drinking for several hours."

"His bunkmates all said he was only gone a few minutes before they heard screaming," Skinner countered. It was comforting to remember that. It dispelled all fear that Mulder had spending time with Milton before it happened.

"Well, boys will say anything to protect a friend," Leith counseled, raising his voice slightly over the squeaky handle as he pumped more oil into the stove's well.

Skinner was about to argue that point but Murphy sneered, "Those boys would eat their young."

"Exactly," he added. "They wouldn't protect Mulder. He was hardly well liked in that troop."

"Who likes little queers?" Murphy finished dispersing the cards, "except big queers."

"Murphy," Leith said wearily, "we're supposed to uphold law, that's all. Judging is the other side of the street." He settled down in his seat. "What are we playing?"

Skinner picked up his cards, scowled at them and said, "I hope we're playing gin."

Leith looked at him. "Why?"

Skinner laid his cards down. "Gin."

"Bastard," Murphy complained.

Leith looked at his watch. "I think it's probably time to try and sleep, anyway. Someone should stay up and watch that fire. We'll freeze to death if it goes out before this storm blows over."

"I will," Skinner volunteered with a sigh. He might as well. He wasn't going to be able to get any sleep, anyway. He was still hearing a softly whispered fact, delivered with a glint of amusement visible even in that darkened room. "You know...I'm technically not a virgin anymore."

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"More coffee, Sir?"

Skinner tore his eyes away from that dark night in the cabin to look at the perky face of a girl in chain hotel mufti and coffee carafe. He started to nod, then peered into the squat, white cup. "How many have I had?"

"I've lost count, Sir," she said in the same tone a mother would use to say 'I think you've had enough'.

"No, I think I've had enough." He checked his watch. Barely noon. "Could I see a menu? I think I'd like some lunch."

She actually looked grateful. "Of course."

He watched her go, wishing that he could stir up some desire for her wholesome appearance and long legs in a less than wholesome uniform, but he was thinking of a lean-to-the-point-of-scrawny seventeen year old from long ago. A seventeen year old that morphed, far too easily for his comfort, to a man in his mid thirties, with an irritating smirk, all seeing eyes, and an ass that was known to make the whole of the fourth floor sigh, in unison. It was only when he shook his head to dislodge those thoughts that he realized that he was the only customer in the dining room. No wonder she seemed grateful. She'd had to wait on him for an hour for the tip on a cup of coffee. He made a mental note that short of dumping boiling soup in his lap, she was going to get a ten dollar tip.

She brought him the menu which looked too complex for his current muddled state. He looked at the thick, plastic bound pages, sighed and held it out. "What would you recommend?"

She looked around the room. "McDonalds. But if you're stuck here, go with the soup and sandwich. It's chicken noodle. You can't go wrong with chicken noodle."

He nodded his assent and turned his attention back to CNN. Much was being made of the storm across the mid west. Nothing, he thought, painfully, ever changes.

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Sometime around dawn, Murphy relieved him, yawning, stretching and complaining of the cold and the lack of coffee. Skinner ignored him and fell, gratefully, into the abandoned cot. It was still warm. He wound himself into the blankets, put his back to the stove and let his overheated imagination swim toward oblivion.

When he woke, and he had no idea how much later it was, the cabin was still moderately dark, and extremely cold. Rolling onto his back, he looked toward the stove, but the orange glow was gone. "What the..." he complained, trying to sit up without sacrificing the small measure of warmth the blanket provided.

"They've gone back to the barrack to find more oil." Marty was sitting on the other cot, long legs bent into impossible angles under him, his chin on a fist, as he stared at Walter.

"How long ago?" Skinner's mouth felt as if camels and walruses had spent the night defecating in it, and he rubbed at it with the blanket covered back of his hand.

Marty shrugged. That slight, awkward, uneven gesture sent a frisson of superheat through Skinner's body. "Not too long ago. Maybe twenty minutes ago."

"It's a five minute walk," Skinner pulled himself to his feet, keeping the blanket around him so that the kid wouldn't see his erection straining against his crotch.

"It's also blowing white out conditions," Mulder answered, unfolding his legs. "It will be a miracle if they even find the barracks, much less stove oil."

How could such confident contempt come out of someone coiled up in insecurity and diffidence? "Aren't you cold?" Skinner complained. The kid was in shorts, socks and a Boy Scout hoody. He picked up the coffee pot. It was empty. Maybe they had tried it as fuel.

"Nah." He flicked his hair back. "I'm okay."

There was some unexpected defiance in those words, as well. Skinner looked at him, hard, as if he thought he could pierce those stormy eyes and take a good look at his brain, his psyche, his soul. "Are you? Are you really?"

Marty didn't rush to defend his statement, nor did he break into tears at the challenge. He seemed to actually be considering the question. "Yeah, I think so." A bit of extra color splashed across his cheeks. "A little sore, still, and disappointed I didn't get my badge but-"

"Who said you wouldn't get your badge?"

He did that shrug again and Skinner had to hold himself back, lest he jump the kid right there. "No one said. I just assumed, since I didn't finish the task."

Skinner hitched the blanket around his shoulders. "You assume too much."

Marty twisted his shoulders enough that he could cast a sidewise look that was both thoughtful and perceptive. "Do I?"

It was Skinner's turn to sigh; a deep, almost anguished sound that revealed his inner struggle, his inner defeat. He pushed open the door between the two rooms. "In here."

Marty didn't waste time being coy or putting up arguments. He moved quickly, not even looking back to make sure Skinner was following. As if he knew Skinner would.

Skinner didn't waste time with comforting gestures or reassuring words. He helped Marty strip down to briefs and socks and put him face down on the cot. The room was dark, and he pulled his penlight from his pocket and let the yellowish light stroke the boy's body, from shaggy brown hair to the dirty soles of his socks. He gave himself one last chance to turn back before he reached out and ran his fingertips over the lean, quivering flesh before him.

Marty twitched and moaned under his touch, pushing his hips forward as if to get friction for his cock. He was breathing hard, through parted lips, and his eyes were clenched tight. He managed to lift himself enough to help Skinner tug his briefs down around his thighs, and seemed to have no strength left, lying still, and quiet as Skinner stroked his buttocks and thighs.

Clamping the light between his teeth, Skinner leaned forward, parting his cheeks, holding them open with thumb and forefinger while he let the light play over his prize. There was still evidence of bruising, and swelling, but when he let one fingertip circle over it, Marty did not cry out in pain or protest. "Are you sure?" Skinner grunted.

Marty's answer was a sharp jerk of his head.

Skinner put the light down and lifted himself over the young man. He forced his hand around Marty's mouth and clamped down. "You're going to want to scream," he hissed into his ear. "I understand that. But we can't have you screaming where they can hear, so I'm going to keep my hand over your mouth, okay?"

Beneath him, Marty nodded.

"Now, listen to me." Skinner shifted his body enough to put his other hand over Marty's. "If you get scared, if it hurts too much, if you just want me to stop, wriggle this hand so I can see it. Okay?" He waited. The kid didn't move. "Okay?" he repeated roughly.

Marty drew in a shivering breath and mumbled, "Okay."

For the rest of his life, Skinner would remember and relive that moment, that last moment of sanity, that last moment before he took a boy, a child...it didn't matter that the time between then and Marty's majority could practically be counted in minutes, he was still a minor at that moment.

He did scream. His body jerked and twisted. His breath was hard, rushed and ragged through his nose. Tears and snot smeared on the pillow. His hips bucked and rolled. He lost control of his bladder. But his hand never even twitched.

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Skinner stared unseeing at the congealed soup and wilting lettuce before him. He was reliving those moments, those feelings, those sounds over and over. His gut was in knots. Tears burned behind his glasses. Damn Mulder. Damn him to hell! Why did he make me remember?

He straightened and used the grass green napkin to wipe his face, signaling for the bill as he stood.

The young lady, hurried toward him, looking alarmed. She had been watching him stare, unmoving, at that embarrassing meal, for nearly thirty minutes. "Yes, Sir?" She looked down at his table. "I told you that you'd be better off going to McDonalds."

Skinner sniffed hard and reached into his breast pocket for his billfold. "What's the damage?"

The girl looked around the dining room again. "Nothing. No charge."

"Nonsense. Not your fault I...have a cold and couldn't eat." He dropped a twenty on the table. "Keep the change."

"But...Sir..."

He was walking. He waved backward as if there was nothing in the world which could induce him to look in that direction ever again.

He took a right at the lobby door and signaled for a taxi. He'd stalled long enough. There was something he needed to say. Something he should have said twenty years ago.

As he had rolled away from Marty, the boy had whispered, "I love you."

And Walter Skinner had risen from the bed, tucked his shrinking penis into his trousers and left the room without a word.

Nine -- Once in a Lifetime

Mulder nudged the car carefully into the parking lot. The twelve centimeters had materialized, and brought friends. The plow, however, had not returned, and the parking lot was a sea of snow drifts.

Beside him, Scully was working her little fingers into little gloves in preparation to leave the relative warmth of the car and dart into the motel. Her motions were sharp and jerky in impatience. Her lips were pulled in so tight that there was nothing but a line of lipstick where her mouth should be.

The two had not exchanged a word that was not required by proximity or profession the entire day. Mulder could no longer tolerate it. He hated being cut off from their pleasant intimacy, and he hated more being left alone with only his own dark contemplations for company. He shot her a glance as he let the car roll forward slowly and carefully. "Something vexes thee?"

"All this way for nothing," she was muttering. "I gave up my weekend in my own warm home to come here and they let us do...nothing." She snapped one hand toward the window, "because of a little snow."

It wasn't the snow. It wasn't the wasted weekend. It wasn't even being thwarted by fellow agents not willing to come out on a Saturday in the middle of a blizzard to show them something that they considered a non starter. It was that she was stuck in a blizzard on a Saturday in Wisconsin...with him. "We'll make some calls and maybe we can find someone higher up the food chain to-"

"No one's going to take you seriously, Mulder," she exploded. "No one's going to come out in a storm on their weekend to look at something just because Spooky Mulder's got a hunch."

He let the car stop, mouth agape. He knew he had hurt her with his outburst, but he never expected her to lash back, especially attacking the one area of his life where he had some measure of confidence. "I'd like to point out that you're the one who brought this case to me."

"And I'll point right back that you were already watching developments." She paused, unwilling to shout over the engine as Mulder gunned it, trying to overcome the inertia of slick tires on slushy snow. "All I did was show you the match, you're the one who went up in flames." She made one of those back of the throat sounds of frustration, and pushed her car door open. "I'm going to see how soon we can get a flight out." She slammed the door shut.

Mulder sat in the car a few minutes, stubbornly trying to will the car forward when the tires were refusing to find any traction in the snow. Finally, with an aggrieved sigh and a mental fist shaken toward Mother Nature, God, and Doom, got out and, with one hand on the wheel, and the other on the door frame, dug into the snow determined to apply enough velocity to overcome resistance, and get the stupid car into a stupid parking space, or at least out of the stupid driveway. "'You're the one who went up in flames'," he muttered, doing an eerily accurate imitation of Scully's accusing tone. "I'm always the one going up in flames."

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It wasn't romantic. Not that Mulder had ever cherished romantic notions. It wasn't even that pleasant. It was rough, crude, impatient and painful. And amazing. For a few moments, he was wanted. The man he wanted was with him, in him, having him, wanting him...even needing him. The whole experience surpassed the physical in such powerful ways that at the end he felt almost as if he were dying and every emotion in him, raw and uncensored, spilled out of him like bodily fluid.

Of course Skinner did not respond to his words. Skinner wasn't that kind. Skinner was a man of action, a subtlety not even lost on an emotional neophyte like Marty. But knowing doesn't necessarily equate with accepting, and Marty was having trouble accepting that Skinner had not said anything once his needs had been met, his lusts slaked. Lying in the cold, semi dark room after, a blanket thrown hastily over his exposed body, he wanted, for a moment, to be swallowed by blackness; he felt abandoned and even more unwanted than ever.

He might have been a tenderfoot at romance, but Marty was also a rational young man, and lying there, aching, open and used, he forced himself to reconsider the situation. He'd offered, hell, he had thrown himself like a Roger Clemens fast ball right over the plate, and Skinner had swung from the heels and took him home. There was no wooing, no discussions, no responsibility to do anything but give it all he had and he had. Skinner didn't owe him anything more than orgasm, and he had met that obligation with fireworks and a brass band. He had shown as much consideration as possible, given the situation. He had made allowances for pain, fear and vagaries of spirit. To hope that he could throw in a few tender words, or undying love, was really too much to ask.

He thought about calling Walt back to apologise, or maybe to ask him if it had been all right, anything not to be left alone in physical and emotional darkness, but before he could force words past the tightness in his throat, Skinner reappeared at the door. "Pull your clothes on," he barked, "they're almost here."

Mulder wrenched around on the cot trying to get his shorts and hoody into place. He felt as if he had been ripped open and his viscera was leaking from the wound. He heard voices raised over the wind and the door flying back on its hinges to slam against the wall. He heard profane oaths about the weather and the lack of supplies. He heard anger that needed an outlet. Having been the outlet of anger too man times in his life, he rolled flat, the blanket up over his head.

"Well, all I know is...what is that smell?" Murphy stalled in the connecting doorway and sniffed again, loudly. "What the hell? The kid pissed himself." He whirled in the doorway. "I know he's the biggest baby on the Eastern Seaboard, but isn't there some kind of rule that Boy Scouts must at least be potty trained?"

Skinner pushed him aside, filling the doorway. "He hasn't moved since we left him last night. Are you sure he's still alive?"

"Oh, my God," Leith said with alarm.

"He's fine," Murphy insisted, trying to keep Leith and Skinner from pushing their way into the room. "He was out cold but snoring like a grizzly bear when I got up to relieve you."

"Did you give him anything last night to help him sleep?" Skinner demanded. "You might have given him more than he could handle and he slept right through, unaware he needed to take a leak. I've heard of that happening."

"I didn't give him an overdose," Murphy snarled.

Mulder stopped listening. Walt knew what had happened. He wasn't protecting Marty, he was protecting himself. He shut his eyes tight and prayed for the blizzard to end so he could escape.

A moment later...or perhaps it was days later, he felt weight on the side of the cot. "Hey, are you okay?" Warm hands landed on his shoulders, turning him. "Wake up. You've made a mess of yourself. Easy, easy. It's okay." Walt's voice seemed so gentle, so concerned. "You were probably over drugged for the pain. Nothing to be ashamed of." He tilted Mulder's chin up and sought his eyes in the darkness. "Do you hear me? You've done nothing to be ashamed of."

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The lobby, if you could call it that, had all the charm of a bus station mens' room without the color coordination. The smell was made worse by the extreme weather forcing all doors and windows shut, and it struck Mulder physically, reminding him of the smell of that cot, and his clothing, and stomach recoiling, head pounding, he fixed his eyes on the stained carpet, and willed himself to walk, not run, to the elevator without vomiting.

He barely made it to his room, before relinquishing bad coffee, bile and half a stale, mini mart sandwich. He was rinsing his mouth from the sink when he heard a rap on the door. "I'm fine, Scully," he called. He didn't want to explain what had happened or why, nor did he want her martyred attempt at mothering him. It would be like her to punish him by trying to fuss over him, with gaping wounds in her attitude, as if to say 'yes, you lash out at me cruelly, but even so, I'm the only one who will take care of you.'

He stumbled to the bed and picked up the coat he had barely managed to shake off before losing his lunch. The knock came again. It wasn't the connecting door. He contemplated ignoring it. But on the chance their complaints had managed to rouse one Federal Agent that day, he pulled the door open.

It was a Federal Agent. The very last one he expected.

He didn't speak right away. He stepped inside, unbidden and closed the door behind him as Mulder backed away from the door. He gave Mulder a long, slow study from unkempt hair to Nunn Bush loafers. "Marty?" he asked; a question, a protest, an accusation.

Mulder sighed and settled at the edge of the bed. "I hated my name. I hated me. I thought if I could change my name," his breath caught slightly, "I could change me."

"I didn't realize...I never...I didn't know it was you." Skinner sounded mystified, but he broke it with a wry little laugh. "I always knew there was something about you that pissed me off, but I didn't realise it was this. You'd changed a lot."

Mulder shrugged. "Finally put some meat on those skinny bones."

Skinner started to smile at some faint and fond memory, but stopped, and glared at Mulder. "You ran away."

Mulder accepted this indictment. "I had no other choice. I was feeling a bit..."

"Used?" Skinner suggested.

"I was going to say bruised, but used works just as well."

Skinner's twenty year old guilt finally saw daylight-or at least, lamplight. "I'm sorry. You were just a kid. I had no-"

Mulder held up a hand. Funny, now that he was finally there, finally confessing, Mulder couldn't bear to hear it. "It's all right. It's over and long since forgotten, except for awkward moments like this. It's no big deal."

"Liar."

Mulder's eyes jerked to his, in surprise.

"It hurt you. It was never my intent to hurt you, you know."

"Oh, I know." Mulder turned his head toward the window. "But I was seventeen. I had romantic notions then. I've gotten over them, since."

"You had romantic notions?" Skinner sounded surprised. "About me?"

Mulder stood, putting more space between them. "I did." He risked a glance over his shoulder, knowing his face was flame red. "It's not just girls who think their first...lover is real love. But, you weren't my lover, were you? And I certainly wasn't yours." He twisted back to face the wall. "I was just a convenient hole."

"Mulder, I-"

"I heard what you said that night," Mulder said quickly. "That one piece of ass is pretty much the same as the next in the dark." He swallowed back bile. "And then I saw her."

"Her?" Skinner sounded puzzled.

"That blonde girl who came out to the island that night." Mulder turned around. "That breathtakingly beautiful blonde girl. I knew I could never compete with that. So, I left."

Skinner looked as puzzled as he sounded. "Sharon?"

"Sharon?" Mulder repeated, staggering slightly, and sat, gracelessly on the end of the bed. "That was Sharon?"

Skinner nodded. "We had been engaged since before I entered the Academy." He shook his head. "I knew it was a mistake. I think I had known from the beginning it was a mistake, but I knew with certainty after meeting you. Still," he drew a deep breath, "it had gone on so long, and her family had done so much for me, there just didn't seem any way out of it."

Mulder processed the conversation. Skinner's regret seemed genuine, but the implication that he might have felt something for Mulder was just pabulum, meant to soothe any wounds that might not yet have healed, scarred over and faded into oblivion. "Well." He stood purposefully. "I guess we're done here. I'm glad it's all out in the open now." He held out a hand to Skinner, the bravest thing he'd ever done in his life. "Thank you for coming."

Skinner was slow to respond, but his hand did eventually extend to meet Mulder's. And he held it. "Are we done?" he challenged softly.

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By Mulder's accounts they were done within twenty four hours of that frantic coupling. According to Skinner's statements, he felt the same way. In fact, he probably felt that way within twenty four minutes.

Skinner had gathered him up, wet blanket and soiled clothing and all, and carried him out of the cabin. The wind seemed to be fiercer and colder than Mulder remembered during the trip to the shelter, but the snow seemed less dense, and visibility was improved enough that the barracks stood out even against an angry sea and a fading night sky. "What are we doing?" he yelled over the wind.

Skinner didn't need to yell. He had the sort of voice that could command the elements to hush. "I'm taking you to get cleaned up and for dry clothes."

Mulder twisted his face away from the shelter of Skinner's shoulder, embarrassed. "Thank you," he mumbled. Actually, he was grateful just to be spared any more of the medic's meanspirited, narrowminded observations.

Skinner got him inside with minimal resistance from the wind, and actually carried him up to the infirmary, stripped him down and got him wrapped in a few thin cotton sheets before he spoke again. "No coal, no oil...so no heat." He looked around. "I'll get some clean clothes for you and see if I can find more blankets." He leaned over the bunk and brushed Mulder's hair back from his eyes. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you too badly?"

Mulder pressed his lips together and jerked his head back and forth in denial. He hurt, but he wasn't going to tell Walt that.

Skinner settled on his knees beside the bunk, his face bunched up in concern. "Marty, I...what I did was wrong. You are not responsible. I'm the adult, I should have stopped before this happened. Please don't blame yourself."

Mulder turned to look at the wall, watching the frantic dance of shadows cast by the trees outside. "You think it was wrong."

Walt didn't hesitate. "Yes. Yes, I do. You're too young to have made a decision-"

"We didn't break any laws," Mulder argued hotly. "You didn't force me. I wanted it. I asked for it. I b-begged for it." He rolled as far away from Walter as he could. "Go away." Tears burned his eyes, blinding him. "Just go away."

"Don't cry." It was another of those stupidly shallow things Walter Skinner said that managed to be profound. "There's nothing to cry about." He climbed into the bunk, draping himself over Mulder's back and shoulder. "No reason to cry."

That was Mulder's undoing. He began to sob into the cotton swaddling. "You didn't like it, you don't like me."

"I did like it. I do like you. I...maybe I like you a little too much."

Mulder didn't look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I want you. Again. Now. I want you now and tomorrow and the day after and the day after that." His breath was harsh on Mulder's cheek. "I can't help it. I've wanted you for weeks, and I want you even more now." He was tearing at the bed clothes. "Stop me now, Marty. Tell me no, right now." He pulled Mulder onto his back and covered him with his body. "Stop me, Marty." He kissed him roughly as he forced Mulder's legs apart, pushing his knees up. "Stop me, Marty," he warned one last time.

Mulder didn't stop him. Not then nor any other time in the next twenty four hours. Skinner seemed insatiable. But then the wind stopped, and perhaps the fury of passion died in him with it.

And that damned boat came. And she was on it. The girl with the cornsilk hair and the laugh like silver bells, and every other trite romance novel attribute. She was a fucking Harlequin Romance heroine, and Mulder hated her. She walked off that boat and Mulder got tossed out of Skinner's mind and his bed.

It tormented him like the demons of hell his mother always prattled about to think of her in his place, in that bunk, in Walter's arms, it tormented him to think of her stirring his desire, drawing those heavy sounds of need and satisfaction from his gut. It tormented him, yet he had to see it for himself. So that night he snuck around, peering in windows til he found the room where Walt was sleeping. But it wasn't that bitch sitting with him at the table where he had been packing. It was the medic, Murphy. And he could tell by their expressions that Murphy knew a lot more than he should, and Skinner knew it.

Marty pressed himself against the building, the wet, peeling paint crumbling against his cheek. He didn't want to hear this, but he couldn't move without betraying his presence.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Skinner's voice was so cool, so unflustered, even someone who knew the truth might be tempted to believe his lie.

"Of course you do. Look, I'm not going to make trouble for you." Murphy's voice was easy, companionable, sly. "I just don't understand...why would you waste your rounds on a skinny, obnoxious, walking prison sentence, when you have that gorgeous piece of ..." Skinner must have sliced his balls off with a look for he didn't finish the sentence. "Anyway, I don't understand."

"Well, you know how it is, Murphy...a hole is a hole in the dark. If it was dark enough, even you might tempt me."

The mere suggestion was enough to create a disturbance in that homophobe's psyche and he must have resorted to some level of violence to escape Skinner's knowing grin. Marty didn't have to see Skinner's face to know it was there. The commotion was just enough to enable him to get away from the building and down to the dock, unseen. He was shaking, fighting tears, biting his lips to contain the pain and rage welling up inside him as he dropped into the skiff.

Leith looked up, surprised. "I thought you were staying through the end of the week to help with the clean up?" Marty couldn't trust his voice, and shook his head once in almost desperate denial. "Where are your things?"

Marty looked back up toward that one lighted window. "Nothing here I want," he said, flatly.

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Skinner was still looking at him. Still holding his hand. Still keeping the spider's silk of a connection between them. "Are we done?" he repeated. There it was again, that way of saying something stupid, simple, obvious and inane and having it mean something so deep and deliberate and profound.

Mulder pulled his hand free. This was dangerous. The scars had been torn open, and instead of blood, there was nectar, sweet and tempting, oozing out. The pain was the same, yet there was something delicious about it, something comforting, exciting, desirable about the possibilities presented. "Yes," he said, but forgot to insert conviction, making his voice tremble, turning the word into more of a suggestion, perhaps even a question.

What the hell was the matter with him? He had almost successfully ignored these events, the pain, the pleasure, the abandonment, the bitterness, for nearly twenty years, and suddenly he was remembering everything. And even remembering everything, he wanted everything back. He wanted Skinner. He had always wanted Skinner. For better or worse, Skinner had shaped his ideals for men, for lovers, for partners, and no one since had measured up. He'd tried unsuccessfully for years to replace Skinner's image; he'd had dozens of lovers, men and women, he'd married, he'd fallen hopelessly but chastely in love with Scully. But Skinner, balding, bespectacled, starched and stern, was all he wanted. All he could ever want. "I hope so," he added, this time with conviction.

Ten -- Die Flut

Skinner knew, the moment he'd seen Mulder dart across that decrepit ante room, looking decidedly green, that his memories had been no less profound, no less painful. He would have felt guilty for putting his agent through that, if there was a crumb of guilt left in him not already monopolized by the events of twenty years ago.

He followed, at a discreet distance, as Mulder tore up the stairs, and entered the corridor carefully, after hearing Mulder's door slam. By the time he reached Mulder's room, he could hear the miserable retching and felt a moment of envy. He'd fought his own whirling gut for hours. He waited until he heard that last groan, and flush before he knocked. He heard Mulder yell out something, but he did not come to the door, so he tried the knob. The door was locked. He knocked again, hoping he would not have to show a badge to someone to get inside.

This time Mulder responded. He opened the door, looking stunned.

His expression surprised Skinner. Somehow he expected Mulder to expect his arrival. Isn't that what profilers do? But under the surprise, Skinner saw something else...something he should have seen years ago. "Marty?"

Mulder paced and fidgeted and tried to explain the pseudonym. Skinner didn't need to know. He knew enough about Mulder's history now to understand his motivation. He just wanted Mulder to understand that he had carried the memory of Marty all these years. "You've changed a lot."

Mulder made a face. "Put some meat on these bones, at least."

Skinner almost laughed, but that would defeat the purpose. He had to remain in control now. "You ran away," he said, carefully keeping accusation from his voice.

Mulder heard the accusation anyway. "I had to. I was feeling..." he stopped.

"Used?" Skinner didn't mean to give him ammunition for his anger, but the truth will out, as Shakespeare said.

He shrugged, that shrug...it hadn't changed its effect on him. "The word I would have chosen was bruised."

Skinner couldn't fight it any longer. "I was wrong. You were a child. I had no right to do those things."

"It's not a big deal," Mulder insisted, looking as if it was still a very big deal. "It's over and forgotten, except for awkward moments like this."

"You're lying." Mulder seemed surprised that Skinner would state it so baldly. "I hurt you. It was never my intention to hurt you."

"I know." Mulder was avoiding his eyes. "But, when you're seventeen, you get romantic notions. You get over them."

"You had romantic notions about me?" The idea was incomprehensible. How could that young, beautiful kid have romantic notions about a hulking carcass with no soul?

Mulder seemed uncomfortable, even embarrassed by the fact. He moved around the room, keeping space between them. "Girls aren't the only ones who feel romantic about their first lovers. Only...you weren't my first, technically. And I certainly wasn't yours." He had his back to Skinner as he added, "I was just a convenient hole."

Skinner was staggered by the acrimony in his voice. "Mulder, how could you say-"

"I heard what you said that night."

"What are you talking about? What did I say? To whom?"

Mulder's face wrinkled up as if he wanted to spit the words out. "You said that one piece of ass is pretty much the same as the next in the dark."

The words were like a baseball bat to his cerebrum. Murphy! Didn't Mulder realize he was only saying those things to prevent that little parasite causing trouble for both of them. "Mulder, I only said-

"And then I saw her."

"Her?"

"That blonde girl. I couldn't compete with someone like that, so I left."

"You mean Sharon?"

"Sharon? That was Sharon? That was your wife?"

Skinner nodded. "We had been engaged since before I entered the Academy. I knew it was a mistake. I think I had known from the beginning it was a mistake, but I knew with certainty after meeting you."

If Mulder had learned anything from this history lesson, he was not revealing it. He sat quietly for a while and then stood up, crossing the room, and for the first time nearing Skinner's proximity. "Well, I guess we're done here. I'm glad it's all out in the open now." He held out a hand to Skinner. "Thank you for coming."

Skinner was dissatisfied with the outcome. After all this, surely it didn't end here, like this. "Are we done?"

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Skinner told himself he was removing Marty to the barracks to get him away from Murphy and Leith's cruel comments and obvious dislike. But he knew, even as he pushed headlong against the wind that he was fighting his way through a blizzard with his human cargo because he wanted to be alone with the kid for a few more precious hours. He wanted to look at his body. Touch him. Taste him. Fuck him again. He wanted to watch those storm sea eyes as he thrust. He wanted to hear the sounds of pleasure, of almost agonizing need without his hand stifling them. He wanted to hear the kid beg him for it, for his cock, for his release.

He tried not to. He tried to remember this was a fragile, immature soul. A baby. He cried, for Heaven's sake! But the tears just spurred him on to do it again. And again.

By dawn he wondered if either of them would ever walk again.

Sometime around noon, Skinner had long since lost track of time, as they were lying in the sweaty aftermath of sex, Mulder resting on Skinner's chest, their bodies glued together with sweat and semen, Skinner thought he heard voices below, and a boat horn. He ignored them for a moment, tongue fucking that impossible mouth, tickling Marty to make him giggle and squirm, thinking he just might have it in him for one more round before he needed food, coffee and a month long nap. But the sounds were persistent, tickling his brain the way he teased Marty's sticky belly. Voices, and not just Leith and Murphy's. One of them sounded...female. One of them sounded very familiar. "Fuck!" He sat up in the bunk, pushing Marty to one side. "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck."

Marty rubbed at his razor burned face. "What is it? What's the matter?"

Skinner grabbed another sheet from a cabinet in the corner and through it at Marty. "Get out of here. Now. They're coming this way." He staggered and stumbled and swore as he climbed into his own clothes. "Go. Now!"

He had to give the kid credit. Once he perceived the danger, he moved. He was gone before Skinner could finish buttoning his shirt.

Skinner wasn't wrong about recognizing that voice. By the time he had combed his hair and rinsed the taste of Marty from his mouth, Sharon was almost to the barracks door. Blonde hair flying, flushed face framed by white cap and scarf, she looked fresh and feminine and exhilarated by the trip. The truth was she was terrified; news reports on the mainland painted a grim picture for anyone unfortunate to be caught off shore.

"I was so worried about you," she whispered into his neck as he embraced her. "I made daddy charter a boat the minute the red flags lifted."

As beautiful and spirited and spoiled as she appeared at that moment, Skinner was repulsed by her. He didn't want to hold her. He didn't want Marty to see her in his arms. "You don't want to stand too close," he warned, pushing her back carefully. "I've spent three days huddled in a small room with three other men."

She smiled at him, flinging herself back against him. "I don't care. You're alive. Oh, and you're coming home with me. Now. Tonight. Uncle Denny has it all arranged."

"Sharon." This time he nearly shoved her away. "I can't leave. There are things to do. We made a mess of this place and we have to pack it up and clean. We made a deal with the Coast Guard not to trash-"

"There are others here, let them do it." She grabbed his hand. "You've been through enough. I've been through enough. Get your stuff. If we leave within the hour we can be having supper at Nino's in the Village tonight."

"Sharon, I can't just leave like that. I have a responsibility, a duty to stay."

For a moment he thought she was going to pout or have one of her famous tantrums, but to his astonishment, she broke into another smile. "Oh, I knew you'd say that. That's why I brought a bag." She turned and waved toward the boat. "C'mon. Be a gentleman and show me to my room."

"You're not staying here, on the island," Skinner protested. "It's...it's all men."

"You had women here before," she reminded him. "There were no problems with them."

Skinner had been scanning the perimeter for some sign of Marty, but at her words, he looked down at her. "How did you know that?"

She shrugged airily. There was nothing erotic about it. "Oh, I kept informed." The laughter evaporated. She looked up at him, frowning. "I heard what happened. That boy. Walter." She put a hand on his arm and lowered his voice. "You weren't involved in that, were you?"

He felt his face go red with shame but he hid the reaction with anger. "Sharon, for Heaven's sake! It was a pervert. He was just...a kid, a baby...he was a Boy Scout. Give me some credit, will you?"

Her face softened with contrition. "You're right. Please forgive me."

"It's forgotten. But you are going to get back on that boat and get yourself a nice warm hotel room. I'll be over tomorrow and we'll go home."

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He could see Mulder was crumbling. He broke contact and put space between them. He stammered slightly when he spoke. Skinner might have felt compassion for him if it didn't also stir a little illicit hope in his own chest. Mulder was just as conflicted as he was.

Mulder rubbed his arms and paced away from him. "I hope you have a better room than this. I don't think we're getting out of here tonight unless Scully is willing to pull a gun on a pilot and force him into the air." He shot a look at the connecting door. "Of course, in the mood she's in..." He sat down, his feet shifting in agitation. "I don't know if you heard, but we flew all the way out here and the local office wouldn't even-"

"I don't want to discuss Bureau business, Mulder," Skinner said firmly. "I'm here on personal business."

Mulder didn't play dumb. Mulder couldn't play dumb. It just wasn't in his nature. "Ah. Well, we've discussed it. It's over now. I hope you know I'd never make an issue of it. I've known you fifteen years and never said a word. Why should I now?"

"Why didn't you?"

"At first I was too afraid you would say something," he answered baldly. "And then, it took me a while to realize you didn't remember me." He smiled weakly. "And then it bothered me that you didn't."

"Never think I didn't remember you, Mulder." Skinner took a step forward, believing he was going to pull the younger man into an embrace. But Mulder slid aside. "I just didn't recognize you as the person I'd been remembering all those years."

"And...yesterday...when you knew?"

Skinner spread his hands wide. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Mulder gave him the exact same expression Natalie Wood gave Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34^th Street: Confident, knowing disbelief. "You're here to see what I'm going to do now that you know."

Skinner was not a gambling man. He never rolled the dice unless he was absolutely certain he was going to roll a seven. He could already see one die landed on a six. He gave the other one a toss. "I'm here, kicking myself, for missing all those years together."

That stunned him. He sat back so far he nearly fell off the side of the bed. "You wanted...you think we...you married her."

An ace. "I didn't know where you were. I did try to find you, Mulder. I searched for you. I heard you went away to school so I gave up." He smiled almost reproachfully. "You married, as well."

Mulder let his head drop to his hands. "This is a lot to take in at the moment."

"Are you saying that you wouldn't consider..."

He jerked upright. "No!" He swallowed, and his tongue slipped out and over his lip. "I mean, I don't know what I'd do. I have spent fifteen years fighting the desire to tell you, to make a move, to even have fantasies about you. I've spent fifteen years trying to forget that I once...that I once..." He let his head fall again. "I don't know. I need to process all this."

"I understand." Skinner's hand dipped into a pocket. "I'll go back to my hotel. If you come to a decision, or you just want to talk...call me. But while you're thinking about it, think about this as well." He pulled the small black box from his pocket and popped it open.

Mulder sat back, looking slightly horrified. "You gonna propose?"

"No, I'm going to rectify an error. An old, old error." He pulled out the red and blue ribbon with the silver banner, and heavy, silver eagle. "Fox William 'Marty' Mulder, you are officially an Eagle Scout." He pinned the medal over Mulder's breast pocket and stepped back, snapping him a very regulation salute. "Congratulations. Call me when you know what you want to say." He slipped out the door.

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Sharon's arrival on the island served one unexpected purpose. It forced Skinner to realize he could never have a happy or healthy relationship with her. She would always want a man whose desires and goals were as broad and ambitious as her own, and he would always want that gawky kid with the silky hair, a mouth that could make him cry. No sooner had he managed to get Sharon back on a boat, freeing him to find Marty and make his case for them to be together, Murphy sidled into his room, with a too wise grin, and an over generous manner. He made veiled threats, and ugly suggestions, and it was everything Skinner could do not to break his body into pieces and scatter it into the icy sea.

He had searched every inch of the island that wasn't under water or snow, but no sign of the kid. His things were still on his cot, scattered and rummaged as he had left them the night he had tried to warn Skinner. Skinner prowled through his belongings and found a notebook with addresses and phone numbers. Making sure no one was around to observe, he copied down several he thought would assist him in locating the boy, if he'd managed to get off the island.

Later, when he was back in New York, assigned to a Brooklyn precinct, trying to build the life Sharon told him he wanted, he risked making a call to Marty's commandant, to find out if there had been any further news. There was very little. He had never returned to his troop activities, and his parents said he'd gone off to Oxford within a day or two of leaving the island. When Skinner pressed him, it was admitted that while Scout Mulder had completed every task required to earn his Eagle, because of the unfortunate incident on Thatcher Island, it was decided not to present him with his medal. The implication was that it might elicit bad memories. Skinner knew that wasn't the real reason.

Skinner argued this, unsuccessfully. He then approached Leith, who was still teaching at the Academy, and pushed him to get involved. It had taken almost three years of arguments and mislaid paperwork to get the medal released, and then a clerical screw up caused it to be sent to him, instead of Marty. Sharon had thought it hysterically funny that Skinner would get a Boy Scout Badge, when he was, in her words, 'certainly no Boy Scout', but Skinner carried that black pasteboard box for years, in the firm belief that one day he'd make sure Marty got what was rightfully his.

Eventually he moved to the Bureau. He climbed ranks the way others climb stairs. He found out he was politically savvy, and a good judge of people. Despite his vow never to get into management, he found himself behind a desk, trying to learn from the lessons of others, trying to be good and fair, to do the right thing no matter what the political climate. He inherited a department that was little more than a joke. He inherited a rogue agent who gave him ulcers and tapped the fragile glass of his relationship with Sharon at just the right point, causing it to shatter.

And all these years later, alone, lonely, full of regret, full of yearning, he had finally been able to do the right thing.

His mobile trilled as he crossed the dank, dark lobby. He didn't bother to look at the calling number. Anyone would do. He was desperate for a distraction. "Skinner."

He heard a sigh on the other end. A deep, resigned sigh. "I know what I want to do."

Skinner stood still, heart pounding from his soles to his temples. "And that is?"

"I want you to buy me a cup of coffee, and tell me my future."

His heart was surely going to burst out of his body, but he kept his voice level and stern. "I don't read coffee grounds, Mulder."

Mulder's voice remained grim. "Okay, fuck the coffee. Just tell me my future."

Skinner held the mobile to his chest, and chuckled. "I see a tall, bald man in your future."

"Yeah? What's he doing?"

"Kissing you."

Mulder was quiet for a moment. "What am I doing?"

Skinner felt his hopes soaring like an eagle. "Kissing back."

"Interesting. And is this near future?"

"Very near." Skinner consulted his watch. "I'd say...five minutes or less."

"I'll leave the door unlocked."

END