Close Enough for Government Work
by Hth

	The fourth floor vending machine would not drop Skinner's pretzels, and he was 
almost at the end of his resources, having tried punching the buttons repeatedly, 
swearing, and jostling the machine.  Although it stung his pride to do so, Skinner 
began going through his pockets for more change.  Sixty-five cents.  At sixty-five 
cents, maintenance ought to bring pretzels directly to his desk.  A dollar thirty 
for twelve goddamn pretzel sticks; it was beyond tolerance.
	And yet here he stood, Assistant Director of the FBI, silently tolerating it.  
Counting out his nickels as his blood pressure edged up and the fluorescent lights 
buzzed softly at the end of an empty hallway.  Fucking ridiculous.  Nothing like a 
vending machine to put you back in your place.
	"Ah, the armless bandit.  Hey, don't pay that thing off.  What did they teach 
about hostage situations back in your day?"
	It never surprised him when Mulder sprung up out of nowhere, not anymore.  The 
man was ten places at once, and sly as a cat.  "Agent Mulder, do you have a dime on 
you?"
	"Bullshit.  Stand aside."  Mulder eyeballed the position of the pretzels behind 
the transparent plastic, took aim, and hit it once, a sharp, glancing blow with the 
side of his fist.
	The pretzels dropped.  Of course.  Nothing like Fox goddamn Mulder to put you 
back in your place.  "Very macho.  Did Agent Scully teach you how to do that?"
	"You're welcome.  You think Scully eats that vacuum-packed shit?  What are you 
doing here, anyway?  It's a quarter of eight."
	"The same thing you are, Agent Mulder."
	Mulder raised his eyebrows in mock puzzlement.  "Looking for you?  I'd say you 
have the advantage, Walter.  Smart money is on you finding you first."
	In the silence, Skinner noticed that the lights did not hum consistently; there 
was an irregular rhythm, tiny fluctuations of pitch, like a swarm communicating 
amongst themselves.  "Is this work-related, Agent Mulder?"
	It was out, said, not to be unsaid.  One half-step closer to what they had been 
dancing around for months.
	And Mulder wasn't answering.  He wasn't fucking saying a word, just staring 
at Skinner with a face as flat and unnatural as a painted medieval saint.  A saint.  
There was a bizarre thought.  Saint Mulder the Intransigent.  
	*Don't give me that look.*
	"It's - uh, yeah.  It's just - I mean, no.  It needs to be private."  Mulder 
twitched and fidgeted like a small child forced to sit quietly in a suit and tie, 
looking everywhere but at Skinner.  He wore the faint scowl that Skinner recognized 
from a hundred meetings, as though he had plenty to say but wasn't going to say any 
of it just to spite him.
	*Someday, Mulder, I'm going to smack that adolescent snit look off your face.  
Just to see what you do.*
	But even as he thought it, Skinner felt himself losing the edge of his irritation.  
It wasn't easy for Mulder.  It wasn't easy for either of them, but Skinner...was used 
to disappointment, to lack.  He expected it; maybe he counted on it, in a way.  Mulder 
never seemed able to cultivate that masochistic reliance on the inevitability of loss 
that kept Skinner steady and directed.
	"How about my office?"
	"Is it clean?"
	"Taken your medication lately, Agent Mulder?"
	"Give me a break, Walter.  Aren't we just a little beyond the 
Golly-Mulder-you're-so-paranoid stage?"  Take a look at my fucking life and tell me, 
where are you *sure* we can talk privately?"
	"Can you manage a *sir* while we're at the office, Agent?"
	"Sir, yes, *sir.* Quit flirting and answer the question."
	*Someday, Mulder, I'm just going to smack you.*
	Skinner could feel the heat rising up his neck and laughed into a string of 
silent curses.  The last thing he needed was to stand here blushing like an idiot 
in front of Fox Mulder.  But to have all the things that had gone so long unsaid finally 
thrust under the fluorescent lights with no warning and no subtlety. *Jesus Christ, 
Mulder, give me a heart attack.  What is wrong with you tonight?  You're crazier than 
usual.*
	"I could - uh - I need to pick up my e-mail, at least.  Then we could - we could 
drive through someplace for coffee."
	"I can't drink that road tar you get at Wendy's."
	"That's right.  You're the one who drinks the sissy coffee."
	"It's mocha.  And that's tough talk coming from a guy I happen to know has a 
Carpenters CD in his car."  His voice took a four-storey drop in volume and intensity, 
again without warning.  "I'm dead on my feet, Walter; I've got to get home.  This'll 
just take a second; your office?"
	Skinner nodded mutely. *You were expecting maybe hot rodent sex in the backseat?  
Get over yourself, Skinner.*
	The kiss had been a long time ago.  It hadn't gone anywhere.  It wasn't going 
anywhere.  Such was life.
	They were both different people now - Mulder especially.  Whatever he had or 
had not wanted in a hospital elevator months ago - and Skinner had no proof that Mulder 
had wanted anything in particular other than what he had taken - it was all...different 
now.
	"I'm taking the stairs," he announced.  Three floors up ought to take the edge 
off of his tension.
	"Shit.  If this is a testosterone contest, you win, all right?"  But Mulder 
followed him anyway.  Maybe he was no more eager to be alone in an elevator with Skinner 
than the reverse.
	It wasn't as though there hadn't been time.  Hell, they were working together 
more closely now than Mulder and Scully were.  In fact, Skinner had to wonder whether 
Mulder's sudden tendancy to materialize at strange times had something to do with 
Scully.  There was obviously some kind of trouble there, and Skinner had the creeping 
fear that it might be a romantic problem.  Mulder sure as hell walked around like 
a man with woman troubles these days.
	That had been the main motivation, at first, when Skinner had invited his agent 
out.  Fear that Mulder was already so lonely, so dispirited that this new assignment 
would be one burden too many.  "I can tell Scully, right?" he'd asked, in a strained 
voice that confused the issue of whether or not he wanted to.
	"No.  No one."  And Mulder hadn't even argued.  Just stood to leave, looking 
bent down under the weight of his immense, lifelong solitude, even though he stood 
as straight and tall as ever.  So brave, so fine.  "You can - you can call me, though.  
If you have to.  Whenever."
	Mulder looked back over his shoulder and nodded a few times, as if to say, 
*That's pretty much what I thought.* Then left.  Skinner never expected anything to 
be said about it again.  That was how things went, between him and Mulder.
	But he had called.  More than once.  And they had met for a beer, more than 
once, and then a late supper.  Mulder had started to bring something back for Skinner 
when he made a food run around lunchtime.  Sometimes they drove together, because 
the privacy of Skinner's car was the only place they really felt comfortable 
discussing the case.  He had become *Walter* instead of *sir,* almost all the time.  
Mulder even sometimes, late at night, on the phone or on a dark access road, nearly 
talked about himself.  At least dropped things like *my father* and *Scully's implant* 
into sentences, which for Mulder was like an advance copy of his memoirs.
	Not that kiss, though.  They never discussed that, no matter how casually, no 
matter how protected they were by distance or darkness.  In fact, they rarely talked 
about anything with the most remote connection to sex or romance, except for the 
occasional dirty joke from Mulder.
	He opened the door to his office, and Mulder passed by him, coat rustling like 
leaves.  "What's this about?"
	"I need to go away."
	*No* was Skinner's instinctive response. *No,* you have a job to do. *No,* how 
can you even ask me that? *No,* you should be here.
	*No* - what if you never come back?
	Strange thought - highly unlikely.  Mulder without the X-Files?  Impossible.
	But more and more lately.  Mulder seemed to be...wandering.  Mentally, 
emotionally, now perhaps physically as well.  He wasn't getting senile, and Skinner 
didn't doubt his sanity or sobriety.  Mulder was simply...unmoored, cast adrift, a 
stranger in a strange land.  As though he had been torn free of the weave of his own 
life on the night he had shot a man who was watching him too closely and been propelled 
into a dark and foreign reality, pushed through the looking glass.  As though now 
he found himself far from shore, without place or purpose.  Mulder's old anger, his 
old humor, his old passions were battered but intact, and he seemed to rotate randomly 
through them, responding without stimuli, arhythmic and clumsy with his motivations.  
Even as he was opening himself to Skinner, the heart of him was washing out with the 
tide, and Skinner knew that by the time he was given the keys to Mulder's inner temple, 
it would be the abandoned artifact of a dead religion.
	So instead of *no,* he said, "Go where?"
	"Atlanta.  A friend from Behavioral Sci invited me to lend the VCTF a hand on 
the Jack-of-All-Trades case."
	"What do you know about the Jack-of-All-Trades?"
	"Sam thinks the profile I did last fall on the Bijoux killer has something.  
Like maybe the Bijoux *was* Jack."
	Skinner licked his lips.  He was still holding the doorknob, pouring his energy 
into awareness of its smooth shape - safe topic, true and indisputable.  Mulder stood 
like a desert island, alone in the center of the office, making contact with nothing, 
neither chair nor desk nor AD Skinner.  "You're not a profiler."
	"I'm not a black ops agent either.  I'm not a *fucking* terrorist."  Brittle, 
beautiful voice, a stone cut and polished by something that was not quite grief and 
not quite wisdom.
	"That's what this is about."  Silence. *Mulder.  Can you radio in your 
co-ordinates, please?* "All right.  I know it's a goddamn rotten assignment."  Nothing. 
*So is supervising the X-Files, Mulder.  Give me a break.* "Let's get out of here."
	Adrift now herself, Skinner was crossing the cold Atlantic emptiness of his 
office.  No, not adrift.  Steering.  At last, Mulder turned to look at him.  He smiled, 
and it seemed to be an effort.  "That's all I'm asking."  His eyes, well-known eyes, 
now looked exotic, like some aquatic thing, living green and hungry in the hidden 
hollows of a coral reef.  Down where it was always cold and lightless and where 
everything, however lovely, was always either lure or defense.  Come-hither, 
touch-me-not.  Laws of nature, undeniable.
	Like Mulder.
	Like falling for Mulder.  Come-hither.  Touch-me-not.
	His fingers touched Mulder's back - only his fingers, as though he could still 
retreat innocently, as long as he didn't actually touch his palm to the warm length 
of Mulder's spine.  Which was bullshit, of course.  The touch was too tender, too 
reverent to be anything other than what it was.  An offer.
	Mulder met Skinner's eyes, and cocked his head a bit to one side.  Leviathan 
eyes, with neither cruelty nor compassion.  Only vast distance and depths that could 
crush.
	*Well, then.  Well, then, so it goes.  On we go.*
	Skinner shuffled a little closer, so that his hand was only lifting, not 
reaching.  Lifting, his fingers brushing Mulder's coat, pushing it aside like a 
curtain.  Mulder's cotton shirt.  Mulder's flat stomach.  Skinner's breath, noisy 
in the silence.  Mulder perhaps not breathing at all.
	Leather belt.  Skinner anchored the tips of his fingers to it, smooth and slick 
like the texture of the doorknob.  The heel of his hand rested on the fabric of Mulder's 
tailored trousers - nothing, surely, could come off the rack fitting him that way.  
Skinner heard a thready sound, the noise he thought they called wuthering when the 
wind made it.  God knew what it was called coming from Fox Mulder.  His hand slipped 
down, splaying wide across Mulder's pelvis, above his thigh.
	Though Mulder's fingers were trembling, his hand felt rock steady as it struck, 
closing around Skinner's wrist.  Skinner's heartbeat was taking over his entire chest, 
jarring his teeth.  It felt so correct, so finely tuned, each of them under the other's 
hand, held in place by a single touch.
	Held too long.  How *long* could Mulder hold this tight, tuned balance?  Each 
breath Skinner drew was deeper than the last, and provided him with less air, as though 
he were at a remarkable altitude.  He was ready, relishing Mulder's grip on his arm 
and desperate to be rid of it.  Come-hither, touch-me-not. *Anything.* Something.  
He glared directly into Mulder's eyes, willing him to move. *Yes or no.  Yes or no.  
Come on.  Pick one.  Mulder.  Yes or no?*
	"You are aware, I'm sure, of the squiffy legal issues here."
	Walter Skinner had taken, in his own humble opinion, more than his share of 
punches - middle child in a family of boys, combat vet, seasoned G-man.  Enough to 
know what one felt like. *No* would have been hard to swallow. *No* would have gone 
down like grit and coarse salt.  This was a hard right to the kidney.
	He stepped back, feeling dizzy.  "You going to sue me for harassment, Fox?"  
He sounded angry.  He was angry.
	Finally, an emotion bobbed to the surface in Mulder's eyes.  Skinner was ashamed 
to be grateful for it.  Fuck Mulder's pity.  "No.  Of course not."
	"Then *what?*"
	"I don't know," he said meekly.
	"Grow up, Mulder.  Get some fucking impulse control and leave me *alone.*"
	"I'm the one getting groped here, remember?"
	"Don't do it. *Don't* try to put this off on me, because I had everything under 
control until you changed all the rules.  What happened, Mulder?  You were coming 
down off a big day - you wanted to end it with a bang?  Before it got boring?"
	"That's not at all--"
	"I don't have time for this game, Mulder.  I just don't."
	Mulder watched the floor as Skinner stalked to his desk and pulled up the chair.  
"Walter," he said quietly.
	Skinner drew rolling, whorled patterns with his mouse.  The wallpaper on his 
PC was a sedate blue-and-black houndstooth pattern.  If Mulder had come to him looking 
for excitement, he was surely beginning to realize by now that he was in the wrong 
place.  "What?"
	"It's not a game.  It's just - fucked.  The whole thing's fucked."
	"That's great.  Fucked.  What did they teach you at Oxford, anyway?"
	"Walter.  I don't think my vocabulary skills are the key issue here."	
	"Agent Mulder, I'm tired of being a guest star in the ongoing drama of your 
*issues.*"
	He laughed.  Yeah.  Only Mulder.  "God, you're sexy when you're officious." 
	The arrow on his screen paused over the mailbox icon.  "Mulder.  Please don't."
	Roughly, Mulder cleared his throat.  "The only - the only reason I don't....   
I want to.  I mean, a part of me wants to.  If it were just us, Walter....  In a second."
	"If you think that you have something constructive to say, you should spit it 
out."
	"I'm in love with someone.  Else," he added after a pause, as though it were 
necessary to clarify.
	Skinner leaned back in his desk chair, and for a moment he almost had sympathy 
for Mulder.  He looked so sheepish, caught in some teenaged prank.  Whatever dismissive 
comment had been on the tip of Skinner's tongue vanished, and instead he heard himself 
say, "Where?  Who?  Jesus Christ, Mulder, do you realize how really fucking humorous 
it is to hear you say you're *taken*?  I've never known anybody as lonely as you are."
	Mulder gave him a weak but genuine smile.  "Not - *taken* taken.  Just in love."
	Mulder and his unparalleled genius for self-sabotage.  Frustration throttled 
Skinner; only Mulder would throw away the bird in the hand knowing full well that 
nothing would come along to take its place.  So Mulder was a masochistic, stubborn 
idiot, and Skinner was stuck with it.  Really perfect.  "Have it your way, Mulder.  
Just ask yourself, is she really worth all this?"
	But of course, she was.  Bright and beautiful, his foil and complement, partner, 
protector, purpose.  She was all Mulder had to die for these days, and that was all 
that really mattered to Mulder.  He'd take that any day over something to live for.
	"No," Mulder said, his voice hoarse as it reached and grasped desperately for 
whimsy.  "He's not worth shit.  But it doesn't help.  I still...love him."  He forced 
a smile.  "And I'm pretty damn sure you don't want to share a bed with him."
	*One new message,* his screen said.  To: Walter S. Skinner   From: God   Re: 
Your Idiot Crush On This Screwed-Up Kid.  "Look, Mulder, I have things to do."  The 
words dried and withered abruptly, then blew away in a November wind.

	To: wskinner@fbi.gov
	From: bmalone@fbi.gov
	Re: first to go, last to know

	"I - uh, I - have things to....  I'll think about Atlanta.  And get back to 
you."
	"You okay?"
	"*Go.*"
	He wouldn't have thought anything could distract him at this point.  He would 
have put good money on it, on a long, sleepless night brooding over Mulder.  Hell.  
Who would have expected - he *never* could have anticipated Bailey Malone.
	On the other hand....  Was Mulder gone?  Yes, good.  Skinner loosened his tie, 
tugged with idle, anxious energy at his shirtcollar.  On the other hand, Bailey 
Malone...the VCTF?  Wasn't that where he had ended up?  Funny that he couldn't remember.  
Funny that he'd lost track of Bailey over the years.  Maybe someday he'd be racking 
his brain, trying desperately to remember what department Mulder was in these days.  
Not likely, but maybe.
	The message was just 1k, but still he'd expected more than one line.  Something 
bright and chatty - *Hey, Skinner, how's life at the top?  How long has it been?  Carol 
says hello.*  That was the kind of thing you just expect from old war buddies after 
ten years or more.
	Then again.  Bailey.  That was different.

ACCEPT MY FRIENDSHIP OR DIE
M.

	He grinned, wondering if it had ever occurred to Bailey that Skinner might not 
remember that damn poem, thirty years later.  That he might just be confused by what 
appeared to be a threat. 
	But he did remember...sort of.  Something like... *Four things barely audible 
in the hush before any Christmas....* Something like that.  Bailey had made him read 
it, during the extremely boring fourth day of a rainstorm in Vietnam.  "Look.  The 
first is America, and the last is Vietnam."
	Walter Skinner was not a poetry aficionado.  He'd never heard of W.H. Auden, 
at the time, let alone read him.  But it was someone to talk to, even if only Malone, 
who wasn't much of a conversationalist.  So Skinner read what he was pointing out 
and tried to think of a response.  "What about the other two?"
	For the first time - ever, as far as Skinner knew - Private Malone smiled.  His 
hands moved across the page, light but large hands and a long finger hovered over 
the second line.  "PFC Walter Skinner."
	He'd been so damn young then.  Young enough not to understand the weight of 
Bailey's gaze, or the tension it caused to settle across Skinner's shoulders, seeping 
into his chest.  Now, just remembering it, Skinner knew that his mouth was going dry, 
his tongue becoming thick and unwieldy.  Familiar signs.  Bailey Malone.
	He licked his lips several times and hit the Reply button, deleted the message's 
headers with administrative clicks and drags.  He did remember, pretty well.  Under 
Bailey's message, he added his own.

>ACCEPT MY FRIENDSHIP OR DIE
I SHALL KEEP ORDER AND NOTHING MUCH WILL HAPPEN

	PFC Walter Skinner.  Yeah.  There was a lot he'd forgotten, but maybe not as 
much as it had originally seemed.  He replaced the M with an S, and sent the message.
	He watched his own hand at rest along the keyboard.  It might be the truest 
part of him; it was surely the feature that would seem most familiar to Bailey now.  
After all these years as an executive, he still had the square, hot, roughened hands 
of the eighteen-year-old boy who'd joined the Marines, straight off the farm.  Hands 
made to batter, to grasp, to be stained in engine oil; they looked too weighty and 
fumbling to do the work he did now, falling like light rain over keyboards and 
telephones with more buttons than the space shuttle.  What a life for Walt Skinner 
out of Decatur County.
	Bailey Malone had taught him all the other unexpected things his ponderous hands 
could do.  Work the expanse of a man's body like a field in Tennessee, with a farm 
boy's patience, quietly coaxing out its natural wealth, letting it ripen, harvesting, 
allowing it to lie fallow.  Learn poetry from the movement of a lover's lips as he 
spoke, the pacing of his breath and the thrum of his voicebox.  Bring a friend to 
orgasm, as easy as pulling the trigger on a gun. *Bang, you're dead.* *Bang, oh, God, 
I love you, Malone.*
	Nothing like your first love to put you back in your place.

	The phone's first ring was completed, but the second cut off with a squawk.  
He never had to answer the phone anymore.  Though he wished her friends wouldn't call 
after eleven.
	"It's for you!"  Frannie's voice floated, accusatory, into the guest room where 
Bailey was taking up temporary residence; since the surgery, it hurt like a bitch 
to go up and down the stairs all the time.
	"Can you bring me the phone?"  In the long silence, Bailey had plenty of time 
to wonder whether she would or not.  A month ago, there would have been no chance, 
but now, well, the accident had changed things.  She was almost solicitous - for 
Frances.  For Frances Malone, she was almost humble.
	And when she brought the cordless phone to his bedside, even the lingering pain 
in his chest seemed inconsequential, and the questions of ethics that had bothered 
him a week ago were laughable.  He would perjure himself any time, in front of the 
Supreme Court, if he had to.  He would steal or die or kill to protect this girl, 
this feral and volatile young woman who lied to him and took money from his wallet 
and liquor from his cabinet, who hated him with such energy and looked at him with 
such unbearable love in her brimming, black-lined eyes.  Bailey knew better than to 
thank her.  "Eat some of that pizza in the refrigerator," he said, casting a critical 
eye over the ribs he could count between her sports bra and sweatpants.  She rolled 
her eyes and swept out of the room, indignant.  Bailey smiled. *My baby.* "Hello?"
	"Bailey Malone?"  A man's voice, too gruff to be a salesman.  He had the sound 
of law enforcement, and Bailey hoped to God this didn't mean one of his children had 
gotten crossways with Atlanta PD again.  He'd had as many grouchy cops call him at 
all hours to garf about *whose case is this, anyway, Malone?* as he ever wanted to 
hear from again.  They were all just in a state of advanced castration anxiety, a 
bunch of manly jack-booted government assholes who couldn't stand the way Sam caught 
all their damn murderers.  Bailey grunted an affirmative into the phone.  "I hope 
this isn't a bad time."  Now the voice was slightly hesitant, not a cop on the warpath 
at all.  And slightly familiar.
	"Who is this?"  After a short silence, Bailey tried again.  "*Hello?*"
	He began again, brusque and businesslike, a voice that didn't sound as though 
it had ever hesitated or been touched by doubt in its life.  "SAC Bailey Malone.  This 
is Assistant Director Skinner in D.C.-"
	"Skinner!  My God!"
	"-and I've been told that your unit is requesting the loan of one of my very 
best agents for some damn case about a perv in a movie theater."
	"Well - just Fox Mulder.  Is he a model agent these days?"
	"No," he admitted.  "But I can't convince you that you owe me one if I tell 
you that, can I?"
	"Walter, *God.* It's good to hear from you."  He felt lightheaded, almost 
euphoric, but that might have been as much the painkillers kicking in as anything 
else.
	Maybe more than painkillers.  Walter Skinner....  Just the thing when you were 
wounded, when all your friends were dead or broken-hearted, when you were suffering 
the symphony of pain and elation that came from being madly in love with the little 
bitch who shot you in the chest.  Walter was so solid, earth-bound and stationary, 
putting roots down deep into wherever he went.  He would look Bailey's life over with 
those dark eyes and separate truth from falsehood.  His jaw would flex, he would nod 
once, and it would all be so clear.  So fixed and inevitable, at least for the moment, 
on the small scale.  If life was quantum mechanics, Walter Skinner was Newtonian 
physics. *An object at rest - an object in motion - equal and opposite reaction -* 
Hard to argue with.  Good to know. *I shall keep order....* If only Walt did order 
the world.  Not very much might happen, but by Christ, there would be laws.
	"I was thinking.  I can't remember the third line."
	"Wh?" Bailey managed, drawn from his reverie.
	"After 'Accept my friendship or die,' and my line, the one about keeping order.  
What's next?"
	Damn, it had been a few geological eras since he'd read any Auden.  "I think 
- 'Bring me luck and of course I'll support you.'  I'm mangling the last line, though 
- something about the smell of blood...."
	"'I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.'" Walter spoke like a toll, 
a bell marking some obscure canonical hour.  It sounded almost oracular.  "I know 
that one.  I've thought of it often."  He paused, as if choosing the path ahead.  "It 
wasn't Vietnam, Malone.  It was us."
	"Well, we survived, and grew up to be relatively prominent.  Do you really think 
we're mad?"
	"No, not *us.* Just - forget I said that."
	He was still a commander, delivering his directives from some deep, resourceful 
place.  No wonder he was the AD.  When he spoke, he still seemed to be tapping some 
occult source of knowledge that you were forever blind to.  You would just need Skinner 
to relay your messages to you.  Even knowing that it had all been an act, that Walter 
had been as dumb as any eighteen-year-old kid, and less experienced than most, didn't 
make it ring false now.  He had the gift.  "Forgotten," Bailey agreed.  "Really, Walter 
- how are you?"
	"That sounded a little too solicitous."
	"I know it's been a while, but of all people, we shouldn't have to play the 
social game with each other."
	"Good enough.  What the *fuck* is going on down there?"
	Bailey laughed.  So much for the social game.  "Do you ever feel like kind of 
a hyena, living off of crime and such as we do?"
	"It's the *and such* that's on my mind.  Don't try to distract me."
	"You talk a good game, but I remember that you're not too hard to distract."  
God, the painkillers *were* kicking in.  He was flirting, in kind of a weirdly butch 
way, with the Assistant Director, who happened to be his extremely butch ex.  He was 
laughing again, or rather, chuckling deep in his chest.
	He stopped laughing when he heard that long, nasal intake of breath - the one 
that used to mean Skinner was trying and failing to preserve his civilized, military 
veneer.  "Not now, Malone."
	"Not now?"
	"Not yet."
	A grade-school taunt played in his head: *Is that a threat or a promise?* Skinner 
probably wouldn't get the joke; with him it was both.  The promise was: *I'll see 
to it that you get everything you want.* The threat: *That'll just be the start.* 
"When?"
	After a long pause, Walter chuckled himself, but more grudgingly than Bailey's 
laugh.  "Depends.  You still haven't explained this flag in your personnel file."
	"What does it say?"
	"Well, the words Possibly Suicidal figure in their somewhere."
	Shit.  Damn Bureau shrinks.  "I'm not suicidal, Walter."
	"Good.  So level with me; I don't believe you accidentally shot yourself square 
in the chest any more than they do."
	Bailey sighed.  "I'd rather not get into it over the phone."
	There was a silence so long that Bailey would have been afraid they'd been 
disconnected, if he couldn't hear Skinner's quick, even breathing.  "Is that bait?"
	"Hell, yes.  Are you biting?"
	"I'm...considering."
	The eagerness Malone could feel coursing through his body at this idea, spoken 
in Skinner's thick, roughened voice, was not enough to make him push or even become 
very impatient.  Maybe it was the influence of working with Sam and her own special 
brand of mysticism, or a legacy of his dope-and-Zen youth, but Bailey Malone was rarely 
impatient.  He believed in fighting for a few things and letting the rest just mostly 
come.  He believed that life took its own improbable course, and that his job was 
just to be ready for the next break, or the next break-down.  He believed that there 
were things, marvelous things, that you just couldn't rush - like enlightenment, 
profilers, trust, and Walter Skinner.  "You could come down with Mulder," he finally 
said.  "And stay with us."
	"Malone, I know we're old war buddies, but if you think I have the slightest 
desire to be Carol's houseguest-"
	"Walt.  Carol and I have been divorced for years.  Trust me, all right?  I'm 
not playing with you.  I'm asking you-" What, exactly?  "I'd just like to see you 
again."  Walter made a skeptical noise, and Bailey became, if not impatient, then 
at least ready to resolve this.  "If you're waiting for the right reason, you could 
just let me know what it is, and I'll suggest it to you."
	"You'll be saddened to know that I don't have the sparkling sense of humor that 
I used to."
	The idea that either of them would have recognized humor if it had blown off 
their kneecaps when they were eighteen was funny in and of itself.
	"Walt.  Don't you think it's a little late in the day for me to tell you that 
I still love you?"
	Skinner hung up on him.  Even just hanging up the phone carried a certain 
authority, coming from PFC-now-AD Walter Skinner.  Enough to make Bailey figure he 
might have deserved that.  It was sort of a snarky thing to say - even though they 
were both grown men, and a lot of water had passed under the bridge since their first 
passionate rush of feelings for each other.  Especially when Walter had made it 
perfectly clear that he still resented - well, the whole Carol business.
	Not quite twenty minutes later, the phone rang again, and while Bailey looked 
to the caller ID display out of habit, he already knew whom he expected - if not exactly 
what he expected.  "Yes?"
	"You're a piece of work, Malone.  You really are something else."
	"Thank you."
	"Shut up. *Thirty years.* Thirty years, over ten thousand days and nights, and 
you pick *tonight,* out of every single one, to tell me this."
	He was sinking deeply into the drug now, and it was really playing games with 
him.  The silence in his house was curling around him like a purring cat, and Skinner 
all the way up in Washington had him in his voice as surely as if those large hands 
were gripping him by the shoulders.  Mixed metaphors, juxtaposition, the 
broken-backed poetry of first love breaking arhythmically into the smooth concerto 
of middle age, Jesus, what was it about drugs and poetry?  What was it about Walter 
and long nights?  "To tell you what?"
	"That you love - loved me."
	"You knew that."
	"How?  How the fuck was I supposed to know that, Malone?  You were fucking 
married."
	"I told you-"
	"*You never did.*"
	"I-"
	"Fuck you, Bailey! *I would remember that.*" That voice shook him now, knocking 
the muzziness from his head.  Maybe he'd never said it.  Maybe he'd assumed Skinner 
knew - from the way they kissed, or the truths Bailey told him, or, hey, how about 
that night in Saigon when Bailey had offered to leave his wife?  Walter said no, not 
Bailey.  Walter had been the one to end it, so why was he roaring in Bailey's ear 
a good quarter-century later?  Who knew, with Walt Skinner.
	"Come on, Walt.  You're not angry with me; it's been too long for that.  Whoever 
you're itching to beat up on, he's not here.  Talk to *me,* okay?"
	His breathing faded until Bailey could barely hear it, a good sign.  "Okay.  
My fault.  I had a long day."
	"Yeah?"
	"Yeah."  Now he was enclosed in the dark and quiet like a globe, a fishbowl 
- he had a strange image of Walter Skinner shaking a Magic 8 Ball and Bailey drifting 
up to the glass, embryonically warm and damp. *Answer unclear,* he would mouth.  "Still 
want me to come down?"
	"Yes.  I'll tell you about the shooting."
	"What more could a tourist ask for?"
	"Shoot pool, trade old war stories, measure each other's-"
	"Malone, I warn-"
	"-teeth, Walter.  Long in the tooth, you know.  That's us.  Long, long in the 
teeth."
	Skinner let a dubious silence drum its fingers lightly against Bailey's 
forehead for a moment.  "Are you going to be this way when I get there?"
	"No, I'm sure it's just the medication.  Come.  I want to see you.  I want you 
to - shit.  Can't say that.  Employee conduct, fraternization, such.  Can't say that."
	"Are you seeing anyone?"
	"No.  Are you?"
	If Skinner's silences were fingers, well, good, so much the better.  Familiar 
fingers, familiar laconic conversation, full of pauses, breathing, sweet dark eyes.  
Carol had touched him differently; it made Walter's hands easier to remember.  Bailey 
imitated their motion, touching cautiously from just below his ear down the side of 
his neck.  Not the same.  Not the same as Walter's callused fingertips holding your 
head firmly between them with the faintest of touches.  He let out a sigh, over the 
top of Skinner's answer.  "No.  There is someone, but we - it's not working out."
	"Too bad."
	"So sincere."
	"I have my own perspective, I admit.  But it was a little sincere."  Bailey 
stared down in frustration at his own limited hands as they stroked his stomach.  His 
own hands could make him come, and many a night Bailey had been profoundly grateful 
for that.  But hearing from Skinner again - all the things they couldn't do were too 
vivid in his mind.  There was no one here to run fingers through his hair like Skinner 
once did, or slide hands down his back in a long, choppy motion, skidding and sticking 
to his sweaty skin.  "I thought about you a lot when Sharon died."
	"Sharon isn't dead."
	"I heard-" Shit.  What had he stepped into now?
	"You heard wrong."
	Bailey wondered if Skinner was smoothing a knuckle across one eyebrow, then 
the other, trying to wipe his expression clean.  Probably.  Skinner had always believed 
he could do anything with his hands.  "My fault.  I'm sorry."
	"I'll be there.  Mulder and I both."
	Out of courtesy, Bailey did not say *I know.* "Looking forward to it," he said 
simply.
	"Malone?"
	"Yes?"
	"Did you ever think anything would be harder than Vietnam?"
	Bailey couldn't answer that.  His mouth was full of thick memory, like grapes 
between his teeth, and he had to hold it carefully, unless he wanted it to burst so 
he could taste it again.  He didn't really.  Some voice in his head was counting 
backwards from 100, belatedly obeying the anaesthesiologist from the other week - 
perhaps because he expected this meeting with Walter to open his chest wide up again.  
To remove another bullet?  To be at Walter's mercy one more time....  Sever and stitch, 
safe and sound....
	He dozed, his ear on the pillow beside the telephone, and he could hear Walter's 
deep, regular breathing, over and over, lawful, loyal, drug and poetry, the scratchy, 
faded soundtrack of old love.    

	Like most business-class passengers, Walter took out his briefcase and got to 
work as soon as he was settled in.  Scully always sat patiently with her hands in 
her lap, concert etiquette, until boarding was done and the flight attendant had 
finished the safety speech.  But then, Scully was as weird as her partner was.
	Walter was so freakishly normal.
	Mulder fidgeted with the latch on his meal tray; he refused to fidget with his 
tie, or even to acknowledge the damn thing.  Why the hell, why the *hell,* hadn't 
Skinner worn one, anyway?  Mulder never would have bothered if he hadn't assumed the 
AD would just expect it.  But there the AD was, calm as you please, and granted it 
was Saturday, but still, but still.  Mulder had never seen Skinner without tie or 
jacket, his white shirt hanging untucked from dark jeans. *And here's Spooky, looking 
like the geek at everyone's junior high cotillion, and wanting you so bad, sir, you 
have no idea....*
	Or maybe he did.  Maybe.  It was as good an explanation as any for why Skinner 
wanted to accompany him to Atlanta, all tales of a conveniently located war buddy 
aside.  To torture Mulder.  To look great, and sit right up against him in the close 
confines of their airplane seats, and ignore him completely.  Well, if he thought 
he could make Mulder feel guilty as easily as he could make Mulder horny, that was 
just Walter Skinner's mistake.
	He wondered if taking the window seat and then doing paperwork was a power trip 
on Skinner's part, or if he was just accustomed to taking what he wanted.  Mulder 
didn't like juggling his notes on his lap while he traveled; he would have greatly 
preferred to watch the scenery go by.  But no.  Two hundred-plus pounds of Walter 
Skinner between him and the eastern seaboard.
	And about a million pounds of crystallized rage, regret, and need sitting 
squarely between him and Walter Skinner.  Amazing how one lithe, compact man could 
so immobilize Mulder; from probably the other side of the planet, Alex kept him from 
doing any of the things he wanted so badly to do on this little jaunt to Georgia.
	It was like some schizophrenic threesome; Skinner's thick shoulder up against 
his, bleeding heat through Mulder's jacket sleeve, while Alex, just as real and 
present, whispered insistently in the opposite ear. *Mulder, tovarich, I told you 
not to give up on me.  I said I'd come back for you.  Of course, I also told you not 
to trust me.  But you can't help yourself, can you, Mulder?  Never could.  Are you 
thinking about me, Mulder?  Do you remember?*
	It was going to be a long flight.
	Mulder slept all the way to Atlanta; he tried not to, panicking at the mere 
thought of slumping against Skinner's shoulder in his sleep, but he was wiped.  Again.  
Running the X-Files, even half-assedly as he currently was, while working under deep 
background with a bunch of slime-sucking, pig-dicked, missing-link morons who thought 
they knew jack about government cover-ups, while his best friend went into belated 
shock over her daughter's death and his mother was calling him every other day to 
ask if he'd heard from Sam yet - it would play merry hell with anyone's physical 
resources, let alone a guy seriously tailgating forty and still living on Surge, 
Gummi-Bears, and toaster pockets.  It was a fucking miracle he got out of bed at all 
these days, and if Scully were her usual sharp-eyed self, Mulder was virtually sure 
she'd have him in bed with an IV drip - or discharged from the Bureau and sent to 
the glue factory, depending on how she felt about him at the moment the paperwork 
had to be signed.
	Maybe this was a mid-life crisis.  Half-asleep, the idea jolted Mulder into 
alertness, his brain off at a careening gallop now.  Could he, Fox Mulder, possibly 
be having something so banal and tiresome as a mid-life crisis?  He took stock: no 
urge to own a car he couldn't pay for, no receding hairline, no desire to pierce himself 
anywhere or divorce his spousal-equivalent - no more than usual, anyway, and 
definitely still less often than she wanted to divorce him.  Nothing out of the 
ordinary, except that his reptile brain was rattling his cage lately.  It had been 
bad enough since he started sleeping with Alex, worse since he stopped, and totally 
out of control since that damn kiss, too sweet to hate him for, too desperate to 
mistrust the way Mulder would have mistrusted it if Alex had made a serious play for 
him there on the living room floor.
	So with the stunning logic of horniness combined with what felt like unbearable 
loss, he'd started - something - with his boss.  His goddamned boss.  Which should 
have been just one more screw-up to cope with and move on...except it wasn't.  He 
couldn't cope, he couldn't move on, he couldn't stop this slow, dark tide, the momentum 
of this hugely stupid thing he'd set in motion.
	A hugely stupid thing he still wasn't completely sure he *wanted* to stop.  On 
paper, Walter looked like Mr. Right: stable, great at listening to Mulder ramble, 
unflappable, caring, in his own drill-sergeant way.  More to the point, he was crazy 
about Mulder, and Mulder was pretty sure that, given the chance, these sweet-sick 
bursts of yearning and respect he kept being sucker-punched by could turn into 
crazy-about-Walter.  Other than the boss thing - which, in the end, was really just 
a rule, and therefore more Walter's thing to deal with than Mulder's - all signs were 
go.
	In a saner world, this trip to Atlanta would have been the best thing that ever 
happened to Mulder.  Stressed out, run down, and getting more neurotic every day, 
Fox Mulder was a man in extreme need of a vacation, and Walter Skinner was an exotic 
island resort unto himself.  Mulder would kill for a jacuzzi, a giant margarita, and 
a blowjob from a great-looking guy who wasn't going to ruin his life or crack him 
over the back of the head with something blunt and heavy down the road.  Hell, he 
wasn't even that demanding.  He'd kill for a two-hour spaghetti dinner with someone 
who wasn't sick of being around him, who could slip out of that federally mandated 
propriety while they were away from home and smile at him, laugh at his jokes, let 
go in jeans and no tie and look across the marinara at Mulder like a man who was there, 
in that restaurant, in that city, to eat Italian food and talk with Fox Mulder.  No 
undercover, no OPC, no secrets - hardly any secrets.  Just a getaway.
	Mulder rubbed the back of his neck.  "Please quit sticking your elbow in my 
ear, Agent Mulder," Walter said, distant and courteous.  Mulder mumbled an apology 
and tried to shift around without invading Skinner's personal space.
	He'd kill to invade Skinner's personal fucking space - run his hand up Skinner's 
thigh, suck one of those beautiful, solid fingers into his mouth, put his head down 
on Skinner's shoulder and sleep.  Kiss him, lick him, nail him to the hotel bed, fall 
asleep so tangled up with him, so inside his *personal fucking space* that it would 
take a bomb squad to disentangle them.
	Gritting his teeth against a sigh, Mulder's world-famous brain pulled rank once 
again on his rebellious body.  No, Walter was no one's fool; he was much too smart 
to get halfway into Mulder's personal life, close enough to be a target and too far 
away to be - to be what?  Whatever Skinner wanted to be to Mulder.  Love, love, love.  
Just a word, really.  So he loved Scully, loved Alex.  Loved Sam and Diana before, 
and Phoebe badly, and his parents grudgingly, and the other Sam, the one who was born 
Sam Mulder but whose name now he didn't even know, loved her abstractly, as his symbol 
of a time when he was innocent, secure, and loved back.  If it were just Mulder, he'd 
toss the word around, tag Walter with it, fall in love.
	But Walter was real.  He wasn't an abstract symbol, or an obsession, or an idol.  
Walter was an actual human being who didn't *want* Mulder to love him without giving 
him much of a chance to love Mulder back.  How freakishly normal.
	And Mulder couldn't keep on leading this life if he had someone's love weighing 
him down.  Bad enough as it was, laboring under the relatively light burden of Scully's 
freezing affection, Krycek's blitzkrieg, long-distance passion, Sam's support, 
Skinner's respect.  Hard enough to keep it together now.
	Just thinking about it made Mulder feel groggy, disoriented, and depressed.  
Had to keep Walter at arm's length, despite all his impulses and desires, and all 
of Walter's.  Who the hell invited him to Atlanta, anyway?  Nobody.  Well, Sam's boss, 
he guessed, but still.  This was supposed to be Mulder's escape, just him and his 
issues and his - Mulder had to smile at the unlikelihood of it all - ex-wife.
	The closer they got to Atlanta, and all through the deboarding process, Mulder 
found it increasingly humorous.  He was traveling with a man he'd known for years, 
probably the only man Mulder trusted, and he was afraid to make eye contact, afraid 
to make any sudden moves or to communicate anything at all, lest it be taken wrong, 
or the wrong be taken correctly.  He was, as well, traveling to meet his ex-wife, 
which didn't make him nervous or uncomfortable at all.  The man he'd kill to have 
and the woman he was dying to see.  Weren't you supposed to like your friends and 
dread your exes?
	She was waiting for them at the gate, those wide, dark eyes scanning each 
passenger like klieg lights, then growing impossibly wider when she found them.  She 
smiled, the curling, rococo smile that Mulder used to love, and he found himself 
remembering what his friend at Quantico had told him the first time he laid eyes on 
Samantha. *"They call her the Prom Queen.  You know, she was one of those disgustingly 
perfect girls in high school that you wanted to hate, but you couldn't, because they 
were so--" "Perfect?"  "Yeah.  Perfect."* Years fell away, and though just that morning 
Mulder had felt like something desiccated and skeletal who was too stupid to know 
it was dead yet, he moved straight into her arms like a young man, and when she kissed 
him, as always, she breathed strength back into him.
	"Fox, you look terrible," she said after pulling back.
	Warmly, he stroked down her disordered waves of hair.  "Damn these 
factory-outlet suits."  He kissed her forehead intensely, then released her, smiling 
foolishly.  Spooky and the Prom Queen.  They had always been good for each other, 
even after she left their safe, homey little home for the champagne and fireworks 
of life and true love with James Waters.
	Suddenly he remembered Walter.  It seemed...disrespectful to be kissing a woman 
right smack in front of him, but it was a mystery to Mulder how he was going to smooth 
things over without making half of Atlanta International, not to mention Walter 
Skinner himself, think Mulder was trying to justify himself to a jealous lover.  
Squaring his shoulders, Mulder turned around, ready to start off with introductions 
and progress from there.
	Reality hit Mulder like a smack on the side of the head.  Walter didn't give 
a shit.  Walter wasn't even paying attention.  He was watching everywhere with an 
expression in his dark eyes that made Mulder seize up with - duck, Spooky, the irony 
is flying low to the ground today - jealousy: a hopeful, hungry expression melting 
into disappointment.  "Sam, this is Walter Skinner, the Assistant Director.  Sir, 
this is Special Agent Samantha Waters with the VCTF."
	And it was all over from there, even before SAC Malone arrived through the 
parking lot entrance.  The balance, such as it was, was thrown hopelessly to fuckall, 
and all Mulder could do was reach for his ex-wife's hand and observe - ever the 
collector of the rare and improbable - as Walter smiled a smile that could only be 
described as a visitation.
	Soft on the back of his neck, a feeling like dew, and a phantom trickle down 
his collar, beneath his ridiculously stuffy tie, like poison dripping from perfectly 
shaped lips. *Back to basics, tovarish.  You and me.  You and me.*
	He would have stepped on Alex's foot, if Alex hadn't been a hallucination.
	He did lean back, and in the privacy of his own psychosis, Mulder could smell 
the leather and hear its creak, feel the arm around his chest, pulling him in 
protectively.  Walter and his army buddy slipped away, firmly anchored in the real 
world, while Mulder faded into whatever pocket dimension he and Krycek shared when 
they spoke to each other like this.  If anyone turned to look at him, Mulder was sure 
he'd be as invisible as Krycek.  Translucent, at the very least.
	No one did.  The voices were dim, and Walter wasn't real, never was, not in 
Mulder's reality.  He'd thought - thought, *that's you, Spooky, always thinking* - 
but he'd been wrong.  The gulf was impassible.  He'd been crazy (no shock there) to 
think that anyone, any mere human being, could bring Fox Mulder back from the outlands 
now.  He was so far gone, so far off, his head full of theories that fit no evidence, 
ghosts of people who hadn't died yet, double identities and lost causes and open cases.
	*A long goddamn way from home, tovarish.  I know how it is.*
	*I know you do.  I know you do.*

	There was just something about a barbeque that worked, Bailey could only assume, 
on the deepest primal level of the male brain.  If anyone were immune to it, Bailey 
figured it would be him; that scene, around the wooden table, inhaling 
hickory-flavored smoke and wielding an oversized fork in one hand and a bottle of 
Black and Tan in the other, was exactly the kind of suburban New Jersey hell he'd 
gone to war to get away from.  He might as well turn into his father and be done with 
it.
	Except that there was nothing middle-class cream of wheat about the guests who 
gathered on Bailey's patio, except for the fact that they were all government 
employees and therefore boring by definition.  Bailey Malone, who was at least 
ordinary enough to get drunk with power off of a bottle of KC Masterpiece - sure, 
Norman Rockwell enough.  But barbequing for your wife and kid was one thing, and 
barbequing for your kid, your psychic best friend and her kid, her ex-husband the 
parapsychologist, and your gay ex-lover who was also, when you get right down to it, 
your boss - more on the Salvador Dali end of things.
	Hell, it had worked, though, and as far as Bailey was concerned, whatever worked 
was doable - or was that wrong way around?  Who knew.  Frances had been pleasant enough, 
and he'd even caught her eating when she didn't think her father was looking.  Sam 
had seemed to absolutely blossom in Fox Mulder's presence, utterly enraptured by the 
way he loomed over her, filling her plate, teasing her daughter, tossing her fond, 
conspiratorial looks with his sad eyes.
	As for Walter...Walter Skinner was simply present.  A man of his stature (and 
Bailey meant that word every way he could make it work) didn't have to do much more 
than be present, taking up his share of the patio and then some, to make himself the 
focal point of the whole gathering.  Or maybe that was Bailey's bias talking.
	"Staying?" Bailey asked mildly as he finished stacking the glasses into the 
empty tupperware bowl that had contained potato salad.
	There was a pause, and Walter swigged down the last of his beer.  "Planning 
on it."
	What else, really, was there to say?  They had always blown hot and cold, days 
on end talking about everything under the sun, then days like these when nothing needed 
to be said at all.  He handed Walter all three bags of chips.  "Clips in the drawer 
under the blender."
	Outside, in the last light of evening, the weather was perfect, and the bugs 
were dying in droves, sizzling in the bug light as they fried.  Casually, the way 
he sometimes probed with his fingertips at the stitches in his chest, Bailey examined 
his feelings.  He was going to have Walter Skinner in his bed again after almost thirty 
years - good thing.  A little strange, especially since the intervening years had 
not been warm ones.  They weren't boys anymore; they were men that their younger selves 
would probably not even recognize.  But then again, there was something in Walter's 
sheer *presence,* his leonine, lazy authority, that hadn't changed one little bit, 
probably never could.  It was just Walter, if not the heart of him, then the coat 
he had always worn.
	The heart of him....  Well, it had been a long time, and there were things Bailey 
didn't remember.  The heart of him, as best Bailey could recall, had been in the way 
Walter used to cup Bailey's chin in both his strong hands, the eerily blank, silent 
look on his face when he closed his eyes to sleep at night, the way he bowed his head 
submissively when Bailey ran his fingers through Walter's hair and down the back of 
his neck.
	Lost things, missing pieces of Bailey's youth.  Were those things really the 
heart of Walter Skinner - did they, in fact, have anything to do with him at all - 
or was he just seeing through the lens of his own history, remembering the things 
that had moved Bailey himself?  Maybe at the time - all that time in the jungle, those 
last desperate days in Saigon before Bailey's transfer - the boundaries between Walter 
and Bailey had been clear and vivid.  Now, in retrospect, he had memories of the two 
of them, of the things they did with and for each other, but no sure sense of the 
details, except that they had been close.  Terribly, terribly close - but close to 
what?  That was the question.
	"--spring this on me now?  You know better than this."  Walter's voice - not 
so steady as usual, a bull pawing the ground impatiently.
	"What the hell do I know?"  Agent Mulder's voice; Bailey was hearing them through 
the kitchen window behind him.
	"I've been asking myself that for years."
	"You and me both."
	"Don't try to soft-soap me, Fox."
	"I'm just--"
	"I know what you're just, and what you're just is half the reason nothing is 
going to happen between us tonight."
	While logic and decency would suggest that this conversation was nothing Bailey 
needed to be hearing, neither was it shocking enough to make him feel guilty.  He'd 
guessed that Agent Mulder was the not-someone who was and wasn't in Walter's life.  
Something about the way Walter's normally intense gaze slid nervously off of Mulder 
whenever his eyes strayed in that direction had tipped Bailey off.  "No, you don't 
know.  I barely know, so you unequivocally cannot.  Come on, Walter.  Give me credit 
for *trying,* at least."
	"Trying? *Trying?* Just get - get the hell out of here, Mulder.  Get out."
	"Fuck that.  This is the first time you've let me talk to you about anything 
at all since--"
	"You want to talk?  Let's talk.  Why don't you tell me what it is you think 
you're *trying* to do."
	There was a pause, rich with frustration, and Bailey found himself holding very 
still, afraid some movement would alert them to the fact that he was outside 
eavesdropping.  "Trying to get us to a starting point."
	"No, Fox.  You haven't been trying to get anywhere.  Ever since Trinity Hospital, 
you've been busting your ass trying to *keep* anything from changing."
	"I--"
	"Would you shut up, just once?  Just for once?  I don't know what it is from 
your past that you want so badly to keep.  I've never known, and God knows I've wondered.  
But you've done nothing for us since the beginning except promise me that there's 
some kind of - of *starting point* out there for us, some mystical time when it's 
all going to be okay.  It's never going to be okay!  You *do* this to people, Fox; 
do you even realize what you do?  You take something from them, and then you make 
them want to give you more, and *nothing ever changes*!"
	He could hear breathing in the sudden silence, punctuated by exploding moths.  
Mulder's breathing, he thought, unsteady with shock.  "I don't want...you to give 
me anything."
	"That's exactly the problem, Fox.  Right there."
	"I know."
	"Then go.  Just go."
	Bailey did not go into the house immediately.  He collected all the dishes, 
balancing the plastic ones on top of the breakable ones, and slid the patio door open 
with his shoulder.  The movement was just a little bit painful, enough to recall the 
surgery to his mind, not enough to make him feel like an idiot for having tried the 
maneuver.  
	Mulder had gone, apparently with Samantha.  Fran had undoubtedly exhausted what 
little desire she had to hang around her father and gone upstairs to lock her door 
and play her music; he was relatively sure she was still in the house, in fact 
relatively sure she hadn't climbed down the drainpipe since the shooting.
	There was just Bailey, and Walter leaning against the counter, not facing him.  
Bailey set the dishes in the sink and washed his hands.  They were still damp when 
he put them on Walter's shoulders; when he shifted his grip slightly, closer in toward 
Walter's neck, he could see the dark prints of his hands staining through Walter's 
white shirt.
	He thought about speaking, and then discarded the idea, and then reconsidered 
again.  "You want to come upstairs?"
	Walter reached back for Bailey's arm and pulled it over his shoulder; Bailey 
had to move forward until he was pressed up lightly against Walter's broad back.  
Walter had finally aged into his body; a frame that had seemed absurdly large on an 
eighteen-year-old boy was perfect for a man of almost fifty, weighty and strong, and 
not gorilla-like at all.  "I was thinking about what you said," Bailey admitted, making 
his voice weightless as the sky in Walter's ear.  "I can't remember - what got said 
out loud and what didn't.  In Saigon."
	"I do.  But it doesn't matter now."
	Although he seemed to be trapped against the formica counter, Walter maneuvered 
easily, turning toward Bailey and closing the last distance between them with a long 
kiss.  Bailey gripped the back of his collar with one hand, slid the other up Walter's 
shoulder.  Jesus, Jesus.  One more thing Walter had aged into.  His kisses were still 
hot and hungry, but now demanding rather than needy.  He was more experienced, less 
overwhelmed, and while Bailey had certainly never thought of himself as either of 
those things back in those days, he had undoubtedly done some maturing himself since 
then.  For the first time, Bailey felt himself becoming aroused by the reality of 
Walter, as well as the idea of him.  It was going to be better than it used to be; 
how could that thought not be a turn-on?
	Abruptly, he found his t-shirt jerked up, Walter's thick hands - those perfect, 
absolutely perfect hands - bracketing his chest, holding him still for Walter to gaze 
at.  Bailey looked down at the coarse row of stitches running down the center of him, 
where the doctors had cut him, cracked him open, and put him back together.  "I want 
you to tell me about this.  How did it happen?"
	"Got shot."
	"Planning a second career in comedy, I see."
	How one could spend thirty years in law enforcement and not, every once in a 
while, give thought to a career in comedy Bailey did not know.  "You really want me 
to tell you?"
	"I asked.  I want you to tell me."
	"Between us."
	"Yes."
	He took a deep breath, Walter's hands moving with the motion of his ribs.  "It 
was an accident, but - Frances...."  Bailey stopped there, realizing how little 
anything else mattered.  Frances...Frances....
	Walter didn't seem particularly surprised.  Well, he was the AD, and however 
shocking and sordid the tale seemed to Bailey - accustomed as Bailey was to violence 
growing in the fertile soil of madness, not bursting forth in one wild explosion from 
someone he loved and needed - he didn't doubt that Walter saw that and stranger on 
a regular basis.  "Was it an accident, Malone?  Are you sure?"
	Hell no, it wasn't.  It was pain, and some essential darkness inside his beloved 
Frannie that Bailey couldn't possibly understand, and a kind of black unreason that 
made her barely human in that moment when it overtook her.  It hadn't been an accident 
- but neither had it been Frances Malone staring out of those hollow, beautiful eyes 
at him over the barrel of his gun.  That was why he had lied, perjured himself, went 
on record saying it had been his own finger on the trigger.  It was their pact, unspoken 
and unbreakable: it would never happen again, and the thing, horror-born, that had 
awakened inside Frances once would not be allowed to ruin the rest of her life.  "She's 
going to college in the fall - Columbia."
	"I'm asking you if you think she's dangerous."	
	"I think we all are.  I think she's my daughter, Walter.  She's my daughter."  
Sometimes you could only say it like that, only express yourself by communicating 
in possessives.
	But those inherent limits on one's ability to communicate in words explained 
exactly what the two of them had originally seen in each other.  Both understood that 
war, a war like that one, could never be talked about in subjects and objects and 
ordinary grammar.  They had chosen carefully what they discussed, and in that way 
come closer, Bailey was sure, than most of their fellow boy-soldiers to the real 
meaning of it all.  Both Bailey and Walter thrived on meaning.  Maybe that's why they'd 
read so much into the affair, fallen so fiercely in love while sexual liaisons came 
and went like the wind among other overseas Marines.
	Bailey and Skinner had invented ways to express themselves, years ago, where 
none already existed.  They used poetry as code, and by comparison the sex seemed 
so clear, so direct.  There had been a pattern to sex between them, meant to make 
it all easy (which Bailey had needed, at the time) and fair (which had always been 
what Walter wanted).  The choreography was impossible to forget, and Bailey was 
dancing to it, breathless.
	The first time was for him, had always been to appease the part of Bailey that 
hated himself for being a coward and a liar, for being married and for not wanting 
to be married.  Alcohol quieted that self-hate, but it left him sick and tired 
afterwards.  The true quiet inside came when he was on his knees, Walter buried down 
his throat and wanting him so much, in the tender, genuine way that Walter had of 
wanting everything from someone who should have been nothing more than a fuck.  Naive, 
maybe.  But Bailey had never been able to resist it, had fallen in love with it.  So 
that certainty, that honesty was powerful, wherever the source of it was.
	On his knees again, his fingers working open Walter's jeans, nibbling his way 
down inside Walter's underwear - all of it was good, sexy, making Bailey breathe in 
hard, short jerks and turning his own dick to stone inside his pants.  But it was 
the groan that Walter made when Bailey pulled the jeans down and then walked his hand 
back up inside Walter's thigh - the way Walter held his head tight without guiding 
it - the way he worked off tension by bending and straightening his knees just slightly, 
sliding up and down against the cabinet doors instead of thrusting in and out of 
Bailey's mouth - it was that kind of thing that narrowed his focus, turned Bailey's 
whole world into the need to take Walter, to accept what Walter was so prepared to 
offer. *Accept my friendship or die....*
	He had forgotten the details of Walter, or maybe just assumed that time had 
mutated the memories, turning them untrustworthy.  His cock was big - not long, but 
thick enough to stretch Bailey's jaw, big enough to make Bailey's eyes water for a 
moment as he first tried to push it to the back of his throat.  Walter was as still 
as a wall; Bailey was the one rocking back and forth, fucking the empty air in front 
of him.  He knew that if he used his hand at the same time, Walter would come right 
away, but he liked doing it with just his mouth, always had.  He liked the simplicity 
of it, found it somehow more pure.
	So Bailey sucked, and like when he stretched out before he boxed, he found that 
if he gave himself enough time to adjust, he could always go down further than he 
thought he could.  Walter was growling, a noise that seemed to come directly from 
the stomach, like air expelled from a hard punch to the midsection.  Bailey dug his 
fingers into the thick muscles in the backs of Walter's thighs, his hands half hidden 
by the denim of Walter's jeans.  Deeper and deeper, until Walter was in his throat, 
not just his mouth, and then Bailey swallowed several times, as quickly as he could.  
It made Walter shake all over for a moment, and only then did he begin to thrust, 
slowly and rhythmically.  With Walter it wasn't like having your face fucked - more 
like Walter making love to your mouth.  
	Walter put his elbows behind him, braced on the counter top, as he came.  "God," 
he said quietly, only the volume betraying any sense of shock or disorder.  "That's 
been a long time coming."
	"Thirty years."
	"I meant - with anyone."
	Although his own muscles were quivering spasmodically, Bailey was driven to 
his feet by the sudden need to press his very uncomfortable erection against the crease 
at the top of Walter's thigh.  Walter reached out instinctively and grabbed Bailey's 
ass to hold him balanced in that forward-leaning position.  He brushed his lips lightly 
across Bailey's, a touch that seemed casual at first but just kept sending ripples 
of pleasure deeper and deeper through Bailey, even after the touch of his lips was 
gone again.  Bailey ran his hands across Walter's shoulders.  "Your own damn fault, 
then.  You can't convince me it was for lack of opportunity."
	"Well.  Lack of appealing opportunities."
	He stroked Walter's face softly, removed the glasses (once they had just been 
reading glasses, now bifocals) and put them aside.  They were moving more slowly now, 
cautious, and Bailey still had his suspicions as to why Walter insisted on being so 
ritualized when they did this, when he allowed Bailey to screw him.
	Once upon a time, Bailey would have fallen on Walter the second he turned around 
and braced himself, spreading his legs in that unbearably sexy way.  Now, of course, 
there was safety to be considered, and wasn't it ironic that the only people you would 
trust to have unprotected sex with you were, by definition, the ones who were not 
going to be talked into having unprotected sex?  Bailey had a little time to 
contemplate that while he unwrapped the lubricated condom he'd been carrying in his 
pocket all day and unrolled it onto himself.
	Bailey anchored one arm under Walter's, his hand on Walter's chest.  With the 
other, he reached out, brushing the backs of his fingers against Walter's cheek in 
the gentlest of touches just as he thrust his way inside.
	The muscles flexed and released through Walter's back and in his arms, but he 
never made a sound when they made love like this - another piece of the ritual.  
Sometimes when they were finished, Bailey realized that Walter had bitten bloodied 
holes into the flesh of his own lips, fighting for silence.  One more way that Walter 
made himself disappear, eased the almost unbearable burdens of consciousness and 
judgement.  In bed, while Bailey raked his fingers across Walter's chest and bit the 
back of his neck and screamed out his pleasure, Walter almost seemed to vanish.
	It would have been insulting, or even eerie, if Walter had really been able 
to keep it up.  The secret was to ignore the strangeness of it all, to let him be 
passive and absent for a period of time while you concentrated on how impossibly tight 
he was around your aching cock, the scent of his neck, the texture of sweat on top 
of his skin and muscle underneath.  Bailey sucked a hard kiss against Walter's arm, 
then repeated it all the way up to his shoulder as he slammed harder and harder, groans 
of mingled pleasure and weariness alternating with the work of his mouth.
	Sooner or later he snapped, showed some sign that he was still in there.  
Clumsily, missing the first time, Walter reached back and put his hands on Bailey's 
thighs to pull him in closer and keep him there longer.  He arched his back up against 
Bailey's chest, and - ah, yes, there it was, Bailey's favorite part - he tightened 
his ass around Bailey, once and twice and again.  This time, thirty years later, Bailey 
heard a ghostly echo of his own hoarse cry.  Walter's voice, moaning encouragement 
- some things did change, he guessed.
	Louder, though, was the sound of Walter's fingers squeaking against the formica 
as he scrabbled for purchase, leverage to help him push back harder against Bailey.  
Bailey no longer had any grand plan, any technique, and the act had no particular 
meaning, except that it felt good with Walter, felt great, and they were both getting 
just what they needed.  When he came he could barely see at all, only feel the 
comforting solidity of Walter's body as he laid his cheek down against Walter's back.
	It felt so damn good.  That had really been the only meaning, all along.  At 
his age, after all the losses and disappointments and the regrets, it was all the 
meaning Bailey needed.

	For the first time in years, there was someone else in bed with Skinner.  That 
thought on its own was somewhat amazing, even without the undeniable fact that the 
face illuminated softly in the starlight was Bailey Malone's.  So many years, so much 
they could probably never explain to each other, and yet here they were again, and 
it felt as familiar as it did unfamiliar.
	Skinner rolled over on his stomach, tracing his fingers down Malone's back.  
Sated with sex and Bailey, it was easy - almost easy - to think about Mulder without 
the bone-grinding pain.  Had it almost been Mulder tonight instead of Malone?  Had 
they been close to it at all, or was it just one more example of Mulder's inherent 
contrariness, turning back to him just when they were furthest from each other, when 
it was all most impossible?
	And yet something was occurring to Skinner here in Bailey's bed that he'd never 
considered before.  Just because Mulder was brilliant and beautiful and fiercely 
courageous, poetry incarnate, honorable and humane at the same time - just because 
he was all of those things and more, *Mulder,* the one they all loved and feared and 
resented like hell and pulled closer and closer toward - did that really mean that 
the two of them would be any good together at all?
	There was something in the way Bailey was with him that Skinner hadn't tasted 
in thirty years, something that he'd forgotten how much he wanted.  Simple honesty, 
silent, serene realism.  Bailey was real, and capable of the whole range of human 
behavior, from an appreciation for Auden to the ability to fuck Skinner senseless.
	Nothing held back.  Some things stayed unsaid, but only because they were faded 
to insignificance.  Not like Mulder, who clung to his secrets and conspiracies as 
though he had nothing else to live for except his own privacy.  Would it ever be just 
Mulder and someone, or would Mulder withhold something from everyone, cherishing 
whatever past hurts or hopes were weighing him down like iron, dropping him under 
the surface of the water, past where any mere mortal could dive down and find him?
	Skinner closed his eyes and sighed warmly against Malone's shoulder.  It was 
easy to love Malone, so easy that it was just as easy to forget the way it had come 
about, and why it had been so important to keep.  Loving Mulder was a fucking decathalon, 
endless and excruciating and exhilirating.
	He intended to finish the run with Mulder, even if he was just running the course 
instead of heading toward any destination.  That was the only way Walter Skinner knew 
how to deal with a road he was already halfway down.  Finish it.  Keep moving.  Don't 
ask questions.
	But this moment out of time, lying beside a man who was fully present, fully 
human - he was closer right here to the goal than Mulder could ever bring him.
	For a moment the thought punctured him with grief.  Didn't he and Mulder deserve 
better?  Hadn't they earned each other?
	And then he thought simple, human and humane thoughts of lovers who were 
unearned gifts, serendipitous discoveries, like Auden in the jungle, like falling 
in love during a war, like discovering your faith in the woman who shot you or finding 
out that, in the grand scheme of things, Atlanta wasn't far at all from Washington 
D.C.