From rhonilak@icontech.com Sat Feb 08 21:56:22 1997 Yes I'm still working on Hadinio... but this one just HAD to be written. Disclaimers: Blah, blah, yadda, yadda. Chris Carter. Fox. 10/13. For fun not profit. ect. ect. ect. Based on an idea put forth by Gerared Perfetto. Rating: PG-13. S,A.. major angst... Should be both relationshipper and non-shipper friendly. Summery: Conspiracies revealed and countered as a inmate in a facility for the criminally insane speaks to a familiar figure. 613 by Rhondda Lake and Gerared Perfetto The hall I walk down is stark, without any distinguishing characteristics beyond the bright fluorescent lighting overhead. My dress shoes seem obscenely loud against the floor. Each step echoing on for eternity as I draw near my goal. I know the door I seek by the large guard standing outside it. He sees me and nods. He knows me. I've been here many times over the last five years. Ever since patient six thirteen was brought to my attention by a friend working on a psychology paper. I don't know what first drew me to him. But reading over his file I became fascinated. He had killed three people, in cold blood. A banker, a stock broker and a UPS delivery man. The first two killings had been in the manner of an execution. The third... the third was a testament of what rage and brute strength could do to a human body. I enter the room and find him sitting already. He looks up at me as I enter and I feel a smile tug at my lips. "I brought you something." I tossed the bag on the table. His grin was infectious as he snatched the bag up and stuffed it in his pocket. One didn't get many treats in the Kestler Center for the Criminally Insane. And something about six thirteen always brought out a strange kinship in me. Maybe it was his eyes. Old, so old and tired. So sad. The pain there could trap me if I let it. I almost had let it on more then one occasion. "Thanks. And here I didn't get you anything." He gestured to the empty chair across the table from him. I seated myself carefully. "You've given me more then you know." I reply softly. "Nightmares? Psychosis? A healthy dose of paranoia?" He cocked his head to the side. "I think I had a hint of all that before I met you." I answered with a shrug. Yes. Knowing this man was a risk, doing what I was doing for and with him was a risk. But I was willing. "I heard they are moving you tomorrow. They won't tell me where. What's going on?" I pulled out my little tape recorder, preparing for today's session. His eyes darkened and he shrugged. "Nowhere I'm not willing to go. Tell me something... you've done all this... did you ever once believe me?" There was something about him then that scared me. Not him... no I didn't feel like he was going to launch himself across the table and beat me to death like the UPS guy. No. I was scared for him in that instant. I nodded. "I've done some background checks. Read beyond your case file, seen some things that didn't add up. Yeah... I believe you, at least partially." I conceeded. He nodded, understanding that meant some things I didn't believe. He leaned over the table his manner drawing me to do the same. Leaning in like two schoolboys sharing a secret, instead of two grown men in our respective positions. "I never told you something. I don't know if you want to hear it or not... but I never regretted what I did. Not for one moment. That's the crux of it isn't it? In a way I helped keep myself in this hell hole, because I refused to feel remorse." I wasn't surprised. Not really. His next words did surprise me though. "When you leave here I want you to do something for me. One last thing. I want you to go..." I listened to his instructions with growing dread. He was going to give me proof. Proof of everything. Proof I most likely could never use. But to actually see it, to touch it, to know without a shadow of a doubt... I agreed to his request. The moment I agreed I understood. I wouldn't be seeing six thirteen again. What we had done, was the final straw. But there were no regrets. For either of us. We had won in our own way. He then sat back and told me another story. The last chapter in the book. I listened rapt, catching every word on my little recorder, but certain I could call back any moment of it from memory. When our time was up I felt ridiculously like crying. I almost did. But I have learned over the years to get a tight reign on such emotions. Displays did no good. When I shook his hand before leaving I looked up at him and met his eyes. Intense and haunted. This would be our last goodbye. They would silence him. That's why I wasn't told where he was going. Like the fools they were they were going to shut the barn door after the horse got away. No regrets. He accepted his fate. I think he actually longed for it. According to the file after he had committed the murders he'd sat in the midst of the carnage and calmly dialed 911. He'd sat there and waited for the police. He'd expected the death penalty. This had been a worse punishment, I'm sure. I left the Kestler Center, and refused to look back. ********* Three hours later I found myself on my knees in the dirt. I didn't care what the wet earth was doing to my suit. I'd known the marker was there, of course. I'd come here shortly after first interviewing six thirteen. I had to come. Had to try to distinguish if there was a grain of truth to anything he'd ever told me. I was doing so again. He'd told me there was a metal lock box buried here. He hadn't buried it. A friend of his had. While the trial was still going on. My hands were scraped raw and covered in grime by the time I felt my fingers brush against cold metal. Too shallow to be a coffin, it had to be the lock box. I yanked it from the ground so forcefully I wrenched my shoulder. I spun the combination I'd been given. I didn't open it at once. Instead my eyes rose, to trace once more the words carved into the stone of the marker. Dana Katharine Scully Feb 23, 1959 - March 12, 1987 Beloved Daughter and Friend She'd died of cancer. Her life slowly leaching away. I opened the box to see inside. Two badge wallets. His and hers. A dried rose. A picture, of six thirteen with a hand holding a beer bottle displaying a peace sign and his arm thrown over the shoulder of a smiling redhead. She'd been beautiful. The smiles on both faces were all the more poignant by the haunted quality of their eyes. There was also a newspaper clipping. A front page report of the murders. Of an FBI agent gone mad. Words in red ink were scrawled across the bottom. "For You Dana." So this was how it ends. He'd told me about the murders just before I left him. How he'd managed to deliver messages after the funeral. That he was giving up and handing over what proof he had, but only to them. They had been so cocksure he was a whipped dog. That they'd broken Fox Mulder. They had, but not in the way they expected. The banker, hah! He cashed in on lives. He still had a cigarette in his mouth when the bullet he'd never seen coming took away half his head. The stockbroker... he'd had enough time to be terrified, to try to back away, to plead with his perfectly manicured hands before the second bullet removed the inconvenienced of his throat. The UPS delivery man had walked in on the scene, his timing perfect, or not depending on the view. He'd managed to fire a shot that had missed before his killer ripped his prosthetic arm off and proceeded to beat him to death with it. Till he was barely recognizable as having once been human. But then again, I had my doubts about his humanity. This was how it ended. It bites. But Mulder had won. Through me. An unlikely medium if ever there was one. An ex surfer who had a interest in psychotics and the paranormal. This ending sucked. But I would stay true. I'd write the final script tomorrow. His revenge. Ours now. You see, the Truth got out. Maybe it was veiled in a television show that no one really believed in. But they were thinking, starting too distrust and looking for hidden agendas. The people wouldn't be content with their ignorance any more. The fans would be pissed. But life hurts. I know. I'm hurting now. Finis.