Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998

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Summary: Part three of the fill in the blanks from Follie A Deux
Category: S A
Rating: R for language and disturbing images. Don't blame me,
this is Mulder talking now, and he gets to use four letter words.
He's so happy!
Same disclaimer applies as the first two.
Note: Read the first two, it might help understand this one.
Archive: Anywhere
Thanks: To Susan, for pushing me onward. To Mac for reading it
over, and to Shell for some great insights. This is for all of you and
everyone who has sent me comments on the first two. There is one
more coming, so don't flame me when you get to the end.

Follies of the Mind III: Mulder's Thoughts
by Vickie Moseley
vmoseley@fgi.net

Calumet City Mercy Hospital
early evening

I don't like hospitals.

I know that sounds rather simplistic, and maybe not even that
imaginative, but it's true.

My esteemed partner, Dr. Dana Katherine Scully, thinks I love
hospitals. At least, she's always pointing out the fact that I seem to
find myself in them more than the average FBI agent.

Scully once explained to me, while we were waiting for the
inevitable wheelchair to wheel me out of yet another nameless
medical center in another one horse town, that I must _love_
hospitals. She told me that she thought it might be the plentiful
supply of nurturing, usually unattached females. Or maybe a
demonic fixation on green gelatinous substances. Or maybe I just
like the decor. Whatever the reason, she's convinced that I just like
coming to hospitals and staying--as a guest, so to speak.

Teasing or not, she couldn't be farther from the truth.

Scully doesn't know _half_ of the reasons I hate hospitals. Like the
reason I'm in this one right now.

It's not entirely Scully's fault if her knowledge of my early medical
history is limited. I'm not sure how 'censored' my medical file is at
the FBI, but I know a whole lot of stuff ended up on the cutting
room floor. I figured out something was missing when I
mysteriously flew through my first psych screening without a hitch.
You would think that two months in a psychiatric hospital during
early adolescence might at least raise a couple of eyebrows. But no
one spoke of it, no questions asked.

I was transferred to the Rivers Psychiatric Hospital from Chilmark
Hospital in December of '73. I'd come out of the catatonia but I
still 'wasn't right' as my mother so euphemistically put it. I was
experiencing screaming nightmares, I became terrified of the dark,
or of being alone in a room, or being in crowds--the list was
endless. Hysterics were the norm for me then.

Even after my release from Rivers it was a long time before I was
able to ride my bike to school, or even stay in the house by myself.
I was a senior in high school when my weekly counseling sessions
and need for sedatives at night were finally discontinued.

But no one ever said a word at Quantico. I suspected Dad had a
hand in that. He didn't say anything when I'd called to tell him that
the FBI had been in contact with me, were 'courting' me, as it
were.

Good old Dad, who used to dream of me doing anything but
government service, who'd once suggested that I'd make a
'damned fine history professor', suddenly was speechless. He'd
had plenty to say when I went to Oxford ('American universities
aren't good enough for you, Boy?'), or when I chose the school of
psychology ('thought you've had enough of shrinks, Boy'). No,
when I went and signed on to the FBI, he said nothing, nothing at
all. And that always made me wonder.

Had he given up at that point, knowing that I'd do whatever I
wanted anyway, or was it because he'd been in on my recruitment
from the beginning?

I'm rambling now, my thoughts disjointed and colliding with the
speed of light. I know that. The drugs, now valium instead of the
dreaded ativan, do that. My body is completely relaxed, I couldn't
piss straight if I tried at this point, but my mind is going a mile a
minute.

That's the really funny part, the part that always caused me to break
out into laughter when we studied the effect of tranquilizers on the
brain in school. This shit is supposed to make me 'tranquil'! What
a laugh. It's more like an upper to me, more like a nice shot of
speed. Only problem is, I can't _do_ anything, even when I think
of it. I'm so fucked up physically that I _look_ like I'm tranquil,
even though my mind is busy dreaming up a thousand possible
escapes from these damned restraints.

That would really piss Scully off, though, if I made good on an
escape plan. She gets mad enough at me when I make the nurses
complain. I don't do it on purpose. I just prefer to do things for
myself. Having someone hold the damned urinal while I'm trying
to pee lying down is not my idea of a great time. It makes me . . .
edgy. Cranky. Mean.

I don't mean to do it, I don't like pissing people off. Well, not
really cute nurses who lean over a lot and wiggle just a tiny bit as
they walk out the door. But still, in the end, my disposition gets the
better of my intentions and I end up being the patient voted most
likely to be smothered in his sleep.

Damn that fucking Artificial Intelligence for figuring that out.

Even Scully eventually loses her patience with me. But never for
very long. A well timed groan, a wince or a cringe at the right
moment, and she's beside herself with partnerly concern. It might
be more than just concern, but I really don't want this train ride my
brain is on to careen off that particular cliff right now.

She made me promise to be good before she left.

'Be good'. I've always wondered exactly what that phrase meant.
If you're going to be a shit, be a really good shit? If you're intent
on making an escape, make it the _great_ escape? If you're trying
to prove to the world just how psychotic you are, blow up a really
big building?

I know better, I do. I know she expects me to lie here passively,
like a good little psychotic. Take the shit they pump in my ass with
a smile and a nod and when the head shrink comes in, pretend to be
interested. Acknowledge that I'm one taco short of a combo plate
and 'yes, Dr. You Got Your Degree From the Back of a
Matchbook, I really, really, _really_ want to get better'. So I can
blow up even bigger buildings.

I am not crazy.

My throat is sore from saying those words. Actually, from the level
of soreness (if valium is supposed to relax me, why does my throat
and ass hurt like hell?) I think I might have screamed the words.

I don't remember much from this morning. I remember Pinkas,
turning into a monster before my eyes. I remember him snarling
and leaning forward to attack Skinner on the back of the neck. I
remember Skinner, leaning across me, his arm on my Adam's apple,
calling out for an ambulance. What are you talking about, sir, I
didn't even get a shot off. Then, after a minute, I realized that he
wasn't calling the EMTs for Pinkas' decaying body, but for me!
For my decaying mind, or at least that's what he probably thought
at that moment.

But I'm not crazy. I saw him, it, whatever it is. A monster. I've
seen monsters. Scully has seen them. We've seen beings who have
been called monsters by everyone who saw them, but we knew
there was humanity underneath. We've seen people who everyone
thought were humans, but monsters lived under the thin facade of
the gentle face, the caring words. I've seen enough monsters to
know one when it's staring me in the face.

What does Skinner think I did all that time in BSU? Throw darts at
a board and guess at a profile? Make it up as I went along? Find a
formula developed by good old 'Uncle Bill' and fit tab B into slot
A?

It didn't work like that. I was on my own. Self taught by getting
into their heads. I learned to know who the monsters were. What
they looked like. What they acted like. Where they would choose
to go for dinner and an evening out. I was damned good at it, too.

No one called me crazy then.

Or maybe they did, but not to my face and never very loud.
Because they needed me. I frightened the other agents. I could see
it in the way they squirmed under my gaze, I could hear it in their
voices as they whispered 'Spooky jokes' behind my back. But god
in heaven, they needed me. As much as it made them want to puke,
they couldn't fucking live without me.

If I was crazy then, it was a good thing.

It must be a bad thing now.

It's funny. The only person on earth who has ever called me
'crazy' to my face is the only person I know who thinks I'm sane.
Scully used to tell me I was crazy on a daily basis. Then, as the
evidence to the contrary started to pile up around our ankles, she
stopped saying it so often. She still says it every once in a while,
when she's in a good mood and wants to see me smile. Because
she knows I know what she really thinks. She thinks I'm saner than
most people, maybe even saner than she is herself. And for some
whacked out reason, that makes her happy. Makes me pretty
damned happy, too.

She's worried this time. That isn't too surprising. Scully and
worry are inseparable most of the time. I've cornered the market
on paranoia, she's cornered the market on worry. But this time, I
could tell she was more worried than usual. I could see her making
comparisons. It's the scientist in her. 'Is he more delusional than
the last time he called someone a monster?' 'When was the last
time he decided the person he'd just saved from a gunman might be
a demonic being?' 'Take his temperature, check his water, there
has to be a reason here somewhere.'

Scully. That damned poster on my wall is as much for her as for
me. I want to believe, it says to the world. That's Scully. She
wants to believe. But she's afraid.

That thought blows me away. Scully, afraid. Of anything. When
she first said the words, I didn't believe her. I mean, I was drugged
at the time, painkillers and antibiotics and blood thinners and shit.
Not to mention the damned bullet wound in my leg itching like hell.
I wasn't really sure I'd heard her right. I'd just asked her why she
didn't go to see Luther Lee Boggs executed. Wasn't she curious
what message her father had for her? And she told me she was
afraid.

I remember saying something totally stupid, yet very psychological,
like 'can't you face that fear'. But the look in her eyes told me it
wasn't a fear she wanted to face.

I let it go. What else could I do, she was hurting and I hated seeing
her in pain, especially if it's me wielding the verbal knife. I try not
to do that to my friends. But those words have haunted me ever
since. Scully, afraid.

She's faced that fear. More times than I could ever count. She's
hunted it down and exorcised it with a passion that I can only stand
and admire. But for all her courage, all her strength, sometimes,
she lets the fear get the better of her. Sometimes she falls back on
it, uses it as a crutch. Oh, sure, she cloaks it in the mantel of
science. Says the words that end the discussion. 'That's a
scientific impossibility, Mulder' or words to that effect.

But she's like a kid sleeping in her room alone. She has to peek
under the mattress, even at the risk of letting the monster out from
under the bed. Has to look, even as the fear makes the palms
sweaty and the heart beat a little too fast. And when the monster is
there, Scully stares it straight in the eye and waits for it to blink.

God, please, let her find this monster.

I've seen it. I can see it still when I close my eyes. The knowledge,
the understanding, that I am the only one to see it doesn't lessen my
conviction that it was real. Monsters can hide in the light of day. I
only need look as far as my own slightly bare and diseased family
tree to see evidence of that.

But knowing it exists and proving that fact have always been a
difficult task. I knew that as a kid, I know it today. There were
never any marks after one of my father's tantrums. Never a bruise
or a cut or blood to show that world the pain he'd inflicted on me.
Just internal, silent wounds that bled invisible into my soul. That
would leave me crying in the dark because men don't cry in the
light. Nothing to show the world the monster who had given life to
me.

I started collecting monsters a long time ago. Attracting them like
flies, it might seem. Patterson was a monster, but no one else saw
it. Not even Scully. 'Most men wanted to _be_ him.' I wonder, if
Scully had been born a man instead of a woman, if things were
different and she could have cut her way through to be accepted in
that narrow community in the basement of Quanitco--would she
have seen Bill as he really was?

Scully has the gift, I've seen it in her. When she lets her
'professional detachment' take a walk, she can easily go toe to toe
with me when it comes to getting into the monsters heads. But
during the short time she was with Patterson, she was too busy
worrying about my becoming a monster to see the one standing in
front of her. She couldn't pull her attention off me long enough to
look past the 'professorial glasses' and the grandfather-in-waiting
hairline and see Bill for what he really was. A monster. Waiting
for me. Waiting to bring his protege along for the ride. A ride into
hell with no return ticket.

When I left Patterson, because I once again had no proof to show
the world, I ran smack into more monsters. Blevins was a monster
but a hard one to see. I underestimated him, I was distracted, I
didn't look hard enough. It took me four years to see him for what
he was, and I was almost too late. The monster who almost killed
the part of me I cherish most. Scully. My soul keeper.

I don't know when Scully became my soul keeper. I never thought
of exactly when it happened. I had sort of come to believe that I
didn't have one any more, that it had atrophied, or maybe died of
lack of nourishment. But she gave it back to me, dusted it off,
promised to keep it safe with her because she knows I'm always
losing things. Can't keep a cell phone to save my life, I sure can't
be trusted with a soul.

Blevins wanted to take my soul.

He almost succeeded. If I'd committed suicide that night, odd how
that phrase is easier to say than do, I would have left my soul
behind. It would have wandered the earth, until her death. I would
have lost it and no one would have been able to find it again.

If Scully had died of the cancer, again a phrase that now holds less
terror than it once did, my soul would have disappeared. It would
have vanished without her watchful prepense, her caring actions
that keep it safe.

Either way, I would have been damned.

And Blevins, the monster, would still roam the earth, stronger than
before.

I'm pretty sure Scully thought Skinner was the monster back then.
She was blinded, confused. I have to admit, death has a way of
making one extremely egocentric. I don't blame her, I was pretty
focused on her then, too. And I admit to being pretty pissed off at
him, for getting in my way, but Skinner isn't a monster. He's just
like us, trying to find his place among the monsters.

I couldn't tell Scully why I didn't think it was Skinner when she
asked me. I just felt it. It didn't feel right. The thought didn't sit
well in my mind. I'm many things, but generally a good judge of
character. It's only when my hormones get involved that I screw
that up. So I knew Skinner was all right, an ally, someone we
could trust.

That's why I'm a little worried by his reaction this morning, too. I
remember the look in his eyes this morning. He was scared. For
me, maybe even of me, a little. But also, he was afraid that I might
just be right. Of course, he couldn't act on that. He told me once
why. His experience with near death, the looking beyond the veil,
that frightened him.

Skinner is not a man who frightens easily. But where Scully pulls
the veil aside with her scientific instruments and I just rip through it
with my curiosity, Skinner stands back, unsure of himself. Not
willing to go further, but more than willing to let us do that for him.
He'll be there to drag us back, if the monsters catch hold of us. I'm
hoping he'll be able to do that this time.

He thinks a monster might have me now. That a monster might
have stolen my mind. Earlier, I heard him. He was here, alone. I
was still pretty drugged out from the Ativan. (Vomiting is the only
effective way I've found to keep them from giving me that shit.)
But even under it's influence I could feel my boss sitting at my
bedside.

Skinner's pretty transparent. Or maybe I've gotten better at
reading him. I remember how he put everything on the line to save
Scully. I remember all the times he's pushed the envelope to save
me. I know exactly why Blevins wanted him out of the picture.
He's one of the good guys. He'll help me. I know he will. I just
have to give him the proof. Prove the monster exists.

end of part one

******

Follies of the Mind III: Mulder's Thoughts (2/2)
by Vickie Moseley
vmoseley@fgi.net
disclaimer all the way back in FOTM I

So, I'm back to that again. Prove the monster exists. But to do
that, they have to see the monster. And they can't. They don't
know where to look.

I guess I should wonder why I'm so blessed. Why can I see him, it,
whatever it is, and no one else can? A room full of people and only
my eyes could make him out. My eyes and the eyes of a lunatic
with a gun. Doesn't say much for those of us with sight, now, does
it?

When we were in that cafeteria held hostage, I admit I was scared
shitless, but not so blind that I couldn't see. The people he singled
out didn't look like zombies. They looked frightened, cowering
there on their knees, praying for the nightmare to be over. The
woman in the office this morning didn't look like a zombie, either.
But I know she's one. Know he got to her and changed her.

And now, I'm a zombie, too, but in a different way. A zombie to
the drugs and these fucking straps on my arms.

I've always hated the drugs. Ativan messed with my head the most,
put me to sleep when I didn't want to go, made the nightmare a
reality that I couldn't wake up from. That's why I started throwing
up. It made me scared, sick to my stomach. I could feel my sanity
draining away with my reflexes and my focus. So when the feeling
would hit, the dizziness that always heralded the onset of the drug
in my system, I made myself puke. Easy enough trick, actually.
Close your eyes when dizzy and think a few particularly gross
thoughts and boom, stomach contents all over the floor.

It took them weeks at Rivers to figure out what I was doing. I
have to give them credit for that. Scully never has looked at it that
closely. But then, Scully hasn't been witness to one of my all out
hysterical tantrums. I haven't had one since adolescence. But the
good doctors at the Rivers knew them all too well.

They tried to get me calm, but I fought them. All the time. I
fought because I was so damned scared. I fought to go home, I
fought to stay awake so the nightmares wouldn't come, I just plain
fought. Five foot four inches at the age of 12 and 110 lbs of pure
hell cat when I was that scared. Later, at Oxford, I could look back
and see where they had to do something. They were afraid I'd hurt
myself. My mom was terrified I'd kill myself in one of my terrors.
I was so scared, I probably would have preferred death to what my
mind was making me see but not understand.

When they figured out that chemical restraints were just going to
make me sick, they used the physical kind. I have to tell these guys
in the midwest, they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground
if they think these web straps are restraints. I've seen restraints.
I've _worn_ restraints. When they stopped using the ativan and the
thorazine caused other problems, they used valium. But it wasn't
as potent and I could still fight. That's when I got my first dose of
physical restraints.

I didn't realize that my flailing would be interpreted as a hostile act.
To be perfectly honest, at the ripe old age of 12, I didn't think
twice about throwing my fists around a lot. And I really did regret
hitting the charge nurse, but we both learned two things. I learned
not to flail and she learned to duck. But not until a whole lot later.
In the meantime, I ended up in restraints. Seven point restraint
because I'd inflicted bodily harm (a nice shiner on her left eye) to
the charge nurse.

Seven point restraint means arms, feet, legs, chest and head. Face
down, on my stomach because I'd already thrown up a couple of
times and they didn't want me to choke. The head was the worst
because I couldn't look around. I was flat on my belly, scared
shitless that someone would be hovering over me, ready to kill me
when the nurse in the hall wasn't watching. Or maybe just pick me
up, table and all and float me out a window. I didn't have a clear
picture in my head of what would happen. That came in my
nightmares, years later, after Werber messed around in my head a
bit. On rare occasions, I still have nightmares about the restraints.

I hated the head restraint the most. It's something from early
childhood, I'm sure. My mom used to babysit for a kid down the
street. He was just a year old and she watched him while his mom
shopped or ran errands. Sometimes, Mom would take him on
walks. I remember, when it was cold, she'd have to put his hat on.
Poor little guy would throw a fit, scream and flail his little fists,
trying to untie the bow under his chin and pull the damned thing
off. I understood exactly how he felt the night I was restrained,
only I didn't have the luxury of moving my hands.

Nothing would move. Nothing _could_ move. Four inch thick
leather, lined with sheepskin (like some handcuffs I've seen on
movies) so they don't chaff. Strong enough to tether an ox. They
tied me down so tight that all I could do was breath. My head was
turned to the side, I could stare at a blank wall with no pictures,
nothing to break the glossy surface. I could see the shadows of the
nurses and orderlies as they strapped me down.

I cried and screamed till my throat was sore and my nose was filled
with snot. If I hadn't been lying on my stomach, I would have
drowned in my own snot and vomit. The nurse would come in,
move me, just enough to clean up my mess or so I wouldn't have
bruises and sores. I pissed on myself, more than once, praying to
some god I no longer believe in that it would make them take off
the damned leather straps. It didn't work. Nothing I did worked. I
fell asleep, exhausted. I cried myself to sleep, really. When I woke
up, a day or so later, the straps were off. From then on, I didn't
fight when they gave me the valium.

Yup, these things are sissy restraints. Not enough to instill all out
terror. Not leather. Not wide. Not even that damned well made,
but in my current less than alert condition, they'll do to keep me flat
on my back for now. It's been a long time since I've had to fight
valium and with the little bit of ativan still knocking around my
bloodstream, I'm out of practice. And I don't want to upset that
nice little aid sitting out in the hallway trying to avoid eye contact
as she watches over the 'looney tunes FBI agent' in room 321.
Besides, I don't need to fight right now. At this point, it's about
making them think I'm restrained more than anything. I have to
give Scully time to find the proof. The proof that the monster
exists.

But at this particular moment, I really have to take a piss. Stupid
ass IV. They took it out a while ago, since I wasn't tossing my
cookies as much, but all that fluid has to go somewhere. It's not
going on the mattress, if I have any say in the matter.

As I said before, this is the part I really hate in hospitals. I can see
the fucking bathroom. It's about 8 feet away from me at this very
moment. If I could get out of these dumbass restraints, it still
wouldn't do me a dammed bit of good because I would invariably
fall on my ass trying to get out of the bed. So I'm forced to call the
dreaded nurse.

This one is a real winner. Worse than most. Florence Nightingale
would rip off her tits. She's got this 'I'm superior because I'm not
crazy' attitude about her. Keeps patting me on the arm or the head
or what ever happens to be handy. The thought of letting her . . .

Remember what Scully said. Be good. This is part of being good.
Good and embarrassed, good and disgusted, good and humiliated
beyond belief. Hospitals always find a way to strip the little veneer
of dignity away, but on a psych ward, they manage to do that in
spades. Any sane person would want to commit suicide rather than
have their bodily functions attended to while they were strapped to
the bed rails.

It's so much easier when I'm unconscious. I should have dropped
the fucking gun so that it went off, caught me in the leg and then at
least I'd be doped up on morphine while in restraints. I would't
like it any better, but I wouldn't have the sense to worry about my
dignity then.

Florence comes in five minutes after I place the call. Another little
mind game. 'I don't have to run in here just because you can't piss
by yourself'. God, I hate this woman. Hate her smile. She looks
just like that Canadian singer. Celine Dion. That's it, she looks just
like her. Sounds a little like her, too. I close my eyes and make
myself think of anything else but being where I am and what she's
doing to parts of my anatomy. Performance anxiety is NOT what I
need right now. I focus on the task at hand and finally, the body
takes over what the mind can't handle.

"It's about time for your night time shot," she sneers as she
fastidiously tucks in the blankets. She measures my output and
records it on the chart. Like I'm here for a fucking kidney
transplant or something. Then, ever the lady, she dumps the
contents down the toilet, rinses out the urinal and is back at my
side. "I'll be right back," she says with that oily smile. Great
terrific can't wait.

Everything within me doesn't want to go to sleep right now. I
don't know what they're giving me, Scully gave them a list of what
I can take and can't take. I assume it's the same stuff I've had
before, the same stuff I took as a kid. It's a nice little chemical
coma, I'll be out like a light. But I don't want to be out right now.

Still, there's not much I can do but wait for Scully. Pray to her god
for once, maybe he'll think it's her calling. Hope Scully got a good
case of the 'curious-ers' on the plane and didn't go home to do the
check of the body tomorrow. That's extremely unlikely. That's
not like Scully at all. Once her little pit bull mind is latched onto a
question, she's not one to let it sit for a night. Probably one of the
major reasons she hasn't given me the boot. We are identical twins
when it comes to finding answers.

I don't want to be asleep when she comes back with the news.
That's the Scully I know, too. She won't just call, she'll come.
Two hour flight, each way. The G-Woman is racking up those
frequent flier miles tonight. Too bad we don't get to use them.

Nightingale is back. With a nice big needle. Can't give me the pill
form I took as a kid, I might decide to choke on it or something.
Or maybe Scully snitched on me about the way I've been known to
palm pills. Or they just don't trust nut cases like they used to.

Once again, using my best 'I'm perfectly rational' voice, I try to get
her to let me out of these fucking straps. I don't want to think
about being in a coma _and_ strapped to these bars. They don't
need me _that_ restrained. Chemical or physical, that's the way it
always worked at Rivers. You don't need to be both. You don't.
I don't. I just don't.

Oily smile. I hate that damned oily smile. She doesn't even give
me a verbal response. Figures it would just send me into another
tantrum.

The needle goes in, it hurts, it burns and I know what's coming, but
I don't like it, I don't like it and I ignore that stupid bedbug
comment and where the hell is Scully, goddam it, she should be
back here by now, I hate this fucking shit, I hate the dark, but if I
just close my eyes . . .

What the hell is that noise?

It's like a cricket on 'crack'.

A rattlesnake, but more like an insect.

I drag my eyes open, the shit is already gluing them shut, but I can
see the window. The security light makes silhouettes out of the
tree
branches . . .

FUCKING SHIT! If that's a locust, it is the biggest fucking locust
I've ever seen! Christ, it's HERE! It's FUCKING HERE!

I'm screaming and screaming and pulling at the restraints and I
know I'm breaking capillaries in my wrists and ankles and that I'll
be sore as hell in the morning from thrashing around . . . assuming
I'll be alive in the morning!

Finally, Flo tears herself away from the desk and comes in here.
She snaps on the light, and now I can't see out the window because
of the glare. I beg her, I'm trying to be rational now, but it's not
coming out right and I sound like I feel, terrified, scared beyond all
thought, and I just want the fucking restraints off!

She's walking over to the window. Tapping it. Telling me there's
nothing there. And then I watch her open the fucking window.

I know.

I know she's one.

Goddam it all to hell. I'm fucked.

She's a zombie.

I know enough, have enough control to shut the fuck up. She
walks over to me with her oily smile in place, then I can see her
eyes. Dead eyes. No life. No humanity. She might kill me right
now.

Instead she just tightens the straps on my wrists.

The door is open and I notice the little aid is gone. Hope she's all
right. Hope Florence just sent her on an errand and didn't kill her
and stuff her in some closet.

Damn it all to hell.

I might have cut my wrists when I was thrashing around a minute
ago, I don't know, but now they hurt like hell. I can't say a word,
it would just get me killed faster.

Maybe that's not a bad thing.

But Scully could walk in any minute. And she'd be really pissed if I
was dead. So, I make myself, I force myself to be quiet. I just
watch Florence. Watch as she pulls the curtain and snaps off the
light, leaving me in darkness.

Waiting.

Waiting for Scully . . . and a monster.

Wondering who'll get here first?

I always ask stupid questions. Skinner would probably call them
'impertinent', but hell, it's just my way.

Monster's here.

Scully's not.

I'm not too sure who the hell I think will hear my screams and
respond to them, but it seems like a pretty rational response at the
moment. If thrashing around will throw the fucker off, I'm doing
it.

Damned straps biting into my wrists, and I'm hoping I bleed to
death before the insectoid bites me and turns me into a zombie.

Oh, god, this is not how I wanted to die.

Strapped to a bed.

Everyone thinking I'm crazy.

Scully, I'm so fucking sorry.

I'm so intent on dying that I didn't hear the first shot. I hear the
second and hear the scream. This time it's the monster, not me.
I'm too busy trying to suck air into my lungs. More gun fire and
the window breaks and I glance over to see Scully in position and
firing and then glance back and the thing is gone, out the window.

Would love to tell Scully she has great timing, and thanks for giving
me the proof I need, but I think it's time I pass out now.

the end.

<VEG> yes, there is a part four. It's coming soon, just be . . .
patient <G>

Vickie

"Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far."

My fortune cookie, Feb. 28, 1998