Title: Freedom's Ring Author: Michele Lellouche Rating: PG-13 DISCLAIMER: I don't own Mulder or Scully or anyone else in this story, CC, 1013 and Rupert Murdoch do. I've put them back nicely, so don't sue! Spoilers: Ah...none really. References to Young at Heart and Ghost in the Machine. Summary: Another explanation for a mystery... FREEDOM'S RING by Michele Lellouche Mdanl@ibm.net "Okay, Mulder, give." Scully threw a folder down on his desk. He looked at her, then opened the folder. An old crime scene photo. He was standing facing his old ASAC, Reggie Purdue, by a car in a parking lot, while a body was being loaded onto a coroner's gurney. He stared at it, trying desperately to remember the case. Even his dark suit wasn't a tipoff, other than he knew the case had to be pre-X-Files days. He glanced up at his partner, who was looking as if she expected him to divine the secrets of the universe from the photograph. "Give what? It's an old murder--God only knows which one, they sort of ran together after awhile." "Look at your hand," she commanded in a just shy-of-frustrated voice. He did so. "No wonder you're a great pathologist. You've got eyes like an eagle." "Were you ever going to tell me you were married once?" "I wasn't. Married, I mean," he added quickly at her Look. "I'm serious. Check my file, single." "I have. So, you were wearing a ring for what, fun?" "It's a long story." Scully walked to her desk, and rolled her chair over to his. "I didn't think it would be short." "It's really stupid." "As opposed to?" He conceded the point. "Okay, well, you know that I started out in Behavioral Sciences under Patterson--they recruited me out of my externship at Johns Hopkins to do profiling. "You know Patterson--imagine that all day, every day, for months on end. And I was one of the best, as he never ceased telling me. Or should I say he never ceased using as a guilt trip to keep me chained to my desk working. I started wearing out, case after case, year after year. So when Reggie Purdue came over from Violent Crimes looking for a profiler to borrow to catch John Barnett, Patterson loaned me out. Like it was a favor granted to one of his subjects. "And then Barnett killed Agent Wahlenberg because I screwed up, and so I went back to Quantico, sure that was the end of my work in the 'outside' world." Scully prompted, "But it wasn't." He was McScrewed with fries this time. His one chance out of Behavioral Sciences gone because of his by-the-book response in a situation that called for creativity. Here he was, lauded for being "Spooky," the profiler with the weird instincts, so he got in the field and didn't listen to any of them. The gloating on Bill Patterson's face as he trudged back to his desk on the day after the botched capture of John Barnett was enough to make Mulder think of quitting the Bureau and finding a nice psychotherapy practice to join. For all of five minutes, anyway. Then the stubborn streak that had been remarked upon in every evaluation he had ever received, reasserted itself and Mulder resolved to stick it out. No way in Hell was he giving Patterson the satisfaction of winning the war. This round maybe, but he was not surrendering. Not yet. Still, he was sure Reggie Purdue would never ask him back to his unit. That hurt worse than anything else. In his brief time working for Purdue, he had found one supervisor who didn't want to siphon his talent completely away. He had been called in as a tame profiler for Purdue's team, as he had been to other Bureau offices, and he had been expecting the same treatment he always received--write the profile, if you're lucky you can interrogate the guy when we catch him. Purdue however had included him in the team, made him sit stakeout and join the final capture. Look where it had gotten him. He had dared hope that he would be good enough to hang onto a place with Purdue's team, make good at least a temporary escape from Patterson. But here he was back in harness. He had arrived at his cubicle to find a stack of files waiting--profiles to be written, sick minds to be empathized with so they could be caught. "So, your little adventure didn't work out as you'd planned, did it, Mulder?" A quiet conversation down the row of cubicles stopped as Patterson's question carried over the small block of profilers. Mulder closed his eyes long enough to keep the red streaks of murder from reflecting. "No, Bill, it didn't. I'm back here at your beck and call again." He had abandoned his sarcastic tone with Purdue, who treated him as a colleague. But Patterson's demeanor just begged for his smartass responses. "Don't you forget it, Mulder," Patterson's voice was just above a hiss and, for the first time in his tenure with ISU, Mulder's nerve failed. "You can consider yourself married to this job and you will not be getting a divorce. Your talents are needed here, not gallivanting after glorified stickup artists. Think of how many we lost because of your absence." Somehow, Mulder didn't go for his gun even as his fingers itched. How many times had Patterson thrown the victims in his face, how many days off only to return to "how many died because you took time off"? This time, he swallowed and stood, proverbial murder in his eyes. For one moment he saw fear in Patterson's eyes for a change as he stalked past his supervisor. He waited for Patterson to say something, but there was no challenge forthcoming. By the time he had stopped seeing red spots before his eyes, he was nearly home. Great, he'd messed up with one ASAC, challenged the head of the ISU in front of the staff, what to do for an encore? Leave work in the middle of the afternoon. _ Maybe they'll suspend me. Nah, that would be too much to hope for--I'm too valuable._ Married to the ISU. God, and he thought Phoebe Green had been a mistake. He immediately went upstairs, changed into his sweats and started a good run, hoping it would clear his head. Once again, on the way out, he nearly destroyed the ficus tree that some grateful family of a victim had given him, so he stopped, gave it water and hauled it closer to the window. His run usually strayed off toward the subdivisions a few blocks from his apartment, but this time he started toward the commercial areas for some reason. In the middle of the afternoon, a runner would bother no one, and it was a nice change of pace from having to worry about dogs chasing him. He was stopped on a corner, waiting for the light, when his eye was caught by a sparkle. Almost expecting a gun, he turned and saw the gleam of jewelry from a pawn shop window. Prominent among the pieces was a wedding ring. And, as he remembered later, like the Grinch, he got an awful idea. He returned to the shop an hour later with his wallet. The pawn proprietor, a rather wild-eyed individual, was all too happy to help him search for a ring, especially after he said it was to get back at his boss. The third try, a band fished out of a tangle of necklaces in a dark display case, was perfect. It felt awkward on a hand unused to jewelry. He'd worn nothing more than a watch since his punk phase at Oxford when he had had earrings. The moment he stepped into ISU the next morning, the buzz began. First that he had dared to come back after yesterday, then exactly what the ring indicated. For the first time since those dim undergraduate days, back when he had the earrings, he felt himself poised to have some fun. Patterson finally deigned to notice he was back at work at about mid-morning. Mulder had been at his desk, hard at work on a profile since he had arrived--the picture of a model employee. The ring had proved to be a good thinking tool, like worry beads, as he puzzled out the aspects of the killer. "What's with the ring, Mulder?' Typical Patterson--ignore the insubordination until it could be used to his advantage. Mulder considered for a moment as he looked up. Tell Patterson the truth or lie. But then what was the point if he lied? "You said I was married to the ISU, Bill. Thought I'd memorialize the relationship." There was certainly an upside to being so uncannily good at profiling. Patterson would sputter and fume, but there was nothing he could do. The ISU needed Mulder. Mulder made a show of checking his watch. "Sorry I can't continue, but I promised to give a lecture this morning." He left Patterson in his wake. This was fun. Of course it didn't last. When he arrived back in the afternoon, his desk had been moved to the smallest cubicle, with his effects piled haphazardly on top. For a moment, Mulder was angry, then he smiled. As Bugs would say, of course, this meant war. "You're annoying the hell out of Patterson," Reggie warned as he slid in next to Mulder at a quieter booth in the back of the bar. "That was the plan." Mulder was delighted to have been asked to this retirement party; it meant Purdue wanted him back, and he was losing a field agent, he was looking for someone to plug into the slot. Maybe the Fates were finally being kind to him. "How do I know you wouldn't do that to me?" Mulder met the older man's lively eyes. "This may sound--" "Tell me." "Patterson wants my talent, my gift for getting into their heads. If he could somehow siphon it out of my head and keep it in a jar to be used for himself, he would. You want me for my talent, but you don't want all of me. You want me as an agent, not as a brain to be used." Reggie seemed to ponder that. "Right now, I can't do anything to get you here permanently. But I can get you over to VCS as a profiler--out of Quantico. Patterson has first claim, but not for long." "So you started working for Reggie Purdue in early 1989," Scully prompted. "As a free lancer. Since there was a hiring freeze on then, it was this year long struggle of wills between Reggie and Bill as to who got to claim me. But Bill had pissed a lot of people off, so Reggie had more pull. And the solve rate of his team went up with me working there. Plus, a lot of the brass distrusted the ISU and Patterson's power." "How did you finally get on Reggie's team permanently? "The Roche case," Mulder said wearily. "Mid 1990. After I solved that one and participated in the capture, Reggie had the ammunition he needed." "Mulder." He turned to Patterson's strained voice. This was it, then, Reggie had done what he had promised. Mulder would've allowed himself the luxury of a smile, but he had a bigger payoff in mind. "In my office. Now." He kept himself from strolling in, shut the door behind them. He simply looked questioningly at Patterson. "Your transfer came through. Reggie Purdue has someone's ear, and he's taken my best profiler away. How many more will die--" "Oh, cut the crap, Bill. For God's sake, it's not like I'm leaving the Bureau, I'll be in Violent Crimes, busting bad guys. I'm still a backup if your team gets overwhelmed." "You haven't won yet, Mulder." Mulder shook his head. Purdue had a partner lined up for him, and a desk to stack his files on. "I'm out of here, Patterson." He stripped off the ring that had begun as a joke and for now was deadly serious. He put it down in the midst of Patterson's paperwork. "Consider this a divorce." "What did Patterson do?" "What could he do? By that time, I had gotten under Senator Matheson's influence, so I had a little pull to put together with Reggie's. My reports were starting to impress Blevins. The partner they gave me was Jerry Lamana, and I carried him for months so by the time I found the X-Files, I had plenty of brownie points built up to work on them by myself, provided I did profiles on the side. The guys here in DC liked having a tame profiler on site, so that they didn't have to go to Patterson. And by that point, he had found Frank Black to exploit, who was even spookier than me. Of course, Bill finally ground him down too." Mulder trailed off, wondering what had become of the perpetually gloomy Black with his technicolor flashes of insight. Scully interrupted his thoughts. "You know, I remember that story. It was all around Quantico that someone had stood up to Patterson, but I was just a student so I never heard the whole story." She smiled as she met his eyes. "Of course, you could be making this up. All the principles are either dead or insane." "Except me." "That's debatable," she teased. "But the story is so in character for you, I have to believe it." "What's that supposed to mean?" "You're the profiler, you figure it out." end - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Em Laurence (LilXPhile@aol.com) http://members.aol.com/lilxphile/xf.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - __ __ \X\ /X/ \X\/X/ X A n g s t /X/\X\ /X/ \X\ A n o n y m o u s http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/2553/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Five years together, Scully... You must have seen this coming." -Mulder, 'Folie A Deux' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -