TITLE: Death Wish
RATING: R (language, violence)
CLASSIFICATION: X A
DATE: April 2003
SPOILERS: Set in S2 
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Ephemeral, others please ask
AUTHOR: Joann Humby - jhumby@iee.org

LEGALLY:
Legally these characters belong to some combination of 1013, Chris 
Carter and Fox. Mulder's soul belongs to DD, for which I'm truly 
thankful.

SUMMARY:
A killer is copying the work of a man that Mulder once captured. Set 
in S2 while Scully was missing.

Originally written for the Mulder's Refuge March/April short story 
challenge.

This version revised for a anachronism! Oops.
Thanks to Deb for pointing it out..


------

Skinner's brief nod towards the empty chair in front of his desk was 
an order. Mulder swallowed, automatically scanning the office for 
the missing furniture, simultaneously respecting his boss' good 
intentions in pushing the second visitor's seat to the side of the 
room and offended that he'd considered it necessary.

Mercifully, Skinner didn't bother with pro-forma questions about 
Mulder's condition, physical or emotional. Perhaps sensing that such 
queries would be stonewalled he moved directly to the report on LA's 
vampires. 

"You're happy that with the deaths of the four cult members the case 
is closed?"

Happy was not the word that Mulder would have used. "The case is 
closed."

"I'm told that you're fit for duty."

Naturally. He'd been cleared of legal wrongdoing by the LAPD, of 
professional misconduct by an OPR meeting in DC, and of imminent 
psychological collapse by a highly qualified psychiatrist working 
out of a dungeon in Quantico. "Was there a case that you wanted to 
discuss?"

Accepting that communication would be strictly business or not at 
all, Skinner slid a photograph across the desk.

The victim was suspended by her ankles. Her feet bound together. Her 
arms outstretched in a grotesque parody of a crucifix. A ragged Y-
incision confirmed that the young woman was recently dead. There was 
no mistaking the killer's pedigree.

"What did he write?" Mulder asked, as if it was the most obvious 
question in the world.

"His." The AD paused to wait for a reaction from Mulder and 
continued only when he realized that there was none forthcoming. "He 
wrote it in blood, but -"

" - it was fox blood. And Patterson," Mulder paused to push the 
picture back across the desk, "wants to know if the UNSUB's copying 
the Matthew Jay Benson MO or just mimicking the file."

"You're saying that the files are wrong?"

Ah, now that would be telling. Let's just say, "Incomplete."

Skinner's frown deepened. "And Section Chief Patterson knows that?"

Mulder almost smiled at the AD's indignation but failed to find the 
necessary energy. Section Chief Patterson had taken great pleasure 
in making sure that his profiling protege had witnessed the 
incineration of the report. "I'm saving your career here. Forget 
that - I'm saving your miserable ass from every psych unit inmate 
who ever thought he'd been fucked over by the Feds!"

Fuck you, sir.

A brief shake of the head and Mulder had brought himself back to the 
present. Staring into the eyes of his current boss he stuck to the 
necessities. "Is the body still in San Francisco?"

Skinner looked even more alarmed. "You need to go out there?"

Mulder ignored the unspoken question, the demand to know if it would 
be safe for him to go out there alone. "We don't have much time."

-----------

Clive Kenyon, the San Francisco Bureau's profile coordinator, 
greeted Mulder like a long lost cousin. "Fox. It's been too long."

Mulder shifted, uncomfortable in the big man's bear hug. OK, so he'd 
saved Kenyon's life. But that had been years ago and it certainly 
didn't mean that he was entitled to call him Fox. "Let's get to the 
site while we've got some daylight."

Still talking, reeling off questions and ignoring the warning 
implicit in monosyllabic replies Kenyon led the way to the car. 
Finally adding a, "So, how come you're flying solo - you pissed off 
another partner?" as they fastened their belts.

Eyes fixed on the road Mulder offered only a reminder. "The site."

The murder had taken place in an old warehouse, only one block and a 
couple of million dollars away from the prime real estate that lined 
the bay. Split into small units, officially it served as storage and 
garages but such was its location it might even have supplied the 
occasional workshop or late night rendezvous. 

"Who found her?"

"Patrol car. Whoever did this tripped an alarm on the way out."

He'd wanted her to be found warm. A matter of pride to show off his 
handiwork as soon as possible. A matter of bravado, too - he must 
have watched from somewhere close while the blue flashes of the cop 
car lit up the sky. Exactly where he'd stood would probably have to 
wait until morning and better light. 

Did he jerk off when he saw the car? Like those arson freaks that 
liked to stand with their hands in their pockets while the fire 
crews worked? Benson had hated it when Mulder asked him that. Benson 
never wanted to share.

So why had the next victim been declared "his"? A "his" written in 
fox blood no less, just in case there was any doubt about the 
message's intended recipient.

"Who was she?"

"Jackie Hawkes. 23, law student, no current boyfriend, no record, 
lived with two girl friends. A good kid."

"Any connection to Benson?"

"You know that -"

"- Benson has been in a coma in a Federal penitentiary for the last 
two years? Sure. That wasn't what I asked."

Clive returned to the question. "No connection that we're aware of."

Fine. 

It was time to go to see the body.

-------

Jackie Hawkes was powder gray, almost translucent against the 
stainless steel of the trolley. And cold, so cold, turning the blood 
in Mulder's veins to ice as he held her hand and searched for signs 
of the life that had once been there.

Tell me, Jackie. Tell me who he'll kill. Show me who I chose.

The silence of the morgue made his breathing harsh, made every beat 
of his heart thunder in his ears. Reminding him that he was alive, 
that it was only his touch that was dead. He closed his eyes.

"Fox? Mulder? All right. You won't go to the hotel. Just, let's get 
some food. We can eat here."

Mulder frowned, hating that his focus had been so poor that he 
hadn't been able to ignore the other man's words. It was going to be 
a long night. "Go home, Clive."

"No way."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"And I don't need an AD on my ass for not obeying orders."

Ah. Of course. "Skinner said you had to stay with me?"

"That'd be Assistant Director Walter Sergei Skinner to me, sir!" 
Clive completed his quick fire proclamation with a salute.

Mulder felt obliged to relent, if only out of respect for his 
colleague's attempt to make a joke of it. "Pizza?"

"You're not even going to check into the hotel are you?"

"Extra pepperoni on mine."

It was Clive's turn to relent. "You got it."

Turning his attention back to the body Mulder noted the way the 
pathologist had paralleled the killer's messy Y-incision with 
precision cuts of his own, careful not to damage any trace or trauma 
related evidence. Scully would be pleased.

Was there something here that she would be looking for that he was 
not? Something that she would see at a glance that had no meaning to 
him?

The ME's notes covered all the obvious bases. Strung up by her 
ankles, pinned out like a captive butterfly on the frame. No sexual 
assault. Bruising around the mouth that, despite the absence of 
saliva, Mulder knew had been inflicted by a tongue. Her blood 
drained through a deep incision in the jugular vein. 

He'd kissed her as her life dripped away, kissed her to death. 
Sliced her post-mortem to look at a heart that was no longer 
beating. 

"Why does he do it?"

Mulder shook his head, vaguely amused that anyone could ask. 
"Because he's a freak."

"You gonna' write that in your profile?"

"Perhaps not in those exact words."

"How like the Benson case is this?"

Clive Kenyon had lived through these murders once. He'd read all the 
files. With his qualifications in forensic psychology and his years 
of experience as an agent and as a profile coordinator he would see 
past the jargon and the bull to get to the meat. It wasn't necessary 
to wrap up the answer for Clive, no need to hedge bets with words 
like probability or likelihood. Mulder gave it to him straight. 
"Exactly."

"Then that 'His' means?"

"That I get to choose the next victim."

Benson had always labeled his victims as "Mine" - daubed it in blood 
next to their lifeless bodies. The message had seemed obvious enough 
until one day the name scrawled in scarlet was "Hers."

That had been the signal to bring Mulder on-board as profiler. The 
signal for Mulder to trust only himself. 

Funny how life worked. Just when it had actually started to seem to 
Mulder as if he wasn't alone any longer they'd taken her. Or had 
that been the point? That they took her just because she was his? 

Clive's voice cut through his musings. "Mulder. About what I said. 
About you not having a partner. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Nobody knew. What was there to know? She wasn't even his partner. 
According to Scully's file she was still on active duty working at 
Quantico. Sometimes, if he hadn't slept for a good long time, Mulder 
could dream that dream, too. 

He nodded, glanced down at his hands and was surprised to see just 
how much of the pizza that Clive must have given him he'd already 
eaten.

Impressive how a body could survive without conscious thought. 

Wiping the grease from his hands he turned his attention back to 
business. Jackie Hawkes. A life that would never be lived. Because 
somebody was copying Matthew Jay Benson? Because the evil that had 
once possessed Benson had found a new host?

He ran his index finger over her lifeless eyes begging her to show 
him what she'd seen and to tell him what she knew. 

Scully would have a rational explanation for it. Perhaps something 
close to Patterson's idea that he'd sunk so deep into Benson's 
insanity that he understood Benson's choice of victims. 

Except that Benson hadn't chosen one of his victims. "Hers" he'd 
written and her choice it had been. A five year old girl had chosen 
death for the thirty year old man who'd accidentally driven over her 
beloved kitten just the day before.

That had been the wild card in the Benson MO. A sickening 
consistency in the deaths and yet a lack of connection between the 
victims. Sex, age, race, profession held no boundaries for Benson. 
He chose them by some other rule.

According to Mulder somewhere during the torture of lingering death 
perhaps the UNSUB told his current victim about who would be the 
next to die. Maybe he'd made sure that it was the last thing they 
saw; the last thought they ever had. Burned the image so deeply into 
their psyches that when Mulder touched them it had completed the 
connection, replaying the picture as clearly to him as if Benson had 
left a photo for him to find.

Anyway, the fact was he'd seen the next victim as soon as he'd 
touched Jackie's hand tonight and no amount of repeating the 
performance or thinking deep thoughts was going to displace the 
image. 

Time to go back to the hotel and take a shower.

"Clive? You coming?"

Kenyon shook himself awake and checked his watch. "It's past five."

So? Didn't he want to get any sleep? "No time like the present."

---------

Bill Patterson managed to restrain himself from phoning until 7am. 
Mulder almost congratulated him before remembering that it would be 
ten back in DC.

"Do you still think you can see the next victim?"

And a very good morning to you too, Bill. "Do you have a tape 
running, sir?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Do you know who it is?"

"Caucasian male. In his thirties. 6 foot, 170 pounds. Dark hair. 
Yeah, I know him."

"You didn't." It pleased Mulder to hear the uncertainty in the ISU 
boss's voice. Mulder supposed it might even be mistaken for genuine 
concern. "Mulder? You didn't do anything stupid?"

That was rich coming from Patterson who didn't even believe him. 
Mulder kept his answer simple. "I had no choice." 

Empathy was an overworked term and lacked both the power and the 
precision to explain the connection that had taken him to the heart 
of Matthew Jay Benson's darkness. Patterson insisted that the 
connection was with Benson, and that Mulder now had what it took to 
see the art through the eyes of the artist.

Fuck that. Mulder had never felt a connection to Benson. Not even 
after he'd exhausted both himself and Benson with an interrogation 
that had run for twelve hours before the attorneys had insisted, 
despite Benson's wishes, that it had to stop. 

Hers.

A five-year-old girl, an innocent in every sense, sullied in the 
most evil of ways. Benson had asked her to choose the next victim. 
Asked a tiny life that knew nothing about death. Blood on her hands 
before her own had bled away.

When Mulder visited the morgue to examine the body his hand had 
drifted automatically to the dark curls that ringed her face. 
Electric shock of a connection that singed his fingers and nearly 
threw him across the room. Static - Scully would have said if she'd 
been there back then. 

An image of a man driving a car. A look of horror on his face. 
Horror at his own act, or at his discovery?

Baffled and bewildered, but never one to look a gift horse in the 
mouth Mulder had leapt for the files. Friends, neighbors, family 
members. Could he get that lucky?

Unlucky.

The man was there in the stack of file photos. He lived just two 
doors from the girl.

There was some sick irony in leading a FBI SWAT team into a man's 
home and finding not a killer, but another victim dangling from the 
roof of his own garage. In the blood on the floor below, the message 
was clear - Mine.

Mine. Because the next victim would be purely the killer's choice. 

Mulder had lifted his hand to touch the corpse. An apology on the 
tip of his fingers.

White light surged along his arm and burned an image of a young boy 
into his eyes.

There would be no lucky break this time. No neighbor's kid who 
fitted the artist's impression that Mulder worked with the FBI's 
finest to produce.

"What do you think you're doing, Mulder?" Patterson had been beyond 
anger when he'd read about this latest twist in the case. 

Mulder had tried to explain, been howled down by a boss who warned 
him not to repeat his delusions to anyone. "I can cover for you, 
Mulder. No one else will."

Their guilty secret.

The first time Mulder saw the 13-year-old boy from his sketches he 
was hanging head down from a tree. "Mine" said the blood below. 

This time he couldn't stop himself; he'd held the boy, wrapped his 
arms around the skinny torso, buried his face in the kid's shoulder 
until finally the other agents had dragged him off. Spooky had gone 
too far. 

But still, Spooky was terrifyingly convincing as he showed them the 
drawings of the fifty something woman who was going to be the next 
target. And everybody knew that Spooky always got his man. 

"We need to find her. Before he takes her. We don't have long." Flat 
calm and dead certain and the other agents kept their doubts to 
themselves as they did exactly as Mulder ordered and Mulder ignored 
Patterson's voice and played it his way.

By the time they'd located the woman Benson had already taken her. 
But Benson was consistent and Mulder knew that he wouldn't have gone 
far. She was still alive, albeit barely, when they'd stormed the 
disused car repair shop. 

A guard on each arm, Benson came quietly and smiled as he walked 
past Mulder.

Strong hands gripped Mulder's shoulders, locking him in place.

Years ago. 

Patterson had smiled too, when he burned Mulder's report. 

"My delusions were good enough to crack the case."

"You cracked the case, Mulder. You knew him, knew who he would 
choose. You saw the art."

"I saw the victims, Bill. That's all I saw. That's all I've seen for 
the last fucking month. And now you think I can just lie about it?"

"You should be grateful, Mulder. I'm saving your career here. Forget 
that - I'm saving your miserable ass from every psych unit inmate 
who ever thought he'd been fucked over by the Feds."

There was some truth in that, Mulder admitted it to himself at 
least. Even to its author the report read like a string of 
hallucinations and who wanted to hear that a Fed who could 
communicate with the dead was still allowed to carry a gun? Bring 
out the anti-psychotics now!

Never reveal your sources. Nor your theories. Nor your beliefs.

Trust no one. 

Where was Scully?

He rehearsed his explanation as if she were at his side. He'd spoken 
to her at Arrecibo, relayed his thoughts and fears into a tape 
machine while he'd hunted for little gray men. He'd assumed that she 
might one day get the chance to hear it. Speaking aloud seemed too 
dangerous now.

Scully, just hear me out. What if Benson told them who he was going 
to kill? Showed them the images in such a way that that they were so 
powerful at the moment of death that they stayed in place? Locked in 
the neurons of the brain on continuous playback waiting for the 
resonant frequency of Fox Mulder for their release?

Mulder caught himself smiling. The whole thing was just begging for 
a "that's impossible" and a bewildered set of raised eyebrows in 
reply. So real he could see it if he only dared to close his eyes.

Time to go to work.

-------------

As they prowled the murder scene Clive ran through the raw facts 
again. "No fingerprints. No DNA. No stalkers. No one who saw her 
that night."

"And the fox?"

"No sign."

Mulder kept walking, pausing occasionally to spin on his heel and 
look back to the entrance door. He'd watched the police recover the 
body. No doubt about it. Otherwise why trip the alarm? He'd wanted 
to see it. He'd wanted her found while she was still warm.

Retracing his steps he stooped by the advertising hoarding. "What's 
this?" The ashes slid easily through his fingers.

"Some bum cooking supper?"

"This isn't a garbage fire."

Clive looked more closely. "We found some ash in the warehouse."

Mulder thumbed quickly through the notes. "There's no mention," he 
bit out, suddenly angry. Did no one file complete reports?

"Unidentified material 23. They decided to send it to Quantico. But, 
you know - the backlog. It could be months before we find out what 
it is."

"I know what it is." Mulder had the advantage of having seen it 
before. "It's Vibuti - holy ash." A physical manifestation left 
behind after some major expenditure of psychic energy. "It's time we 
visited Benson."

"But he's - "

" - in a coma, in jail. Should be easy to locate."

Mulder's assumption had been that this was the work of a copycat so 
effective that he'd radiated the same evil energy as Benson. Now he 
was on the verge of thinking the unthinkable - was it Benson?

Not possible, surely? But then was any of it?

Would Scully have been surprised by his new theory, or merely 
surprised that it had taken him so long?

------------

"Mulder, will you just slow down?"

Slow down? This should have been over five years ago. How much 
slower did Clive expect him to go? Mulder glowered and offered a 
compromise - paused from pacing to lean back against the wall.

A mistake because Clive took that as an invitation to come and stand 
directly in front of him. "Talk to me. What are we doing here?"

Talking was the last thing on Mulder's mind, pushing his way 
straight through Kenyon and finding a little air started to seem 
like a priority, maybe even an emergency.

The decision was taken out of his hands by the intervention of a 
prison guard. "Agents? Benson's on meal break. You'll have to come 
back."

Meal break for a comatose man! "What?" snapped Mulder, jerking 
upright, almost butting heads with Kenyon as he did.

"Wait," Kenyon growled, pressing on Mulder's arm as a reminder that 
they were looking for cooperation here not a recitation of the 
rulebook. 

The guard chose not to take offence. "The hospital unit's on meal 
break. No visitors. Too many distractions for the guards."

Kenyon kept it polite. "Thanks. We'll be back in an hour." He turned 
to Mulder. "Meal break."

Mulder smiled, amused to be on the receiving end of that "Mommy 
knows best" look from a man with a good four inches and fifty pounds 
on him. 

The officer manning the desk spoke up. "Agent Mulder? Lady says 
she's got Assistant Director Skinner on the line."

Mulder picked up the phone. "Mulder."

"What's happening? Why are you visiting Benson?"

"Covering all the bases, sir."

"The man's comatose."

"Maybe his visitors aren't."

There was a pause, perhaps a mark of surprise or relief. "Bill 
Patterson called me."

Join the club, sir.

Skinner was left to break the silence. "He's concerned. He says that 
you may think you've been forced to choose the next victim."

Mulder almost snorted at that. Patterson had never been able to play 
it straight. "The UNSUB thinks he's forced me to choose."

"Mulder. Who did you -" Skinner's voice trailed off. 

Why did everyone think they had to play mommy today? "It's not 
important."

"I'll be the judge of that."

And turn yourself into a co-conspirator, sir? And a witness before 
the act? The last thing Mulder needed was a witness; this was hard 
enough already. The call ended in a tensely impatient mist of 
demands for regular reports and instant obedience and threats of 
recall to DC if he failed to deliver. 

Mulder turned his attention back to Kenyon. "Let's go."

The restaurant was something of a rest stop for people visiting the 
jail. Kids ragging on their harried-looking mothers. Women trying to 
put their game faces on before meeting their men. People on their 
way home from visits that had either been too painful or too real 
and who needed time to regroup before hitting the long road home.

There was an instant of near silence as the two agents walked 
through the door, the melancholy whine of the jukebox covering the 
gap as all heads turned their way before returning to their previous 
activities. 

"You think they guessed?" Mulder asked, his voice dripping with 
sarcasm.

"You could be an attorney."

"You could be a goon."

"What - not a drug boss?"

"In a three hundred dollar suit?"

"You always were a poseur."

Feds - and just as easy to spot in here as a prisoner in an orange 
jumpsuit. The hair, the ties, the pairing of thirty-something 
slender white guy with the forty-something African-American 
linebacker. The real giveaway though was the aura of quiet certainty 
as they automatically scoped out the room before taking the table 
with the best view. 

The place had been emptying out a little when they got there but it 
seemed to be losing its customers rather faster now. By the time 
their meals arrived there was enough breathing space around them for 
Kenyon to talk.

"What are you hoping to get out of Benson?"

"He's a link in the chain."

"He hasn't spoken to anyone in two years."

"We don't know that."

Clive looked relieved. "You think he spilled his guts to someone and 
now they're picking up where he left off?"

Mulder shook his head. Copycats copying for disguise or to bask in 
some kind of reflected glory was one thing. This was something else. 
"I don't know."

Kenyon almost spat out the mouthful of supposed coffee he'd just 
taken. "Fox Mulder doesn't know - wait, I need to get this on tape!" 
His sudden manic smile turned in an instant to a frustrated scowl. 
"Bullshit. Why are we here?"

"What the hell is your problem?"

"You! I've had Patterson and Skinner on my tail telling me to keep 
an eye on you. And I've spoken with those people on the vampire case 
in LA, Mulder. I've fucking spoken to them!"

"And I'm working. Unless Skinner told you otherwise?"

"They think you've got a death wish. They think you're suicidal. And 
you know what? I think they may be right. You want to see how fast 
you get pulled off this case if I call that in?"

The man's passion hit Mulder like a bucket of cold water, rousing 
him from his own passivity. "Why? Why do you care?" The question was 
genuine, the effort of asking it exhausting.

Kenyon shook his head, scowled, horrified that Mulder even needed to 
ask, leaned forward. "How about because you took a bullet for me? 
>From this asshole Benson's gun. And now you're letting him, a dead 
man, mess with your head."

"He's not dead."

"Good as. Or don't you think so? Why are we going to see him? And 
don't tell me that it's his doctors you want to see." Clive had no 
patience for silence, shattered it after barely a pause for breath. 
"And don't try and feed me some Silence of the Lambs shit about 
breathing the same air - that's Patterson's game not yours."

The little kid who walked past the table snorted an oink of a noise 
before running to the door. His mother addressed her words to the 
whole room. "Never been able to handle the smell of pigs. Least - 
not without them being fried first."

Mulder sat up straight, all business and every inch the arrogant FBI 
asshole with an attitude, he watched the woman as she followed her 
child from the restaurant. He made a single slow scan of the other 
tables before turning his attention back to his colleague. 

Kenyon looked amused. "I'd almost forgotten that. Whipped puppy to 
Rottweiler in the blink of an eye." He shook his head and the ghost 
of a smile dissipated to a look of concern again. "Are you OK?" The 
briefest of pauses before the words came tumbling out in a rush. 
"I'll never forgive myself if I'm making the wrong call."

"I'm fine."

"And we're visiting Benson because?"

Mulder returned that ghost of a smile, a reward for persistence. "To 
salve my conscience."

The pain in his chest was sharp and hot, took his breath away for an 
instant before he schooled his reaction back to unconcerned. In any 
other situation it might be a worry, but here it was just a simple 
matter of deja vu backed up by a memory that had suddenly tumbled 
into such stark focus it was as if it really was all happening 
again.

Clear as day. Benson pulling a gun, stolen from some incautious 
guard. Benson squeezing the trigger. Kenyon tumbling out of the way 
as Mulder threw everything he had into the knock-down. The hammer 
blow and the burn as the bullet struck home and his chest exploded 
into a shower of pain. The way the world slowed to allow Mulder just 
enough time to put a round into Benson's belly, before he'd lost the 
capacity for deliberate action, and before the other agents had even 
drawn their weapons.

Mulder had never really understood it, except that some kind of 
sixth sense must have told him to be prepared to open fire even 
though the danger was as yet unseen. Had it been something in 
Benson's movements, something in his eyes? He'd resigned himself to 
never knowing the answer.

Benson didn't like to share.

So what the hell was Mulder doing here now? 

--------

"What happened to him?"

The white-coated figure waved a hand across the subject of the 
discussion. "Meningitis. He *recovered* - he just never woke up."

"Brain function?"

"Normal - for someone who's asleep."

"Does he dream?"

"Sure. He fidgets, he dreams, he mumbles. Prick him with a needle 
and he flinches. Put something in his mouth and he swallows. He just 
doesn't wake up."

Mulder nodded, wondering if the nice young doctor in her well-
tailored navy suit ever got mistaken for a pig. "Is there a 
possibility that he's regained consciousness and now he's just 
maintaining this as an act?"

She sighed. "In here? Anything's possible. Let's just say every time 
I've had him hooked up to the monitors he's looked asleep to me."

"Thank you, doctor."

"You're welcome."

The doctor walked away leaving Mulder and Kenyon to stand over the 
silent body.

"So - what do you think?" questioned Kenyon, flat as if he was not 
really expecting an answer but felt obliged to ask.

Mulder slipped quietly into the plastic chair at the side of 
Benson's bed. His gaze shifted over the sleeping form, automatically 
comparing the barely perceptible rise and fall of the man's chest to 
the absolute stillness of Jackie Hawkes. 

There was one last test and Mulder prepared himself with slow 
breaths and quiet concentration. Finally he dared to reach out and 
his fingertips touched Benson's lifeless hand. He was still warm, 
this "good as" dead man. Not dead at all. Closing his eyes Mulder 
kept his breathing slow, listened to his heartbeat and let it drive 
his rhythm, just the way he would on the firing range. 

"Mulder?"

Kenyon's hand came to rest on Mulder's shoulder and the agent 
flinched upright as if suddenly waking from a dream. "Come on - it's 
time for us to go."

"Yeah." He glanced at the clock and was only mildly surprised to 
find that two hours had passed. On second thoughts he was shocked to 
see how long Kenyon had been willing to wait. He looked up at his 
keeper, a query in his eyes.

"You needed the sleep."

Mulder nodded, not satisfied but unwilling to argue the point. 
"Let's go."

"Where?"

Mulder shrugged. It really didn't matter. "The hotel."

"You got it."

It was twenty minutes before Clive tried for more. "I remember the 
Benson case. I remember you finding that kid. I helped pull you off 
of him. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now."

"That makes two of us."

"I feel like I should be dragging you off again."

"I was right last time."

"Every step of the way. But this. This isn't right. It's like you're 
fading away in front of my eyes and I can't do a damned thing to 
stop it."

Mulder nodded, in acknowledgement rather than agreement.

Clive shook his head. "Let me help. Don't treat me like I'm an 
idiot. What can I do? "

Fine. Fine. If that was what he wanted, he could have it. Mulder 
snorted, spoke with the polished disinterest of a man who expected 
to be ignored. "Did you touch that girl. Jackie?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question. Did you touch her? Her face, hand? I'm not 
looking for a hot confession from the crypt. You said you wanted to 
help, so help me."

"I don't understand."

"Answer the damned question."

Clive swallowed. "I touched her cheek, told her we'd get the bastard 
for her. OK?"

"What did you see?"

"You saw her yourself."

"That's not what I asked."

"She was young, pale -"

Mulder cut in, angry but keeping it under wraps. "Forget it, Clive. 
You can't help me."

"I don't understand."

"Then just get me back to the hotel in one piece."

Startled by the reminder that he'd taken it on himself to play 
designated driver, Clive eased the pressure on the gas and pulled 
the car safely back to the correct side of the white lines. "Jesus."

---------

With the kitchen closed most of the staff had left for the day, and 
Mulder had started to explore. The hotel laundry was easily 
accessible from the service elevator and deserted. He swiftly locked 
onto the place as not merely possible but ideal. 

Opting to wait in comfort, he climbed onto a basket of clean laundry 
and built a nest.

Checking the Sig to ensure that the clip was correctly loaded and 
the weapon secure and close to hand was as automatic a gesture as it 
was redundant. Still, it represented some kind of positive action, 
albeit of the futile variety. Moreover, it offered an odd kind of 
comfort, an idea that Mulder choose not to dwell on.

"You think you're so fucking clever, don't you?" The disembodied 
voice was instantly recognizable as Matthew Jay Benson in all his 
wakeful glory. 

Recalling long hours of discussion without communication, "Let's do 
this man to man," Mulder suggested, emerging from his resting place 
as Benson fluttered before his eyes from hazy gray transparency to 
apparently solid flesh.

An hallucination? Scully whispered sotto voce in his ear, warning 
him about placing too much trust in five tired and overstretched 
senses. Did it matter? What's in a name. Corporeal or not the 
confrontation was fixed for right here, right now.

Benson voice was a mocking challenge. "So - you made your choice?" 

"You know I did." 

"But you cheated." 

Mulder smiled, hard and un-amused. "I did what you wanted me to do."

"Why would I want that?"

"Because you're already dead."

"And you don't care that I'm making you kill?"

"I'm no innocent. No harm, no foul."

Gratifyingly, Benson looked surprised. "You've changed," he said. 
Puzzled and less confident in his mockery than before.

"You haven't," supplied Mulder, cold and bitter in reply.

The basket winch provided a convenient hook for the rope that 
appeared from nowhere and snared Benson's ankles ready to haul him 
up into the high ceiling. 

"Not like this!" Benson howled. "You wouldn't."

Really? Was that so. "You chose. I never had a choice."

"You're supposed to try to stop me."

A whoosh of air and a sickening thud as Benson had his feet pulled 
from under him and his head bounced in an ugly thump against the 
concrete floor. Seconds later and he was hoisted up, suspended in 
mid-air. His arms dragged out at right angles to his body.

A flash of a scalpel blade across the neck and a coughing, gurgling 
death rattle escaped from Benson's throat.

The blood emerged in spurts from the tear and Mulder idly considered 
whether to bathe in it or simply to go upstairs and get some sleep. 
On balance he decided to do neither, stood as a mute witness as the 
fountains turned to trickles and the body convulsed while Benson 
laughed.

And Mulder silenced the laughter with his mouth as the rapidly 
subsiding blood storm drizzled over his face and down his body.

"Fox?"

Mulder turned to face the confusion of the late arrival.

Clive rushed forward demanding to know how Mulder was injured and 
what the fuck was going on and what the hell he was doing in here 
and where in God's name he was bleeding from.

"It's not my blood," said Mulder. Simple and to the point.

"Whose is it? What the hell happened?" The scarlet puddle was 
congealing fast, revealing only the smeared remnants of a word. 

Mulder surveyed the room and nodded a satisfied acknowledgement, 
relieved to see that he couldn't make out any letters in the scrawl. 
He'd been right to stay here, right to obliterate any last words 
with his foot in the blood and with his mouth over Benson lips. 

"It's Benson's."

Clive breathed in sharply, shaking his head as he struggled against 
the words. "Benson's dead. The prison called me - I told them if 
there was any change... He went into convulsions, his heart stopped. 
There'll be an autopsy. When I couldn't find you in your room -"

Kenyon looked around the laundry trying to make sense of the 
senseless as sticky red puddles turned to fine gray ash. "What 
the..." 

Convinced now that it was almost over, Mulder turned to face Kenyon 
again. He ignored the look of horror in Clive's eyes, ignored the 
reflection of himself, his face and shirt front bathed in blood and 
saw only Clive, the man who'd been at his side through all of this 
and who deserved some kind of resolution, too. "Who did you see when 
you touched Jackie?"

"Benson."

Mulder nodded. It really was over now.


END