FREE AT LAST 1/1
Anna Taylor Sweringen

EMAIL: ataylorsweringen@yahoo.com
SPOILERS: 'Existence'

-----------

Walter Skinner felt strangely confused. He could tell his hands were restrained by handcuffs in front of him, but why that was he couldn't tell. The last thing he remembered was finding an unmarked package on his desk this evening. A videocassette had fallen out of it. On it was a yellow Post-it with the words "You owe me" written on it.

He put it in the VCR and watched mesmerized as the events of three months ago unfolded before him. He watched himself pull the trigger on Krycek three times. Watched the body fall over and over. Remembered how lifeless he felt afterward. Then how panicked as he returned to dispose of the body and not finding it. His panic abated a bit when the next day he learned that the garage surveillance video from that night was missing. Suspicious that both events were connected he hadn't dwelled on it too much. After all this time he had convinced himself that whoever his mysterious benefactor was, he or she was on his side. Or so he thought until tonight. "You owe me." He guessed whoever it was was ready to collect now.

He felt woozy as he tried to sit up. Failing at first, he just lay there with his eyes closed. He was sure he heard voices whispering nearby.

"What do you think he'll do?" A familiar female voice.

"Don't worry. You can handle him. Just play it the way I told you." A familiar male voice. A very familiar male voice.

Skinner forced himself to sit up, slowly this time. He looked down at his wrists and confirmed that indeed he was handcuffed. He looked before him and saw himself encountering and killing Krycek, over and over. The VCR was in A-B mode.

"Tell me. Did you get that precision from Vietnam or your FBI training? Or have the two combined to make you this lethal weapon?"

Skinner looked to his left and saw Marita Corvarrubias sitting behind his desk, her slender hands running along its the edge. "I've often fantasized about you, sitting here. Being so in control, so sure of yourself. Not like our night here. Remember?"

He watched her pick up the palm pilot off the desk and stroke it. He froze, recognizing it immediately. "I think that's why Alex loved this so much. He used to tell me how much it turned him on to see you writhing in agony whenever he activated it. It's been awhile, but I'm sure it's as effective as ever. Let's see."

Skinner stiffened as she activated it. The veins in his neck bulged and throbbed and he closed his eyes, gasping to fight off the pain. He gritted his teeth and waited for the real pain to begin. Instead it lessened and with a pained sigh, he doubled over onto his lap.

"Very impressive writhing indeed," she said.

"So now it's your turn to see me writhe?"

"No. I'm interested in a writhing of a different kind."

Able to breathe again, Skinner sat up and leaned his head against the back of the couch. He closed his eyes and tried to forget that night four years ago.

It was the night after he had put three bullets in the wall behind Spender. The entire next day had been a waste of time. He was too full of anger and disgust to be effective at work. Anger and disgust for not having used those three bullets to avenge the deaths of Detective Thomas, of Jane Brody, whose family and friends would never have closure because he destroyed her body, of Peter Valdespino who would still have been alive if Skinner hadn't brought him some of the honeycomb he found in the post office bathroom, of those children in Payson, South Carolina, some of whom might have lived if he had told that doctor how he knew it was small pox they were suffering from. He'd wandered all over DC that day wracked with guilt and had come back to the office late at night, hoping no one would be around only to find Marita, sitting at his desk, running her fingers along its edge, just like she was now.

He hadn't even asked how she got there or why she was there. He just went over to her and kissed her, needing to feel something besides lost and angry and hopeless. Somehow she knew it and let him fuck her in that chair, on that desk, on the floor all night.

Before she left him, she explained why she was there, how Spender had told her of his visit, had instructed her to tell Mulder what he wanted to hear. But instead she brushed Mulder off and flew down to DC determined to find Skinner however long it took. "We won't meet again," she said. And they hadn't until now

. Skinner watched her, fingering the palm pilot thoughtfully.

"So what kind of writhing are you interested in?" he asked.

"The kind the truth creates," she answered. "I think you owe me that."

"I don't understand."

"Videotapes documenting executions in FBI parking garages don't disappear by themselves," she said, laying down the palm pilot and picking up the VCR remote.

"Neither do dead bodies," he answered. "But both did that night. How did you get involved in this?"

"The tape you received today only showed you killing Alex. The original is in the VCR now."

She disabled the A-B function and let Skinner watch the tape proceed. He watched her car pull up and she step out. He watched her kneel and cradle Krycek's head in her lap, crying, kissing his face. Then he watched as she opened the back door and take a sleeping boy in her arms. He sat transfixed as he watched her pull the child safety seat from the back, place it in the passenger seat in the front, disappear from view, obviously securing the boy in it. Then she reappeared, managed to drag and hoist Krycek's body into the back seat of the car and drive off.

"You owe me, Walter Skinner. I'm here to collect."

"Do you want my help with Jeff?"

"What I told you four years ago when I found out I was having your baby, still stands. I don't need or want your help with him."

She turned the VCR off and looked at him. Her eyes glistened with tears in the dim light of the room.

"I had brought Jeff down to see Alex that week. When he hadn't reappeared that night, I was just going to wait up for him. I knew he used to prowl around Hoover just for old times sake sometimes. But then I got a call telling me to come and get him. I couldn't leave Jeff alone so I bundled our boy into the car and came to Hoover to collect him."

"Someone called you?"

"How do you think Alex was able to get in and out of this building? He still has friends here. Too bad you could never be one of them."

She leaned forward with the palm pilot in her hands, gazing at it intently.

"You know, as much as I know Alex loved me, sometimes I think he was loving to Jeff more out of a longing for some kind of closeness with you."

Skinner looked at her, a cold sweat breaking out across his upper lip as he watched her toy with the palm pilot. He swallowed his fear and asked, "Then why--what do I owe you if you don't want my help with our--with Jeff?"

"Why you really did it. You had disarmed him. You knew he couldn't hurt you or Mulder at that point. Why did you do it?"

"You mean did I do it because he was in Jeff's life and I'm not?"

"Yes."

"I'd be lying if I said no. All these years, I let Krycek live, let him use that thing you're holding to blackmail me because I knew he was giving Jeff a happiness that I never could - at least, that you'd never let me. Even that night I was ready to let him live, but then he said, 'Shoot Mulder' and my son's happiness didn't seem to matter anymore. I guess I always wanted something to help me ignore how much he seemed to mean to Jeff. Those words handed it to me on a silver platter."

Marita's eyes watched Skinner carefully, looking for signs of untruth. But finding none, she stood up with the palm pilot in her hand.

"So now what?" Skinner asked.

"Now I leave and go back to New York."

Marita laid the palm pilot on the top of the desk and walked to the door.

She tossed a small key into his lap.

"You'll need this to undo those cuffs."

"What does this mean about your letting me see Jeff?"

"Our arrangement still stands. You can always see him from a distance. Just let me know when you'll be in New York."

"You won't be coming with him to D.C.?"

"Not anymore. We have no reason to now. You've seen to that."

"Did he --- did Jeff really like Alex? Anytime I saw them together, it always looked like it."

"He loved Alex. He still does."

Then she left.

Skinner leaned his head back against the wall, haunted by her words about Krycek.

'You know, as much as I know Alex loved me, sometimes I think he was loving to Jeff more out of a longing for some kind of closeness with you.'

He sat there for a long while, remembering the fresh faced agent Alex Krycek appeared to be six years ago. He remembered liking him so much at the time. He stared at the palm pilot Marita had left on the desk wondering if he would ever really be free from Alex Krycek.

An hour later, on the other side of town, Marita's car pulled up in front a small private house in a quiet DC suburb.

"So? You haven't said a word to me the whole way back."

"It went just like you said. He was totally honest just like you said he'd be. He seemed ready to accept anything I was willing to do, just like you said he would. And he asked about Jeff and you, just like you said he would. What else should I say?"

"I liked the way you said 'welcome home.' How about saying that again?"

She turned around and looked at the little boy snuggling happily in the arms of the man in the back seat. She was surprised he was still awake. His beautiful sleepy brown eyes full of joy and happiness met a loving gaze from the green eyes that gazed down at him.

"I like your new arm, Uncle Alex," Jeff's sleepy four year old voice said. "And those bumps on your neck are fun too."

END