TITLE: Through Walls
AUTHOR: bardsmaid 
E-MAIL: bardsmaid@imagesmithstudio.com
FEEDBACK: stokes the fires of creativity.  Always gratefully 
received.
DISTRIBUTION: Yes, but please let me know where, and 
keep my headers attached
SPOILERS:*The Truth
RATING: R (for language)
CLASSIFICATION: Post-col vignette
KEYWORDS: M, A, K
DISCLAIMER: The X-Files characters are the creations of 
Chris Carter and 1013 Productions.  No infringement is 
intended.
SUMMARY: Trapped in a colonist holding pen, Mulder must 
face the only likely way out.
NOTE: Originally written for the XF Lyric Wheel: War for the 
World.  Lyrics at bottom of page.  
MANY THANKS: to Spica, for beta that always goes the 
distance
......................................................
THROUGH WALLS


At first Mulder's a textbook case: he reacts like a caged dog, 
jumping at the barriers, full of bark and fury.  He doesn't 
realize he's one of the 'lucky ones'.  But that's okay.  It gives 
him free rein to plan, to hope, thinking there could be a way 
out of this.  

If there were, he'd be the one to find it.  I've got to give him 
that.  If he's on your trail, nothing's going to stop him. 

By the end of the first week he's started a diary.  It helps him 
think of twenty, thirty, fifty years down the road when 
somebody will find it and realize that it seems like forever 
since the nightmare occupation was crushed.  He's got faith 
in some kind of unexpected, lucky intervention.

Then things start to get tougher.  They get word from 
Outside, via transferred prisoners, that the whole D.C.-
Baltimore area is gone, the victim of a very literal alien 
feeding frenzy.  And Scully was visiting her mother in 
Baltimore--first time in a couple of years she'd had a way to 
get there without being watched.  Mulder'd encouraged her 
to go, and now his words eat him hollow, along with the 
knowledge that she might be gone.  Could be gone.  He 
can't bring himself to think 'probably'.  Not yet.  But when 
he's tired and his guard drops, his mind toys with how likely it 
is that Scully, or anybody, would be able to fight off one of 
those screamers.  

He's careful to imagine just one of them. 

In the beginning Mulder has Skinner for company, but then 
in the fifth week Skinner and sixteen other men are caught in 
a breakout scheme.  They're hauled into an interrogation 
room with a glass wall on one side; everybody's forced to 
watch while a small pool of the oil slithers, separates and 
then invades a half-dozen of the guilty.  Pretty soon they're 
on the floor, going through gestation, their bodies inching 
toward transparency, beginning to reveal the intruders 
inside.  A few hours later the screamers hatch and the 
remaining eleven men become their first meal.

Mulder can't get the picture out of his head.  Back in his 
barracks, he throws up.  Twice.  He tries to keep his mind on 
Scully, who might still be alive, but the associations between 
what he's just seen and what he's heard about Baltimore 
eventually force him to focus away--toward memories of 
summers on the Vineyard, or the green-painted terrain of the 
wall beside his bunk.  Anything but here; any time but now.  
He wants to die.  His only consolation, when he finally edges 
gingerly around the subject at hand, is that Skinner was one 
of the first half-dozen.  He'd have felt the smothering 
takeover of the oil, but at least he was spared the terror that 
came after.

I wasn't there.  Call me a coward but my memories are what 
they are, and I know better than to be around watching when 
the oil takes a man over--even now, when I'm beyond its 
reach.  

But I get to watch the whole thing replay in Mulder's head.  
That's the way it is when you're dead.  You get a different 
view, but it doesn't mean you escape things entirely.  
Nobody gets a free ride.

So Mulder's left trying to come to terms with the nightmare 
life he and two hundred other men have been dropped into: 
the full meals, the air conditioning, the movies, the library 
and fully-equipped workout room.  The vitamin supplements, 
the clone guards, the daily 'deposits' that keep them from 
becoming screamer food.  Doesn't take long for them to put 
the pieces together.  Sometimes Mulder finds himself 
wondering if stud bulls have any idea what they're doing--
how they might react if they were smart enough to realize 
they were fathering the destruction of their own species.

He wants to be optimistic.  He's worked too hard at believing 
not to feel like he's betraying himself--or maybe life itself--
with the thoughts that fill his head these days.  And God 
knows Mulder's genetically predisposed to see the glass 
half-full, to figure there must be a man-size hole in the 
fences of hell.  But the things that happen around him 
continue to take their toll.  More men pick fights with each 
other.  More toss on the bunks at night, gripped by 
nightmares.  Mulder tries to picture Scully but her image 
drifts apart before he can even piece it together.  She 
wouldn't give up, he tells himself.  She'd keep trying.

In the back of his mind he realizes that every day a little 
piece of himself is falling away.  His diary entries become 
lists of little things from the sane world that he's afraid he 
might forget.  

I know what you're thinking--that I'm sitting here smirking, 
getting off on watching Mulder squirm: welcome to the real 
world, Foxy.  Yeah, well, maybe I was at first.  A little.  Do 
you finally get it, Mulder?  Now do you understand what it's 
like to always be fighting a rising tide?

But mostly, watching him's beginning to feel like... what was 
that fifties TV show?  Where the wife is a ditz and gets 
herself into all kinds of trouble, and meanwhile Mr. Cool-and-
Collected goes upstairs to his study over the garage and 
watches the whole thing play out on his TV?  

Except this isn't funny.  God knows I've been in shoes like 
his.  I get no satisfaction from watching Mulder slide 
downhill.

He struggles.  He fights with himself, occasionally jostles 
with one or another of his fellow internees, but he's smart 
enough not to mess with the guards.  No gratuitous death, 
he thinks.  Nothing unless he can make it count.  The 
thought stops him in his tracks.  It shakes him--the fact that 
he'd even think it.

He reminds himself that people escaped the Nazi death 
camps, that thousands of others walked away at the end, 
survivors.  But after a few more foiled escape attempts and 
the retribution that comes with them, he finds it hard to think 
past the ones who didn't.  Scully comes to him just this side 
of REM sleep, but in the morning he never remembers.  

No gratuitous death, he reminds himself.  

His mind wanders.  He configures endless escape attempts, 
but finds flaws in all of them.  He ponders duty and hope and 
responsibility to species, only to find himself ticking off the 
stages of grief--denial, anger, bargaining, depression--and 
wondering whether he's crossed the line to acceptance yet.  
Acceptance: a clinical term for giving up.  He worries that his 
ability to self-diagnose is sapping what strength he has left.  
One day he looks down to find his hands shaking 
uncontrollably.

I can't watch much more of this but the first time I visit, he 
doesn't even see me.  By the second time he's more 
desperate.

"Wake up, Mulder," I say, settling on the edge of his desk 
next to the diary he hasn't touched in over a week.  He's 
lying in his bunk, staring into nowhere, but he looks at me 
now.  Blinks.

"I am awake."  He scowls.  "Or maybe not, if you're here."

"Call me whatever you want--dream, ghost, something you 
ate for dinner.  Doesn't matter."  I have to admit I've gotten 
pretty mellow in my old age.  Or maybe it's the fact that I 
know he can't hit me anymore.  

"Go away."  Mulder rolls toward the wall.  "You're not real, 
and if you were, why should I trust you?"  

"Do I deserve that?"  I shrug.  "I don't know.  Maybe I do.  
Well, suit yourself."

He's waiting, fist balled in a wad of sheets.  When he figures 
I'm gone, he turns back.

"Don't trust Ames, Mulder," I say, and do my flashiest 
disappearing act.

So he lies there going through the predictable routine: 
wondering if he imagined me, whether I was for real, 
whether his mind had somehow 'summoned' me.  Go on, 
flatter yourself, Mulder.  But damned if two days later, as he 
brushes past Ames, he doesn't stick the fucker with a pin.  
Bam!--green goo time.  Seeing their mole exposed is like 
watching your team kick a World Cup goal.

Granted, Mulder's got to scramble for a plausible excuse, 
and three guys are hospitalized for chemical burns.  But 
that's the end of the aliens' free intel feed.
  
For a while Mulder seems to have more resolve.  He gets 
that knitted-brow look.  He puts actual effort into his 
workouts in the gym and eats more instead of just picking at 
his food. New escape plans are hatched, but now the 
participants prick themselves when they meet to prove 
they're human.  Mulder remains cautious, lurking around the 
edges, waiting.  Smart.  He knows there's only going to be 
one chance, and nobody knows how far they'll be able to get 
once they're on the outside.  He tries to think like an alien, 
but wonders if it's possible to predict anything they might do.

I start a little snooping around of my own.  The plan seems 
solid and I want like anything to see him out of here and 
working against the alien scum that's raping the planet.  I tell 
him what I know and eventually he decides to go for it.  But 
at the last minute he's hit with food poisoning--undercooked 
poultry in the lunch entree--and while he's sitting in a john 
stall with his gut on fire and his pants around his ankles, the 
freedom party slips outside... and is taken almost 
immediately by liquid Oil that oozes from the ground. 

Fuckers.  And now I'm up Shit Creek with Mulder, because 
he's going to assume I was trying to set him up.  What I 
wouldn't give to be able to punch something right now.  But 
of course that's not the way it works. 

I wait until Mulder's made it back to his room and gotten 
himself settled in his bunk before I manifest.  I'll have more 
credibility if he hears it from me, so sooner's better than 
later.  Poor son of a bitch looks bad--all pale and pasty.

"If it helps any, you're not the only one," I say, settling into 
my usual spot.  "It was that last batch of chicken.  A couple 
dozen other guys are in the same boat."

He closes his eyes--tight--and after a few seconds I see his 
lashes go all liquidy.  His left hand crushes the corner of the 
pillow.  "I missed--"  

I clear my throat--or at least, I mimic the old familiar 
movement.  "Ah, actually, no."  I wait, but he doesn't open 
his eyes.  "There was oil in the ground.  Got 'em before 
they'd gone fifteen yards."  I pause again.  No response from 
the bed.  "That's got to be what the cleared area is all about.  
It's not just this building.  The whole complex has had the 
pavement ripped up.  I guess now we know why."  

"And you couldn't have figured that out sooner?"  He's 
looking at me now; for a moment there's a hint of the old fire 
in his eye.

"Give me a break, Mulder.  I'm not omniscient, just dead."

"Then you're better off than I am.  They can't get you."

"Hey, the afterlife's not all it's cracked up to be.  You have no 
idea how frustrating it is to watch things happen and not be 
able to step in and do anything about it."

"You did something before."  He pulls up from the pillow.  

"I didn't *do* anything.  I just *suggested*.  It's as far as we 
can go."

He doesn't respond, and I've got nothing to add.  As far as I 
can tell, this place is escape-proof, so I'm not exactly in any 
position to play cheerleader.  I fade out slowly, hoping he'll at 
least get some sleep.

Things go downhill pretty fast after that.  There are no more 
escape attempts.  The inmates grow sullen and men who 
stop exercising or eating are subject to a temporary dose of 
the black oil to guide them back into the right path.  Mulder 
knows all too well what the oil is like, so he toes the line as 
far as they can tell, though his eyes are beginning to have 
that thousand-yard stare and he's quit shaving.  He wonders 
how long it'll take before they get on him about that and 
realizes he doesn't care.  More and more, he returns to his 
line in the sand--no gratuitous death--and wonders if he's 
had it wrong all along.  Dying is the one sure way out of this 
nightmare.  

And I don't have any logic to refute it.  Sometimes life's a 
bitch.     

But watching him lie there gives me the willies.  It's just not 
Mulder.  I materialize before I've had a chance to catch 
myself--not prepared, nothing to say.

His eyes wander over me, not even surprised to see me 
anymore.  It's pretty clear he's just waiting for the hammer to 
fall.  He waits for me to speak. 

I shrug.  "Just checking in, I guess." 

He doesn't say anything.  The silence grows until it starts to 
squeeze against me.  I watch the faint rise and fall of 
Mulder's rib cage, count the silver hairs that spread like a 
border fence along his jaw line.

"They can't get you," he little more than mouths.  He's staring 
past me again. 

"What about Scully?" I say, wondering after the fact where 
the words came from.  

"They can't get her, either."

"So you think she's dead?"

He focuses now, pushes up on one elbow and scowls.  "She 
was in Baltimore.  The area's gone.  You know what 
happened."

"Mmm."  Still, there's that little detail that sticks in the back of 
my mind.  I pull one leg up in front of me on the desktop.  
"Do you dream about her?"

He nods, a half-hearted gesture.  He'd love to be able to call 
her up--piece her together and have her come to life, if only 
in his head--but it's not as easy as that.  Something gets in 
the way: distance, discouragement, the twisted alternate 
universe that's claimed to be reality these past few months.

"No, not the kind of thing where you force it.  I mean when 
you don't plan to.  Like a glimpse you get just before you 
wake up, and then it melts away."  

"I wish."  He rolls over and I'm left looking at his back.

"Maybe she's still out there.  Alive."  No response from the 
bed.  "Because there's this... sense of her, in your mind, just 
before you hit REM sleep."

"Great."  There's a sigh of resignation but he doesn't turn 
toward me.  "So now you can see inside my head, Krycek?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea--just comes with the territory.  Most of 
the time it's a major pain, like wading through somebody's 
garbage.  Once in a while it comes in handy, though."

The bed creaks.  Mulder rolls back, looking momentarily 
alert.  "You really think she's alive?"

"I dunno.  Maybe."

"And does she... does she say or do anything--these times 
when you notice her?"

"She just kind of... comes up behind you, puts her arms 
around you.  Stays there."

For a moment I think I see hope in his eyes, but it fades.  I 
glance down and notice that the diary beside me has grown 
a fine coat of dust.    

"There's still no way out of here," he says.

"Not that I can figure."  I pause, picturing Scully as she 
inadvertently saves my life by shooting Mulder in the 
shoulder.  "You were lucky, Mulder, you know that?"

Another couple of weeks pass.  Sure enough, they clamp 
down on Mulder and make him shave.  He does a poor job 
to spite them. He's growing thinner again and has to buckle 
his belt on the last notch.  But when I stop by, he always 
asks if I still see Scully in his head at night.  'She, uh, still 
there?' he'll say, and I tell him I think so.  

Actually, I'm not sure.  I wonder whether I'm just stringing 
him along.  But there's something there.

Then one morning a chopper lands at the compound.  
Chinook--one of the big ones.  They must be bringing in a 
fresh group of breeding bodies.  I'd forgotten about the roof 
helipad, so I drift up to take a look.  Nothing out of the 
ordinary--just a couple of navigators waiting for the okay to 
take off again.  But suddenly I see something, clear as day, 
in my head: Scully, peering out of a thicket, eyes wide, 
clothes dirty and torn.  I don't know where she is but she's 
alive; that much is crystal clear.  

And now I realize there's more of a tie-in here.  I head back 
down to Mulder's room, following a thin, pale-skinned drone 
in coveralls the last few yards--the third crewman from the 
chopper.  To my surprise he goes straight into the room and 
marches up to Mulder, who's staring out the window at blue-
gray clouds.  

"Fox Mulder?"

The sultry voice stops me in my tracks.  Mulder turns 
around, suddenly wide-eyed and alert.  I slip past the drone 
to see his face--her face.  Clone.  It has to be.  Grim, short 
hair, familiar prominent cheekbones.  The same pale skin.  If 
I still had a gut, it would be shot through with nerves right 
now.

Mulder hasn't missed the voice, either.

Be careful, Mulder.  There could be a hundred like her--

She steps closer, lowers her voice, offers her hand, palm up.  
The pads of her fingers are full of tiny prick marks.  "Do you 
have a pin, Mr. Mulder?" she says in a voice I know as well 
as my own.

Mulder pulls a pin from his pocket, steadies her outstretched 
hand, pricks lightly.  A small red bead forms and swells 
above the spot.  She looks away, touches the place to her 
lips and quickly licks away the evidence.

"I know where she is," she says as quietly as she can and 
takes a step back.  Her voice morphs--deeper, harsher.  
"You'll be coming with us.  No need to pack your things.  
Everything you need will be provided.  Should you try to 
resist, a penalty will be applied..."

How many times he's heard that line, but it sounds entirely 
different now.  Mulder's heart leaps, his blood races and he 
reminds himself not to look hopeful, alive--not to give himself 
away.

He purses his lips, slips on his best expressionless face, 
turns and gives the bed one final glance.  Then he follows 
Marita out the door.

Me, I'm stuck where I am, the scene still echoing in my head.  
They did clone her; the pieces are starting to fall into place.  
It's the thing that's given her a chance to play double-agent.  
She's scared as hell but she's determined, too--fierce--and 
suddenly I love this woman in a way I never have before.

Eventually I look up and around the empty room--the metal 
bunks, the green walls.  Mulder's diary lays abandoned on 
the corner of his desk.  He won't be needing it anymore.  
Chapter's over.

"Hey, Krycek--"

I look up, but of course he's not here; he's in the chopper 
skimming over a stand of trees, heading away from this 
place.  

He owes me, he says; he isn't sure he would have made it 
these last few weeks on his own.  

I start to smile but suddenly find myself choked up.  I never 
thought I'd see a day like this.  Seriously, I never figured.  

And what I wouldn't give to be able to be out there with them, 
sweating real sweat, nerves gnawing at me, giving these 
aliens what they deserve.  

But that's not the way it works. 

I flash on simple things: wind against your face, the warmth 
of a good down comforter during a Russian winter, the 
smells of food.  It's been a while.    

The sound of footsteps pulls me back to the present.  
Somebody's in the passageway, heading in this direction.  
Taking a last glance around the room, I fade completely out.

Give 'em hell, Mulder. 

(end)
.....................................................................
Written for the X-Files Lyric Wheel: War for the World (July 
2004)

The lyrics I was sent to work with, and which provided the 
structure, tone and direction of this story, are to the song 
'Hammer to Fall' by Queen:

Here we stand or here we fall 
History won't care at all 
Make the bed light the light 
Lady mercy won't be home tonight yeah 
 
You don't waste no time at all 
Don't hear the bell but you answer the call 
It comes to you as to us all 
We're just waiting 
For the hammer to fall 
 
Oh ev'ry night and every day 
A little piece of you is falling away 
But lift your face the western way 
Build your muscles as your body decays yeah 
 
Toe your line and play their game yeah 
Let the anaesthetic cover it all 
Till one day they call your name 
You know it's time for the hammer to fall 
 
Rich or poor or famous 
For your truth it's all the same (oh no oh no) 
Lock your door the rain is pouring 
Through your window pane (oh no) 
Baby now your struggle's all in vain 
 
For we who grew up tall and proud 
In the shadow of the mushroom cloud 
Convinced our voices can't be heard 
We just wanna scream it louder and louder louder 
 
What the hell we fighting for?  
Just surrender and it won't hurt at all 
You just got time to say your prayers 
While your waiting for the hammer to hammer to fall 
 
It's gonna fall 
Hammer..you know..hammer to fall 
Waiting for the hammer to fall now baby 
While you're waiting for the hammer to fall