"Okay," Mulder conceded. "I had a dream."
Purdue scanned the profiler's face; Mulder was waiting to gauge his reaction. Purdue didn't give him one. "And?" Purdue prompted patiently.
"Mercury Falling" cslatton17@yahoo.com
Part 2 of 27: Purdue Passes the Pop Quiz
Interoffice Memorandum
From: Assistant Director Walter Skinner
To: ASAC Reginald Purdue, ViCap
CC: Personnel-- Confidential
Date: April 27, 1988
Re: SA Fox Mulder-- Stress Analysis Rating
Thank you for forwarding Agent Mulder's recent stress analysis to my attention. As I'm sure you are aware, the Bureau has limited resources to offer this agent in the area of counseling. ASAC Patterson's abuse of the Social Services, particularly in respect to Agent Mulder, is a matter of record. Agent Mulder's subsequent distrust of our counselors is equally a matter of record and, in my opinion, understandable given the circumstances.
While I sympathize with your concerns regarding Agent Mulder's mental condition, I am unwilling to remove him from full duty status at this time. Such an action would reflect poorly on an otherwise exemplary record and would, in my opinion, be premature. Agent Mulder's previous analyses have indicated that he is remarkably resilient and I am certain you will find he has his own singular methods of dealing with the stresses inherent in this job.
I would advise that you follow your original course of action: allow Agent Mulder to report to you for assignment as scheduled on Monday, May 9, following one week of vacation time. As his ASAC, Agent Mulder's work level is entirely under your control; the content of his caseload is at your discretion. And, of course, with his return to duty, you will yourself be able to maintain a close watch on him.
Should you require further assistance or have questions concerning this decision, please do not hesitate to call my office.
Walter Skinner
Addendum: As per our agreement, any change in Agent Mulder's condition is to be reported directly to me. No exceptions. -- WS
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Sunday, May 8, 1988, 5:13 AM. Suburb of Fredricksburg, VA.
Purdue slowed his Ford to a crawl as he approached the empty corner lot. Beyond the line of curious neighbors and news crews, the Crime Scene Investigative Unit was hard at work, portable halogens and flashlights spotlighting their efforts. Purdue scanned the busy figures in the light of early dawn: some were kneeling or standing in shallow pits of recently dug earth. Driving past, he counted four shallow graves and two, maybe three more being dug. A group of local officers stood together in the middle of it all, looking away to the opposite end of the lot, talking and staring. Purdue noted their line of sight and drove on around the corner.
A typical suburban neighborhood wound out before him, modest frame houses roosting in neat little rows, vehicles of various denominations huddled in the drives, worshippers before their respective shrines. A cherry red Monte Carlo sat alone in the street, parked at the curb bordering the far end of the vacant lot. Purdue recognized the solitary figure perched on the hood. Mulder sat there quietly, arms at rest across his knees, a pair of latex gloves dangling from one hand, a half-smoked cigarette in the other. His eyes were closed like he might be asleep.
Purdue parked across the street and approached. He hadn't seen Mulder since Seattle. And, except for Seattle, he'd never seen the agent when he wasn't all business. Even on stakeout, Mulder had always managed to look like he was bucking for young executive of the year.
But the man on the car hood was obviously operating on too little sleep. He'd dressed hastily, too: jeans and a rumpled pullover, hair unkempt. Untied work boots rested on the bumper. He hadn't shaved.
"Hey," Purdue tapped the hood of the car and smiled an apology when Mulder jerked his head up. "Don't get up," Purdue ordered lightly. "Finish your cigarette."
Mulder blinked down at the little white stick and left it hanging there, mind apparently elsewhere, lost in thoughts he seemed reluctant to let go.
Purdue lit a smoke of his own and prepared to wait out the silence. He resisted the urge to frown as he studied the younger man. A week's vacation and Mulder still evidenced the strain of the past few months: still ten pounds too light, and two shades too pale. The cigarette between his fingers trembled now and again; the motion was slight but quite involuntary. Mulder seemed completely unaware of the sporadic tremors; apparently the condition had existed so long his mind had ceased to find it noteworthy.
*Damn Bill Patterson,* Purdue bit his cheek to keep from speaking the words aloud. *If there's a God, someday all this'll come back to haunt that sorry bastard.*
His own cigarette was suddenly bitter; Purdue spat and flung the stub into the street. The profiler watched it bounce twice and roll, still smoking itself, into the gutter. Purdue waited until those patient eyes returned regard to him.
"Alright," Purdue demanded. "Tell me."
"You're not going to believe me." It wasn't a challenge or even a veiled insult. Mulder spoke the words as quiet resignation, a fact settled beyond debate.
The ASAC's stomach was grinding. Mulder was just way too young to have eyes that looked like that. Purdue pocketed his hands and concentrated on a yellow Pinto parked up the street. It was easier to smile, to feign indifference when he wasn't looking at that earnest, wounded face.
"Let me detail the finer points of my morning for you, Agent Mulder," Purdue drawled amicably. "Four o'clock in the A M, I get a call telling me I've got some rookie out here terrorizing the locals. I tell dispatch to go to hell. At four oh seven, they call back. Say it's you. Suggest that I should sort of expect these things. And strongly suggest I get my fuzzy butt out here. So do us both a favor and don't presume to tell me what the hell it is I will and will not believe."
| Purdue's voice had remained light, but Mulder didn't
smile. Instead, he lowered his head and rotated his neck, pulling the tension from his
shoulders. Purdue bided his time. One way or another Mulder would surrender to the
inevitable need to explain; it wasn't like he had a hell of a lot of options here. "Okay," Mulder conceded. "I had a dream." Purdue scanned the profiler's face; Mulder was waiting to gauge his reaction. Purdue didn't give him one. "And?" Purdue prompted patiently. |
|
"And... There was a little girl. In the dream. She came and sat on the end of my bed and... suggested I get my fuzzy butt out here." Mulder frowned at his own hollow attempt at levity and then shrugged it off. "So here I am."
Purdue kept his facial muscles still and tried not to think about Seattle. Seattle had just been him and Mulder and Hot Sauce. *Then* they'd called out the investigative unit. After they were certain. After they'd actually found the body. Now Mulder'd hauled himself a hundred miles just to check out a hunch, calling out law enforcement himself--
The kid must have balls the size of the Chrysler Building.
Purdue'd been doing some research since Seattle, trying to comprehend the unfathomable. Doctor Baez had proclaimed Mulder's singular talent a gift. Doctor Sauceda, of course, contended that it was the "spook"-- something akin to the "shine" in a Stephen King novel. Neither answer satisfied the ASAC, however: Baez's report was filled with psychobabble and technospeak, and Purdue just wasn't big on Stephen King. For his part, Mulder had flatly refused an explanation. If Purdue doubted his sanity, the profiler insisted, then maybe the ASAC should pull his personnel file.
Purdue tugged his coat a bit tighter. The morning air was misty and unusually chill for early May. "I know you're not a Freudian, Mulder," he acknowledged warily. "And I've looked into some of Jung's stuff myself. I've seen some of his better theories played out in the field, in actual cases." He shrugged. "His dream analysis is kind of new to me, though, and I'm not real swank with the terminology. Was this girl you dreamed, uh, what does he call it... the figure that men dream about that connects them to their unconscious mind--?"
"The Anima?" Mulder's little smile had no hint of condescension. "No, she was no Anima. She was just a little kid. She was..." He nodded his head toward the grassy lot. "She looked like a few of them. The more recent ones anyway."
"The bodies?" Purdue found himself re-assessing the situation suddenly. His mind tried vainly to wrap itself around the image of a half-decomposed corpse engaging in a friendly chat... Purdue knew Mulder walked in a different world than most but-- the ASAC frowned savagely. Patterson had never mentioned this kind of thing. Extreme leaps in logic, okay, frighteningly accurate insight, sure. Precognitive dreams, well, yeah. But--
It occurred to Purdue suddenly that perhaps Mulder was just jerking his chain, that this was simply some kind of warped test. The kid was trying to see how his new ASAC handled the spook routine. Yeah, that was it-- Purdue felt better for the realization; it was something he could understand and appreciate. One glance at the activity on the lot, however, and his resolve wavered.
Hell of a test.
The silence ran too long and Mulder pushed at his forelock nervously. There it was again. That golden band on the third finger of the left hand. Mulder's personnel file said "Single." There was a story on that finger but Purdue'd be damned if he'd ask. In the morning mist, his own wedding band was suddenly heavy with warmth and comfort. He sighed and came to a decision.
"Mulder, tell you what, there's an IHOP a couple of blocks up. I want you to go get some coffee and order us some breakfast. I'll handle things here and join you in a few."
Mulder's disappointment was evident. "But they haven't..." He recovered himself and looked away.
"Haven't what?"
"Haven't found her yet." He said the words and watched Purdue's closely.
The ASAC spared another brief glance toward the field. "Mulder, I've talked to the Fredricksburg PD. They don't feel they need the Bureau's assist on this one. We're not on this case."
Mulder shrugged. "I just want to see her. That's all."
Purdue studied that impassive face and decided to accept the subdued tone in the eyes as sincerity. The kid had no Messiah complex, at least; most young agents would be trying to argue the point to distraction. But murder was simply not a Federal jurisdiction and the Bureau could not force their services if they were not wanted. Mulder, of course, had worked enough cases to know the political minefield of law enforcement first hand. Probably why he was out here on his car instead gleaning clues on the lot.
"Okay," Purdue agreed. "We'll wait. Then we'll go eat." He grinned. "And then you can call your mom."
Mulder's eyebrows scrolled up on that one and he choked on a lungful of smoke.
"It's Mother's Day, Agent Mulder," Purdue winked. "Hell, if I'd ever forgotten, my mother would have killed me."
Mulder raised sardonic brows, nodding at the activity in the lot. "With all due respect, sir, I think I've disturbed enough mothers this morning as it is."
"Sir!"
Both men jerked around at the shout. A young officer was trotting toward them across the grass. Obviously a rookie, and anticipating a lot more footwork and shit detail before he'd be the one giving orders to fetch the wacko on the car hood.
"Agent Mulder? Sir, they found another body."
The agent was off the car before the sentence was half completed. He tossed the cigarette in the road and donned his gloves, fast-walking behind the officer.
Purdue followed more slowly, as befitted an ASAC. He paused near the grove of local law enforcement; they nodded warily, watching as he clipped his ID to his coat collar. Mulder squatted by the freshly dug grave, a scant three feet deep. Purdue approached and stood resolutely behind his agent, steeling himself for the view of the open pit.
The corpse was that of a young girl, some side or the other of eight years of age. Mud matted the dark hair, smeared the ash gray face and blinded open eyes. Rigor mortis had relaxed its claim, surrendering the body to its inevitable decay; the jaw had loosened, opening the mouth slightly, as children's mouths will do in sleep.
Purdue blinked briefly against the stinging in his eyes, the weakness that often hit his knees with the smell. The outdoor killings were the worst to him, the exposure to the elements, the unpitied soul dumped like trash in a hole, were a final slap that never failed to reawaken him to the reality of what he did for a living and why.
Mulder, co-worker in this quest, steadied himself with a hand on the pile of turned earth and reached in to the half-buried child. A gentle hand probed the shoulder, fingers tapping cautiously on the blistered skin as they ran the length of her collarbone, seeking Purdue knew not what.
Mulder's face was tense and hard with grief; a tinge of relief crossed his eyes and mingled with other emotions as he lifted his hand from that shoulder and laid it briefly on the swollen chest. Purdue's heart clinched. Mulder's compassionate hand looked like the touch of benediction: something holy lain upon the profaned, sanctifying, restoring dignity. Purdue turned away, an intruder upon intimate things to which he had no part.
Mulder's whisper made him look back once more. Mulder didn't seem to be speaking to the living gathered at the edge of the grave, however. The profiler's lips moved, now soundlessly, dark eyes staring down upon the mud streaked face.
Purdue frowned and concentrated on his breathing. He suddenly realized he didn't trust himself to think. Nothing, no words, seemed adequate to the silent grief, the elaborately masked rage he was witnessing in the young man's face.
And then, without warning, the display was over; pity and passion subsided together beneath the surface of Mulder's dark tranquil eyes. Apparently appeased, Mulder stood to leave, pausing only to nod his thanks to the two investigators watching him across the grave. Turning, however, he found Purdue at his shoulder. Mulder abruptly froze. Purdue took a single step back, just outside the young man's personal space.
"That her?" the ASAC asked, his voice quiet.
Mulder shook his head quickly and looked away.
"Are you sure you'd know when you saw her?"
Mulder didn't look back at him but he didn't look like he'd focused on anything else, either. "Yeah," his answer was almost reluctant. "She broke her collarbone falling from a swing. This one's not her."
Purdue frowned again. "You got all that from a dream?"
Mulder's vision swung back to the ASAC and he blinked rapidly. A slow flush of comprehension washed his face. "Oh. No." He shook his head like he was trying to flinch something off. "It is her. The one in my dream. I thought--" He shifted nervously, shoving his hands into his overcoat but not before Purdue noticed they were trembling again. "Look," Mulder shrugged, "how about that breakfast?"
The profiler's voice was agreeable enough but Purdue knew only that a wall had dropped between them suddenly. The barrier was so solid, so abruptly *there* the ASAC would have sworn he'd felt the concussion when it connected with the ground. Mulder, sheltered on the opposite side, had the look of a man accustomed to defending his battlements.
Purdue left it alone, conscious once more of the eavesdropping officers to his right. He nodded to his profiler by way of salute and raised his voice to be easily heard. "Good job, Agent. Come on, breakfast is on me this morning." He jerked his head toward their waiting cars and Mulder fell into step beside him. Purdue's steps were sure and confident, Mulder's gate nonchalant as always. The ASAC grinned in spite of himself.
Let the locals chew on that for a while, he mused. Damn Feds have to come out in the middle of the night to tell the local yokels they've missed a serial killer in their own backyard. Damn Feds acts like they do this sort of thing every day. Before breakfast.
And, dammit, one of them acts like they were digging up the corpse of his own sister or something....
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Photo courtesy of TexxasRose's Fox Mulder Gallery