Chapter 5 x-x-x The following takes place between 3:00pm and 4:00pm Pacific Time, 4:00pm and 5:00pm Mountain Time. x-x-x FBI Jet 4:00pm MT "Mr. Skinner, they need you up front again." "Couple million dollars for a plane and they can't put a phone jack back here." Skinner said to Doggett and Reyes as he stood to leave. Monica moved from her seat next to John to the seat directly across from him. "I have an idea. When we're done with this case, why don't we take a couple of days and go visit my parents? I haven't seen them since Christmas." "I still don't think your father likes me." "I like you so my father likes you." "Was that the rule with all your old boyfriends?" "My father scared off most of the boys in the neighborhood." Monica smiled at the memory of one fifteen year old boy explaining to her father why he thought honking the horn was the proper way to pick up a girl from her parents' home and why he would never think that again. "My parents know you make me happy." "They weren't happy I'm divorced." "My mother wants me to have a nice big Catholic wedding and I told her I wasn't interested in that." "But she still wants a Catholic wedding." "She wants me to be happy. Being with you makes me happy so I don't care what kind of service or if there even is a service." He smiled at her. She was selling that way too hard. "You mean I auditioned for your parents before we told them we were getting married and now we don't have to get married. Monica, you ruined a perfectly good Christmas week." He teased. "I could have been watching bowl games, seeing movies..." "I would like to spend a few days with you and with my parents on the ranch without anyone feeling that it's an audition. You'll like the ranch. We have horses." "Do I look like a horse guy to you?" She leaned forward. "In that suit, no. In jeans, a denim shirt, boots, yeah, you look like a horse guy to me." She smiled and slowly leaned back. Doggett was surprised her assessment pleased him so much. "I spoke to the canon lawyer at St. Matthew's." "You did?" "Well, Barbara remarried last fall. She mentioned the annulment when I called to tell her we were thinking about getting married." "She didn't want to get married in the church?" Monica remembered the photos of the injured Doggett in his Marine uniform and Barbara at St. Anselm's in Brooklyn. "Barbara and God haven't been on speaking terms since Luke disappeared. She quit teaching at St. Agnes, she stopped going to Mass. I was never much into it, but she was. Another thing Luke's death took away from her." While little of Luke Doggett's disappearance made sense, that did. "Would she agree...." "She's seeing someone at St. Edward's by her. As long as Luke isn't made illegitimate by the process, and the priest at St. Edward's promised her that, Barbara's willing to do the interviews and fill out the paperwork." Monica smiled. "When were you going to tell me this?" "It may not work out. I don't want to get your hopes up. Also, your father makes me nervous and if he thinks I screwed this up...." "You've never been nervous a day in your life." She was obviously pleased with his efforts on her behalf. "Besides, my father is a retired businessman who is enjoying his golden years as a bad golfer and a part time rancher." "Golf clubs and riding implements can be used as weapons." Doggett eyed a returning Walter Skinner. "Let's see how this all works out. If it does, a few days getting the evil eye from your family sounds fun." Skinner sat next to Monica, even though she offered to return to her seat. "I can leave just as easily from here next time someone calls." "What did they want?" "Mulder, Scully and William should be at CTU at any time now. They must have been convinced Mr. Bauer is above board since they've offered some help." "What did they have?" Doggett asked. "The corpsmen who found whatever was in the desert are near death. Dana must have told CTU how to treat them because CTU has the Navy chasing down two Air Force doctors who treated Mulder back in the mid 90's." "That doesn't sound like something they'd volunteer." Doggett stated. Monica disagreed. "Dana's a doctor. She wouldn't allow people to die when she could do something. If she's just giving them names of people who could offer treatment, she's helping but still flying under the radar." "Mr. Almeida from CTU wanted to confirm whether Mulder was treated at Eielson Air Force Base, which I wouldn't do, but he was treated there. CTU picking them up means they're back on the radar. I don't like this. I don't like this one bit." Monica and Doggett nodded their heads in agreement. x-x-x Milo Pressman's cubicle CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:15pm PT "What's Jack's ETA?" Tony asked before he saw the analyst was on the phone. Milo held his hand up, motioning Tony to come over. "Thank you, I'll pass that on." Hanging up the phone, he turned his full attention to Tony. "Jack, Michelle and the Mulder family should be landing on the helipad any minute. Mr. Scully should be getting into Van Nuys around 3:30, the helicopter will be waiting for him." "Assistant Director Skinner wouldn't confirm something for me I found in Mr. Mulder's medical records. I'd love to know what the FBI has to hide." "Well, Jack got some info out of them. Maybe he's convinced them to cooperate." "I don't know. I just know this gets stranger by the minute." "What do you think landed out there?" Milo pointed to the digital pictures Michelle called and asked him to print by her return. "Don't know. Never thought much of the idea of aliens or flying saucers but nobody we know of is working on anything like that." Tony pointed to the picture of the downed craft. "Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully were, from what I can figure, the FBI's go-to-agents on alien cases. She disappeared for a while, he disappeared for a while. Maybe they've had a close encounter or two." The back door opened and in walked Michelle followed by a tall man carrying a little boy wrapped in a leather jacket, a smallish red-haired woman and Jack wearing just his undershirt. His dress shirt was in his hand. "Tony," Jack walked over to Milo's cubical. "We need to interrogate the two of them, but I want them separated right now." "What happened to your shirt?" "The boy got sick on the helicopter ride over. Mr. Mulder was good enough to position the child so I was on the business end of things." Tony tried not to smile as the two returned to Michelle and the Mulder family. "Ryan's around." "Keep him away from the two of them." "Mr. Mulder, Dr. Scully, this is Mr. Almeida. He runs CTU here in Los Angeles." "I want to speak to my lawyer." was Mulder's greeting. "Dr. Scully, we can set you and William up in a conference room while we speak with your husband." Jack said. "No." Mulder and Scully answered in unison. "Dr. Scully, the child is obviously sick." Jack held out his shirt. "This isn't a trick, we'll set you two up as comfortably as we can. We just want to talk to Mr. Mulder alone for a few minutes, I promise you, nothing is going to happen." William gave out a small moan. "Shhhh." Mulder whispered into his son's ear. "It's going to be alright." "The three of us sit in a conference room..." Scully started to negotiate. "I don't want to disturb the child. If William can go to sleep, we'll send Mr. Mulder in and we'll talk to both of you. This is the best I can offer." Mulder wanted William to rest so he reluctantly agreed. He gently moved William out of his arms and into Scully's. He gave his son a small kiss on the forehead, before giving his wife a kiss on the cheek. "I'm not talking." He whispered. "You don't either." Scully nodded. "Where's this conference room?" "This way," Michelle started down a long hallway with Scully and William. "Mr. Mulder, if you'll follow me." Jack said. "Jack!" Milo called across the room, "It's important." "You have other things to do." Mulder raised his voice to get Scully's attention. "I'll just get my wife and boy and we'll get out of your hair." "Tony, take Mr. Mulder down to room three and start the debrief." "The head of CTU in L.A. is conducting my debrief. I'm impressed." Mulder said as he followed Tony down a different hallway. x-x-x Conference room two CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:20pm PT "I am really sorry about all this." Michelle entered the room with a tray with a pitcher of water, a can of ginger ale from the soda machine and a couple of paper cups. "We're not equipped for a child." Scully put William on the small couch in the back of the room. She took her jacket and folded it to make a small pillow for the boy, Mulder's leather jacket still acted as a blanket. "As my husband suggested, we could be out of your hair very easily." Sighing as she placed the tray on the table just across from Scully, Michelle asked "Why are you doing this?" "Doing what, Miss...." "Dessler, Michelle Dessler." "Doing what, Miss Dessler? I was out with my family when a helicopter you were in stopped us under some sort of national security claim and took us away from our normal lives. My husband is a bit more vocal with his disgust for this sort of thuggery, but I'm as unhappy as he is about it." "Your husband could have helped us on the phone and this wouldn't have been an issue." "Miss Dessler, I'm sure you think you're trying to help, but you know nothing of what my husband and I can and can't do. Thank you for the water but I think my son needs to rest." Michelle left the boy and his mother. Ryan Chappelle watched from the guest office across the hall. x-x-x Interrogation room three CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:20pm PT Mulder sat behind the interrogation table and took a look at the head of CTU's LA office. "You're young for this position." "I can assure you, I'm qualified. I've lead this office..." "I'm sure. Most of you CTU guys are former military; I'm guessing you were a Marine, so most days here are probably a day at the beach." "I'm the one who's asking the questions here, Mr. Mulder." "Questions I have no intention of answering Mr. Almeida, so play along. It will make the time go faster before I start demanding to see my family." "I'm not sure you're in a position to make any demands." "I'm right about being a Marine, aren't I?" "You're the profiler, according to what we can see in your records, are you right?" "Well of course I've just met you but let me take a guess. Smart kid in a big family, parents probably scrapped together enough money to get you into a decent Catholic high school but didn't have the money for college and honestly, you didn't have the grades for a scholarship. Good student, not great." "This is fascinating." And so far completely accurate, Tony thought. "If you were going to go in the service, it was the Marines or nothing. You spent enough time with the Marines to move up. Bright young man, solid work habits, probably sent you to college for some sort of specialist education. Computers, engineering, language or translation, did you speak Spanish at home?" "Third generation American." "Hmmm, foreign service maybe, something that made you as valuable to the government as the education they offered." "Do you know me, Mr. Mulder?" "Just the type. Did you ever hit the private sector, or was it straight out of the Marines and here?" "Tell me what's out at Twentynine Palms Mr. Mulder and I'll tell you." "You're not that interesting, Mr. Almeida. A year or two at some Silicon Valley firm or some defense contractor before you realized that while the money was good, the work wasn't all that fulfilling. "And CTU is?" "Yes, because you're thinking you're doing the right thing. After the African embassies, the Cole, 9/11, if you stopped one attack, it would be worth it." "Is all this," Tony waved his hands around the room, "worth it to you Mr. Mulder? Answer a few of my questions and you can be on your way." "When can I see my wife and my son?" "Are you going to answer any questions about what's out at the crash site?" "No. I want to see my wife and my son. Arrange that and at least I'll stop wondering about your childhood and how that plays a part in every..." "Alright." Tony was more than a little unnerved by Mulder's near spot-on profile. "Let me find Jack and see what he wants to do." "I thought you were the man in charge here?" "I am, but this is Jack's investigation and I trust him to run it." "Oh, if only you were at the FBI ten years ago." x-x-x Jack Bauer's office CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:30pm PT "That's right, Dr. Wald." Jack waved Tony into his office. Michelle was already sitting in one of the guest chairs. Jack covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Nothing from Mr. Mulder?" "Nothing. He's locked in three." "Dr. Scully is with the boy in conference room two." Michelle advised. Jack accessed the cameras in both rooms, seeing Scully sitting with her son and Mulder with his feet up on the table, chair tipped back and hands behind his head. "Unbelievable." Tony muttered seeing the video of Mulder. "Yes, Dr. Wald. The symptoms seem to be identical to what happened to Fox Mulder back in 1995, you remember that patient?" There was a pause. "Oh, it's Dr. Scully you remember." Michelle smiled at that comment. Jack continued. "You need to release your treatment records to a Dr. Kelly or Dr. Hamlin at the Twentynine Palms Hospital. They're taking care of the injured corpsmen with identical injuries." Another pause, "So the cold kept Mr. Mulder alive. No, you need to talk to them right now. I'm sure the hospital is cool, but not Eielson cold." Another pause. "No, thank you Dr. Wald, you're probably going to save their lives." Jack hung up the phone. "The doctor knew what happened to the corpsmen?" "He knew what to do to treat them. I have a feeling only these two," Jack pointed to Mulder and Scully on his computer screen, "know what happened to the corpsmen." "What now?" "Michelle, I need to you bring Mr. Scully here to my office as soon as he arrives. Tony, how uncooperative was Mr. Mulder?" "He sat there and whipped up a quick profile on me." "How accurate?" Michelle asked. "Except for wondering if my parents spoke Spanish at home, he nailed it." "I tried to fool him on the plane. Didn't work." Jack watched Scully stand and pour herself a glass of water. It looked like the little boy finally drifted to sleep. "I have an idea. Tony, you have all the FBI data on Mr. Mulder." "I have pages of redacted material." "Michelle, you had Milo printing out data from the crash site. Can you get everything the Marines have?" "Sure." "We're not going to be able to run any sort of game past Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully. People this distrusting have been lied to and lied a lot." "Makes sense." "We'll give him everything we have. See if they're curious." Milo knocked on Jack's door. "Sorry to interrupt but Mr. Scully's plane just landed at Van Nuys. He should be here before four." "Milo, bring him right to his sister in conference room two. Tony, bring Mr. Mulder's records into room three and Michelle, bring the crash site data as soon as you get it." x-x-x Interrogation room three CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:40pm PT Mulder was bored. Jack and Tony returned with a great deal of paperwork. "Usually when we hold people in this room," Jack noted, "they're not lounging with their feet up on the table." "You want me to cooperate and have no reason to hold me. Most of the people you hold here are likely in handcuffs facing years in jail. I've done nothing wrong, my wife has done nothing wrong. If anyone here is going to be in handcuffs at the end of the day, I'm thinking the people who have imprisoned us falsely may have concerns." "Do you know what this is?" Tony holds up Mulder's FBI records. "Paper, folder. Probably some stapled materials in there. Nothing I'm interested in." "It is your FBI records." "Then you know everything you could possibly need. I want to see my wife and my son." "This is what the FBI sent us." Tony pulled out a piece of paper with the date "November 16, 1998" on it along with the words "cell phone," "needle," and the phrase "1968 Caprice Classic Station Wagon". Every other word on the paper was blacked out. "What happened on November 16th?" "I don't know. I was probably on the road. I traveled a lot in late 1998." "Why would the FBI keep this data in your records hidden?" Jack asked. "You'll have to ask the FBI." "All of your records look like this. The same with your wife's files, why?" "Again, a question for the record keepers at the FBI. I'm a simple freelance writer and a house husband. My wife is a doctor. We have a great kid and a nice life, all things you've disrupted." "There's nothing about you that's simple, Mr. Mulder." "I'll make this simple for you. I simply want to see my wife. I simply want to see my son. I simply want to go home." Michelle walked into the room with a folder of her own. "Three against one, this is hardly fair." Mulder sized up the room. "Who's making sure my wife and my son are safe?" "You're in a secure federal facility, Mr. Mulder. Your family couldn't be safer." Tony stated. "Wasn't this place bombed a few years ago? My family could be safer if I was with them and we were home." "If home is so safe, why'd you run?" Jack asked. "I don't know. Call me paranoid but I had a fear of helicopters and agents with guns and rifles at my house, ordering me on the ground, abusing my family, taking us all away against our will. I want to see my wife and son to make sure nothing has happened to them." "The fear of people coming to your house with guns and rifles, taking your family away, is that why you have an engine in your car Dale Earnhardt Jr would love?" "Did they have a warrant to look under the hood? My rights are being violated. I want to see my family then I want to call a lawyer." Jack was getting frustrated. "Is everything going to go back to you wanting to see your family?" "Yes. I want to see my family." Fox Mulder, Jack decided, was a world class pain in the ass. "How'd you last so long at the FBI?" "I didn't. They threw me out. When can I see my family?" This was going to be a very long debrief. x-x-x CTU Helicopter Van Nuys Airport 3:50pm "This should be short ride, Mr. Scully." Derek Harris told his passenger. "I'm sorry if it smells a little in the back. We had a sick child on-board half an hour ago." "The sick child, was he with a red-haired woman?" "Sir, I'm not at liberty to discuss that." "The woman is my sister. A Dana Scully or Dana Mulder, not really sure what she's going by right now." "Sir, I can't comment. When I get you to CTU, you'll be briefed on what you need to know." "Just tell me, was there anything wrong with the boy?" "Airsick." The pilot told Charles. "Just a bit airsick." He turned off the intercom and the helicopter took off. x-x-x Conference room two CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:55pm PT William Mulder was sleeping soundly. Scully poured a glass of water and drank about half. Dipping a napkin in the rest, she tried to clean her son's face and hands. He looked just like Mulder when he slept. He looked like Mulder period. The conference room door opened and a new man appeared. "I'm Ryan Chappelle. Which do you prefer, Ms. Scully or Mrs. Mulder?" "Dr. Scully is fine." Chappelle took the seat at the top of the conference room table. "OK, Ms. Scully, I just need to confirm a few things with you." "I really don't want to say anything until my husband is here." "Your husband is in custody, I just need to finish some paper work." "Then you can do it without me. If he's in custody, I'd like to contact our lawyer." "All in good time. The boy's name is William?" "You'll have to ask your Mr. Bauer." "Miss Scully, I don't really have time for this, Child Protective Services will be here shortly." "Excuse me?" "With your husband in custody, someone needs to care for the boy." "I'm his mother." "Someone with legal standing." Scully took a deep breath. "I'm his mother and if you think you can just take away my son...." "I have papers here where you turned over custody of your son. The following day, Mr. Mulder, who was not your husband at the time, filed to stop the adoption. The adoption never was completed because Mr. Mulder was awarded custody of the child after his legal situation was cleared. It seems you are in the process of being reinstated as the child's mother." "I am the child's mother." "But you have no legal standing." "Get out." "Miss Scully, you have no right to give me orders." "Get away from me, get away from my son." "Miss Scully, the boy has obviously had a rough day. There is no need for you to make things worse." "Out." Scully took off her jacket and carefully draped it over her son. Pulling it up to his ears, she hopped it would muffle the sound. "Help!" "Miss Scully, I'm going to have to insist you quiet down now." "Mulder, Mr. Bauer, Ms. Dessler, he's kidnapping my son." Scully was now screaming. x-x-x Milo Pressman's cubicle CTU Los Angeles, CA 3:58pm PT Milo cleared what was left on his desk, waiting for Mr. Scully to arrive. That 20 ounce Sprite at lunch was suddenly a bad idea. As he started down to the men's room, he heard some strange noises coming from the conference room where Dr. Scully was supposed to be sitting quietly with the boy. "Kidnapping my son" was the only fragment he heard clearly and it didn't sound good. He banged on Room 3's door until Michelle finally opened it a crack. "We're busy." "Someone's kidnapping Dr. Scully's son." Michelle nearly knocked him down, followed by Jack, Tony and then Mulder. As Milo watched them race down the hall, Mulder passed both Tony and Jack and was even with Michelle as the foursome turned the corner. x-x-xx-x-x If I haven't mentioned this before, I will now: Shari rocks and rocks hard. Feedback yes, pointy sticks no! maureen_b_ocks@yahoo.com