Light filtered through the small space below the door where it fit unevenly against its wooden frame. The yellow streaks writhed upon the floor, like gleaming snakes cast upon the shadows holding deep and empty sway throughout the room. Another brief scattering of light slid inwards from the street lamp in the distance, bent by the edges of the heavy drapes to fall in painful etching across the visions of a monster drawn in charcoal on the wall. A horror was repeated in endless succession, tacked up along the faces of the room, hanging in a twisted reflection of decoration.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, then paused before the door, shutting off the light. Then with the quick click of a key in a lock, an abrupt sunburst of glare rushed in from the well-lit hallway, framing two figures like a halo. The man was tall and slender, dark- coated, dark-haired. A small bandage barely covered a gash upon his right cheek, marring a face whose features were strong and even, yet marked with character in the slightly too large nose and generous, full-lipped mouth.
He stepped the rest of the way within, then turned to gaze with dilated ebony eyes at the woman still standing in the aura of golden light. Her small head blazed like a candle-flame, soft shades of red and orange rippling at her slightest motion. The heavy coat could not hide the curves of her body, nor the strength of purpose in her stance hide the worry in her eyes.
The man half-turned his body towards her, inclining his head to offer entrance.
"Sorry about the mess," he said dryly. "I haven't started spring cleaning yet."
"It's only February," she reminded him. "I hope you're not going to wait that long."
He shrugged, the corners of his mouth lifting nearly imperceptibly in appreciation, but he remained silent. Walking over to the desk at the far end of the apartment, he switched on the lamp. As he did so, she quietly closed the door behind her, then glided over to stand by his side.
Both of their gazes flew as though drawn by an invisible force to the charcoal sketches dominating the walls. Grotesque, skewed, frightened and frightening, the images glared back at them, unforgiving in their ugliness, uncompromising in their vividness. Awareness seemed to emanate from them, giving the simple drawings an almost terrifying reality.
Mulder..." Her voice was merely a whisper, the fierceness of her concern writ deep within her huge blue eyes.
"This was why I left, you know." His voice was matter-of- fact; the tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather or the latest basketball score.
"Why?" She prompted, stepping that last inch closer to him, squeezing in to his personal space, but he seemed not to notice she was there. When he continued to talk, he could have been simply speaking to himself, to the air, to nothing at all.
"He taught us to get inside their heads. Walk in their shoes, feel what they feel, see the world through their eyes. 'To understand the artist, look at his art.' But sometimes, when you got there, it was too hard to find your way back, to know where their sight left off and your own began. And sometimes you realized that their feelings weren't all that different from your own. We all have that darkness inside of us, Scully, we all have a touch of madness within.
"For many people, it's hidden too deep to be noticed, but when you make a career of staring into the abyss, whatever's down there has a way of looking right back at you. It's when you start seeing your own face staring back at you that you realize it's time to look away, if it's not already too late.
"Working behavioral sciences is like skating on thin ice, a tiny sliver of awareness forming the only divide between you and the pit of hell. You dip your hands in up to your elbows, and pray that you'll be able to pull them back out afterwards, still whole. The thing is, though, that you're never really the same again. It touches you, taints you, and the easier it becomes for you to slip inside, the harder it is to step away.
"But I had to. It got too hard. I would see their faces every time I closed my eyes - the victims, the killers, the monsters in their minds....
"So I simply quit. The X-Files came later, at first they were almost an excuse. I was intrigued - fascinated - by the possibilities they contained, but more than anything I wanted to be free of the DBS, free of him....Free of him." He echoed himself, shoulders clenched together, eyes staring blankly at the wall.
"I'm sorry, Mulder." Her words came almost as a shock, he turned to look at her as though surprised that she was actually there. She tilted her head up at him, just offset to the side, a heavy wing of bright auburn hair obscuring the edge of cheek and mouth. With one explorative finger, he touched that silken curl, then withdrew.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, this time in a lower voice, soft and sultry and full of emotion, not an apology for him, but rather one to him. He acknowledged it with a rueful chuckle, spare and devoid of bitterness.
"It's what I do, Scully, what I do best." That last word was uttered vehemently, painted by anger and resignation, but almost in contradiction the corners of his mouth slid upwards in a brief smile. As he grinned, he bent his head down, his eyes aiming for the floor in a silent shrug before lifting up to look again at her.
"I didn't get my nickname because of my interest in the X-Files. It was because I found it so easy to see into these monsters, got into their heads so quickly and accurately. They began to call me Spooky within my first few months in Behavioral Sciences, and when I demanded transfer to the X-Files, it became a rather bad joke. To make matters worse, the choice aggravated Patterson's fury. I suppose if I had chosen another 'legitimate' department, he might have been less angry, though probably not. I guess he thought I was a traitor, or weak - a disappointment to be sure."
Pivoting away from her, he bolted over to the wall, and began to rip the pictures down.
She watched him for a moment, her brilliant blue eyes glistening as they followed his movements. Methodically, he circled the room, wreaking damage upon the flimsy paper drawings, crumpling each one up in his left hand while he tore the next from the wall with his right.
"It's not your fault," she told him.
He stopped, then spun towards her, his eyes glinting like polished hematite reflecting the lamplight.
"I know that. Leaving was the right thing for me to do, though he never understood that. I knew I'd have taken the path he finally did, sooner or later. More likely sooner. And as for Patterson... He charted his own course, 'willingly walked deeper into darkness.'" An odd, unfamiliar inflection colored the last few words, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him. He chuckled harshly, but shook his head.
"Patterson did what he had taught us to do, he lived, ate, breathed, slept the case for three years. It seeped inside of him, burrowed into his soul and refused to let go. After the arrest, he couldn't shut it off, couldn't close down something that had been a part of him for so long. It needed to be released, so he began to imitate the killings.
"But he couldn't live with that either. Which is why he asked Skinner to bring me in. He knew I'd do what I did, that I'd find the truth. I suppose he also got some satisfaction from seeing the case torment me the way it had him. An element of revenge perhaps, for my walking away before."
"I was afraid he was doing that to you deliberately," she replied thoughtfully, "but when I confronted him about it, he told me to let you do what you had to do, and that I couldn't have stopped you anyway."
He gave her a rueful smile. "He was an arrogant bastard, but he knew his men. Even me, though I managed to pull a couple of surprises now and then." Tossing one handful of crumpled paper into the wastebasket, he quickly tore down some more. "That's one of the reasons he disliked me so much."
"He didn't, you know."
"He didn't what?"
"Dislike you. Well, he didn't disrespect you." His jaw twitched as she corrected herself, the difference in meaning not lost on him, but he didn't interrupt while she explained.
"He told stories about you to his men. Said you were a - genius."
That won a real, amused, though very brief smile from him, making him pause. "I'd guess that compliment was couched with a less than savory adjective. Crazy perhaps."
"Something like that," she told him honestly. He nodded. She could see the pain in his expressive eyes, but let it go. In the ensuing silence, he continued to tear down the sketches, circling the room until he reached the last one.
Suspended like a pinned butterfly on a small blue tack, the charcoal drawing hung just to the left of the desk, the frayed edge squished up against the corner where the walls came together. He reached for it, then stopped, fingers held, trembling, in mid-air. Back to her, he stared at it for a tense moment, then turned away from it, leaving it in place, and walked around the desk to drop a ball of crumpled paper into the wastebasket.
Only then did he turn to face her. Gazing from her to the single remaining drawing, and back again, his face was settled, serene. But his words would haunt her dreams:
"I'll keep that one as a reminder, Scully. A reminder that the madness waits within us all."
The End