“What about the Consortium?” she reminded him carefully. “What about the aliens? What if Krycek was right when he said she’d be abducted if you claimed her? How are you going to protect her, Mulder? And how the hell are you going to cope if she is abducted while she’s under your care? Can you honestly say you could handle that?”

Mulder paled slightly, his eyes growing dark and haunted. He chewed his lower-lip fretfully and swallowed several times, as though reluctantly digesting her words.

“Skinner’s got a big apartment,” Doggett interrupted suddenly. “And enough money to keep a kid and stable a horse.”

Mulder glared at him, but Scully nodded in decisive agreement. “He’s right, Mulder. It’s the best solution. Lisita could live with Skinner, and you could visit her there whenever you wanted.”

“It’s not the same,” he grumbled petulantly, but his shoulders slumped as though in preparation for an impending capitulation.

“Of course it’s not the same,” she agreed. “But it makes sense, and it’s the safest option if you’re determined to bring Lisita to DC.”

He nodded reluctantly. “I guess.”

“Good,” Doggett grunted. “So, now that’s decided, is there any chance either of you are gonna get some work done today?”

***

Throwing the swathe of cloth down in disgust, Skinner frowned repressively at his insufferably camp visitor.

“I told you I didn’t want pink,” he growled, in the voice that usually sent FBI agents running for cover.

Gordon ‘but you can call me Gordy’ McAllister just simpered with obvious delight at the show of temper. “Mauve, darling. It’s mauve. It’s absolutely in this year. Just look at this divine fabric I found for the drapes.”

Skinner had a sudden urge to throw the sample book and the interior designer off his balcony. But that image just reminded him uncomfortably of the night he’d cuffed Alex to the railings…

// My own son. I did that to my own goddamned son.//

“…would be absolutely perfect. A young lady needs a beautiful boudoir. A place of her own considering the…well, rather Spartan masculinity of the rest of your apartment. Perhaps you’d consider a touch or two in this living room…just a hint of personality…”

“What?” he asked absently.

“I was thinking, perhaps a little color here and there? Something warm like orange or red.”

// I told him to ‘think warm thoughts’. Oh Christ. What the hell am I going to do?//

“…a few sketches for your approval, of course…”

“What?” he demanded again, realizing he’d tuned out almost the entire conversation.

“I said I wouldn’t do anything without your final approval, of course.”

“Just do it,” he snapped. “Do whatever you want and send me the bill. Just make sure her bedroom’s finished by the weekend.”

“The weekend?” Gordy screeched, his eyes fluttering in horror. “Absolutely impossible, darling.”

Skinner surged to his feet and grabbed him by his designer lapels. “I said I want it done by the weekend,” he growled into Gordy’s face.

Looking like he was going to faint, though not necessarily with fright, the little man nodded his absolute agreement to Skinner’s demand.

“Damned queer,” Skinner snarled, as Gordy made a swift mincing retreat through the front door.

// Alex is queer // an unwelcome little voice chirped up inside his head.

He winced, and made a mental note to himself that he’d handle Alex pointing a gun at him, hitting him, even using the nanos against him, but if Alex ever behaved like that poncing little queen McAllister, he’d break his goddamned neck.

He was still considering that unwelcome image when the telephone rang.

***

“FUCK!” Doggett slammed his fist into the wall so hard he sent a flurry of plaster into the air. Then, cradling his now throbbing hand, he turned to his sobbing girlfriend. “I don’t fuckin’ believe it. He’s a walkin’ goddamned CURSE.”

Dana just buried her face in her hands and wept harder.

Mentally slapping himself, Doggett crossed the room and put his arms around her, holding her until she turned and pressed her face into his neck. And as she sobbed in his embrace, her tiny ribcage heaving, her tears dripping down his chest, he closed his own eyes in pain, hating the fact that a huge portion of his misery wasn’t the news itself but the inescapable fact that Dana was crying for Mulder, rather than the girl.

He waited until she quietened a little before daring to say the immediate suspicion that had leaped into his mind the moment he’d heard the news.

“What if it’s not true?”

“What?” she gasped, her swollen eyes blinking in confusion.

“Skinner makes a move to bring her to DC, and the very next day she dies in some car crash? Doesn’t that strike you as kinda ‘convenient’.”

“I wish,” she whispered, her voice ragged with grief. “But Walter flew straight down to Kansas. He saw her body for himself. He didn’t tell Mulder until…until he was sure.”

“What the hell was she doin’ in a car by herself. She’s only fifteen,” he groaned. “Just a goddamned baby.”

“It was just an accident. A tragic, senseless accident. The weather changed suddenly, and she lost control on a bad bend in the road. She was killed instantly. And…and I…I never even met her,” Scully cried.

“Shit,” Doggett cursed. “Krycek’s gonna go crazy. He’s gonna blame Skinner and Mulder.”

Scully’s face snapped up in surprise, but her frown quickly turned to comprehension. “Damn. Of course he is. He’s going to think they led the Consortium to her.”

“Maybe they did,” Doggett muttered darkly. “Like I said, it’s a pretty damned convenient accident.”

“Oh god,” Scully breathed. “Don’t say that to them. Don’t even suggest it. I don’t think either of them could handle… God, what if you’re right?”

“I think we need to get down there. You can check the coroner didn’t miss anything. I’ll talk to the local cops, find out the details of the accident.”

She angrily wiped at her tears and nodded decisively, pulling herself quickly together now that her grief had been given a focus.

“And…” Doggett added reluctantly, “Mulder probably… well he probably needs you right now. You should be with him.”

Scully closed her eyes momentarily, thanking God for the strong, generous man he’d given her. “Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank you for understanding.”

Doggett shrugged awkwardly, wishing he felt as sanguine as he was pretending. The truth was, the idea of Scully and Mulder sobbing in each others arms, of Scully comforting Mulder, felt like a hand reaching inside his chest and savaging his heart.

But he wasn’t selfish enough to admit it.

“Let’s go,” he said quietly. “Pack a couple of bags, while I book us a flight.”

***

“It should be raining.”

Doggett’s face creased into momentary folds of confusion at the first words Skinner had uttered that morning. Unlike Mulder, whose grief was audible and angry - a wild mix of tears and curses - Skinner’s sorrow was silent and dignified. His face was a stony emotionless mask. The only visible marks of his mourning was the paleness of his features and the way he seemed almost shrunken into himself. Somehow he seemed shorter. His whole presence seemed diminished, as though the death of the girl they were burying had sapped his own life-force. He wasn’t broken, exactly, but everything about his posture and mannerisms suggested a defeat from which he wouldn’t ever recover.

Mulder was at the head of the grave, tears rolling down his cheeks as the pastor droned incessantly about ‘eternal life’, Scully clutched to his side so closely that they looked like a pair of Siamese twins. A throng of schoolgirls and teachers from Blakemore twittered at the side of the gaping hole, like a crowd of nervous blackbirds. 

Doggett rubbed his eyes and angrily told himself they were only watering because of the sunlight.

And then he understood what Skinner had said.

“Yeah,” he said, his heart heavy with remembered grief. It should rain, when a child was buried. The whole fucking world should weep for the loss of such promise and hope.

After a long silence, Skinner spoke again. “I keep expecting Alex to appear.”

// With an Uzi // Doggett agreed silently. Aloud he said, “Maybe he doesn’t even know, yet.”

“Maybe,” Skinner said, though his tone didn’t suggest agreement.

“I’ve been over and over the accident report,” Doggett continued, in a low voice. “There’s nothin’ to suggest…”

“Thank you, Agent,” Skinner snapped repressively.

Doggett took the hint and lapsed into awkward silence. It wasn’t the time or the place. Perhaps there wasn’t a right time or place. Scully had concurred with the original autopsy. His own investigation of the accident had turned up nothing new. Even Mulder had accepted their improbable conclusion that Lisita’s death had been an accident.

Or maybe not. Maybe he was just too shell-shocked for his usual paranoid tendencies to have kicked in yet. Doggett had the feeling that it was only a matter of time before Mulder’s grief turned into a crazed need for revenge and, proof or not, he’d choose to blame the Consortium for Lisita’s death.

He sighed sadly, feeling abruptly weary of the whole damned business.

***

He waited at the Holiday Inn at Forbes Field for three days, leaving instructions with the reception that if anyone asked after him they were to confirm he was staying there. He wasn’t sure what he expected exactly, though he suspected his first warning of Alex’s arrival would be the immediate activation of the nanos.

He certainly didn’t expect to leave Kansas alive.

And that was okay because, whatever Doggett and Scully said, he knew, in his heart, that he was somehow responsible for his granddaughter’s death. Maybe it hadn’t been a carefully constructed consortium murder. Maybe. Maybe it had just been an inexperienced driver’s momentary distraction as everyone said.

But what no one was saying was why Lisita might have been distracted. No one had mentioned the glaringly obvious fact that the most likely thought in her mind, as she’d lost control of the car, was that she was about to be torn away from her life and sent to live in a strange city, with a complete stranger. It was no fucking wonder she hadn’t been paying attention to the road.

So he couldn’t find it in himself to care if Alex demanded his own life in compensation for the loss of his daughter.

Yet, despite his acceptance of Alex’s right to demand revenge, by the third morning, after the third sleepless night, he found himself unable to sit in his hotel room any longer and just passively wait for death to arrive.

At five, he climbed out of bed, packed his case and put it in the trunk of his rental car. Then he called an all-night florist and paid a ridiculous amount for someone to courier over a small posy of flowers. He used the phone in the lobby to confirm a noon flight, left a message at the reception saying he was returning to DC, and then climbed into his car and drove in the direction of Blakemore to say his final goodbye to his grand-daughter.

At six-thirty, knowing he was going to arrive far too early, he stopped at a Diner to kill time with an early breakfast. But the place was too stark, too real, the garish lights and plastic tables assaulting his senses, the harsh voice of the surly waitress grating on his ears, and he found himself staring blindly at the menu, the words blurring into each other, incomprehensible and alien. The smell of the coffee, as she splashed it carelessly into his cup, made him so nauseous that he just slapped a bill onto the white Formica and raced back to his car, where he sat, shaking, until the blood stopped rushing through his ears. 

So he pulled back onto the road and drove on until he arrived at the cemetery. It was only a little after seven, and the posted sign on the gates stated they wouldn’t be unlocked until 8.30.

He contemplated seeking another Diner for a caffeine fix, but his stomach immediately threatened a protesting back-flip. So he just turned off the engine and sat there, radio off, feet slowly turning to ice, and watched the early morning fog lifting as the horizon slowly lightened. He waited maybe twenty minutes, though it felt like an hour, then he climbed out of the car and walked towards the heavy metal entrance gates. He pushed against them, without force, simply responding to a subconscious urge to prove they were locked against him.

So when one of the gates groaned rustily and swung open, he just stood there for a moment, mouth open in surprise, body frozen in place. He shook himself, a gesture that began as self-irritation and ended as a full-body shiver of something that felt strangely like dread.

// Of course it’s dread. You’re visiting the grave of your fifteen-year-old granddaughter.//

He returned to the car to retrieve the posy of white roses and gyp from the back seat. He paused there a moment, an unwelcome memory of Krycek lurking, dark and dangerous, on a similar beige leather seat flickering through his mind. Then, with another angry shake of his head, he snatched up the flowers, slammed the car door shut and strode back towards the entrance, his overcoat flapping behind him like a vampiric cloak.

The fog was heavier inside the cemetery, roiling thick and white around the gravestones, distorting those closest to him and completely obscuring any object more than ten feet away. It was as surreal as the set of a horror movie, yet it struck Skinner that, unlike the day of the funeral, the cemetery was finally revealing its true face to him. Its formal rows, and the carefully cultivated beauty of its flowers, had disappeared under the fog and the gravestones now jutted with jagged inconsistency from amongst the swirling, unsubstantial mist. They stood starkly rude, revealed randomly where the natural undulations of the earth rose above the low-lying rolling fog, creepily suggestive of teeth rising out of death’s gaping maw.

Though dawn had already broken, the cemetery was strangely void of any bird-song. Perhaps their chorus was simply muffled by the wet banks of mist, but their absence still chillingly suggested that nothing living belonged in the presence of the lonely graves. And, though he tried to laugh at himself, a grown man spooked by nothing more than a natural phenomena of nature, he couldn’t totally ignore the growing certainty that he wasn’t alone.

Then he heard, faint and muffled, a wet, rhythmic thudding. It was impossible to judge the direction the sound was coming from, or even hazard a guess as to its distance from his position, but his spine chilled as he became abruptly certain he was hearing the impact of bare feet on damp soil, and a thousand images from countless late night movies assaulted him, visions of walking corpses with rags and flesh hanging from their exposed bones.

He mentally slapped himself. 

// Pull yourself together, Marine! //

And with that admonishment, a lot of his instinctive panic faded because he realized the true source of his discomfort had less to do with cheap budget horror movies than previously suppressed memories of early mornings in ‘nam, where certain death had lurked within mist-shrouded trees.

Yet still the sound continued, with the eerie rhythm of a heartbeat. A wet slap of something solid striking dirt. Like…like the sound of digging. He almost laughed his relief out loud. Of course. He was in a cemetery. What sound was more natural than that of someone digging a grave? That was why the gate had been open. One of the cemetery laborers was already at work.

Smiling wryly to himself, he continued down the pathway that led to Lisita’s resting place. Perhaps one day, when neither of them were so raw, when they could actually discuss Lisita’s death with some rationality, he would admit his momentary panicked imaginings to Mulder. Or perhaps not. He could already imagine the look of incredulous amusement on Mulder’s face.

Although the fog was still too heavy for clarity, he began to identify a vague, indistinct shape of piled earth near Lisita’s grave, and then, as he walked closer, he saw the form of a man bent over a shovel, his bottom half obscured within the hole he was digging. 

It saddened him that no more than three days had passed and already the earth next to Lisita’s grave was being disturbed in readiness for a new occupant. Yet, at the same time, it seemed right that she would no longer be lying there alone.

But as he approached, his meandering thoughts suddenly coalesced into fury. Lisita’s floral tributes had been roughly displaced. They were scattered like refuse, and the mound of freshly dug earth was sprawled almost as far as the walk-way, spilling rudely over the ground, obscuring her grave. Desecrating it.

“HEY!” he roared, his stride lengthening into a near-run. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The grave-digger jerked in shock then swung around to face him, raising the shovel like a weapon against Skinner’s fury.

And Skinner’s head-long charge faltered into a skidding, horrified halt. Despite the dirt and sweat smeared over his face, the man in the grave was unmistakably Alex Krycek.

He didn’t make a conscious choice to draw his weapon. It was in his hand and pointed in Krycek’s face before he’d even fully processed the fact that the reason he couldn’t see Lisita’s grave had nothing to do with the mound of earth. He couldn’t see it because Krycek was standing waist-deep in it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he barked, waving his gun wildly in Krycek’s direction until he lowered the shovel to his waist.

“What the fuck does it look like?” Krycek snarled, his eyes blazing with defiance.

Skinner blinked at him in disbelief, warring between the urge to shoot and the far more satisfying image of dragging the little bastard out of the grave and beating him senseless with his own shovel for his desecration.

And then his own guilt, and the terrible pathos of the situation, struck him.

This was Krycek’s daughter. The poor, insane bastard was trying to dig his own daughter up out her grave. 

“She’s dead, Alex,” he said gently, lowering his weapon. “Lisita’s dead. Let her rest in peace.”

Krycek’s face twisted into a feral snarl. “This is none of your goddamned business, Skinner. Fuck off and leave us alone.”

“I can’t, son,” Skinner said, with a sad shake of his head. “I can’t let you do this.”

“You can’t fucking stop me,” Krycek countered. “But I tell you what. Turn around and fuck off home and I’ll let you live. Don’t make me kill you, Skinner.”

Skinner shook his head again, certain that if Krycek had the palm pilot on him he would already have used it. “This isn’t going to happen, Alex. Put the shovel down. I know you’re grieving, but this isn’t going to help. She’s dead.”

Krycek’s face twisted with indecision, as though he was desperately trying to judge what would be the worst of two evils, and when he finally spoke his expression was oddly defeated despite the angry tone of his voice.

“She’s not fucking dead, okay?” he spat.

Skinner sighed heavily, convinced now that Lisita’s death had pushed Krycek over the edge of his already questionable sanity. “I understand you don’t want to believe it, but I visited her in the morgue, Alex. It’s senseless and it’s cruel, but it’s true. Your daughter’s dead. She’s at peace now…”

“Oh spare me the goddamned platitudes,” Alex snarled. “Save your ‘let’s humor the lunatic’ speeches for Mulder. Liss isn’t dead, but she’s soon going to wish she was if I don’t get her out of this fucking casket.”

For a moment, Skinner’s heart leaped in hope. Perhaps Krycek had faked Lisita's death. There were drugs that could… But then reality crashed down once more. He’d seen her body himself. He’d even seen the incision scars from her autopsy.

“Alex. Even if she’d survived the accident…” he began carefully.

Krycek rolled his eyes in disgust. “Fuck it, Skinner. Do I have to spell it out for you? She’s no more dead than I am. She’s no more dead than Mulder was. And she’s no more dead than you were when they put you in that fucking body bag in ‘nam.”

Skinner’s legs gave way, and he sank to his knees in the wet, dirt-strewn grass. “’When you come back you open a doorway that allows your beloved dead to come visit with you’,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Lisita said that to me. She said that’s why people like ‘us’ could see ghosts. I didn’t understand what she was saying to me, at the time. But she meant…she was talking about a belief in the ability to come back from the dead, wasn’t she?”

Instead of answering, Krycek raised the shovel and slammed it into the dirt that was still covering the casket.

“STOP,” Skinner demanded.

“Fuck it, Skinner. Either shoot me, or get the fuck out of my way,” Krycek snarled.

The sound of Skinner cocking the trigger snapped almost as loud as a gunshot between them, and Krycek flinched, his eyes widening with surprised alarm. Skinner inched forward on his knees, his eyes never leaving Krycek’s, until the muzzle of his weapon was barely a breath apart from the sweat-stained t-shirt and he could see the individual beads of sweat pearling on Krycek’s forehead. 

“Give me the shovel,” he snapped.

“Fuck you.”

“Give me the goddamned shovel, Alex. The cemetery’s going to open in less than an hour. We’re running out of time. I’m fresh, I’m stronger than you, and I’ve got two fucking arms.”

Krycek winced at the brutality of Skinner’s comment, but his eyes carefully gauged the sincerity of Skinner’s expression. “You believe me?” he asked wonderingly.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Skinner admitted. “But this is the only way I’ll know for sure.”

Alex took a deep, shuddering breath, nodded once and then handed the shovel over. Skinner reholstered his weapon, shrugged off his overcoat and slipped down into the grave, pointedly not watching Krycek’s far less dignified scramble back out.

He slammed the shovel into the dirt. A deep, hollow thud assured him there was less than a foot of earth still to be shifted, and he settled into a steady pace. Swinging the shovel easily, dirt flying over his shoulder with each sweep of the blade, until the bare wood and brass fastenings of the casket were revealed.

“How are we going to raise it?” he asked, pausing for breath, sweat trickling down his back and adhering his shirt to his armpits.

“Just open it up,” Krycek retorted, his tone confident. “Liss can climb out by herself.”

Skinner dropped to his knees and unscrewed the first bolt, his heart thudding in his chest, his fingers awkward and nerveless. What if Krycek was insane? What if he opened the casket and found nothing more than Lisita’s decaying corpse staring back at him? What would Krycek do faced with that terrible reality? What would he do?

“I don’t know whether…” he began, only to gasp in shock as a wave of agony ripped through his body.

He threw back his head and looked up, to see Krycek standing at the head of the grave with a snarl of satisfaction on his lips. “Just a small reminder, in case you change your mind,” he smirked.

Skinner cursed himself for a fool. While he’d been digging, Krycek had taken the opportunity to sneak back to wherever he’d parked his car and retrieve the palm pilot.

“This isn’t necessary, Alex,” he gasped, as his veins bubbled like hot lava.

“You know me, Skinner. I like to hedge my bets. Now either get Liss the hell out of that fucking casket or join her in it.”

Skinner blinked in hurt confusion. “Do you honestly still think you need to threaten me?” 

“Yes,” Krycek stated, his expression cold. 

“You’re wrong, Alex. Lisita’s my grand-daughter…”

“And I’m supposed to believe you give a fuck?” Krycek laughed bitterly. “What happened, Skinner? You finally grew a fucking conscience or something? Give me a break.”

Looking at Krycek’s face, Skinner felt a jolt of pain in his heart that was more agonizing than any assault of the nanos. Gone was Krycek’s usual taunting smirk and supercilious air of superiority. In its place was an expression of complete and unmistakable loathing.

“You hate me,” he gasped. “You really hate me, don’t you?”

“I fucking despise you,” Krycek snarled.

“Why do you hate me so much, Alex?”

“Jeez, Dad, I dunno. Could it be something to do with the fact that you bought your cushy life by selling your own son?”

Krycek’s words felt like a knife in his chest. Krycek’s hatred of him was so intense, so absolute, so undeniable, that his earlier ambivalence over learning his son’s identity was crushed under the weight of the sudden knowledge that Krycek’s torture of him had never been impersonal. Every blow of Krycek’s fists in that stairwell, every activation of the nanos, had been aimed with the precision of pure, unadulterated rage. Kryc….Alex… hated him. Not as an enemy, but as a father.

Alex hated him because he was his father.

Presumably because he hadn’t been his father. Because Alex had grown up as a lonely, unloved little boy who was unable to comprehend how his own father could have abandoned him into the brutal hands of the Consortium. 

If he was right, if Alex’s hatred was in direct correlation to his experiences as a child, then that loathing gaze spoke of a suffering almost beyond Skinner’s comprehension.

And he knew, in that moment, that he forgave Alex completely and absolutely for the agonies he’d suffered at his hands. Forgave him, even, the pulsing pain that was charging through his veins as they spoke. In that sudden, blinding revelation he accepted that this pitifully damaged, possibly insane, indisputably dangerous man was his son; his child, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, and with that acceptance he understood that, while he might never learn to like Alex, he’d already lost the battle not to love him.

Even if that love tasted like bitter ashes in his mouth.

“I didn’t even know I had a son,” he explained sadly, apologetically, guiltily, trying to express, in just those few words, how much he regretted that ignorance. “If I’d known, everything would have been different.”

“Yeah, sure, Pop,” Alex sneered. “It’s just co-incidence, huh? I mean, yeah, I can see it now. A hybrid like you just happens to stumble across a hybrid like my mother, has hot monkey sex, produces ‘exactly’ the genetic link the Consortium needs, and waltzes off into the sunset none the wiser. Yeah, sure.”

“Just how damned old do you think I am, boy? Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, Alex, but I was twelve years old when I apparently ‘fathered’ you. The nearest I came to your mother was a test tube. I knew nothing about it or you, or even the consortium at the time you were conceived.”

Alex looked stunned for a moment, as though he’d never stopped to do the math, but he quickly rallied. “Yeah?” he challenged. “So it’s just co-incidence you ended up as an AD in the FBI, in charge of Sam’s brother? I don’t think so.”

“I’m beginning to doubt there’s any such thing as co-incidences,” Skinner admitted, “but I didn’t know you were my son. I didn’t know I had a son. How the hell could I know?” Skinner shook his head angrily, then his eyes narrowed. “And what the hell did you mean when you called me a hybrid?”

Alex sneered again. “Oh, I’m supposed to believe it’s a shock, huh? How many people do you know who regularly come back from the dead? You telling me you got blown to pieces in ‘nam, woke up in a body bag, and didn’t catch a clue?”

Skinner reeled with shock, as a dozen disparate pieces of the puzzle slotted seamlessly together to form a picture he didn’t want to accept. He’d told Scully there had to be something ‘important’ about his DNA, something that would make his child crucial to the consortium’s breeding plans. Was it possible that peculiarity of his genetic code had something to do with…

“Immortality,” he breathed.

Alex snorted with dark humor. “That’s one term for it,” he snorted. “Though it’s a hell of a nice name for such a fucking curse, isn’t it?”

“A curse?”

“Struldbruggs,” Alex retorted, spitting on the ground in a gesture of disgust.

Skinner frowned in confusion. The word struck an echo in his mind, but he couldn’t pin-point why the word sounded familiar.

“And I always took you for a well-read man,” Alex mocked.

With a gasp of recognition, Skinner raised his eyes to Alex’s prosthetic hand and his stomach churned. “Gulliver’s Travels,” he said, his voice a pained whisper.

“ ‘…the Question therefore was not whether a Man would choose to be always in the Prime of Youth, attended with Prosperity and Health, but how he would pass a perpetual Life under all the usual Disadvantages which old Age brings along with it,’” Alex quoted, his eyes dark with contemplation. Then he smirked at Skinner’s look of sudden horror. “You understand what I’m saying?”

Skinner nodded reluctantly, his face paling several degrees. “A curse,” he repeated quietly. “Yes. I understand.”

“We scar, we suffer all mortal disease and pain. We grow old and incontinent and senile. We even leave pieces of ourselves rotting in overgrown Russian forests. We watch the people we love die, and then they haunt us perpetually - as though our inability to join them locks them into this plane of existence. And we pray, every time the suffering is too much to bear, that this time we won’t wake up again. But we do, Skinner. We almost always do. Ask Jeffrey whether he believes we’re cursed, ” Alex spat.

“Oh god,” Skinner gasped, his head reeling as he fought against the nausea Alex’s words had evoked. As he understood the ultimate pointlessness of the ‘immortality’ Alex was describing. As he realized that the question of how it was possible, was even less important than the why. 

Perhaps Alex saw that question in his tortured eyes and sought to answer it, or perhaps he spoke simply to voice his own despair in the strangely perfect setting of the lonely, fog-bound cemetery.

“Human DNA’s an endless playground of possibilities,” Alex explained. “Imagine it, Skinner. Consortium scientists isolating the genes for longevity, the genes that make some people less susceptible to cancers and other diseases, and of course there were the mutated genes for them to play with. The real fun genes. The genes that make monsters like Leonard Betts possible. Remember him, Skinner? Do you remember your scorn and incredulity at Mulder’s insistence that a man could be decapitated and simply regrow himself a new head?”

Skinner’s eyes flicked automatically to Alex’s prosthetic arm and, seeing the look, Alex laughed bitterly. “Unfortunately, they hadn’t isolated that genetic anomaly when they made the second gens. I missed out on that particular fun modification.”

“You’re saying our ‘immortality’ is because of manipulation of our *human* genetic code rather than the introduction of alien DNA?” Skinner demanded incredulously.

“It’s both. Only certain human genomes react positively to the introduction of Purity. There are different degrees of ‘immortality’. So the term’s deceptive anyway. We can *all* die permanently, given sufficient injury. But some people are more ‘immortal’ than others. That’s how Spender ended up in such a position of power inside the Consortium. He was naturally genetically compatible with the alien DNA. Being a first gen, like you, he was more vulnerable to permanent fatality. But it still took a rocket launcher and half a mountain falling on top of him to finally send the fucker to hell.”

Skinner shook his head in sudden denial. “This is crazy. It can’t be true. The whole concept is preposterous.”

“Truth is a flexible concept, Skinner. It stretches like taffy to fit anything we want it to fit. The only unarguable truth you need to believe is that if you don’t fucking move your ass and get Liss out of that grave, I’ll give you a first hand demonstration on just how vulnerable a first gen is.”

***

It was like waking from a deep sleep. A momentary confusion, as she blinked her eyes and mentally chased a dozen dream fragments that faded so rapidly into the distance that she immediately doubted her brief certainty that a craved knowledge was almost at her fingertips. A sudden pain in her chest, followed by a wave of sensation through her whole body like pins and needles, as though her veins had suddenly surged to life. A single gasping choking breath, and her lungs abruptly remembered how to breathe. A tingling, itching feeling along her breast-bone, as fresh scar-tissue pulled against tender flesh. Then she was sitting up, coughing and spluttering, her mouth almost agonizingly dry, her nostrils filled with the damp smell of wet dirt. 

She was aware of being cold, and hungry and…and…

And her father’s face was looming over her, his eyes brimming with relieved tears.

“Daddy,” she sobbed, reaching her arms up towards him, scrabbling to her knees, then to her feet, and feeling his hands, one real, one as strong and cold as steel, pulling her out of the darkness and into the light, and then she was pressed against his chest, her face buried in his neck, their hearts beating together in a wild, primitive rhythm.

“You okay, baby?” her father husked, in a rough growl that sounded like the most wonderful music she’d ever heard.

“I’m fine,” she said, laughing and crying with relief. “I’m FINE.”

He squeezed her tighter, almost crushing her in his need to affirm she was all right, and then he released her slowly and stepped back a little so he could look down into her tear-streaked face.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, and the creases at the edge of his worried eyes relaxed a little.

“Here,” he said gruffly, wrapping his jacket awkwardly around her shoulders, then pressing something metallic into her fingers.

She looked down in confusion at the car key in her hands. 

“Take my truck and go home, honey,” he said, then gave her another brief hug and a gentle push as he turned her towards a gravel path leading, through the Cemetery, down to the exit gates.

She hesitated, gnawing her bottom lip in uncertainty. “What about you? Aren’t you coming too?”

“I’ll follow you,” Krycek said over her shoulder. “Just go honey, don’t turn around.”

So she had to turn. Couldn’t not turn. Couldn’t refuse the curiosity and the knowing that something was terribly, horribly wrong…

And that was the first moment she became aware of the man still standing in the grave her father had hauled her out of. The man whose face was streaked with dirt and tears, and whose expression was a distorted canvas of relieved disbelief and unmistakable agony. Her attention riveted on the dark pulsing veins spider-webbing over Skinner’s flushed face. 

“Don’t, Daddy,” she begged quietly. “Please don’t hurt him. He won’t tell anyone I’m alive.” She fixed her pleading eyes on Skinner’s. “You won’t tell, will you?”

Skinner shook his head slowly.

“Please, Daddy?” she begged, and for a moment she was sure he wavered. His deep, unfathomable green eyes flickered with grief and self-loathing, and his mouth curled into a snarl that was as much pain as it was anger.

But then the moment passed, and he was suddenly cold and unreachable.

“Get in the car and go home, Liss,” he growled. “NOW!”

***

She jumped at his shout, tears sheening her eyes, her expression as tragic, wounded, frustrated and ultimately powerless as any Skinner had seen on Mulder’s face. There was fear too in her huge, emerald eyes, but, even through his pained haze, he was sure that her fear wasn’t for herself but for him. 

Then, she stretched her right hand and swept a light, stroking caress down her father’s bare right arm.

“Please, Daddy. We can just take his car, can’t we? By the time he tries to follow us, we’ll be gone and he won’t know how to find us. We can disappear. All of us. Don’t do this, Daddy. Don’t hurt yourself like this. He isn’t worth it.”

She cast a look in Skinner’s direction that was as hot and hate-filled and full of loathing as her father’s earlier expression.

Skinner gasped with an agony that had nothing to do with the tiny, deadly machines surging through his bloodstream but everything to do with the knowledge that Lisita cared nothing for *his* pain after all. She looked at him and saw nothing but a man she believed had caused her father immeasurable grief. She saw his death as nothing other than another guilty burden for her father to bear. And, strangely, despite the despair that struck him like a physical blow, that knowledge just ratified his belief that, right or wrong, Alex truly believed he himself was deserving of the pain he was suffering. That Alex truly believed his death was necessary to ensure Lisita’s safety.

So, as Alex moved the stylus upwards on the palm pilot to drive the nanos to killing intensity, as he felt his heart swelling like an over-inflated balloon, as he opened his mouth in a silent scream and collapsed lifelessly into Lisita’s casket, the final words that thundered through his brain weren’t curses or pleas. The only words that he tried to utter, as his heart exploded within his chest, were, “I love you both”.

And then, blessedly, there was nothing.

***

He kicked the basement door shut behind him with a violence that made both Scully and Doggett jump. As he made his way to his desk, Doggett’s eyes tracked him warily, his face carefully set in the kind of bland mask he usually offered gun-wielding lunatics, but Scully’s expression, while still careful, was genuinely concerned.

“What did he say?” she asked.

In response, he punched a filing cabinet hard enough to buckle its metal front. Then, wincing, he dropped into his chair and stared morosely down at his swelling knuckles.

Scully’s lips pursed for a moment and she exchanged a look with Doggett before sighing softly and saying, “I’ll go get us some coffee.”

Mulder snorted rudely. “Yeah, that’ll help.”

Scully ignored his sarcasm and slipped out of the room, returning several minutes later with three cups. She offered one to Mulder and waited until he took an obedient mouthful before handing one to Doggett and perching on the edge of Mulder’s desk with her own.

“This tastes like crap, Scully,” Mulder pointed out. But his voice was slightly subdued, as though the act of sipping the bitter, lukewarm beverage had given him a moment to control his earlier outrage. As Scully had no doubt counted on.

Doggett wisely kept his own opinion to himself.

“So what did Kersh say?” Scully asked again, and this time, although temper flared in Mulder’s eyes, it just manifested itself in a sullen pout rather than physical violence.

“A pile of fucking bullshit,” Mulder spat.

Scully arched an eyebrow. “What *specific* fucking bullshit?”

Doggett looked mildly shocked at her language, but Mulder’s lips twitched with reluctant appreciation.

“He said Skinner had taken indefinite compassionate leave. Kersh said I should be prepared for the possibility he might not be coming back,” he explained.

Scully frowned, her eyes troubled, and she nodded slowly. “It doesn’t sound right,” she agreed. “Even the morning Sharon was buried, he was back in his office by lunchtime.”

“Exactly,” Mulder said, his eyes burning with suspicion. “Something must have happened to him and Kersh is covering it up.”

Doggett stared at the two of them in disbelief, then threw his hands in the air in a gesture of exasperation. “What you sayin’? You think he’s been abducted by aliens or somethin’? Jesus, Dana. I can’t believe you’re buyin’ this BS. I talked with the man and I’m tellin’ you, he was *gutted* by the girl’s death. Why the hell do you think he stayed in Kansas after the funeral? He was grievin’. Really grievin’.”

“He checked out of his hotel two days ago,” Mulder countered. “He booked a flight to return to DC. He checked in his rental car at the airport. But he never checked in at the flight desk. He just disappeared.”

“Maybe he just changed his mind,” Doggett drawled. “He could have just thought ‘what the hell’ and caught a flight anywhere.”

“Or maybe Krycek was waiting for him at the Airport,” Mulder muttered darkly.

“Krycek?” Scully repeated, her eyes widening in alarm. “You’ve got some evidence to suggest he…”

Mulder slapped his desk angrily, his face contorting with frustration. “NO,” he snapped. “I don’t have any goddamned ‘evidence’, Scully. I don’t have any nice convenient CCTV footage of Krycek kidnapping Skinner at gunpoint. I don’t even, as Kersh so helpfully pointed out, have anything other than Skinner’s word that Krycek is still alive. But I know he’s behind Skinner’s disappearance somehow. I just KNOW.”

“Like you 'know' he killed your father?” Scully said, with a despairing shake of her head.

Mulder glared at her defiantly. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Like I know he killed my father. I know you don’t understand it, Scully, but there’s a… a connection between us. I can’t explain it, but it’s there.”

“Yeah?” Doggett drawled, his mouth curling with distaste. “Well we already know about the ‘connection’ between the two of ya. Spare us the sordid details.”

Scully blushed and shot Doggett a death-glare until he shrugged and looked slightly ashamed of himself. Mulder barely even noticed. He didn’t give a shit what Doggett thought about him, or Krycek, or him and Krycek. His gut was telling him Skinner was in serious trouble, and that time was running out.

“I’m going to Forbes Field,” he announced. “It’s the last place anyone saw Skinner.”

Scully shook her head. “You can’t, Mulder. Kersh will never approve it.”

“So? What makes you think I’m planning on telling him? I’m feeling the need for a little indefinite compassionate leave of my own.”

After a moment’s indecision, Scully quietly announced, “I’m coming with you.” 

***

“Tell me what really happened,” he insisted firmly. 

For a moment he looked almost frighteningly like their father and she felt herself responding automatically to the demand of his intense, teal-green gaze. Then his overlong hair flopped down over his forehead, breaking the illusion, and, as he swiped his hand irritably through his unruly bangs, she reminded herself he was only eleven years old.

“You need a hair-cut,” she laughed.

He shrugged and sneered with disgust. “You sound like Nan.”

“Oh,” she said, not liking that comparison. Their grandmother wasn’t the most…well, likeable…person. Or maybe, to be fair, she was old enough now to understand her perception of the old woman was unfavorably colored by her father’s behavior. He never even pretended to like Nan, so it was hard for her to be objective. 

“Dad had his hair long like that once,” she said.

“He did?” Nicki asked, his face glowing with sudden happiness.

“Yeah. You were just a baby at the time, but I remember. You look just like he did.”

“Cool,” he said, grinning with satisfaction.

And though some part of her was amused by his obvious hero-worship of their father, she knew, far more than Nicki ever would, that their father had more than earned that respect. At least she prayed he didn’t know. That he’d been too young to remember. Just as she herself denied the memories whenever her mother cautiously brought up the subject of her early childhood.

“What happened, Liss? Why’s he so…so…” his voice trailed off, his eyes glistening suspiciously, his lower lip beginning to tremble.

“Daddy… Daddy had to… to kill a bad man,” she explained carefully.

Nicki shrugged his confusion. “So?”

She closed her eyes in pain, acknowledging for perhaps the first time, the terrible cost they had all paid for their survival. //He’s just a little boy, really // she reminded herself. // It’s not his fault he doesn’t understand. Death isn’t real to him yet //

“Don’t ever say that,” she said firmly. “And never say that in front of Mom and Dad. Just because, sometimes, Dad has to kill people, doesn’t mean he believes killing people is right.”

Nicki rolled his eyes. “I know that, Liss,” he exclaimed. “Dad says life’s sacred and killing is wrong, but that it’s a man’s duty to protect his family.”

“That’s right,” she agreed.

“So, when *Dad* kills someone, it isn’t wrong,” he said loyally.

“But it still hurts him,” she explained softly. “Especially if the bad person he killed is someone he cared about.”

“How could he care about a bad person?” Nicki demanded, with an incredulous laugh.

Lisita shook her head in frustration, rubbing her forehead fretfully as she tried to find a way to explain the inexplicable to a boy who was still young enough to worship their father as some kind of living, infallible Rambo.

“Imagine *I* did something awful. Imagine I decided I was tired of running and hiding and I decided to make a deal with *them*,” she started.

“You wouldn’t,” he said staunchly, his face paling at even the suggestion.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” she said. “But imagine I did. Can you do that?”

“Uh huh,” he agreed doubtfully.

“And in that imaginary scenario, I’m going to let them take you and William.”

Nicki gulped, but nodded.

“So, what do you think Daddy would do?” she asked.

His eyes widened with horror. “He’d…he’d have to…he’d…” and he burst into tears.

She threw her arms around him, pulling him to her chest, rocking him gently as he cried out his miserable understanding.

“He’d have to make a choice. A terrible choice,” she said softly. “But he’d make it, because that’s the kind of man Daddy is. That’s why we’re all alive, Nicki. Because Daddy makes the kind of choices that no-one else could live with.”

Nicki sniffed and nodded. “So…so that’s why he’s sad? Because he had to make a choice like that when he killed the bad man?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “That’s why he’s so sad.”

***

“The keys were just posted through the door of the rental office,” Mulder announced, with a satisfied grin, as he rejoined Scully in the main terminal.

“Perhaps he was in a hurry,” she pointed out.

“So much of a hurry that he didn’t collect his deposit?” he demanded. 

“Perhaps he forgot,” she suggested hesitantly. 

“Mr. Anal?” Mulder scoffed. 

Her eyes creased with worry. It was becoming increasingly impossible for her to remain objective. While she was determined to remain the voice of reason in the absence of anything except circumstantial evidence, she was beginning to believe Mulder’s theory was the most likely explanation for Skinner’s disappearance.

“I’ve shown his photo at every check-in desk,” she admitted. “No-one remembers seeing him.”

“Perhaps because he was never here,” he suggested. “Krycek got to him after he left his hotel, then dropped his car off here to make it look like he’d arrived at the airport okay.”

“We still don’t know Krycek had anything to do with it,” she reminded him, but she didn’t argue with his assessment that Skinner had been abducted en route to the airport. 

“Let’s go to the hotel. If Skinner didn’t leave there directly for the airport, there might be a clue there as to where he went.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

***

She stared morosely into the empty paddock and sighed. While she fully understood her father’s insistence they used a circuitous route to bring Storm Dancer home, she couldn’t help feeling miserable about his absence. According to the itinerary she’d read, the horse was currently somewhere in Saudi Arabia, having the tattoo inside his mouth altered to match his new equine passport. He’d then be ‘sold’ to England before having his identity changed once more, and it would be at least a further three months before he finally arrived in Arizona. It was costing her father a small fortune, so she felt guilty about even feeling resentful about the necessity for such detailed subterfuge.

But she missed him. Missed him so much she’d been quite unforgivably rude when her grandmother had said she didn’t know what all the fuss was about and couldn’t Alex simply buy her another horse. And it was a measure of how strained and strange things were in the house at the moment, that her father had told her to apologize to Teena. Usually he just smirked under his breath whenever she or Nicki back-talked their grandmother and he left their mother to smooth any ruffled-feathers over.

She didn’t understand why her father would suddenly start caring about Teena’s feelings…

‘Oh, I think you do.’

The unexpected voice made her swing around in shock and her eyes widened with frightened disbelief.

“Why are you here? What do you want?” she asked shakily.

The deep wrinkles of the old woman’s face folded into a gently admonishing smile.

‘You know why I’m here.’

Lisita shook her head angrily. “This isn’t happening. You’re his ghost.”

The apparition smiled gently, her expression soft and full of loving understanding. ‘He’s your grandfather, Lisita, and I’m his grandmother. That makes us family. That makes me your ghost too.’

“He’s dead.”

‘Yes,’ the ghost agreed. ‘But it’s not too late yet, Lisita. He hasn’t crossed over. There’s still time to bring him back.’

“No,” Lisita spat, her eyes panicked. “I can’t do it. Daddy would never forgive me if I betrayed the family.”

‘If Walter dies, will your father ever forgive himself?’

“Mr Skinner’s one of THEM,” Lisita cried, her face crumpling into tears. “He’ll find us and tell them where we are. It’s not just me Daddy’s trying to protect. It’s Nicki and William too. Don’t you understand?” 

‘If he really was one of *them*, do you think your father would be grieving for him?’

“Yes. Because he isn’t grieving for him. He’s grieving for what his father *should* have been.”

‘What he wanted to be, if only Alex had given him the chance,’ the old woman said, with a sad shake of her head.

Lisita’s face twisted with confusion. “Daddy would never have killed him if he hadn’t been sure it was necessary.”

‘Of course he wouldn’t,’ the ghost agreed. ‘Alex believes a man who would sell his child to the Consortium wouldn’t hesitate to sell his grandchildren too. But what if your father’s wrong? What if all that pain he feels over his abandonment is just a terrible misunderstanding? What if Walter loves him? What if all Walter really wants is to protect your father, just the way your father wants to protect you?’

“No,” Lisita said, shaking her head in denial. “Even if you’re right, it’s still too late. Daddy killed him. And I helped Daddy bury him. Even if we brought him back, he’d hate both of us now.”

The ghost smiled gently. ‘Oh no, Lisita. He could never hate either of you.'

“Even if you’re right, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Lisita sobbed. “Daddy won’t take the chance. He’d rather live with being wrong, than take the chance of Mr. Skinner betraying us.”

'So help Walter yourself,' the old woman suggested.

“Me? You think Daddy’s going to let me jump on a plane and fly back to Kansas?”

The ghost laughed gently. 'I’m not suggesting you go to the cemetery, Lisita. Just send a message to Fox.’

“What?” 

‘Tell your Uncle Fox. He can help.’

“Then tell him yourself instead of asking me to betray my father,” Lisita demanded. “Mr. Skinner said Fox can see ghosts too. Go talk to him yourself, and leave me out of it.”

‘I can’t. This is something you have to do, Lisita. It has to be you.’

“He wouldn’t believe me anyway. What the hell am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, Uncle Fox. My granddad is buried alive in my grave? Oh and, by the way, I’m fine’?” 

Instead of taking offense, the old woman simply chuckled at her sarcasm. 

‘Just send him this message; ‘Sometimes we bury our dead alive’.’ 

“Just that?” Lisita asked doubtfully.

‘Trust me. It will be enough.’

***

Mulder switched off his cell phone, and gave Scully a triumphant smile. “He went to the cemetery.”

“How do you know?”

“That last number he called from his room was an all-night florists. He ordered a posy of white roses and paid for it in cash. That’s why we didn’t find a record of it on his credit card bill.”

“You think Krycek was waiting there for him?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he was just there to see Lisita’s grave, and Skinner simply arrived at the wrong moment.”

Scully nodded. That made a horrible kind of sense. Skinner arriving at the Cemetery, stumbling across a grief-stricken Krycek. Then the color drained out of her face. “You think Krycek killed him there, don’t you?” 

Mulder swallowed heavily. “I don’t want to believe it… but it’s looking like the most likely scenario. But I don’t think…I don’t think Krycek meant to do it.” 

“You don’t want to believe it,” she retorted angrily, furious that despite everything Krycek had done and his passionate avowals of hatred for the man, Mulder still didn’t want to accept Krycek was capable of cold-heartedly planning Skinner’s murder. And a spiteful voice inside her head snickered that Alex Krycek must have been one hell of a good lay.

“For god’s sake, Scully, I’m not trying to defend him,” Mulder spat. “I’m saying that Krycek would have planned it better than just sitting in a cemetery in the hope that Skinner might turn up. If he killed him there, it was more likely to have been a sudden impulse. And that means he probably made a mistake.”

Scully’s brow smoothed and she offered him an apologetic smile. “You’re saying we might find forensic evidence at the cemetery.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” he agreed, his expression so cold she knew he hadn’t forgiven her yet.

“Let’s go,” she suggested, hoping the drive would be long enough for his mood to lighten again.

***

“So you didn’t find anythin’?”

“Just another dead end,” she agreed tiredly. “We think he did go there. There was a posy on Lisita’s grave that matched the description of the one Skinner ordered. But there were no signs of a struggle or anything to suggest Krycek had ever been there.”

“So you comin’ home tomorrow?”

“Yes. There’s nothing else we can do here. Mulder just wants to speak to… no, never mind…”

“Moldhar wants to what?” he demanded.

“If I tell you, I don’t want any sarcastic comments, all right?”

He laughed softly. “I promise to behave myself, ma’am.”

“He wants to talk to the cemetery groundsmen. He says all the wreaths on Lisita’s grave are out of place.”

“He what?”

“He…well, he thinks the grave might have been disturbed,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Someone moved the goddamned flowers around and now he thinks Lisita’s a vampire or somethin’?”

“John, you promised.”

He sighed. “Did it occur to him that Skinner might have simply moved ‘em around to make room for his own flowers?”

“Of course it did. I’m not saying he’s gone off the deep end or anything. He’s just ‘bothered’ about it.”

“One of his famous hunches?” he scoffed. Then, when her only answer was a stony silence, he quickly changed the subject. “I got an interestin' email today.”

“Oh?” she asked, her voice still chilly.

“Yeah. The litter was born last night. There’s three boys and four girls. They’re askin’ whether we still want one.”

She gave a small squeal of excitement. “Of course we want one, John Jay Doggett. Email them right back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckled.

“Speaking of email, my laptop’s playing up. Can you check my account for me? It’s set up on Mulder’s PC.”

“I can’t believe you let the bastard steal the only desk again,” Doggett grumbled, but walked over to the PC and logged into the email. “There’s a couple from your mom.”

“Don’t read *those*.”

“And one from Johannsen. He says he’s got a couple of problems with some test results. Load of scientific mumbo-jumbo. Want me to print it out and fax it to you?”

“That’d be great.”

“Okay. I’ll just check whether Spooky’s got anythin' interestin’.”

“Don’t open anything from a mailing-list,” she warned quickly.

“I won’t,” he agreed with feeling. “I’ve just ate my dinner.”

She rolled her eyes and smothered a smirk. 

“Oh…this one’s weird. No subject. No return address. How the hell did someone manage to spam an FBI computer?”

“What does it say?”

“Nothin’ that makes sense. Just says 'Sometimes we bury our dead alive'.”

***

Alex slammed his whiskey glass down in fury. “What the fuck do you want now?”

Teena jumped in her seat, her eyes widening with alarm. Samantha took a careful look at her husband and rose off the sofa. “Let’s start dinner, mom,” she said quietly.

“Who’s he talking to?” Teena demanded. “Is it your father?”

Samantha flinched and her eyes narrowed with barely contained fury. “Don’t you ever mention that man in this house,” she spat. She grabbed her mother by the arm and propelled her, less than gently, out of the living room.

Mannerly wandered over to the half-empty bottle on the mantelpiece and tutted sadly. ‘Glenfiddich, Alex? Feeling somewhat maudlin, are we?’

“Get the hell out of my house,” Alex snarled. 

‘I never took you for a drinker, Alex. Your vices always used to be more… shall we say... interesting.’

Alex opened his mouth  to retort,  but immediately changed his mind and just sighed wearily instead. “Leave me alone.”

‘But I have such interesting news for you,’ Mannerly chuckled.

“I don’t care what you’ve got to say. I really don’t care.” 

Mannerly did a slight double-take, assessing Alex’s unshaven cheeks, dark-rimmed eyes and air of complete dejection. 'I actually think you mean that, dear boy. What on earth has happened to you? Where’s your spark? Where’s your ‘fuck-the-world’ attitude? Do I suspect this has something to do with the recent demise of a certain Walter Skinner?'

“Fuck you,” Alex replied, with another tired sigh.

Mannerly shook his head sadly and tutted again. ‘Take it from me, Alexander. Self-pity is a highly unattractive look for you. Vulnerability is only sexy if it has an edge of bite.’

“Yeah?” Alex snarled. “Then why don’t you piss off and find sexy piece of ass to haunt.” 

‘That’s more like it,’ Mannerly smirked. 'That little feral snap to your voice. Quite unique.'

Alex rubbed his eyes and groaned. “Just fucking say whatever the fuck you’ve come here to say and fuck off back where you fucking came from.”

Mannerly rolled his eyes. ‘Whereas that kind of pointless, unemotional profanity is just pathetic.’

“Whatever.”

‘But I’m sure I can inspire you to some genuinely emotional cursing, Alexander.’

“Oh?” Alex asked disinterestedly.

‘Been keeping track of your lover-boy recently? No. I didn’t think so. Would it surprise you to learn he’s at Blakemore?’

Alex straightened abruptly in his seat, his slight alcoholic haze extinguished instantly by Mannerly’s sobering words. “What the hell’s he doing at Blakemore? Fuck, I knew it was a mistake to move the horse so soon.”

‘Oh, not the school,’ Mannerly chuckled. ‘The cemetery. Seems he’s managed to bully a local judge into giving him an exhumation order for Lisita’s body. As we speak, he’s arranging a JCB for tomorrow morning.’

“Shit,” Alex breathed. “Fox Mulder’s like the fucking walking curse of my life.”

Mannerly looked highly disappointed. ‘That’s all you’ve got to say?’

Alex shrugged. “It is what it is.”

‘You’ve still got time to stop him,’ Mannerly pointed out urgently. ‘You could still catch a flight. Kill Mulder, then open the grave yourself and finish Skinner off properly.’

“Yeah,” Alex agreed, making no move to rise out of his seat.

‘Don’t you understand? Skinner hasn’t crossed over yet. If Mulder exhumes him tomorrow, he’s going to revive.’

“Yeah,” Alex agreed.

‘He not only knows about you and Lisita, he’s going to be living proof to Mulder that the project worked. Unlike Mulder’s resuscitation, there won’t be any alien viruses to conveniently explain Skinner’s ability to rise from the dead.’

“I know.”

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Mannerly demanded.

Alex’s face screwed up in intense thought.

‘Well?’ Mannerly prompted.

Alex’s face cleared and he nodded decisively. “I know what I’m going to do,” he said.

‘What?’ Mannerly asked eagerly.

Alex’s mouth widened into a feral smirk. “I’m gonna pour myself another drink.”

***

“What the hell’s taking so long?” Mulder demanded, pacing up and down the corridor, his eyes glaring furiously at the closed doors to the morgue. “Can’t you go in there and hurry them up or something?”

Scully rolled her eyes. “The exhumation order was quite specific,” she reminded him. “The judge only agreed to the original coroner being present for the opening of the casket. I’m sure he’ll tell us, soon enough, if there’s anything that warrants an FBI investigation into Lisita’s death.”

Mulder scowled furiously but nodded his reluctant acceptance. Since he’d only managed to get the judge’s signature by spinning a wild tale that Lisita might have been murdered after all, there was no point in him chaffing at the legal restrictions that were consequently being imposed. 

“These things always take time,” she pointed out.

“How much time does it take to notice there’s more than one body in a casket?” he retorted mulishly. 

“If you’re right,” she reminded him. 

“Where the hell else could he have hidden Skinner’s body? He killed him in a Cemetery and buried him in Lisita’s grave. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” 

“I just can’t see him throwing Skinner on top of his daughter’s body,” Scully replied, her expression troubled. “It seems too…” She fished desperately for the right word. “…distasteful.”

Mulder gave a reluctant chuff of agreement. It did sound pretty damned ‘distasteful’ but he still couldn’t imagine a practical killer like Krycek losing too much sleep over the idea. 

What he didn’t want to admit, what he hadn’t even dreamed of saying to her yet, was that he suspected Skinner hadn’t even been dead when Krycek buried him. Considering Skinner's physical strength, he’d have to have been pretty badly injured for Krycek to overpower him enough, but, between the email he’d received and his own understanding of Krycek’s warped need for revenge, he fully expected the coroner to discover the corpse of a man who had suffocated to death while attempting to claw his way out of the casket.

And since just the thought of it made him feel sick to his stomach, he wasn’t going to share his suspicions with Scully until the evidence proved him right.

His ghoulish musings were disturbed by a commotion at the far end of the corridor. He had a quick flash of uniforms and running feet, then the morgue doors swung open behind him and he turned so see the white-faced coroner quickly beckoning, “In here! He’s in here!”

“What’s going on?” Scully gasped, as the paramedics ran past them.

“He’s alive!” Mulder yelled, grabbing her by her arm and racing into the morgue after them. “He’s still fucking alive, Scully.”

“Impossible,” she stated firmly, trying to plant her feet and stop Mulder’s headlong rush.

But as his strength and momentum carried both of them through the swinging doors, she realized the idea of Skinner being alive wasn't impossible, after all.

Because he was.

***

There was a reason intimidation was called an art rather than a science, Mulder decided. Because by the rules of Scullyish sense and reason, no man could retain enough dignity to be intimidating  while he was sitting in a hospital bed in a paper gown with an oxygen tube up his nose.

Obviously, no one had ever explained that fact of life to AD Walter Skinner.

Not even the fact he was so hoarse his voice was little more than a whisper, aided constantly by rapid sips of water, deflected from his air of dignified self-control. Old stoneface was alive and well.

And except for being pissed as hell at the hospital's insistence on keeping him overnight for observation, seemed none the worse for having been buried alive for three days.

Which was an X-file in itself.

"And you're sure you don’t remember being in the casket?” he demanded suspiciously. It was all very well for Scully to say Skinner was simply dehydrated, but Mulder would have sworn the ragged rasp to Skinner's voice was the after-effect of several days of screaming for help.

Skinner shook his head and took another sip of water before replying. “No. I didn’t become aware of anything until I woke up in the morgue,” he said firmly.

Mulder frowned with confusion. 

“That correlates with what the coroner said,” Scully pointed out. “He said he thought Walter was dead when they removed him from the casket. It wasn’t until several minutes later that he suddenly took a breath and sat up.”

“A breath,” Mulder repeated thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe as long as you were buried, without any air, you would have remained dead.”

“He wasn’t dead,” Scully snapped. “He was in some kind of coma.”

“Like the coma *I* was in for three months?” he mocked.

“Exactly,” she said, and glared at him as though defying him to produce evidence that would prove otherwise.

“Then explain Lisita,” Skinner interrupted quietly. “You going to stand there and say she was just in a coma too?”

Scully’s brow furrowed in thought. “Are you absolutely certain you weren’t hallucinating?”

Skinner grunted with disgust. Mulder stared at her in disbelief for a moment and then, surprisingly, burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Scully demanded.

“Is this the new scientific method, Scully? When faced with unpalatable truths, clutch desperately at any straw you can find?”

“Excuse me if I think a hallucination is far more believable than a tale of genetically enhanced immortals,” she sniffed.

“Struldbruggs,” Skinner corrected.

Mulder smiled with appreciation. “Never would have taken Krycek for a reader,” he admitted, “but it’s a damned good analogy.”

“What is a damned Struldbrugg, anyway?” Scully demanded.

“You never read ‘Gulliver’s Travels’? Shame on you, you illiterate woman,” Mulder laughed.

“I’ve seen the film,” she countered defensively, and this time Skinner laughed too.

“We’re not talking about the sweet Disney tale of Lilliputians,” Mulder explained finally, when her annoyed look threatened to become lethal. He really wasn’t in the mood for her to shoot him again. “In the original book, Gulliver visited a lot of different islands and encountered a multitude of strange people including a race that had a small proportion of immortals, the Struldbruggs.”

Skinner took over the tale. “At first Gulliver assumed he’d found something extraordinary, something to be envied. The idea of being able to live forever sounded like any man’s dream come true. But the truth turned out to be a nightmare.” He coughed suddenly, reaching for his water and waving at Mulder to continue.

“The Struldbruggs aged like normal people. They suffered the same diseases and frailties. And when they reached the age of eighty, they were disenfranchised. Their marriages to mortals were dissolved. Their rights as citizens were revoked. And from then on they just continued getting older and frailer, as their minds and bodies failed, but they still were unable to die.”

“And that’s what Krycek claims to be?” she demanded.

“What Krycek claims he and Walter and I all are,” Mulder corrected. “Not literally, of course. He’s suggesting that the Consortium scientists somehow pinpointed the genome for longevity and then used Purity to turn that natural ability to survive into something very unnatural.  The good news is we can somehow recover from 'fatal' injuries. The bad news seems to be that we only recover to a limited  extent."

"The question is how limited," Skinner mused thoughtfully. "We must have the ability to regenerate damage to our internal organs, otherwise I wouldn't have recovered either time Alex killed me with the nanos, but we clearly don't have the ability to regenerate external injuries."

"As Krycek said, we scar," Mulder agreed. "And, let's face it,  he obviously can't re-grow his arm. Just like you couldn't re-grow your gonocytes."

Skinner winced. "Next time I send you on a team-building seminar, make sure you attend the lectures on tact," he growled.

"Never has been one of my best qualities," Mulder admitted, with an apologetic shrug.

"Alex said the Consortium scientists did isolate the genomes for regeneration. He implied he was simply born too early to receive that particular genetic modification," Skinner continued.

Mulder absorbed his words and nodded decisively. "So the later generations like Lisita, and maybe William, are new and improved designs, based on an original template of basic 'immortality'. I wonder how much of that improved design was based on the work of Doctor Joseph Ridley. "

He saw a momentary spark of recognition in Scully's eyes, as though, just for a moment, she was accepting the connection and making the mental leap with him. But then her face shuttered back into an expression of denial.

"Think about it, Scully. It makes sense. What’s the common denominator between Spender, Jeffrey, me, Krycek and Walter? Every single one of us has died, at least once, and then somehow come back to life. What more evidence do you need?”

Scully was still standing there, gaping like a beached fish, when Walter interrupted again.

“Alex called Spender and I ‘First Gens’, and said that made us more vulnerable than he is. He refers to himself as a ‘Second Gen’. I assume that makes Lisita a ‘Third Gen’, which presumably means she’s even more of a ‘Struldbrugg’ than he is. Perhaps she has the ability to regenerate external injuries.”

Mulder shook his head. "I think she's too old. Even if the consortium eventually got their hands on Ridley's files, they couldn't have done so until well after she was born. But it's possible William has those modifications."

"I'm not listening to this," Scully said. "William is a perfectly normal child."

Mulder rolled his eyes impatiently, but didn't pursue the subject. Instead, he quickly returned the conversation to the relatively neutral ground of Lisita.

“Lisita definitely has some extra modifications,” Mulder agreed. “Think about the reason I went looking for her in the first place. Lisita apparently has psychokinetic abilities.  We have to assume all the Third Gen children are more than just the sum of their original genes. The question is whether they're the culmination of the breeding experiments or just another step on the way of producing the perfect supersoldier. How many generations do you think are necessary to produce a perfect template?”

“Given the proposed invasion date, it can’t be more than four,” Skinner replied thoughtfully. “There won’t be time for a fifth generation.”

“Of course! That’s why Lisita is so important,” Mulder said, with a triumphant grin. “And maybe that's why William wasn't.  Maybe it had nothing to do with him being 'normal', Scully. Maybe the reason the replicants left him alone was simply the fact he's a boy.  If a fourth generation is necessary, the most important third generation child is obviously going to be a girl. Lisita is the potential mother of the savior of the human race. That’s why Alex will do anything to prevent the aliens learning of her existence. He knows how vital she is to the resistance.”

"Birds and bees," Skinner grunted.

"What?"

"It takes two to make a baby, Mulder. A boy and a girl."

Mulder frowned in thought for a moment, then his face cleared and he gave a satisfied nod. "We know there's at least two male third gens, Gibson and William. But how many girls are there?  When you play with genetics, you open up a whole can of worms. What if the traits the consortium were breeding for were gender-specific? What if, by the third generation, all the successful progeny were boys except for Lisita?  Maybe she's the only girl."

"It's a big 'maybe'," Skinner pointed out.

"So call it one of my hunches," Mulder said, with a confident, self-satisfied grin.

Scully smiled strangely.

“What?” Mulder demanded.

“Assuming all of this isn't just science fiction; even if you’re right about Lisita being the only girl, and I'm not necessarily saying you are, I think you’re still way off base over Alex’s motivations,” she said, with a sad shake of her head. “And, I suspect, that’s exactly why he thinks you’re so dangerous to him, Mulder.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure you ever will,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t think it’s only the aliens he’s hiding her from. He’s hiding Lisita from the resistance too. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Alex is trying to prevent the 4th generation from being created at all.”

“That’s crazy,” Mulder snarled. “If Lisita’s the key, why the hell would Alex hide her from the Resistance? Forget any damned vaccines; he already has the ultimate solution to stopping the invasion in his hands, Scully.” 

"He doesn't have an 'ultimate solution'," Skinner barked. "He has a daughter!"

"Who has been genetically engineered to produce the ultimate solution," Mulder countered doggedly.

“I don’t think he cares,” Skinner said, his expression sad but strangely understanding. “That’s the difference between him and the Consortium. He doesn’t accept that any price is worth the sacrifice of one of his children.”

“But…but we’re talking about a chance to save the whole goddamned planet,” Mulder argued.

“It’s funny,” Skinner mused. “But I never saw it before.”

“Saw what?”

“Any possible similarity between yourself and your father.”

Mulder blanched and staggered, his eyes widening with horror. “How fucking dare you say that to me?” he howled. “I’m nothing like him.”

“I hope not,” Skinner agreed. “For the sake of Alex’s children, I sincerely hope not.”

***

"Everybody at school’s got one,” Nicki announced. 

“I think I’ll go check on the dessert,” Samantha said, scraping her chair back and rising to her feet.

“Coward,” Alex snorted. “Go on, run out on me. See if I care.”

She grinned wickedly, gathered all the dinner plates except William’s, and quickly exited the room.

“I finished too,” William announced.

“You haven’t eaten your vegetables,” Teena pointed out sternly. 

William pouted at the mountainous pile of peas, carrots and corn still remaining on his plate.

With one eye on Alex to make sure he wasn’t listening, Teena quietly but firmly said, “Good boys eat their dinner, and only good boys get dessert.”

William’s face screwed up with misery, his lower lip began to wobble and she quickly amended the threat to, “You’ve got to at least eat a little bit of everything, okay?” before his tears alerted her son-in-law to her ultimatum.

“Okay, Nana,” William agreed miserably.

Nicki, meanwhile, was pursuing his argument with typical stubbornness. “I said everyone at school’s got one.”

“So?” Alex asked, his face expressionless.

Nicki deliberately pouted his lower lip into the trembling expression that usually made his father’s eyes soften. “So I don’t wanna be different. You’re the one who always says I’ve gotta blend in,” he added, with a sly grin.

Alex chuffed softly. “Blend in, huh? So, if everyone at school jumped off a cliff, would you follow them just to ‘blend in’?”

“That’s stupid,” Nicki grumbled. “It’s not the same thing.”

“It would certainly cost me less,” Alex agreed.

Nicki narrowed his eyes and stared at his father suspiciously. Sure enough, he saw a tiny twitch of humor jerk the corner of Alex’s mouth. “It’s not that much,” he wheedled. “And it’s so cool.”

“How cool?” Alex demanded. “As cool as taking the garbage out every night? As cool as doing your homework without your mother having to confiscate your TV remote? As cool as being grown up enough to let William…”

“Okay, okay, I get the point,” Nicki interrupted quickly. “I promise. Please, Dad. I’ll do my chores and my homework and I’ll… damn, I’ll even let William have my old PlayStation.”

William gave a whoop of excitement and kicked his legs against his chair. “Wanna go play now!” he announced.

“Finish your dinner first,” Teena said.

“Don’t wanna,” he muttered defiantly. He looked hopefully in his father’s direction, hoping he’d intercede. “Don’t like veggies,” he said plaintively.

Alex frowned at William’s plate, shrugged and said, “If you eat your peas, you can leave the rest.”

With a smugly triumphant grin at his Nana, William began quickly shoveling peas into his mouth.

Alex grinned at Nicki. “See how happy you’ve made him? And I was only going to suggest you let him use it occasionally.” 

Nicki’s face fell.

“But since you’ve just been so generous,” Alex continued. “I guess you can have this…” He reached under the table and produced a black box.

Nicki’s eyes lit up. “You really bought me an iPod?”

Alex nodded, his eyes twinkling.

Nicki reached out eagerly for the box, only to suddenly pause as he realized that since his father had already bought him the gift, he’d given away his PlayStation for nothing. “I’ve been had,” he grumbled.

Alex winked at him. “Count it a lesson learned. If you approach a game assuming the other guy has a better hand, you’re always going to lose.”

Nicki pushed his hair back out of his eyes and smirked at his father. “Really? I thought the lesson of the day was if the ‘other guy’ is you, just cut my losses and fold.”

“Well, that too,” Alex laughed.

Nicki surged to his feet.

“Ask before you leave the table,” Teena snapped.

Nicki sighed and rolled his eyes. “Please, can I leave the table?”

“Do your homework before you start…” Teena began.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nicki agreed, with another dramatic roll of his eyes.

Alex hid a smirk. “I can still take it back,” he warned half-heartedly.

“Yeah,” Nicki agreed, then offered his father a cheeky full-wattage grin. “But you won’t.”

Alex just shook his head in mock despair as Nicki grabbed the iPod and raced quickly from the room.

“You spoil him,” Teena said, her mouth pursed with disapproval. “You spoil all of them.”

“Wha’s spoil?” William piped up.

“SAMANTHA?” Alex called.

She poked her head through the dining room door. “Yes?”

“Would you kindly tell your mother that how we raise our kids is none of her GODDAMNED business?”

“Daddy cussed!” William announced, with a wide grin.

Samantha shook her head tiredly. “I swear, it’s like having five kids,” she groaned. “Would you help me fetch the dessert, Liss?”

“Sure, Mom,” Lisita agreed and rose to her feet.

“Good boy,” Teena said, as William shoveled the last pea into his mouth. 

“Good boys get dessert,” William grinned proudly.

Alex’s face darkened dangerously. “Who told him that?” he demanded, eyeing Teena suspiciously.

William frowned suddenly, his little face folding into misery. “So Lissy can’t have no dessert.”

Lisita paled suddenly, her fingers whitening on her chair back as she clutched it for balance.

“Why do you say that?” Samantha asked carefully.

“Cos Lissy did a Bad Thing,” William said, his lower lip quivering.

“Really?” Alex asked coolly, his attention focused purely on Lisita’s face. “What did you do, honey?”

Tears welled up in Lisita’s eyes. William was too young to know what he was saying. He could only have ‘sensed’ her guilt, not understood the reason for it. But she could no more bring herself to lie to her father than grow wings and fly. 

“It was me,” she said simply.

Alex just nodded, his face an expressionless mask. Then he turned to William. “Why don’t you go ask Nicki for your PlayStation?”

The little boy smiled eagerly, his dessert forgotten.

“And tomorrow, we’ll have a conversation about listening to other people’s thoughts.”

William’s face collapsed into a comically guilty pout. “Oops,” he mumbled, and bolted quickly from the room.

Alex turned his attention back to Lisita and glowered at her silently until she burst into tears.

“What did you do, Liss?” Samantha said, looking worriedly between her tearful daughter and her dangerously quiet husband.

“I…I sent Uncle Fox an email about Mr. Skinner,” Lisita said, starting to cry in earnest.

“Why?” Samantha demanded.

“B…be…because…because she said he loved Daddy,” Lisita sobbed.

“Who did?” Teena snapped.

“The ghost. Mr. Skinner’s ghost. I mean his grandmother’s ghost.”

“She said Uncle Fox loves your Dad?” Samantha asked carefully, wincing sympathetically at the brief flash of pain that flickered in her husband’s eyes.

“No,” Lisita said, shaking her head. “She said Mr. Skinner loved Daddy and that…that Daddy wouldn’t forgive himself if he let his father die….Please, Daddy. I just…just couldn’t bear to see you so sad.” She reached a hand out towards him beseechingly, but he didn’t even seem to see it.

“I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid,” Teena said. “Do you have any…”

“Which computer did you use?” Alex interrupted suddenly, his voice ice-cold.

Lisita gulped guiltily. “Yours,” she whispered.

“Mine,” Alex said thoughtfully.

“Yes.” 

“My ‘pass-worded’ computer, in my locked office?”

Lisita gulped again, her eyes wide with dread as she nodded her head.

“What does it matter what computer she used?” Teena asked, her voice strident with panic.

“Because, you stupid cow, if she used my computer, the email will be virtually untraceable,” Alex snarled. He turned his attention to Lisita again. “I’m assuming you did have the sense to send it anonymously, via the satellite relays?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she agreed eagerly.

He sighed with audible relief and looked at Samantha. “What do you think, Sam?”

She shook her head fretfully. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t want to run again if we don’t have to. Like you said, it’s virtually untraceable. He might not find us.”

“He’s like a fucking human bloodhound,” Alex spat. “And now Skinner’s going to be looking for us too. Neither of them are going to give up. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Then maybe it’s time we stopped running. Made a stand,” she said staunchly. “Maybe Jeffrey’s right. Maybe we do have to consider a permanent solution.”

Alex staggered slightly, and sank weakly into his chair. “I don’t know whether I can do it, Sam. Not even for you and the kids. I…I just…I…oh, shit…” He buried his head in his hands.

“Daddy?” Lisita sobbed.

“Go to your room, Liss,” Sam said, her voice gentle. “It’s alright. Daddy isn’t mad with you. This is something else.”

“But it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

Samantha closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength, then she took her daughter in her arms. “What you did was wrong, Liss. You should have come to us, talked to us about it. Your dad…your dad isn’t unhappy that Mr. Skinner’s alive. He’s just scared you’ve given our location away.”

Lisita nodded miserably, turned on her heel and slouched morosely towards the door.

“Liss?”

She swung around, her expression a mix of relief and dread. “Yes, Daddy?”

“Tomorrow, we’re going to have a conversation about how you got into the computer, okay?”

She flushed guiltily. “Yes, Daddy.”

As she watched her daughter flee from the room, Samantha’s eyes narrowed with sudden understanding. “You think she pushed?”

“She must have. There’s no other way she could have gotten through my security.”

“She knows she’s not allowed to use her abilities like that,” Samantha sighed. “I thought she was more responsible than this.”

“What do you expect?” Teena interrupted, with a sneer. “The way you both indulge them, it’s no surprise they’re growing up willful and disobedient. Take it from me, the only thing worse than having a wolf at your door is knowing your own child sent an engraved invitation.”

For a long moment, Alex remained quiet and still. Then he raised his face and caught Teena’s eyes before speaking in a low, deadly tone. 

“What Liss did was stupid and irresponsible,” he said. “And she’ll be punished for it. But I know my own daughter. She didn’t act out of willful disobedience. She did it out of good intention. What she did proves we’re managing to bring our kids up believing that parents love their children. That family is the most important thing in the world. So the only thing wrong about her belief that Skinner is capable of giving a shit about us, is the fact it’s going to break her heart when she finds out he’s just as fucking cold-hearted and selfish as you, you old witch!”

Teena bristled with offense, her face stiffening into a mask of hatred. “What the hell do you know about ‘families’, Alex? What kind of role model do you think you are for your children? You pretend to be this wonderful father, but you’re just a little escaped lab-rat who’s built himself a little fantasy world around my daughter and every time your illusion of control is threatened, you fall back on your gun.”

Samantha stepped in quickly, physically inserting herself between Alex and her mother. “I think you should apologize, Mom” she suggested, her voice cold.

“He started it,” Teena spat.

“Mom, I think you’d better go to your room.”

“I’m not a child, Samantha, and I won’t be spoken to like one.”

“Then don’t act like one,” Samantha retorted. “And if you ever speak to Alex like that again, I’ll pack your suitcase myself.”

“You always take his side.”

“He’s my husband.”

“Let’s hope he remembers that, if Fox turns up on your doorstep.” 

Samantha paled several degrees and grabbed hold of Alex’s arm as he surged to his feet with a growl of fury. 

“I’m going to fucking kill her,” he snarled, struggling against Samantha’s hold.

Teena rose and offered them both a supercilious sneer. “As I said, hardly a role model for his children, is he?” she said, with considerable satisfaction, then walked out of the room.

“Fucking BITCH!” Alex yelled after her retreating back. Then he turned to Samantha, his expression miserable. “I really, really want to kill her, Sam. I could do it quick and painless…”

She shook her head and laughed softly. “Alex, if it comes to it, I’ll kill her myself,” she snorted. “And it’s gonna be as painful as hell.”

“Why the hell do we put up with her?” he asked, his face genuinely puzzled.

“Well you put up with her because I asked you to,” she said, with an apologetic smile. “But, I must admit, I’m starting to wonder why the hell I bothered.”

***

Go to Part Four