Theater of the Absurd II: Home By Anna Otto and Ashlea Ensro annaotto1@aol.com & morleyphile@yahoo.com Disclaimer and other information in Act I Act II: Fragrance of the Past Scully walked slowly along the hallway, letting Mulder adjust to her small steps. Each turn, each face could awake the tingling familiarity, let the memories finally fill the void that plagued her ever since she found out... That her life was a sham. If only the past two years were the truth, if she could trust only their reality and nothing else - what did it make her but a child? The professional knowledge that remained intact could not match the hard-won experience that arrived with triumphs and tragedies of personal life. Life that another woman used to have, life that the new quasi-persona could not regain. Scully squeezed her eyes shut, trying to break through the lock on the parts of her mind that were frustratingly out of reach - hoping that in another moment, everything would become crystal clear. Mulder's hand was suddenly clutching hers tightly, and she stopped, annoyed at the interruption. When her eyes opened, she was looking into the deathly pale face of Agent Holmes. And in that moment, she desperately wished that her amnesia would spread to obliterate the memory of the night on the bridge and the vision of a young man whose breath was growing more shallow as she searched the wrecked car, who could have been dying... Because of her. * * * Holmes wasn't certain of how long she watched the two people who turned the life of Marsel and her own into this continuous nightmare. Never could she imagine seeing them here, in the J. Edgar Hoover building - across from the office of Walter Skinner. They looked exactly as she'd remembered them - yet, their arrogance and haughtiness were gone, uncertainty replacing the self-assured poise. "Agent Holmes," the man spoke first, an insincere smile touching his lips. "This is a surprise." Holmes watched numbly as he moved imperceptibly to stand between her and his companion. She wondered idly what he was afraid of - what could she possibly do in this crowded hallway, a few steps away from the office of her supervisor? "You have no idea." Holmes was chilled by the calmness of her own voice. "I don't think we were introduced properly," he continued softly. "I'm..." "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," she pronounced mockingly. "I can read." The man flinched. The woman looked down on her badge as if she doubted its reality. "You're probably wondering..." she started haltingly. "What you're doing here?" Holmes finished for her. "Yes. But it makes everything that much easier." "What?" Mulder echoed. Holmes felt the beginnings of a smile on her face but didn't bother replying. Scully took a step forward, a worried expression on her face. "How is Agent Marsel?" "He's alive," she spoke. "No thanks to you." Scully closed her eyes, sighing in relief. "I'm... we're glad." "You couldn't care less," Holmes snapped. "You were ready to murder us both for the two useless vials. Whatever game you're playing now, you are still the cold-blooded killers you were before." "Useless vials?" Mulder's voice was suddenly sharp, on edge. "You had no business stealing them - and you should be grateful that we didn't let you explore their contents..." he stopped quickly, surprised at his own outburst. "So you did us a favor," Holmes felt her smile spread wider. "Thank you." The door of the office suddenly opened, and Walter Skinner's voice cut through the air thick with poisonous static. "Agent Holmes, may I speak with you for a moment?" She whirled around, anger and pain coloring her delicate features, silently imploring him to do something. To acknowledge the fact that these two were the reason why Marsel wasn't standing beside her now. To behave as the man she'd come to trust. "No," Holmes breathed when he failed on all accounts. "Agent Holmes..." "I should have known better than to trust you... sir." Skinner watched with chagrin as she walked away, then turned to look at his agents. Scully was standing close to Mulder, as if seeking support, her face ashen. Her partner didn't seem much better as he leaned against the wall, his eyes two swirling clouds of anguish. "Agents," Skinner moved to invite them inside. "I suppose we need to talk." * * * The smoker flicked his eyes over the small wrinkled man sitting across from him, then turned away. "Dr. Kenmore," he acknowledged. Kenmore smiled wanly and crossed his hands over the chest protectively. "You've been avoiding me." The Smoking Man sounded surprised. "We had no business to conduct." "On the contrary," the doctor disagreed acidly. "We are all committed to the same project. And as far as I heard, it's still proceeding." His words were met with frosty silence. "Once I had an opportunity to work with an interesting patient. Would you like to hear the details?" he questioned after a moment. "No." "Too bad, I will tell you anyway. I am in a chatty mood tonight," Dr. Kenmore leaned forward. "A young woman who physically recovered from a car accident had amnesia. She didn't know who she was, where she was from, who were her friends or relatives. Whatever methods I tried could not bring her memories back. For three years, I continued to work with her, fascinated and determined. I simply couldn't give up." "Is there a point to this tale?" The doctor paid no attention to the impatience of his listener. "One day, I was wearing a new cologne that my wife bought for me. French, I can't remember the designer's name. But when I met with my favorite patient, she closed her eyes, inhaled the new scent, and started telling me the story of her life." "Congratulations." "I enjoyed my success, even if it had come from the least likely source," Kenmore agreed. "It prompted my fascination with the process of acquiring memories - and, consequently, with the process of destroying them, and implanting new ones." "You must be mistaking me for a priest or a writer," the smoker snapped. "What is the purpose of this conversation?" "Our memory isn't comprised of just words and faces." The doctor's thin fingers drew into a fist. "Smells, sounds, textures, unidentifiable feelings - they are all just as significant. You should have never let Paul and Kathy come to Washington. The familiar surroundings, the smell of autumn leaves, the taste of snow as it melts on the tongue - any of these things could have prompted the total recall. And not only did you bring them here, you practically thrust them into the atmosphere where they would have no choice but to remember." His companion sighed, letting out a cloud of smoke. "It was a calculated risk." The doctor's hands flew upward in frustration. "As was letting them go back to the FBI? Listen, at the great, *uncalculated* risk to my health I will suggest that you are in need of counseling." "How old are you?" Kenmore paused to take a breath. "Seventy-four." "Then no one will be really surprised if one morning you... don't wake up," the smoker speculated calmly. "Jesus," the doctor stared at him for a few moments. "Before you give the orders to have me killed, consider the people who are really to blame. Like yourself, for disobeying my specific warnings and instructions on how to handle Paul and Kathy." "Don't worry, Doctor. I don't consider this... accident... your fault," the smoker ground the ashes thoughtfully. "I know exactly whom to blame." Kenmore relaxed minutely, then shook his head in consternation. "We need them." "We will have to do without them," the Smoking Man lit another cigarette, stood up trying to avoid the rest of the conversation. The doctor recognized the gesture and followed suit. "Oh, I forgot to tell you the punchline of the story with cologne." "I'm all ears," he answered caustically as he began walking to the door. Kenmore smiled, his voice suddenly transforming into a stage whisper. "This woman still lives under her chosen name." * * * "Mulder?" She tested the name tentatively. It felt strange on her tongue...awkward. Wrong. He was studying the files on their desk. The work had piled up in their two years of absence. No one in the Bureau could compete with their solve rate. The X-Files had been officially open during that time, but no one had expressed any interest in them. Mulder leaned over the desk in rapt attention, his mind working out profiles of killers who could not be profiled. He took no notice of Scully, standing in the half-darkened doorway. She tried again. "Mulder?" A pause, more silence. "Paul," she whispered. He looked up. "Scully?" He closed the file with a sigh. "What did you just call me?" "I'm sorry," she said quickly. They had been trying so hard. Mulder and Scully, she reminded herself. Not Fox or Dana - they had never called each other by their first names. She wondered why. Had they not been close? "I had to get your attention." "It worked." He stood. "Kathy." God, it was so much easier. So familiar...so natural. "I am not Kathy anymore," she protested weakly. "Are you sure?" He crossed the space that gaped between them to lay his hand over hers. "Do you know...I'm sure Skinner talked to us for an hour, and I couldn't listen to a word he said." He leaned against the desk, absentmindedly flipping through the pile of papers. "A third of these are connected somehow to the organization." "I read them." She cleared her throat. "*Mulder*...that woman, Agent Holmes...Skinner said she wants to go to the OPR board..." "She won't get anywhere." "That's not the point." "We're essential to the FBI...they need us." He brushed his hand over the files. "Ka...*Scully*...we could solve a third of these files tomorrow. What's more - we are the only ones in the Bureau who can solve them." She swallowed hard. "Mulder, we have to stop thinking like this." "Like what?" Her eyes flickered over the files. "They're not our enemies, Mulder." "The FBI?" She nodded. "The other agent...Marsel...he is twenty-six years old, and he is going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And Holmes...her life is destroyed, in other ways. Because-" She broke off. He knew the reasons as well as she did. "Did you see the way she looked at us?" Scully asked instead. Mulder's eyes flickered over the room - the ceiling, the poster on the wall. Anything to avoid Scully's gaze. "The same way we used to look at..." He laughed bitterly. "Scully, did we actually call him Cancerman?" "So I'm told." "That wasn't very civil of us." She wondered what Holmes and Marsel called them behind their backs. "Skinner is being very considerate about this," she said instead. "He's only one man. If Holmes goes after us-" Mulder shook his head. "Never mind. We can't be held accountable. There's something that bothers me more." "What's that?" She sat down, feeling suddenly tired. "We're expected to solve these cases. We can, and we will. And in doing so, we will interfere with the aims of the Project..." "Mulder, they kidnapped us against our will, destroyed our memories, forced us to destroy lives for them - they *used* us." "They did." His agreement seemed half-hearted. "So we could save the world." She rubbed at her temples. "You believe that?" "I'm not sure what to believe anymore. But-" Scully finished his thought. "But what if it really were necessary?" He did not answer. He could not answer. She pulled one of the files towards her, wishing to submerge herself in the work - wishing it was as familiar as what she was doing a few weeks ago. There was no comfort here anymore. * * * A slight smile crossed his face as he listened to the conversation. Recalling Kenmore's words, the smoker's eyes traveled over the corners of his motel room as he listened to the surveillance tape. A French perfume...such a fragile force against the weight of a lifetime remembered, against the weight of a name chosen. The wrinkled old doctor was the last person he expected to renew his hope. It reminded him that something would have to be done about Kenmore. But not now - he had more important concerns. It disturbed him to think of how he missed Paul Bartlett and Kathy Mott. It was not simply a professional matter, although they had made themselves nearly indispensable to the Project. He missed them on a personal level. He remembered his anxiety every time he caught the laughter of their voices. These two people who were strangers to him, who haunted him with their familiar faces, who appeared at the margins of his nightmares...and yet he had come to like them. He had respected them when they had been enemies; grown inexplicably attached to them when they had been friends. And now that they were enemies again, he did not know if he could bear it. The risk they posed to the organization was secondary - even if he lacked the courage to eliminate that risk, his colleagues would not be so restrained. Their value was the more important issue. They could not have left at a worse time. One hand tapped against the smooth, flat surface of his cell phone as he dragged on a cigarette thoughtfully. Kenmore was right, damn him - the smoker was just as much to blame for the situation as anyone else. He had been foolish to let it get out of hand. His decision was made, then. He picked up the phone, dialing the number from memory. A familiar voice answered. "Yeah?" He exhaled a puff of smoke into the air. "Mulder and Scully are a difficulty," he said. "Would you like me to eliminate them?" He scowled - in his day no one would have said anything so direct over the phone. He had little to fear from wiretaps. It was the explicitness, the vulgar crudity of the statement that bothered him. "That won't be necessary. There are still less extreme methods that may be taken." A stunned silence. "You don't think..." He was losing his patience. "Bring them back," he hissed. "There's no way-" "Find a way," he said. "Or I will." His words may have been cryptic, but the threat was clear. "I'll see what I can do." The voice over the telephone was even, carefully measured. Still so cocky, so terribly, terribly unafraid. "Good." A smile crept over his features as he stubbed out the cigarette. A final wreath of smoke curled up from the ashtray. "Thank you, Martin." He hung up the phone and lit another cigarette. * * * "How can you afford this place with the measly FBI salary?" Mulder stopped halfway up the staircase, keys falling out of his hand. "Damn," he whispered, bending to pick them up. "Martin, what the hell are you doing?" "What do you think?" The young man flashed him a quick grin. "Waiting up for you." "I don't remember inviting you over." Mulder stared at the guest until he moved, giving access to the doorway. "Now do us both a favor and leave." Martin waited until the door was open and stepped inside over the unspoken protests of the host. "You're home late. Are you trying to catch up on all you've missed in the past two years?" Mulder didn't dignify that with an answer and tried to ignore the intrusion as much as humanly possible, walking into the bedroom to change, then wandering into the kitchen. Martin settled down on the couch, looking around appreciatively. "I was told Mulder didn't have a bedroom in his apartment. You're behaving out of character." "People change," Mulder muttered, passed the hand over his eyes. "Dammit, Martin, why don't you get out of here. I'm too tired to deal with this right now." "Paul... forgive me, *Mulder*," he waved his hand at the dangerous flicker in the hazel eyes. "I just wanted to find out how you were doing. You and Kathy left without a goodbye, and I do miss you." He took off the trench coat and hat, stretched like a cat. "Could I get a drink? I've been here for a couple of hours, and there are no vending machines nearby." Mulder sighed. The man was incorrigible. He walked to the refrigerator wordlessly, pulling out two bottles of beer. "If you would just cut the bullshit. Who sent you? Why are you here?" Martin smiled again, accepting the beer gratefully. "All right. I'll be honest." "That'll be a first," Mulder muttered softly. Martin's eyebrows knitted together as he leaned forward, suddenly serious. "I was the one who told you the truth, don't forget that. Though I would gladly take it back - if I'd only known that you would leave..." "What did you expect?" Mulder exploded. "You know, I think you *wanted* us to leave. Otherwise, why spill the beans?" "Listen, Mulder..." Martin sighed. "If I wanted you gone, I wouldn't be here now asking you to come back. You simply couldn't have chosen a worse time to leave. We need you, and Scully." "No organization stands on any one man alone." "But each man is essential." "Martin. We are not coming back. This conversation is over." Mulder took a swig of his own beer and turned away resolutely. "You are being such a child," his guest grinned. "I understand why you may be upset... but I think that you need to get past the personal issues." "Damn you," Mulder hissed, felt his jaw clench. This was one of the very people who, directly or indirectly, participated in his kidnapping and that of his partner's, who erased their memories, who annulled two lifetimes without compunction, who lied to them. And yet, all he could remember were two neatly separated piles of folders on his desk in the FBI office. One pile was deemed "safe" to pursue because no cases would interfere with the Project; the other was destined to get lost in the woodwork if it depended only on him and Kathy. Scully. Whatever. And he tried to ignore the nagging qualms and remember that the last two years of his life were a charade that he couldn't continue. "We need your and Scully's help with working out the next phase of experimentation," Martin continued, interpreting the silence for doubt. "That's it," Mulder pronounced softly but determinedly. "You are getting out of here now or I will really think that you're a double agent. Don't you remember? I am the enemy. You're not supposed to tell me such things." Martin laughed, picked up his coat, and shrugged it on with flair, the black material flapping like wings of a dark angel. "Pop-quiz, Mulder. An FBI agent kills a Department of Defense employee, steals his ID, and uses it to break into the Defense Department's Advanced Research Project Agency facility, Level Four. Multiple-choice question: what happens to him? One, he gets lost in the maze. Two, he walks out of there unscathed after finding what he was looking for. Three, an alien mutant eats him. Four..." "He never sees the light of day again because he is a dead man," Mulder quipped indifferently. "I'll take that for a hundred." "You lose," Martin smiled sadly. "Second choice was the correct answer. All that and the rest of your memories if you come back. Think about it." Mulder opened the door and held it out for him, desperately trying to ignore the longing to know - to regain what he had lost. "I am sure Scully would appreciate it if you told her about our conversation," Martin stepped out and tipped his hat. "I'm here if you need me, remember." Mulder listened to the sound of footsteps fading, to his own wildly beating heart - then closed the door and walked back inside. On some level, he knew that Martin was right. He had to switch apartments. End of Act 2/7