Rating: PG

Summary: It's true...the ancient Assyrians used to impale their victims, alive, by inserting a spike through the anal opening...gorier than crucifixion, but kills you faster.

Spoilers: A few indirect ones running around, but Jesus, if you don't know them by now...you probably never saw the show.
 

"Well, I'm really here 'cause of Kelly."

"That's what you said."

"I dunno how I got on to my mom."

"Doesn't matter. You can talk about her. Or not. It's up to you."

"Yeah, well, I came here to help Kelly, and I don't think going on about my mom's gonna do her any good."

He shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not."

"So what'm I supposed to do for her?"

"I don't know. What've you done so far? I mean, you're here. That speaks volumes. But I don't know anything about either of you, other than the fact that she's your girlfriend and you've spent a lot of your life separated from your parents."

"Yeah, well, I don't have a fucking clue here, so help me out."

"Tell me how you guys met."

"It was at school, well, not exactly, it was an astronomy field trip, and I met her there."

"And that was when?"

"September."

"This September past?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you don't get a prize for the youngest couple I've ever seen...but you do get one for the shortest time together."

"So?"

"It's not something you see usually in a fledgling relationship. You met her in September. How long have you had a, for lack of a better term, romantic attachment?"

"Uh...I'm not sure what you mean."

"When did it occur to you that you two should go beyond friendship?"

"Uh...about five minutes after I met her. No, more like two minutes."

"All right. And when did you mutually agree that this should be the case?"

"New Year's Eve."

"So you two have been together in this sort of relationship for less than a month. I'm impressed."

"Impressed with what?" I'm not liking this.

"That you'd be here."

"Hey, I love Kelly. That's why I came."

"Obviously you care a great deal for her, or you wouldn't be here. I'm assuming you have other things in your life that require attention as well."

"Oh, just a little. Like I go to school three-quarters time, I'd go full time but I have too many tutoring hours, I'm up to like almost twenty hours a week, and I work with my dad sometimes, and once in a while, I sleep."

"And you're here."

"Yeah, I'm here. Look, I am like so fucking lost with this. Give me a roadmap or something here." Sorry, dude. I need a fix, and I need it now.

"Be nice if I had some pat solutions to this, Michael, but if I did, I could make a fortune writing pop psych books instead of doing a residency. I asked you earlier, what've you done so far?"

"I just try to be good to her. I don't want her to get screwed up in school and stuff. She wants to be a doctor, she's gotta do good."

"Is this something that's important to her?"

"Only like the most important thing in the world to her."

"Okay, that probably gets you positive results. What about what you've done that got some negative ones?"

Oh fuck. I don't wanna go into this...

"Well...she's sort of funny about things like...you know, physical stuff."

"In what way?"

"Well, like, I can kiss her and that, but like one night we were sort of making out and then the next night she totally freaked on me when I told her I was really horny. It was a dumb thing to do."

"Well, perhaps the delivery left something to be desired...but it seems to have been an honest statement."

"Well, yeah! She's gorgeous!"

"And you really want her."

"Yeah."

"And she's not ready for that."

"No."

"Not unusual at this point. Either that, or you see sexual behaviors that are inappropriate or out of character for the person. Sounds like she's mostly being careful, and that's normal right now for her."

"So like when does it end?"

He shrugs. "Wednesday."

"Which Wednesday?" He's playing with me.

"If I knew that, you wouldn't have to talk to me, would you?"

"Nope."

"No, because I'd give you a date, you'd go home and bite the bullet, take a few cold showers, and wait for that day to come. Sorry. I'd like to give you a better answer, but it ends when it ends."

"Thanks for the encouragement."

"Want me to lie to you instead?"

"No."

"Okay, well, I'd like to be a lot smarter and have a lot more answers, but that's the only one I can give you."

"I already decided I'd wait till she was ready."

"Yeah, and you're not happy about it."

"Can't say as I am."

"Yeah, but I think you're doing the right thing. Just don't be too chicken to tell her what YOU need, too. Although I might suggest a little more subtlety in your choice of language."

"Personally, I'd like to kill the bastard that did this to her."

"Do you know her assailant?"

"Yeah. The same asshole that gave me a concussion Christmas Eve day."

"His legal status is currently?"

"Locked up."

"And you say this same individual injured you?"

"Yeah, I still get a bunch of headaches thanks to this asshole! And every fucking time I get one, I think of him, and I keep thinking I'll change my opinions about gun control! I mean, I could deal with it if this jerk only rearranged my face. But he hurt Kelly, and if it was up to me, I'd make him pay and pay and pay." I think about this. "You know, I think I changed my
mind. I don't wanna kill the bastard. I think I wanna torture him slow."

"There's always the way the Assyrians did it in ancient Egypt."

"Which was?"

He's grinning now. "Used to impale criminals on a spike inserted through the anus. A very painful way to go."

I cringe a bit at this image, but I like it. For Troy, I definitely like
it.

"The Romans used crucifixion, which is allegedly the most painful way to go."

"Wouldn't know. Never tried it."

"Hard to find it these days. Rome outlawed it in the fourth century, so you don't see much of it anymore."

"Are you suggesting I go after this asshole?" I'm beginning to think my therapist is crazier than I am.

At least that would be consistent, I think all the ones I've had were crazier than me.

He's laughing again. "No, I suggest you stay as far away from him as possible. Now killing him in your head, that's something different. It's the one place where you can safely-for yourself-make it as miserable and painful and horrible as possible-for him."

"So are you saying, you think it's a good idea to just torture the shit out of him mentally?"

"I think...some people kill their enemies in their dreams. And they find that when they do, these individuals don't bother them anymore. Eventually you have to forgive him, move on. And you can't do that till you give him what you think he deserves. As long as you act it out in your head and don't take it to the streets, I think it's useful."

"You say I have to FORGIVE this bastard?"

"Eventually, yes. Unless you feel like being eaten alive."

"Y'know, you're sounding an awful lot like my dad. He talks about, he's forgiven my mom and stuff."

"Do you think he has?"

"Yeah, I do." I really do think he has. "He hopes she'll do the same for him someday."

"What about you? Do you think you could ever forgive your mom?"

"Doubtful. I don't wanna talk about her."

"That's fine. You're obviously very angry with her, and that's fine, and it may be perfectly justifiable. And if you don't want to deal with that right now, no one's going to make you. The fact is, Michael, nobody will ever make you deal with any of this if you don't want to. But obviously there are things you want to deal with, since you showed up."

"I gotta help Kelly."

"You will. Okay, now you get to go and talk to Karyn. On your way out, see the receptionist and she'll set you up another time. Generally, we do ten appointments."

"That's it. Ten."

"Hey, that's what the grant supports. Anything over that, we gotta charge you."

Ten weeks of this. Fuck.

"Okay, whatever."
 

Karyn is a lot more like the shrinks I know; she asks more shrink-type questions. Like I think the stupidest one they ask is, how do you feel about that?

Truth? I don't know how I feel about stuff most of the time, and if I did, maybe I wouldn't want to tell anyone.

Kelly seems to like her, though, so I try not to be all smart-assed about stuff. And I bet Karyn wouldn't get it. I mean, Brian, you can tell the guy's a smart-ass himself, so you get that way with him, seems like he can just push it back on you.

I'm not sure if I like him or not.

All I know is, I'm kind of uncomfortable being here.

I used to get real annoyed with shrinks, but I'd just mostly blow them off, say what they wanted me to say, and I can't do that here, because Kelly's here and she'd figure it out in a heartbeat. And I think actually Brian isn't totally clueless. He is, however, the strangest fucking therapist I ever stumbled over, and I like to think I have some experience judging that. I'm not sure what his trip is.

However, near the end of being with Karyn, he sticks his head in and he's asking her something. And then I see it pass between them.

He's sleeping with her. Yep, Brian-boy is fucking the boss.

Well, he'll probably get a good grade for this, as long as he can keep getting it up.
 

Kelly's got an hour alone with Karyn, and I need to get some work done, I tell her I'll see her at the house, and maybe we should get something to eat. She thinks that's cool.

And I kiss her goodbye. If Karyn doesn't like it, she doesn't say. Then again, you're doing it with one of your students, then you don't have much room to talk.

Getting out of DC on Friday afternoon, especially when the weather's bad, really sucks big time. I sit on the bridge for like an hour. And I hate drive time radio-I wish deejays would shut the fuck up and just play some damn music, for Christ's sake.

So I channel-surf. I finally end up listening to the soft-rock station, which at least is playing music.

And it's like so weird. I'm sitting in all this fucking traffic, watching the sleet pour down and feeling the 'Stang getting less sure-footed, and I'm singing along with-gasp!-Celine Dion. "I'll be your power in the sky...I'll be your shoulder when you cry...I hear your voice when you call me...I am your angel..."

Kelly, I'll be your angel.

A tough order for a guy who's anything but.

God, I'm getting so much like my dad, it's not even funny.
 

Ally's got some data from the lab that we can use. They made a small breakthrough. It doesn't sound that small to me, but Ally says they got so far to go it's scary. So they take it where they can get it. Dana's real excited about it, she says, meaning Dr. Scully.

And Dr. Scully says we can use it. She says we have to, in fact.

Only one there besides Ally is the prof, and he's jamming away at something, so he says, can I write this one up.

Oh yeah. I can do this.

Michael Frohike. Gets a headline. This is too cool.

Shit. I better do a real good job on this.

First, of course, I got to research the background on the piece. I need to see where this virus stuff came from-we've been following it for a while, and there's a lot of background we stored away-but we need origins, baby.

I don't mind the research. It can be a lot of fun, if the subject is interesting. Going through financial records, which we do a lot, is not exciting.

But this is sort of cool.

I click into where we talk about how this sort of stuff's been going on for like over fifty years, like since after World War II. My dad was born during World War II. Christ.

My dad can mark his whole life by what wars went on. That's a real awful way to break things down.

No wonder he gets bummed sometimes.

I need to get into Fort Detrick's databases. Fort Detrick is like superparanoid, them and the CDC. Of course if I want to get in, I'm gonna have to design a serious hack here.

This is definitely the good part of the job. Hacking is like-you got so much power. You are the man.

And I got a lot better at doing research. I think Casey might have actually taught me something.

Course, I could teach her a few tricks.

I bet Langly's cruised around Fort Detrick a few times. I hear his dad used to work there, about a hundred years ago when Langly was a little kid. Maybe he's got some shortcuts. I got to get on chat with him.

A few minutes later, he's there, asks me what's up, and don't try anything funny.

Meaning: my boss is watching. I say cool, come back when it's quiet.

So I look through some stuff that my dad and Mulder pulled together from when Dr. Scully got taken. She had a real creepy experience a few years ago, and she's still not clear about the whole thing. She got taken away for three months, and she doesn't know where or what happened. Says she gets glimmers now and then, in her reports, but she really could never figure the whole thing out. All she knows is, because of it, she damn near died of cancer.

And then she got shipped to Antarctica and they gave her some virus there, and she went deaf-that woman's had a lot of creepy experiences.

And she married Mulder. That woman's got more balls than most guys I know.

Finally Langly comes back. He's like, what you want, Junior?

What makes you think I want something, I chat back.

You didn't plug in just because you missed me, he types to me.

Well, that's certainly true. Anyway, need some info about getting into The Circus (our term for Fort Detrick-we don't name any places in e-mail).

What for? You got some new stuff?

Yeah, Ally brings us presents.

Woo-hoo! The woman is hot! And best of all, she's all mine.

Yeah, well, I got to put this gig together...how do I get past the lions?

And tigers and bears, oh my? (he's such a fucking smart-ass)...

Well?

Out of here at 4:42. Bring my hunting rifle then. (I can't do this right now). Be a good boy and don't throw shells on the floor.

Fuck you, Langly.

<g> and he's off-line.

I can wait till he gets here. He's got thirteen minutes till quitting time.
 
 

Kelly makes it before Langly, and I decide when she pulls in it's time to take a break. We said we'd get something to eat, and I'm pretty damn hungry right now.

It's slick as hell. We're not gonna get too far in this crap.

I mean, we can always eat with Ally and Langly and whoever else is there...Ally always makes a little extra. For like 80.

Kelly looks good. I ask her how it went with Karyn, she says good. Thinks she's making tracks.

Hey, if it works for her.

And I don't want to eat with everybody.

There's a café down the hill and over one block. I mean, I feel sort of stupid asking her if she minds walking...

She says she thinks it's a great idea, she was getting real nervous in the slippery stuff coming home, and she's not usually weird about driving in bad weather.

So we walk down the hill-well, more like we slide down it, and it's just so great...she's LAUGHING, for God's sake.

I love her so much.

She asks me what I'm up to-and I'm kind of surprised. Usually I ask her first, and then maybe she'll ask me, but it's like she asks me first.

I tell her I've got a plum article. I don't say what it's about in specific, but she gets real excited when I give her the general info.

"You really ought to find a way to combine teaching and writing, Michael," she tells me.

"I don't know what I want. It's like, it was almost easier when I figured I had nowhere to go. Now it's like, I could do a lot of things, and I can't make up my mind."

"But that's good!"

"Is it? My dad's really getting on my case about it. Now that he's earning money to pay for it."

"I think it's great he's doing that," she's real wistful. "I'd be happy if my mom would just talk to me."

Oh please, don't let her go there tonight. Everytime we get Mama in the act, she gets real bummed.

"So how'd it go with your appointment?" she's dying of curiosity.

"Okay, I guess. Guy is a little strange, but he's not what I'm used to. Which is probably snaps for him." I laugh. "I got to give him props for not fucking up my last name. I bet nobody ever fucked up your last name."

"Martin? Nope," she laughs.

"Yeah, well, most of my teachers still don't get it right. I mean, it's not a big deal or anything, but it's sort of like, somebody tries to get it right, that's cool."

"I never had a problem with my name. It was always what I wanted to do. I was lucky. I had teachers that believed in me, although not all of them, but enough. And my Aunt Patty when I was little. And you."

I can feel my face glowing warm in spite of the fact that it's so damn cold and damp out here.

Of course, at that moment I launch into a coughing fit.

She laughs and pats me on the back. "You going to have that cough all winter?"

"Usually do. My one roommate, he used to say, I recognize that cough! It's like my trademark."

"Well, it's just residual, at least you're not sick anymore. You are planning to stay healthy the rest of the winter, aren't you?" She's sort of teasing me now.

Teasing me. Kelly never teases. This is good. Means maybe I can tease her back a little.

"Planned on it. Sometimes the body has other ideas."

She looks suddenly sad. "Tell me about it."

"Meaning what?"

We're at the door to the café. We shouldn't have any trouble getting a table tonight. This is very cool.

"Well...okay, this is hard."

"It's all hard."

We get seated; looks like we may have the place to ourselves. As long as the waiter's not snoopy, we're fine.

"I hope this guy's not gonna hover," I tell Kelly.

She laughs again. "Tonight? He's probably going to stay out back, read the paper and smoke."

"You know this for a fact."

"Michael, I WAS a waitress. WAS being the important word here."

"So did you go out and read the paper and smoke?"

"No, I'd go in back and study."

"That sounds more like you."

"I'm such a grind, aren't I?"

"I like that you know where you're going."

"I like that you always believe in me."

"Got to." It's not like I can believe in myself. Got to believe in someone.

END OF PART 64