INVICTUS MANEO
Part 51
 

Multo Enim Multoque Seipsum Quam Hostem Superare Operosius Est

LANGLY:

Driving back to DC, I keep wondering if Scott's gonna live that long. He's like croaking he's breathing so fucking hard. I'm really getting creeped out because it sounds almost like the death rattle Joanie had just before she went.

I think he's gonna have to go to the hospital, but when I say this, he's like no way, he's gonna die like a human.

We're a weird family that way.

I ask him if he wants to go to my house, he's like, no, not a good idea, he's afraid he'll be followed and then we'll have trouble...

And I thought I was paranoid.

"Don't you wanna see your kid?" I ask him. I mean, I would think, you're about to go, you'd at least wanna see your kid...

"I do. But not like this...don't want him to remember me like this..."

"Guess you just wanna go back to your place, then?"

"Yeah. You stay for a while?"

"Okay." Oh man. Just don't die on me.

"It...gets like this sometimes."

"But it's getting worse, isn't it?"

"Yeah." This little exchange totally wipes him out, and he's crashed for the rest of the trip.

Least he's still alive when we get to DC.

I end up having to park 3 blocks away, which is like nearly impossible for him...I tell him, okay, I'll drop you by your place, at the bodega, then I'll come back. He's like, fine, that's cool.

So we swing back to the old street, same street I used to live on, and he starts getting out. God, he looks old. I mean, he's not even 50 yet...and he won't ever be. He can barely make it up the curb...

I'm just about to pull away, when I see him fall down...

I jump out of my car, I leave the keys in, I hope to god I didn't lock the door...

And I'm horrified when I see this huge puddle of red forming around him...

I realize about a moment later, this isn't his cancer...he's been shot.

Oh Christ. I don't wanna call the police...they make me nervous...but then it'll look like I had something to do with it...the people he lives with, they don't like the idea, either, but then again, having someone shot in front of your shop is bad for business.

For once, I think Ally and Mulder are on to something carrying cell phones. I hate the damn things, and I'm nervous using 'em-but it sure would have been helpful.

The curacina that's been living downstairs with Scott, she says he's still breathing, but not by much...and he's also got a DNR.

Do Not Resuscitate.

I wonder if that's in the wad of papers he wanted me to sign.

Papers I got to get hold of as soon as possible.

I don't want to leave Scott. His hands are ice cold. Just like Joanie's were. His breath, what little he's got of it, comes in these nasty little bubbles...the paramedics come, the police, it's crazy...they ask me if I'm related to him.

I say yes.

They say I can come with him to DC General, they'll talk to me there...

Fuck.

I don't go with him in the ambulance. There are two reasons for this. One, my car's stuck in the middle of the street...and if I leave it, it'll be stripped by the time I get back, or towed, or just plain gone...and two, I don't think I can handle watching Scott die on me. I already watched one sibling go. I can't do this again.

I need Ally.

I need Frohike.

Right now would be good.

Scott's DOA.

He's already been covered up by the time I get there. Nursing staff asks me if I want to go say goodbye.

I don't know. It's like, what there's been between us, it's been so strange...

But if I don't, I'll wish I did.

What do you say to a corpse? Particularly when that corpse is your brother?

I guess I could think of a lot of things to say to him...but none of it matters now...

I promise him I'll take good care of Patrick, and leave it at that.

I think that's what he most wanted.

Somebody wants to talk to me, the nursing staff tells me.

This guy with glasses and a dark suit...he looks familiar...

Oh Christ. It's my old friend Detective Munch.

I take some small satisfaction in seeing how bald he's gotten. Mine may be going, but his went.

I gloat a little.

Then I cringe a little.

Nobody saw where the shot came from.

Oh Christ, am I under suspicion?

I haven't even called Ally yet.

I am so fucked.

He greets me with like no expression beyond being tired.

Whole fucking world is tired. It's claimed that the United States as a society is dangerously sleep-deprived.

I believe it. I know I am a good chunk of the time.

This is so ironic. Right after I get my first good night of sleep in months, right after I feel like my girl and I are connected again, right after we're starting to get a routine with Patrick, it all goes to hell again.

"We meet again." He doesn't seem happy or sad or mad or anything. He's just there. "Tell me what happened."

"Well, Scott, I came over to talk to him today, and he wanted to go to Chesapeake Bay, so we drove up there, and we came back, and I dropped him off at where he lives, and I couldn't get a parking space close by, so I was gonna come back and hang out with him for a while-"

"What time did you arrive at his home?"

"I think around 1:30."

"And what did you do when you got there?"

Well, we rolled some J's and smoked the hell out of them...

"Just hung there." I realize, with no small amount of terror, that I've got his dope in my pocket...oh Christ.

I got to get rid of this stuff.

It's a shame, too. It's such nice stuff.

"When did you leave for Chesapeake Bay?"

"I think around 2."

"Did you tell anyone where you were going?"

"No."

"Did anyone see you leave?"

"Probably. He lives above the bodega." Lived. I haven't gotten used to the past tense yet.

"We have people talking to them."

Well, duh!

"We'd like to search your car."

"Go ahead."

Thank God the stash is in my pocket. I damn near left it in the car...that would've been fun to explain to Ally...not that I had the dope, but that I got busted...

"He was dying, you know."

"Of what?"

"Cancer."

"If he was, that'll come out in the autopsy. You saw nobody, you say?"

"Nope."

"No idea where the bullets came from? He took three hits. Person was a mighty good shot, too, particularly if they weren't at close range."

"I didn't see a fucking thing." I hate this shit. I hate this guy. This totally sucks.

"What, are you thinking it was me?" I'm like taunting him, bad idea with cops, but then I was never too good with them.

"We're not thinking anything right now."

Like you'd even be capable.

Now he's got facial expression-and it's like, he's sort of somewhere between amused and disgusted.

"Twelve years later and you're still getting yourself into these whacked out situations."

"Look, I didn't have shit to do with it-I mean, look, a guy gets shot-"

"My question isn't what, it's who, and why."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I mean, Scott Warren Langly, according to all official records, has been dead for 22 years. You gonna tell me he came back to life so he could get shot again?" He shakes his head like, why me? "We've got the police reports from the car accident he got killed in. We got the death cert. He's not showing any addresses, any work records, no payments to Social Security-"

"He was hiding out."

"Where?"

"I got no idea."

"This is your own brother, and you have no idea where he's been for 22 years. Sure."

"Hey, I only hooked up with him a few weeks ago. He called me. Said he was sick, said he was dying, needed me to look after his kid."

"What kid? All of his children were killed before he was."

"He had one about four years ago."

"Where?"

"No idea. Look, I don't even know for sure this guy is my brother...I mean, I know he looks like me and all...I'm having the kid DNA tested to be sure."

"Let me see if I'm getting this. You'd take in a child, you know absolutely nothing about, from someone who calls you out of the blue, somebody who's supposed to have been dead for 22 years...and he wants you to take his kid? I don't think so."

"It's true. I mean, it's a kid, for Christ's sake."

"That's all very noble, but where is the mother?"

"She died."

"How convenient. How did she die? Or you don't have a clue about that, either?"

"Actually, I do...she died after she got some sick with some weird virus that got a lot of us that went to Black Hat '99."

"Black Hat?"

"Black Hat Briefings. It's a convention where a bunch of suits get together and try to get people who...have some knowledge of computers to tell 'em where they got security problems."

"What was the mother's name?"

"I only know her screen name...TrickTurner...we all called her Tricky..."

"This is rich." He's shaking his head. "When did she die?"

"Not sure. Winter last year, I think. That's when we all got hit."

"Meaning what?"

"Look, a bunch of us that went to the convention, we all got real sick...and some of us died. It was that bad."

"You were affected as well."

"Yeah. I was sick a long time. It was bad."

"But you recovered."

"Yeah, but not everybody did."

"You know who all died?"

Yeah, but I'm not sharing that with him...and it's on Juliet's computer, anyway...

"No. Just some."

"All right. So he calls you and wants to get in touch with you after all these years, all these years when you think he's dead...why so long?"

"He had people trying to kill him."

"Why?"

I do NOT wanna go into THAT.

"I think...it might have had something to do with some stuff he knew...I don't know anything about it."

He gives me like this major hard look. "Well, you'd better find out...soon. Or you're going to find yourself under suspicion."

I don't like cops, and I don't like bullying cops...especially not this guy...

He shakes his head again. "Unbelievable."

"It's all true."

"You better be able to prove it. In the meantime, you can go...just don't leave the area without informing us."

Like hell I will.

I don't wanna tell Ally about all this...but I have to...she's gonna freak...

Not so much about the part with Munch. Ally's a lot calmer about cops than me.

But I have to tell her about Scott.

And we got to tell Patrick.

How do you tell a kid that little that his dad is gone? That he's not gonna be able to call him again? Or see him? Or play with him?

I got no idea how you tell a little kid about dying.

Do they even get it?

I think I gotta talk to Mulder first.

If I'm lucky, he's home.

I debate about calling him, but I think, maybe if I see him in person...I'm not that far from where they live.

Nice place. We've been here a few times, but the Mulders are not truly the partying type. Mostly they're into working and hanging with the kiddies.

Both cars in the drive. So they're probably both there. I mean, I think I'd rather talk to Mulder alone, but like, that's not a problem-she can't hear, and even if she could, it'd be like, she'd be cool with it.

I ring the bell-they must have some kind of light up device, 'cause it's Scully that answers it. She seems sort of surprised to see me, but she welcomes me in. You can tell she's been deaf a while. It's like her voice has gotten a little bit mushy. Ally says actually she still talks pretty good, considering what happens to most people when the auditory feedback is gone.

I can sign a little, thanks to my wife, and she reads lips okay, so she says she'll go get Mulder.

God, that woman is hotter than ever.

She's put on some weight since she left the Fibbies. Two kids made her look so fantastic. She's still little, like Ally, but curves in all the right places. And she gave up those godawful sexless suits she used to wear. Tonight she's got on a tight V-neck T-shirt in this great color of sea green on her and black pants. Tight black pants. And she wears her hair longer and wavier than she used to.

If Mulder can't keep his filthy paws off her, I can understand why.

She comes back with Mulder and the two kidlets. They're so damn cute. The bigger one, what a killer. Even if she does look like Dad. And the little one's starting to get fully cooked, so she looks more like a human than an alien.

"Langly? What brings you?" He seems surprised, but not unhappy, to see me, and that's a relief. I always feel sorta weird barging in on them. I got no idea why. God knows they, especially Mulder, barge in on us enough. Used to more than now, but still, when Mulder gets a thought, we all wake up for it.

"Um...well...I sorta got a problem. I was sorta hoping we could talk about it...just us, you know?"

He signs something to Scully, she nods, tells the older girl to come with her and carries the baby out with her. Mulder ushers me into his study, which, by the way, I've never sat in before.

It's comfy. But I can understand why the door is always closed.

The place is a sty.

Sort of a mini-version of Mulder's old place on Hegel Road.

Fish tank is still there...and the fish aren't dead for a change. His old sofa's still in there-God, that thing is a piece of shit...and his desk still looks like shit.

I notice there's a pillow and blanket on the sofa.

"Um...Scully's...not too happy with me for taking off with Becca and not telling her in advance," he looks kinda sheepish here.

"Well, duh!" For a bright guy, he is so fucking clueless sometimes. "So how long are you in detention?"

He winces. "If I'm a good boy, I get to come back upstairs tonight."

Personally, I'd make him suffer longer...but I don't have to live with him.

"Was worth it, though...got some stuff. Feeling like listening up?"

"Uh...that's not really what I came about...although I do wanna hear it, later."

He looks sort of puzzled. "So what's up?"

"Well...it's kind of strange..."

"You're talking to the person who redefined strange. I think I can handle it." He waggles his eyebrows. Mulder is such a smartass sometimes, you just wanna strangle him.

"Look, it's been a lousy day...you know I been looking after this kid, right? Me and Ally?"

"Yeah, I heard that." No secrets on this grapevine. "Your brother's kid, I think Scully said?"

"I think so."

"You're not sure."

"She's gonna do some DNA testing to make sure...but whether he's related to me or not, looks like he's gonna be around to stay."

Mulder looks puzzled. "What happened?"

God, my head is swimming...I don't even know if I can sort this all out...

"Scott, that's my brother, or he says he is, well, he got shot today...out in front of his house..."

When it first happened, I was like in this daze, like it wasn't quite real...

Now it's still foggy, but with one twist.

It's starting to hurt like hell.

It's like you're out in the sun too long, and you don't think you got cooked that bad. But then you get home, and you get out of your clothes, and you discover, you got royally fried.

"I haven't told Ally yet."

He nods. Shrinkology 101.

"Do you want to call her?" He motions to the phone that lies in the clutter on his desk.

"Not yet." For some reason, I'm just not ready.

"You want to talk about it?" He's gone clinical on me, but he's like, he's cool. He's not patronizing. God knows I saw enough shrinks in prison and rehab to make me wanna puke.

Mulder annoys the hell out of me sometimes, but give it to him for listening up and not making you feel stupid.

"I dunno...mostly, I'm worried about the kid..." I look up at him sharply. "Mulder, I wanna know...how could you take your kid out on a case? I mean, didn't you worry about her and all?"

He laughs. "C'mon. All I wanted to do was talk to some people."

Yeah, I've heard that line before. Seems like lots of times, Mulder wants to just go talk to somebody, he ends up with a new scar.

"And who could resist such a charming toddler? She was my entrée." His face gets dark suddenly. "Look, there's no way in hell that I'd ever do anything to jeopardize my kids. Ever. Not for anything." He's probing me with those dark green-grey eyes, and it's sort of uncomfortable. "Look, not all our motives around our kids are pure. I think you really believe, or want to believe, this kid is your nephew. And there's a good chance he is...Langly, are you more afraid for how this child will react, or how you will?"

Good question.

END OF PART 51