Disclaimer: The characters, plots, props and scenery all belong to Master Brain Twister Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Networks. Any wakefulness-induced contrivances on my part are not meant as an infringement.

Author's Notes: A first to mark my last birthday of this century. My gratitude to Kal for lighting a bonfire under me to write this, and to Bill Davis 'just because'.

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I hope he sinks
Then he'll forget everything
Dreamt up the lies that would hold it together
Then realised those he lied to were cleverer

"This Boy Can't Swim" ~ Catatonia

"Going somewhere?"

My voice startles her. Then she looks away, accustomed as she is to this sort of intrusion from me.

"You shouldn't have bothered coming all the way up here," she says, packing a final keepsake in the cardboard box she holds. "The phone call was sufficient."

"I don't think you grasp the seriousness of the situation."

"Oh, I grasp it well enough. My son is losing his mind. And you're here because you care so very much."

Despite her biting cold sarcasm she is bound to this conversation. I know it and so does she.

Briefly I flounder with the remains of my cigarette. She puts the box on the bed and thrusts an ashtray at me. "Say what you came to say."

"As you wish. I want you to sign him out of the hospital and into my care."

I count three heartbeats as my request sinks in. Then: "You're mad!"

In a flash of rage and resentment she turns from me, but I latch onto her wrist.

"Turn your back on me now and Fox will die."

Her gaze meets mine with impressive ferocity. No show, that. I let her go.

"I'd rather leave him where he is than let you anywhere near him. At least in there he has a fighting chance."

"This is no common disorder."

Her first impulse is to give a derisive laugh, but she checks it. A tiny crease appears between her pale brows. Then revelation drains her of color. But she has no tongue for her unnamed fear.

She steps back from me, then turns away, helpless, her thin shoulders slack beneath her coat. "So…this is all part of your grand design."

"You think I enjoy watching him suffer?"

Her head bobs slightly as if she is searching for a reply. Or reconsidering the one on her lips.

"I think you'll have what you want, regardless."

"What is necessary. The culmination of our efforts…of our sacrifice."

Slowly she faces me, regal as always, to reveal the withering heat of her scorn.

"You don't begin to know what the word means."

I reach into my coat for the pack of cigarettes as she sweeps past me and out of the bedroom. Her behavior is expected, reassuring. What shocks me is this house, which has been all but stripped bare in the short time between my phone call and my arrival. She had hoped to be gone before I got here. The lace curtains, the bed, the bureau are all that remain in this room. Memories tenderly gathered up. The rest is replaceable. And I am simply out of place.

As I light up, my eye lands on the box she has left behind. I know how easily flustered she is. I know the charms and hazards of her fire. Doing the least I can for her is the most she will allow anymore.

I find her in the kitchen, packing up the last of the dishes. I set the box on the counter. She doesn't look up.

"All these years you've been protecting him, watching over him," she mutters. "I used to think I understood the reason for that."

"He has a purpose to fulfill. For the world."

"Your purpose."

"Tina, I can help him."

"You mean help yourself!"

She moves around me to the opposite counter. She has heart enough for this contest of wills, and will insist on dragging it out, though she already knows who the inevitable victor will be.

Glasses come down from the cabinet in a flurry. I pull hard from the cigarette, watching her. I'm waiting for something to break.

Then her activity halts. She seems to fold in on herself.

"You haunt our lives like death incarnate," she says quietly. "But I'm as much to blame for things as anyone. Once upon a time, I wanted to believe your lies too…and look what it's got me."

The words bludgeon me, draw blood. Suddenly the bitter years pile on top of each other. But it's unavoidable, all this antagonism. I can't explain the reasons to her now any more than I could when we began.

I make a mask of my expression as she lifts her head and tucks her silver hair behind one ear. There are no tears; she isn't the type. Just timeless prettiness, and a coldness I will never understand, though I've surely come to deserve it.

"I'm not here to engage in useless shadow-boxing with you," I say.

"That much I know. But then, confrontation never was your thing."

I shrug and bring the cigarette to my lips. Sweet kiss of death. "This argument is almost as old as we are."

"You got old. I grew up."

My smile is unkind. She is even better at deceiving herself than I am.

"Get out," she says, and walks to the back door.

"And what about our son?"

She feels the jerk on her string and swings around accordingly.

"He will never be your son. He's too fine a man to do anything but detest you…no matter what pathetic dreams you have to the contrary."

"Well, he certainly has a finer understanding of love and sacrifice than either you or I could hope to have." I blow a stream of smoke into the air, timing my pause for the greatest effect. "Perhaps he gets that from Bill."

I know the name is anathema to her. It makes for handy ammunition.

"You're a bastard," she seethes. She opens the door and gestures without ceremony. "I want you out of here."

We've acted out this scene a thousand times. I don't move.

"It strikes me as fortunate that he inherited your obstinacy," I say, studying the glowing tip of the cigarette. "He deserves more than your selfishness and fear."

Her blue eyes grow small, cruel.

"He was the devoted son when you lay dying in the hospital. He would have saved you himself if he'd had the means. And you, so ill and unable to speak…I wonder what he would say if he learned it was me you saw when you looked at him? That the word you scratched out on that piece of paper, 'palm', was nothing more cryptic than a desperate plea to be healed?"

She looks like someone whose darkest secrets have been splashed across the front page of the newspaper.

"You never cared about his quest, Tina. Never supported him. As surely as he runs towards the truth you run from it."

"Yes, you're right! He's following a legacy that has destroyed this family…and I'm so tired of it. Tired of being alone!"

I almost feel sorry for her. But only a fool falls for that ploy twice.

"The course he's on is too important to be subjugated to petty personal desires."

At her sneer I come forward. "I risked everything to save your life -- for his sake. Will you abandon him now in his hour of greatest need?"

"You saved me to protect your interests," she says, her chin jutting in the air. "And don't flatter yourself where your life is concerned. I repaid the favor for just one reason: because you're the only one who can save him." The faintest of smiles appears on her lips. "How's that for selfish devotion?"

I have known the excruciating pain of an assassin's bullet exploding in my chest. It is nothing to the feel of her ripping what's left of my heart out through my ribcage and squeezing one final drop of blood from it.

It isn't the first time she has done this to me. And…it probably won't be the last.

I stick the cigarette in my mouth and walk out the door. Halfway down the steps I hear the door close and the sound of the keys in her hand. She marches past me, and utters the words I came to hear.

"I'll follow you back."

My relief is momentary, the victory hollow.

I stand there, seeing the years of duty-bound detachment and countless tragedies that have brought us to this particular moment in history. Teetering on the very brink of apocalypse, we each still cling in our own way to the hope of salvation.

I say nothing to her as we climb into our separate cars. But if the truth could be untangled from my hellish lies, it would be that seeing this through to its conclusion isn't a choice for me.

It's my destiny.

Author's comment: The idea for this scene crystallized on November 11, out of my long-standing belief that Mulder is much more to CSM than a handy foil. Originally it was a simple emotional debate between the two characters over Fox's 'illness', but after the airing of "The Sixth Extinction II - Amor Fati" on November 14, I edited in CSM's obvious reason for turning up on Mom Mulder's doorstep.