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I couldn’t sleep worth a damn last night. Despite the fact that I’ve been doing physical labor that would make third world sweatshop employees proud, working myself ragged (but looking better every day – it’s amazing what happens when you stop pushing papers), pure rest eludes me. It’s him, and that postcard went a long way towards upsetting my inner psyche. I wonder how long it actually took him to find me; I didn’t make it simple and damn his investigative skills all to hell. He should be married to Dana by now, settled down in some ridiculous housing development with 2 cars and 3 bedrooms and God only knows what going on in his basement. All was not what it seemed when you left...what does that mean? Why is he even…screw this line of thought!

It may only be 4:48 AM, but the sun is already coming up, the golden shafts of light creeping in between the slats of my vertical wood blinds. Truth be told, I don’t feel much like working on the fence today. My back is aching a bit from the past couple weeks worth of toiling and I think I’d rather take a hike up into the mountains today. I deserve a day off; it’s not like I have anything better to do if I’m not pounding stakes and laying slats and drilling holes and a myriad of other tasks. Hiking it is, I decide as I sit up in bed and drop my legs over the side so my bare feet are flat on the cool terracotta tile. I stretch my arms high up over my head, both hearing and feeling the minute snaps of tendons and overworked muscles, wincing a bit from the effort. Time to get out of bed, old man.

I run the fingers of both hands through the beard I’ve been keeping this past year and think briefly about shaving it off, then think better of it; it helps keep the sun from blistering the hell out of my face – along with my dusty straw hat – while I’m working or whatever-ing outdoors. It feels good, I think to myself as I make my way into my oversized bathroom to brush my teeth and take a piss. I glance at myself in the mirror in passing, admiring the lean and tanned form that has become my reflection. Yep, the desert agrees with me in more ways than one. Ahhhh…I just don’t think there are very many things that feel as good as that first morning piss and I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that it’s due to the few beers I chugged last night after finishing the “Northern Perimeter”, as I’d taken to calling it.

Flush, scratch a few places south of the border that have an itch, then head back to my bedroom for jeans, tee-shirt, flannel shirt (keeps the sun off the old arms thereby minimizing my chance of melanoma because I love the desert but I’m not quite that ignorant), socks and boots. Liberal smattering of 45+ sunscreen over the rest of me that’s not covered, grab my hat off the hook by the door and head on out to get some coffee and corn flakes. Some things don’t change, no matter how much everything else around you goes haywire; breakfast of champions for me has always been coffee, juice and some sort of bran product to keep everything in order, so to speak. It’s just another exciting morning here at the Walter Skinner Bar None/Trust None Ranch – which reminds me, I really need to come up with some sort of iron logo to hang off the front gate…Mulder would be so proud of my ranch name. Yippee-Kiii-Aaaayyyyyy and all that horseshit.

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Technology works a little different out here in nowhere-land; basically there isn’t any. The satellite dish I’ve got atop the tiled roof does a pretty good job of supplying me with CNN and Congressional Hearings, not to mention the occasional movie when I feel like sitting on my ass, which sure as hell isn’t often. Internet connection for my laptop is a bit trickier, though I’ve managed to hook it up and it seems to work great about 80% of the time. Hell, it’s not like anyone’s emailing me anymore; there’s a serious lack of boardroom meetings and closed-door proceedings of any kind out here…save for the coyotes of course, and they just don’t seem too intent on starting a coup of any sort so I think I’m safe for now. I must’ve done a pretty good job of staying incognito, because Mulder had to resort to sending a postcard via snail-mail. Goddamn him for finding what I’m certain must be the topographic maps and house plans that had to be registered in order for me to build my house. Bastard.

None of that matters today. Today I am hiking, and since I just finished my breakfast over that morose train of thought, it’s time to get a move on. Backpack with trail mix, beef jerky, and 2 gallons of water – check. Brand spanking new and unlisted private cell phone just in case a wayward rattler or some other critter sneaks up on me – check. Topographic map of mountains and surrounding areas so I know where all the supposed buried treasure lies and where to start digging – check (I snicker aloud at that, but there are rumors about long lost gold and silver and whatever else lost out here and I guess there’s just a tiny bit of my errant former agent that’s rubbed off on me after all these years that I’m still willing to believe…or something). Collapsible shovel and folding chair – check; hey, there’ll undoubtedly be someplace to cop a scenic squat up there and by God I’ll find it today. Digital camera for any photo-ops, unsuspecting critters or anything else that might pop up – check.

I can’t seem to think of anything I’ve forgotten, so I head outside and mount the four-wheeler, race it to the base of the mountain range, and park it by the edge of the now-completed Northern Perimeter fence. I gaze back with pride at the seemingly endless yards of fence I’ve finished so far, pulling my hat down a little more snugly onto my head as I turn and make my way around the agaves and prickly pears to the larger rocks that I’ll soon be climbing over to head up. I check my watch one more time – it’s now 6:49 AM, and I’m officially hiking.

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Hiking here never ceases to amaze me; it starts off with small rocks underneath the smaller variety of cacti like the prickly pear, donkey ears and cholla, then gives way to larger rocks aside desert sage and brush and saguaros, and the further up you go the more saguaros and large boulders there are. In the bigger mountain ranges there are saguaros for miles until you reach the point where the cacti fade out almost entirely, bushes growing taller and eventually morphing into century plants and then trees in the upper plateaus. This is a particularly small range of mountainous terrain, so all I really experience are saguaros and the shorter brush, smatterings of broken-off rock from the cliffs above littering the “trail” that I’ve followed several times over when I’ve ventured up here.

There’s plenty of roadrunners, quail, desert squirrels, hundreds of species of lizards that no matter how many books I buy I still can’t name them all; it doesn’t really matter anyway, it just gives me such peace to venture up here and see relatively undisturbed nature. I trudge up and over the rocks and around the prickly things for a couple of hours before I stop to mop off my forehead and take a nice long drink of water; Christ, it’s not even 9AM yet and I’m ready for a break. I pull the collapsible chair out of my pack, along with a gallon jug and sit down, taking off my hat and dropping it to the ground by my feet, wincing as I feel and practically hear the heat searing my bare scalp. I shake my head and grin at no one as I raise my face up to the burning yellow ball in the sky, swigs of still-chilled water sliding down my too-dry throat.

This is my life now; this desolate, barren and uninhabited-save-for-me landscape that so matches my soul…aching every day for something – and if I’m truly honest with myself, someone – that will never…stop it, Walter. Just you fucking well stop it, I tell myself as I cap the jug of water and shove it roughly back into my pack. I bend down and pick my hat back up, fanning my face with it as I look down over my domain with something akin to pride. It would be more…it could be more than mere pride, if I had someone to share it all with. I release a deep sigh and sink back into my chair as much as it will allow me to without toppling over; what is it that allows him to creep into my mind in moments like these?

I should be ecstatic to be out of DC, away from the FBI and mutants of all kinds and glowing white lights and agents that refuse to follow directions. I should be relieved to just be out here, among nature and fresh air and nothing more than my retirement staring me in the face…no secret government experiments or conspiracies or smoking men hiding in shadows or, “FUCK YOU!” I stand up suddenly and scream out at no one and nothing, reveling in the sound of my obscenity echoing off the meager cliffs behind me, “FUCK YOU ALL! I SURVIVED AND I’M HERE AND I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE! THIS IS MY HOME NOW…I EARNED IT…NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD,” I shout. I attempt to drop back down into my chair, pissed as hell when it collapses from my dead weight and I fall brutally to my ass, certain that I’ll be bruised for at least a week…both cheeks. Fuck.

For some reason, this strikes me as being absurdly funny and I begin to laugh. I try to reach behind me for the pack, wanting to try to take a picture of myself as I sit here and giggle to nothing more than the desert breeze…hat now crushed underneath my hiking boots and I think I broke the fucking chair…hilarious. I can’t reach my pack so I just put my hands over my face and continue to laugh, the sound a bit hysterical even to my own ears and then I realize that there is moisture making its way down both sides of my face and it’s not sweat because I’m still hydrated and then I know that I am seriously heading for a nervous breakdown because…I…am…crying. Full-fledged sobbing as I sit here on my sore ass, alone save for a tarantula that skitters across the rocks in front of me and disappears into the semblance of shade that a nearby agave is offering. Big, tough, ex-Marine Walter S. Skinner is sitting on his ass in the middle of the desert with a crushed hat and a broken chair and just out of reach of his backpack, crying like a little fucking girl. Swell.

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I have no idea how long I sit there wallowing, but I know that when I finally roused myself and checked my Timex it was nearly 10:30AM; the sun was working on turning my head into a mass of melanoma-inviting blisters, my beard looked blonder even to my own eyes, and my tears had dried up long ago. ‘Up and at ‘em, soldier,’ I told myself as I tried to motivate my body into movement. It was that very moment when I looked down at my acres of land and took in the rugged beauty I’d purchased with years of so-called enslavement to the U.S. Government…and noticed a cloud of dust rising up behind some non-descript sedan from the practically non-existent road leading to my ranch. Company was coming, but no one was home…given my present situation, the mere thought sent me into more gales of self-repellant laughter and tears until all that remained were the hoarse sobs of a tired old man bouncing off the decrepit rock walls, curses and more curses filling the too-silent air around me. Maybe it’s just a mirage; since I’m having a nervous breakdown this morning it’s quite possible I’m only imagining that car kicking up the trail of dirt in its wake.

There is only one soul who would dare come out here to my self-built prison in the Arizona desert, where nothing and no one roams save for too many ghosts of the past that should have died long ago. Only one human being who would venture miles off the beaten path to find an old friend – even though he long ago regarded me as nothing less than an adversary when he wasn’t certain I could be trusted. After all, he’d trusted no one for years on end…and what better place for him to visit than the Walter Skinner Bar None/Trust None Ranch? I realized that I had forgotten my binoculars, but as I got up and dusted off my ass and retrieved my slightly-crushed hat and placed it back on my head, I bent down and got my digital camera out of my pack. I opened it up and allowed the zoom lens to confirm what I’d already known was ‘the truth’ as soon as I’d seen that cloud of dust. He was here…he’d well and truly found me…and as I stood there and watched him park, exit the car and head to my front door, I realized that I had no fucking idea what I was going to do. All I could think was, “Wish I’d finished the rest of the perimeter…maybe that would’ve kept him out.”

I hadn’t hiked that far up the mountain, so it only took me about an hour to make my way down to the ATV where I’d left it. The sedan was still parked in front of the house and I knew he was entirely too stubborn to leave without some sort of contact; he had sent a postcard, after all. The rumble of the 4-wheeler’s engine must have alerted him to my impending presence, but there was no indication that anyone was about as I neared the house. I parked the ATV and walked slowly around the un-fenced side of my home, knowing that I was about to come face to face with the one thing…no, the one person…I’d never been able to let go of when they paid me to leave DC without once looking back. It was ironic that no matter what they’d paid me, he was the only thing I couldn’t ever truly live without, and I think that it had taken me all this time…all this time and experience and loneliness to figure it out. ‘Goddamn you, Fox William Mulder…Goddamn you to hell,’ I thought as I trudged around the corner of my house and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw him. He was sitting there in my porch swing as though he didn’t have a care in the world, swaying to and fro on the bench with a half-smirk on his obscenely beautiful face, that gorgeous nose and those full, pouty lips inviting even from behind the black sunglasses he wore.

“Hi,” he says without even looking at me, “I’ve missed you, Sir.” My heart falls to my feet at that moment and I realize that my life will never be the same again…retirement be damned.

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The swing stills as he finishes speaking, and I’m frozen to the ground as he stands and removes his glasses, those familiar hazel eyes meeting mine in the now nearly midday sun. “Please don’t call me Sir, Agent Mulder,” I manage gruffly as I take several steps closer to my deck…and him…stopping about 2 feet away.

“Only if you don’t call me Agent Mulder, Sir. I resigned a while back,” he says as he holds his ground, albeit skittishly – almost like a starving animal approaching a human with the only food in the world. I gazed up at him from beneath the brim of my weathered hat, waiting for him to make the next move…I didn’t have to wait long. He jumps down and lands mere inches in front of me, his eyes never leaving mine, and I swear he hears the click as I try to swallow; saliva has been a distant memory from the moment I’d seen the cloud of dust kicking up behind his car despite the amount of water I’ve taken in.

“Fox?” I inquire gently, careful not to put too much emphasis on the ‘F’ or the ‘x’ or even the ‘o’ for fear of startling him.

“Walter?” He replies in kind, lips curling up in some semblance of a smile…oh God how I’ve missed that look…those eyes…his lips…that nose…I’ve dreamt of them all for so long now…and seconds later he catches me unaware as he throws his arms around me and pulls me to him in a bear hug that would shame a grizzly.

My lips caress the gel-coated strands struggling to invade my nose as my arms wrap bodily around him to return his embrace, not wanting to crush him yet wanting to be one with him all at the same time. I immediately come to my senses as I realize that my reaction is entirely out of character and I push him bodily away from me, simultaneously releasing him and taking two steps back, trying not to smile as he nearly falls forward at the sudden loss of support. “What are you doing here, Mulder?” There, the gruffness is back and saliva is flowing normally in my mouth again as the shock wears off and irritation at the invasion of my privacy – no matter how often I’ve dreamt of this moment – sets in.

“Did you get my postcard?” He asks me without looking me in the eye, his chin resting on his chest as he kicks the dirt with the toe of his sneaker like a five-year old in an ‘aw, shucks’ gesture.

“I did, but that really doesn’t explain why you’re here. It also doesn’t explain how you found me, and it sure as hell doesn’t explain much at all Mulder…you weren’t exactly invited,” I tell him, glaring at him from behind my sunglasses and enjoying his obvious discomfort immensely, “and I can only wonder what the point was to begin with. I’m retired. You have no business here.”

I watch as he digests my words silently for a few moments and then finds the gumption to meet my eyes once more. He motions to me with his glasses, raising his eyebrows a bit at me as if to invite me to remove mine as well – my refusal becomes evident after several seconds – and finally he speaks. “I needed to see you, Sir.” Ah yes, back to formality when familiarity is denied. Funny, he never obeyed me this well in Washington.

“Couldn’t you have just phoned?” I ask him, my teeth clenching automatically, second-nature where he’s concerned, and I see him wince just a bit.

“I tried Sir, but your cell is unlisted and it took me quite a while to track you down after you left DC. No one knew where you went, and I…” I cut him off in mid-whine.

“There’s a goddamn reason no one knew where I went Mulder, didn’t you take a moment to think this through? Did you not know that perhaps there was a reason I quite literally disappeared? Do you have any inkling whom you might have pissed off by coming here to see me?” I grouse at him, and he simply stands there looking at me with his shoulders slumped, every bit the errant child that he’s always been to my dominating persona.

“With all due respect Sir, I…” I cut him off again, but he doesn’t give in this time.

“You don’t owe me respect anymore, Mulder…and it’s not like you ever gave me enough when I was due so why don’t you just…” I snarl at him until he cuts me off.

“I do owe you respect, Sir…and I’ve always respected you. I didn’t come here to piss you off, I just…” his voice trails off and he once more finds the ground infinitely more interesting than looking me in the eye.

“Just what, Mulder? Huh? What the fuck do you want from me?” I reach up and pull my sunglasses from my face, tossing them to the ground at his feet and reaching forward with my right index and middle fingers, tipping his chin up so that he’s meeting my face once more. “What is it, Mulder? What more is there to say, huh? What do you want?”

He waits what feels like an hour before he replies. I’m sure it’s only 2 or 3 minutes but it seems like his next utterance takes a lifetime to form and be spoken and then he quietly states, “You never even said goodbye, Walter.” Oh Christ, that bottom lip is trembling. Poor little lost orphan Fox Mulder. Daddy didn’t say bye-bye before he left, and now the spurned child has sought out the runaway parent and expects an explanation. Fine. You want an explanation, Agent Mulder? Here it comes.

“Grow up Mulder,” I tell him with a satisfied smirk, “The Bureau paid me to leave town. They told me to get the fuck out of DC, so I did. There was no ‘pay final respects to your pain-in-the-ass agents’ clause in my Severance Package. Do you feel better now? Huh? I hope you do, because I’ve got a lot of work to do around here and I don’t have time for this bullshit. Why don’t you just get back in your car, drive back to the airport, wing your sorry-assed way back to DC and leave me the fuck alone. I don’t need this, Mulder…I don’t need any reminders of my past life, okay?” I’m breathing hard by the time I finish my rant, certain that this will make him hightail it off my ranch and back to his life across the country.

As usual, I’m completely incorrect. He takes in my flushed face and the trails of sweat making their way down either side of my face from beneath the brim of my hat before he simply reaches out to me with the index and middle fingers of both hands outstretched, attempting to wipe away the moisture – I pull back from him like he’s poison, refusing to give him the satisfaction of affording me comfort of any kind. “Don’t, Mulder…I think it would be best if you leave now,” I growl. God, what’s left of my heart is breaking at the expression on his face; I can tell I’ve annihilated any sense of camaraderie that he might have felt upon speaking with me…I can only hope it’s enough to send him the fuck away from here. Immediately. Please Mulder, if you’ve never felt any sort of respect for me in all the years that have passed, please feel it now and get the hell out of here.

He drops his arms to his sides and continues to meet my gaze with his own as he replies, “I can’t leave, Sir. I have nowhere to go anymore. The only thing that ever signified home for me was...well…it’s just gone,” he tells me as his voice breaks just a bit on the last syllable, and he turns away and makes his way back up my front porch to the swing. I do nothing more than watch him, unable to move from both the shock of his words and the force of the emotion he’s just spent. He skulks back to my porch swing where he drops hard to his ass (creaking chains and bolts be damned) and simply gazes away from me, pondering the mountains and the big, wide-open blue sky, no more words forthcoming. Great job, Walter…now what? I release an overly dramatic deep sigh for my own benefit before I follow his path to the steps and up to my deck, no fucking idea what I’m going to do – or say – next. Goddamn you yet again, Fox William Mulder.

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I rest my shoulder against one of the posts that supports the porch overhang from the deck, the other end of the deck from where Mulder is badly attempting to avoid my stare; I see his pupils dart to the corners of his eyes to track my position before I call him out on it. “Knock it off, Mulder. Just look at me; I don’t bite,” I tell him, smirking a bit until his tear-filled-gaze meets mine, “much,” I finish weakly as I make my way to the swing and plop down unceremoniously next to him. “What’s the matter, Fox? Are you missing your Lone Gunmen? Has the consortium been plotting another invasion? Has Dana left you for another man?”

It was meant to be a joke, but his sudden flinching and freezing up when I mention Dana’s name gives me pause and makes me feel like a bit of a heel for perhaps hitting the nail directly on the head. He’s not ready to talk so I continue, “Oh, so Scully found a new beau, huh? Has fatherhood really been that difficult for you Fox, that you had to up and leave? I’ve heard that crying infants can be pretty stressful – ” and he cuts me off there.

“William wasn’t mine, Walter. That’s why I sent you the postcard, saying how all was not what it seemed when you left. I wasn’t curling up in domestic bliss with Scully because…he…he…goddammit Walter, we never even…there was just no fucking way that kid was mine…and he has green eyes and you know that I just…I –”

My turn to cut him off again, “What are you talking about, Fox? Of course he was yours…what did the Consortium do or say to throw you off, huh? What the hell–” okay, so not going to have a civilized conversation…his turn to cut me off now.

“We never…I never…Scully and I…didn’t do that, alright? Okay? Happy now, Walter?” He shouts as he jumps out of the swing and begins to pace like a caged panther back and forth across my porch, arms wrapped around his chest, fingertips buried underneath opposing armpits for good measure. “We never had relations of that nature, contrary to popular belief…it must’ve worked like those fucking little machines inside of you…they must’ve implanted her with some kind of nanocytes when she was abducted all those years ago and then activated them when they thought it would…I don’t fucking know, make some kind of a statement? Whatever the fuck they wanted…it wasn’t me. Nothing of mine.”

Flabbergasted, all I can do is ask nearly breathlessly, “Then what…I mean who is –”

“It’s Krycek’s kid, Walter. I mean, was there ever any doubt?” He asks me as his voice fades into a nearly hysterical sob, hitching as his hands fall down from his armpits and clench into fists at his sides, then unclench, then clench again almost spasmodically as he stands in place and whimpers with what I can only call utter exhaustion; I should know, I’ve been pushed there enough times over the years.

“Oh Fox…fuck,” I say emphatically as I stand up and make my way to him, instantly apologetic for the way I’ve been attempting to treat him, seeming like such a cold hard bastard when all I’ve really wanted to do since he set foot in my sights is hold him close and cluck over him like some deranged daddy hen – no, rooster. I take the five steps necessary to reach him and stand in front of him for a moment, watching the tears leak from his eyes before I pull him bodily to me, shushing him in nothing more than a gruff whisper, offering him the only comfort I can after all that’s happened…to all of us…knowing now that despite the amount of time that has passed for us, some wounds may never heal from the damage caused by the conspiracy that dominated our lives for so many years. None of that matters now, I tell myself as I hold Fox and feel his body tremble against mine, I won’t let them hurt you again…never again, Fox.

“No more, Mulder…do you hear me? No more, son…it’s okay now…it’s all going to be alright,” I tell him with more emphasis and conviction than I feel, wishing I could vacuum the very pain out of the man in my arms and make it all better. God knows, despite my earlier harsh words and sharp tongue, I can’t imagine being any happier than I am at this moment, Fox Mulder in my arms, comforting the one person I never wanted to say goodbye to…and I didn’t…and I won’t, Consortium and posthumous rat-bastards and computer wizards be damned…I won’t bid farewell as long as he’s here.

“I love you, Walter…I’ve always loved you,” he sobs into my ear, his tears soaking into the shoulder of my flannel shirt as he holds onto me as though I’m his very lifeline to sanity.

“Ssshhh,” I murmur back as quietly as I can, “I know…I know you do, Fox.” What else is there for me to say? Can I say more? Should I? This is forbidden correspondence, according to all that was left of the fucking Consortium; will they come after me now? Will they come after him? Will they seek us out and try to give new life to their seemingly dead plans and dreams? All I can say at this moment – Fox Mulder weeping in my arms like a babe and declaring his love for me and my sorry ass sporting some semblance of a woody as he vibrates bodily against me – is just let the mother-fuckers try.