"Hell of a party, big guy," said Frohike, grinning at Walter Skinner and raising his glass to him.

Walter smiled back and lifted his bottle of Sleeman's Honey Brown in a return toast, saying at the same time, "Don't look at me-this was all Fox's doing."

"*Fox*-man, that cracks me up every time!" Langly snorted as he strolled by the other two men, flipping peanuts into his mouth with unerring accuracy.

Frohike and Skinner exchanged another smile, this one at Langly's expense, then Walter put his bottle to his lips, relishing the way the cold, slightly sweet ale made his tastebuds cramp. Too many weeks of bland hospital food, after too many days where just contemplating eating anything at all had made him feel dizzy with nausea.  Just the thought that it was all behind him now, more or less, made him want to try some of the chips and salsa he spied sitting on the coffee table.  He looked down at the cane leaning on the side of the new recliner he was currently ensconced in, and grimaced, realizing the work it would take, just for nachos. Then he realized Frohike was still talking.

"What's up with Mulder anyway? He never struck me as a party guy."

Walter shrugged, then cast his gaze around the room, looking for the party guy in question.  He spotted him standing by the door to the kitchen, and he felt a familiar tug at his heart, as well as his groin.

Mulder was leaning up against the doorframe talking to Scully and smiling down at his shorter partner. 

Walter took a moment to appreciate that both of them looked completely comfortable, and not just because they were both out of the suit and (in Mulder's case) tie office drag for the night and looking relaxed and casual in blue jeans (both of them) and sweaters (hers blue and v-neck, his charcoal and looking suspiciously too big). They looked like they belonged together.  Not as lovers, though. More like siblings, despite their physical differences. They looked like two people who had grown up together, he the older braid-pulling brother, she the adoring tomboy kid sister.

Suddenly, Mulder looked over at him, and their eyes locked. A new smile slowly crept across Mulder's face, this one gooey-rich and sweet and strictly for Skinner.

Mulder turned back and said something to Scully, making her glance sharply at her supervisor, then giggle and retreat into the kitchen, while Mulder approached his lover, quickly covering the distance between them in a couple of long-legged strides, which Skinner did not fail to appreciate.

"Hey, Melvin, you're chatting up the wrong guy, " he said, putting a possessive hand on Skinner's shoulder as he stood next to the chair. "He's taken."

Walter willed himself not to blush, and instead inclined his head so his cheek rested on the back of Mulder's hand. 

Frohike just shook his head, muttered something about J. Edgar being proud, and wandered off in search of a fresh drink.

Squatting down beside his lover so that he was at eye-level with him, Mulder gave him a mildly curious and only partially worried look.

"Hey, big guy."

Walter chuckled and lifted his head. "You'd know, party boy."

Mulder gave him another one of those hot fudge sundae smiles, and squeezed his shoulder, then moved closer and pressed his lips to Walter's in a chaste kiss.

"How are you feeling?" he whispered, pulling away just a little.

"I'm fine. Stop worrying." Walter growled, but the smile he couldn't wipe off his face softened his words considerably.  To prove his point, he returned Mulder's kiss, then sat back and drank a little more beer, certain he could hear Diana Ross singing in his head.

Mulder had insisted on a housewarming party, and Skinner had been in agreement, but, in fact, he thought it was more a celebration of his life and not just where he was living it. 

Weeks in the hospital had done more than allow his body to heal, although that was probably the biggest factor in his mind most of the time. While his shoulder and wrist had knitted themselves back together easily and with a minimum of fuss, the newest additions to his already scarred torso were still making even the simplest of activities a chore.  The doctors had used a myriad of technical terms for the wounds and the damage that had been done, which Scully had done her best to simplify for him, but, ultimately, what it came down to was that he'd been gutshot, again, and his gut didn't like it one bit. The signals his brain would give his body somehow got scrambled around his spleen somewhere, and the results could be anything from not being able to walk, to inadvertently pissing himself. (Thankfully, that had only happened a couple of times, at the start, and he'd been so doped up on painkillers that he wasn't as embarrassed as he could have been.)

Mulder had been a constant presence in the hospital, hovering, worrying and encouraging in a way that would have been sweet if it hadn't been so annoying, and could have been irritating if it hadn't been so heartfelt.

Walter remembered coming out of a daze to see Scully, Mulder and Alex Krycek, of all people, in some sort of fucked-up Mexican stand off around his bed, and being unable to make sense of any of it.  He had called out for his lover, there'd been gunshots, and then all he knew was a profound sense of relief as Mulder embraced him and kissed him and told him he loved him. 

He'd seen more people come into the room, doctors, nurses, even agents he recognized from work, but none of that seemed to matter, compared to the feel of Mulder in his arms, and his last conscious thought at that time was that coming out wasn't the huge complicated monster he had made it out to be in his mind. Coming out was simply about loving and being loved.

And so, his hospital time, a time of physical healing and restraint, had become as well, a time of self-revelations that had left him with an odd sense of loss, somehow, but with a profound sense of freedom as well, that he thought had added as much to his recovery as the doctor's medicine and Mulder's company. Naturally, he realized that he had it easier than most people did in his situation. There was no family to confront, no conflicted yearnings regarding partners, and the ingrained sympathy people felt for hospital patients lent itself to their acceptance of his honesty.

Of course, he hadn't been back to work, yet, but Mulder insisted that no one there was making a fuss about him, other than over his injuries.  He knew his lover well enough to know that the man would probably lie to protect him, so he went to a more reliable and far more objective source-Scully.  She agreed with Mulder, telling him that the only gossip she'd heard about them was some good-natured jealousy from the secretarial pool along the lines of "why are all the good ones gay?"

Bottom line, he supposed, was that no one had come to ask him for his resignation, so only his return to the office would be the final proof, and in the meantime, he would just have to accept their word on the subject, while surreptitiously checking his lover for bruises to make sure he wasn't getting gay-bashed in the parking garage, or something like that.

"Hey, you still with me, here?"

Mulder's voice brought him out of his reverie, and he offered him an apologetic grin.

"Sorry, wool-gathering."

"Getting tired?" Mulder scrutinized him carefully.

"No, I'm fine. Go on. It looks like Byers wants the ten-cent tour." He made his smile wide and toothy to impress upon his lover just how fine he was. Mulder laughed outright, a sound that Walter knew he'd never ever tire of, then walked back to the doorway, where Byers was standing with a young blonde man and an exotic looking dark haired woman.

Skinner went back to his musings, watching people wander around the living room, drinking, eating and conversing quietly.

The house was as wonderful as he remembered it when they'd signed the deed. Not a large house, by any means, but with enough room for both of them to fit without getting in each other's way. 

There were three bedrooms upstairs, various and sundry bathrooms, including one fitted with a gigantic tub, which pleased Walter to no end, and more closet space than either one of them needed.

He laughed out loud at the thought, and got a curious glance or two.

Somehow, while he'd been recovering in the hospital, Mulder had managed to make the move for both of them, blending their furnishings and possessions so seamlessly throughout the house that it felt as though they'd been living together forever.  Of course, concessions had been made.

Skinner's couch won the living room coin toss, it being larger, newer and far more comfortable than Mulder's lumpy old futon, but the steel shelving was up in the corner, and new fish swam in the familiar aquarium.  Skinner made a mental note to ask Mulder about the Buddhist statue in the corner-he didn't remember it, and he was certain he'd have noticed if Mulder had suddenly taken up religion.

The dining room was large and airy, and made up for the galley style kitchen, which suited Mulder fine, but which Skinner already knew was going to take some getting used to, after the large kitchen in his apartment. There were lots of things to get used to, he thought. Life is a series of checks and balances, and so far he seemed to be on the positive side.

The fireplace in the living room was another huge check mark for the plus side. On that, there was perfect agreement between him and Mulder, and he hoped that it wouldn't be long before he could properly display the effect that such things had on him to his lover.

Something on his face must have given his slightly carnal thoughts away as Scully approached him with a fresh beer in her hand.

"I'd say penny for your thoughts, sir," she said, smiling and handing him the bottle while relieving him of the one in his hand, which he was surprised to find empty. "But it looks like they're more of the four-ninety-five a minute variety."

They laughed together, then Walter gave her a stern look.

"Really, Scully, after all this- 'sir'?  I think 'Walter' will do, don't you?"

She shrugged. "I suppose. Just seems odd, you know."

Both of them glanced over to where Mulder was descending the stairs with Byers, and he waved jauntily at them when he saw he had garnered their attention.

"Oh, believe me, I know from odd," Walter replied, making Scully laugh. Then she sobered and asked quietly, "So, how are you feeling, Walter?"

"Good. Fine. Ready to get back on the saddle, as it were." 

Scully understood all about the need to work, to have something to lean on that was consistent and straightforward in a way that no single person could be. She just hoped that it would be that way for Skinner. Now that the truth was out there, as it were, she hoped that his job-his career-would still hold for him the way it had before.

Skinner's thoughts were more simple and direct.  He knew how paperwork could grow into unmanageable drifts, even with other agents and directors taking on his caseload.  Especially without someone familiar with his work habits to help them out.  Without an assistant…

Kim Cooke had disappeared.

Once Walter had been coherent enough to understand what had happened to him, and why, he had rallied to his assistant's defense, refusing to press charges, even when the Director himself had tried to bully him into doing so. 

He had even taken it upon himself to contact the families of the deceased, hoping to explain what had happened and how they could best avenge their loved ones without hurting Kim.  He'd had to be covert, enlisting Holly in records to get him phone numbers and information, then making the calls while Mulder was away, suspecting that his lover would have all too much to say on the subject of Walter Skinner in crusader mode.

At his most deferential and charming, Walter was a force to be reckoned with, as Mulder could have certainly attested to, but even he couldn't dissuade all those hurting people.  They had a face to lay blame on, and they were determined to do so, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Then, a few days after a last futile call to the father of Agent Crane, who was apparently not only crying out for the chair for Kim, but was planning on filing a grievance suit against Walter himself (the theory being if Skinner hadn't asked Crane to be in the meeting, none of this would have happened, and never mind that it was the man's job, or that his father had not spoken to his son in well over a decade), Mulder had come to him with the news that Kim was gone. 

There was no record of her leaving the hospital, and no one had seen anything, despite round the clock guards and a phalanx of agents trying to get all the information out of her that they could.  She had literally vanished.

Walter was concerned for her, worried for the Bureau, but most of all surprised that his lover seemed to be taking the situation in stride.  He remembered Mulder's nearly pathological insistence on trying to get to the bottom of his poisoning at the hands of Alex Krycek, and he wondered at this apparent lack of interest in what was obviously quite a personal missing person case.

Granted, with his own current situation, struggling to regain his physical health and find some sort of comfort level with his sexual orientation, he hadn't been able to give the case much thought himself, and he supposed Mulder felt the same way.  Still, he found his thoughts gravitating towards his assistant-ex-assistant now, he supposed sadly, at odd moments, worrying about her, wondering what had happened, and hoping unrealistically that she was all right, somewhere.

"Hey, Scully, you're putting the guest of honour to sleep-maybe you should do a strip tease or something!"

Frohike had obviously had too much to drink, and if the loud guffaw and "Yeah, go girl!" which greeted this remark was any indication, so had Chuck Burke.

Scully gave a long-suffering sigh, which made Walter laugh, and said, "I think it's almost cab time for those two. Did you need anything, Walter?"

"If I said an empty house, a roaring fire and Mulder naked, would that be too much information?" His smile was sly, mocking the attempted innocence of his tone.

Scully rolled her eyes. "Way too much information."  She dragged Frohike away from his apparent attempt to offer Walter some salsa which was resulting in a nasty red stain on the carpet, and Walter heard him slurringly leer, "ooh, a private show? I'm all in, baby."

'And I'm all out.' Walter thought to himself, then laughed at his own foolish pun.  He glanced around the room again, noticing that he was getting tired, and that he'd never been happier in his life.

Mulder offered Scully the spare bed for the night, but she refused. She had been the first person to arrive that day, and now, after helping Mulder clean up the party leavings, then sharing a cup of tea with him and Walter, she was the last to be leaving.

"Thanks, Mulder, but sometimes home is the place you have to be."

She hugged both men, lingering in Mulder's embrace just a little longer and whispering in his ear. "Don't let him tell you he's fine-put him to bed."

They both looked over to where Walter was standing, leaning heavily on the doorframe, eyes half shut.

"What?" he demanded, sounding less like a surly irritated supervisor and more like a cranky over-tired ten-year-old.

"Good night, Walter. I'll call you tomorrow, Mulder." And she slipped out the door. Mulder watched her get into a waiting cab, then shut the door as the car pulled away from the curb. 

He turned to his lover and was about to order him into bed, when there was a quiet knock on the door that he had just locked.

They shared a quizzical look, then Mulder opened the door, saying, "Maybe Scully forgot her keys."

Kim Cooke stood there in dark pants and blouse, looking tiny and frightened and vulnerable.

Walter didn't hesitate. All fatigue forgotten, he lunged forward, ignoring a twinge in his abdomen, brushed past Mulder and took Kim in his arms.

"Oh my god, Kim! Are you all right? What happened!" He hugged her tightly, then realized she was still standing on the doorstep, and he pulled her into the house and closed the door.

Mulder excused himself with some excuse about trying to get that stain out of the carpet, and disappeared into the living room.  Walter and Kim continued to hold one another in a loose embrace, both staring uncertainly into one another's eyes.

"I wasn't going to come-I shouldn't have-but, I needed to know you were… to really be sure…" Her voice trailed off, and she dropped her gaze to her shoes.

"I understand." It was all Walter could think to say. "I'm fine. Now. But Kim-"

She interrupted him abruptly, brushing her hand across his mouth.

"Not Kim, sir. Not anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't Agent Mulder tell you, sir?"

"Tell me what?" He struggled to make his tired brain make sense of what was happening.

"I thought it would be better to wait 'til you were stronger, Walter," Mulder replied for her as he returned to them, coming up to stand beside Skinner and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"I think I'm stronger, Fox. You'd better explain." He glanced briefly at his lover, but quickly turned back to Kim.

"I knew what you were doing, Walter." There was no anger or accusation in Mulder's tone. Just something akin to pride. "With the phone calls and all. And I knew that even the best lawyers weren't going to get Kim out of this. And I couldn't let it happen. Because you wouldn't let it happen. And because I knew who deserved to go down for this, and it wasn't her."

"You're point?" demanded Walter impatiently.

"Agent Mulder took me out of the hospital under false pretenses, sir. I still don't know how." Kim turned a grateful smile on the younger man, then turned back to Skinner. "But he got me out, and took me to a place where he explained that there was another way."  She lowered her voice. "I wouldn't have let him talk me into it if he hadn't sworn that you were going to be okay. Sir, you have to know I didn't-I mean I can't-" Tears threatened, and Walter shushed her.

"It's all right, Kim." He felt his own eyes welling up, but smiled at her, willing her to know that he bore her no ill will, that he wanted only for her to be safe…

"Samantha," said Mulder.

"What?" Walter didn't understand what Mulder's sister had to do with anything at this point.

"Kim Cooke no longer exists, sir," Kim explained.  "Agent Mulder took me to meet some of his friends, and they made sure that-"

"All records of Kim Cooke are gone," Mulder interrupted. "Welcome to the wonderful world of high technology." He grinned crookedly at Walter. "Walter Skinner, meet Samantha Rice."

"My god," Walter breathed, "That's-that's incredible."

Kim pulled away from him suddenly. "I shouldn't have come. I just wanted to thank Agent Mulder-"

An uncomfortable shrug and a mumbled "welcome", and Walter didn't think he could love Fox Mulder more than he did at that very moment.

"And see with my own eyes that you were fine, sir." Kim added, stepping back and brushing at her eyes.

Nobody spoke for a long moment, and then softly, Walter said, "Call if you ever need anything."

"Thank you, sir."

"Walter."

"Thank you, Walter."

"Goodbye, Samantha."

Mulder locked the door behind her, then turned and took his lover in a strong embrace, felt Walter's arms snake tightly around him, and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, tasting an errant tear.

"Quite a night, I'd say." He moved his mouth closer to Walter's ear.

"Quite a life," replied Walter, and Mulder could hear exhaustion in his voice.

"And we've just gotten to the good bit." He kissed Walter firmly on the mouth. "Bed, old man." 

"I thought you'd never ask."

They ascended the stairs together, knowing that the worst was behind them, and, no matter the circumstances that would shape their future, they would face it together…

The End.