“Skinner, hold up!”

Doggett chased after Skinner and caught him at the elevators. “What the hell are you doing?” he panted.

“I know where Mulder is,” Skinner replied impatiently, stabbing the elevator button repeatedly, then glancing around, looking for stairs.

“Skinner, whoa! How do you know?”

“Scully—it was enough. I don’t have time for this, John.”

The elevator door opened, but Doggett held Skinner back, saying, “You better damned well make time, Skinner. What if you were made? Where does that leave us? Never mind you leading them right to him!”

Skinner shook him off with a “Dammit, John,” saw the fear in those pale blue eyes, and relented. It wasn’t just fear there, he decided. At least not any that Doggett felt for himself. There was concern there for Scully, lots of it, but with plenty left over for the Gunmen, for Mulder, even for him, he noted, and it gave him pause.

“Okay, okay. Let’s rough something out. But while we move.” He led Doggett into the elevator.

At the truck, he gave Doggett all the information he had amassed from his brief communications with the Gunmen and with Mulder, the two plane tickets he still held, and half the money he had with him, which was considerable.

“I can’t take this,” Doggett argued.

“You can. You will. You’ve got mouths to feed now.”

They shared a tight, unhappy smile.

“How will we find you?” Doggett wanted to know. “Where are you going?”

“You know I’m not going to tell you that, John. Suffice to say, I know where I’m going, and I’ll find you. Or, if something happens, Richard still has my email address. I don’t think it’s been compromised, and the net’s never far away these days.”

“Richard?”

Skinner waved a hand back towards the hospital. “Langly,” he said. Then he pierced Doggett with a sharp look.

“You take care of Scully.” His tone indicated that should any more harm come to Dana, super soldiers and aliens would be the least of Doggett’s problems.

“You know I will.”

He did know it.

Without warning, Doggett reached out and hugged Skinner brusquely, let him go just as abruptly, and muttered, almost embarrassed by the show of emotion, “Good luck, my friend.”

“Marines make their own luck,” Skinner replied, not quite growling.

“I hear that.” With a last hard grin, Doggett turned and loped away, not quite running but certainly not dawdling either.

A small part of Skinner wanted to stay. After so long being alone, unable to trust anyone but himself, even these few minutes, frightening as they had been, were enough to cause a pang of longing in him, the desire to end his isolation. He wasn’t a gregarious man by nature, and he’d always been comfortable with his own company. But then Mulder had come into his life. Wonderful, brash, talking a mile-a-minute sometimes Mulder, and—

“Aw, hell…”

What was he doing just standing here? He jumped into the vehicle, started the engine and threw it into gear.

As he made his way back into the regular traffic, he said a quick prayer for his friends, and another one for Mulder.  And then he was pawing through the glove box,  tossing aside flashlights, sunflower seed packets, and condoms until he found an old road map. The highlighted route on it had faded some, he noticed as he unfolded it, but it was clear enough.

“And an acorn…” He snorted laughter, but didn’t smile.

A drive through restaurant provided him with coffee and a meal of sorts, and as he munched greasy fries, he thought Mulder would approve. Another bitter laugh escaped him.

He left Bismarck behind with barely a glance, although he was still desperately worried for Scully, and he hoped that Doggett was doing his best for her. She was the only one hit in this particular skirmish so far, and he was surprised that the rest of them had come through unscathed. Or at least without serious confrontation.

He veered northeast, found a secondary road that was achingly familiar, and drove until it started getting dark.

The town loomed before him just as quaint and nameless as the last time. He slowed the truck and watched buildings go by, illuminated by street lamps. He recognized them not so much by sight as by memory. Each place seemed to trigger a new vision of his lover so strong that he was shaking physically, and his grip tightened on the wheel…

…Mulder giving a porcelain virgin a critical eye…

…Mulder tossing stuffed animals around in pursuit of the perfect gift for William…

…Mulder scarfing down a cheeseburger in three big bites like he hadn’t eaten in a week…

…Mulder, splendidly naked, a bottle of champagne in one hand, a pot of marmalade in the other, and a lecherous grin on his face…

…Mulder kissing him, his mouth warm and mobile under his, tasting of beer and pretzels…

He discovered he’d pulled into the parking lot of that damned honky-tonk without realizing it.

Suddenly he wanted a beer more than anything else in the world. And not just any beer. One of those happy-crappy light beers that Mulder had been drinking that night. He could picture himself just walking into that bar, ordering said beer, finding a barstool to sit on, maybe even the one that Mulder had been sitting on—

“Shit, I’m losing it here,” he muttered shakily.

His doubts regarding his own sanity seemed to have little effect on his current decision making processes, however, and he found himself seated at the bar moments later, unable to recall getting out of the truck or walking the length of the parking lot to enter the softly lit building.

The first thing he noticed as he took the only open seat left at the bar (it wasn’t Mulder’s and he was dimly grateful, thinking that might have unhinged him completely) was the crowd. Much bigger than the night he and Mulder had drank here, and he had to shout his order at the bartender to be heard above the din.

Moments later, cold-if-crappy beer in hand, he spun on his seat to look out over the dance floor. Several couples were two stepping across the floor, and he looked for the oldsters who had been dancing here that night. There was no sign of them—just young men and women, studiously dressed in plaid and denim, counting beats to a song about moonlight.

He turned back to the bar and sipped at the beer. It was awful, and he drank the whole bottle, still playing those Muldermovies in his head. When the bartender came round to ask him if he wanted another, he was surprised to find his bottle empty, and his eyes watering. He waved the bartender off gruffly, got a sour look for it, and stood up. This was ridiculous, he told himself. Sitting here was not solving anything, and Walter S. Skinner was nothing if not a problem solver. He pushed through the crowd back to the door, ignoring the hectoring voice of his inner drunk, who was suggesting none to subtly that perhaps a few more beers would solve everything. He recognized the voice from far too many porch-and-scotch nights, and ignored it as best he could, knowing it wasn’t saying anything helpful.

He stepped off of the sidewalk surrounding the bar, not paying much attention to anything except his own inner monologue, and nearly walked into the truck that pulled up in front of him.

“What the hell--?” He looked up, startled, and saw a large man in the passenger seat of a rusty pick up giving him a cold calculating look. He backpedaled briefly, nearly stumbled over the curb, then made his way around the front of the truck, which still sat idling where it had stopped. He kept glancing up into the cab, and discovered that the driver was also staring at him as blankly as the passenger. He suddenly felt a chill ripple a scale down his spine and back up again, then hit high C in his head.

He risked another glance back as he passed the truck and started moving further into the lot to his own vehicle, and saw that the driver’s hands, which previously had been atop the steering wheel, had now disappeared beneath view of the window. Another cold finger traced an icy path along his back, and he sped up a little, thinking, ‘My gun. My gun is in the truck.’ He’d been paranoid too long to think this was just a couple of guys checking out his ass.

He moved quicker still, feeling their eyes boring into his back and willing himself not to look. 'Just play it cool,' he told himself. ‘Just going to my truck. Not looking back, not worried. Just an old man out for a cold one’.

When he heard the truck doors opening, he gave up the pretense of ignorance, and sprinted for his truck, keeping his head low in an instinctive crouching run that hearkened back to his days in the marines. He heard the men exclaim in surprise, and was keenly aware of the slap of his boots on the pavement, and yet, when the first shot rang out, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it until, with a shout of mingled shock and pain, he felt thin heat stitch fire across his arm.

He reached the truck and crouched down, keeping the SUV between him and his would-be-assailants. Grimacing, he twisted his arm and saw blood seeping through a rip in his shirt.

“Bastards,” he hissed, suddenly more angry than scared. He dug into his pocket for keys, and fresh blood spurted. He ignored it, glanced up to look through the windows of the truck as he fumbled with the lock, and saw the two men walking away from their own vehicle, guns drawn. Bright hot anger flared up in him again, making him forget about his arm, and he thought indignantly: What right did these bastards have to come into his life, mess up his home, get him fired, chase the man he loved half way across the continent and, for all he knew, kill him, and—and this is what felt like the ultimate piss off—try to kill him just because he stopped at some crappy honky-tonk for a fucking bottle of Bud-fucking-Light?

The rage grew, expanded to include an infamous slurpee cup incident from what felt like a lifetime ago, and Mulder’s sad words came back to him, slicing cleanly through his thoughts:

“You could die because I love you.”

“No way,” he muttered through clenched teeth as he wrenched open the door and jumped inside the truck, “no fucking way.”

The engine roared to life, and the two men suddenly turned on him and opened fire.

He flinched when a bullet ricocheted and cracked the windshield, but his foot tromped on the accelerator almost gleefully as he drove the Blazer over the meridian and directly at one of the shooters.

The man barely leapt aside in time, and Skinner didn’t slow down. He kept the pedal to the floor and targeted the truck the two men had been sitting in.

The second shooter was between him and the truck, and he wasn’t as lucky as the first man. Fleeing the obviously insane driver of the black Blazer currently bearing down on him, he stumbled, and the fender of said insanity-mobile knocked him up and over the hood of his own truck with a shout and a dry snapping sound, like twigs in winter, followed by a scream of pain that was drowned out by the shriek of crashing steel as Skinner smashed into the side of the other truck, crimping in the door and shoving it over several feet, producing another desperate cry from the man on the other side of it.

Skinner shifted the truck into reverse, made the tires squeal as he turned his vehicle around and sighted on the first man again.

Conveniently the first man was either a) as stupid as his partner or b) an anomaly amongst their enemies—a man with compassion. He had abandoned his gunplay with Skinner for the moment in favor of racing back to his truck to aid his fallen companion. As soon as the man ducked around the far side of the truck, Skinner pulled up behind them, gun clutched tightly in hand, and jumped out of his vehicle.

The first shooter brought his gun up as Skinner stepped forward, and didn’t have a chance. A shot high in the shoulder knocked him back, and knocked the gun from his hand. He fell back, on top of the obviously broken legs of the second man, who emitted a thin glassy shriek, and then appeared to faint, his head hitting the pavement with a dull thud.

Two steps forward, and Skinner kicked the gun away from where the man had dropped it. Another two steps, and he was within reach of the hood of their truck. He looked down at the two fallen men, one of them cradling his arm, the other nearly unconscious, legs stuck out at unnatural angles. No small part of him wanted to put his gun to both their stupid brains and pull the trigger. He blinked sweat from his eyes and turned with an effort to the truck. 

Finding the latch was easy, and the hood sprang open. He had to glance away from his assailants for a moment, but his gun never wavered. He dug deep into the engine, found something vital, and yanked. Wires snapped and sparks flew. Tiny burns peppered his fingers and he didn’t notice. He held the hot part tight in one fist, and glared at the fallen men. Again, the urge came over him to finish it—destroy them the way they were trying to destroy him, destroy his life. He squelched it firmly with a warm thought of his lover, and waved the gun menacingly.

“Hear this,” he said, finding an old Assistant Director in a Conference Voice, booming and confident. “If I so much as think you might be sniffing in the general direction of my tail, even if it’s my imagination, I’ll be back. And I will finish you. Do you understand me?”

Groans in response.

“You assholes in the sticks never change.” He walked away in disgust, got back in his truck, drove slowly away, listening for damage. But his vehicle had come away pretty much none the worse for it, save for the need for some serious repainting…and the starring of the windshield, which he supposed could have been worse. 

“Yeah, Walter, it could have been your head.” He didn’t know if talking to himself was a good thing or not, but the thought made him feel better anyway, and he opted to go with it. A twinge in his arm, and he remembered the wound, mostly forgotten in the adreneline rush of his anger.

The bleeding had slowed to a sludgy trickle, and he hoped it wasn’t any worse than it looked. But he definitely wanted to put some miles between him and the rats before stopping, so he reached into the back seat, found his bag, and in the front pouch of the military looking rucksack, he discovered an economy size bottle of Advil—a hold out from his meeting days on the X-Files. That thought made him smile as he fumbled open the childproof cap (“Fox-proof” he remembered Mulder growling one day) and dry swallowed three. He hoped that would hold him until he could find a place that felt far enough away. He knew he had to think; he had to get organized, figure out a plan. But for now he was content to put space behind him.