Title: The Skinner Journals: Erlenmeyer Flask Author: Daydreamer Author E-mail: Daydream59@aol.com Rating: PG Category: V Spoilers: none Keywords: Skinnerfic, M/Sc/Sk friendship Archive: Yes, please. Feedback: Yes! Please! Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and Skinner are owned by Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, Fox Television Network, etc. They are wonderfully brought to life by David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Mitch Pileggi. I will make no profit from this, and neither will Fox if they sue me, for I am poor and have nothing material they can profit from. Comments: Check out my web page, Daydreamer's Den http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/2113 The Skinner Journals: Erlenmeyer Flask May 21, 1994 Word came down today -- The X-Files is no more. It was my sad duty to inform Mulder that he no longer heads his own department. Scully's being sent back to Quantico as an instructor. And Mulder? Mulder's to be part of the rank and file, and apparently I don't have much say in what he is and isn't assigned. God! It's frustrating. I've worked so long and so hard to get here, and what do I find? I have no more actual authority as an AD than I did as an agent all those years ago. Oh, it may seem that way -- the title is prestigious and the large office with a view is a perk, but I still answer to those above me and my hands are still just as tied as they were when I had to have someone else sign off on my requisitions. After the debacle with Tooms, Mulder claimed his next case involved reincarnation. The case was clean -- he got a murder confession from a dirty cop and closed a case that had been haunting the Buffalo police force for some time. All of which would have meant kudos for him, kudos for Scully, kudos for me, if he'd just left his damn speculation on reincarnation out of the official report. I tried talking to him. No go. I know Scully tried talking to him, but she must not have had any more luck than I did. There it was, bold as brass -- murder victim reincarnated in the young girl who was the catalyst for the cop's confession. I don't understand it. I don't pretend to understand it. But I don't have to. All I know is that Mulder closed a pretty sticky case and he should have been getting praise, not ridicule, but he's the most stubborn man I've ever met. Doesn't understand the concept of discreet. Wouldn't stoop to rewording the report less -- dogmatically -- and more -- ambiguously. It put me square in the middle of shit central. From a hands-off department with a 75% closure rate -- which, I might add, is still intact -- the X-Files has become persona non grata. Especially Mulder. Everyone from the Director on down was suddenly interested in their case files. They all wanted to read their reports and I don't think a day went by from the time I took this job until today, that I wasn't doing something -- writing a report, holding a meeting, responding to a memo -- that in some way was designed to hang onto the department, and their integrity to develop cases in their own ways. The next case they closed was just as strange. While there were certainly some extenuating circumstances surrounding it, the least of which included the perpetrator having an IQ of below 70, there still didn't seem to be any doubt who the guilty party was. And had the report been written that way, with emphasis on the young man's mental handicap and appropriate recommendation for placement -- Mulder is a PhD, a behavioral psychologist for Christ's sake, his recommendations would carry some serious weight -- this would have just gone down as one more feather in the old 75% cap. But no, Don Quixote had to go on tilting at windmills, and Sancho Panza was no better at reining him in than I was. Mulder's report talked about a cryogenically sustained scientist, who just happened to be the perpetrator's separated almost at birth brother, and he -- the dead guy -- was controlling? directing? possessing? his mentally retarded brother to both complete his work and kill his competition. And he wonders why things are so tough for him around here? Wonders how he got the reputation he has? If he'd only listen to a little advice and learn to couch his reports more -- objectively -- it wouldn't be so tough and that reputation would be more for the fact that he solves cases and less for how he gets to the solution. The final straw appears to have been an investigation into a suspect up in Ardis, Maryland. A man who supposedly wouldn't stop for a moving violation, then when forced to stop, evaded police and leapt into the harbor. Somehow, Mulder got involved in that and it led him to a doctor who later killed himself. I must have had fifty messages to pull Mulder in from that investigation, but I could never get hold of him. And while it will never appear in an official report, there are rumors that Mulder was taken hostage and Scully had something to trade for him. I've even heard it mentioned that someone died in the exchange, but I can't get a straight answer on what was going on from anyone I talk to. So, with that and several other equally unorthodox reports in hand, I was called into the Deputy Director's office and told in no uncertain terms that the X-Files was officially closed. The Shadow Man was there -- the one who smokes. The one I was ordered to give unlimited access to. And I *knew* he was the one pulling the strings. The DD looked as uncomfortable as I was. And after a quick glance at the Smoker, all the arguments I've used over the past couple of months fell on deaf ears this time. Solution ratios and workload studies, budget analysis and comparison of Mulder's 'I'm fine at the No-tell Motel' expense vouchers with people like 'Marriott and martini' Colton meant nothing. I'd even done a detailed workload analysis, taking Mulder and Scully's paid work hours over the last year, adding in the expenses and breaking them down by case and solution rate, thereby assigning a dollar cost to each closed case. I'd taken the same information on a random sampling of others who report to me and, needless to say, the cost of closing a case for my smallest department was only a third of that for anyone else in my division. But not even a hard and fast, non-negotiable return on investment was going to make a difference this time. That smug bastard just stood there and watched me squirm, watched me lay out all my cards, then gave a casual, barely perceptible shake of his head and the DD shut me down. The X-Files was closed. I called Mulder back in. I wasn't going to let it wait. Dragged him with me to a little bar down the street -- a quiet place that served real drinks that weren't watered down. We both ordered scotch -- it surprised me. I don't know why, but I'd have taken him for a bourbon or maybe rum man. I tried to explain -- told him how it was out of my hands and he accused me of cowardice. It almost made me smile. First Scully calls me a liar to my face, then Mulder tells me I'm a coward. The disgusting part is -- they're both right. I know Mulder thinks I'm just a political animal, playing by the rules to get ahead, but I happen to believe that you can best effect change by working *within* an organization's power structure. The change doesn't occur overnight, but it's generally more permanent than any flash-in-the-pan revolution that is stirred up by emotion and rash action. However, I recognize that for true change to occur, you need a combination of both -- someone stirring things up from the outside, and someone working behind the scenes on the inside. But Mulder was in no mood to hear my words of wisdom or support. He left me sitting at the table with his untouched drink and the bill. I finished them both, mine and his, and the scotch burned on the way down, leaving a trail of angry words and recriminations. When I was done, I really didn't have any desire to leave, so I ran a tab and drank until closing, trying to figure out what to do. When I finally left, to walk unsteadily to the metro station and catch a ride home, I still didn't have any answers.