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UNIVERSAL INVARIANTS

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Chapter Fourteen: Head Case

By syntax6


Mulder spent most nights like a mummy 
on his couch. In the blackness, his 
ceiling disappeared and the dark 
stretched on forever.  Only when his 
stomach crunched in on itself, craving 
food, did Mulder venture out into the 
city streets.

He liked the cover of shadow, felt the 
darkness cloak his sins. Scully had 
disappeared into the night and the 
black sky somehow made her seem closer 
again.

Dressed in ratty sweats and sneakers, 
Mulder exited his building only to stop 
short on the sidewalk.  He sighed and 
shook his head at the sight of the van 
parked across the street.

Mulder waited for traffic to clear and 
jogged over to the driver's side door.  
Ethan sat inside, sipping from some 
sort of liquor bottle still wrapped its 
paper bag.  He looked like a jigsaw 
puzzle that was missing a few pieces.

"I'm just going for pizza," Mulder told 
him.  "There's no need to follow."

Ethan capped his bottle and struggled 
to sit up.  "Pizza it is."

He smelled like Mulder's father after 
Samantha disappeared.

Mulder scuffed his sneaker on the road 
and stepped out of the way of a passing 
car.  "Listen, you can't keep following 
me around like this."

"Oh?  Why not?"  Ethan raised the 
bottle to his lips and met Mulder's 
gaze with a belligerent stare.

"It's..."  Crazy.  Infuriating.  
Shameful.  It was like being shadowed 
by himself.  "Not healthy," Mulder 
finished lamely.

"For me?  Or for you?"

"Don't you have a job or something you 
should be doing instead?"

"This is my work now."  Ethan spread 
his unsteady hands.  "I'm on leave.  
Compassionate leave.  That's what they 
give you when your fiancée gets 
abducted by aliens, see?"

The traffic noises faded away.  Mulder 
gripped the van door.  "Fiancee?"

Ethan nodded to himself.  "She was 
going to marry me.  Can you believe it?  
I didn't think she would say yes but 
she did."

"She... she never told me."

Ethan took another sip from his bottle 
and then handed it through the open 
window to Mulder.  "You want some?"  

Mulder waved him off.  "You should go 
home."

"Can't."  Ethan leaned his head back 
and looked at Mulder through narrowed, 
bleary eyes.  "Too quiet there.  All I 
see is the blood on the walls."

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut and saw 
the same gruesome image.  Here they 
were, two men mourning the same woman 
in the same way.  Only Ethan's pain had 
legitimacy. 

Mulder shook his head to clear it and 
patted Ethan's door through the window.  
"Come on, I'll get you a cab.  You 
can't stay here."

"I'm not a cop like you.  I don't know 
where to look.  I figureŠ do what I 
can.  Follow the lead.  You're the only 
lead I got, Mulder."

"I wish I could help you.  I promise 
I'm doing everything I can."

Ethan stumbled out into the street.  
"Like Patty?" he asked as Mulder 
steadied him.  

Fetid alcohol breath blew in Mulder's 
face.  He had no answer.

"I keep thinking about that little 
girl," Ethan continued.  "She's just 
gone.  Disappeared and no one knows 
where she is.  How can that happen to 
people, Mulder?  How can you be here 
one minute and then gone the next?  
Someone must know something."

Mulder struggled to hold the man 
upright as he stuck his arm out for a 
cab.  

"You gave up," Ethan accused.

That got Mulder's attention.  "I 
haven't given up."

"You have.  You've stopped looking for 
her.  You don't care whether she's ever 
coming home."

A cab pulled over to the side of the 
road, and Mulder began dragging Ethan 
to the back seat.

"You can't do this," Ethan said.  "You 
can't send me away now.  I need to-- I 
need to... What if you find her an' I'm 
not there?"

Breathing hard with the effort, Mulder 
wrestled Ethan into the back of the 
cab.  "Look, I'm not going to find her 
tonight, okay?"  He gave the cab driver 
three twenties and Scully's address.

"MulderŠ" Ethan's tone was pleading.

"Not tonight," Mulder repeated.  Ethan 
sagged against the seat and covered his 
face with his hands.

Mulder stood by the side of the road 
and watched the cab drive away.  As the 
tail lights rounded the corner out of 
sight, Mulder let his gaze climb up his 
apartment building, over the treetops 
to the night sky.

Only the brightest stars were visible.

~*~*~*~

Barbara and Tom Waeleski served weak 
tea in delicate cups as he sat with 
them in their living room.  A plate of 
cookies rested on the coffee table, but 
no one took a bite.  Mulder noticed 
Timmy giving them the eyeball, though, 
so he extended the tray over to the 
boy.

"I just didn't think anyone was still 
actively looking for Patty," Barbara 
said.  "We were told it's now a 'cold 
case' and that detectives would only 
start working on it again if a new lead 
surfaced."

Tom shifted forward.  "Is that it?  Do 
you have a new lead?"

"Uh, no.  I'm sorry.  But that's why I 
wanted to come back here."

Timmy stopped chewing the end of the 
chocolate chip cookie and looked up at 
Mulder.  His parents wore similarly 
expectant expressions.

Mulder touched the rim of his cup with 
one finger and then set it aside.  "I 
wanted to take another look at Patty's 
room.  It might not help at all, but 
sometimes after time goes by, you can 
get a different perspective.  I won't 
take long."

"Look all you like," Barbara said.  "We 
haven't touched a thing since..."  Tom 
put an arm around her shoulders.  
"Since you were here the last time," 
she finished hoarsely.

"You don't know what it's like," said 
Tom.  "It's like time stopped, like 
we're all living in limbo."

Timmy set his half-eaten cookie on a 
napkin and left the room.

"Let him go," Tom said when Barbara 
moved to go after him.

Barbara's eyes swam with tears.  "I 
think, more than anything, we need to 
know for Tim's sake what happened.  I 
can't imagine what this must be like 
for him.  I don't want him to grow up 
like this, with this shadow hanging 
over us."  She took a deep, shuddering 
breath and rubbed her palms on her 
thighs.  "If Patty is gone, we'll deal 
with it.  I just want to know.  I want 
to know what happened to my baby."

Tom squeezed his wife again.  "It's 
okay," he said against her temple.  
"It's okay."

"I'll just be upstairs," Mulder said, 
rising awkwardly.

He crept up the carpeted stairs and 
down the dark hall to Patty's bedroom.  
The light was on, so he gathered the 
family still spent some time in there 
despite what Barbara had said.  Mulder 
pushed open the door and found Timmy 
sitting on Patty's bed, holding her 
stuffed dog in his lap.

"Hi," Mulder said.

"Hi," Timmy replied glumly.  He fiddled 
with the dog's ears.

Mulder closed the door behind him.  "Is 
it okay with you if I look around?"

Timmy nodded.  "Are you looking for 
more clues?"

"Something like that."  Mulder met his 
eyes.  "Do you know of any?"

Timmy shrugged and looked around at the 
gymnastics trophies, ribbons, and 
family photos.  "She didn't keep a 
diary.  I know 'cause I checked 
everywhere already."

Mulder noticed Timmy's faded dinosaur 
T-shirt was getting too small for him.  
He remembered what Tom had said about 
being stuck in limbo and wondered if 
Timmy was looking to be six years old 
forever.  "Thanks for the tip," he told 
Tim.

He wandered over and inspected Patty's 
gymnastic trophies.  The statues would 
have passed the white-glove test, 
meaning someone had been taking good 
care of them.  "What can you tell me 
about Coach Matlock?" Mulder asked as 
he picked up the most recent trophy.

Timmy made a face.  "I don't like him."

"Yeah?  How come?"

"He never talks to me or anything.  He 
never seems happy at all.  Every time 
we went to watch practice, he was 
always yelling at everybody."

"What did Patty do when he yelled?"

"She tried harder.   Sometimes she 
cried if she was tired or hurting and 
he kept saying, 'One more time.'"

Timmy scooted off the bed and joined 
Mulder in front of the trophies.  He 
could barely lift the biggest one, but 
Mulder helped him steady it.  "Do you 
think Patty liked her coach?"

Timmy shrugged.  "I guess.  She liked 
gymnastics better than almost 
anything."

Mulder moved over to Patty's 
schoolbooks, which were also dust-free 
despite the fact that Patty would have 
been in an entirely different grade by 
then.  He flipped through the notebooks 
back to some of Patty's last writings.  
Mrs. Tricia Yearling, she had penned in 
flowery script.  Mulder smiled.  

He continued back to the point where 
she had written, "I hate her.  I hate 
her. I hate her."  Mulder ran his 
finger over the tiny, angry block 
letters.

"If Patty wrote that she hated 
someone," he said to Timmy, "who do you 
think she was talking about?"

Timmy tilted his head and scrunched up 
his face in thought.  "She hated Mom 
sometimes, I guess, when Mom grounded 
her and stuff.  I dunno." He swung his 
arms back and forth.  "Maybe Lindsey 
Beckwith."

"Lindsey Beckwith."  Mulder worked to 
place the name.  "You mean the other 
girl in gymnastics with her?"

"Yeah, that's her.  Patty called her a 
bad word once."

"A bad word?"

Timmy leaned closer to Mulder.  
"Bitch," he whispered.

"Oh," Mulder whispered back.  "Do you 
know why she called her that?"

"No."  Timmy stroked the silver figure 
on top of one of the trophies.  
"Patty's been gone a long time," he 
said after a moment.

"Yes," Mulder agreed.

"It's like when she was here, it was a 
dream.  You know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"In school we had to do this thing 
about us and our families.  To hang on 
the wall?  I was supposed to write 
about everyone in my family and draw a 
picture."

Mulder knew immediately what the boy 
was getting at.  He felt the missing 
people in his life like phantom limbs.  

Are you an only child? they would ask.  
And he felt like the only-est child in 
the universe.

Don't you have a partner? they would 
ask. And he felt like a monster locked 
away in the basement, a prince who had 
once been beautiful before tragedy made 
him too hideous to look upon.

Mulder cleared away the lump in his 
throat.  He had been this boy.  He was 
this boy.  He needed to know.

"What, uh, what did you write on your 
paper?" he asked.

Timmy slipped his small hand in 
Mulder's and led him down the hall to 
his room.  Mulder saw glow-in-the dark 
stars stuck to the ceiling and an un-
made rocket-ship bed.  On the wall, 
hung a child's school drawing with a 
short essay attached.  Timmy pointed.

"I have one sister," it read.  "Her 
name is Patty and she is a gymnast."

From the crayoned family portrait, 
Patty's over-large head grinned out at 
him, her red smile just barely 
contained at the edge.

~*~*~*~*~

As Mulder loped across the Waeleski's 
front lawn, he was only somewhat 
surprised to see Ethan's van parked 
behind his car.  Mulder stopped and 
patted himself down to make sure he 
wasn't wearing some sort of homing 
device.  From the front seat, Ethan 
lowered his coffee cup and gave a mock 
salute.

Mulder sighed and walked to the van.  
"You look like hell," he said.

"Right back at you," Ethan replied from 
behind dark glasses.

"How did you find me?"

Ethan raised one shoulder in an 
indifferent shrug.  "Lucky guess.  Dana 
always said you could be guilted into 
just about anything."

Mulder felt slapped.  "Scully said 
that?"

Ethan shrugged again and sipped his 
coffee.  "So where are we going now?"

"We're not going anywhere."

"I'm clean.  I'm sober.  I have a right 
to drive on public roads.  If our paths 
just happen to cross, then so be it."

"I can have you arrested for 
interfering in a federal 
investigation."

"Is that what you're doing?  
Investigating?"

Mulder imagined Scully returning to 
find he had tossed her anguished fiancé 
in jail.  He was desperate to find you, 
Scully, but I threw him in the clink.

"I told you," he said to Ethan slowly, 
"the case is still open."

Ethan set his jaw and nodded at the 
front door of the Waeleski home.  "Did 
you tell them?  Did you tell them the 
odds of finding someone alive after 
they've been missing seventy-two hours?  
Patty's been gone for over a year."

And Dana had been gone six weeks.

Mulder swallowed.  "They know," he 
said.  "I don't have to tell them."

"But you're still looking."

"I have never stopped looking."

~*~*~*~

Two wrongs make a mess, Mulder decided.

If you had sex with another man's 
fiancé, maybe you owed it to him to let 
him tag along on an investigation of a 
case that wasn't really yours to be 
investigating.

Which is how he ended up at Matlock's 
gym with Ethan in tow.  "Dana promised 
me an exclusive," he had told Mulder, 
and Mulder was in the business of 
keeping promises.

"Just don't say anything," Mulder 
warned.  "And no camera."

They found Dave Matlock at his desk in 
the back office, dressed in a wind-
breaker jacket and parachute pants.  
"The cops and the media at once," he 
said, sounding unimpressed.  "I guess 
we're eliminating the middleman this 
time?  No, 'sources say' Coach was 
having illicit relationship with 
missing gymnast?"

"Were you?" Mulder said, deadpan. 

"Fuck off," Matlock replied.  He looked 
at Ethan.  "And you can quote me."

"You sure spend a lot of time with 
little girls," Ethan said, and Mulder 
shot him the "shut the hell up" look.

"They're not little girls," Matlock 
sneered.  "They're world champion 
athletes.  You see an eleven year-old 
in a leotard.  I see a future Olympic 
gold medallist."

"Is that what you saw in Patty?" Mulder 
asked.

Matlock softened for the first time.  
He took off his glasses and rubbed his 
eyes.  "Patty was the best I'd ever 
seen," he said simply.

"Better than Lindsey?"

Matlock's guard flew up again.  "Why do 
you ask about Lindsey?"

"Just curious.  She's your new star 
pupil now, right?"

"I have no star pupils.  We train as a 
squad.  If you'll excuse me, the girls 
will be here soon and we have much work 
to do."

"Don't you want to know if we have 
anything new on Patty?" Mulder pressed.

"Do you?"

"You never asked.  Don't you want to 
know what happened to her?"

"Of course I do.  It's been such a long 
time now..."

"You know how Patty sprained her arm 
before she disappeared," Mulder said, 
moving closer.  "But you won't say.  
Why is that?"

"I never hurt Patty."

"I didn't say you did.  How did she 
hurt her arm, Coach?  Did you push her 
too far at practice?  Did she ask to 
stop and you said no?"

Matlock's nostrils flared and he backed 
away from Mulder.  "Girls get injured 
here all the time.  We work to prevent 
it but sometimes it happens.  I would 
never hurt Patty or do anything to 
compromise her career."

"Did she threaten to tell?" Mulder 
asked, keeping his voice low even as he 
advanced.  "Did she say she wanted out?  
All those gold visions of yours going 
up in smoke?"

"You don't know what the hell you're 
talking about," Matlock said.

"Coach?" The door flew open and a red-
haired girl froze on the threshold.

"Not now, Lindsey," Matlock said 
sharply.  "Go get changed and I'll talk 
to you later."

Lindsey turned white and fled the room.  
Matlock straightened his jacket.  "The 
girls are here," he said more calmly.  
"If you have specific questions, you 
can call my lawyer.  I'll get his 
card."

"You need a lawyer?" Ethan asked.  
"What the hell for?"

"Because after a year I still have the 
FBI and the TV people showing up here 
and disrupting my practice."  He handed 
the card to Mulder.  "I hope you find 
her," he said.  "For the parents' sake.  
But there is nothing more I can do to 
help you."

Mulder stared at him for a minute, 
searching his face.  When he got the 
answer he was looking for, Mulder 
tapped the card against his palm and 
backed off.  "Thanks for your time," he 
said.  

Ethan followed him out.  "That's it?  
You're just going to let him off like 
that?  The bastard knows something and 
he's not talking.  What if he killed 
her?"

"He didn't kill her."

"What about the arm?  Maybe it's like 
you said, he sprained it and Patty was 
going to tell."

"She wasn't going to tell.  She made up 
a story to her parents about the 
accident in the tree."

Ethan stopped in the hall, clearly 
frustrated.  "Well, what then?  You 
said he knows what happened!"

"He knows.  He's protecting someone."

"Who?"

"The only one he has left to protect."

~*~*~*~

Fall was his favorite season, but 
Mulder recognized the irony as he 
stared out the window at the trees lit 
aflame by the sinking sun.  Nature died 
a beautiful death.

Ethan waited with him in the front seat 
of his Taurus, eating Mulder's seeds 
and tossing the shells out the window.  
"I guess this is where Dana used to 
sit, huh?" he asked as he picked a hull 
from his teeth.

Mulder looked over but said nothing.

"If this is really all you guys did -- 
sitting here for hours waiting for 
something to happen -- I have to say I 
don't get the attraction."

"Isn't this what you do? Wait for 
something to happen so you can 
photograph it?"

"Well, yeah.  But you're FBI.  I'd 
think you could go *make* something 
happen."

"That's where you went awry."

Ethan crunched a seed.  "You know what 
I keep thinking about?"

Mulder didn't really want to know, but 
he made himself ask.  "What?"

"Her dad.  The old Navy captain. What 
he would say if he knew what happened 
to Dana."

"None of us knows what really 
happened."

Ethan shifted, making the leather seat 
creak.  "No, seriously," he said as he 
faced Mulder.  "Just cut the crap for a 
minute.  It's just you and me here.  I 
think we both know, right?  Dana didn't 
run off.  Some fucking homicidal 
lunatic kidnapped her.  She hasn't been 
home or tried to contact any of us in 
six weeks.  You're telling me you think 
there is any hope that she's alive?"

"There's always hope."  Mulder realized 
he sounded lame.

Ethan faced forward again and struggled 
suddenly with his composure.  "If she 
were alive, she would have called.  She 
would want to talk to me.  She would 
want to talk to her mother."

"Ethan, listen‹"

"I heard that he tied her up and put 
her in the trunk.  I heard you found 
rope and blood in the trunk."  Ethan 
turned again, his eyes wild.  "Is it 
true?"

"Yes," Mulder said avoiding his eyes.  
"That's true."

"I don't know how you can have seen 
that," Ethan replied, "and still talk 
about hope."

"I've seen many things, things that 
have convinced me that the world is 
much less certain than most people 
would believe."

"So if aliens exist, then long-lost 
sisters might come home again, is that 
it? Anything is possible?"  Ethan shook 
his head.  "If that's what it takes, 
then I'd chase little green men too.  I 
would dress up as Captain Kirk in a 
tinfoil hat if I thought it would 
change the world.  I wish I could make 
that leap, Mulder, I really do."

Mulder considered.  He had never taken 
stock before, but most of the time his 
belief system brought more pain, not 
peace.  He saw monsters others never 
knew existed.  Most people drifted 
blissfully unaware of the flukeworm in 
the sewer and the alien-human hybrids 
in lab.  They read about doctors dying 
in car accidents and thought icy roads 
instead of icy hearts.  They swept 
their apartments for dirt, not bugs.  
At night, they watched the sky for 
shooting stars and not shooting 
spaceships.

But then he remembered Ruby, the sister 
who reappeared from the fiery sky.

"Sometimes they come back," he told 
Ethan simply.

"God, I hope so."  Ethan clenched his 
fists.  "If we could find Patty, if she 
turned out to be okay after all this 
time, don't you think that would be 
some sort of sign?"

"Whoever took Patty Waeleski has 
nothing to do with Scully's 
disappearance."

"I know. I guess I just want to see it 
happen.  I want to believe."  He looked 
at Mulder.  "You know?"

Mulder gave a wry smile.  "Look, 
practice is over.  There she is."

Across the street, Lindsey Beckwith 
emerged from the gym carrying a duffel 
bag.

Mulder and Ethan slammed their car 
doors in unison, stepping out into the 
cool evening wind.  They jogged across 
the street and chased down Lindsey, who 
was hurrying away with her head down, 
ponytail swishing with each quick step.

"Lindsey," Mulder called, and the girl 
jumped.  She whirled around with the 
bag on her shoulder.  "Lindsey 
Beckwith?"

"Yeah," she replied, eyeing them 
warily.

Mulder pulled out his ID.  "My name is 
Agent Mulder.  I work for the FBI.  
This is Ethan Minette.  Can we talk to 
you a minute?"

"What about?"

"Patty Waeleski."

Lindsey scuffed one petite foot on the 
sidewalk.  "What about her?"

"I heard you and Patty didn't exactly 
get along."

"She wasn't my best friend, but she was 
okay."

"So you don't have any idea what might 
have happened to her."

"No, of course not."  She did not 
exactly sound convincing.

"Coach Matlock was just telling us that 
Patty was the best gymnast he'd ever 
seen."  Mulder let that sink in.  
Lindsey scuffed a little harder and 
gave a deliberate shrug.  "Must have 
been hard training in the same gym as 
Patty."

"She did her thing and I did my thing.  
It didn't really matter to me."

"How did Patty hurt her arm?"

Her head snapped up.  "What?"

"Patty sprained her arm a short time 
before she disappeared.  I was 
wondering if you knew how it happened."

"I‹I don't know."

"You went to school with her, right?"

"She went to my school."

"I heard she got hurt in school.  
You're sure you don't know how it 
happened?"

"I told you -- no.  Look, I'm late for 
dinner.  Can I go now?"

"Sure, we'll come with you," Mulder 
offered.  "Walk you home.  Can't be too 
careful, you know, after what happened 
to Patty.  She was walking home too 
when she disappeared."  Mulder looked 
at Ethan.  "Isn't that right?"

"Oh, right.  Absolutely."  Ethan 
nodded.  "She was walking home all 
alone and someone must have grabbed her 
off the street."

Lindsey's eyes narrowed.  "You're just 
trying to scare me."

"I'd be scared."  Mulder squinted at 
the darkening sky.  "One minute you're 
walking home, the next you're vanished 
for good."

"I'm not Patty."

Mulder looked at her.  "No?"

"I'm nothing like Patty."

"How are you not like her?"

"I follow the rules like the rest of 
the team.  I don't expect special 
treatment.  I show up when I'm supposed 
to and I don't running to Dave with 
every little broken nail."

"Is that what Patty did?"

"I have to go."  She turned but Mulder 
grabbed her arm.  Lindsey looked down 
at his fingers curled around her elbow.

"How did Patty hurt her arm?"

"I told you--"

"You argued with her that day, didn't 
you?"

"Let me go."

"Is that what she said to you?  You 
just wanted her to listen.  You just 
wanted her to pay attention to you for 
once.  You weren't going to let her 
walk away."

Lindsey struggled, ponytail bouncing.  
"I said let me go!"

"Whatever you said it must have worked.  
Patty didn't say a word to anyone.  Did 
you threaten her, Lindsey?"

"I wasn't Patty's problem."

"She thought you were."

"Well, she was a bitch."  Lindsey 
clamped her mouth shut but the words 
were already out.  The fight left her, 
and Mulder dropped his hold.

"What happened that day, Lindsey?"

She hunched thin shoulders.  "Patty 
didn't care about anyone but Patty.  
She was Little Miss Queen of 
Everything.  You'd think she already 
won a gold medal.  Dave thought she was 
perfect, but he didn't know the truth."

"What truth?"

"Patty was a little tramp."

Ethan looked at Mulder.  Mulder shook 
his head: don't say anything.

"We're not supposed to be dating 
anyone.  It's against the rules.  But 
did Patty think that meant her?  No, of 
course not."

"Patty had a boyfriend?"  Mulder 
flashed on the childish script from 
Patty's notebook: Mrs. Tricia Yearling.  
The Yearling boy had been at a soccer 
game the day Patty disappeared.  Mulder 
tried to come up with the kid's name.  
"Evan?"

Lindsey made a face.  "Not Evan," she 
said.  "His brother Ryan."

~*~*~

It was dark by the time Mulder and 
Ethan got to the Yearling house.  Thick 
bushes quivered in the breeze as they 
walked up the front path.  A light 
shone on the small front porch, as if 
the family had been expecting them.

Mulder rang the bell.

A few minutes later a woman with 
graying curly hair answered.  "Yes?" 
she asked as she dried her hands on a 
dishtowel. 

Mulder showed her his ID.  "Agent 
Mulder from the FBI," he said.  "This 
is Ethan Minette.  Do you mind if we 
come in?"

"What is this about?"

A teenage boy materialized at her 
shoulder.  Mulder remembered him now.  
That's a boy used to getting everything 
with just a smile, Scully had said.

He wasn't smiling now.

"Mom," he said.  "I think you better 
let them in."

~*~*~*~*~

End Chapter Fourteen.  Continued in 
Chapter Fifteen.

Many thanks to Amanda for taking the 
time -- from her vacation yet! -- to 
get off the couch and walk across the 
room to beta.  Sniff sniff.  This is 
what true friends are for!

We're in the home stretch now. :-)

Feedback welcome at syn_tax6@yahoo.com