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Title: 15. Every Dog Has Its Day Summary: Catching up Something was missing, my left side was cool and I remembered that I had fallen asleep in the middle last night. We varied a lot in where we slept in our bed. It was usually whoever was the middle of the love sandwich. Sometimes one of us knew we were going to have a bad night and wanted the touch of both of our lovers to stave off the worst of the nightmares. Last night was the anniversary of John's death. John was my first male lover and my first real love. When he died in Vietnam, I had grown up quickly and grown the first shell that would keep me from giving my heart again as totally. Alex and Mulder had broken through to me. With them, I had remembered him in the best way possible last night, making love until I was exhausted. I hadn't even had the energy to have a bad dream. Mulder was still asleep, unusual for him. He wore a smile and that was about all. I could see pink teeth marks on his ass, one set of mine and another set of Alex's. The blankets had all drifted into a puddle on the other side of him, but I don't think he was cold. I resisted the temptation to wake Mulder with a kiss. Alex was out of bed and it was early, not even true dawn. The sun was just a hint of gray against the dark of night. I worried about Alex. He was happy, but I know the demons that drive him. I think he has slowly come to accept that the happiness he feels is not something to feel guilty for. That doesn't mean he cuts himself much slack. The kids, the dogs, the world all need to be saved and he drives himself to give more than one hundred percent to each cause. Whatever was left belongs to his lovers and this family we have created out of the war torn remains of varied lives. Perhaps I shouldn't be the one to talk about Alex slowing down. Mulder and I keep busy too, but part of my day is watching over Mulder and Alex. They need me; that's part of the reason I love them so. I have always craved being needed. I pulled on some clothes as I had a feeling that my errant lover was not inside the house. When he was worried, he always wanted to be outside where he could see the sky. As I thought, Alex was outside, sitting on the porch. He had an arm around Belun. Zelda was petting herself by wrapping herself repeatedly around Alex's ankles. Pluto and Mars were searching the driveway, inhaling the new scents into the marvel of their noses. Their ears waved gently, fanning scents toward them. Spooky was off chasing an early bird, curly golden ears flapping in the breeze. He leapt in the air causing the bird to veer off so sharply that it nearly fell out of the air. The disgruntled bird squawked angrily and straightened its wings to fly away from this dog-cursed corner of the universe. "Hey," I said, sitting down beside Alex. "Hey, yourself," Alex said. "You going to tell me or do I have to get Mulder to tease it out of you?" I said. "I thought I wasn't the only one with issues last night and now, this morning, I'm sure of it." "Sentencing is tomorrow for the dog fighters we caught. I put our notification letters in the mail file," Alex said. I hadn't checked my mail yesterday. Not normal for me, but the anniversary of John's death was always difficult. All those years when I had no one to speak to, no one I could share the sorrow I felt when I remembered my first real love. "We should go," I said. "Angel won't be evidence any more after they're sentenced," Alex said. He shook his head. "It might be the kindest thing," I said, remembered the shape the dog was in. Angel was one of the worst injured of the pit bulls taken from the dog fighters. He was so scarred that it was hard to say he had a face left. I didn't like the amount of time, Alex was spending with Angel. There was no room in this inn and, honestly, I wasn't crazy about pit bulls no matter what Alex and Gina said. Yeah, I had gone undercover to help stop the abuse of fighting dogs, but that didn't mean I wanted one living here. Especially not one that looked like someone sewed him together out of a scrap heap. "Maddie thinks she can do something with his face," Alex said. "What? She doesn't have enough to do at the Institute?" Maddie Leonard was the new doctor up on the hill. She was really good at restorative surgery and she enjoyed having the budget to do whatever it took to give the children pain free lives. "She wanted to see Angel and she thinks she can do something with his face. She's sure she can reconstruct his lips and the area around his eyes." I have no idea how Alex can even stand to look at the poor thing, let alone pet that massively scarred head. Well, I wasn't entirely against pit bulls. After all there were currently three of them in the family. There was Chance, of course, Matilda's service dog. Then there were Jeff and Matilda's foster son's dogs, Elvis and Elvira. Angel was another matter. We checked the records and he had once been a champion fighter. He had won his last fight, but his injuries prevented him from being bred. You would think a winning dog would have earned a place in retirement, but the bastards used him to train up and coming dogs. I couldn't believe a dog like that could be rehabilitated. Frankly, despite my long exposure to the gruesome, I couldn't stand to look at Angel. Sighing, I put my arm around my lover. "What do you want to do?" "I want to give him a chance," Alex said. No use arguing with Alex in this mood. I said, "What can I do to help?" Alex leaned back into my arms and said, "I need a good lawyer to get the destroy order removed." "I'm your man," I said. And I was as he was mine. Mulder came stumbling out, jeans unzipped, hair wild in every direction. "Hey?" he said. We pulled him down together. To fight death, celebrate life.... The funny thing is that the people I expected to support saving the dogs were fighting my motion for custody of Angel and ten of the other fighting dogs. So much for PETA and the American Humane Society. Now I knew why Gina turns rabid at the slightest mention of PETA. She always says that animal rights are for people who don't have the self esteem to have a dog. As for the American Humane Society, they remind me of why I no longer work for the FBI. Big organizations lose track of the very thing they are meant to protect. American freedom in the case of my former employer and animal lives in the case of the overblown and conservative humane society. I growled as I researched similar cases. Damn, animal law is tricky. We couldn't seem to decide between pets as property and pets as family members. "Alex, bring me...." A coffee was in my hand before I could finish my sentence. "It's not going to be easy," I said. "That's why I wanted the best," Alex said, resting his hip on my desk. "So did you find an agency that will test the dogs?" "Yeah, that place in San Francisco. I'm going to pay for them to fly up. They operate on a shoe string." "The board agree?" Alex rolled his eyes. I had made him set up the board. It helped with the non profit tax status and besides, it was the right thing to do. God forbid anything happen to Alex, but he has to keep taking chances. I can't stop him and Mulder won't. Project Iustum was big business. Alex started out with a couple of billion dollars. He had learned about investments from Mr. Mannerly, the best of the bad men. I remember him telling me that he wondered why the Brit made him take accounting and dragged him around to get lessons from stock brokers. I knew. Mannerly looked at his own kids and knew that none of them had the potential of Alex Krycek. Alex was and always had been a wild card. Unique, beautiful, powerful and very intelligent. Mannerly didn't ask Alex whether he wanted to be his heir. He took him, chained at first, until Alex gentled to his hand. His forethought paid off; Alex had made wise investments. He dipped deep into the money, but the well kept filling back up. I think it was always having to balance budgets at the FBI that made me worry about how Alex managed the funds for Iustum. The board Alex picked was mostly family, Jeff, his wife, Matilda, Gina, Karen, Matt Nolan, and Dana. There were a few big wigs, Judge Andee Holland and Rosella George, one of the biggest names in child welfare in the state. "The board agreed," Alex said. He curled his lip and said, "I added a clause about animal rescue to the charter when I wrote it." Which I didn't know. Alex said, "All things great and small, Walter. Children and pets are almost equally helpless before the law. Did you know that the first documented case of child battering went before the court on a animal protection law?" I didn't know that. Mulder and Alex were wonders of the odd fact. "You need any more research done?" I nodded and gave Alex a list of case law references to look up. "I'll get these right away," Alex said. "Just a moment," I said. Never leave me without a kiss, Alex. You are too precious to even think about losing, but my heart hates to part from you for even a few hours. I didn't say any of that. I reached for him and drew him down, almost into my lap. My hand cupped his face as I kissed him, not a peck on the cheek, not a dry lipped kiss. I kissed him with all my soul and all of my love so when I released him, his lips were nearly purple with that hot blood in his cool Russian veins. I had mussed his hair too so it stood spiked. He looked ravished... and I looked forward to making that come true tonight. We may have been arguing but that little heat of anger added a spike to the lust I already had every time I saw him. My Alex.... Despite how worked up I was about Angel and the other dogs from the dog fighting case, I couldn't help enjoying the way Walter looks in a good suit. I loved him in his lawyer gear. Mmmmm.... Mulder's hand landed on my leg. He squeezed. I looked at him and he gave me a slight nod. I smirked back. Yeah, Mulder agree. Our Walter looked good in a suit... Even better out of it though and in his skin. The motion against destruction seemed to confuse the judge. He looked into the court room, his eyebrows raised as he noticed the crowd. Mulder had learned a new trick himself. Being a famous author and a lionized celebrity had forced him to tolerate reporters. What can I say? Miracles happen. Anyway, Mulder had done an interview with a talk show host that he had been avoiding on the condition that he could talk about Angel and the rest of the dogs from the case. It was a slow season and given the oddity of the case and the fame of my lover the other news media had picked it up. Angel's horribly scarred face was all over the internet. I had read the debate on dog related message boards- even in the dog world there was a lot of controversy about Angel. A lot of people thought it was cruel to keep him alive. Some people agreed with me that he had fought for his life and earned the right to keep it. Yeah, I know why it mattered so much. I knew in trying to save Angel, I was trying to justify my own happiness. I too was scarred. There are people who look away from me when they see the stump of my arm. I too have been judged a killer and rightly so. I have killed. I won't deny it or make excuses. I was death before I became someone who embraced life. The other thing that people said to me is why save Angel... Every day healthy dogs and cats were euthanized. I knew. It hurt to think about it. It hurt to think that ordinary good people are part of the problem and won't budge because they just have to breed little Fluffy Foo Foo or because they want a damn designer dog. I can't stop all the evil in the world. But I might be able to save Angel and that was important to him. The other day when I was walking him outside, giving him time because of his mangled leg, he stopped and when I looked down, afraid he was in pain, he grinned at me. The ravaged face pulled against the scars of his nearly lipless mouth. His tail thumped hard against his legs. His tongue lolled and his eyes glowed. That was the expression of a dog who suddenly realized he was free of the pain. A dog who knew he no longer had to fight for his life because he had a human to fight for him. The way it should be. And damn it. Angel was going to live. If I had to steal him away. If I had to break the law. Whatever it took short of killing for him, I would do it. I knew I couldn't influence the dog behavioral specialists, but I couldn't help tagging along. They were quiet folk. Funny, you think of dog rescue people as being eccentric. A lot of people criticize and say why waste your energy on dogs when people are suffering. Most of the people who make that comment help neither animal nor human. Sandine Harvey, the local liaison to the San Francisco Pit Bull rescue adopted three drug affected kids along the way as she ran her pit bull rescue group. Recently she had approached Jeff about adopting one of our kids, which is the reason she came in person with the evaluation team. Sandine is lovely. She was multi racial, golden skinned with the thickest curly hair I have ever seen. Her husband, James, is a veterinarian. They met through their mutual work. He is tall, thin, and gawky. When he looks at Sandine, he smiles and his saturnine face becomes beautiful despite a crooked nose and a gap in his teeth. Susan Long flew in from San Francisco to direct the evaluation of the dogs. She was a disaster rescue worker when she wasn't volunteering. She had evaluated dozens of Katrina rescued pit bulls and made a name for herself with her success training them and placing them. She was sturdy, tough, with blue eyes that held as many ghosts as my eyes did. Bodie Phillips, who was the director of Lost Cause Pit Bull rescue, looked as if he would be comfortable in a dog fighting arena. He was bull necked, bandy legged with an over developed chest. He was a former pro football player. He once was put in jail for punching a dog fighter so hard that the guy had his jaw wired for months. He was smart, tough, and practical. He knew that dollars were limited so he knew how to make hard choices. Even with my guaranteed dollars, he was careful. A bad pick meant negative press that could set his rescue back permanently. Sandine stopped at Angel's kennel. Angel looked up at her, eyes meeting hers with resignation. He looked at all strangers like that. Although he associated people with pain, he waited for his orders like a battle weary veteran. When he saw me, Angel's tail wagged. I crouched and said, "How's my boy? How's my good boy." Sandine didn't look away from Angel. She had seen it before. She said, "He was beautiful once." I said, "Still beautiful. Always beautiful." Sandine smiled at me. "I like you, Alex Krycek." My defenses went up. I wasn't used to people liking me despite my recent experiences to the contrary. "You know, don't you?" Sadine said. "You know what Angel knows." That life was hell? Yeah, I know. I was determined that he would find his peace on earth as I did. "Let's start with him," Sadine said. Gina had donated her facility for testing as the shelter where the pit bulls were housed didn't have a training area yet. I was trying to get matching donations to build one. Hell of a responsibility having a lot of money, but not endless money. I wish I could fix more than I had the money to accomplish. Angel went past the small child doll without more interest than a sniff. I could swear he rolled his eyes, not fooled by the plastic human. He allowed the artificial hand to remove his food, plopping down patiently to wait to see if he would get it back or not. Pluto had been volunteered as the other dog. He was perfectly trained and had too much innate dignity to start a fight. Angel didn't offer a fight. His tail wagged and his pitiful body tried to move into a play bow. He didn't act like a dog that craved action. "He passes. I've seen this before. A fighting champion, but he is only a fighter in the ring. We still follow the rules about single adoptions for the most part. We have to be extremely careful. Media loves to make our dogs monsters." Sandine cupped Angel's head and stroked a little unscarred patch of fur. "Still, Mr. Krycek, he'll never be adopted looking like this and I'm not sure if it wouldn't be the right thing to let him go to the bridge. That's what I thought when I first saw him. Now... Angel deserved a chance to live. I said, "There's a young couple who live at the school. They said they might take him." "Do they know anything about pit bulls?" Sandine asked me. "Yeah," I answered. "They lived with my brother in law, Jeff. He and his wife have three. One of them is a former fighting dog too, from the same bust that Angel comes from." "They don't mind how he looks?" Sandine asked. "The boy, Edward, is different looking himself. They don't mind," I replied. Edward was one of the Iustum's older kids. He graduated from high school and was now enrolled premed at the university. Edward looked like Mulder, little wonder as he was a clone of my lover, only he had alien genes. They weren't Oilien genes. It was something that gave him iridescent scales over his head and all the way down his back to the base of his spine. He also had even stronger healing ability than Mulder did. Out of the dogs Sandine and her crew tested, all but one passed. He was the one I worried about, a black pit bull with a nervous manner. He was young and hadn't been fighting for long when we busted the fighting ring. He passed all the tests except the dog test. He had gone ballistic when he saw Pluto. I wanted to argue, but I knew the odds. We had been lucky to have ten out of eleven dogs pass the temperament tests. I hated it, but I had agreed to the terms. Every dog had to pass the tests to be saved. Max would be euthanized and it half killed me. When we went back to court, the judge still seemed surprised that all the dogs weren't to be destroyed. The ASPCA had backed down and decided to support our petition. Good for them... sometimes the media is useful. What can you say about Peta? At least they are consistent. They argue for the euthanization of every pit bull. Then again, they don't support keeping animals as pets. I snorted at the thought of Belun resenting my ownership. He was only as independent as he was confident that I would always be there for him. Fortunately, the lawyer Peta trotted out annoyed the judge to the point he scowled through the entire presentation. The order released Angel and the nine other dogs to Sandine. With the money, I donated she would assured the money to retrain them. I walked the final mile with Max. We went out, let him sniff the green earth, snuffle through the woods. Then we picked a sunny hill and Karen gave Max his final kindness. I wept. It could have been me. It should have been me. I too was bred and trained to kill. The only reason I live is that still have a job to do. I stroked Max's head and I promised him. If there is another land beyond death, Max will be my dog there. Walter assumed I was done when the ten dogs were transferred to Sandine. He was wrong. I had made a promise to Angel, a life, a real life with the things a dog was entitled to since the first wolf pup sat by a hearth. Angel deserved more than a kennel, no matter how good. I didn't know how I would make it happen, but all I knew was that a miracle had saved my life, a miracle had given me the love of two good men, friends, meaningful work, and the company of dogs that would never judge me except in the radiance of their adoration. Surely the same benevolence could give Angel a loving home. My first trip was to the hill to see Maddie Leonard. I wasn't surprised to see Carrie and Edward there. Both of them were interested in medicine. I already knew that Edward had a natural advantage. One of the other kids had fallen from the roof of one of the maintenance sheds and the doctor thought he wasn't going to walk again. He was one of Edward's best friends and Edward volunteered to work with his therapy. The kid not only walked again. A chronic pain problem from some genetic flaw was gone for good. Edward had Mulder and Scully's genes like Missy did. The combination seemed to lead to the healing touch, but whatever alien life form contributed his scales had redoubled the ability. Carrie might not have the healing touch but she didn't need a mutation to be naturally kind and insightful. She had told me a few months ago that she was going to be a psychiatrist. Despite her woefully deficient home instruction from her rabid Bible thumping father, she had caught up at light speed at our school and was graduating from high school in the spring. She was eighteen now, but it took a time to catch up on her credits. We shared our commencement with the local high school. I had greased the wheels with a considerable contribution to the cost to give my kids the chance to have a graduation like other students. Carrie would march down an aisle and turn her tassel with the other girls and boys. When I mentioned my trip to the Harvey's home, both Carrie and Edward wanted to go. I shrugged. Edward was so much like Mulder that I couldn't help indulging him. Besides, the two of them could be a big help to Sabine and James. I liked my kids to get out into the community. Sandine's oldest child was the same age as Edward and Carrie. She was afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome. Yeah, I still check out every detail of my associates. It was one of the ways I survived. Old habits die hard. Jennika was a polyglot of Native American, African American, and Caucasian. Her birth mother was fourteen year old prostitute and her birth father was a Boeing big brain with a taste for young girls. He was doing time. Otherwise I might be tracking the asshole down. Jennika was amazing, a high IQ combined with few boundaries and hyperactivity. I know she worried Sandine as she was the age to make her own decisions whether they were wise or not. Mika and Mickey were twins, born in a stew of chemicals. They were eleven now and attending school at the institute. I had made that offer soon after meeting Sandine and James. The kids were having a hard time at school, constantly in trouble. My teachers were highly skilled and I paid them well to provide the best shot to the children of the project. Mika and Mickey might not be victims of the conspiracy, but my heart went out to them. Their story could have been mine if my Mom had numbed herself with drugs and alcohol. They were borderline in IQ, but for the moment, they were happy. Sandine said that was one way you worked with children with disabilities. You give them the tools to fight their future and you gave them as many happy days as you find for them. Carrie ran off with the twins to see their skills with the Sandine's utility dog, Pardner. Edward accompanied me to see Angel. Maddie had examined Angel prior to the court decision. Now she was seriously examining him to see what she could do. Angel seemed to think he was getting a good petting as both Edward and Maddie ran their hands over him. "I think I can do a lot," Maddie said. Angel's tongue was washing Edward's face. He was a serious young man usually, but after the tongue explored his ear, he giggled. "Man, this dog thinks I taste good!" "He likes you," I said. "So can we take him back home?" Edward asked. "Paperwork first," I said. Sandine had permission to release the dogs for veterinary treatment or additional evaluation. Maddie might not be a veterinarian but she was a skilled doctor. It was a little grey area, something I knew a lot about, grey areas. When we left, Angel was ensconced between Edward and Carrie. They both laughed as the dog tried to lick both of them at once. Fiercely, Edward said, "He's not ugly at all. He's just different like me and Kat." Kat was Edward and Carrie's daughter, two now. Mulder's dog, Spooky, had retrieved her from the river where she had been thrown as a newborn by Carrie's fundamentalist Christian bigot of a father. He had let Carrie go to jail for the crime, but my lovers and I straightened it out. Carrie had come to live at the school. Kat had her father's iridescent scales and she was also a powerful healer. "You and Kat are beautiful," I said. "Angel is beautiful in a different way full of scars but capable of living and loving." "Like you," Edward said. He killed me when he looked at me with his Mulder eyes. Carrie kissed Angel's mutilated head and said, "Maybe you have work to do, dog. You have to teach people to stop dog fighting and to stop killing the victims." Amen. Amen to that, Carrie. The young couple lived in a cottage next to Jeff's. Kat, their daughter, still lived with Jeff and Matilda, who had recently celebrated their marriage. With Edward in college and Carrie finishing high school, they had felt their child was better off with her foster parents. Living next door, they were a daily part of her life. I could sense a little fear too in their decision. Both of them had suffered horrible childhoods. Carrie's father had not only tried to kill her baby, but had battered her and kept her out of school. Edward was sixty percent related to Mulder, more his son than was likely if he had been a natural born child of his. Ten percent of his genes traced to Scully, giving him his copper red hair. Another ten percent belonged to the host mother who gave birth to him. The other twenty percent was not even human. My genetic labs were better than ever at detective work so we now knew that Kat was as good as Mulder's grandchild. Recently, Mulder had asked Edward if he wanted to be legally adopted by him, taking his name. Edward said 'no'. Mulder accepted it. God knows, he has father issues of his own, more than I do as I have no idea which of my Mom's johns contributed his genes to me. "Nice tree," I said. It was fenced away in a corner, barricaded by a decorated surround. Kat was two now and you could tell she was Mulder's granddaughter more or less. She was active, fearless, curious, and constantly endangered herself. She spent a lot of time with her parents so the cottage was already baby proofed, which meant it was also puppy proof. Angel was no pup, but he had never lived with a family. He had to be taught how to live in a home without destroying it. When I was talking to the architect who designed the cottages, I told him I wanted fireplaces put in each cottage. I loved stretching out in front of a fireplace and wanted that option for anyone who chose to live on campus here at Iustum, my sanctuary for the child victims of the project. Some of the staff preferred to live here and some of the first kids were now old enough to want to experiment with independent living. I wanted them to have real homes, not ever feeling like they were in an institution. Carrie and Edward chose to live here which pleased me greatly. Edward and Kat were Mulder's son and grandson. I felt closer to them than I did to Will, Mulder's son by Scully. Edward and Kat were my kids too, all the children at Iustum knew that I was their father as much as Jeff was. Edward said, "Yeah, we wanted to have the tree, the trappings, and the works. Carrie and me are going to cook a turkey all by ourselves. Still going to the hall though for the dinner. It's traditional." Edward had Mulder's eyes along with his nose. Sometimes I can't look at him because it hurts when I think of all the years we missed, Mulder and I. Seeing his image in this son of his carried an edge of pain. "Uncle?" Edward said. He got my full attention. He had never called me that before. I smiled at him. "You think that Uncle Walter could start the proceedings to change my name and have an adult adoption? I thought it would be a nice Christmas present for my father." I think my face was going to split open with my smile. Angel, sensing human happiness thumped his tail on the floor. "I think we can do that," I said. "When I refused, it was a knee jerk thing. A kid thing and I'm not a kid anymore. I guess it was because every time I started to trust someone, it was all jerked away. I got in the habit of not accepting happiness because I was just going to lose it anyway." "Boy, do I know that one," I said ruefully. "Keep practicing happiness. It can become a habit." "You are so cool," Edward said. "I used to want to pretend that you were my father. I would peek at you from the library when you were meeting with Uncle Jeff." "What's Mulder's is mine and Walt's," I said. "Yeah, the big love story," Edward said, his gaze falling on his wife to be. "Carrie and I were thinking that we would like to get married at New Year's. She has the dress and everything. You think that there's time for that?" "I can make it happen," I said. "Whatever you need." "I should feel guilty because I don't have to do work study or anything to attend college like the other students," Edward said. "You are Mulder's son," I said and laughed. "He is the master of guilt and I am the master of angst which leaves poor Walter to glue us back together twice a day. Good thing he likes the job." "Too bad you can't get married," Carrie said. "I would love to see my Dad's face if they ever pass that law." "Even if they do, I doubt that they would recognize a three way love knot and no two of us would want to have the third left out," I said. "It should be about who loves who," Carrie said fiercely. Angel barked then, a big resounding bark as he looked around for an enemy to defend. Edward knelt to hug the dog. His iridescent scales glowed. Carrie gazed at the marks of her fiancée's hybrid heritage and her face showed that familiar mix of love and lust that I had when I looked at my lovers. Love is wonderful. That night when I went home, I was as happy as I had been miserable a few weeks before. Sometimes I think I can fix anything. Our love making that night was a celebration. They say you get used to your partner; that the edge becomes blunted from time. 'They' don't know us. Every time we make love, it's like a kaleidoscope of pleasure. We put ourselves into a million ever-changing joys. There are nights we don't sleep together in the same bed, but as time has stretched on, they become fewer. We need each other more, not less. Waking, I knew someone was gone. For once, it was not Mulder or I missing from our bed. Walter had fallen asleep with one of his big strong arms around me, his broad face against my neck, chuffing deep, fuck-drunk breaths. Now I was swaddled with blankets, the mark of my Papa Bear. Sometimes I think he still feels bad about leaving me on that balcony of his because he was always worried about me getting cold. He doesn't do it to Mulder, but then Mulder has kicked him in the face twice when Walter was trying to cover him. It does put a guy off trying to wrap him up. When I sat up, my feet tangled in dogs, Belun and Spooky. Belun was belly up by the bed, his long tongue lolling from his long muzzle. His tail gently thumped on the floor. Spooky looked doe-eyed from his position, his chin pillowed on Belun's shoulder. I found Mars in the hallway. He whined at me when I stooped to pet him. He always had divided loyalties between Walter and me and must have wanted to stay with me and go with Walter so he compromised by flopping at the head of the stairs. I walked downstairs, hearing a deserted whine from Spooky as Belun followed me. I found Walter, his grandmother's best quilt wrapped around him on the love seat. I waited, thinking he might want to be alone, but he opened his arms and made room next to him. I didn't quite sit in his lap like I used to do when I first knew Walter. That Alex had been slender and lean. I wasn't chunky, but I had filled in, wrapped muscle and flesh around bone. Sometimes I wish I still could sit in his lap without crushing him. Walter wrapped me in the quilt and I put my bare feet on Pluto who plopped back down as soon as I settled into the chair. Mars happily joined his brother on the floor, resting his beautiful head on him. Belun leaned over the arm of the love seat, lingering for a pet which I gave him. "Walt, you okay? My lover smiled and said, "Yeah, more than okay. I took a nap today and woke up with two much energy. I finished a couple of amicus briefs and then I decided to make a fire in the fireplace. I'm just so damn happy that it needs settling. "Am I supposed to ask why?" I said. "No, You can ask, but you know why. It's you and Mulder, the dogs, Scully, Monica, and John. Gina and Karen, Jeff, Matilda, all of our good friends. It's the fantastic work we do when we volunteer for search and rescue and when I help you with Iustum. This is a life I never hoped to have. We're domestic and it's not the way it was... No disrespect to Sharon," Walter said. "I was so bad at marriage that I thought I never could have a relationship unless it was with work." "That's it, you know," I said, feeling the smile on my lips that belonged to Walt. "You found the perfect relationship for a workaholic. Mulder and I take enormous amounts of self discipline on your part. Keeping us safe is a full time job. Satisfying us... just let me say, you are the perfect guy for the work." I could feel the low rumble of Walter's laugh all over my body. You know, that was almost as good as making love, that feeling. The two of us must have drifted off because we woke to the smell of scorching bacon and a shrieking smoke alarm. Mulder's voice announced. "Breakfast must be done because the signal is going off." It was getting near Christmas and all other activities cease when it was time to decorate the community hall at Iustum. I had worked hard to perfect the setting for the center of Iustum. I wanted the hall to be warm, a place where a huge family could gather not just a meeting room. The architect I hired was exasperated with me despite the good money I paid. He wanted some creative leeway. I was okay with that, but there were things I insisted on. The walls were cedar, alternate yellow and red so it blended into a naturally warm color. The floor were a parquet to match, spread with durable rugs in Indian patterns. There were fireplaces, the huge one at the front and two more along the sides. There were alcoves with welcoming armchairs, big enough to seat Walt and Mulder or me comfortably with a kid or two perched on our lap for a story. There were couches everywhere. There were kid sized chairs. The dining room beyond the fire place had long tables, custom ordered, all polished woods with comfortable dining chairs to match the couches in the larger area. At Christmas time, the tree occupied a cleared space in the middle. It was decorated with tinsel, glass balls, angels, and handmade ornaments from the children. No thickly glued and glitter crazed ornament was rejected. Walter had carved wooden dogs, a hundred of them, some with angel wings and halos, some pulling Santa's sled. Some romped. Some slept in baskets. They pulled the tree together along with all the bright green ornaments that Mulder said represented my eyes and the tawny gold ones that stood for him. The red ones were for Scully. Everyone was represented, friends and family. I picked Kat up. The minx was about to dive off a couch back. Kat giggled at me and she already knew that she had to hold on tight to what remained of my arm. I should have used my right arm, but I hated to have my working limb obstructed even here in the second safest place on earth for me. My stump went on fire for a moment when Kat touched it. I almost dropped her before Jeff came over to claim her. My brother in law landed a big smacking kiss on my cheek and said, "Merry Christmas, Alex." "Same to you, Jeff," I said. I wasn't used to seeing him the way he was now, his face unmarked as if the experiment inflicted on him by his bastard father had never happened. Matilda was accompanied by her service dog, Chance, who was sitting shamelessly on a couch next to her, his huge head in her lap, his jowls split in that ear to ear grin only his breed could manage. Carrie had Angel with her. He was wearing an outsized red bow with jingle bells. He was lying on his belly and Missy Scully-Doggett-Reyes was examining him with a perfectly miniature stethoscope like her Mama Dana's. Will had already found Mulder and was on his shoulders. I thought my lover looked no older than Edward who was perched on a step ladder to hold the newest child of the project up to put the angel on top. The little one was hairless, wrinkled, had huge eyes like a Grey. We loved him anyway, here where you were family, where you were human no matter what part of you wasn't. The child's laughter was piercing, but I found it sweet none the less. We had named this one, Sandy, after Jeff's mother, Cassandra. One of my teams found him in Antarctica a few weeks ago in one more forgotten lab left over from hell. He was very intelligent, adaptable. He would have a hard time in a world scarred by creatures that looked like him, but here at Iustum, he was just another child. It was a perfect Christmas. It always is with my lovers and our family. However by the day after, my arm was bothering to the point where I think I was going to have to see Maddie. I took off the sleeve that covered my stump and looked at the damn thing. I know I was supposed to have a better attitude about this, but it still sucked. I hated being like this, hated not so much the scars as not having two arms to hug my lovers and my family. There was a reddish bubbly growth with a spike of bone sticking out of it. Oh shit! I yelled, "Mulder, Mulder!" in a total panic. Yes, I am supposed to be the master of cool, but this was fucking horrible and it was my body, not some X-Files mystery. Mulder came running and Walt with him. Mulder was wearing only sweat pants and Walt one of his suits. "Call Maddie Leonard and tell her I need to see her right away," I said. Mulder carefully held my stump. He was gentle but the moment he handled me, my arm hurt worse. It burned as if it was the remainder of itself, cast to stink on the fire in Tunguska. To this day when I smell burning pork, I lose it, throw up, melt down, and Mulder or Walt have to scoop me back into my Alex skin. We ended up on the floor, Mulder and I. He went down with me when my legs went out, letting me fall on top of him. I pressed my head hard into his chest, trying to ride out the pain, but it threw me. I passed out gratefully. I woke up in the infirmary of Iustum. It was actually a fully equipped clinic with better facilities for both research and treatment than most hospitals. Not all of my kids are healthy hybrids. Incongruously, I saw a steel cage like vets used for recovery. The door was open and Edward was sitting there with Angel's bandaged head in his lap, petting him. "If I wasn't getting used to miracles, I would run screaming out of here," Maddie said. I looked at my arm and it was worse than before, pinkish mass with a tiny tip of bone edging out at the end. The pain was gone, but that was because there was probably a numbing pain killer in the IV dripping into me. "It's regrowing?" I asked. "Yes," Maddie said. "Kat, it started when Kat touched me," I told Maddie. Edward scooted Angel off the floor and came over to where I lay. "Wow, like father, like daughter! She has to be powerful!" "Is she okay?" I asked. Healing knocks them for loops for the most part. From what Walter said, when Mulder brought me back, he was fine afterwards. That was the exception. It seemed to draw the energy out of the healer's very cells to heal another. "Kat is great," Edward said. "Forget a village to raise a child. It's going to take a city just to keep her safe from herself." "This is going to be a mess if it stays like this," I said, staring at my raw edged stump. Edward gently stroked down my shoulder and carefully put his hands over my stump. He staggered back after a few moments. "Edward, don't," I said. "I can live with it." Mulder is the most powerful healer but he has the least control over it. He put one hand to my stump and another on my groin. I could feel a surge between us and my body felt on fire, but suddenly in such a way that I did not want Edward to see. Primal scene and all. Gradually the arousal faded. My arm was longer when I looked. Mulder looked satisfied. "I've been trying to heal it for years. Kat must have unlocked something to be able to get it started." "I don't have time for this," I protested. "How can I work if I'm laid up here on drugs?" Then I realized what Mulder said. It floored me. I know he handled my amputation frequently, but I also knew he claimed he was always into acrotomophilia. I would have worried if I had known he was trying to stimulate my arm's regrowth. Then I wondered if he lied to me when he said I was sexier with one arm than most men with two. Walt snorted and said, "Alex, stop running circles in your head. Yes, Mulder wanted to help you. Yes, we find you beautiful as you are and, no, you aren't too busy to take care of your own health. We'll bring a lap top. We'll help you. The world will not end because you aren't running around raiding labs. You trained your teams. Let them work the way you intended." It's true I always said that I made Iustum so it could run itself. I just wasn't quite ready to loosen up on the reins. Angel and I were companions as the dog underwent surgery and I spent my time in a haze of good drugs and reoccurring pain as doses wore off. Watching Angel both inspired me and made me aspire to his endurance of pain. Angel's surgeries were going well. He was a tough dog and a good healer so his rehabilitation was going faster than expected. Maddie's reconstruction had restored Angel's lips where they had been ripped away. She had rebuilt a damaged eye socket and engineered a jaw line. One eye had been cloudy, but now seemed clear and was able to track, which I credited Edward with, not Maddie. The dog's injured leg was still making him limp. One of the first things that Maddie finished was removing the tattered remains of his scrotum, damaged in his last fight. Angel was my example. He must have been in pain but he hardly showed it. He loved being petted and he loved his comfortable bed in the crate. He took everything in stride. I tried to keep my temper even, but it was a trial. Mulder or Edward were with me constantly. They stroked my arm for hours sometimes. Mulder seemed to draw power from the sexual trope between us and he didn't seem weakened after he worked on me. On the other hand, Edward's healing efforts made him tired. Missy and Kat were barred from here. I would not put children in danger for my arm or anything and it was difficult for the girls not to try to heal. Meanwhile, Angel was released back to Edward and Carrie where Missy, who adored Kat, paid a visit. Missy tried to move the healing further than Maddie's surgery could accomplish, but she failed. She asked to see me and I allowed it, only if Missy was not near enough to risk attempts to further speed my rebuilding arm. Missy was dressed in layers of tulle covered by a satiny material with a pattern of red hearts. She wore shiny Mary Jane shoes and her red curls were disciplined by matching red bows to her dress. She sat primly on the chair that Mulder pulled close to me. I was sitting up in an armchair, my arm encased in a plastic bag filled with sanitizing goop. I could see finger forming in the blob that would be my left hand, but I tried not to look at it took long as it made me vaguely nauseous. "Uncle Alex," Missy said, her voice becoming more like Scully's by the day. "Yes, Missy?" I said gravely. "Angel doesn't want to get all better," Missy announced. I said nothing, thinking. I could dismiss it as a childish fantasy, but I took Missy seriously. She was very bright and she had more life experience of the negative kind than most would ever experience. "What do you mean, Missy? You can't help him heal? Honey, don't feel badly. You already helped him a lot." "I know that," Missy said, sounding cross and as if she thought I was being obtuse. "I could make him better. I don't even get sick anymore when I do it. I practice all the time. I made a little mouse not die from poison. I fixed a bird's wing so he could fly just fine. I COULD fix Angel, but he won't let me. He says people need to see him the way he is. They need to understand what happens to dogs in fights. He says every dog needs a job and that showing people how pit bulls suffer is his. He wants lots of pictures of him everywhere." "He told you that?" I asked. "He thought pictures at me," Missy said. "Like Will used to think, but now Will thinks in words mostly. Angel thinks me away when I try to make him better." I wonder if that was what I had done to Mulder. Did I think him away when he tried to heal my arm until I was ready to let go of the mutilation of my body? Had I come to a juncture in my life where I could forgive myself for my mistakes? I took a breath. Maybe. I could forgive, but I would not forget. The evil I had done weighed heavy, but I made progress every day to piling up the good. I knew I too had a job and, perhaps, the way I was made a weapon served it well. Edward and Carrie's wedding waited until I was finished healing. My left hand was pale and weak but it worked. I could hold hands with both of my lovers at once. I could clap my hands. I could stroke Mulder's cock and finger his ass at the same time. Walt could teach me to play the guitar. I thought that Mulder would be his son's best man, but Edward wanted me. I hadn't noticed Edward before Kat came along. He had been reclusive and spent as much time as possible taking long walks. That was how he met Carrie. Once I spent time with Edward, seeing how much like Mulder he was, I loved him as if he was my son. I cared about all the children of my project, but Edward, Tommy, the boy with the fused limbs, and Missy were special to me. It is strange. Out of the three of us, I was the one who founded Iustum. I was the one who was driven to gather up the flotsam and jetsam of the Project. I said it was because I knew more than Mulder about what was going on. I could have done more to stop it sooner. Maybe it was time to admit that I also did it because there was good in my heart. If I was worthy to be loved by Mulder and Walt, maybe I was worthy to be loved by myself. Jeff walked Carrie down the aisle. Scully was her matron of honor with Kat and Missy as flower girls. She had an assortment of my girls as bridesmaids. There were way too many for a small wedding, but it was the first marriage involving a project child unless you count Jeff himself. Carrie had a generous heart and didn't want to leave any of the girls out. Angel limped after them, a garland of flowers around his thick neck, a basket held in his pinkly healing lips. More cameras were aimed at him than at the wedding couple. I did what Missy told me to do. What Angel wanted if the little girl wasn't just creating a fantasy. I made Angel the poster child for pit bull rescue, the tinder for debate that reached people who had no interest in dogs of any breed. Donations poured into Lost Cause and other pit bull rescues in Angel's name. After Angel flopped down to drool in his basket which was set right by the podium, Matt Nolan cleared his voice. Matt was one of my first friends here. He was the big red headed deputy who had introduced Matilda to me, resulting in her meeting Jeff and adopting her rescue dog, Chance, another victim of the dog fights. Recently, Matt had studied for and earned the title of minister. He was a Unitarian. He even offered to take up the cause of a unique three way ceremony for my lovers and myself. I refused. First of all, I didn't want to weaken the cause for other gay couples and, secondly, our marriage was a ceremony of blood, weapons, abductions, fist fights, and finally of love that is beyond all else. We needed no seal other than the endless love we consummated with each other. Matt was a great choice to officiate for Edward and Carrie. He represented love and tolerance. I don't necessarily believe in God with a big G, but I bowed my head anyway and prayed for my young friends. I prayed that they would have great happiness in their lives, that they would be as joyous in their bed as my lovers and I, that they would have great work that would not over burden them, but which would make them conscious of the worth of what they do. I prayed that they would never be bitter about the pain of their childhoods, but would never forget so they, like me, would reach out to the helpless. Edward glanced my way as his bride reached for his hand. He nodded as if hearing my thoughts. Perhaps he did. His "I do" sounded a lot like 'I will' to me. Carrie and Edward were a future that did not have to be fought. As I returned to my lovers, they embraced me. I felt as if this was a long golden moment, stretching endlessly, in which I would always stand with the men I loved, would always be healing and a healer. It was a beginning. Not an End. The End
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