********* Part 4/? Part Four -------- The Second Day 6:55 a.m They had given him five days. Five days to manipulate the most complicated machine on Earth. A machine that was untrustworthy and unforgiving in the best of times. A machine every man relied on...a machine doomed to failure. In the average human being, the mind was a quagmire of memories, emotions, and trivial fears. Mulder wasn't the average human being. In thirty-seven years his mind had acquired more baggage than most. More tricks and trapdoors. More safety latches than even the most brilliant psychiatrist could conceive of. More than anyone Robert had ever heard of, Mulder's brain was meant to last. Five days. Today was the second day. Robert clutched the thick file in his hands and pressed his cheek against the cold steel of Mulder's door. Everything that had ever happened to Mulder, every scrape, every scan, every trauma was catalogued here. A human life boiled down to the basics, except this man did not exist in basics. Only in terrifyingly complicated greys. Three days ago he had been in Athens. When the call had come. That voice on the other end--with everything of Germany 1939 in it, of Moscow 1945, of Saigon 1973--but the list could go on forever. Its accent still thick in spite of the many years of English. He had stood there, looking out at the nearby misty mountains, hand white around the receiver, knowing his time here was over. When he would not go to them, they came to him. He had been walking along the white sands of the Mediterranean when he had seen the long black sedan. It was almost funny. *Almost*. In Greece the cars were all like fat beetles, brightly colored, chugging slowly along. This long, sleek machine belonged in London or New York. But not in this charming and slow-paced country. He saw Conrad and two other men step out of the car. But Conrad walked alone toward the shore. The others hung back, waiting. Robert watched the older man trudge through the hot white sand, the sun shining painfully down. He was wearing a sweater, for Christ's sake. The man was asking for a heatstroke. Conrad stepped next to him and they stood silent, watching the blue-green sea. Although he was sweating, the older man showed no obvious discomfort. Lighting a European cigarette, Robert offered one to the older man. His gesture was returned by a blankly cool stare. Which now meant he had to smoke the damn thing. It was like kissing an exhaust pipe. "Kind of hot today." For a second Robert was sure he was going to say: 'We Germans must get used to all kinds of weather.' Maybe he had just been watching too many old movies. "I don't appreciate having to come down here." Robert, for once, acted wisely and said nothing. "It is not for you to pick and choose your assignments. You have no *choice*. Free will is not yours to exercise. You will come when you are called." Softly, he countered, "Don't you mean *needed*?" That blank stare again. "You will find out what he knows. You may use whatever methods you see fit." Not, 'I need you to find out what he knows.' Only, 'You will find out what he knows.' He blew out a stream of smoke. From his nose. No reaction. Krycek would have laughed. Marita would have slapped him. The Dandy would have been appalled. Conrad glanced at the two men in black suits. And back to the young man in front of him. "They can be quite persuasive. Do they need to be persuasive, Mr. Covarrubias?" Robert smiled without humor. "No." It wasn't until he was deposited safely in the back seat, a scotch in one hand, the file in another, his cigarette burning down to nothing on the beach, that he told him. "You have five days." He took large gulp of the drink. "And then?" Conrad Strughold looked at him. "You have five days." -------- The first day hadn't been a raging success. It had taken all of four hours for Mulder to figure out that he wasn't at a real hospital. The first night had been...unreal. He had been waiting for them. The trio from Maryland: Mulder, Marita, and Meyers. When they finally arrived, Marita had been shaky and white-faced, Meyers obviously bored, and Mulder...exhausted and exhilarated. Mulder was taken, bleary-eyed and confused, to the sterile room. Marita hadn't wanted to follow him into the room. Irritated, Robert had pushed her in and forced her to finish the little play. From outside he listened to their voices, Marita's soft and trembling, Mulder's loud and childishly echoing. She talked him to sleep that night, wrapping her arms around his chest...talking of nothing. She spoke of the things they shared. Of nonexistent Sunday morning rituals and of a dream home spawned in the over active imagination of a lonely young woman. Robert listened to every word of it. She spent almost a half an hour talking to him, running her fingers through his hair, hugging him, making promises no man or woman could keep. After he had finally fallen asleep, she emerged from the room, her face chalky, her eyes dark and empty. Walking as if she were asleep, she had just passed him before she turned to him slowly and spoke. "He's your problem now." "Tomorrow, eight a.m. Don't be late." A sound escaped from her lips. It was half laugh, half sigh. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm going home to New York. No." "If you're not here he'll know. I got you a room at the Seven Gables Inn--" "No." This time her voice was shaking with tears. "Look at me." He realized he had been avoiding her eyes. He looked at her. Her large blue eyes were wet and bright. And tiredly hopeless. "Tell them what you want. You always do. But I'm not doing this. I went and got him, okay? I made sure there would be no complications. My job is over." "I need you here. I need you to convince him to trust me. I *need* you." Again she shook her head, mutely. "No," she whispered. "I can't." Oh god. He had five days. If he wanted, he could make her stay. He knew how to; perhaps even more amazingly, he knew why she would stay. Even if it would tear her apart he knew why she would stay. He turned away from her and closed his eyes. "Go." "Bobby--" She placed a hand on his back. "Don't! Just--Just go." He heard her half-whispered apology and the sound of her heels on the floor. After her last steps faded away he slipped into Mulder's dark room. He watched him sleep and re-read the file by the dim light of the hall. -------- The others had not been amused when the next day--Day One--Mulder had managed to make a 911 call using Marita's cell phone, which he had somehow swiped the night before. 'Trust No One', indeed, Robert had thought with dark amusement. And that was only by ten a.m. Mulder had won that battle, but Robert was still winning the war. The rest of the day had been an exhaustive struggle. The only thing that gave him control was the file. Because of it, he held power over the man. Because of it he held the Fox Mulder holy grail in his hands. Although no life could ever completely be boiled down to just sterile pieces of paper, it came damn close. Together the two men played tug-of-war of the mind of Fox Mulder. Matching each man's sizable intellect against the other. Robert was making a game of it; the two men were not so much jailer and prisoner, or doctor and patient, as they were opponents in a convoluted war. If the others knew...if they discovered his method, okay his *lack* of a method... He had every technology known to man (and some known only to...an elite few), drugs, machines, medical instruments, scans...but used none of it. Robert believed that the mind inside of the man was simply too valuable. Five days to make sense of it all. He wasn't sure if five years would have been enough. Today was the second day. He knocked on the door (ridiculous gesture since it was locked), and then had the silent man standing guard outside of it, open it for him. He couldn't even get into the room by himself. It was made clear to him that they didn't want Robert to think of himself as Mulder's doctor. Or Mulder as a patient. Mulder was a science experiment, a mystery, a riddle. But he wasn't meant to be a human being. Mulder was staring at the ceiling, hands limp at his sides. Robert sat in the metal chair next to the bed and waited for the right words to come. "Did you sleep?" Unfortunately, the right words came from Mulder first. "No, not really. I was thinking about...everything." "You look like you haven't slept." "Did *you* sleep?" Half-hearted shrug from Mulder. "You keep looking at your watch," Mulder intoned softly, his eyes still focused on the ceiling. Robert stared at him. "There's a reason why I do that." And for the life of him he couldn't figure out if he said this as a threat or a warning. Why was everything so surreal around Mulder? Why didn't they act the way any sane person would in this situation? Except any sane person wouldn't be in this situation. A faint smile appeared on Mulder's lips. "Is it your turn to serve or mine?" Robert cleared his throat and began, "When you were twelve--" "Must be yours," Mulder muttered. "I wouldn't have figured you to start off with an ace." "Aces are all I have, Agent Mulder." The man glanced at him finally, looking like he'd just been punched. And then he laughed. "Love-Fifteen." Robert nodded. "It's not game, set, and match, yet, though." He didn't want Mulder to give up. He couldn't *afford* for Mulder to give up. "How long?" Deep breath. Dammit. He hadn't wanted him to know. Fifteen-all. "Four days." And strangely, they weren't just Mulder's four days. They belonged to Robert also. Four days. If he failed...Mulder's quest would be a memory. And Marita. Now safe and alone in New York, he knew she would still be struggling to overcome the feelings this assignment would have brought up. That she would be pretending *she* didn't also hang in the precarious balance. How could she fuck up a job and expect that there would be no consequences. Robert wasn't only fighting for himself, or even Mulder. He was also fighting for his wife. Failure would be disaster. Failure was a very real possibility. "You and your sister were playing a board game..." END 4/?