Note: for Elizabeth's Birthday
 

All Walter knew was that Mulder's voice sounded thin, as near hysteria as the normally fearless agent ever sounded. Walter had used every precaution to conceal his identity and to make sure that no one, not even Doggett or Scully, could trace him. He was surprised that the thin haze of subterfuge around the ownership of the cabin was still effective. He didn't know what to think about Mulder's call last night.

"Walter, get over here. Something's happened and I need you," Mulder had said.

Walter hadn't hesitated. He called in sick and used a friend's credit card to rent a car. He hoped that Alex had not turned on Mulder. Although his thoughts often turned to the sweet gamin creature that seemed to be all that was left of the former double agent, Walter still secretly worried that the man would eventually betray Mulder.
 

OooOooO
 

The cabin seemed deserted. Walter used his key to enter and yelled, "Mulder?" His heart was beating fast and he was sweating, sure that something terrible had happened to his lover.

A sad voice said, "In here, in our room."

The bed held a distressed looking Mulder and Alex. The innocent clung to Mulder, his face buried in Mulder's neck.

"Mulder? What happened?" Walter said.

"No, no," Alex wept, struggling to hold even tighter to Mulder.

"Alex, it's just me," Walter said. "The man who helps you feed the chickens."

"Mulder, Mulder," Alex wept and clung harder to his security.

"What happened?" Walter asked.

"Salt took off for the woods again. That hen was nothing but trouble. Alex went to look for her, remembering what you said about chickens liking to go to the wood to look for different foods," Mulder explained. "I didn't think anything off it when he didn't come back right away. He's been doing so well."

As Alex struggled, apparently trying to climb into Mulder, Walter saw the side of his face. It was swollen and bruised. The scratches that ran down his cheek and along his neck were raw and sore looking.

"As far as I can construct, he had found Salt in a muddy patch of ground and after catching her, he decided to wash off in the stream. He might have been masturbating from what he said when I found him. He'd been doing that more often lately. I told him that people usually do that in private and he seemed to understand, but he might have thought the woods were private," Mulder said.

"It's hunting season," Walter said. He groaned. Not all hunters were sportsmen. Some liked to hunt for the skill. Some wanted the meat. A few wanted a license to hurt and kill.

"How did they hurt him?" Walter asked. He sat on the bed and reached for Alex. He didn't realize it would cause his heart to ache so badly to have the man sob and cringe away.

"They raped him. I found him in the woods, battered and bleeding, clutching the dead body of that stupid hen. I knew the nanocytes would heal him physically, but I can't seem to reach him mentally. Walter, he had been doing so well. I taught him to read again and he was conversing on an adult level. Now, we have a total set back. Worse than that. At least before, he was happily childlike. Now, he's a terrified animal," Mulder said.

"Have you eaten?" Walter asked.

"What? I ate yesterday, I think. I finally was able to get Alex to eat. I had to spoon feed him, but he ate," Mulder answered.

"I'll make soup," Walter said. His mother always held by soup as a cure for most things.

Mulder was able to coax Alex out to the kitchen. He was bundled in layers of clothing until his usually powerful stride seemed awkward and hampered. Mulder wisely chose to eat in the breakfast nook. It had a bench, which allowed Alex to press closer.

Putting two bowls down, Walter said, "Mulder, eat."

Automatically, Mulder picked up the spoon and turned to feed Alex. Walter cleared his throat and said, "Agent Mulder, if he's hungry, he'll eat. What happened was horrible, but he has to start recovering somewhere. He won't if you smother him in care."

A fiery glare from Alex suggested that somewhere Krycek was still alive beneath the innocent face and childish manners. He shoved the bowl away that Walter had set in front of him. It sloshed on the table. Krycek tugged at Mulder's arm, making him lose the spoonful of soup on the way.

Mulder sighed; a liquid exhausted sound, and prepared to feed Alex rather than himself. Walter said, "Mulder, eat." He smiled and added, "Or I'll spank you like you spank Alex. If it works for him..."

"You wouldn't?" Mulder said.

"Wouldn't I?" Walter grinned.

"Not going to take the chance," Mulder said. He glanced at Alex and said, "Alex, Walter says feed your self."

Walter cleaned up the mess and pushed the bowl back at Alex.

Alex glared at him and very deliberately picked the bowl up and flung it at Walter. The chicken soup had cooled so Walter wasn't burned, but he had as much as he could take.

Grabbing Alex, Walter turned him over his knee and swatted him. Mulder looked shocked, but to Walter's surprise, Alex didn't seem frightened. He cried, but seemed almost relieved not to be treated as if he was made of rice paper.

Walter left Alex's many layers of sweatpants up so it probably only was a vague sting, but Alex cried as if it was a bare-behind spanking. Walter dried his eyes for him and said, "You mustn't throw things, Alex."

"Okay," Alex said, "sorry." He looked at Walter expectantly for a moment and then said, "You do that wrong. Now you hold me."

An armful of tall and solidly built Alex filled Walter's startled arms. He was surprised but adaptable. Walter gently rocked the man and said, "Now, now, it's all better now."

A finger lifting the still drooping lip, Walter said, "You still have to feed yourself the soup, but I bought ice cream for a treat. To Russia with Buzz. That's still your favorite, isn't it, Alex?"

Feathered fronds of lashes blinked at him. Alex looked at the bowl and then slowly raised the spoon to his mouth. He took a few spoonfuls and then with a defiant look at Walter, picked up the bowl and drank the rest in a few greedy gulps. He licked at his lips and shoved the bowl at Walter insistently.

"Would you like more, Alex? Say 'Please'" Walter insisted.

Finally, in a small dry husk of a voice, Alex said, "Please...thank you."

"Good boy," Walter said.

"Not a boy," Alex said. "Not a good boy. I don't want to be a good boy for them."

"Oh, shit," Mulder said, "How many times have I said, 'be a good boy' over the last day?"

Walter said, "Don't slam yourself, Mulder. You couldn't have known. I can't understand why he's responding to me so easily. It's you that he loved."

Mulder's flicker of a smile suggested that Walter was missing something, but he didn't have a clue what was going on in the quicksilver of Mulder's mind. He filled Alex's bowl with a smaller second helping and finished his own soup.

After ice cream, Walter said, "Get some sleep, Mulder, if those dark circles get any bigger, they'll be around your navel. I'll entertain Alex."

Sorting through the movies in the case, Walter rejected Plan 9 from Outer Space, Young Frankenstien, Day of the Dead, and finally settled on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Alex and Mulder both loved that movie. They had spouted the dialog on every occasion in those halcyon days when the two of them graced Walter's bed.

Alex started in a huddle as far away from Walter as he could get, but as the movie progressed, he crept nearer until their thighs touched. Finally, Alex reached up and tugged Walter's arm over his shoulders. He leaned into the self-created embrace with a soft sigh.

"I'm sorry what those men did to you," Walter said. He stroked Alex's soft hair and said, "I wish you remembered what is was like before...before you left Mulder and me."

Damn, it still was painful. Anger had numbed the loss until Mulder had claimed the shell of their former lover from the hospital. Seeing Alex so frequently, touching him, but never in the way they had formerly enjoyed, made Walter miss the past. It had seemed so real at the time. They used to talk about the future, about a life where the three of them could live openly as lovers together. Now, this was the dregs of that dream.

Green eyes stared at him and then Alex's finger traced the path of tears. "Sorry, I'm sorry," Alex said

"Alex, you didn't do anything wrong," Walter assured. "Watch the movie."

Alex settled back, but his head grew heavy on Walter's shoulder. Walter looked down at a profile of closed eyes, sweet slack sleeping face. He carefully adjusted Alex to the pillow of his lap. One hand crept forward and held onto the leg, anchoring himself to the safety of Walter's body.

After both Alex and Mulder woke, Walter went out to feed the chickens. He winced when he found the bedraggled form of Alex's favorite and contrary hen lying on a barrel. Mulder must have tossed it there and forgotten it. No matter that Walter grew up wringing a chicken's neck for dinner with as little thought as one might have about peeling a potato; this was sad.

A sob came from Alex, who had followed him out. "Salt," he said with a quavering voice. "She's dead. They killed her and laughed at me when I cried. They were bad men."

Walter said, "We'll have a funeral for Salt, Alex. I'm sorry it happened. I know you loved her."

"I was a bad man," Alex said. "I remember sometimes. That's why you wouldn't touch me before. That's why the bad men did that to me."

"Fuck!" Mulder raged, "I want to find those bastards!"

"It isn't why, Alex," Walter said, "Those men didn't rape you because you were bad. You were innocent and they wanted to hurt you. Do you think they killed Salt because she was bad?"

Looking at the limp bundle of feathers, Alex sobbed quietly. He said, "She was a good hen. She just liked to go in the woods."

"Come on, we'll have a funeral," Walter said, remembering what had comforted his younger sister, Sarah. Sarah had a tender heart. She always had wounded creatures in her room. When she lost one of her foundling patients, she was always bereft and Walter would stage elaborate funerals to distract her.

Choosing the edge of the woods, Walter dug a deep hole and lined it with moss. Alex carefully put the ripening body of the hen into the soft bed and knelt weeping.

"Now, you say something about Salt," Walter advised.

"She was a good hen and when she was a chick, she liked to peck my ear. She always let me hold her close when I was sad," Alex said. "Lord bless her and keep her, Amen."

Walter said, "Amen." He glanced at Mulder and his lover nodded back. Another little buried piece of Alex had popped forward. Despite the records provided by the alien rebels, no scrap of evidence had surfaced about Alex's family. It was as if the teenage boy who had been chosen as a tool by Spender had popped from a test tube. However, Walter was sure that Alex had once had a family. Spender wouldn't have taught Alex that childish prayer.

The three men carefully put rocks over the grave to keep the wild dogs from digging the hen up. Walter winced as he imagined what his practical grandmother would have said about burying a barnyard fowl.
 

OooOooO

"Alex, can you be very brave and tell me about the men who hurt you?" Walter asked.

"Please?" Alex begged with quavering voice. He shrank into himself, eyes clouded with fear. "No," Alex said, huddling away into Mulder's arms.

"Alex, what those men did was very bad," Walter said. "If they did it to you, they might do it to someone else, a kid, maybe."

"It's bad to hurt kids," Alex agreed. He frowned and said, "I did that though. Don't like to think about the bad Alex. But I didn't hurt him that way! That's for grownups."

"Yes, it is for grownups and only for ones that say yes," Mulder said, kissing Alex's forehead.

"I'm a grownup really," Alex said with a frown. "It hurt when they did it, but I remember...I like it. I used to like having you inside me. I did, didn't I?"

"Oh, yes, Alex, you did. Just like I used to enjoy it when you did it to me," Mulder said. "But that's different. Those men just wanted to hurt you."

A shudder wracked Alex's body and he sobbed again until he cried himself to sleep.

Mulder sighed and said, "He's snapping back quickly, but the longer it takes for him to remember, the less likely it is that they will be caught."

Walter nodded. He wished he didn't have this rage when he considered what had happened to Alex. He didn't want to see those men tried. He wanted to rip them limb from limb with his bare hands.
 

OooOooO

Over the next week, Alex slowly recovered. Walter realized he was going to have to make a decision soon about going back.

The sun was shining brightly and the cabin was lit with warmth. Walter had bought an old porch swing at a local yard sale. Refurbished with the amateur help of Mulder and Alex, it now swung from heavy chains. The bright paint had dried; even the thick patch that had resulted when Alex had one of his fixated neurological glitches and repainted the same spot for ten minutes before Mulder noticed and moved him onward.

Walter sat in the middle with Mulder leaning happily on one side. Alex gave up an attempt to fit between the two lovers and had opted for Walter's other side. It felt like heaven. Other than for friendship, why should Walter go back?

Walter's mobile phone rang. It was Doggett, of course, trust the man to try to be Walter's call to arms. Doggett said, "Sir, we have a couple hunters dying with some symptoms that remind me of one of Mulder's old cases."

"Which one," Walter asked.

"The death of a man named Orgel. The hunters have similar symptoms," Doggett said.

"I thought that file had been removed," Walter said, with a glance at Mulder.

"Mulder gave me some copies of his private files," Doggett said.

"He did, did he?" Walter said, with a stern look at Mulder.

"Yeah, he did," Doggett said, "These jerks are telling some story about screwing a whore without condoms. They think they are dying of some kind of super AIDS, but if they screwed anyone, it wasn't a whore. They have scratch marks and bites as well as being bruised. I think they raped someone."

"I see," Walter said. "Keep me informed. I'm thinking, Doggett."

"Thinking, Sir?" Doggett said.

"Of retiring," Walter said.

"Oh," Doggett said, "I can understand that."

Which was why the man sounded like a kicked puppy dog...

"But it sounds as if it is a very interesting case, I'd like to know if anything else turns up on it," Walter said.

As he gave the facts to Mulder, he saw a queasy expression cross his face. "Mulder, what's wrong?"

"Those hunters have to be the ones that raped Alex. He had blood under his nails and skin. He didn't just lie still to be raped. I think they got what they deserved, but, Walter, Alex and I..."

"You didn't?" Walter said, terrified for a moment.

"Yeah, well, he was in bed with me and I woke up with him touching me. It just seemed so natural to let it happen. I didn't even think about his mental state. You know what Alex could do to me. That hasn't changed. I didn't think about protection either," Mulder said. "I let him come in my mouth and I swallowed."

"Jesus, Mulder..." Walter said.

The next week was spent in terror, especially after the hunters died. However, Mulder remained his hyperactive self. He wasn't sick although the blood samples that Walter had tested showed loads of nanocytes. Walter's blood was just as infested although the nanocytes had mutated to a different form from those that Scully had originally detected. The final conclusion was that the three of them were cross infected, bound together by the common alien alteration to their bodies.

Walter concluded that he shouldn't risk infecting others. He should stay here. Stay with Mulder and Alex.

Besides, if Mulder spanked Alex, it seemed as if there was a time or two when he deserved exactly the same. Walter grinned to himself and eyes Mulder's wiggling butt as he lay on the floor, reviewing seventh grade grammar with Alex. At the rate that Alex was learning, he'd be back to university level within a year.

Which reminded Walter, there was a delayed conversation he had to have with Mulder...something about unprotected sex and thinking with the wrong head...
 

The end...probably Mulder's sore end.
 

The End

sequel: Still Innocent