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all headers in Ch. 1
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Chapter 2: Alone
When I finally recover from the nightmare or flashback or whatever the hell it is, I get myself out of the room and go in search of distraction. Anything to keep my brain from going there again.
I walk until I find one of the cafes the desk clerk told me about. “Happy Palace Fine Chinese Cuisine” the sign says. Like the hotel, it has a seen-better-days shabbiness about it. Inside, it looks, and smells, like every other Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been in.
It makes me homesick for Scully. Too many memories of sitting in motel rooms, eating take-out as we argued about the current investigation. Too many images of Scully delicately lifting a piece of shrimp up to her lips with her chopsticks, more often than not making me drop whatever I was eating into my lap. She had no idea how much I loved to watch her eat. I used to order French fries just so she could steal them off my plate.
I eat quickly, hardly tasting what I ordered, washing it down with scalding green tea. I crush the fortune cookie and pick at the pieces of it, turning the slip of paper over to see what it says. “There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you.”
Oh, joy. Too much like the ancient curse, “may you live in interesting times.” I crumple up the scrap of paper and leave my money on the table.
I wander around downtown, finally ending up in a bar. I’m not so much interested in a drink as I am in a distraction. I hope to exhaust myself so that I can finally get some sleep without having another episode.
This is one of the secrets I’ve kept from Scully, and another reason I had to leave. Since my return, I’ve been having flashbacks from my time on the ship. They were really bad that first week I came back. I told Scully I needed some time. I didn’t tell her why.
Scully wouldn’t be surprised that I’m having nightmares, but these are more than that. I think they’re recovered memories, and they come at me like a blow from a sledgehammer.
I started having them in the hospital after I found out what had happened to me during my abduction. I sneaked a look at my file when I was waiting for the doctor to come and examine me. I know that eventually I could have coerced Scully into telling me what happened, but I hadn’t really wanted to ask her. I hadn’t wanted to ask her anything at first: not about me, not about her. Especially not about her. I think I was more afraid of what she would say about her condition, and how she got that way, than about anything else.
The notes in the file were sketchy. The initial report was what really got my attention: “Patient exhumed after approximately 3 months burial. Decomposition commensurate with time frame; however, faint vital signs detected.”
Appended to this report was the M.E.’s report from Montana, co-signed by D.K. Scully, M.D. No autopsy report, just a “non-invasive examination for causes of death, per the order of A.D. Skinner, FBI.”
I hated to think of Scully having to participate in this, but I had an idea that she wouldn’t have stayed away willingly. In fact, she probably insisted on being there. I remembered that I’d asked her to perform the autopsy on my mother; she probably knew that I’d insist she examine me if I’d been able to.
I don’t know why no autopsy was performed but it goes without saying I’m very grateful there wasn’t.
Decomposition. I’d been decomposing. That’s a hell of a thing to wake up to.
Until I read that report I’d no idea how or where I’d been found, or what shape I’d been in. Yes, I knew I’d been abducted and returned, and I felt like shit when I first woke up, but I’ve woken up in hospitals so often, at first it didn’t seem that different from all the other times.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the description of my injuries. I touched my cheeks and felt the wounds. I traced my hand down my sternum, feeling the scar. I touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I looked at my wrists and ankles, seeing the puncture marks.
I began to remember. I closed my eyes and saw it all: the chair with the restraints, the bright lights, the whirring drills. The cold, inhuman eyes of my captors. I heard my screams over the whine of the drill.
I almost screamed again, the vision was so vivid.
The flashbacks continued after Scully took me home. I had no control over them. Waking or sleeping, they’d come over me with no warning. Sometimes I felt paralyzed by them. Other times, I must have fought back. I’d come to and find a table turned over, a lamp smashed.
I know the signs of PTSD. I *am* a psychologist, after all. But I couldn’t see myself going to anyone for treatment. I felt that the best cure would be to find out exactly what happened, and how to prevent it happening to me, or anyone, ever again.
The last thing I wanted to do was subject Scully to my nightmares. I know what she went through with her abduction, and how she hated remembering anything about it. She saw what had been done to me; she examined my body when I was dead, and after I was exhumed. There was no need for her to suffer through those agonies again.
I wish I could keep myself from suffering too, but I think the only way to help myself is to confront it. My plan is to visit Bellefleur, and maybe even Montana.
Maybe it’s just as well Scully didn’t come with me. She’d insist on going to those places with me, and though it might be comforting to me to have her there, I couldn’t have asked her to do it.
I’m not sure what I expect to find there. Maybe some clues, maybe nothing. At least it’s a step toward understanding what happened to me, and at least I’m not having holes drilled in my head to get at the truth.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to face a drill again, of any kind. So much for my garage workshop. Sorry Scully, can’t make you a bookshelf, I’m afraid of the drills and saws. Not to mention the vises and the routers.
I grimace into my beer at the direction my thoughts have taken me. Scully would frown with concern, even as I tried to make her laugh. She’d try not to, but I’d be able to tell.
I stay at the bar until closing time, and walk back to the hotel. It’s very cold out, and the streets are quiet. I can tell that there are homeless people huddled in the doorways, looking like nothing so much as bundles of old clothes. I think back to the alley in Atlantic City where I went searching for the beast woman. At the time, I couldn’t comprehend anyone choosing to live that way. Now it seems appealing in an odd way. To disappear off the face of the earth, have no name, no one knowing or caring where you were.
It could happen to me. I imagine myself shuffling along, hair long and matted, scraggly beard, muttering something about the invasion, shrieking in my sleep when the nightmares come. What makes me so different from these people? What makes me think I deserve to live a normal life? Let this be a warning to you, Mulder.
x-x-x-x
The second day in Portland dawns cold and rainy, entirely suitable to my mood. I plan to do a little research here for a couple of days, until I have the guts to head over to Bellefleur.
As expected, I didn’t get much sleep the night before, but at least I was able to take a shower in a full-size bathroom. I check out of the hotel and start walking toward the business district. I stop at the first bus stop and ask the driver what line to take to get to the library.
I stop in at a nearby Starbuck’s (there seems to be at least two coffee shops on every block) to wait until the library opens. I order a coffee and bagel and sit down to watch the passing parade, a stranger in a strange land.
I’m finding that my new life has many unexpected dimensions. Maybe it’s being in a strange place that sharpens my perceptions and memory. It’s the little things that I miss most, things I’d taken for granted in my former existence, and that I’d barely begun to appreciate again upon my return.
Practically the first words out of my mouth when I revived were, “Did anybody miss me?” I was referring, of course, to Scully, but as it happens, more people missed me than I thought possible.
The first time I stopped in at the convenience store down the street from my apartment, the owner smiled and extended his hand to me. “Welcome back,” he said, trying not to stare at the fading scars on my cheeks. I’d never done more than exchange a few words with him, yet he remembered me, and not in a bad way.
The girl behind the counter at the Starbuck’s also gave me a huge smile when I came in. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” she said. “Your usual?”
I nodded, sort of pleased that I had a “usual” when everything in my life seemed anything but. I was a bit surprised when she called to the barista, “One large Americano, extra hot, and one grande nonfat soy latte, low foam.”
How could I have forgotten that my “usual” had always included Scully?
I shook my head. “Sorry, just the Americano,” I said with an apologetic smile.
Until I’d gone missing and came back, I’d never noticed those things.
The biggest hole in my life, of course, is the one where Scully belongs.
I’d told Scully, in a sort of self-pitying way, that I didn’t know where I fit in anymore. I could see how much it hurt her, though of course she didn’t say. I was so tired, and so disoriented from all that had happened to me, that I couldn’t spare a thought to what Scully had gone through while I was gone.
At first, I did my best to wedge myself back in. I thought work was the answer, and I as much as told Scully that. I tried to go back to the office, tried to get back involved in the X-Files, but it felt like I was just going through the motions.
I don’t think they expected me to leave. I don’t think they expected me to accept my firing without a fight. I think they thought I’d follow my usual pattern of trying to break in somewhere, or publicly threaten Kersh, or some other foolish act that the old Fox Mulder would have done.
Guess I’ve learned something over the years, huh? Some of their techniques are starting to rub off on me. Lay low. Work in the shadows. Don’t ever tell anyone everything, keep it all on a “need to know” basis.
That means leaving almost everyone out of the loop as far as the big picture is concerned. I’m not sure I know everything myself.
The hard part of all this is the amount I’m forced to keep from Scully. Yeah, she’s used to me withholding information from her, but not like this. I just hope it doesn’t come back and bite me on the ass one of these days.
All the same, I wouldn’t put this on a par with the biggest secret I’ve ever kept from her. She didn’t know that when I was abducted, my days were already numbered.
I hardly wanted to think about it myself, though by then I was intimately acquainted with the details, and my doctor assured me that there was nothing to be done about it.
It started out subtly. I’d be going along fine, and then I’d have an episode of debilitating pain, not unlike a migraine. Sometimes it was only a few seconds in duration. Sometimes it would be a low, dull throbbing that went on for hours or sometimes, days.
I ignored it for a long time. I knew it wasn’t what had afflicted me before; I heard no voices or high-pitched ringing. Eventually I quietly visited a specialist. After an enormous number of tests which turned up nothing, he concluded that I had some sort of degenerative disease the likes of which he’d never seen before. And since he’d never seen it before, he had no idea how to treat it. The best he could do was monitor it, keep track of my “decline.”
Well, there’s a surprise. Didn’t I say that nothing is ever simple for us?
I didn’t want to tell Scully. I didn’t even tell the Gunmen, because I was sure *they’d* tell Scully. I remembered too well how helpless I felt when Scully was ill, and I somehow knew there was nothing she could do. I didn’t want her making any Faustian bargains on my behalf.
When she disappeared with Smoking Man, I thought somehow she’d found out, and she was doing exactly that. I was really angry with her, but also disappointed that the science he’d promised her wasn’t there. It might have helped me.
There would be no miracle cure for me. I felt that what had happened to me on the operating table had probably caused this, and that since they’d left me to die there, every minute I had since then was a bonus.
Pretty fatalistic, isn’t it? I did try to find answers, and I did what I could to find a cure. But there were limits to what I would do. Maybe part of me always believed that everyone would be better off if I was gone. Scully could go have her normal life, and certainly no one else would miss me much.
There were a couple of opportunities I explored, not long before I was abducted. I couldn’t bring myself to avail myself of either of them, because to do so would have caused more pain and suffering for someone else. It just didn’t seem right.
Somehow I was able to keep it from Scully. I hadn’t intended to do it forever; in fact, just before the last trip to Oregon, I almost told her. But at that time, I was worried about her. She hadn’t been feeling well, and I lived in fear that it was a recurrence of her cancer.
Illness or no, I didn’t intend to get abducted. I didn’t go willingly on the ship. After I was returned, and Scully and I finally began to talk about things again, I told her that. Even though I knew my illness was serious, I wouldn’t have purposely done anything to take me from Scully sooner.
We wasted some time on recriminations when I got back. Yes, I’m guilty, too. I didn’t understand how Scully had gotten pregnant, and it seemed to bear out my theory that she’d been able to move on without me. I was jealous of her partner, jealous that she’d been able to keep on while I was missing. She did a hell of a lot better than I did when she was taken. She finally had to spell everything out for me. What an idiot I was.
We wasted so much time not listening to each other. Hell, the truth is, *I* wasted time not listening to her. And by the time I was ready to listen, she wasn’t talking any more.
I know I hurt her feelings by expressing my fears and doubts about the baby she carried. I was scared. We’d both seen too much, and I was too familiar with Scully in denial. I knew how much the baby meant to her.
It meant a lot to me, too, and I wasn’t just scared for Scully. It could have turned out so very badly. I still don’t understand why it didn’t.
I was not prepared for the way I felt the first time I saw William. Up until that point, even with the evidence before my eyes, the idea of Scully as a mother seemed purely theoretical. The idea of me being a father, even more so. But as soon as I saw William in Scully’s arms, squalling for all he was worth, I knew beyond a doubt. I would do anything to keep him safe. Anything.
x-x-x-x
The library finally opens and I head for one of the computer terminals. I’m lucky to get one right away instead of having to sign a waiting list.
I log on and go to the “Weluvcheezstks” list. Michael Orr, among others, has belonged to this list for many years. It just so happens that Langly is the moderator for that group. I can leave a message there any time and know that it will get to them.
There are also certain newsgroups where I can leave messages, though I tend to avoid the obvious ones with words like “aliens” or “conspiracy” in the title. I visit alt.tv.xena and post stuff about weaponry, especially those involving iron ore. The guys thought it would be funny if I posted to alt.tv.lostinspace but I vetoed that.
The guys put a lot of stock in the newsgroups. They tell me that there are a lot of highly intelligent and knowledgible people who frequent these lists, and they’ve often gotten leads to the answers they sought.
I can’t really naysay them; the one time I met someone from a list I used to frequent, she seemed to be pretty knowledgible, if a bit anti-social. I don’t think Scully liked her much, though.
This list isn’t very active, though Langly told me once that there are about two hundred legitimate subscribers. I see that “leerjet01” (Frohike) has posted within the last hour and I take a chance and post a message. — geobounce13: subj: see the game last nite? The Wizards sucked. —
I go check some other websites and come back in a few minutes to see that leerjet01 has posted a reply.
— leerjet01: subj: re: see the game last nite? Care to step outside & say that? —
The message means that Frohike’s opened a chatroom. Once I enter, the private chat window comes up.
—
leerjet01: you ok?
geobounce13: been worse. got to first destination. anything new on the home front?
leerjet01: same old. if you go to Xena, check out the heavy metal thread. L asked the question you wanted.
geobounce13: ok. how are they?
leerjet01: they’re ok.
geobounce13: seen them?
leerjet01: yesterday.
geobounce13: gotta go. let me know…let her know.
leerjet01: will do. don’t worry.
***leerjet01 has left the chatroom***
—
It wasn’t a very satisfying exchange, but at least I know that as of yesterday, Scully and William were safe. Nothing else to report. No news is good news, I tell myself.
I do a little more research before my time runs out and spend the rest of the day reviewing the news archives for stories about strange lights in the sky, or amything else that might be relevant to me.
The events of last year actually got a mention in the Portland paper, back in the regional section.
“BELLEFLEUR. Reports of a plane crash in the forest outside of this small fishing village were greatly exaggerated, local law enforcement says. `I don’t know how these rumors get started,’ says Detective Miles.
“Bellefleur has long been known for sightings of unidentified lights in the sky that no one has ever been able to explain.
“‘I think it’s the local Chamber of Commerce, trying to generate some tourist dollars,’ Detective Miles continued. `Don’t put too much stock in it. You get lost out in that forest, you might just stay lost.'”
No kidding. I almost did.
x-x-x-x
It’s no surprise that nights are the worst time. The libraries are closed. I don’t want to go to a bar or anyplace else that reminds me of how solitary my life has become. All I can do is go back to my room and type up my notes, and think.
I can get by on minimal sleep; I always have. That’s especially a good thing, now. I’m afraid if I have a particularly bad nightmare, someone might hear and call the cops.
I still do a lot of channel-surfing, naturally. But the types of shows that used to lull me asleep before don’t work the way they used to. Scully has ruined me for adult entertainment.
My main entertainment now is thinking about her.
Where once all I had was fantasy, I now have memories. I’m grateful for them, but it goes without saying that I’d rather have the real thing.
It isn’t the first time I’ve had to rely on my memories to keep me sane.
All the time I was gone, no matter what horrible things were done to me — and frankly, I’m doing my best to allow *those* memories to remain hazy — I had a place to go, to escape to. And that place was where Scully lived. I went there to be with her whenever I could.
I started with the memory of our first time together. It’s a very clear memory, and I don’t think I’ve added too much to it. Even at the time, I did my best to file every moment away to be taken out and pored over. Perpetual pessimist that I am, I wasn’t taking any chances. If this turned out to be a one-time thing, I was going to make the absolute best of it.
Well, that wasn’t the only reason. Of course, I wanted to please Scully as much as I wanted this for myself. I wanted to remember that I’d given her something to treasure, as well as myself.
Not to mention that I thought I might earn myself a return engagement if I did really, really well. My track record hadn’t been too good up to that point. I’d given up trying to let Scully know how I felt. I’d done my best. It was up to Scully now to let me know if she was interested in taking our relationship any further.
The night Scully finally made her move was like a lot of other nights we’d spent in each other’s company. We’d had dinner, discussed a case we were working on, until I decided I’d better call it a night. I was on the point of leaving. I had my coat on, and Scully walked me to the door, which she usually did. Sometimes we hugged goodbye, sometimes there’d be just a quick peck on the cheek, once or twice a glancing kiss on the lips. I loved the anticipation. I always let Scully take the lead. Part of the charm (and the frustration) for me was trying to figure out her mood and what I could expect at the door. I was right about as often as I was wrong.
Despite my resolve to let Scully set the pace, I don’t know how long I would have let this go on before one night I just grabbed her and planted a big wet sloppy kiss on her, damn the consequences. As always, Scully took me by surprise.
On the night in question, she didn’t do anything overt. She just took my hand. This by itself was not unusual. We were standing at her door. She made no move to open it, and neither did I. I looked down and started to say something, and saw this look in her eyes I’d never seen before. I felt the soft pressure of her hand around my fingers — just a gentle squeeze.
And she smiled at me.
Scully doesn’t smile very much. It’s not that she’s humorless or unkind, she just doesn’t bestow her smiles easily. Nothing about Dana Scully is easy, or simple, or trivial. The point I’m trying to make here, is that when Scully smiles, it means something.
I saw everything in that smile. It must be why she doesn’t do it very often; her smiles reveal too much. That smile spoke to me. It seemed to be saying, “What are you waiting for, Mulder?” She didn’t say a word, just kept smiling up at me. She tilted her chin up, and she seemed to be leaning toward me a little. We were already standing pretty close together, and it didn’t take much for me to bend down and meet that smile with one of my own, right against her lips.
I’m not sure how long we stood there. I can see us now in my mind’s eye. My mouth is pressed against hers, and our hands clutch each other’s, and we stand there, swaying slightly as we kiss. Our only points of contact are our mouths and our hands. I was almost afraid to move, as much as I wanted to hold her.
Scully broke the spell first. “Mulder,” she said on a sigh, her head bent down. Then she looked up and smiled again. I felt her hand move up to my wrist and tug on it a little.
“What?” I said in a similar tone. She’d moved a little closer, so that our bodies were almost touching. I felt mesmerized by her gaze and her touch.
“You don’t have to go, do you?”
I shook my head slowly, my eyes never looking away from hers.
I let her lead me back over to the couch. She helped me off with my jacket and hung it up again, and came back to sit next to me.
I remember that we kissed for a long time. Sometimes they were soft, exploratory kisses; sometimes we were a little rougher. I found a couple of hickeys the next day when I was shaving. Seeing them made me smile with remembrance. I thought of Scully, making a similar discovery in her mirror. I know I gave as good as I got.
That night, Scully took the lead; she’s the one who eventually stood up and took my hand again. I was momentarily confused; I still wasn’t sure if now that she’d had her way with me she was showing me the door.
Once I realized where we were headed, I no longer hesitated. We stood next to the bed, and I did my best to undress her without letting my lips leave hers; she was doing the same thing for me, but eventually we had to stop to take a breath. I was almost afraid to do or say anything. I didn’t want to break the spell.
Scully put her hand on my naked flank and caressed me softly. “Are you okay, Mulder?” she asked softly.
I nodded, my eyes on hers. She took my hand again and pulled me over to the bed. She lay down first, and I followed her. More kissing, and touching, and soft murmurs of encouragement and approval. I took my time with her, though my heart was about to burst out of my chest. By the time we finally joined, I was lucky to remember my name. Being with Scully was the culmination of years of yearning. Maybe I had a vague fear of the fantasy not living up to the actuality, but once I’d touched her and felt her soft, warm skin against my own, and her breath mingling with mine, I knew that the reality was beyond any dream I was capable of dreaming.
Reality? Well, the reality is that it probably wasn’t perfect, much as I’d like to remember that it was. We were a little awkward with each other, because no matter how often I’d imagined being together like this, I couldn’t possibly have known what it would be like.
But it was wonderful. Everything about it was wonderful, including the accidental elbow in my ribs, the bumped noses (both of us), even the high, girly giggle I think I emitted when Scully grabbed my waist and caught me on a ticklish spot.
I wonder if Scully remembers it as vividly as I do. I’m not sure she does, but then she hasn’t had as much time on her hands, and she probably wasn’t making the kind of conscious effort I was to imprint the memory of that night.
I’m not likely to forget it, though it’s possible that I’ve embellished it a bit in my memory. I’ve had to live on that night, and the few others like it, for a long time. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage from my small store of memories of Scully and me together, so it’s no wonder that sometimes I added a few grace notes here and there — improving on perfection, in a way, because in reality I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
I can unspool it like a film now. It’s my late-night entertainment. There are half a dozen or so more memories like it, but this one is my favorite.
x-x-x-x
Life goes on like this for some time. I stay in Portland, dividing my time between libraries and bookstores and cybercafes. I keep in touch with the Gunmen, though they have little to report to me. The question Langly had posed on the Xena list, having to do with properties of various metals, has garnered no response worth pursuing. We keep our contacts infrequent and minimal.
I think about emailing Scully a lot, but don’t do it.
I continue to have nightmares. I think about going to Bellefleur, but don’t do it.
I’m a coward. I want Scully to be here, to wake me up when the nightmares get too bad, and then to tell me to get off my ass and get going.
x-x-x-x
As I mentioned before, the Gunmen have been helping me with various projects for some time. They’ve developed an amazing network of experts in various disciplines. They developed many of these contacts because of the answers I asked them to help me find over the years. I’m counting on their network to help me now.
After Ruskin Dam, when I asked them to find out about Scully’s chip, they leaped at the chance. I suspect, however, that they’d been trying to find answers for Scully since her abduction. These guys play their cards very close to their vests. I was around to see their first meeting, and if it’s true that there are no coincidences, that was quite a fateful day for all of us. I couldn’t be more grateful that they took a liking to me, G-Man or not, and that they became my friends, too.
To be truthful, I’m a little jealous of them. They have each other to rely on, and they get to see Scully and William regularly. All I have is me.
The lack of information from them is frustrating and it makes me restless. Not quite restless enough to move on, but definitely on edge.
I’ve moved to a marginally nicer place on the outskirts of town, near the highway. I’ve requested an end unit and luckily for me, it’s not a very popular place. When I wake up screaming, there’s no one to be concerned.
It’s the third or fourth time I’ve moved since coming to Portland. It’s not so much that I’m paranoid, but I don’t want to get too comfortable in any one place, or cause undue notice by staying anywhere too long.
The nightmares don’t seem to be getting any worse, but they’re not getting any better, either.
I’ve bought an old car for the trip to the coast, though I continue to take the bus or walk around town. I keep my eyes peeled for anyone who seems too interested in my movements.
Frankly, though, I don’t think anyone is actively looking for me. They may think they’ve achieved their aim by distancing me from Scully. They want her as alone and vulnerable as they can get her.
They don’t know how strong her support system is, and that I’m the one who’s floundering.
x-x-x-x
Out of the black silence, the lights flash on.
This time it’s different. I’m an observer; I see the blinding white light focusing on someone or something else.
I hear the wail of a baby and I know who it is.
I watch helplessly as I see the drill descend. I can’t see him, but I know it’s William. I try to move toward the light and find that I’m just as immobile as if I were still strapped in the chair.
I can’t let this happen. I’ve got to stop them. I struggle and twist and fight. Somehow I manage to move forward, smashing through whatever is restraining me.
William’s cries get louder and the drill gets closer.
“NO! I hear myself shouting over and over again.
The lights blink out and there’s silence again.
I’m standing outside my motel room door. It’s freezing and it’s drizzling as it has been all day. My arms ache. My throat hurts. I’m breathing like I’ve just run a marathon.
The door next to mine opens very cautiously and I see a head peek out.
“Did we wake you up?” I hear a man’s voice, and from the open door I hear the screams of a very unhappy baby. “We just got here, and the baby just woke up. I’m really sorry.” He looks scared.
If I were him, I’d be scared, too. I know what I must look like. Several days growth of beard; shaggy, unkempt hair, and a wild look in my eyes.
I have to clear my throat a little to be able to speak. I’ve hardly said a word to anyone in days. “It’s okay,” I say finally. “It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says again, and he looks at me for a minute before closing the door again. I hear the murmur of voices and the baby’s fretful cries.
I turn to go back into my room and notice that I’ve splintered the frame. Evidently the door was the force field I fought against. No wonder the guy looked scared.
I don’t wait for morning; I clean myself up and pack my belongings. I’m not running away; I don’t want anyone reporting me to the authorities. I stop at the office and check out, and tell them I had an “accident” with the door. I leave enough money to cover the repairs and add a bit extra for the night clerk.
Ready or not, Bellefleur here I come.
=====
end of Part Two; continued in Part Three.