Some Weird Sin

By Cameragrrrl
Cameragrrrl@aol.com

Disclaimer and some such:
I do not have the rights to use any characters 
officially associated with The X-Files/ Lone Gunmen 
television series. I am using these characters without the 
permission of FOX, 1013 Productions, Chris Carter, or 
any other copyright owners. Of course, this is intended for 
[non-profit] entertainment only, and no 
infringement on copyrights or trademarks 
was intended by the author.

Any similarities to people, places, and other works of
fanfiction are purely coincidental.

All other characters not officially associated with 
The X-Files/ Lone Gunmen (including, but not limited to, 
Smithee and Ellroy) are property of the author 
and should not be recycled into another story without
permission. 

No animals were harmed during the making of this fanfic, 
except for two mosquitoes and one waterbug.

Cost of coffee drunk while writing this: $15.82
Cost of paper used to print out draft copies: $2.38
Cost of Anne Hawley's beta-reading skills: PRICELESS

The 'present' of this story takes place a few years 
before The Lone Gunmen series timeline.


* * *

No one answers when I knock. I press against 
the door, and it opens with a yielding creak. 
Good old Nebraska. It feels weird - after so many 
years of quadruple padlocked doors, monitored 
entrances, secret passwords - to walk into a 
place with so little effort. 

But it's not really that easy. I almost 
have to force myself to walk, 
to put one foot in front of the other. 

The house is small and dirty. Not messy, 
like our warehouse. Just . . . dirty. 
I mean, our place is littered with crap, 
but it's a pretty spotless chaos; dirt and mildew 
screw up the equipment and we can't afford to 
get anything fixed, so we just keep it clean. 

But everything here looks like it's varnished 
in grime. The kind that doesn't scrub 
away without a fight.

I don't want to look at anything, so I stare 
at my feet and follow the logical flow of 
the house. Standard low-income tract housing. 
We've done B&E jobs on types like this 
before - always in the name of truth, justice, 
and the American way. Of course. 

My father's room is in the back; I don't know 
what I expect when I open his door. For 
some reason, this image pops into my head from a D&D 
campaign that opened with, "You have never 
been here before, but somehow you know where 
you are going. You walk into a room, filled 
with the sound of water running down cold 
stone. The room is dark, but just enough 
moonlight spills through the narrow windows 
for you to see that the figure lying in the 
bed in front of you is no longer in this world."

Not quite. But what I wouldn't give for this 
to be just a part of some roleplaying 
game that I could stop whenever I wanted.

I hover in the doorway. The room is practically 
barren. A musty pool of sunlight seeps 
through blinds. It smells tainted, like 
fermenting hay. There's only a bed, pushed 
up against one of the walls, and a chair, 
a garbage can.

I blink. Something's wrong: The bed is empty. 

"Richard." 

I don't even have to turn around. "Ellroy. 
Where is he?"

"Elgin East. We had to take him there last 
night, after . . ." Ellroy sounds like 
he doesn't want to go into detail. 
"The doctors tried some last ditch injections, and 
he's been stable for about six hours, but . . ." he 
trails off again. Good; more details I don't want to hear. 

"Your hair got long," he finally says. 

"It's been ten years." I turn around. "Yours got short."

Ellroy half-smiles. "Well, it has been ten years." 

And at the exact moment I reach out to shake his 
hand, he steps forward to hug me - and I end up 
hitting him squarely in the stomach, hard, 
with my outstretched fingers. 

"Welcome home, Richard," he gasps, rubbing his chest. 


* * *

...Continued...