Title: Black Christmas Author: Ashlea Ensro Feedback: to theconsortium6@hotmail.com. Flames will be used to suppress evidence. Rating: G (yeah, you read that right.) Category: VRA Spoilers: Not really. Keywords: CSM/MulderMom Disclaimer: Though on many lonely nights I have wished otherwise, I don't own CSM or any other X-Files character. That honour belongs to CC, and he just abuses the power. I don't own the Indigo Girls either...damn. Summary: Some introspection, angst and smoking on Christmas Eve. Ramblings: This takes place in the Black Wings universe, so you might want to read the others first. Don't know what compelled me to write this, but I'm sure there's a Christmas challenge coming up soon. There always is. "So we must love While these moments are still called today Take part in the pain of this passion play Stretching our youth as we must Until we are ashes to dust Until time makes history of us." -- Indigo Girls _History of Us_ The lights are flickering on and off, not at regular intervals, but sporadically, like a broken fluorescent bulb at closing time. He can see his pale reflection in the window, and the lights on the tree paint his face in shades of red and green and blue. Another Christmas. Another year closer to The Date. He lights a cigarette, another small glow in the darkness. He doesn't know why he still bothers to have a tree. He is anything but religious, and he has no family in which to instill a sense of tradition, of belonging. The plastic needles are shedding over the floor, the branches casting sharp shadows over the wall. It is an old tree - old lights, bought back in the eighties when all sorts of silly things were on the market - lights that flashed and played Jingle Bells and god knew what else. A worthless indulgence, he thinks, but somehow a necessary one. Routine. Routine is important. Life cannot exist without it. Routine. Breathe in. Exhale. Blue smoke filters from his mouth, as if from the ashes of a long-dead fire. Breathe. He has been doing it all his life. Funny, he thinks, how the same stars outside the window looked down on them thirty-eight years ago, before she was an adulteress, before he was a killer. With his free hand he twirls his gun absentmindedly. He never keeps it out of his reach anymore. There is no shortage of people who would like to see him dead. Inhale. Exhale. He is alone, but he is alive. It is just another night, he tells himself. Another night, and his ghosts should be as transparent now as they were the night before. He can't afford to let them haunt him. The real dangers are more threatening. The headlights temporarily blind him as a car speeds by, the sound of slush meeting tires on the road. They will come for him again tonight. *** He remembers the year Bill invited him up to the house on the Vineyard. He had protested, "Christmas is a family time." Bill replied, "But you are family." And he thought to himself, Afterwards he had made quiet love to Teena as Bill slumbered, drunk, innocent in the next room. She leaned over him, whispered, "Why?" when he told her that this was the first Christmas he had celebrated since leaving the orphanage at the age of sixteen. He was silent for a long time. "I've seen many things in my life," he'd said finally, "But I've never seen an angel." She told him that she pitied him. He still doesn't understand why. *** The door slides open behind him. On Christmas Eve, during World War I, the British and the Germans lay down their guns and crossed into No Man's Land to drink together. The television flickers, not quite in sync with the lights on the tree. The next morning they went back to killing each other. He draws his gun before the assassin can shoot. The boy is young - but they all look young to him, these days. He'd thought Krycek was young too, once, and that had changed. The face that glows out of the darkness lacks emotion, the jaw determined, calm and unafraid. It had been his face, once. "Don't move," he says. He stands up. The boy does not react. He does not know what to do. It is his first hit - an important career move - but he has made a fatal mistake. He has seen the face of his victim, and caught a glimpse of his future in the soulless blue eyes. They stare at each other, at a standstill. "They make you work Christmas these days?" he asks, "They never did in my time." "Are you going to kill me?" the boy wants to know. He has been wondering that himself. He wants very much to fire - not to kill the boy, but to save him. Forty years from now, will this kid be sitting alone on Christmas Eve, awaiting death not with bravery, not with acceptance, but with a dull, weary apathy? What horrors will he see as he looks out his window? What burdens will he bear, wondering if he could have prevented it? He pulls the trigger. The boy barely flinches - he admires this. Both sets of eyes turn to look at the bullet hole in the wall. The boy lowers his gun. "Merry Christmas." He takes a puff of his cigarette as the assassin slips back out the door. *** He lights another smoke as he stares out into the street below. He watches a group of children, bundled in heavy coats and scarves, mittened little hands clasping sheets of music. Carolers. He finds it difficult to believe anyone still does that sort of thing. He listens as their high-pitched voices, sweet and slightly out of tune, float up towards his apartment. "...Peace on Earth and mercy mild..." "...God and sinners reconciled..." The lights flicker. He takes a long drag. He is tired - to old to mourn for the dead, or for the living. Breathe in. Exhale. "Joyful all ye nations rise..." "Join the triumph of the skies..." He smiles, a little sadly. And he thinks...