Title: The MessengerTitle: The Messenger Author: Ashlea Ensro Rating: R Feedback: to theconsortium6@hotmail.com. Flames will be used to torment Mulder. Archive: Anywhere, just let me know. Spoilers: everything up to "The End" We’ll just pretend the movie didn’t happen...it’s better that way. Category: SA Keywords: None Disclaimer: Spooky Spice, Starbuck Spice, Smokey Spice, Skinner Spice, and Samantha Spice, and anyone else you recognize are owned by Surfer Spice. David Parish is all mine, the poor bastard. Milan Kundera, William Wharton, Aeschylus and St. Augustine belong to themselves, as do their quotes. Summary: A killer’s last words lead Mulder towards the truth about Samantha...but is he ready to face what she has become? Thanks to everyone who wrote asking me to explain "The Sound of Her Wings". This would have never been written without you. Dedicated to the enigmatic JKV, who unwittingly inspires almost all of my writing, and also provided a name for Cancerman. It’s meant in the nicest way, of course. The Now-Obligatory Ramblings: It would figure that I would need a 25 page story to explain a four page vignette. This is sort of a sequel, sort of a prequel to "The Sound of Her Wings". You probably don’t need to read it first, but it might help. Or it might just confuse you more. This is the background story. It takes place some time after, and also some time earlier. You’ll see. If it gets confusing, just keep in mind that the ~~~ sections that look like this ~~~ are flashbacks to 1974. Basically, this is the story of how the Samantha of "The Sound..." got to be the way she is. "Anyone whose goal is "something higher" must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."—Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being PART I: STRATEGO "Woe betide that man of power who takes the side of those who have no power."—Saint Augustine "I can tell by your face that you’ve died before." The assassin brushes back his thinning grey hair in a nervous gesture, using the hand that isn’t firmly attached to his gun. He is nearly invisible in the shadows, his eyes cast into black between his lined brow and gaunt cheeks. He jumps back nervously as Fox Mulder swings the flashlight around to illuminate his cadaverous face. "Don’t look so surprised," the assassin continues, "I can always tell, you know. Something about the eyes." He takes another step into the shade beneath a broken roofbeam. The old warehouse is empty other than these two - the killer and his would-be victim. Mulder radioed for back-up ten minutes ago but no one has come. The man is clearly a lunatic - he has murdered twelve pregnant women in cold blood before holing himself up in the warehouse with a loaded semiautomatic. Now he is muttering to himself, his hands shaking as Mulder tries to talk him into dropping the gun. But he is not just a lunatic, although the fear of death has brought that out in him. He is something more. Mulder knows this - knew it even as he walked into the killer’s trap. All twelve of the victims had implants in the backs of their necks. The assassin shifts, his trembling hands slowly lifting the gun. "A lot have people have died, really," he says, "Even he has." "He?" "You know. Him." The killer raises his fingers to his lips in an unmistakable gesture. Smoking a cigarette. Him. "You work for him?" Mulder asksd. It isn’t a question. It all makes sense. "They won’t let me live, you know." The gun flashes silver in the darkness. "They never do. You’re not allowed to get caught. Once you end up in jail, you commit suicide. It’s how they protect themselves." "You don’t know that." "He was different, after he came back. He wasn’t afraid to die...before." For a brief instant, Mulder can see the killer’s pale eyes, wild with fear. "*I’m* afraid to die." "You’re not gonna die," Mulder says, oddly compelled to reassure the man. "Oh yes. They won’t let me live. This is it." And then he steps out of the darkness, into the small square of light streaming in from the open door. He is only a few feet away from Mulder, his gun still trained on the younger man’s head. "He has a message for you," the assassin says. "The smoking man?" The killer nods eagerly. "He said...he said to tell you to stop looking for her." "What?" Mulder’s voice is drowned out in the blast that follows. And when the smoke clears he can ask no more questions. He kneels over the bloody body as the sound of sirens builds in the distance. The phone is ringing and I can’t be bothered to pick it up - damn fools they want blood from you; blood, or more, if they can get it. They won’t leave me alone. Bastards. One of Their goddamn mistakes of course but who the hell takes the fall this time? Come on, Bill, let’s go out for a smoke, I’m sick of this shit. Too many idiots who know too much. I need a drink, let’s leave the sons-of-bitches to their games and their lies. They’ll work it out on their own. And then I wake up; I remember that Bill is dead. And I remember that I killed him. Damn. I am forever haunted by the people I’ve killed, and also by the people I haven’t. She leans over to blow a cloud of smoke in my face. "Morning, sunshine." Jesus Christ, Samantha. How long have you been here? She smiles. "Oh, about an hour." She hands me the box of cigarettes - my cigarettes - as she takes another long, slow drag. I grab them from her - too abruptly, I realize. I light one and glower at her, but I don’t look threatening enough. Not to her. She knows me too well. What the hell are you doing here? "I like watching you sleep." She curls her arms around me, lifting my head so I’m forced to look in her eyes. "You look so innocent, you know. You should see yourself." Right. The TV is still on but the sound is turned off, the light flashes in irregular intervals across her face. In the dim glow she looks even paler. Since the shooting she hasn’t left me alone. I nail the windows shut, lock the doors, but she always seems to find her way in. Go away, Samantha. "And where do you suggest I go?" She pauses, exhaling. A clever trick - it builds dramatic tension. She learnt it from me. "One of your men is dead." I suppose she’s expecting a response, but she won’t get one. I barely say a word when she’s around. I don’t need to. "Parish," she tells me. Oh. That one. Did Mulder shoot him? "He shot himself." She runs her tongue over her teeth, the smile on her face almost one of satisfaction. "He knew he wouldn’t stand a chance." Another pause. Another drag - she stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray by the chair. "Aren’t you going to say anything?" "What would you like me to say?" I’m speaking again - force of habit, I suppose. She doesn’t seem to notice. "Gimmie another smoke." Resigned, I hand the box over to her. "Those things will kill you, Samantha." Samantha Mulder smiles sadly. "No," she says, "They won’t." ~~~ It is memory that will destroy me, in the end. She doesn’t look like a dying child. She’s been outside, running by the lake - her sallow cheeks have caught the glow of the sun. She looks as alive, as healthy as any eight-year-old, but I know better. She has perhaps six months at the most. It seems bitterly unfair, but there is so much in life that is unfair - we are resigned to this, that she should die and I should live. I would trade my life for hers in an instant - but the choice is not mine to make. And she is sleeping now, unaware of her fate. No one will tell her. Several weeks ago she felt sick. Just a cold. Bill drove her in to the doctor in Providence. Routine, really, children her age are always sick with something. But not this. I take her little hand in mine, stroke it, absentmindedly. She should have been my daughter. None of that matters now. Bill always teases me about it - about me spending more time with his children than he does. He has no idea. And that doesn’t matter either. He was the one who told me. Poor bastard. One child dying, and the other- The other...~~~ ~~~ I have no children. I always thought I would be a good father. Apparently I am the only one who thinks so. But given the opportunity, I would have been. I would have been a good husband, too. Bill thinks it is unhealthy, unnatural, for a man to spend so much time with another man’s children. Strangely enough, he has never commented on my friendship with Teena. Cassandra has similar ideas - she tries to keep me away from Jeffrey as much as possible. She trusts me with her own body, but not with her son. But I would have been a good father. And now, as I sit at the bedside of a dying child, I feel the pain as much as a father would. Bill’s life will go on, and Teena’s, though it may take years. But mine ends here, with her, and I will always wonder if there was something I might have done. There is nothing. The wheels of fate do not stop in their tracks for one child, though I wish it might be otherwise. She sleeps, unaware of the maelstrom around her. ~~~ The body is that of a Caucasian male in his mid-forties. The cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the head. The name on the driver’s license in his wallet is David Parish, although that is almost certainly not the name his parents called him. Other than this, no records exist of the man whose life came to a sudden, bloody end on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. His eyes are open, staring sightlessly up, twin pale, blue-grey orbs, the blue fading from them rapidly, leaving them dead and colourless. His skin, his hair, all grey, as if he was shaped from the crumbling ashes at the end of a cigarette. They have removed his clothes and he lies naked on the cold slab, his body gaunt, emaciated. Ashes to ashes. Mulder closes the dead man’s eyes, intensely aware that this corpse once breathed, once spoke, once laughed. He is aware that ash was once fire, that this dead thing once burned with a life as intense as his own. But more than this - he is aware that this man might have once known his sister - that yet another faint spark of hope has burnt out. The man’s last words chill him, repeating themselves over and over again in his head. And Mulder curses the chain-smoking son-of-a-bitch, but it doesn’t do any good because the bastard isn’t here and it would make no difference even if he was. His message has been sent - one man is dead, for the sake of four words. He turns, slowly, to leave the morgue. David Parish’s eyes pop open again, and as Mulder takes one glance backwards before leaving the room he sees the dead man’s gaze, face turned upwards towards the ceiling, looking for something that isn’t there. Mulder closes the door behind him. When Scully comes tomorrow to autopsy the body, she will find an empty slab. They will come for the body before the night is over. And the life of the man called David Parish will disappear, his story left untold, his soul dissolving like sugar in water. I am safe in the room of mirrors. The aquariums cast a green light over the laboratory, turning the faces of the six identical doctors a pale, sickly shade. Still, they are beautiful. And their eyes, in daylight hazel, here glow with an unearthly luminescence. So beautiful. All of them. Here the images are safe, only shades of a life. They will not hurt me. I light up a cigarette, watching them work. I sometimes wonder about them - what they think, what they feel. She assured me once that they feel nothing. That they are nothing like us. I believe her. Most of the time. The one I brought to Mulder was destroyed the day after I was shot. Samantha took care of that. She could never abide the attention I pay to them. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. She trusted me, that one, she sat in the car with me, a lamb awaiting slaughter. She knew the moment she turned away from Fox that she was doomed. I stroked her hair, tried to reassure her that I would protect her. She called me Father. And the next day, she was dead. Sometimes Samantha comes her with me and watches the ghosts as they work. Sometimes I try to read her face. Or theirs. And I hope that she is right when she says they do not feel. Of all the questions to ask, Mulder thinks to himself. Now that Parish - or rather, his body - has disappeared, the records of his life erased, sanitized, his existence purged; now Mulder is able to analyze every action that took place that night, every word exchanged between the two of them. Parish had the answer, the big secret, and in the split second before he died Mulder had one brief chance to ask the big question. And all he came up with was...what. Mulder runs the words over and over in his head, looking for meaning, explanation. He does not doubt that Parish was telling the truth. Death makes all men honest. Parish knew the truth about Samantha. Mulder has not told Scully, or anyone, about the conversation. The case is officially over. All of the pregnant women out there with implants in their necks will sleep safely tonight. The monster is dead. Only one strand of his life lingers on. Memory is bright, burning. Memory is all that preserves the sad life and death of a faceless assassin. Memory is all that links Mulder to his lost sister, for whom there is now one, definitive truth. Whatever that truth may be. ~~~ "Is she suffering?" It is a terrible question to ask, I know. Bill slouches over his drink, his face drawn and pale. He is my age, but in the days since Samantha’s diagnosis he has somehow become an old man. "No," he says finally, taking another gulp. The only time he pauses in drinking is when he takes a drag of his cigarette. "Not yet," he amends. He finishes the glass and pours another. "Watch it, Bill." This is too much tragedy. They are a haunted family; we are a haunted family. "Fuck it." "Bill-" He gives me a sideways glance, tipping the bottle to pour me a drink. Bastard. They need him to be strong. And he’s not. Part of me is coolly evaluating the situation. Bill drinks too much. Teena has too many "accidents". Bill is moody, unpredictable. A danger to the Project. To his family. And another part reminds me that Bill is my friend, that his son is doomed and his daughter is dying, his wife has betrayed him and no man can be expected to withstand the pressures with which we deal, the truths we know. "They’ve suggested we start her on some sort of...experimental treatment. They’ve got all these goddamned fancy names for it, but it’s all playing in the dark, y’know?" I nod. I know. "Listen, ya gotta talk to them." He’s slurring his words badly. "Tell ‘em not to take Fox." "I can’t do that. It’s too late." "Both my kids, y’understand? Both." "I know, Bill." He slumps over - there is a dull thud as his head hits the table. I leave him lying there. There is nothing I can do. I go upstairs to where Fox is sleeping, ignorant of how important he has become to the equation. I wouldn’t have let it happen. I would have protected him. But it isn’t up to me anymore. ~~~ We are standing over an unmarked grave, where the body of David Parish is buried. I didn’t know him well. He was a good employee, before the pressure made him snap. I have seen better men than him die. She insists on burying him, as she has done with all the others, at least the ones that we find. This field is chock-full of bodies, nameless, faceless men that lie beneath the soil. This is where old assassins seek their final hiding places. She stands in the rain, oblivious to cold, to the wet clothes that cling to her thin body. She watches as I throw the final shovel of dirt over the slight indent in the ground. We are the only two in attendence; the others couldn’t care less. I couldn’t care less, but I owe it to her, somehow. He died for us - for her. It is not out of any regret that she does this, that she comes here with me. It is the thirst for knowledge, for understanding. I can feel her eyes on me, watching, trying to comprehend what it is that I feel. I feel nothing. She waits for the day when this changes. She needs to measure, to quantify. Human emotion is foreign to her, a curiousity which she must examine. She waits for the day when I will feel something for the dead things we put in the ground. She waits to analyze the instant in which my heart finally splits in half. But it won’t be today. "There’s nothing more we can do. The case is officially closed." Mulder nods weakly. He has the need to listen to Scully state the obvious - it is almost a tradition, now. It isn’t over until she says it’s over. It’s over. "I don’t know, Scully, maybe he just got up and left. Maybe the morgue was too cold for him." "He was missing part of his head." "We’ve seen stranger things." "It’s a dead end, Mulder." A pause; he drums on the desk, then slams his fist down hard against the wood. "Damn it, he knew something. He knew where she was." "You don’t know that." Mulder sighs. "Yeah," he says, "Yeah I do." "Mulder, whatever you hope to learn..." She trails off. This is not the right time. She reaches across the desk and places her hand over his. "There’s nothing more we can do," she repeats. ~~~ "No. Absolutely not." I shrug, lighting another cigarette, and try not to seem too surprised by the ferocity of his words. He folds his immaculately groomed hands and makes an attempt to stare me down. "Why not?" Control. It’s all about control. I steel myself, sensing that they’re all against me. I have to maintain control, even though they’re treating me like some unreasonable child. I can’t allow them to know the level of my involvement. "You know damn well why not," my colleague replies, "We have no idea how they might interpret this action. It could be perceived as a threat." I take a long, slow drag of the cigarette, feeling the smoke curl around my lungs, my only comfort in this place. "They probably won’t even notice." "For God’s sake, what makes you think we can take that sort of risk?" "It might be our only chance to keep Mulder." The rotund man at the other side of the table replies, "Why is it so important that we keep Mulder?" "He’s becoming a danger," I say, tipping ash onto the polished table. The Englishman winces. "A liability." "Then he must be dealt with," the fat man reponds. "No." The voice of the third speaker is soft, deep. He is staring straight at me. "Bill Mulder is too important to the Project. We need him and you know it." I sigh - I try not to look too relieved. "We will go ahead as planned," the fat man says. I extinguish the cigarette on the table. "You’re making a mistake." I stand up, slip out of the room. Halfway down the hall, I feel a hand on my shoulder. And the voice - the sole voice of support among the Elders. "I can help you," he says. ~~~ She is watching surveillance tapes again, her face illuminated by the glow of the television set. The angle of the camera is strange, tilted somewhat from above. It emphasizes Mulder’s nose - not a flattering shot by any means. Samantha looks up at me with a faint smile. It’s an old tape, before the fire, shot in the old office in the basement. In the video Mulder excitedly shows something to Scully, who is less than enthused. I try to make out the evidence - a ritual killing, a mutilation? Samantha pauses the tape. "He never cries out my name in his sleep anymore." Oh, really? "No, he hasn’t...not for months. I know he still thinks about me. Just not all the time." All in all, a good development. Better for him to forget, to put it behind him. It’s been twenty-five years. "You see..." She stands up - she is nearly as tall as I am, and no less intimidating. "See, I thought the same thing, too. I thought, it’s good that he’s getting over me. It took him long enough." She takes another step towards me. "But then I started wondering. I mean, what it would be like if I came back to him. Have you ever thought about it?" Of course I have. "I wonder how he would react. If he knew. How do you think he would react? How would he feel?" I don’t know. "How could you not know? You’re so similar. You know him like no one else does." I don’t know how I would react. "I wonder what he’d ask about first? How’ve I been? Do I have a family? Why I took Scully, perhaps...maybe he’d ask about the incident in New Mexico. Why his own sister gave you orders to kill him. What do you think?" Perhaps we should try it out sometime. "Well, that would just ruin the excitement, wouldn’t it? Spoil the fun. It’s a dangerous game - it has to be." "What game?" I ask aloud, "Chess?" "No." Samantha grins. "Stratego." "Your move, Fox." Distracted for a moment by the TV, the boy considers his next move. He is only half paying attention, the grown-up faces filling the screen pulling his eyes away from the game board. He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to watch this kind of show. It’s so boring. He’s waiting for "The Magician", despite his sister’s protests. Samantha scowls as he knocks one of her pieces off the board, grinning triumphantly. "Do we have to watch this?" Samantha whines, glancing up at the TV. "Mom and Dad said I could watch the movie." "Mom and Dad are next door, and they said I’m in charge." She stands up to change the channel, and the lights blink out. "Now look what you did." The pieces on the gameboard begin to shake. And Fox Mulder wakes up screaming. Drenched in sweat, he leans over and flicks on the light. He hasn’t had that dream in awhile. There’s a noise outside the door - footsteps, receding down the hall despite the fact that it is three in the morning. It was probably the noise that triggered the dream. He hasn’t been sleeping well. Raising himself slightly off the couch, he sees a shadow under the door. He walks over to see a file slipped through the crack above the floor. Squinting, he makes out the name on the file- - and promptly drops it, his hands shaking. But not before he sees the note scrawled on a sticky tab attached to the top of the file. A time - tomorrow night - and an address - beneath an overpass about an hour’s drive from his apartment. And the words, in block letters: I CAN HELP YOU, AGENT MULDER. PART II: THE TRUTH "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." -- Aeschylus ~~~ Regret is an inevitable consequence of life. Lying in the arms of a woman who neither knows nor cares, I reflect upon this as I smoke a cigarette and stare up at the ceiling. Fucking Cassandra is like fucking oblivion - for that brief moment I can forget everything, lose myself in her, close my eyes and erase everything that I am, everything that I know. There is no complexity involved. Even her child sleeps soundly and never questions his mother’s nighttime visitor. Her husband left her two years ago. I am all she has. She does not know about Teena. She lets me leave without protest when the phone rings in the dead of night, never angry at me for giving my colleagues her number. She doesn’t understand the nature of what I do. She doesn’t know about the choice I made tonight, before I came here. Cassandra is my refuge, my escape. I do not love her. But when I am with her, I forget about regret. The ringing distracts me. She leans over to pick up the phone. "Yes he is, just a second." I take the receiver from her. "Ronald?" "It will happen tonight. Do you want to be there?" There is no warning, no time to prepare. Just one last chance to say goodbye. To hope that the exchange will work. I look over at Cassandra, watching me with a faintly puzzled expression. "No," I reply, "That won’t be necessary." Regret is all I have. ~~~ I’ve been waiting for her to say something, but she’s strangely quiet tonight. Her face is without emotion. I watch her as she sits curled on the couch, flipping through the channels. It is as though the television fascinates her - for a moment she seems almost human. Only for a moment. It is so true, Mulder’s description of telepathy. The most unfair advantage. I have no secrets from her. And she... "Have you ever killed anyone?" she asks, although she already knows the answer. Of course I have. "No...not like that. Not in self-defense. Not because it’s your job - because I ask you to do it. Not like someone who puts down a rabid dog because it’s a danger to the populace. I mean...have you ever killed, just...to kill?" She doesn’t need to ask these questions, not really. She leans forward, draping her arms around me. "Have you ever sliced a man in two just to try and find where his soul is hiding?" I wish there was a way to silence thoughts as words can be silenced. "I have," she whispers. She knows of my plans. She knows that tomorrow I will give my life away; I will give her life away too. Her secrets are all she has. She knows this - but she says nothing. The threat is evident in her words. Samantha smiles at me, then turns back towards the television set. "This is impossible," Scully says, "Wasn’t this destroyed in the fire?" They are both staring at Samantha Mulder’s file. "I would have assumed so," Mulder replies. "It doesn’t look like a copy. Where do you think it came from?" "I don’t know. It was just slipped under my door." "Sounds like you have a new informant." "Yeah...or it’s another killer waiting to trap me." He flashes her a weak smile. "Scully, would you consider it an incredible leap of logic to assume that whoever gave me this was the one who started the fire?" "Not an incredible leap, no." "Because I find it strange that this one file would be the only one that survived." He shrugs, flipping through the papers. "I guess I’ll find out tonight." "Should you go? I mean-" "Scully..." She sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Right," she said. "Why don’t you go by the lab and see if you can get any fingerprints from this." "Where are you going?" He glances once more at the file. "I’ll find out when I get there." She must know what I’m doing. As I stand there, waiting for Mulder, I wonder why she hasn’t said anything. She must be aware of it. I wonder why she has let me come so far. Why she hasn’t killed me yet. Perhaps it is that she wishes to be betrayed. I glance at my watch, lighting up another cigarette. I am expecting her to show up at any time, to stop this from happening. Then again, maybe she was the one who set this in motion from the beginning. I can never know her motivations, what it is she hopes to accomplish. This is all part of her game. She has manipulated me, just as I have done to Mulder and all the others. And although I am alone, I am aware of her watching me, somewhere, my beautiful Devil, waiting at last for me to falter, to fall. I close my eyes, listening to a car slowing over the bridge, the slam of a door and the fall of footsteps. The note and the file yield nothing - whoever gave it to Mulder took all the precautions. Scully is leaving the laboratory when Skinner almost bumps into her in the hall. "Agent Scully?" "Yes sir?" "I was looking for you. I received word that you might have come across some new evidence relating to the fire in the office." "Possibly, sir, but I haven’t found anything." He looks down at the file in her hands. "Is that it?" She nods. "Can I see?" She hands it to him, scrutinizing the look on his face. "Is something wrong, sir?" "There’s something I want to show you, Agent Scully." She follows him into his office, sitting down in the chair across from his desk. He reaches into one of the drawers, slowly, and pulls something out. "What’s that?" Skinner slides it across the desk - a note. The printing on it reads: YOU’RE A DEAD MAN. She flips it over to see that it has been written on the inside of a flattened box of Morleys. "Where did you get this?" "The shooter, the man who tried to kill Gibson Praise..." Skinner presses his fingers to his temples; he looks exhausted. "We found this among his possessions." Scully looks back at the note attached to Samantha’s file. The handwriting is a perfect match. "Mulder..." She stands up. "Excuse me, sir, I have to go." He nods as she flees the office. The sun has not yet set, but the underpass is dark, thrown into varying shades of black. Mulder keeps his hand on his gun as he slips into the shadows. He can sense the presence of the other man before he even smells the cigarette smoke. In a flash his gun is out, pointed into the darkness. "I should have known." He looks around, searching for a target. "Agent Mulder." The voice is so familiar, so chilling in its calmness. He hears the click of a lighter, then the faint red glow appears amid the blackness. He follows it with his gun. "What do you want?" "Put the gun down and we’ll talk." "Not a chance, you son-of-a-bitch." The smoking man takes a step closer towards him. "I may be wrong, but I believe it is against FBI protocol to draw a gun on an unarmed civilian." "You’re not-" "No? Give me the clip, Agent Mulder. I’m here as a friend. This is your last chance to know the truth." He doesn’t move. He can hear the fall of footsteps behind him - his finger tightens on the trigger. "Mulder?" "Scully?" Another shadow emerges - he sees the flash of her face as a car drives by. "What are you doing here, Scully?" "I came to warn you, but-" Her eyes turn towards the smoking man. "I guess it’s too late." "We don’t have much time," the smoking man says. Mulder remembers that he was supposed to be holding the bastard at gunpoint - he resumes doing so immediately. "What do you want?" "I want you to know the truth. I’ll be dead before the night is over. Give me the clip and when I’m finished talking you can have it back." Mulder stares, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Though it is visible at least, the man’s face is still unreadable. "What about Scully?" Mulder asks. "She won’t shoot me." Mulder glances at his partner, then takes out the clip from his gun and hands it to her. The smoking man nods and retreats further into the darkness. "You sent me that note." "I tried to warn you." He draws in a cloud of smoke, then lets it out. "You didn’t heed my warning. I told you to stop searching for her." "Where is she, you-" "That’s what I’ve come here to tell you. Do you want to know or not?" Mulder has a sudden, almost paralyzing revelation. He does not want to know. In that instant he realizes that he is safer in ignorance - that this search has been his life, and in ending the search his life too, will end. But it’s too late. The word yes has already slipped from his lips. "First of all, I don’t know where she is." "I don’t believe you." I sigh. This isn’t a good start. "Where is she? I want to see her." He’s like a child sometimes, so demanding, so impatient. "You overestimate my power, Agent Mulder. I would have an easier time summoning the stars from the sky." "I thought you knew what happened to her?" "I do - as much as anyone knows. She knows where I am, and she knows where you are. She’s known all along. She hasn’t wanted to see you." "What did you tell her?" "I told her nothing. She...has her reasons." I draw in another breath of smoke. This is getting harder by the second. "It is very much against her will that I am here tonight." "So you have seen her." "Yes...listen to me, Agent Mulder...Fox. She’s not the way you remember her." "What did you do to her?" I say nothing. I can’t speak. How can I describe what I did to her? There are no words in any human language to describe what I have done. "It was supposed to be you." I say finally. Mulder is impatient, fidgeting with his gun even though it is unloaded. "I know...I saw the file. It had my name on it, originally." "You have seen enough pieces to know the situation at hand." "Colonization." He feels Scully shift uncomfortably beside him. "They have been here for fifty years, in varying forms. When we first encountered them our communication was rudimentary at best. They are not at all like us...not even recognizable as living things in their natural form. We had no idea what they wanted. It took decades before we were able to learn enough about them to understand. "Their technology, their society, is far more advanced than ours. They communicate by telepathy, they’re capable of healing, shapeshifting...abilities we can only dream about. But their mental processes are nothing like ours. We eventually decided it would be advantageous to develop a better means of understanding them - by sending one of us to live among them. An ambassador of sorts, but one who had been more or less raised by the aliens. Only by assimilating into their culture, their way of thinking, could we know our enemy well enough to defeat it. "They agreed to our idea - whether or not they knew the motivations behind it, I’m still not sure. They gave us conditions as well, factors they believed might make assimilation easier. The chosen one had to be a child - young enough to adjust to their environment, but old enough to comprehend his role as a messenger. He had to be intelligent, adaptable, capable of handing certain physiological changes that would take place. He would take on many of their qualities, though he would retain his human form and memories of his former life." The smoking man pauses to take another drag of his cigarette. "And so you chose me?" Mulder asks. "We did rigorous testing of many potential candidates. Preference was given to the children of my colleagues, as the chosen one would be among the survivors if the colonization did proceed. You scored the highest on the IQ tests, and you were the perfect age - old enough to have formed an understanding of what it means to be human." "But something changed. I wasn’t taken." "No. A few months before the exchange was to proceed, the plans were altered." "Why?" The smoking man looks up as a car speeds by on the bridge above their heads. "Your sister was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The doctors gave her six months to live." "You’re lying. She wasn’t sick." "Your parents never told you, or Samantha. She hadn’t shown serious symptoms yet, and they wanted her to be normal and happy as long as possible. It was perhaps not the wisest decision, but they were in a difficult situation. They knew within the year they would lose both of their children. "Samantha hadn’t initially been considered because she was too young. She wasn’t capable of handing the process, mentally, physically, or emotionally. My colleagues wanted to push ahead with the original plan - to take you because you were more suitable. But other circumstances at the time...chiefly your father’s waning enthusiasm for the Project...convinced us otherwise. "It made perfect sense, at the time. Your father would have been a loose cannon if he lost both of you - this way he kept the healthy child and lost the child who would have died regardless. The colonists would heal Samantha - a minor effort on their part - and everyone stood to gain by the arrangement. "The only problem was Samantha herself. The process changed her much more than it would have changed you. As a result, she is more colonist than human." "Let me get this straight," Scully says, "What you’re suggesting is that Samantha Mulder is an alien." The smoking man is silent for awhile. "Not exactly. She has many of the qualities you have already seen among the colonists - telepathy, healing ability - but she is not herself an alien." "Then what is she?" Mulder asks. "She is the most powerful woman on the planet. She is the go-between for my organization and the colonists. She is our crucial link - the only potential we have to learn their weaknesses and find a way to overcome them before the date arrives. And," He inhaled a puff of smoke. "And she is completely and utterly mad." It is a relief to be able to at last tell somewhat what I know. I can feel my death approaching, a shiver of anticipation. I have given it away - the Great Secret, the Truth. And I will die for it. So, most likely, will Mulder and Scully. But at least I can die without regret. "I don’t understand," Mulder says. "The Project failed, at least in terms of our expectations. We don’t know whose side Samantha is on. She runs the Consortium - she decides the fate of nations - but we’re not certain if she’s working for us or for the colonists. She harbours a sort of vengeance, most specifically towards me." "Why am I not surprised?" "She holds me to blame for what the colonists did to her. And to some degree I suppose I am responsible - it was on my suggestion that she was taken and not you. She keeps me alive to torture me. She belongs to neither side, really, she has watched both us and them from the outside. We had hoped she would develop an understanding of both humanity and the essence of the colonists, but in actually she has developed neither. Our best weapon has been turned against us." "So why don’t you just kill her?" I almost laugh at his ignorance. "It doesn’t work that way, Agent Mulder. As I said, you cannot even begin to imagine what she has become. We need her, as dangerous as she is." He looks overwhelmed - I can’t blame him. I have been living with this for twenty-five years, and he has learnt it all in the space of a few hours. "Then why everything else? The abductions, the cover-ups..." "Do you think human society as we know it could function if the general populace knew about the Project? If they knew that the fate of the world rested with an insane, unstable woman who has been raised by aliens from the age of eight? It would all go to hell, everything we’ve worked for. We wouldn’t stand a chance." I finish the cigarette and take out another. "As for the rest; it is under her control. I don’t know what she wishes to accompish. We merely facilitate her. But..." I can’t believe I’m telling him this. For so long I have withheld the truth, now it all spills out, I feel as though I’ve been shot and the truth is gushing out of me instead of blood. "But I believe it has to do with her methods for understanding us. Who we are, what makes us human. She doesn’t remember what it’s like to be Samantha Mulder - she is only the Messenger." I don’t think I’ve ever said so much in my life. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. "Give him back the clip, Agent Scully. I’ve said all that I’m going to say." She stares at me, then obeys. He reloads his gun without a word. "Go on," I say, "Do it, Agent Mulder. It’s what you want, isn’t it?" He stands there, frozen. "Kill me," I tell him, "It doesn’t matter. I’m already dead." His hand trembling, Mulder raises the gun. And he hears it. He hears the soft footsteps approaching, so quiet that he almost mistakes it for rain on the bridge. He stands still and listens to the sound of her wings. And there is light, though not the light he remembers from that night twenty-five years ago - it is the light of the sun, rising behind the overpass. It is from this light that she emerges, a thin silhouette, sun streaming in from behind her fragile form. It is enough to make him forget everything - his partner standing beside him, his enemy who stands still, waiting to die. He drops his gun with a clatter and turns towards her. "Samantha," he whispers. "Hello, Fox." He doesn’t know what to say. After everything, this time he knows she is real. This is her, Samantha Mulder, returned to him at last. "I’ve been looking for so long..." Samantha smiles. "I know, Fox." "Where...what...?" "I’ve been right here all this time. I never left." "Are you...have you come back?" "Only for awhile. Only now." She walks past him, towards the smoking man. "I understand it," she murmurs. "Do you?" His voice is cold, once again controlled. "Yes...I know. And I’ll have to tell them." "It won’t make a difference." "Perhaps not. It might be too late. But then again..." She glances up at the sky. "Maybe it will change their minds." "You think you can stop them?" She stares at him, blinks, then turns back to Mulder. "I may not be back this time." "Where are you going?" His head is spinning; this feels like a dream but he knows he is here, with her, for what may be the last time. He can hear a noise in the distance, like a thousand airplane engines, a dull roar that builds from somewhere beyond the horizon. "I think you know." She reaches for his hand. "Goodbye, Fox. And thank you." "Samantha...wait..." His voice is lost in the rising din - she pulls away from him. The light that follows eclipses the sun. He can barely see - something smooth, silver rises above him, a nearly blinding flash, the faint outline of his sister raising her arms, rising to meet the ship. "Samantha!" All he can see is overwhelming whiteness as something powerful and unseen throws him to the ground. And the Messenger departs into the heavens. EPILOGUE: RESTORATION "And, so what happens then?" "Nothing, Al; just the rest of our lives." "Is that all?" "That’s all."—William Wharton Birdy Scully is the first to scramble shakily to her feet - Mulder and I just lie there, sprawled on the ground in the aftermath of the blast. She stumbles over to her partner, taking him into her arms. "She’s gone," Mulder breathes. Scully says nothing. There’s nothing to say. We are not mind-readers, but words seem irrelevant now. I press my face into the grass, the early morning dew damp against my skin. It is a new day and Samantha has gone to stop the colonists. A shadow floats over me - I look up to see Mulder and Scully standing there, leaning on each other. "Are you all right?" Scully asks. "Yeah...I’m fine." This triggers faint smiles from both of them although I’m not sure why. I manage to stand, swaying slightly, and immediately reach for a cigarette. "I think I’d better drive," Scully is telling Mulder. He nods weakly. She begins to walk towards the car. Mulder makes a move to follow, then turns to face me. "Are you coming?" he asks. I consider it for a moment. It seems that my dead man walking status has been revoked once again. "Yes." The silver Taurus is parked by the side of the bridge - sunlight glares in my eyes as we make our way from under the viaduct. I am aware that countless people have died for this moment - that every breath we take this morning has been paid for by someone else’s blood. Scully starts up the gas - Mulder is in the front passenger seat and I slip in the back. It is morning and we are still alive. The Consortium is not going to take kindly to this new development. Mulder glances back at me - perhaps reconsidering his decision to let me live. I wonder what stayed his hand in the end - whether it was respect or pity. It doesn’t matter. He is already changed. The truth will wear at him, make him as old as I am. I was like him, once. "I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced," I say finally. Someone has to break the silence. I reach forward to shake his hand. "Jonathan Haller." He smiles. "Fox Mulder." And then there’s only silence and the sound of the wheels spinning over the highway. Build Your Free Home PageVisit other great pages on:Arts & Literature>Arts & LiteratureLiterature>LiteratureFictionFiction