GOSSAMER--do not archive. I will submit via email.

Title - Swine of the Prodigal Son
Author - Dark Nascent
E-Mail address - nascen...@usa.net
Rating - R
Category - SAH       <--  Well, the 'H' sorta depends on you.
Spoilers - Fight the Future
Keywords - Character Death.
Summary - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday's gonna
be all right.

Archive - Sure, just let me know where it's going.

Feedback - Always

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"Swine of the Prodigal Son," from the Barnyard Series
Barnyard Series installments are entirely independent and need not be
read in order.
The Barnyard is generously hosted and well-decorated by the enigmatic
Dr. Jordan, at http://www.geocities.com/athens/parthenon/1063.

by Dark Nascent (nascen...@usa.net)

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CONTENT WARNING: And you thought Dark Nascent was a Scullyist too,
didn't you? Sorry to disappoint. Trust no one.

DISCLAIMER: The devil made me do it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Special thanks to my hit squad. I'll send you all
ballpark franks.

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"He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were
eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he
said, 'I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him,
'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer
worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.'"
- Luke 15:16-20, NRSV

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Saturday

The storm outside raged like a thousand devils beating on the red-brick
building, but the dingy, cluttered apartment withstood the ravages as it
had withstood many over the years. Within this sturdy stable lay the
genesis of a passion, a tiny glowing spark that began like a memory and
exploded into a bright and shining quest. The all-consuming, ruthless
quest of a man whom the world ridiculed, but whose heart and mind were
rooted in nothing more ridiculous than a lust for truth.

The man sat in rapt meditation on his couch, as oblivious to the
rumbling and the clatter of the storm outside as he was to the fact that
his passion would be played out that night in a way which he would never
have anticipated. Resting on his knees was the remains of his supper--a
turkey TV dinner. His jaw hung slack, his eyes half-lidded, all his
energy focused on the object of his meditation.

The darkness of the room heightened its seeming clutter, distorting
small objects into large ones, short chairs into looming Mondrian
figures to whom proportion meant both everything and nothing. Ordinary
furniture became shadowy tropical plants, and under the sound of the
rain pounding outside, one might almost imagine the tiny apartment an
exotic nighttime garden.

Until, of course, the power went out and the television flashed, then
flickered off, calling a premature end to "She's Got Legs--and She Knows
How to Use Them." Suddenly, the room was just a dirty apartment, and
Mulder groaned in frustration.

Twenty miles away, Dana Scully sat at home alone, enjoying the storm
while curled up on the couch with a novel. When someone knocked on the
door, she twitched, startled and unwilling to be recalled back to
reality. She turned the paperback upside-down on the table and got to
her feet, straightening her robe.

She checked the peephole, expecting to see either Mulder or her mother,
the only two people who would conceive of dropping by unannounced. But
the face on the other end of the distorted glass was someone she never
would have expected.

Her dry throat contracted hard, and she closed her eyes, looked again,
already prepared to be angry at her mind for playing these tricks
(again), but he was still there.

The doorknob was cold like ice when she managed to wrap her fingers
around, and they stuck like a tongue to a frozen pole. She was afraid
to turn it, afraid to release it, afraid to tug it open to confront the
man standing on the other side.

She inhaled as if preparing to dive, then opened the door.

"Starbuck!" cried her father, opening his arms. "Thank God--you're
alive!"

As she released the breath she'd been holding, Scully knew she should
faint, but she'd never been one for stereotypes.

---------------------------------------------------------------

When Dana was sixteen years old, Ahab had tried to teach her a lesson
which she refused to learn.

Best friends had always been fleeting in her life; she'd left each one
behind with teary goodbyes and promises to write forever, but after only
a few months--eternity to a child--they became dim memories and empty
mailboxes. But after two years in North Carolina, she knew things would
be different when she left Kate Thornton.

They had grown close on the cusp of high school--cohorts, fellow
travelers in navigating the mysterious, alien world of boys, driver's
licenses, sex and curricular electives. Intelligent girls with good
grades--rare not for the former quality but for the latter, and so they
found themselves companions by virtue of exclusion, a circumstance which
forges the strongest of bonds.

If their grades set them apart from their peers, their histories set
them apart from each other. Kate's father was a lowly seaman, and her
mother worked nights at the grocery store to make ends meet. Kate often
had to be home at night to look after her two younger sisters, a task
she despised but which Dana (who frequently joined her) found
invigorating. It was refreshing, to be the one in charge.

Kate's family never went to church--they spent their Sundays pretty much
the way they spent their Saturdays, and when the principal offered up
every morning's prayer before the Pledge of Allegiance, Dana bowed her
head while Kate stared forward with a stubborn expression that made the
other girls whisper nasty things.

But it was Kate who taught Dana to smoke a cigarette ("Suck on it like
it's a straw in a milkshake,"), told Dana what a blowjob was ("People
_do_ that?" "They lick it like a lollipop,"), and lent her tawdry
romance novels with dogeared pages at the sex scenes, which Dana kept
tucked under her mattress but only snuck guilty glimpses at, terrified
that Melissa would walk in and laugh at her.

Kate could have been one of the "bad" girls, but her grades were too
good. She could have been one of the "good" girls, but her hair wasn't
cut right and her pants were often torn. But no matter who snickered
when she passed, Kate always held her head high and Dana never once saw
her cry. For that reason alone, the girl seemed to know something more
about being an adult than Dana, and an adult was something Dana very
much wanted to be.

Years later, when she became an adult, Dana would know that Kate did
cry, only not in front of others. She'd know that the girl secretly
envied Dana her parents, her house, her brothers, the respect she earned
from teachers and peers.

At sixteen, though, the world centered more around Dana, and she could
only see how lucky she was that Kate had chosen _her._ Even though they
knew that the Scullys if not the Thorntons would soon relocate once
again, they had assured each other that their friendship was stronger
than distance.

But a twenty-dollar wristwatch ended their friendship before separation
did.

Dana saw Kate steal it. It would have been hard not to see--brazen as a
gypsy, she took it off the department store shelf and pocketed it.

And Dana didn't say a word.

That night, she lay in bed ashamed of her silence, torn between an
unnecessary, unjustifiable wrong and her loyalty to her friend. She
should have at least asked why the other girl had done it, should have
at least confronted her. But too much time had passed now, now no
matter how she broached the subject it would be a Big Deal. Kate would
laugh at her, not only for her prudishness but for her long
consideration of the subject.

Dana had never stolen anything in her life. She tried to imagine her
hand snaking out, pocketing a thing which did not belong to her just
because she liked it and she felt sick to her stomach.

So when Father Cromley asked for her sins, she told him about the
watch. Trusted him, but he must have weaseled around his sacred vows
because her mother demanded in the car to know what Kate had done, why
the Father had suggested Dana find new friends.

Dana learned from Father Cromley that adulthood is hypocrisy.

She wouldn't tell her mother, but her mother told her father and when
Ahab came into her room Sunday night, the serious captain's expression
on his face, she knew she was going to tell him everything.

Always gentle but firm, he coaxed the truth from her, and when she'd
finished, nodded slowly. "Starbuck," he said, "I'm glad you told me
this. But you're not done yet, and I think you know why. If your
friend doesn't return the watch, you have to call the police."

The police? "I can't do that," she whispered, horrified. "She's my
friend!"

"If you don't do it, Dana, I will," he told her. "Shoplifting is
against the law. A wristwatch today could be something much larger
tomorrow. You don't want your friend to grow up a thief."

"But, Ahab--"

"No 'buts,'" he said, sharp and unyielding even at her use of the
endearment, which usually won her at least a partial reprieve. "Don't
disappoint me, Dana."

But she'd disappointed him, and true to his word, he'd called the police
himself. She'd lost her friend and she'd never apologized to her
father. From that day forward, though, she thought he looked at her
differently, and no feat of strength was ever sufficient to fully
restore the pride to his eyes when he called her "Starbuck."

---------------------------------------------------------------

8:11 p.m.

Until now, and this struck a chord of joy in her even deeper than her
surprise at his return from the dead.

"I'm so proud of you," he kept saying. Also: "I'm sorry, Starbuck."

And his apologies were so leaden with guilt that she nearly wept.

Instead, she met his eyes with a dull stare. "You've known all along.
You knew even before I--"

He put his hand on her arm. "Dana, I tried to stop it. Why did you
think I was so adamant about you not joining the FBI? I thought by now
you would have suspected, investigated...."

She shook her head. "I only thought you wanted me to be safe! Why
would I suspect anything else?"

"I did! But not just from criminals--from these men. My colleagues.
They chose you, Dana, they engineered the whole thing."

Pieces of her world crumbled on either side; the floor seemed to sink
beneath her. "Dad--"

"No, Dana, listen to me. I wanted to stop them, and often I succeeded.
I kept you safe during what you think of as your abduction, I saw you
returned to your partner. I've seen your partner returned to you. I've
done everything I could without subverting the larger goal. But there's
been a change of power, there are things we know now that we didn't
before, and--"

"What things, Dad? What are you talking about? You're telling me that
you were never who I believed you were, that you faked your own death,
that you're working with--with Them? No. No."

She took a step backwards, toward the table where her gun lay. "I don't
believe you. My father is dead."

The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes grew sadder. "I know
it's difficult to believe, Dana," he whispered. "And after all you've
seen, I don't blame you. But it really is me. Your first word was
'hand,' your favorite book when you were seven was _The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe,_ and for your ninth birthday we were in Okinawa and I
bought you an orange bicycle--do you remember that? Your--"

"Stop it," she said, stepping back again. "It doesn't prove anything."

William Scully's shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh, and he reached
for his pocket. Half a second later Scully's weapon was trained on his
chest. "Don't move," she ordered.

"Oh, Starbuck," he said sadly. "I'm so proud of you. But please, I
just want to get something. I'll reach in slowly, okay?"

She nodded, but didn't lower the weapon.

He hand disappeared into his pocket and returned with a Swiss army
knife. Scully tensed.

"It's okay," he told her, holding it sideways before him as he clicked
open the largest blade. Moving like a mime in slow-motion, he turned it
toward his own forearm. She winced as he scraped it along his arm,
drawing a thin line of dark red blood.

"See?" he said. "It's me."

Scully closed her eyes and lowered the weapon. "Dad," she whispered, at
last willing to believe. "Why?"

"We don't have much time, Dana. Come. Sit down."

He moved toward the couch, and after a second's hesitation, she
followed.

---------------------------------------------------------------

8:42 p.m.

"So Mulder and I were serving an agenda."

"But you knew that."

She nodded. "Sometimes. Sometimes we knew."

Ahab leaned forward. "But recent events had made my colleagues decide
that you had become more dangerous than useful. Antarctica was a move
to shut you down. A move which a faction of us, myself included,
opposed. When our leader, George Caiaphas, went behind their backs to
take that vaccine to Mulder, all of us were put into immediate danger.
I went into hiding, and I only learned two days ago that you were still
alive."

He turned to her, reached out to stroke her cheek. "I was so relieved,
Dana."

"If that's true," Scully said, pulling away from his touch, "aren't you
afraid to be here?"

"Yes, but for a different reason. We haven't come to that yet."

"I can't believe it," she said, her eyes flashing. "I can't believe
you'd do this. That you were part of these machinations. The men are
murderers, Dad--they killed Melissa. They experiment on human beings."

His eyes lowered and his voice grew husky. "If I had known...if I could
have prevented what happened...to your sister, I would have. But Dana,
I'm a soldier. We're fighting a war, and the survival of the human race
is at stake. Wars are terrible things, and innocents die, but the price
must be paid for the larger good. It's been so hard to watch my own
daughter face these dangers, and I've protected you whenever I could,
but we can never forget that war demands terrible sacrifices."

"Dad, this isn't like killing soldiers in battle."

"Do you think only soldiers die in battle?"

"No, but the method is different."

"Gunning someone down, bombing a city--is that any worse than what you
call 'murder?' We're fighting against a vastly superior enemy, trying
to buy just enough time to save our species with science, and human
experimentation is the only way to achieve that goal quickly. What
would you choose?"

Scully pursed her lips. "You always taught me to choose what's right."

He nodded and reached for her again, touching her arm, the back of her
hand. "And I'm so proud of you for trying to do that, Starbuck, but
sometimes what's right doesn't leave a clear conscience. I've tried to
protect you from that as well, and maybe that was a mistake."

"Why are you telling me now? After all these years, why now?"

He heaved a reluctant sigh. "Because two days ago, Dana, one of their
messengers came to me with an offer. I'd been hiding in St. Kitts, but
they sent a pilot--someone you may have heard of, a Benjamin MacDonald."

Scully shook her head--she didn't know the name.

"He told me what your partner had done, Dana, and that Mulder's pursuit
has only been intensified in the face of this challenge. He is too
aware of us now to be manipulated, and he'll never sacrifice his sense
of what's right to join us, not without some threat to you, and maybe
not even then. And I just couldn't bear that. So I was sent here with
a mission to redeem myself and to save you."

Scully's heart caught in her throat.

William Scully reached inside his jacket, retrieved a small, amber vial
and held it up between thumb and forefinger. "I know how much he means
to you," he said. "But something far larger is at stake."

"No," she breathed, pleading.

"If you don't do it, Dana," he told her, in that firm father's voice
which did not tolerate disappointment, "I will."

"No," she repeated. She thought her heart might have stopped beating.


---------------------------------------------------------------

11:23 p.m.

The sharp knock rocked him out of sleep like a gunshot. Mulder's
fingers had already curled with robotic precision around the butt of his
weapon when he heard the key in the lock and relaxed--would that woman
never learn to give him a little more time? What if he were--

"Mulder," Scully said as the door opened, and he'd expected breathless
efficiency--a case, a clue--but she sounded quiet and reflective, like
her dog had died again. So it was _that_ kind of visit. The rarest
kind.

He left the gun on the table and stood up. He couldn't see her in the
black entryway, but with almost preternatural certainty he knew exactly
where she was, and when she didn't continue into the living room he went
to her, one hand extended.

It connected with the fabric covering her upper arm, which squelched
beneath his touch. "Scully?" As his initial adrenaline rush subsided,
placid contentment reasserted itself, and his hand found its way up to
her shoulder, to her hair. "You're soaked," he said, stating the
obvious. "What'd you do--walk here?"

It was a lame joke, but she didn't say anything and he realized that she
had either waited outside or walked around the block a few times, which
meant this was serious. Dana Scully rarely hesitated.

He knew better than to push her. "Take off your coat. I'll get you a
towel."

He trailed his fingers along the wall to the bathroom, dug in the closet
for a clean towel and found one, much to his relief. When he returned
she still stood in the foyer.

"You can come in, Scully," he told her.

"I don't want to get your floor wet," she replied, and there was a
nervous edge to her voice which made him wince.

"Don't worry about it--it's seen much worse than water. Water would be
good for it." He draped the towel around her shoulders and guided her
into the living room. "Do you want some dry clothes? They'd be big but
I'm sure I could find something."

"Um," she said, and he decided that meant 'yes.' Before she could
expand that thought, he disappeared down the hallway again.

He brought her a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt from the bottom of his
drawer, the only items of clothing he could find which would even come
close to fitting her. Despite the darkness, he turned away while she
changed. When he looked back at her he saw the clothes hung off her like
a scarecrow. She raised her arms, and the sleeves flopped loosely at
her wrists.

"Sorry," Mulder said, suppressing a smile. "It's all I had."

"It's okay," she answered, combing her fingers through her hair.
"Thanks. It's fine."

He sat back on the couch, waiting for her to speak, but she only
regarded his silhouette for a long moment before banging one hand
lightly against her thigh and turning away, toward the window.

"Scully?" Mulder asked when the silence grew too long, straining to see
her. "What's wrong?"

She slid her fingers along the edge of his computer monitor, her eyes
tracing the shallow shadow it cast on the desk. In total darkness,
there could be no shadows.

"Scully?" Mulder repeated.

"Mulder, why are we doing this?" she blurted out, facing him again.
"What do we hope to gain?"

He frowned, rubbed his hand over his face. "What do you mean?" he
asked. "Don't you know?"

She sat down in the chair at his desk, and though he couldn't see her
face, he knew she wasn't looking at him. "I'm just...just beginning to
question...not our goals, but maybe the effects of our goals. Maybe our
goals too. I don't know."

Mulder wet his lips, wished he didn't feel quite so lost. "Scully, our
goal is the truth." He hoped that was the right thing to say. "The
answers, if you like. Justice. I didn't think you questioned that."

"Maybe I've been naive," she replied. "Maybe we both have. Good and
evil....I'm starting to wonder if it isn't more...complicated."

Relieved she was talking but already anxious about where this was going,
he asked: "Complicated how?"

His partner stood up, folded her arms across her chest. A defensive
stance, which meant she anticipated an argument she didn't want to
have. He sagged back into the couch, making himself as
non-confrontational as possible, wanting to reassure her.

"Look at the evidence we've uncovered," she said, pacing toward the
kitchen. "Look at what we know. There are aliens, Mulder. I know that
now--I've seen the proof. There are men dealing with them, there are
men fighting them, and these men have chosen questionable weapons for
their war, but then, no weapons are friendly."

Mulder nodded; he understood. "You think they're acting for the good,"
he stated, and he unfolded from his sitting position, went to her side.
He circled her upper arm with his hand and tugged her gently back toward
the couch, and though she came willingly, every step radiated unexpected
tension. She sat down beside him, but still looked away.

Mulder patted her shoulder, signaling her to stay seated, then crossed
the room to rummage through some pile in the vicinity of his desk. Then
he fumbled his way into the kitchen, opened and closed a few drawers.
Scully heard the sound of a match striking against sandpaper, and when
he returned, his palm cupped the red glow of a pillar candle, which he
set on the table between them before sitting down again. He didn't want
to do this in the dark.

Forced now to meet his eyes, Scully schooled her expression into one of
deceptive calm, but Mulder could see that she hadn't wanted to tell him,
afraid he'd think her resolve was weakening. He chose his words
carefully, hoping to reassure her.

"You think they're acting for the good," he repeated. "I've wondered
that too, Scully. We've even talked about it before, though not in a
long time. But no matter what the truth is, good can only be served by
bringing it to light. I thought you believed that too."

Scully's torso rose and fell in an almost imperceptible sigh. "I...I
have fought for justice, Mulder, more than truth. These men are above
the law, and they've done things that are undeniably horrible. But what
if the alternatives are more horrible?"

Mulder leaned back into the couch, stretching his arm behind her
shoulders--not touching her, but close enough that she could touch him
if she choose. "I don't want to put that decision...that
_evaluation_... in anyone else's hands," he said, infusing his voice
with earnestness. "I want all the information so that I can make the
decision myself."

"Well, you have that information, or at least, you have a lot of it. So
do I. And I'm starting to evaluate."

"And you're beginning to agree that their ends justify their means? I
never pegged you as a situational ethicist, Scully. And given that
you've suffered more at their hands than most...."

"But I can't factor that into my decision," she said. "We've both let
our own losses--and each other's--color too much of our judgment. We're
in danger of acting out of vengeance, not justice."

"In this case, the two have the same result, though. Two causes, one
effect." Mulder replied. She leaned forward, elbows resting on open
knees which flexed back and forth just fractions of an inch, betraying
some anxiety he didn't quite understand. What had brought this on?

"They killed your sister, Scully," he reminded her. "They killed my
father. They used you like a lab rat--kidnapped you, effectively raped
you, stole your consciousness, gave you cancer."

She winced, and he reached over to still her knee with his hand. "Don't
these actions merit execution of justice?"

She drew her knees together, away from his touch. "At some point
survival takes precedence over justice, even over truth," she said, a
familiar, detached tone returning. "What good are these noble ideals if
we're all dead?"

"I'm surprised you, of all people, would ask that."

"Why are you surprised?" she looked at him, and the softness of her blue
eyes in the flickering candlelight was deceptive. Blue flame burns hot.
"You would've compromised your ideals for my survival. This is a much
larger scale--it may even be all of humanity."

"But that was _me,_ Scully."

Her brow furrowed, but then smoothed again as she understood. "My
beliefs don't make me impervious--I lied for you," she pointed out.
"We've both compromised, at times. I can't believe that God wouldn't
forgive that. The instinct to survive is a powerful one, and I think
it's an instinct we have for a reason."

"We're not just talking about lying," he reminded her. "We're talking
about murder. Eugenics. Medical rape."

Scully turned sideways on the couch and leaned her head on her elbow,
where it brushed against his arm and made him shiver. "There's ethics,
and then there's _ethics._ The philosophical ideals I've stood behind
all my life--I have no doubt that they're right in a vacuum--but we live
in a world, not a vacuum. Actions have effects, and sometimes there are
no right answers--only less wrong answers."

"Then how do we tell what the right choice is? Should we weigh our
choices in terms of gains and losses instead of our values? A thousand
American lives versus a hundred thousand Russian ones, one cancer
patient versus one alien-human hybrid, a father versus his son--always
pick the most valuable. What are we--Microsoft?"

She chuckled, and he smiled, pleased. "I wonder how Bill Gates figures
into all this," she said. "Maybe we should investigate that."

Mulder snorted. "I'd love to say he's been running the damn thing all
along, but he's too young."

"Doesn't mean a thing. I'm sure the fountain of youth is among his
assets by now," she replied. "But really, Mulder, maybe these choices
aren't as black and white as we think."

"I don't doubt that," he said, serious again. "But I still want all the
information--I want _everyone_ to have all the information--so we can
know what our choices are and make our own decisions, like intelligent
human beings. The outcomes affect as all, and our cigarette-smoking
friend has no authority to act as God. The very idea that he's in a
better position to make these choices is insulting, paternalistic and
dangerous."

She sat up straight. "That's a very democratic, American position to
take, but...."

Her brow furrowed.

"But what?" he prompted.

"Well, it's flawed," she answered, waving her hand. "Many historians
believe that the only reason the Greeks were so revolutionary with
philosophy and democratic government was because their Mediterranean
climate and their military superiority meant they could spare men from
the farms and the armies to actually do nothing but sit around and
think. The Industrial Revolution gave that freedom to Americans, but
ideals are a very American luxury. Ironically, that luxury was won by
sheer force, not ideals. Our nuclear arsenal and our wealth give us the
liberty to maintain it, even though we pretend our freedom is granted
somehow by the fact that we're righteous. It leads us to cry foul
whenever we think our entitlement has been violated, resulting in a
culture obsessed with talk shows, lawsuits, Princess Diana and the
President's sex life. We can afford to yell about justice and truth and
to argue over absolute rights and wrongs because nothing significant is
really at stake. Most of humanity laughs at us even as they envy us,
calling us frivolous, because they know that ideals come second to real
concerns like survival."

She paused, licked her lips, and Mulder felt an enormous surge of
affection for his partner. "Maybe I've been wrong all these years, and
they're right. Is that cost-benefit analysis--to weigh ethics versus
survival? Maybe. But cost-benefit analysis is ironically more the
American way than we'd like to admit--our politicians spout rhetoric in
terms of absolute values, but what runs this country is the bottom line,
and that's all cost-benefit. Our moral claims are hollow."

Mulder shook his head. "It's a good analysis, Scully, but what runs
this country--this _world_--is a consortium of men who believe
themselves gods, whose goals and values are unclear, who have no moral
code that I can understand, and who don't even care about the dollar.
Secrets--that's the ultimate currency, and that's the economy I want to
see crash. Not because of my patriotic conditioning or high school
civics class, but because I want to have the information. I want to
draw my own conclusions."

"Trust no one?" she asked.

"Exactly. I will never believe something is what it is simply because
someone else tells me so."

Scully looked down at the floor. "But what if secrets are necessary?
What if we're talking about war? Aren't there circumstances in which
it's better to let a select few make the decisions, not necessarily
because they're select but because they're few?"

Mulder shook his head stubbornly. "I want to know."

"What if your wanting to know hurts our sides chances in the war--runs
the risk of destroying us all? Your--_our_--actions may actually be
threatening the human race. What's the price of truth, and how high are
you willing to bid?"

"Scully, if we really were that kind of a threat, they would have killed
us long ago."

Scully considered that for a long moment. "Unless," she said at last,
her voice low, "their human biases got in the way, unless they were
making decisions based on emotion rather than reason."

She started to say something more, then stopped.

"What?" he asked.

Her gaze left his again, awkward. "Mulder, what if you were in that
position?" she asked after a pause. "What if you had to choose between,
for example, killing one innocent person yourself or letting humanity
die. What would you do?"

Mulder frowned. "I guess I could do it. Kill someone, if those were
the stakes. But I'd have to be pretty damn sure those were the stakes."

Her voice dropped, and he had to strain to hear her. "What if that
person were me?"

He swallowed hard, leaned toward her. "I...I couldn't do that," he
whispered. "You know that."

She spun away from him like a weather vane, fixing her eyes on the
floor, and Mulder reached instinctively for her taut shoulders, confused
and concerned. He applied a gentle pressure, trying to turn her back
toward him, but she didn't yield. He compromised and began kneading her
stiff muscles in a soothing rhythm. "Scully?" he asked, leaning so
close that his lips brushed her hair. "Scully--what's wrong? Why did
you ask me that?"

"I didn't--" she faltered, then took a breath and began again, speaking
in hushed professional tones to the adhesive residue on his window
pane. "Because your answer illustrates that our goals aren't really
about values. They're about emotions. Vengeance, not justice. And
cost-benefit analysis. We can't even use ethics to make our actions
right. All these years, we've believed we were searching for the truth,
but, ironically, we've been lying to ourselves."

The defeat in her voice sucked the air out of his lungs. "Scully...."
he whispered, pulling her back toward him, needing to smooth these
wrinkles, fill these gaps, connect what should have never splintered.

But she pulled away, stood up as if his touch had been an electric
shock. "I'm thirsty," she explained to the window, and walked quickly
into the kitchen.

Mulder sighed, leaning forward on his knees as he listened to her
clatter around in his lightless kitchen--water ran, then the microwave
hummed. What had brought this on? He had never seen her so
uncertain--it unbalanced him as well. He wished he knew what to do,
what to say, but in so many ways, Scully was ever a mystery. Where was
the woman who had clutched his hand in the park, said, "If I quit, they
win," who ordered justice department officials around ("You knew it all
the time!")?

Scully returned to the living room with two glasses--she handed him one.

"What is this?" he asked, bringing it to his lips. It had a faintly
pungent odor.

"It's tea, Mulder," she said as he drank.

That he took her word for it almost broke her heart, but Mulder did not
know this. He only hoped she couldn't tell that the tea in his cupboard
was over five years old. Did tea go bad?

She sat down at the opposite end of the couch, sipping from her own
glass. She was watching him closely, sadly through the candlelight, and
it confused him further.

A sudden, terrible thought occurred to him, and he tried to keep the
panic out of his voice. "Are you thinking of leaving after all?" he
asked.

"No," she answered, and her voice was firm.

He took another long swallow of the drink and set it on the coffee
table. "Damn," he teased. "Here I was thinking I could finally get rid
of you."

She smiled at him, but only with her mouth.

He tried again. "Scully, what brought all this on?"

"I can't tell you that," she answered quietly, then set her glass down
as well.

Mulder blinked, curious and hurt. Her shadowed face melted with
sympathy, and he was surprised when she leaned over to reach for him.
With an arm around his shoulders, she drew him down to her lap. He let
her guide him, confused but willing, until his head was pillowed on her
thigh and his legs stretched along the couch. No excuses, no innuendo,
no attempts to explain away the gesture--something more serious than he
had imagined was bothering her. He reached up to caress her cheek with
two fingers. "Really, Scully, what's going on?"

She shook her head and combed her fingers through his hair. It felt
like paradise and he was ashamed to enjoy it.

"Nothing, Mulder," she whispered, gazing down at him fondly in the
flickering light. "Nothing. I'm just in a...mood, that's all."

A mood? What did that mean? She draped her arm over his chest and
raised her feet onto the coffee table, cocooning him against her.
Mulder did what he hoped was the right thing--he relaxed. If she wanted
to hold him, he could let her.

As always, though he'd done the right thing for the wrong reasons.

She slipped one arm beneath his shoulders, cradling his upper body, and
he closed his eyes, memorizing the feel of her fingers in his hair.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," she murmured, her voice like tearing silk.

Alarmed, Mulder wrapped his free arm around her. So accustomed to
assuming Dana Scully was made of steel, he wondered how he'd forgotten
that even steel can buckle under pressure. Had the weight grown too
heavy? How could he help? "You can wake me up anytime," he assured
her. "These are difficult questions--I want to talk about them too."

She brought her hand down to his cheek, stroking it softly, and the
sensation was like satin against his stubbly skin. He leaned into her,
listening to her uneven breaths in silence. The disjointed rhythm made
him sleepy, and it seemed wrong that he should feel so comfortable while
she was obviously still upset.

"Do you want to talk about something?" he whispered.

She didn't answer for a long time, and when she did, she only said: "I
don't know."

He turned his face into her palm, kissed it. "Okay," he murmured.
"That's okay."

Drowsiness permeated his system like a drug, a leaden warmth in his head
traveling with heavy purpose through his limbs to his digits. Safe in
the darkness, in the embrace of his partner and friend, Mulder drifted
in and out of sleep.

He thought he heard her whisper something ten minutes later, and he knew
he should be listening, but it was so nice, just to hear her voice. He
must have toppled back into unconsciousness then, because the next time
he heard her, it sounded like she was in the middle of a story.

"...and the priest told on me, Mulder! Well, not really, but he said
enough that my parents guessed the rest. I couldn't believe it."

Mulder blinked--his head felt heavy and he didn't want to move.
"I'm...sorry, Scully, that I'm not being very responsive...I'm just
really tired. You should go home. Or go lay down in the bedroom."

He was so close to sleep he didn't hear the tears in her voice when she
answered him. "That's okay, Mulder," she murmured, stroking his hair.
"It wasn't important. I'm...kind of tired too. Just sleep. I'm not
going anywhere."

When her fingers grazed his cheek again, he turned his face toward the
warmth of her breast like an infant. "Scully, I don't think we should
stay...." His words were lost in her clothing, and he couldn't remember
what he'd wanted to say anyway.

She bent down to kiss his forehead, the tears now flowing more freely,
and he turned toward her face again, trying to see her through
heavy-lidded eyes. She didn't trust herself to speak.

He sighed, a long and deep sigh of contentment, his lips parting
slightly, and, on impulse, she kissed his mouth too. The faintest
motion of his tongue against her lips was his only response, gently
reciprocating but not encouraging, and it almost made her sob.

"I love you," she whispered, and, misunderstanding, his hand traced a
clumsy, uncoordinated path to her cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said, his speech slurred. "I love you, Scully, you know
I do, but we have to wait until I'm awake to talk about this, okay?"

Why did these words have to be said only now? Her only comfort was that
he did not know that she was saying much more. "Okay," she answered,
then bit her lip and tightened her arms around him as if it would keep
her from crying out. "Okay."

"You should go home," he repeated, his voice barely audible.

She shook her head like a stubborn child, and he turned his face again
to her breast. She felt his weight sag against her as he slipped into
sleep.

She bent over him so she could feel his shallow breaths on her cheek, so
that her tears splashed onto his lips and chin, but he did not wake.

"Forgive me, Mulder," she whispered. "Because I'll never forgive
myself. I'll see you again soon, I promise. Forgive me."

And she began to weep in earnest, kissing his cheek, his eyes, his brow,
rocking almost imperceptably as she cried. She had imagined long ago
she would watch him die, and she had sworn not to weep like this, to be
the strong one for both of them even to the end, but she had never
imagined it this way. Never.

If he saw her now, her father would not be proud, but for a few seconds
she didn't care. For a few seconds, she considered calling for the
ambulance, rushing him to the hospital and pumping him full of activated
charcoal, summoning him back to this world with chemistry and will. But
the deed was already done--it was too late--and regardless, when her
partner learned what she'd done he'd probably take his own life anyway:
she knew that. Better to die than to live with the knowledge of her
betrayal.

She would not move from this place. She had to be the strong one for
both of them, as always.

At last, he took a breath and did not take another. The candle
flickered and faded as the flame drowned in melted wax.

Scully cradled the lifeless body against her until the warmth began to
drain away, and at last the great void exploded to paradoxically fill
every space in her body. She moaned softly, pushed him away, and sank
to the floor beside the couch.

She picked up his glass of half-finished tea, stared at it for several
long moments, anticipating the feel of cool liquid sliding down her
throat and the onset of sleepiness. Dying in her dead partner's arms.

Too easy. Too quick. Unjust.

She lifted the cup of poison and carried it into the kitchen like a
solemn pallbearer. Tossed the amber liquid down the drain and
thoroughly scrubbed the glass under water so hot her hands might have
begun to blister.

She looked one last time at the limp body on the couch, the beautiful
features at last as peaceful as a sleeping child's, and this was her
only farewell.

But when she opened the door, a familiar figure had been just about to
turn the handle. She looked up and was not at all surprised to see the
smoking man.

"He's dead," she said, her voice like the undertones of a eulogic
bagpipe. "I did it."

The man's eyes narrowed. "I know," he replied. "I saw it on the
video. They called me."

"He's out of your way, you can save humanity now," she continued.   No
emotion colored her tone--it had leaked away with her tears, leaving
only this all-consuming emptiness.

The smoking man opened and closed his mouth once or twice, and a distant
part of her realized he was crying, an unexpected reaction to her
non-reaction. "How _could_ you?" he hissed, grabbing her upper arm.
"How _could_ you? You loved him!"

She blinked. There was no defense to be spoken. "Was he really your
son?" she asked, as if it were a mild curiosity.

But he didn't answer--instead he reached into his coat and out came a
gun. "You bitch," he growled. "You heartless _cunt._"

Unfazed, she grabbed the barrel of the gun, lifting his arm with it as
she pulled it against her breast.

"Oh, Captain Scully would be so _very_ proud." The smoking man pulled
the trigger.

Nothing happened, and Scully was unable to contain a strangled sob. The
smoking man laughed, a laugh that grated like nails on a chalkboard.
"Go run to Daddy, Dr. Scully," he ordered. Biting her lip, Scully
pushed past him like hot air over cold, walked fast down the hall. For
the last time.

As soon as she was out of sight, the smoking man seemed to crumple,
losing several inches of height. He slumped against the wall as he shut
the door behind him, squinting through the darkness at the rag doll
figure sprawled across the couch.

"Oh, Fox," he moaned softly. "My only son."

---------------------------------------------------

End.

Okay, okay, I KNOW CSM says Agent Potatohead is his son, but come on,
how the hell does he know? Cassandra got around, I bet--after all, she's
a looker. So, in the above fic, CSM had done this paternity test on
Spender and found out he wasn't really his son after all, which made
more sense because the kid was such a numbwit. I guess I shoulda told
you that in the introductory notes, but everyone on atxc was complaining
just the other day about how much they hate those things and I certainly
wouldn't want to do something in one of my stories that anybody hated.

So I'm sure lots of you are screaming right about now, "MIXED-UP
METAPHOR!" and I had a way to rectify that too, but it didn't work
out--I'll tell you why.

See, first you have to assume there was a prequel where Spender died.
Done. Okay.

That fixes the first problem. The second problem's a bit tougher, and I
had to think about it, but then I realized the answer--a musical! No
one cares if a musical makes any sense.

The reason for the delay between my last posting and this is because I
was negotiating with Alain Boubil and Michael Schonberg to do the piece
with them. They were all jazzed over the idea--they sent me this gif
movie they'd thrown together with Antonio Banderas as Fox Mulder belting
out "Who am I? I'm FOX MULDER!" but I just thought that was a little
too...um...how shall we put it...CERTAIN for Mulder, if you know what I
mean. I mean, can you really hear him saying, "Who am I?" and actually
coming up with an answer? Especially one like "Fox Mulder."

Besides, Antonio's lip was all wrong. (We'd talked to Duchovny himself,
and he was interested in branching out, but damn, that boy can't sing
for shit.)

So it just didn't work out. Wish I could put the movie on the web so
y'all could see, but you know, copyright violation and all that.

But by now Andrew Lloyd Weber had gotten wind of this and he wanted a
piece of the action, you know what I mean? He loved it, loved the whole
story, except he wanted Mulder and Scully to make love before they died
and do the entire thing on roller skates. I was eerily jazzed with the
roller skates idea--sort of like the ice capades but warmer--but I just
couldn't stomach M&S doin' the nasty before she kills him! I mean, what
kind of sick fuck would write that? Plus, Andrew wanted to cast Madonna
in the role of Scully, and man, if that's not a big ball o' wrong I
don't know what is. Although Scully might look good in those party
hats.

But the worst part is he still wanted everyone to die and by now I know
how you precious people love your happy endings, so I was thinking of
something more along the lines of: Mulder and Scully give up the quest
all together, make a deal with the aliens, adopt alien lizard babies and
go live on Jupiter, but every stage designer I talked to told me that
was just out of the question. Jupiter's just a big ball of gas.

So I said, fuck it, season premiere's almost here anyway, I'm posting.
Andrew was very disappointed, but, really, can you imagine what he'd do
to the theme song? You're right, it was a bad idea in the first place.

Almost done,

Dark Nascent
nascen...@usa.net

---------------------------------------------------

Started: 10/5/98
Finished: 10/25/98