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Resurrection (30/32)
by darkstar
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     For only the fourth time in his life, Walter Skinner found 
himself totally helpless.
     Place him on the battlefield, an automatic rifle hot between his
hands, his enemy plain before his eyes, and he could perform as 
well as any man. Ask him to command-- even to send men to 
their deaths-- and he could do it, so long as the objective was clear. 
But he could not fight the invisible things, such as the cynicism or 
fear in the eyes of his fellow generals as they one by one 
abandoned Mulder in favor of Nicolas' demands. Nor could 
Skinner fight the mob he watched fill the city square to 
overflowing. Like a net full of fish, he thought to himself, and 
about that stupid. Every man, woman, and child in Freedom City 
would witness the execution, via their presence in the square or 
over a special television broadcast. Most of them had no idea at 
all what they were about to loose. Mulder and Scully were not 
merely heroes of the resistance. They *were* the resistance. 
Without them, the war was already lost because it didn't matter 
how many battles the humans won if they lost their humanity 
itself along the way. The people needed Mulder for his passion, 
and Scully for her faith, and both of them for their love, but he 
feared he was the only who realized that.
     Maybe a handful of the people in the square realized it too. 
Most of those who did, however, would throw vegetables and 
hurl insults anyway because such "spontaneous displays of 
patriotism" were often rewarded with extra ration cards. Nicolas' 
executions always had that sort of flamboyant violence, a 
garishness that drew the fascination of the people like any other 
horror. Nicolas thrived on it. Skinner found it repulsive.
     /There was a time,/ He reflected as he screwed the cap from 
his Jack Daniel's, /when we used to believe in something and 
fight for it. Now we're all cynics-- even my old friends, even 
myself-- and we stand in the street throwing rotten vegetables at 
our saviors just to earn an extra pound of hamburger./ He began 
to reach for a glass but changed his mind and drank it straight 
from the flask. He drank it like a soldier should drink it.
     /Maybe I am an old man. Maybe I have lived too long to 
adjust to this new world, but I can't fight for this warped cause 
anymore. Not that we'll survive for much longer anyway, not as 
long as we're cutting the throats of our own people. Today will 
save us or destroy us. If the people let Nicolas murder Mulder 
and Scully, then we are all lost. Nothing will save us. But if the 
people prevent it...or at least try....then there is hope.../
     It was so easy to think that "hope" was not even a word 
anymore. That years of blood and hate and lost worlds had 
erased it from the human vocabulary. But he still believed in it. 
He had seen it in the eyes of his men, late last night, when they 
had pledged to stand by him even without the support of the 
generals. A direct intervention in the execution was the only 
way to save Mulder and Scully's lives.  No more playing safe. 
The plan was to attempt to sway the people to demand mercy, 
but if they didn't listen....
     Well, each of his men had been told to bring their guns. They 
agreed to this without hesitation, knowing full well the possible 
consequences to them and their families. He admired them for 
this. They were young and had wives and baby children. He was 
old and had nothing much to loose but his life. But they had 
promised to stand with him....on one condition. Mulder had to 
appeal to the people. He had to defy Nicolas directly. Skinner 
understood this request. The crowd in the square weren't the only 
ones looking for something to believe in. His people searched for 
it as well, and they weren't going to lay their lives down for 
Mulder unless they had proof that he could deliver. He had told 
Scully this. 
     She had nodded, and thanked him. Then she'd kissed his hand
through the bars. /You are father and brother to me./ She 
told him, her eyes unnaturally bright but making even the ugly light
seem beautiful in reflection. She remained the most beautiful 
woman he had ever known.  /You are all that is left of us, once 
we are gone./
     But he would not be left. He knew this.
     His eyes drifted over to the gun lying before him on his desk,
the metal gleaming with a sheen of gold in the morning sun.
It was the same weapon he had carried back in the FBI days. He 
had come to rely on it as friend, protector, and confidant. Today 
he would use it to save his friends or he would use it to die trying. 
Either way he would not be left behind. 
     He did feel old, after all. His hands shook ever so slightly 
when they held the flask, and his back ached often when he 
returned from missions. It would be easy to stay in his office, 
with his whiskey and his memories of better days, and hide from 
a world he did not understand nor wish to understand. It would 
be very easy.
     But it would not be honorable. It would not be a soldier's 
action, nor that of a father nor that of a brother. He remained all 
this even if he was an old man with too many memories and 
aching bones.
     And so he took one last swig of his whiskey, strapped on his 
gun one last time, and walked out his door to meet fate. He 
paused, for a moment, on the steps, as a swell of shouting rose up from the 
crowd
outside. 
     This would mean, he knew, that the truck bearing the prisoners had 
appeared. The beginning of the end. 
    
     /Someday, when this is all over, will our children be able to 
forgive us for the things we've done? The future we sold out, the 
men and women we betrayed? The innocents we killed?/
     
     Walter Skinner walked out the door to join the mob.

                         * * * * * * * * * * * * *

     Mulder's first thought when they led him from the truck onto
the scaffolding was that the glow of the morning sunlight across 
her face and hair had to be what heaven looked like. Her face 
tilted up upward to meet the sun, spilling the light over her skin 
and through her hair like water. It took him into another reality, 
one more real than the handcuffs around his wrists, or the 
whipping posts waiting for them. The reality he saw in the first 
few seconds held nothing but Scully and the sunlight and a sky 
too blue to be real. It was beautiful.
     Then the rest of the world forced its way through the cracks.
     The taste of dirt and mob hatred entered his mouth, gritty 
and dry between his teeth like sand. The heart of the sun poured 
down on his face and back in torrents of clear fire. The thirst.... 
The distant, pinched ache of his wrists pinned tightly beneath the 
steel handcuffs. The distant, pinched ache of her eyes pinned 
tightly beneath her steel control.
     (He wasn't sure which he felt more keenly or more painfully...
the lack of blood in his wrists or the lack of feeling in her eyes.)
     The screaming of the crowd destroyed the final illusions of 
beauty. The sound rose up in dark, salt desire for death; the 
bloodlust hung above their heads in almost visible waves of 
shimmering heat. They hated what they were told to hate. Feared 
what they were ordered to fear. This was the thing Skinner had 
told him to challenge. Appeal to the people. Ask for mercy, ask 
for truth. It's our only hope.
     Mercy. Truth. He was not sure if they were capable of such 
things
     The cries of the mob merged together into one pitch black 
tidal wave inside his mind, swelling to push out all other thought.
     /Kill them!!!!/  
     /Traitors!!! Colonist sympathizers!!!/
     /Die!/
     /Betrayors!/
     /Coward!/
     His mind was going to rip at the seams. Right down the 
middle. 
     And there was so much hate...
     And there was so much darkness...
     He pressed his eyes closed before his brain tore in two. 
Begging escape. Begging silence. But even then he heard them, 
even in the golden-brown darkness. He heard the screams, the 
curses, the fear. All of the confusion, all of the anger, all of the 
lost faith and jaded belief.
     His own question to Scully turned back to haunt him.
     /....then what kind of a world have we been fighting to save?/
     He did not know. He did not know. That set off a panic within
him, deep and slick with cold sweat despite the heat. Had he been
wrong the whole time? Had it been futility all along? The fighting, 
the bleeding, the dying. Maybe the only truth was that they
just did not want to be saved.
     Maybe they only wanted to destroy...
     The rough wood of the post sent splinters into his cheek as
they slammed his body against it, two men pinning his shoulders 
down while two more freed his hands and retied them above his 
head. The ropes tightened around his wrists, pulling his body until 
the skin on his back stretched tight. Heat washed over his bare 
skin as they tore his shirt away.
     He buried himself in her eyes. Never moving. Never flinching.
     /I am only as alive you are./
     Deeper, deeper, beyond her mind, into her soul. Just like he 
had promised.
     /You are only as alive as I am./
     By then the crowd had fallen silent. Everyone heard the rip of
the fabric as they tore the back of her dress open, exposing the 
skin to the sun and to the lash. Everyone watched her flinch.
     Mulder leaned his forehead against the wood. Her voice, 
always and forever a part of him, played out as a second string of 
thoughts inside his head. More real than his pulse. More real than 
his breath.
     /Remember....then they can't hurt me. Then they can't hurt me.
Can'thurtme can'thurt me can't hurt me.../
     He stared out at the sea of blind hatred and hoped to God she 
was right.



     "You look tired, my friend," Nicolas' voice. Mulder looked up 
to see the Leader standing beside him, the glow in his eyes 
betraying the politically appropriate gravity of his face. "Didn't 
sleep well?"
     "Let's get one thing straight here and now. I am not your 
friend."
     "But I want to be yours, Mulder. It's not too late to save your 
life. Or hers."
     He followed the man's eyes over to Scully. Her eyes stared 
blankly into the sky above the heads of the crowd, and from the 
small distance he could see her lips moving.
     "If she's already praying for mercy," Nicolas whispered, 
"What do you think she'll do when the pain hits?"
     "I think you are a dead man. Maybe not by me, but by 
someone. Soon."
     "Who? Skinner? Your old comrade Krycek? Don't insult me.
No one can touch me. No one can threaten me. I own this city. 
It's mine and I refuse to let you or anyone else take it from me. 
You have no options left but to cooperate. Step out and 
denounce Skinner and you can take your woman and go live 
happily ever after. Or would you rather me begin the execution? 
Don't think the people will save you. They belong to me as well. 
You heard them all screaming for your death."
     "Kill me, kill her, you'll only make what we stand for stronger. 
You know that. You're afraid of it, even now."
     The light in Nicolas' eyes turned cold in a spasm of sudden
anger, his voice razor-edged. "Fine words. Dying would be easy
enough, I admit, but it's the slow minutes before death that you 
will hate and fear. Long before you die, long before she dies, both 
of you will have cursed everything you think you stand for. You 
will destroy it with your own mouths."
     "I will only curse you."
     "Very well." The left corner of his lip twitched as if he was 
trying to contain a grin. "You want your honor and your death? 
I'll give you what you want."
     He stepped away from Mulder, raising his arms to gather
the attention to the mob. The perfect Caesar, the perfect leader. 
The perfect murderer.
     "My brothers and my sisters," Oh, the voice held so much pain,
such a reluctance to duty. "A great tragedy has befallen our ranks.
Two of our own have left our side to be counted with the enemy.
You know them both by name, though perhaps not by sight. The
man is Fox Mulder, a onetime defender and champion of our 
cause. Yet last night he deliberately defied my personal order to 
execute a Colonist prisoner, a monster responsible for who 
knows how many dead innocents? The woman, Dana Scully, 
urged him to commit this treason."
     Nicolas allowed the murmurs and whispers to continue just 
long enough to provide the optimum impact, then held up his 
hand for silence and continued his speech.
     Mulder had no stomach to listen to the lies. 
     His gaze threaded through Scully's again like two hands seeking 
one another in a darkened room. Despite the crowd packed
in on all sides, he fought an increasing sense of desolation and 
abandonment. Of utter aloneness, except when he looked at her. 
Except when he met her eyes. When he looked at her this time, her
face was white and pained as she listened to Nicolas manipulate the
crowd, and there thin wrinkles of anger creased the skin around 
her lips.
     "No justice." She mouthed, forming the words with careful
deliberation so he could read her lips. "No truth."
     "Truth is you." He mouthed back. "All I need."
     The sun cast a shadow of a smile across her eyes, but he 
noticed too a glimmer of pain as she turned her face away from 
him. A whisper in the back of his mind told him to look away as 
well, not to make it any harder than it already was.
     But he kept his eyes on her a moment longer in defiance of the
insistent ache within his chest. He watched the sun slide down her 
hair, again, dripping in waterdrops of light to her shoulders, down
her back. Her naked back.
     Mulder flinched away from the sight. The exposure was too 
cold, too ugly, too brutal. Too helpless, and helplessness drove 
him closer to madness than any pain. Already the sanity wavered.
     He focused his entire mind on that sanity. He no longer saw the
crowd as individual faces and individual hate, but only as a blur
of humanity, a shimmering mirage in the heat. And beyond them, 
the sky. And beyond the sky, the sun. And beyond the sun, a sister.
     "Dearest Sam,"
     In all the letters he had written, even in his darkest moments, he
had always believed she somehow heard him. That she somehow
understood. Now there was only one letter left to write. One 
request left to make.
     "When we were children, we filled our heads with many things,
many plans for our lives. This was never among them. But now,
at this moment, I only ask to live these next minutes with honor..."
     Nicolas' voice sounded to Mulder to be very distant, as if he 
was underwater listening to the man speak. He heard no words,
only impressions of speech colored with vague anger and 
indignation. Then the answering thunder of the mob, rumbling 
low and ominous to answer their Leader....
     Nicolas flicked his hand toward the soldier holding the whip.
     "For the things I have done that should never have been done,"
     /Blood on hands in downtown city streets, an Enforcer badge and
a hired gun. Dead friends, a murdered sister. Hard liquor, broken 
faith, and the overwhelming stench of cigarette smoke in the 
background./
     "For the things I have lost that should have been saved,"
     /Innocence and laughter and summer afternoons in Maine. 
Sleep without nightmares. The ability to look myself in the eyes 
without guilt./
      "For the things I should have been that I will never be,"
      /An idealist. A crusader. A hero. A husband and a father.../
     The whip hissed softly in the air as the soldier drew his arm 
back. Mulder could see it out of the corner of his eyes, a long 
black snake glistening in the sun, fangs bared to strike.
     "I ask you one last time...." His lips barely formed the words.
"For forgiveness."

     The first lash fell.

A jagged pain sliced the length of his back like barbed wire
dragged across his skin, white hot but at the same time filling him
with a cold and terrible nausea. A scream started at the base of his
spine and burned through his nerves into his brain at electric speed.
Only his jaw and his sheer will held the impulse in check. A craving
to release. A desperation to breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, and
it seared, and it wouldn't go away until he screamed and let it out.
     He couldn't hold his silence...couldn't...even...breathe.
     /Remember...disappear..../
     Her words faded in and out of his mind, fuzzy and distorted 
like static on a broken radio. A moment of clarity.
     /Can't hurt you. Can't hurt me./
     He forced his eyes shut despite the first and in one act of 
desperation, Mulder threw his mind. Somewhere distant, many
miles beyond the horizon. Somewhere safe.
      His lungs unfroze in a fierce passion for air, though the oxygen
barely reached his brain before the second blow fell. The impact
ripped his eyes open but this time he saw nothing of the world 
before him. The skin tore but he did not allow his mind to register the
sensation. Sunlight scorched his pupils but it was not this sunlight
but another kind of burn, from memory or from dream he did
not know, only that it shone so much brighter than anything he 
had seen before....

     /July desert heat sliding across a cheap motel bed, quivering in 
waves of light above the curve of her dress along her hair as she 
watches the metal fan blade stir the air. Sweat plastering your skin 
to your clothes and to the sheets and to her skin and you hand her
another piece of ice. Passing it between your palm and hers until
the fingers are dripping wet, smoothing the moisture across 
foreheads and necks and lips. She is golden in the sun, a sculpture
of light.../

     A white flash of pain tore the vision in two.
     Number three.
     His fingers tightened around the ropes, muscles taut and 
quivering as his blood turned to ash and his entire body burned 
from inside out.
     Mulder gritted his teeth and willed himself back into his mind.

     /Caribbean blue sky and two black pigtails flying in the wind,
the ends tied with orange and red ribbon to match her dress. A 
tire swing and the last day of summer vacation. Higher, Fox. 
Higher. The sun stings your eyes, a pale yellow blindness that 
sharpens to the hottest white, growing whiter and hotter and 
hotter and swallowing her shadow as she spins out of your 
arms..../

     Four.
     His body arched in a spasm in response to the new pain, but 
it was the instinctive reaction of his cells more than his mind. His
mind still hovered in separation, waiting for him to give the order 
for it to disappear again into the never-ending solace of a perfect 
memory. Every minute of his life stood ready to be called to life 
again at his wish, to take him from the present nightmare.
     But he hesitated at the sound of a woman's scream, for the
voice sounded far too much like Scully. He heard it but chose not
to accept it as real, just as he was choosing not to acknowledge the 
thousand stings across the skin of his back-- assuming he still had 
skin.
    A mechanical voice in his mind told him not to be preposterous;
it would take more than four lashes to flay a man. That would 
not occur until twelve, perhaps thirteen...
     The nausea returned, partly because now he smelled his own 
blood. Hot. Thick. It was time to escape again, and quickly, 
before she screamed again, because if she did, then it would 
break him. 
     He shoved his mind away from him, letting it drift out into
oblivion, but this time his eyes would not close. Something kept 
them open, though it was not the prodding of pain or the 
relentless heat. Instead, the feeling was as if invisible hands rested 
on either side of his temple, cool and soft, urging him to watch 
something....what he did not know....
     Then a voice, but not Scully's. Not this time.

     /Hello, Fox./

     A woman walked toward him through the crowd, moving
easily through the mass of flesh as if she passed right through it. He
could not clearly see the face yet, but he knew it was Samantha. 
He knew because the hair was parted into two braided pigtails, 
tied at the ends with scraps of orange and red ribbon. She smiled.
     /You like it....I knew you would. It makes me think of old 
times, but you were already doing that, weren't you? I could feel
it./
    The voice was so soft, so warm, without a trace of anger or
condemnation, but suddenly he wanted to cry. At her beauty. At 
her innocence. Her dress was white, again, made of layers of 
nearly transparent gauze that turned colors wherever the light 
touched. The closer she got to him, the harder it was for him to l
ook at her and remember what he had done, even as he paid his 
penance for it. 
     His head dropped as shame sent a flush through his face.
     /You should hate me, Sam./
     /Do you want me to hate you?/ She climbed the steps to the
platform now, walking right in front of Skinner though he did not
know it. /What is easier for you to accept, the fact that I would 
spend eternity hating you for my murder or that I would know 
full well what you did and why you did it and choose to love you
anyway?/
     He could think of nothing to say to that, so he tried another 
question. /Why are you here now? Am I dying?/
     /Not yet. I wish you were, though. It is hard to see you in pain./
     /I feel none of it./
     /You feel more than you admit. Not for you, though, but for 
your woman. You ache with her pain and she with yours and in 
between neither of you have time for your own./
     /Tell me this will not be in vain. Tell me if it is enough to earn
forgiveness....if you can look at me as a brother again and not as a 
murderer. Tell me that and I can die well./
     /Oh, Fox./ She stood directly in front of him, and reached out
to trace her fingers along the side of his face. He sensed every 
detail of the caress-- the smoothness of her skin against his, the 
coolness of her fingertips. /You never had to earn anything. Not 
from me. Only from yourself. And I think that today you have 
more than filled that debt. Today you are free. You understand? 
Free./
     Samantha leaned forward, the smile of a sad angel on her lips 
and in her eyes, and kissed him gently on the forehead.
     /Until we meet again, brother./\

      The fifth lash fell, screwing his eyes shut in sudden and intense 
darkness. When he opened them again she was gone. For a
moment, he thought it nothing more than another dream,
another vision created to save his sanity. Yet his skin still felt her 
kiss. His words still spun circles within his mind.. Today you are 
free. Free.
    Free.
    He would have tried to smile if it hadn't hurt just to breathe. If 
it hadn't hurt so much to think what this "freedom" was doing to
Scully no more than five feet away from him.
     He knew he should look at her, but he could not. He did not
want to see the blood.
     "Hurts, doesn't it." A hiss in his ear sent a live wire of hatred 
running straight through his veins into his soul. He turned his head
slowly to see Nicolas standing beside him, a mocking grimace on
his face. "Stings, doesn't it."
     Mulder ground his teeth together as the man traced his finger 
along the raw skin of his back, exerting just enough pressure to 
send the exposed nerves along the lash marks into a concerted 
scream of pain.
     Nicolas leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart.
    "Look over there, at your whore." The man pushed his 
face back toward Scully. Mulder forced his eyes shut before he
could see her. "She is dying with you." 
    More pressure. 
    "She has such a beau-ti-ful scream."
    More pressure. 
     "You've killed for her before. You've already gone as far as a 
man can go. But I'm not asking you to kill. Just to tell a story. Tell 
the truth about Skinner, how he is their enemy, how he has been 
against them all along."
     More pressure. Agony. Fresh blood oozed between his torn
skin and Nicolas' hands. A dizziness, the sensation of falling 
without any particular direction, just tumbling over and over and 
over without control.
     "Then you will be forgiven. You will be set free."
     More pressure. Mulder gasped for air through his teeth.
     The hiss faded to a mere breath against his cheek. "Do you 
really want her to die this way? Open your eyes. Look at her. Or 
are you afraid?"
     Yes. Oh yes. 
     But he looked at her anyway. Just because he had to know 
what they had done, what he had let them do. He had to know if 
it was worth a betrayal to stop.
     She slumped against the post, held upright more by the ropes 
around her wrists. A fine sheen of sweat filmed her face, and her
eyes were very wide, though he did not notice this so much because
her back drew his gaze immediately. Four ribbons of blood split
her skin from shoulder to hip, stray rivulets of crimson soaking 
through the material of her dress. The entire length of her body 
shook like a child's body shakes when the thunder is loud.
     Mulder barely recognized her. He did not want to recognize 
her at all, not like this. Not when her eyes met his, clinging with 
such stubbornness to her strength yet at the same time begging 
for mercy. No one but him saw the plea. No one but him held 
the choice, save a life, destroy a life. Betray a friend or betray a life.
     Or was there a third choice, a glimmer of hope that would
either save her or kill him or perhaps both?
     Nothing mattered if she died. Not the Resistance. Not the truth.
Not his own life. His breath served only as extension of hers, his
heartbeat merely the echo of her pulse.
     /I am only alive as you are./
     All this flashed through his mind in a matter of seconds, 
though it felt much longer. His breath leaked from his lungs with 
the sound of an old man's sigh.
     Appeal to the people, Skinner said. They will listen. 
     Time to see if that was true.
He turned his face back to Nicolas and met the full fury of the
man's gaze measure of measure. "If I do this thing, you will let her
go. I have your word."
     "You have my word. You will both walk away free."
     Mulder shifted his eyes to Skinner, standing on the fringe of the
crowd, his forehead wrinkled in suspicion and worry. When the
time came, Skinner would understand. He would be ready. He 
knew he could count on that much from a friend.
     He had to drop his eyes before he could speak. "Cut me 
down."He spoke the sentence in a jumble of words and syllables
so he would not have to hear what he spoke. "I'll say what you 
want."
     Nicolas glowed.
     He said nothing further to Mulder, but flicked his wrist toward
the soldier standing behind them. "Cut him down. Make sure he 
can stand."
     The Leader replaced his smirk with a benevolent smile as he
walked to the edge of the platform.
     "The Corps is always merciful to her errant children, always 
ready to bring them back to her side. Commander Mulder has 
sought this mercy and we will grant it. He will now confess to us 
the true force behind his crimes, and reveal the enemy in our midst.
I myself am unaware of what he will say, other than that it is a 
truth he has been willing to die for. But never let it be said that a 
good man had to die before justice could be done. I call General 
Walter Skinner forward to act as official witness to this 
confession."
     As the soldier cut his wrists free, a ball of nausea blossomed 
within his stomach. Mulder fought to remain standing, but his legs 
bent more like rubber than bone, and he slid to his knees. His 
back shrieked at even the slightest jar of impact.
     /Pull yourself together, soldier./ He ground his teeth together 
until he could hear the bone slid across bone. /That is an order. 
You've been hurt worse than this before. Act like a man. Act like 
an Enforcer./
     He pushed away the soldiers reaching to pull him up. Laying 
his palms flat against the wood, he supported his weight on them 
while he worked one leg into position. Halfway there. He paused 
to allow the dizziness and nausea to ebb away, then carefully 
moved the other leg. And pushed. And then he balanced on his 
feet, shaking at the arms and the knees, but standing nonetheless.
     Two soldiers hovered on either side of him in case he should 
collapse again or entertain any thoughts of escape. They began to
walk toward the edge of the platform, where Nicolas waited. 
His back throbbed with every step but he staunchly refused 
admittance to any sort of pain sensation. 
     "Mulder, no!"
     Scully's voice hooked him by the shoulder and jerked his head 
toward her once more. The horror in her face shock him; the utter
disbelief and betrayal in her eyes froze him where he stood. She 
shook her head violently, begging him not to do it. Not to give
in. 
     Two small tears in her eyes.
     She did not understand, but she would.
     He had to believe that if he was going to do what he needed to
do these next few moments. He needed her strength, her defiance,
her passion. Her trust. Most of all, her love.
     /Please believe in me./ He pleaded with her in his mind. /If 
there was ever a time for trust, believe I can never betray you again.
But belief or unbelief, I will do what I have to do. I will save your
life./
     He stopped on the edge of the platform, twenty feet from the
people who held their lives in careless hands, fifteen feet from the 
man he had sworn to publicly condemn. Skinner kept his face 
expressionless, but trust flickered in the man's eyes. Confidence.
     Mulder hoped he would prove worthy of it. And even if, in 
the end, he failed....well, at least they would be forced to kill him 
outright and he would not be strapped back to that post.
     "You may begin, Commander."
     "No! Mulder! It's not worth it!"
     Her voice, a faint cry for sanity. A plea for honor. 
     Ignoring her ranked among the hardest things he had done in
his life. It stung far worse than the whip to know she believed he
had betrayed her. She believed he had betrayed their friend. 
Maybe, when it was over, if he lived, she would still love him.
     But now he was very afraid she would not.
     This was the last thought in his mind to fade to silence before
he began to speak.


                                          
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Resurrection (31/32)
by darkstar
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     "My name is Fox Mulder. I am a Commander in your 
resistance, but this war is not new to me as it is to many of you. 
For those of you who may not know, I was a federal agent 
before the Invasion. My partner and I fought the same battle we 
do now, only then  without the luxury of an enemy we could see. 
I learned from those days the important of truth. Of honor. Both 
are at stake today, not just for myself, or for my partner, but for 
the Humanity Corps itself."
     Those who had called for his death now listened to his every
word. A noticeable irony. Their faces showed what even might 
be an air of respect, though perhaps it was merely surprise that he 
still stood. The surprise was mutual. Pain from his back ate away
at the corners of his mind with slow acid, forcing him to battle 
for each clear thought, each coherent sentence. He seized the 
words one by one from murky darkness and strung them 
together like beads on a string. His existence stretched no further 
than the next sentence, then the next, then the next...
     "Some of you here think I am a hero. Others of you believe 
me to be a traitor. I have been both. I stood up for truth and I 
betrayed those closest to me. Those decisions were mine to make 
and mine to bear the consequences for. I have paid the price a 
hundred times, but do not stand here today to seek your 
forgiveness. Or your applause. I will not stir your emotions with 
high words, and I will not sway your greed with promises of 
more food or better housing. I will simply offer you the truth. 
Whether you accept it or not is up to you."
     He must choose his words carefully. If Nicolas suspected he 
had anything other than full cooperation in mind, he would be
silenced. Instantly. And he knew he had to finish. It was not just 
about Scully, anymore. He had to do this for himself, to prove 
that just once-- once-- he could save those he had started out to
save and protect those he had promised to protect. If he could 
open their eyes, if he could make them see, then it would be 
worth a death.
    "I came here for the same reason as many of you. A search for
redemption. For hope. I did not find hope here. Instead I found a
reproduction of many of the same evils I had left with the 
Colonists. Despair. Corruption. Brutality. I found a city that has 
lost its reason to fight but continues to shed blood while 
humanity-- the very thing for which you are named-- disappears 
in the struggle. And I promise you that it will not matter if we 
own this planet again if we lose ourselves along the way. If we are 
no longer human at the end of the battle, it will be the same as if 
They had won. It will be worse."
     A nod, here, there, in quiet agreement; an echo of quiet 
agreement scattered throughout the crowd.
     "The beliefs of a people determine their course. What you 
are really witnessing this morning is a crisis of those beliefs. A line
has been drawn. On one side there is the true soul of the Corps 
and the resistance. On the other, there lurks a dark and bloody lie 
spread by one of our very own leaders. A trusted man, one you 
have looked to for guidance and salvation. He used this trust to 
deceive you and distort your perception of everything we stand 
for. I myself was deceived by this man, for I called him friend. I 
trusted him and in turn he betrayed me as he did all of you. You 
are not blind to this. You have sensed the symptoms of the 
disease but have not known the origin. You have felt the presence 
of the enemy among you and reached for your guns, only to 
discover you could not identify him. Today I will identify him 
for you. Is this your will?"
     For a fraction of bent sunlight, there was nothing, and he was
afraid he had lost them. And with them, Scully. Then a woman
near the front stepped forward, balancing her toddler on her hip
as she called out--
     "Who is he? What is his name?"
     Others joined her. Hesitant, at first, but gaining confidence as 
the momentum of the voices swelled.
     "Tell us!"
     "We want the truth!"
     "Enough with the corruption! Restore the Resistance!"
     His eyes locked with Skinner, who edged his hand with casual
grace toward his sidearm. A brief nod, a momentary exchange of
glances. An agreement that the moment was now; there would
be no other chance.
     Beside him, Nicolas' smile shone golden in total assurance of his
victory. Totally drunken with his power.
     "I accuse this man of polluting the Cause with his own lust for
power and bloodshed and brutality, even against our own brothers
and sisters. If you still fight for freedom, then I call for you to 
reclaim what has been lost. Carry out the justice for which so 
many have given their lives."
     He hesitated just long enough to breathe. Just long enough to
kill the pain, to promise Scully that even if they shot him where he
stood, he died with her face behind his eyes. Her love within his 
heart.
     And with freedom....

     "That man is Nicolas."

    Silence.
    A soundless tsunami whipped across the square and paralyzed
every man, woman and child with shock. Even Nicolas, whose
smile still molded into place but lacked suddenly its suave
assurance.
     Skinner stepped closer to the platform, flanked by two
"civilians" armed with very non-civilian rifles. White static 
whisperings scraped against the underbelly of the silence as the 
people began to realize what was happening.
     Skinner spoke before any of them, even the soldiers, could
react. "Leader Nicolas, by the authority of the people, I place you 
and your associates under arrest until inquiry can be made into 
these allegations. Lay down your weapon now and you will be 
escorted without harm to the detention quarters." Then he turned 
to the soldiers ringing the square, his tone clear and authoritative.
A general's voice. "Be advised that my men are placed in strategic
locations throughout the area and they will fight if necessary. But 
we do not wish to shed any blood here today. We merely seek to 
take custody of the Leader until his crimes can be investigated and 
brought to trial. For the sake of the people, hold your fire. Allow 
us to do our duty."
     His words dragged out in the dreadful calm one second longer,
stretching thin as a rubber band about to snap, or as the last 
second on a timer before the bomb exploded.
     It all happened within seconds, but it unfolded before Mulder's 
eyes with the lazy blur of a dream or a late Augsut afternoon by 
the lake. He stood outside his own body and watched the world 
go insane. He saw first the fire in Nicolas' eyes as the man's hand 
moved in sharp, silent command to the soldiers beside him.
     The man drew his weapon and fired three rounds into
the chest of one of Skinner's bodyguards. An instant later, the 
soldier crumpled with a scream as the bullet shattered his torso. 
Two shots unleashed twenty as other men appeared in twos and 
threes from the crowd and from the doorways of buildings. The 
soldiers opened fire first. Or at least a number of them did....most 
appeared to be fighting on the side of Skinner's people.
     It was then Mulder became aware of the blood splattered 
against his cheek, and of Skinner's frantic motion for him to come, but
as he began to move, the butt of pistol caught him across the back.
A wave of red fire engulfed his entire consciousness. It singed 
away every other aspect of existence. A small part of his body 
realized that he had been shoved to his knees, and that the pistol 
now rested against the back of his neck. Someone spoke to him, 
but the roar in his head all but drowned out the words.
     "....move.....you..die...."
     He could not see the face of his killer, neither did he see that 
Nicolas had vanished. He heard the staccato of gunfire as it were 
the rumble of an earthquake underneath the ocean of screaming 
that washed the air in fear and panic. The platform beneath him 
shook as everyone in the crowd raced for cover in different 
directions.
     Mulder forgot the burning and the gun at his neck in the sudden,
frantic need to reach her. Images of her-- still tied to the post, 
defenseless-- sprang in garish clarity to his mind. With them came 
a numbing sensation within his chest, something cold like fear yet
frenzied like panic. 
     That was when he heard her scream.
     His body reacted with every instinct of a trained Enforcer.
     His hand shot behind his head to grab the soldier's wrist, 
twisting it until he felt the bones pop. The sudden movement 
stretched the skin of his back and his grip faltered before he could
completely get the gun. The man's good hand smashed into the
side of Mulder's face once, twice, three times....he responded by 
jerking the injured wrist even more out of proportion. A scream.
A sweaty fingered fumble for the gun.
     A single shot.
     The soldier fell to the platform, dead from a bullet that passed
neatly through the base of his skull. Mulder wiped the blood from
his eyes to see Skinner standing behind him. A thin curl of smoke
trailed from the barrel of his automatic.
     He glanced from his friend down to the soldier's body.
     "Nice shot."
     "Good to know I haven't lost the touch. You all right?"
     "Yes." His mind registered the facts that his hands were shaking,
covered in blood that was partly his own, partly a dead man's, that
his back had started bleeding more heavily, but he did not feel 
these things as a man felt wounds. He merely catalogued their 
existence then filed them away for later use. This was a mindset of 
an Enforcer and it had helped him survive more than one field 
injury. This would be another.
     "Scully--"
     He spun to see a horror of nothing. The post stood empty.
His pulse skidded to a stop and he struggled to keep it moving 
and to keep breathing and not to think about the panic and the 
possibilities and the fact that he didn't see Nicolas either and....oh..
God...
     "She's gone."
     Skinner spoke calmly but now that Mulder looked closer, the 
man's eyes betrayed his fear. "Mulder, you listen to me. We will 
find her. She will be all right. You are in shock and you are losing 
blood, and the only place you are going is to the infirmary--" 
     He ignored the words, jerking free of Skinner's grip to reach
for the dead soldier's gun. He ejected the ammunition clip for 
quick examination. At least ten rounds left. More than enough to 
exterminate a rat.
      "Look, I said I'll find her. You know that."
      "I know." He jammed the clip back into the gun. "But you're
the leader here. If you leave, who will keep it under control?" He 
motioned to the square around him. "And this is something I have
to do myself."
     Skinner said nothing for a moment, then nodded curtly. "I 
can't stop you anyway, I suspect. He's probably headed for the 
transport vehicles; they're on the southern end of the square. 
Expect body guards, at least three. Are you sure you don't want 
me to go with you?"
     "Yes."
     "Be careful."
     "Always."
     A slight pause.
     "Are you going to kill him?"

     "Yes."

     Then it was down into the whirlwind of panicked bodies and 
gunfire and screaming children, running as fast as he could push 
people out of the way, shouting he would shoot and meaning it, 
his breath hard and his pulse mad, and a hope, a prayer, a scream 
in each step, that he would not be too late. 


                         * * * * * * * * * * * * *

     A gun to her temple, a scream wrapped around her throat, 
every cell in her body saturated with pain, and her only fear 
stemmed from the fact that she had seen Mulder fall but had not 
seen him rise. If he died, there would be no way for him to know
she believed in what he had done. That she may not have 
understood at first-- the fire in her mind being great, then-- but 
now she understood fully. And she would trade worlds to stand 
beside him, to taste the defiance with him until freedom won or 
life ended.
     That wish was not granted her.
     Instead she stumbled through a haze of gunfire and smoke 
and panic, pinned against the body of a monster who pushed her 
to run faster, faster though she could barely walk, his voice uglier 
than the barrel of his gun. 
     "Don't even think about slowing down, Dana-girl. We're 
going for a ride, you and me. They won't come near me as long 
as your pretty little tail is on the line."
     His fingers dug deeper into her arm, bruising to the bone.
     "I am secondary objective." She hissed the words through her
teeth. "They won't stop for me." 
     "Oh, but Mulder will. And he is the only one I need to kill."
     Anger. Fear. The overwhelming helplessness of being bait. 
She grabbed at hope the way a falling man clutches at a rope. 
"He'll never find us. Not in this crowd."
     "You doubt your lover, Dana? He could be blind and deaf 
and still know a way exactly to where you are. Trust me on this. 
I've been inside his head. Quite an exhilaration....a bit rough, but 
sometimes it's better that way...." He pressed his face against hers
until she smelled the rot of his breath. "You'll see."
     "Freak--" She shoved back with all her strength, squirming, 
writhing out of his grip, screaming to kill the pain as she threw 
her body forward. Half-falling, half-running. All she knew was 
that if he did not have her, then he could not have Mulder, so 
she had to get...away....
     Three steps into her escape, her body turned traitor under its
own weakness and her legs crumbled underneath her. On her 
knees now. Begging strength, just enough for one more step...one 
more...
     His hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking her
body to his in one sharp movement that crushed her back directly
against him. Ten thousand screams inside her mind. Nerves 
crackling,popping, shriveling under their own heat. Any thoughts 
of struggle turned to charcoal and ash and then disappeared. A 
sob for breath, an attempt to fight, but her lungs were filled with 
fire and not air.
     "Do. Not. Try. That. Again. Ever."
     He slammed his fist into her back, and this time she couldn't
hold back the scream. Her blood formed a second skin between
their bodies.
     "Now move."
     The rational part of her body prepared to refuse, to let him
shoot her and be done with it, but rationale no longer functioned
and she walked under mechanics of instinct.. One step. One breath. 
Then another step. Another breath.
    A string of frantic liturgy unraveled within head, thoughts within
thoughts, deliberate yet subconscious. The words flowed without
her control. Stained glass fragments of prayers and meditations,
whispered penances of confession cells and votive candles, pleas
to saints and sinners and the mother of God. Throughout them
all, a plea that Mulder would live.
     /Hail Mary, full of grace...tell him I love him....Lord, make
me an instrument of your peace...I am alive only as he is alive...
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...
he is bone of my bone..../
     Pushing through the crowd, staring blankly at the brown 
uniforms of Nicolas' bodyguards as they cleared a path by threats 
or force, walking but standing still, awake and asleep and maybe it
was all a dream after all, if only she didn't taste the blood in her 
mouth so strongly.
     /As it was in the beginning, and now, and ever shall be...where is 
hatred...hatred...hatred...let me sow love...let him know I believe....
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb...where there is darkness, light...He is flesh of my flesh..../
     A parting of the sea of flesh and she sees the truck. The same
vehicle that brought her into this nightmare will take her into 
another, darker dream. She will die but not until she has wanted 
to be dead many times over. No. That part is not true. She will 
destroy her life with her own hands before she will let Nicolas 
touch any piece of her, flesh or mind. A flash of a mirthless grin 
across her face. Now she has resolve. All she needs is the chance.
     "Almost there, Dana. Keep behaving and I won't have to 
shoot any of your limbs off. I wouldn't want you around if you 
were missing parts."
     Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smile. His breath,
hot against her neck, soiling her skin and her hair in corruption of 
Mulder's old habit of kissing the top of her head. She would like
to be kissed that way, now. And to be held, with fingers and knees
and elbows touching at all the safe places. All the places he 
protected her.
     She shut her eyes.
     The rhythms of her mind sped and the words flew by.
     /pray for us sinners that I may not seek to be loved as to
love (him) always in the hour of our death as it is in pardoning that
we are pardoned in dying that we are born to eternal life world
without end. world without end./
     From another world, a dying world, someone called her name.
     "Scully!"
     His voice. His voice. Oh God. She opened her eyes to see him
moving out from behind the truck toward them. The world was a
blur within a fog within a dream but he was there. Clear. Sharp. 
Alive. His eyes burned through all mists and all confusion as they 
fastened onto hers and told her in no uncertain terms that she 
would be all right. He would not let anything else happen to her.
     But there was a danger, something she could not remember 
but needed to warn him of...desperately...
      Metal drove further into her skull, grinding against the bone
through the skin. And suddenly she remembered. All her last 
energy and last breath spent in one final shout.
      "Mulder! No! Go back--"
     /World without end to be loved as to love in the hour in the
hour for thine is the kingdom, for I am his and he is mine.../

      Too late....

Nicolas' bodyguards were used to proving their might against
frightened hybrids and starving civilians. Neither of them had met
an Enforcer-trained killer, and their clumsiness with their weapons
ended their life just as surely as the bullets which shattered their
foreheads. He killed them quickly, coldly, not even stopping to 
watch the bodies fall. There had been pain, moments ago, but 
now there was only electricity, pounding in his pulse. In his brain. 
The metal of his gun sang to him through his fingertips, a familiar 
mantra of violence and blood and hot lead splintering bone. The 
sound throbbed through him, his muscles twitched in time to the 
beat, waiting. Begging release.
     But he could not, he *could not*, because in between him and
his target stood a woman with blue eyes that flared wide with
fear for him, whose body shook with pain that he had to end. 
     This and this alone quelled his urge to kill Nicolas immediately.
     "Do it, Mulder! Try to shoot me!" A wild laugh, not the laugh
of a man but of something else entirely. "You'll probably kill me 
but I'll have more than enough time to take her with me."
     "Let her go."
     "Oh, no, you're gonna have to do better than that. C'mon, 
make another speech. Stir me to patriotism. I might be moved 
enough to keep her alive." Nicolas slid his hand across the 
bare skin of her shoulder where her dress had torn. "For a while." 
He moved his hand down her arm, leaving a smear of her own 
blood on her skin.
     Mulder's hand trembled on the gun with the effort of 
restraining rage and passion. Neither had place in a mission. One 
did not indulge in feeling but merely carried out one's duty and 
never, never, let the other side get into your mind.
     Not even when they were holding a gun to the only reason 
you have to live.
     He held his voice flat. Cold. Just like the metal under his 
fingertips.
     "This has nothing to do with her and you know it. This is 
between you and me. You knew it would go down this way ever 
since I came into the city. You've always tried to beat me. To 
control me."
     A cracked ice smile, something he learned from Krycek back
in the Washington days. Always make them think you have
nothing to lose. Especially when the reverse is true. "So why not 
take your shot? You and me. No guns, no weapons, no 
bodyguards. Just flesh and bone and may the best man win."
     Outside a stone mask locked his features in place but inside 
he begged Nicolas to listen. It had not yet occurred to him how 
he would keep his sanity if he had to watch Scully die. 
     Nicolas stared at him, his eyes glittering Pavlov black, the 
barrel of the gun pressing into her temple until the flesh 
underneath turned white. Then the smile returned. "I can 
beat you without a gun." 
     "Prove it." 
     "Drop your weapon."
     "Drop Scully first."
     "No, first the weapon."
     This time his Enforcer instinct screamed for him not to be
stupid, not to expose himself to the enemy without a weapon. 
But there was not a choice. His weapon dropped to the 
pavement in a clatter.
     "Ok." He held his hands out to show they were empty. 
"Your turn."
     "You're a dead man, Mulder." 
     He shoved Scully away from him. Before her body had 
reached the ground, Nicolas slung his gun aside and flung himself 
forward with lightning speed. Mulder barely had time to brace 
for the blow before the full impact of the dive caught him square 
to the chest, knocking him off his feet. To land on the back would be deadly. 
He twisted his body as he fell, 
landing instead on his side. Nicolas' momentum still carried him 
forward, and Mulder stuck out his leg to meet the man in the gut. 
He heard the air leave the Leader's lungs in a *whoosh*, forcing 
him to fall back and gasp for breath.
     Mulder used the opportunity to jump to his feet, a tiny smile
on his face, but there was no time to revel in victory. Nicolas ran 
at him again, this time heading his attack with a series of quick 
punches aimed at his temple. Mulder swung to avoid a left hook 
and countered the blow with a fist to Nicolas' rib cage. One 
good hit, two good hits. His defense slipped. Stupid mistake. A 
powerhouse right collided directly with his forehead. Blood in his 
eyes. He stumbled back, shaking his head to regain clarity, and 
another right connected with his solar plexus.
     This time he fell on his back.
     He screamed more from frustration than pain, but it was
the pain that paralyzed him. His arms and limbs turned to lead and
refused to obey his frenzied commands to *get up*. Nicolas' foot
slammed into his kidneys. Once. Twice. After the third time, the
edges of his vision began to tinge with black and he no longer felt
the boot in his side. The battle for consciousness grew harder
by the second.
     He could not see because his eyes were closed though he 
distinctly remembered trying to keep them open. Tiny crimson
and yellow balls of light danced before his vision. He watched 
them in childlike fascination as they throbbed in time to his racing 
pulse. The longer he stared at them, the further they led him into 
a growing darkness far within his mind. A cold, thick, seduction 
that promised no more pain and no more fire within his nerves.
     But he remembered blue eyes. Blue eyes and a reason he 
needed to get up, a reason to fight. If he thought about the blue 
eyes, the darkness shrank. He could not remember what they 
meant to him, only that he had to focus on them and find a way 
back to them. Close behind him, a woman screamed. He knew 
the voice. He knew it as the voice of the blue eyes. In it was fear; 
in it was pain.  That sound raced along the course of his veins 
until it collided head on with the agony in his head and dissolved 
all knowledge of injury.
     She shouted again and this time he picked one or two words
from the background static in his mind.
     "Mulder.....knife...."
    



                                          
- - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Resurrection (32/32)
by darkstar
- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

     His eyes flew open in time to see a blade arching through the
sunlight in dead trajectory for his throat. Survival pushed the 
feeling back into his arms along with a sharp command. Move. 
Now. Now. Now. His hand snapped up to catch the knife 
along the edge of the blade. Metal death stopped four inches 
above his throat.
     The skin of his palm split open, turning steel to crimson. He 
was aware of the blood spilling down his arm, though he did 
not see it; he saw instead Nicolas' smile, ruthless and gloating, as 
the man begin to push the blade through the rest of his palm.
     "Looks like she's mine after all."
     Another push; more blood. 
     /Don't feel the pain. Feel the hate. Feel it./
     "That's something to remember when I slit your throat. That 
in the end, I owned her. I was the one to break her and you just 
died in the street like any other animal. How about some last
words? Make the moment stretch." The grin, again.
    "I'm more a man of action."
     He jerked his palm away and grabbed Nicolas's wrist with his
right hand. He twisted the knife while his legs shot up at the same
time, knocking the man in the lungs. Nicolas' body sailed back 
toward the street. Mulder followed the motion of the fall, his 
hand still locked around the wrist that held the knife. At the 
moment Nicolas hit the pavement-- hard-- his grip weakened. 
Only for fraction of a second, but that was more than Mulder 
needed. He tore the knife from the man's hand. 
     By the time the shock of impact had faded, Nicolas found 
himself staring up into eyes that held a razor soft whisper of 
anger. But mostly they held resolve. That frightened him far more
than rage.
     The blade of the knife kissed the skin of his throat, like a 
teasing lover.
     Nicolas pulled his fear together into a cracked grin. "What 
now, hero?"   
     "Take a guess." No smile in return. Not even a flicker of 
emotion.
     "Do it. Prove that you're a killer, no matter what your whore 
says. C'mon, you know it's the only way. You know you want 
my blood all over your hands. You know you're just like me. 
You always will be."
     Mulder increased the pressure of the blade until it coaxed thin
bubbles of blood to the surface. "That was always your mistake,
Nicolas. I am nothing like you."
     The knife rested against the throat; vengeance rested within his
hands. The blade gleamed silver in the sun.

    /This what you did to me. Inside my head. Inside my 
thoughts./
    /This is for what you did to Scully. This is for the way her 
skin shivered in the light before the whip drew blood./
    /This is for her./

     He brought his hand down in a stiff karate chop to the 
man's temple. 

     Time, which had slowed to the measure of blood and 
heartbeat, sped up much too quickly and reality slammed
into his body with all the grace of a freight train. The pain 
returned, dizzying waves of heat and nausea that set the sky to 
spinning above him and the ground spinning below him. He 
rolled away from Nicolas, tearing oxygen from the air in great 
gasps and heaves as full awareness of his injuries returned. With 
that came a different sort of numbness. He could not convince 
his fingers to release the knife. His hand clenched it with a 
stubborn grip of their own free will. No mental command 
could shake it. He could only sit and stare at the blade, a wicked 
silver grin underneath a sheath of blood.
     The end.
     The end.
     He had expected relief but instead he felt nothing.  A vacuum
over his soul.
     Then a hand closed around his. He flinched, his eyes flashing
upward to see a pair of the deepest blue eyes hovering close to 
his face, so close he imagined he could dive into them and be 
part of their secrets forever. Soft hands pried his hand open 
around the knife blade; thin fingers worked their way through 
his fingers until the grip loosened. The weapon was laid aside; 
instantly forgotten. He closed his hands around the fingers,
pulling them to his lips as her other hand stroked the beard 
stubble along his jaw.
     The sunlight framed her face and her hair until she was made
of nothing but light and beauty and every time she touched him,
a little leaked through her fingertips into him. Making him light as 
well.
     He realized that there was no more gunfire. Only silence. The
silence of peace.
     Beyond her, he saw for the first time the circle of people 
watching, them. Waiting. How could they have been there the 
whole time and he not even notice? Had his focus been that 
intense? He glanced back to Nicolas' unconscious form. Intense 
was not the word.
     The next wave of pain washed over his mind, and he closed 
his eyes in a grimace. Her fingers tightened around his, her voice 
raised in a command despite the fact that the sound barely 
carried.
     "We need a healer over here! Now!!!" Her face turned back 
to him, the eyes clouded with worry though her voice soothed 
like her touch. "It won't be long, Mulder. Just hold on for me 
until then. A little space of seconds and they'll fix you up better 
than ever..." She blinked and a drop of liquid splashed onto 
his cheek. Her tear. For him.
     He would tell her not to cry. That yes, he would be all right,
whether the healer came in time or not, because she was there 
and she was turning him into light, and he loved her.
     Why was it so hard to talk? Why did he have to struggle for 
words?
     "Don't....worry..."
     A flicker of a smile. "After all this I am entitled to a little 
worry, I think."
     "Sorry....you....hurt....because...me."
     Her face sobered in an instant. She laid her hand across his
lips as if to erase the residue of the words. "Not hurt because 
of you. Alive because of you."
     "Love you."
     She bent over him until her lips touched his forehead. "Me 
too."
     He smiled because the effort of speech quickly turned to a
burden he did not wish to bear. Again the darkness called him, 
not the cold darkness of before, but a warm, familiar shadow 
like a blanket wrapped around you in the night. 
     The warmth was very much like sleeping in her arms, which 
was all he wanted to do. To sleep, and to rest, and to know 
she would be there when he woke up again. She would always 
be there.
    His eyelids fluttered under their own weight and began to ease
shut. But he remembered there was one last question he had to 
ask. One thing he had to know.
     "Scully,"
     "Yes."
     "Samantha....proud...of this...wouldn't she?"
     She smiled, and the sheen of tears shone brighter over her
eyes than they had a moment ago. He knew they were tears 
brought by the smile, not working against it. "Yes, Mulder." she 
whispered, her hand tightening around his. "Samantha is so very 
proud of this."
     He nodded, just once. And closed his eyes. The last thing 
he saw before oblivion was the outline of her smile in the sun. 
The first thing waiting for him inside his mind was the smile of a 
little girl on a tire swing, orange and red ribbons tied around 
her braids as she stretched out her arms to him.
     As she welcomed him home.
    
                         * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

     Dana Scully awoke to the sensation of feeling the morning 
sunlight from the inside out. It was warmth. Contentment. And, 
for the first time in many mornings of waking up, peace.
     The events of the previous day seemed distant and blurred, as 
if she had just dreamed the most terrible, beautiful dream of her 
life. The details slipped in elusive fragments through her fingers-- 
sunlight in her eyes, a pain that burned but also cut, a gun to her 
head. One thing alone remained concrete.
     The simple relief in Mulder's face as he passed into 
unconsciousness a forgiven man.
     She even remembered his last words. /Samantha would 
have been proud of this, wouldn't she?/
     Samantha wasn't the only one.
     A knock at the door drew her attention, and a moment later 
Skinner peeked cautiously into the room. 
    "You're awake."  
     "Yes. I'm getting quite used to this coming in and out of 
consciousness thing. A few more times and I'll be a real pro." 
     "This isn't going to happen to you again." The simple 
conviction in his statement and in his gaze surprised her. "Ever."
     He coughed then, and averted his eyes to scan the room. 
"Too much white in these rooms. Not enough color. That's 
something I'll change once we get things settled down, but for 
now, I thought these might do."
     He brought a vase of daisies from behind his back and 
set them on the table beside her bed. "These are donations from 
his ex-Leadership's Nicolas private garden," She caught his grin as 
he talked. "So you can be assured of the finest quality."
     "Thank you." Scully brushed her fingers over the softness of 
the petals. "What does Nicolas think about your invasion of 
his garden?"
     "The Leader isn't in a position to think much of anything. My 
men currently have him in the barracks under heavy guard-- more 
from the people themselves than from any possibility of escape. 
He's not going anywhere until he can answer for what he's done."
     "Has there been much fighting?"
     "Here and there. Some is still going on, but we're lucky. 
Only a small contigent of soldiers remained loyal to Nicolas after 
the people turned." The wrinkles around his eyes deepened. 
"We've had a few outbreaks of mob violence, so I'm keeping 
the city under martial law for a while longer. Just until 
everyone calms down." He sighed. "I waited and waited for this
and now that it's hear, I'm not even sure if they're ready for it. If 
any of us really are--"
     She placed her hand over his to quiet him. "You are ready, 
Skinner. And you will make them ready. I believe that."
     He squeezed her hand. "You always believed."
     "Not always." She said. "I had to have help along the way.  
You'll be there for the people just like you were for me. That's 
how I know this will all turn out okay." 
     She pulled her hand away to fiddle with the daisies.
     "How's Mulder?"
     "Fine." he said. "The healing process went well, but he'll 
be out of it for a while longer. His injuries were more extensive 
than yours."
     "What will happen when he does wake up?"
     "That will be up to you two. You're free to stay here or 
free to walk away. No obligations. After all this, you've more 
than earned the right to live your own lives."
     Another pause, and she took the chance to speak her mind.
     "I never did say thank you." She looked up from the flowers.
"For getting my back through all this. There were some times 
when I didn't know if I'd make it, especially the beginning, but 
you were always sane when I needed you to be. I should have 
told you a long time ago, but I guess I didn't know how."
     "You told me." A slight grin began to ease the tautness along 
his jaw. "Maybe you never said the words, but you let me know." 
     The grin stretched into the kind of smile she hadn't seen since 
they'd come back to the States. 
     "Now get some rest, Scully. That's an order."
     She smiled. "Yes sir."
     He closed the door and left her with the flowers and the 
sunlight.
    
                        * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     

THE CALIFORNIA ROCKIES
THREE MONTHS LATER

      As an infant sun learned the first words of daylight, a man 
left his wife in their bed, kissing her once in the twilight, and 
picked up his pen to write a letter to his sister. It would be the 
last letter, for after this there would be no more need. No 
midnight confessions of vodka and dead men. No more hate. 
Just a goodbye.


     Dearest Sam,

     He paused, fingers tapping against the pen as he searched for
a beginning. Good-byes were always difficult for him; he 
preferred to think of reasons not to say them. This farewell, 
however, was long overdue. She deserved her peace just as 
he deserved his sanity. At times it seemed the past had been 
lived by someone else, and he merely heard the story. He still 
wondered, at times, if it really happened to him. But it did. It 
was real. The scars on his back, on his mind, on his dreams, 
proved it beyond all question. The first slivers of sunlight 
flirted with the edges of the paper as his thoughts began to 
translate into words. The intangible captured with pen and ink.

     Today is the last time I will write to you.
     These letters have been my confessions, my sanity and my 
hope during this travel through hell, but now I stand among 
the living again and feel it time at last to give the past its rest. 
The path has been hard-- a barefoot walk over fire-- but you 
were always there to guide me when I was alone. There is no
doubt in my mind that I would have given up long ago if you 
had not been there to guide me. My northern star, you led me 
through the darkest midnight back into the light. It has been 
three months since I stood on the scaffolding and you kissed me, 
but I still feel it when I wake up at night. Scully tells me it was a 
hallucination, but we know better, don't we? I told you many 
times before how I craved death. When you looked at me that 
morning, I knew I wanted to live. So you have saved me life, 
Sam, but much more. My humanity. My soul. My capacity to 
love and be loved. For this I owe you an infinity of lifetimes, 
but I can only offer this one. I will live it well, I swear to you. I 
will not waste a day.
     You are probably interested in news of the Resistance. 
We won. Some confrontation was inevitable, but I am glad to
tell you that very little blood was shed. Skinner knew exactly
when to shoot and when to talk, and the people listened to him.
He is a natural leader and his dedication to their cause is obvious,
even to the cynics. Right before Scully and I left, they elected him
Leader. It was not a job I would have wanted.  There is much
pain and much to rebuild. The previous Leader, Nicolas, came 
very close to devastating everything we had worked for.
     He was tried and found guilty of corruption and unnecessary
brutality. The very people he controlled for so long sentenced
him to public hanging. For those of us who personally met with
his evil-- Scully, myself, Skinner-- the penalty seemed light in
comparison. I have asked myself many times why I did not kill
him when I had a chance. The knife was in my hands, and I
could smell his blood in the air. I could have paid him back in
pain for the things he did to me, even more to Scully. But when
the moment came, I decided he was not worth a murder. He
did not deserve to stain my hands with his blood, or my mind
with his screams. Perhaps it would not have been so much 
murder as justice, but for me the two have been tangled for so 
long that I feared to risk tangling them again. Just because I have 
turned from darkness does not mean it has left me. I can feel the 
violence and the bloodlust waiting, just waiting, in a far corner 
of my soul. That will be the battle now; to keep it locked away. 
Permanently. The more human I become, the easier this battle 
grows.
     That was in part the reason Scully and I left the Resistance.
We need time to remember how to live, to find out who we
have become after all this. I would like to think we are unchanged,
but of course we are not. It will never be "the way it was." But
I do believe it can be better. We are going to prove to anyone
and everyone that there is life beyond war and survival and hate. 
I'll settle if we can prove it to ourselves.
     She is my wife now. 
     I am more in love with her each time I wake up beside 
her, each time we touch. That will never change no matter what
else around us does.
     Further change will, inevitably, come. I know this, though right
now the world and its uncertainty seems so far away. Someday
we'll leave this secret place and go back to trying to save the 
world. Someday, but not yet. Now is a time to live, not to kill.
     This is not to say our lives are perfect. The guilt remains a
constant, threaded through every day and every thought. The
past remains an ever-present ghost in our mind. We still
wake in screams, some nights, from the nightmares. The 
important thing is that we do not wake up alone, anymore. I hold
her hand when she sees Pavlov or Nicolas inside her head. She
wraps her arms around me when I hear the screams of the men
I've killed. Until I die, I will live with those screams. With the
knowledge of what I have done. That cannot be changed.
     But ask me about the future, and that's a different story.
     I'll be your Don Quixote once again, little sis. I'll believe every
impossible thing and hold on tight to every impossible dream.
We'll take off, you and me, and tear down every windmill in 
the land. Only we won't just knock them down. We'll load them 
up with dynamite and blow those suckers sky high.
     You and me, Sam.
     
     You and me. 


         Always and forever, your loving brother,

     
         Fox. 




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finis.

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to read this story 
and come on this little journey with me. It has truly been a
pleasure to write and I hope it has been the same for those of 
you who have read. If you have any questions, comments, or 
other thoughts, I would be delighted to hear them.
My inbox is always open at clone347@aol.com
Feedback is worshipped with candles and Mulder clones :) 

One more round of applause to Suzanna, Lixy, and Do, the 
Beta-Angels who helped me turn this story from incoherence to 
fiction. ::claps enthusiastically::

Thank you all for reading.

darkstar

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Come over to the Dark Side :
A Conspiracy of Truth

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