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Title: A Broken Hallelujah Summary: "Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah" -Jeff Buckley We had three months of breathing slowly, of living unencumbered. After the hectic, paranoid years, it felt as though time had stopped. Everyone around us was frozen, caught in the position they were in when the world paused on its axis. Only we three continued to move on, in a sluggish and carefree motion, unnoticed. We were happy and content, living in a singular world that centered on late mornings and 3 AM feedings and laughing and Kodak moments. I became comfortable, releasing a pent up breath that I had been holding for eight hard years, no longer walking around in a perpetual state of anxiety, waiting for the inevitable slap to come from some unseen hand, but instead standing fluidly, at ease, languidly watching my world broaden through the eyes of my baby, enjoying the sweet and painless love of my partner. But, as quickly as it stopped, time tick-tocked, tick-tocked us again, breaking free of the groove it had fallen into, speeding, catching up to us. It was like being in a fugue state, a walking dream, hitting the snooze for three months and then finding that the button no longer worked. We should have seen it coming. Looking back now, the feeling I had that morning was a portent for the events following it, a psychic link through time threading around me, connecting each moment of that day by a string of gossamer. It was the first time since Will had been born three months before that I felt restless, as though I had come to the end of the time allotted to be completely happy. I woke from our bed uneasy, jittery. I needed space, air, new scenery, something nameless that I could not find within our home. I was disappointed in myself, mad that my mind could not control the feeling that pulsed within like a separate entity. After feeding Will, I told Mulder that I was going for a run, that it was time to get back into shape. He knew. I could tell by the slightly hurt and betrayed look in his eyes. He read my pacing at the stove and my hurry over breakfast, and he saw something else than a renewed consciousness of my physical being. I left him silently entertaining our son. It seemed as though I were abandoning them slowly. I ran far and hard that morning, and as my feet pounded the pavement of Georgetown, the feeling of the morning seemed to seep through my skin and drip off of me like sweat. The endorphins raging in my blood stream made me light headed and clear hearted. I was close to myself again. I stopped in front of the Russian Embassy, leaning my hands on my knees, hunched over and catching my breath. The exertion of the run reminded me of giving birth, how my labored breathing on the sidewalk mimicked that of bringing my son into life, how my muscles ached and quivered. I straightened up, ready to go back, ready to dismantle the disquietude of the early morning and see my boys again. My peripheral vision caught the shine of a black car slowing down beside me and then stopping. I unconsciously quickened my steps, still concentrating out of the corner of my eye. A window rolled down slowly, a veil that descended cautiously, hiding the face behind it until the last possible second. Marita Coverrubius stared at me from over the tinted glass. "Agent Scully, get in the car." I actually looked around me in a moment of confusion. That moment with Marita, after having just thought about the birth of my son, seemed like a glitch, some anomalous thing that was happening, out of focus and out of place. The world was warping around me, and then snapping back, as though the three idle months we had were the incongruity and I was suddenly sling shotting back into 'real' life. I stared at her, unsure what to do, the part of me that had slumbered since Will's birth ready to wake and do battle. I felt schizophrenic in my need to both run and stay. Eventually, I went to the car, a magnetic instinct, really, forcing me to that spot against my will and better judgment. I smelt the smoke wafting through the car before I saw his face. I turned, startled, and stared at the man occupying the back seat. I could see that he was pallid and cracking, lounging there like an emperor in his motored chariot, deathly and sick nobility permeating from him like a rotting stench. He reminded me of Rasputin, tainting and immortal. I was more shocked by the fact that his presence didn't shock me. In my world, only the good stay dead, a bad B-rated horror movie disguised as real life. We were silent during our drive. I almost laughed when I realized that Marita was driving us to Arlington Cemetery. It seemed so cliché, yet so apropos; an evil man risen from the dead once again, the graveside ceremony for Mulder still fresh in my mind, my own impossible mortality continually stretched to the limit. Although altruism and heavy handed symbolism were both part of Spender's style, I figured his choice of locale for this tête-à-tête had more to do with logistics. Dirty business can be conducted in a cemetery with discretion. Everyone there is embracing their own grief, keeping eyes steadily averted, unwilling to catch a glimpse of another person's ghosts. We finally stopped in the older part of the cemetery, barren and lonely compared to the tourist spots like the eternal flame at Kennedy's grave. A place where the occupants have long since breathed the air above ground and no one is left to mourn them. Basically, a sad and decrepit place, headstones rubbed bare of their markings through the elements and time. Marita got out of the car, leaving me to Spender. He lit another cigarette, and smoke once again plumed around us, cloudy phantoms dancing over our heads, mocking me with its lightness, and scarring the upholstery of the car with its dank smell. "I believe congratulations are in order, Agent Scully. I would have sent a card or some flowers, but I thought expressing my happy wishes on this blessed event in person would be so much better." "Let's stop this game right here. You always did take me for a moron. What the hell do you want?" "Agent Scully," his drawl was sickening in its effort to be conciliatory. "I have never underestimated you or your mind. It's why I've come to you instead of Mulder." "What do you want from me?" His smile was like a grimace, tight and patronizing. "Only your son." I don't remember how I reacted. I know I said nothing, maybe I stopped breathing for a millisecond, or maybe my heart palpitated over a few beats, stagnate then jack hammering. Either way, my mind and body were too busy being stunned to work on branding my reaction to his words into the recesses of my memory. It was one of those moments were there is a temporary pause, when you recognize a life changing moment, that everything you planned will suddenly be thrown off course and the events which follow will always be related to that one moment, that one action. How I reacted is lost in the blankness of time, but I do recall that Spender filled the silence I created with more of his twisted truth. "Your son is quite special. He is the progeny of two 'interesting' bloodlines. He'll save the world some day." "You aren't making any sense to me." "Oh Agent Scully, it's everything you feared and more than you could have imagined. Your son is the product of a mother who was infected with the mutated alien virus and treated with a vaccine, who has branched DNA pumping through her blood and who's terminal cancer is held at bay with a piece of alien technology. He's the product of a father who underwent experiments with the black oil and experienced abnormal brain function caused by an alien artifact. You don't realize what you harbor under your roof. I once told you that I could give you the cure to all human disease. You thought it was on a disk. You just didn't look in the right place." "This is insanity! I refuse to believe anything that you're saying. For God's sake, he's a baby, not some lab experiment. You'll have to take him from my cold, dead hands you son of a bitch!" I threw open the car door. Spender clutched my upper arm and I looked at him again. His eyes were venomous, coiling around me, slithering under my skin and poisoning me with their calculated intensity. I was constricted to my spot, forced to hear more. "I'm sorry if I led you to believe that this was all optional. You really have two choices. Either give him to us and be assured that I will personally see to the safety of the boy as well as you and Mulder and that I will keep you informed of his well-being. Or fight us and risk all of your lives. We may give the boy back to you if you've shown good faith with your cooperation. But be assured, you'll never see him again if you resist. And Agent Scully, I think that both you and Mulder are proof that we can get to anyone at any time." I yanked my arm free from his grasp and fumbled my way out of the car, feeling drunk and disoriented. I willed my weak legs to move. His voice followed me. "Scully, you and Mulder can always have more children. We just want this one." "You already have enough of my children!" I yelled over my shoulder before sprinting away from the car. I remember when I first learned about satellites in science class. We were studying space and man's first walk on the moon. I thought I knew how gravity worked; if you dropped something from up high, it would fall down. I believed it, I had experienced it, dropping a pencil from my desk, dropping Mom's favorite vase, myself stumbling and dropping from a tree. But what my teacher told me sent my mind whirling and buzzing with wonder. There was a clause to gravity, it's fundamental working wasn't so black and white. A satellite, once caught in the orbit of Earth, would stay there, endlessly circling, never falling, never rising, but trapped in a permanent, revolving stasis. The force of gravity became more mysterious and almost malevolent to me. It was no longer a simple equation of cause and effect, but all of a sudden, it was like a living, thinking being, able to trap and hold and buoy. Knowing what I know of satellites and gravity and the Earth's orbit, I can't imagine why Spender's reappearance in our life was such a blow to my equilibrium. Mulder and I are satellites after all, mesmerized by the orbit of the Consortium, unable to brake free from its pull, destined to reflect its agenda. Nothing had changed. I ran all the way back to Georgetown that morning, as if running as fast as I could and not stopping would prevent Spender's words from branding my brain. Of course, it didn't work. A mantra played in my head, like a song that you only know one line to and so it repeats and skips through your mind until you start to hum it incessantly and feel that you will soon be driven mad if it isn't quickly replaced by something else. He wants our son, he wants our son, he wants our son... I was still running when I reached the top of our street, hysterical adrenaline and instinct taking over as soon as I left Spender's car. I saw Mulder in our front yard, looking down the opposite end of the street, cell phone limp and discarded in his loose grasp. Will was in his stroller, crying. I wanted to call out to them both but I had no strength left for words. My small, autumn colored street suddenly grew long and dark and dangerous, hiding scheming predators in its shadows. I felt panicked and harassed, trying to get to the edge of my yard as fast as I could, as if my life depended on it, maybe it did. And yet, at the same time, I never wanted to reach it, I wanted to spend the rest of my life on that road, far enough away from both of them that I couldn't touch them, but I could still see, continually running in place, never breaking the tranquil, wonderful life we had only just discovered. Mulder saw my agitated fear and my frantic pace. His face lost its anger-tinted concern and just folded with confusion. "Scully? What's wrong? Where have you been? You left over two hours ago!" I stumbled up to him, my abused legs no longer willing to function correctly, turning to pain soaked putty. I leaned my hot cheek against Mulder's chest, turning my head and looking down at Will. He had stopped crying and regarded me with a baby's curiosity. It was all too much at once, the terrified words rolling around in my head, the racing of my breath, the raging ache in my limbs, Mulder's tentative arms holding me to him, the innocent eyes of Will staring up at me: my eyes, surrounded by a chubby and smooth mix of Mulder's and my own features. I had never thought I would see such a thing, but there it was, more tangible and real than anything I had ever done. The day faded like a swift moving cumulus cloud blocking out the sun, and everything faded away to stormy black. I woke up floating and naked, embryonic in my sense of relaxation and amnesia. When I moved I heard the soft sound of water hitting porcelain and I had no thoughts, no questions for one blissful and easy moment. I accepted that I was right where I was supposed to be. And then Mulder spoke, and the weight of words dragged me down to the hell I had inhabited all morning. "Scully? Are you conscious?" I sure as hell hoped not. I'm a fairly good actress, as demonstrated by the many times I've 'covered' for Mulder, but I'm not a good liar. There is a difference. One involves following a set script if you will, a pre-determined plan. The other usually comes about by flying with the moment, grasping words and false truths out of the air around you and conveying them as reality. I've always been an amateur liar at best, and with Mulder I don't even try most of the time. So, I opened my eyes. It's times like those that I wish he could still read minds. I'd have willingly let him violate my thoughts then, pushing and pinching the recesses of my mind. "I saw Spender today." He stared at me with the oddest expression. I couldn't really name or describe it. There was a mixture of disbelief and humor and fear and I wondered at the contortion of his features and how one would go about replicating such a look. It was one of those purely reactionary things that he would never be able to do again if he concentrated on it. His face was a purely primal honesty. I expected him to respond with humor, to push away any impulse for levity. But he had changed since Will's birth, since his abduction and resurrection. He was happier in general, but also happily serious, content with prodding and probing an issue on the spot instead of deflecting it with humor until it could be defused by time and distance. All humor had quickly left his face. "What happened?" "Mulder, he wants Will." I didn't give him time to respond to that. Telling him that was like releasing a valve, and all of the pressure that had built behind it during the day exploded in my churning stomach and came rushing out in the form of my fast and hot words as I blew my story out at him. I told him everything, and once I was done I sagged down into the water again, the images of the day coming back to me through their retelling, recreating all of the feelings I had experienced the first time with Spender. They were ball bearing images, dragging me down. I slid down the lip of the tub until I was completely submerged. My eyes remained opened and I saw Mulder's fluttering face, liquid and wavering in time to the motion of the swaying water, above me. I opened my mouth and screamed, putting my whole body behind the force of it. It was a silent scream of course, buffered and useless by the bath surrounding me. My jaunt with Spender had left me with impotent rage. I saw Mulder reach down for me and break the airtight seal I was floating under. He held my arms and pulled me up from under the water and kept pulling until we were standing up, he trembling and I dripping. "Scully, I'll call Skinner and the Gunmen. The three of us can be out of here tonight." I'm not sure what I expected Mulder to do. I think that I had been hoping that once I told him of Spender's 'request' Mulder would come up with some foolproof plan of action. But at that moment, I realized Spender had been right, we really had no choice. I had probably been pathetically resigned from the beginning. "Go where, Mulder? And for how long until we're found or have to disappear again? We can't live that way!" "We can't live that way?" Mulder yelled, his anger gaining purchase over his body, allowing him to push away any other, more debilitating feelings. "I don't see that we have any other choice, Scully! You can't be implying what I think that you're implying, because I don't see how you could do it and live with yourself afterwards." I yanked myself away from him and lowered my eyes. I had come to the only choice I saw as livable. I knew Spender would find us, that it would be an easy hunt for him, no matter where we went or how well we hid. I became numb with my certainty. "He'll find us Mulder. And then what will we do?" I whispered. "This way we have a chance of seeing him again, of knowing that he's all right." Mulder reached for me again and held my face between his hands, forcing me to look up at him. His eyes were strained and intent. "You know that he is lying. My father was promised the same thing and look how that turned up. Do you want to search for Will for twenty something years Scully? Because I know that I don't have it in me to do it again. We'll find another way. I promise." I nodded slightly, but I didn't believe him. I was still adamant in my belief that we had to yield in order to ultimately win as much as it made me ill to consider, but I wanted to hide that from him. I leaned my head on his chest, and finally the tears that I had felt all day came and flowed and drenched his shirt as he held me tightly, both of us standing there in the bathroom, silently contemplating how everything could go to hell in the short span of an idle, non-descript, Wednesday morning. I savored putting Will to bed that night. It was just he and I, Mulder had given Will his kisses and quiet wishes of sweet dreams in the living room before I carried our son away to his room. I took my time with him, rocking him in the chair by the window, the moon swollen and full bathing us in its reflected light. I methodically stroked his downy head as I held him to my breast, watching as his translucent, chubby cheeks pillowed with the motion of his mouth as he took in my milk before sleeping. I memorized that moment in my mind and in my body, remembering the way the room looked in moonlight, imprinting in my head the movements and sounds that vibrated through his small body. I didn't cry, or mourn with him then, only held that fragile span of time within my breath, bringing it down into the deep recesses of my being where it would be kept safe and intact and where I could reach it when I needed to remember that at one time I was a good mother, that at one time I knew instinctively what my child needed. Will fell asleep in my arms and I placed him in his crib. I hovered over my dreaming baby, my hand gently tracing the soft and curving planes of his face. I was a blind woman learning Braille, learning each facet of his features, sure that even if I couldn't recognize him by sight in some distant future, I would always recognize him by touch. I knew the feel of him with my eyes closed. I had marveled in his make up since the day he was born. I leaned over him, kissing his forehead, a tear escaping from behind my lids and spraying his lips. I watched as his tongue darted out from parted lips and licked the saltiness away, his sleeping body still responding to the waking world around him. I left his room less sure about my decision. Maybe Mulder was right; maybe we could find a way. It took all of my strength to leave Will safe in his room that night, never mind leaving him with Spender. I walked wearily to our bedroom across the hall, feeling the exhaustion of the day pulling me farther and farther into myself. My body ached in time to some ghostly drummer's beat and my body longed for the twin comforts of Mulder and our ridiculously large bed. I slid under covers that Mulder had already left turned back. Lying down, away from Mulder, I searched for something to say to him; unsure of the mood he would be in. But Mulder surprised me, reaching for me and holding me from behind and we said nothing. And a sleep that I had been sure would elude me, blanketed over me and covered me in oblivion. When I woke the next morning, it was to an empty bed and a silent house. I panicked, remembering all that had happened the day before. It had been many months since I had been so cruelly slapped from sleep. I ran into Will's room, finding his crib equally vacant. His closet door was open. I saw the blankness in there, perhaps I imagined the motion of empty hangers still swinging on the metal bar after clothes had been tugged off of them. Rushing back into my bedroom, I saw the same state of abandonment on Mulder's side of the closet. They were gone. The End Love it, hate it, wish you never read it, want to hear more? If any of the above, feedback is welcome at js_starbuck@hotmail.com
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