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The Fortieth Day (1/1) by CazQ ( cazfic@ymail.com )
CATEGORY: SA, V
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: 'Redux II' missing scene. What if CSM had offered
*Scully* the chance to save herself and Mulder?
SPOILERS: Heavy ones for Redux II (well, duh).
ARCHIVE: Sure, just ask first.
DISCLAIMER: OK, repeat after me...they're not mine, never were or
will be.
Mulder, Scully and everyone/thing else connected with the X Files
belongs to
10-13, 20th Century Fox, and of course The Boss, Chris Carter and
all his
partners in crime. Hey, I'd let them have a lot more fun. No
copyright
infringement or insult intended. No money will be made out of
this and I
have none so suing me would do no one but the lawyers any good.
FEEDBACK: cazfic@ymail.com
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Cast your minds back...let me take you back,
through the
mists of time, to the days when Scully's nose was forever
bleeding and
Mulder had a decent haircut <g>. I just watched the Redux
eps again the
other day, for the first time in a long while, and this was the
result. Ah,
the cancer arc...those were the days... ;)
Many thanks to jerry and Kristy for quality Speed!Beta <g>,
and to EPur for
thinking things through ;).
******
The Fortieth Day (1/1) by CazQ
(cazfic@ymail.com)
"And the devil, taking him up onto a high mountain,
shewed unto him all the
kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said
unto him, All
this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them: for that
is
delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou
therefore
wilt worship me, all shall be thine."
Luke 4: 5-7
******
She smells him before she sees him. He can't light up in here --
not
with all those patients on oxygen -- but the scent of old tobacco
clings
to him. Turning slowly in the bed, she sees him silhouetted
against the
light from the door. She could swear she sees a hazy nimbus of
darkness
colouring the air grey around him... corruption and old hate
curling like
smoke through the dull twilight.
"Good evening, Agent Scully. How are you feeling?"
She doesn't have the strength to raise her voice. "I'm
dying. But you knew
that already. Now get out," she croaks, trying to get her
dry, tight throat
to open up a little.
"Oh, come now. Aren't you in the least bit curious to know
why I'm paying
you this visit?"
"Come to gloat over the corpse? You're a little early,"
she tells him,
cursing herself for letting him hear that note of bitterness in
her voice,
like a twist of lemon juice.
He closes the door, shutting it with a soft 'snick', and moves to
the chair
beside her bed. He takes his time, settling into it, making
himself
comfortable. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand rub
together
constantly...derived of his prop, he seems a little more
vulnerable. She
supposes that it's humorous, in a twisted way: Cancer Man and
Cancer
Woman, having a cosy tete-a-tete in a hospital room.
"Believe it or not, Agent Scully, it saddens me to see you
like this."
"You're right. I don't believe it. Now leave."
He observes that despite her words, she doesn't reach for the
call button.
That much was expected.
"I'm hurt, I really am. Besides, one of you has to be the
believer now, now
that Agent Mulder has...lost his faith."
"You won't break him, you know. You killed him, and he came
back. Twice."
She lets a small smile curve her lips, a smile devoid of any
humour.
"No, it's possible that we won't," he says calmly,
watching her, all the
time watching her with those hooded cobra's eyes. "But you
might."
"Excuse me?" She coughs a little, choking on the words
surprise has forced
out of her. She knew the moment he entered the room that they
were playing a
game, a deadly game where the rules are only known to one player,
and they
keep changing. She had not, however, foreseen this move. She
doesn't know
where this is leading, but she has little choice but to follow
and see.
"You know Mulder. Tell me, what do you think your death
will do to him?"
She leans her head back against the pillow, watching him watching
her,
considering. The rules are there, hanging in the air between
them, mutating,
shifting. If she can just...
She runs her tongue over the cracked skin of her lower lip and
tells him,
"It'll change him. He'll grieve for me, and then he'll come
back to the
table. To you it'll still be a game, but to him...to him it'll be
a war. And
that's what will ensure he takes you down, in the end."
He smiles then, baring his teeth at her. "I'm afraid you're
wrong. Your
death won't strengthen Mulder. It will twist him. He'll be left
to face
murder charges alone. Who can say what will come of that? If by
some miracle he escapes a prison sentence...he'll get bitter,
and he'll get sloppy. Eventually getting sloppy will get him
killed."
Damn. She had her fingers around it, had it within her grasp for
a second,
and then it slipped away from her. The balance has tipped again.
"Even if you're right, I can't change that. Only God can
stop what you've
begun now. You're still the one who'll have to answer for
this."
"God doesn't have the franchise on miracles, Agent Scully.
What if I told
you you could save Mulder? And by doing so, save yourself?"
Here it comes, the baited hook, drifting slowly down through the
dark
waters. They both know that it's there, the bright, barbed,
deadly metal.
What interests them is what's hiding it, whether she will bite
despite her
knowledge of the implications.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your cancer...tomorrow you will see your doctor again.
He'll tell you your
cancer has gone into remission --"
"You're lying. The PET scan showed no change, as I'm sure
you're aware."
"Miracles aren't always instantaneous. You will recover,
that much is
already certain. I offer that as a gesture of good faith. The
matter of
Mulder's little difficulty at the Bureau...I can make that go
away too. I
can make it all go away, Agent Scully."
"Despite what you say, I have every reason to believe that I
don't have the
luxury of wasting time. Stop talking in riddles and tell me what
it is you
want from me."
"Straightforward as ever. I've always admired that about
you, actually. Very
well. I spoke with your partner earlier, offered him a deal. His
services,
in exchange for making his problems go away, and for giving him
what he
craves."
"The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is
that it?" She
emits a short, sharp bark of laughter, which trails off into a
low, hacking
cough.
He waits for her breathing to return to normal, clearing his own
throat
uncomfortably.
"I think you know it's within my power to give him
that...the truth, such as
it is. You've always been the sensible one in your partnership. I
believe
you will be able to convince him that it's in everyone's best
interests if
he accepts my offer."
The silence in the room is only punctuated by the sound of her
harsh
breathing, and the quiet electronic chirps and murmurs of the
hospital
equipment. She stares back at him, searching desperately for the
crack, the
chink in his armor. Ah...
"He said no, didn't he?" She actually laughs a little,
a thin rasping
sound. "He said no, and you thought you could get to him
through me again.
I thought I'd exhausted my usefulness as a tool to you."
He narrows his eyes at her and shifts slightly in his seat.
"Do you know
what happens to Federal agents in prison, Agent Scully? I'll
spare you the
details."
"No *deal*." She spits the words out, flinging her
venom at him.
"What if I were to guarantee your future safety? After all,
we made you ill,
and we gave you a cure...what makes you think we can't exercise
that option
again, if it becomes necessary? How much do you really know about
what
you've put back in your neck, about what it can do?"
His soft, reasonable voice creeps over her skin, twines around
her like the
strands of a spider's silk. She closes her eyes, and clenches her
fists
under the covers, until she feels her nails bite into the skin of
her palms.
"I can give you everything, Agent Scully. I can give you all
you want...and
all *he's* ever wanted. All you have to do is persuade him to say
yes."
She opens her eyes, and turns her head to the side, looking
straight into
the watery, bloodshot murk of his eyes. A slow, deadly grin
breaks out,
triumph seeping out of her to push back the grimy cloud
surrounding him.
"Get thee behind me, Satan," she rasps, before turning
away and letting her
eyes slip shut.
She hears the scrape of the chairlegs over the linoleum as he
pushes it back
and stands.
"The option remains, Agent Scully. I have no doubt Mulder
will be coming to
see you very soon. He will want to discuss my offer with you,
seek your
opinion, some reassurance that he is doing the right thing. I'm
relying on
you to convince him to do what's best...what's best for you
both."
His footsteps echo loudly in the bare room as he leaves, letting
the door
swing shut behind him again. Not until he's gone does she let one
hand,
trickling with blood where her nails broke the skin, come up to
grasp the
cross at her throat. A single, hot tear makes its way down her
cheek and
soaks into the cotton of the hospital pillow as she clutches the
warm metal
and waits for sleep, knowing that the morning will come, bringing
Mulder
with it.
"For what shall it profit a man," she whispers to the
sterile whiteness
around her, "if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?" The
thin cotton sheet wrinkles beneath her as she curls up, drawing
into
herself. "For what shall it profit..." she repeats
desperately, tasting the
bitter tang of her tears as they begin to trickle into the corner
of her
mouth, "if he lose his own soul?"
FINIS
******
What shall it profit me, if I write without feedback? Not very
much, seeing as copyright law stops me charging money for it
<g>: cazfic@ymail.com