From: wildcard@bu.edu (Janice Barlow)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Nightmares (1/1)
Date: 30 Sep 1995 16:31:22 GMT
Nightmares
an X-Files vignette by Wildcard McCoghlan-Finn (wildcard@acs.bu.edu)
Here's one I wrote today after letting the events of "Paper Clip" sink
into my demented mind... if you haven't seen the ep yet, DON'T READ THIS!!!
I played it straight for once, and I hope everyone likes it. Comments
are welcome, as always-- don't go too hard on me, I wrote this in about
six minutes... ;-)
Disclaimer: I stole these characters from Chris Carter, the Fox
network, and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and I am nothing but a lowly
wretch for that. I deserve the worst punishment they could bestow upon
me... say, tying me to a chair in Gillian Anderson's dressing room for
three days during a shoot that requires a lot of costume changes? I hope? :-)
Basically, this is what you were always afraid of as a kid when
you heard your parents fighting at night... here goes...
Fox Mulder lay awake in his bed, watching the stars shimmer in
the cool Massachusetts night that lay beyond his window. Instinctively,
he looked across the room, where his sister, Samantha, lay curled in her
sleeping bag, a pillow under her head and a peaceful expression on her
face. Fox smiled in the darkness. <> he
thought to himself.
He could hear voices downstairs; he guessed that his parents were
fighting again. Lately, they fought constantly-- but only at night. Fox
knew they didn't want him to hear, didn't want Sam to hear. They acted
perfectly normal in the bright, clear light of day...
* * *
"No," Catherine Mulder said timidly. "There has to be some other
way out of this, Bill, and you know that..."
"Catherine, I don't know what else to do," Bill replied tensely.
"If I don't do as they say, we'll all end up dead. Is that really what
you want, Catherine, to kill us all? Which one of them would you choose,
Catherine?"
Catherine Mulder had never been a strong woman; she had been a
good wife and mother first and foremost, just as her mother had taught
her. Now, faced with this horrible threat and hearing her husband calmly
discuss his plan to give one of their precious children away to a band of
former Nazis-- Nazis, for God's sake!-- her composure snapped and
revealed a core of iron she had never dreamed of possessing until that
moment.
"Bill Mulder, you're asking me to choose between Fox and
Samantha, to choose which one of them gets handed over to die!!!" she
screamed with a sudden release of fury; Bill stepped back, unprepared to
handle this savage lioness defending her cubs. "You want me to stand
here and take the role of God into my own hands? You expect me to tell
you that it is all right, that it is perfectly acceptable, to sacrifice
one of our children?"
* * *
Hidden in the next room, Fox quaked in abject terror. Even his
nightmares were never this awful... he sat, deathly still, not even
daring to breathe. He shut his eyes and rolled himself into a tiny ball,
hoping that somehow, they wouldn't find him and kill him...
* * *
"Catherine, you're being irrational," Bill Mulder said calmly,
moving to embrace her. "Come here, let's go to bed. We'll discuss this
tomorrow while the children are at the park..."
Catherine slapped his hands away. "Don't touch me, Bill. I
won't even discuss this any further. What you're planning is an
abomination, as much of an abomination as those horrible things you and
those awful men do when you go to Washington. I want no part of this,
and I will NEVER choose between Fox and Samantha!" Although the last
words held a trace of hysteria, Catherine's expression remained unchanged.
Bill Mulder's own expression hardened. "So be it, Catherine, but
I wanted you to make this choice with me... I didn't want to do it
alone. Remember that, always..."
With that, he turned and left the room, footsteps echoing loudly
across the linoleum.
* * *
The minute Fox heard his father speak to his mother in that dismissive
tone they all knew so well, he ran, small feet slapping quietly against the
floor. He wasn't quite fast enough.
Fox froze as his father's hand closed down on his shoulder with
the force of a vise. The little brown-haired boy kept his face totally
neutral, tried to keep his breathing calm.
"Fox, it's past your bedtime, you realize," his father said
quietly. "Why don't you run along upstairs and get some rest? I'm sure
Samantha is already fast asleep..."
"Uh, sure, Dad," Fox said, trying to keep himself from yelling and
awakening Sam. He didn't want her to know about this. <> he thought resolutely. "I just
came down to get a drink."
"Well, get your drink and go right upstairs, son," Bill Mulder
said with a paternal smile. "You need your sleep, you know..."
"Okay, Dad," Fox said, going into the bathroom and getting a
glass of water. He bolted upstairs, nearly spilling the water, and
bundled himself under his sheets, hoping that he had heard his parents wrong.
"Fox?" It was Sam's small voice. "You okay?"
"Yeah, Sam, go to sleep," he replied softly. "I'll keep you
safe, all right?"
"I know you will, Fox," Sam breathed into the still night air.
"I love you..."
"Aaah, that's sissy stuff," Fox said with the Older Brother
Superiority Complex in full force. "Go to sleep, Sam, I'll watch you."
Sam rolled over with a soft thump; soon, Fox heard her even breathing
filling the room with an assurance of peace and rest. He sat there, at the
end of his bed, a forgotten glass of water in his hand, until it grew light.
end
--
Wildcard McCoghlan-Finn IRC: Wildcard, Andraste wildcard@acs.bu.edu
"If you've decided to change what you thought was your way,
this new way will take you to Her and to Midsummer Day..." -The Tea Party
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