Disclaimer 1: Okay, so during the discussion on the nature of evil, I got
this horrible idea.  I wrote this to exorcise it, mostly. I would very 
much appreciate any comments/critiques of either concept or execution. 

This is based on a slightly alternative interpretation to a scene 
in "Talitha Cumi" than had occurred to me previously. I've gone
back and watched the scene in question several times after this
idea occurred to me, and I still think this is a valid possibility.
My dates and ages may be somewhat screwed up (noncanonical, at 
the very least), but then we know so little about Mrs. Mulder 
(unless her given name is "mom").

This is dark, but not NC17, and may be a bit sketchier than my
already-sketchy style usually is.  I live by "Show, don't tell,"
but some things are best left implied.

***In other words, this has some potentially disturbing images and actions, 
***largely based on some thoughts about the nature of power between people 
***and how it is wielded.

Disclaimer (legal):  The characters used or mentioned herein belong not 
to me, but to CC, 10-13, FoxTV and lots of other wealthy folks 
with high-powered lawyers.  They are not mine and are used 
respectfully but without permission.
************

Other Victims
by Sara VanLooy
svanlooy@mail.coin.missouri.edu
****

"I was always better than he was.  But then, that could be said 
of so many things...."

She slammed the French doors behind her, not caring if they 
broke.  She'd be happy if they did break--it would let in the wind 
and the rain and the animals, and allow this place to begin to 
rot away until it disappeared.  She hated it with the sort of 
passion a woman of her age wasn't supposed to feel.

But she was stuck with it, like an albatross around her neck.  
She couldn't sell it and be done with it.  For some perverse 
reason, her late, ex-husband had willed the damn place back to 
her, "in trust for Fox.."   But Fox was 35 years old, damn it 
all!  Why, in God's name, had Bill given it to her, knowing how 
she felt about it?  

She had once allowed herself the *very* uncharitable thought of 
wondering if Bill clung to the place because Samantha might be . 
.. . buried there.  Not a pleasant idea, and she hadn't 
entertained it for long.  Somehow, she was sure she'd know if
that were true. The place would feel different. 

Hell, the place would have better memories than it did now.

She let her eyes drift over the sheeted furniture, the framed 
pieces on the walls, until they passed over an empty spot amidst 
the clutter of nautical art and seaside watercolors, a place 
with a nail but no picture hanging from it.  Unconsciously, she 
raised a hand to rub the back of her head , touching an old scar 
there.



But she couldn't stop the memory from coming, once it had 
started......
 
************

She was a quarter-century younger in the memory, and a good 
deal happier.  She and Bill had just celebrated their tenth 
anniversary, and were still deeply in love.    His job kept them 
apart a great deal, but she looked forward very much to their 
times together.

At the moment, she was waiting up late for him.  She had brought 
the children up to the summerhouse shortly after school let out, 
and Bill was going to join them for a precious week of vacation. 
But he had called to say he was going to be quite late; he 
hadn't been able to leave town until several hours after 
dinnertime.  

She was standing on the terrace above the water, looking up at 
the stars.  THere was so little light interference here that she 
could see the Milky Way spreading across the sky above her.  She 
loved to sit out here with Bill at night after the kids were in 
bed.  They would sit quietly, her head resting on his shoulder, 
and watch the night sky, seeing who could spot satellites first 
and if either of them would see any falling stars. Sometimes the
soft noise of the waves would lull her to sleep.

A knock at the door interrupted these pleasant thoughts.  She 
sighed--she'd been hoping that Bill would come straight out here 
when he arrived, but obviously he'd forgotten his key.  He knew 
she'd regret having broken the spell of the night as much as she 
did. 

But she opened the door not to Bill, but to his best friend and 
co-worker.  He stood alone, a lit cigarette in his mouth, in the 
faint light that streamed onto the porch from the living room.  

"Oh!  It's you!  I mean, Bill didn't tell me you were coming up this
weekend.  I would have had the guest bedroom ready for you if I'd
known..." 

She was surprised and a little uneasy to see him there without Bill.  He
was always friendly enough in his way, but he seemed distant, somehow.  As
though he were storing information for later use.  Out of all her
husband's colleagues whom they dealt with socially, this man was the one
she knew the least about.  And frankly, the one she liked least, except
maybe for that German man who had once had the gall to defend Hitler in
her house. 

He shook his head at her offer of a cup of coffee, instead remaining
standing near the door with an odd look on his face.  He took off his
overcoat slowly, but held it and his hat in his hand, almost pensively. 

"Mrs. Mulder..."

He always called her that--Mrs. Mulder.  Like she didn't have a name of
her own.  That was fine with her, she supposed-- she avoided calling him
*anything* if she could help it. 

"Mrs. Mulder, your husband has been. . . delayed. . .on his way 
out of town.   He was called to a meeting just after he called 
you."

"Oh."  She paused, but he didn't seem as though he were going to 
continue.  "Did he ask you to come all the way up here to tell 
me that?"

"No, no."  He spoke in that precise way that she especially 
detested.  "I was sent by our superiors to leave a message for 
him when he gets here."

"What would that be?"  she asked.  

He didn't answer right away.  Not in words, anyway, but his 
meaning was clear enough as he grasped her shoulders firmly and 
pulled her towards him.   Feeling her resistance, he brought his 
mouth near her ear and murmured, "This doesn't have to be 
entirely unpleasant for you, Mrs. Mulder."

She wriggled out of his grasp angrily.  "Get your hands *off* 
me!"

"Well, if that's your answer, then we'll have to do this the 
hard way.  And this makes a stronger message for Bill, doesn't 
it?"

With that, he held her more firmly and shoved her against the 
wall so that she cracked her head against a painting.  The pain 
stunned her, but he repeated the action twice more before doing 
what he had come there to do.

He had timed his visit and departure well, because when Bill's key turned
in the lock an unmeasurable time later, she was still lying on the
floor, holding her aching head in her hands.  He gave a horrified gasp and
rushed to crouch beside her, taking off his trenchcoat to cover her
trembling body.  He held her gently while he folded his clean handkerchief
into a pad and pressed it tightly against the back of her head. 

"I'll call the police, love.  What happened?  Can you tell me?  
Do you remember?"

She could remember.  She could remember the smell of smoky clothes, and
the sound of buttons being ripped, and the precise way he had spoken to
her afterwards. 

She had still been too dazed to do more than whisper, but she 
had asked, over and over, "Why?  Why?"

His reply was brusque.  "Why you?  Because Bill values you more 
than he values his own life."

She shook her head slowly, trying to clear it.  He took that to 
mean he had answered the wrong question.

"Ah, Why *me*?...  If we had sent a stranger in a black ski mask you might
have fought harder.  You might have awakened the children.  Because if it
were a stranger, you might have gotten sympathy from whoever you dared to
tell." 

He paused for several heartbeats before continuing, as if to 
give his next sentence maximum impact.

"And because when I heard the assignment was available, I asked 
for it."

She had spat at him then, wanting more than anything to get up, 
to find the gun she knew Bill kept hidden in the nightstand, to 
shoot this man in the stomach and watch him bleed in agony.  But 
she was sick and dizzy and hurt, and before she could make her 
body move, he was picking up his coat and moving back towards 
the door. 

"As I said before, Mrs. Mulder.  I'd hoped that you'd be more 
amenable to the idea.  Maybe you'll become used to it-- in time."

And he had left.

Now Bill was looking frantically through the drawer under the 
phone for the number of the local police station, asking her if 
she could remember what had happened, and before she could think 
she heard herself saying, "He said it was a message for you."

Bill froze, his hands moving away from the phone.  He pushed the 
papers and phone book back in the drawer and came to sit beside 
her.  "Oh."

"Hadn't we better call the police?"  she asked slowly.

He wouldn't meet her eyes.  "Well, I don't know how much they 
can do, I mean, he's long gone, right?"

She nodded slowly, and after another moment he went on. "And 
since they'd never be able to make an arrest, perhaps its better 
that we never let this get out."

He waited for her assent, but she was silent now.  He continued, 
more uncomfortably, "After all, we don't want the neighbors 
talking.  And how would we explain to the children....."

She got up slowly as he was talking and stumbled towards the 
phone herself, pulling Bill's coat further around herself.  But 
as she reached for it, she could sense Bill's growing fear.  
He'd not told her much of what his work was, but she knew that 
it was secret, and the glimpses she had seen had made her very 
uncomfortable.  Bill worked for men of great power and little 
accountability, doing things that to her seemed marginally legal.

And she knew then that the 'message' had been to both of them. 
If she were to report this, Bill's 'superiors' would no doubt 
have plenty of evidence to show she'd been perfectly willing, 
that this was part of a long affair, that she was an angry, 
vindictive woman.  They'd destroy her reputation and make her 
family's life hell.  And she couldn't put her children through 
that.  With a soft sigh of defeat, she put the phone down.

Bill tried to hide his relief, but she could see his shoulders 
relax, and he came to sit beside her, saying, "I'm sorry, honey. 
I'm so sorry."  They sat in silence for a long time, his hand 
tentatively on her back, and she began to feel warm again.  The 
pain and anger and fear receded as she repeated to herself  until she could almost believe it.

Bill broke the silence by clearing his throat slightly.  "Honey, 
I. . . "

"What?"

"Did you see him? Did you know...."

She turned to look at him again.  He was staring at her with the mute
appeal of a child who desperately wanted to be told that things were all
right, that whatever was wrong wasn't entirely his fault.  He wanted her
to let him off the hook, to relieve him of the responsibity he must feel. 
She had seen that sort of look on Fox's face, and on Sam's, but it was
oddly out of place on a grown man.  She wondered what he'd do if she did
tell him--what his excuse to her would be.  

"No.  I didn't," she said slowly.  "He was . . . wearing a black ski 
mask."

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

A gust of wind rattled the French Doors, calling her back to her 
present.  She turned toward them, and saw that he was still 
standing on the terrace, looking in at her.  And he was smiling 
that half-smile that made her want to kill him.  

She'd seen that little smile often since the night of his 
'visit' as she had tried to call it even in her own mind.  To 
Bill, that night had become "the night I worked late," as though 
there weren't hundreds of other nights that he'd come home late. 
 They'd all been condensed down into that one night.  

But as much as she wished that she'd never seen the goddamned 
chainsmoking bastard again after his midnight visit, it wasn't 
true.  The man had had the gall to come back as though nothing 
had happened.  He smiled knowingly at her over Bill's shoulder 
as they shook hands in greeting.  And worst of all, he leered.  
He groped and patted at her when the others weren't looking, and 
he whispered things at her, describing his act as a mutual one, 
as a "fling," as "our little affaire."  And Bill never noticed 
anything. Or pretended never to notice or was too damned drunk 
to notice.  And she had to live with it, because she knew that 
they were vulnerable.  That Bill was trapped in this prison of 
his own making, his wife and children's fate hostage to the 
project he worked for.

They were less cautious, after the fact, about hiding their 
project from her, and as she learned more about what they were 
doing, she began to loathe them all.  Even before Bill stumbled 
home drunk one night and blurted out his horrible question, she 
had begun to dislike him, to resent his weakness and passivity 
and the way he intellectualized and rationalized his acts.  It 
wasn't until the night they came home to find their son 
unconscious and their daughter gone that she began to hate him 
almost as much as she hated the others.  

Right now, though, the most evil man of the group was coming in 
through the back door.  He smiled at the tears he saw in her 
eyes, and glanced over towards the empty space on the wall.  

"Remembering better days, my dear?"  he said softly.  

At that, her fury overflowed.  She had held so much back for so 
long, been so very angry and so impotent to act on it, that it 
felt like an explosion.  She could feel her heart pounding, and 
her head throbbing in time with it, as she gritted her teeth 
and growled, "No.  I'm wishing I'd had the guts to report you 
to the police and demand they arrest you.  I'm wishing I'd told 
Bill what his 'best friend' did!"

"Is that all?  Well, Mrs. Mulder, *I* told Bill all about our 
assignation.  Friends shouldn't keep those sorts of secrets.  I'm
sorry if your own . . . *guilty conscience* . . . kept you from
being entirely open with your husband all those years ago."

She stared in horror at him, unable to speak, blood pounding 
in her ears.

"So you can rest easy.  Bill did know what his best friend did.  
But wouldn't it be a shame if he had imputed certain . . .motives
.. . . on his wife's unwillingness to be totally honest?"

He turned and walked towards the front door, stopping only to
extract his pack of Morley's and lighter from a pocket.  

"Good day, Mrs. Mulder."  

But if he said anything else, she couldn't hear it.  The roaring 
in her ears had grown so loud it drowned out all other sounds, and
her vision was going black around the edges, shrinking down until
she couldn't see her hands before her face, couldn't reach for the
phone, couldn't remember what she would say into the phone, if she 
even knew quite what it was for.  

Her last thought was her need to tell Fox something.  He had to know.
She would never tell the murdering bastard what he'd wanted, but Fox,
Fox deserved the truth.  If she could only remember what it was.

---End---





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