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Title: Sottovoce [In a Soft Voice] Disclaimer: Decidedly not mine. Chris Carter and Fox TV claim that they are their own; I should like to know if Mulder and CSM do agree... Archive: OK, just don't change it and leave my name attached. **************************** SOTTOVOCE [IN A SOFT VOICE] by Emilia Cianci
Mulder's unsteady steps creak over the gravel strewn in front of the old house; his shirt is stained with blood, bright red even in the sunset's uncertain light. He leans against a tree, raising his sweaty face to the breeze... curls his nose at the faint smell of smoke carried over its wings, turning abruptly. Amongst the neglected garden's shadows he can glimpse a human shape, a red ash spot. "Searching is useless: your gun has been left inside, with them. I'll arrange for you to have it back." The very voice of Smoking Man suggests a cynical half-smile. "The situation would have come to a head very soon, with or without your interference." "Are you offering me an absolution? In whose name?" Mulder retorts harshly, clenching his fists at his sides. A short silence. When the other man resumes talking, his voice sounds unespectedly warm. "Stubborn and ready to defy what is stronger than you are, Agent Mulder. Just like that last summer, in Chilmark." He calmly advances, his craggy face sporting a look of amused...affection? "Remember when you, little prig, decided that grown-ups exaggerated, and it was already warm enough to swim? Your sister didn't have the guts to go offshore, begged you to come back; you were waist-deep and shivering all over, but went on, willing to freeze before acknowledging you were wrong." If he had changed into an alien entity before Mulder's very eyes, the young man couldn't have assumed a more astonished look. "I remember... Samantha shouted that there was a man hidden amongst the trees." "I would have preferred for her not to see me, she was really scared. You were not, or at least didn't show it: you clenched your fists hard and headed straight at me, a defiant look on your face... a mite of a naked boy!" Shakes his head, drawing a puff from the by now short cigarette, while Mulder bursts with posthumous embarassment and compels his fists to unclench. "You didn't mean to scare Samantha... and were already planning to abduct her. Why? You knew my parents. How could you do something like that to them? You destroyed our family. You raped our lives. Why?!" "You'll never know how much did you take after your mother. Take this, look into the inside pocket." CSM throws away the cigarette, with slow and measured gestures takes off his jacket, handing it with oustretched arm; Mulder stretches out suspiciously his right hand, not taking away his eyes from the older man's face. "She too asked me 'why', in that very same tone." "And...?" "She knew it, she already understood, but I had to repeat it. She never forgave me. Nor her husband." " *What* did my mother know that I... AH!" A sharp hiss, Mulder jumps back clasping his wrist: Smoking Man sets free a small pressure syringe from the cloth and displays it, reverting to his customary look of ironic superiority. The young man throws it away with a back-handed slap, hurls at CSM with reckless anger, nailing him against a tree and grasping his throat... but his arms are already losing strenght, his legs giving up. Now his foe is supporting him, while he slowly collapses to the ground. "Narcotic, nothing more. You'll get off with a couple of days wiped from your memory, maybe some trouble with the local authorities. Sooner or later, Agent Mulder, you'll have to become smarter: It's getting more and more difficult to protect you." "Protect me? Like you...protected...my father, and Melissa?" "They were no use for the Masterplan, or were no more, at least. I got your family involved also because I cared for all of you: the only hope I saw has been to made you indispensable." "Indispensable...guinea pigs. What is...the...Masterplan? Where is Samantha? Why... Scully?" Mulder struggles to stay awake, while being gently settled on the grass. "I want the truth...the truth...to know it even...just...for...a few minutes..." "You believe the truth makes you free? Truth kills," replies Smoking Man, a final tone in his voice, holding steadily to the silent, pain-filled question buried in those green eyes, until the eyelids close and the dishevelled head rolls to one side. Without haste he recovers his jacket, searchs for the syringe and the butt, rubbing his foot on the shifted gravel to confuse the tracks; then he comes back to kneel beside Mulder, passing an arm under his shoulders and lifting him to study his features, not quite relaxed even in the drugged sleep. CSM tracks with his fingertips the outline of a smooth cheek, the taut lips, allowing his unfathomable, clear eyes that saw too many things to become again, for a minute, human and vulnerable, full of infinite sorrow and an unusual light. "You have your mother's beauty, apart from that nose. Luck of the draw..." He whispers two more words, slightly more than a sigh, then balances that long, limp body into his arms and gets up with some difficulty, taking Mulder with himself into she shadows. In the peacock-blue sky, a plane's white trail wipes out the first star of the dusk.
END ************************** This story was written in April 1998, shortly after "Redux" was aired in Italy... and, with my utter astonishment, I found myself on the verge of tears, seeing CSM (allegedly) shot to death. This way I realized that he had sneaked into my heart, unnoticed - how characteristic. :-). I sent this vignette to the (now closed) official Italian X-Files magazine, and had another shock seeing it published. The third was... when I saw "Fight the Future", learning that I guessed right the motivations behind Mulder family's troubles... attributing them to CSM instead of Bill Mulder, of course. :-) |