From: Mirnen Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 04:46:40 GMT Subject: *new* Fixxxer (1/1) by Mirnen Title: Fixxxer Author: Mirnen Feedback: Please. mirnen@hotmail.com Rating: PG Category: V-A Keywords: None really. Songfic. Spoilers: None in particular. Archive: Gossamer, yes, anywhere else please simply let me know first. Distribution: Fine, just keep my name attached. Summary: Why does Fox Mulder wear the guilt for everything? Samantha, Scully, his father, his mother, himself-Flashback story. Based on a Metallica song by the same name. Disclaimer: Only the story is mine. I'm not getting paid. Don't sue me. This story only really goes up to about the point where I kind of stopped watching XF, at sometime during the fifth season. I guess I fear it's no longer the same show and the same angst that I remember, so I'm cautioning you that in my little world, Mulder still searches for Samantha, Scully is still a skeptic. That's just the way things are. I really don't know if you all are sick of seeing these things or not. I know that the show has changed significantly without me to watch, as I tuned in last week for the first time in ages only to see my favorite agent in a rubber room, and a sea turning to blood somewhere in Africa in front of my once doubtful agent Scully. So it has come to this, that I must delve into the far distant past to write a story about people I once knew so well. Some of you think poorly upon me, for being too attached to the past, for being unforgiving of what is happening now. Well, if I had been party to it while it was happening, I may be more forgiving. However, I think season five itself sapped my strength and courage for the dynamic duo, and the movie waylaid none of the new misgivings I had. I have an attachment to the characters, only I somehow quit evolving with them. Nothing means anything anymore. The world that I knew in them is gone. "The search," the TRUTH is no longer the driving force behind the show. I have no clue what they're out to prove anymore. And I don't think they do either. Shell of shotgun, pint of gin, numb us up to shield the pins Renew our faith which way we can, to fall in love with life again --Metallica, "Fixxxer" I think all of us died a little that day. Mom could hardly bear the fact that her precious girl was gone. She bore up so well, though. She said that what kept her going was that she 'still had her little boy.' Mom was amazing during the whole mess. Dad took it differently. His first reaction wasn't one of disbelief, or grief, or guilt; it was clear unadulterated anger. See, it had always been a "mama's precious boy" and "daddy's little girl" kind of relationship in my family. I was Mom's little angel, her wonderful prodigal son. Sam was the girl that Dad so looked forward to seeing through hopes and heartbreaks and friends and fears and walking her down the aisle at her movie-perfect wedding. Now, I loved my dad, and I had always wanted to connect with him in that particular way that fathers and sons do. Just once I would've liked Dad to come out and play football with me, or something stupid and father-like like that. But I could relate to my more subdued mother, who was always there for me, like my dad was there for his Samantha. I was told by my mother a while later of the fact, that yes, my father really did love me but the loss of Samantha meant in some ways the loss of his whole future. He couldn't "be a father," to quote her exactly if my eidetic mind serves me correctly. I think few people know how shocking and horrible that sounds to a little boy, especially after the situation I had just been through. Don't get me wrong; no matter what nasty things I said to her or evil thoughts I had about her, I loved my sister. I mean, I must really have to have devoted my entire life, reputation, and well-being to looking for her, on the mere thread of hope that she might be alive somewhere and all I must do is open the right door for things to be all right again. But to hear your mother say that your father could no longer be a father without her, how dangerous is that to someone's psyche? There is still a child here, who by the laws of nature you should have probably adored more than the daughter, simply by virtue of sharing the Y-chromosome, Dad. What about him? Logic dictates that after the loss of one of their precious children, they should have paid enough attention to the remaining one for two, and the remaining one should have felt nearly sick of the overprotectiveness. Logic is also, by design, inherently flawed. My father handled everything so calmly, so coldly that day. His face was a mask of neutrality, set in stone so that no man or woman might perceive the flame of emotion that may have built within. But after the yellow tape was cleared, after the door shut behind the last inquiring policeman, the horrifyingly cold and emotionless exterior fell away to reveal a terrifying anger inside. To speak of logic again, naturally my dad had come to many conclusions that day, including the obvious assumption that I had killed her. After all, the gun was there, and it had my fingerprints on it, didn't it? No one had heard a gunshot, but then again no one was really close enough to have heard anything for absolute certain, unless they were really paying attention. There was no blood, but he knew how intelligent his son was; I could have found a way. Any even flawed reasoning of the situation made sense to him, as long as he had a focus for blame away from himself. At any rate, it didn't matter if I had pulled the trigger on my sister or just stood by and watched as she was taken, because in his mind I was responsible. I can remember quite clearly what my father said and how he said it, and even if my memory was not photographic I would remember it with the same clarity. "What have you done." It was said just as such, a statement rather than a question. Mom had gone to bed probably an hour ago, with a box of tissues and a lot of aspirin and other such medication to help her sleep. I had been sitting in a chair in the living room, and it was getting dark outside but I had left the lights off to be alone with my thoughts. I peered up at him, the kitchen light glittering in his eyes. He reached out his hand, as if to help me off the chair. I took it. My house was one of those with the walls all brushed up into lovely textured swirls and all sorts of grand things. I know when I was little I used to be fascinated with this wall in the living room, picking out faces and animals and whatnot in the intricate ebbs in the plaster. But I knew when my head hit that wall that I wouldn't be seeing anyone else's face in it anymore except my own. Dad was old back then, but what child doesn't think that his parents are old? I marveled at how his speed just seemed so much greater than that of my adolescence-reaching form. I spent the next few seconds just starting to feel pain and wondering how and why he had done that when his hand came up and cracked my skull back into the wall. I remember that I slumped down to the floor, with the taste of blood in my mouth, running back from my nose. I think at this point I tried to croak out some sort of question, to get an explanation for my father's relative insanity. I had almost turned around when I felt the pointed toe of his shoe nail me dead center in the back. I screamed, I felt the tears well in my eyes. My legs, which were haphazardly bent up between the wall and the floor, underwent this odd, violent spasm, and I sat heavily on the floor amidst shards of shattered plaster. Bile rose in my throat, but I was determined to not give it up. I was too scared to move. One would think that I would remember everything about that night in crystal clarity, but I don't. I remember his voice at first, and I remember hitting the wall and his savage kick to my back. After that, whether it's because my nerves just gave up, or my mind did, it's all pretty much a blur. All I know for sure is that he was angry, and I was hurt. I would guess that none of this woke my mother, what with her grief and her drugged state. So to find me pretty much passed out dead tired on the living room floor in the morning, as battered and bruised as I was, must have been a dramatic shock to her already unstable system. I think what happened is she begged my dad to take me up to my room and put me in my bed, after she made sure she hadn't lost both children in one short period. I remember waking up, and hearing shouts downstairs. My mother wanted me taken to the hospital; my father didn't wish to have all the noise and bustle of police and such around the house again. My mother, as wonderful as she had been the day before, was in no condition to argue fully, and still grieving over the unknown whereabouts of my sister she gave up on saving me. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. I think the physical injuries were the easy things to deal with, and they weren't severe anyway. But now I had all of the guilt thrust upon me. And, well, I took it. As I think back on that, I realize that my mother would have been the coddling, overprotective parent that logic dictated. But she gave up on me. My father had destroyed any chances of peace in my life. He became the master and architect of my guilt after that point. And every time I tried to relieve myself of it or do something about it, I would get another stab, another artifice of hating, biting, raging guilt from Father. I wasn't mother's darling angel anymore; my mother was too scared to love her son. She slowly turned on me, out of fear for herself and fear for her husband. I didn't fit into the equation. I grew up a little, the fear and guilt still plaguing me. I went to school, as far away from my father as I could get. I just couldn't seem to forget the power he had over me, and I needed to escape. I joined the FBI. I'm not sure if it was just some sort of subliminal drive to do so, since my father had worked in the government, but that's what I did. Always with my sister at the back of my mind. Ever with my sins and my guilt, stuck in me like pins in a voodoo doll. They gave me another responsibility. As if they hadn't learned from original sin they tempted fate with the apple again. They put another woman in my care, a young, fiery lass with icy eyes and a steel edge. A woman who was the professional of professionals, better than the best, and yet they condemned her to the deepest dungeons of the place, where her reputation would be described as laughable and her abilities be discounted merely by association with her keeper. And I was her keeper. And as determined as I was to protect this charge with my life and more if at all possible, it never seemed to work. I caught her more trouble being alive than I protected her. She hates that, when I try to protect her. I know full well that she's capable of taking care of herself, but I don't want to see anyone else I love just slip through my fingers. Not again. Not after that night. Not after my father put the burden of his sins upon his son's shoulders. My father was killed. Killed for reasons I'm not totally sure of, but all organized, of course, because of me. Remember, all the guilt and sins that were my father's are mine. With my father's death I inherited a new puppetmaster. Someone else who could tear away at a part of my life just when I thought I had some other part fixed had come into play. I have never been left alone. My mother would not heal what father had done to a mother's son. I am simply a toy in the hands of another. I am not alone. //Dolls of voodoo all stuck with pins One for each of us and our sins So you lay us in a line, push your pins, they make us humble Only you can tell in time if we fall or merely stumble But tell me can you heal what father's done? Or fix this hole in a mother's son? Can you heal the broken worlds within? Can you strip away so we may start again? Tell me can you heal what father's done? Or cut this rope and let us run? Just when all seems fine and I'm pain free You jab another pin, jab another pin in me. Mirror mirror upon the wall Break this spell or become the doll See you sharpening the pins so the holes will remind us We're just toys in the hands of another, and in time needles turn from shine to rust// I was chosen to carry the curse of my father. But I will do it no longer. I have Scully to help me break my curse. And I refuse to lose she that I love most to what my father has done. //Blood for face, sweat for dirt, three X's for the stone To break this curse a ritual's due, I believe I'm not alone Shell of shotgun, pint of gin, numb us up to shield the pins Renew our faith which way we can, to fall in love with life again So tell me can you heal what father's done? Or fix this hole in a mother's son? Can you heal the broken worlds within? Can you strip away so we may start again? Tell me can you heal what father's done? Or cut this rope and let us run? Just when all seems fine and I'm pain free You jab another pin, jab another pin in me-// I'll have no more pins in me. No more. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Yeah, so maybe it's not what you would've liked. It's not quite what I would've liked either, but I'm not really a great writer, I guess. I'd like feedback, please. Please. mirnen@hotmail.com Thank you for reading this far.