From phuwv@csv.warwick.ac.uk Tue Mar 11 18:33:17 1997 Subject: NEW: Live and Let Die From: Ian Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 00:33:17 +0000 (GMT) -------- to the archivers I posted this to atxc a week or so ago and it hasn't been archived... I think it must have gotten lost somewhere as others I've posted since have arrived. Please? Pretty please? cut here ___O/____________________________________________________________________ O\ disclaimer: The characters aren't mine you see In fact they're owned by Fox TV Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen too I'm doing what I shouldn't do I've just borrowed them for a while To write my very own X-File Archive: sure Spoilers: Leonard Betts Rating: V Warning: nothing too nasty - PG perhaps? archivers, feel free to alter, I'm just not sure. Summary: Scully listening to a song after 'Leonard Betts'. Okay, this is the first in what will be a short series of vignettes, all based on a song by Guns'N'Roses. I'm not a big fan but these songs are my favourites; a friend challenged me to do a fanfic based on each. So I did. I'll try to post one every night or so, assuming I remember. This one is set a few days after 'Leonard Betts'. My apologies for any errors - I haven't actually *seen* the episode yet! Live and Let Die 1/1 by Ian Horsewell Scully's eyes opened and she sat up with a gasp. That dream again, the same one she'd had the last few nights. With a frustrated sigh she stood up, moving silently from the darkeden bedroom to the kitchen, her feet knowing the way without her mind's prompting. She absent-mindedly switched on the radio on the way to put the kettle on. Maybe one of those herbal teas that Melissa had sworn by, so long ago... When you were young/And your heart was an open book You used to say/Live and let live Scully looked up with a half-smile as she listened to the words of the song, the voice almost gentle in comparison to the harsh phrases. Then she took a deep breath as an image from a few days ago, from her dream, returned to her. "I'm sorry," he'd said, almost apologising as he moved towards her, scalpel in hand. Shaking her head to clear it of the memories, to push the reality of that day aside, Scully tried to concentrate on the steaming kettle, on the herbal mixture, on anything but Leonard Betts. Even on the damned song... But if this ever-changing world, in which we live in Makes you give in and cry Say live and let die. "But you have something I need," he'd said. And she'd known, with the certainty that a new, undeniable truth brings with it, that he was telling the truth. And that had terrified her to the bone. Terrified her that she had hesitated a brief moment before picking up her service weapon... What does it matter to ya/When ya got a job to do You gotta do it well And she had. No-one had faulted her when she had told them, calmly, what had happened in the ambulance. That he had attacked her, and that she had been forced to defend herself by firing her weapon, by killing him. She'd had no choice, agreed Mulder and all the others. None had seemed to see the relevence of the fact that he had attacked her, not with the gun within his reach, but with a scalpel. You used to say, live and let live You know you did You know you did You know you did And so he had died. And she was alive. But as Scully looked at her reflection in the glass of the window, she found herself nodding with the closing words of the song on the radio. Live and let die. THE END Okay, please let me know what you thought of this one... more to follow. Ian Horsewell University Of Warwick: i.j.horsewell@warwick.ac.uk The gods like an atheist; it gives them something to aim at.