From: MJ Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 23:01:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NEW: Paperback Writer (1/1) by Maidenjedi Source: direct TITLE: Paperback Writer AUTHOR: Maidenjedi EMAIL: texgoddess@yahoo.com or maidenjedi@hotmail.com RATING: PG13 CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: CSM, V ARCHIVE: Yes. I'll submit to Gossamer directly. SPOILERS: Requiem, Musings of a CSM, This is Not Happening DISCLAIMER: They just aren't mine. I leave the hard stuff to the big boys. SUMMARY: The greatest writers always have something to overcome. AUTHORS NOTES: I had sudden inspiration for this little tale while listening to the Beatle's "Paperback Writer", and further inspiration for this due to some inexplicable events in DeadAlive. Dedicated to Anna and Megan, my PURity cohorts, because of the discussion we had about "Musings" and because they are both just really great people! Also dedicated to all the folks over at Spenderfic, because they understand just how great Chris Owens was in "Musings". :-) Finally, to Mikey for all the late-night musings of our own. Gee, you're awfully swell! *g* *X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* The greatest writers always have something to overcome. That is the way he looks at things these days. All the bullshit was simply what he himself had to overcome. And now he *is* a great writer....or just a writer, in any case. Well, hell. Hemingway had alcohol and the rejection of his first love; why couldn't the man whose checks came to "Raul Bloodworth" claim alien lifeforms and being pushed down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair? He's happy where he is in life, at long, long last. He's finally gotten to that satisfied stage. Sure, he's not particularly happy that it took this long, but the shiny paperback novel in his hand reminds him that it was all worth it. All the years of rejection followed by drowning himself in vast conspiracies, being rejected by his son, his wife, and his ingenues; this paperback is worth all of it. "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" by Raul Bloodworth, subtitled "The Jack Colquitt Adventures". Price, $7.50 US, $8.50 Canada. Pure heaven! He holds the book up to his face, flips the pages in front of his nose and breathes deeply. Ah, the sweet smell of success! Pulp paper, recycled over and over before becoming this novel, his novel. Ink, imbedded on the pages in a neat times new roman print. He can smell the packing peanuts, the cellophane wrap, the cardboard box. The fluorescent lighting in the Barnes and Noble he stood in gleamed off the surface of the book. He smiled again, blinking rapidly in a kind of wondering disbelief. Raul Bloodworth, he thought, has an identity. He sighed with contentment, the stress and hardship of so many unrealized dreams lifting from his shoulders. "Finding everything alright, sir?" A pimply young clerk in an outlandish tie stands before him. The starch of the clerk's shirt permeates the air, invading the privacy of our author and hero. He didn't mind so much, not really....here in his hand was his masterpiece, after all; who could possibly upset such a scene? An author holding a brand-new copy of his first published work in a chain bookstore in a sprawling urban haven; he'd be damned if this wasn't the American Dream come to life. But as he looks up, the clerk is not the only person in his line of sight. Two aisles over, browsing the women's health section, stands a redheaded woman with her back to him. She's dressed in black, and could be any modern matron-about-town in downtown Annapolis....but she's not. He knows her, and he feels his freed heart and mind begin to harden with hatred and dread. The scent of ink and paper is gone and has been replaced by the faint odor of formaldehyde and extraterrestrial flesh, of smoldering fires in abandoned boxcars and of Antarctic ice and snow; of gunpowder and a sunny November day in Dallas, of Morley cigarette smoke and a burnt match.... He's not happy, he thinks ever so incoherently, how can he be happy? How can the publication of some pulp fiction written under a pseudonym make him happy? The woman turns, and he blinks in fascination....pregnant! So its true, the rumors are true....he wonders if the child will ever know a world without danger, and knowing the mother he shakes his head at the thought. Danger, there is always danger. Just because he won't be there to cause it..... The clerk inquires again "Sir, everything alright?" and he nods slightly, clinging to this lifeline away from his past and the future that almost was. "Yes. I...believe I'm ready to check out." The clerk nods, anxiously and a little too eagerly. His broken, young voice rings in the man's ears and he is reminded of a day, so long ago *dad can you help me with my history homework* when he realized how awful it was to be responsible for so much spilt blood.... "That's seven and eighty-four, total. Would you like a bag for that?" He refuses, not wanting to let the paperback out of his hand. The clerk nods, gives him some change (he doesn't bother to count it....the clerk gave him too little but what's a little change to a published paperback writer?). He pushes open the revolving door and stops on his way out to lean against the brick wall and spy on the woman in black. She's made her choices, a book by Dr. Benjamin Spock on childcare, a book of baby names. And the world spins, the writer grips the book in his hand hard enough to bend the cover. A baby. She doesn't understand, she never did, maybe Mulder did once but he's dead and gone and buried. Alex, maybe he could persuade Alex, or Marita.... But the paperback in his hand reminds him that its over for him, he's dead to them all, the torment and the late nights and the bloodshed are over for him. His son is dead and gone, his wife as well, and he doesn't have to think about all he did to wrong them. And he can let the woman in black with the shining red hair alone, let her live her life. He can. He could. The distant sound of police cars and ambulances, racing to the scene of some accident. The sound of helicopters; you can't see them but you know what you hear, he thinks, black ops. What we want to know, what we don't, what we to need to know, what we don't. She deserves to know, maybe. After all the hell he put her through for the sake of a futile cause, she deserves to know. There are Morleys for sale at the 7-11 not two blocks from here. And he knows where Alex has been hiding. He leaves the paperback, by Raul Bloodworth, lying on a bus bench. .................................... The greatest writers always have something to overcome. Hemingway had his liquor, after all. And ultimately, he chose suicide. In the end, writing only makes the pain more real. Its not cathartic and its not the American Dream. And we always go back where they know us, don't we? Morley cigarette smoke rose in the dark room, like a ghost come back to haunt him. "Alex, there is something you need to know about the child in Agent Scully's womb...." .................................... The End. Feedback always appreciated at texgoddess@yahoo.com My other fic can be found at http://www.geocities.com/texgoddess/fanfic.html ===== unInvited - http://www.geocities.com/texgoddess Through the Looking Glass - http://www.geocities.com/texgoddess/fanfic.html Peggy Taylor Talent - http://www.peggytaylortalent.com