From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Sun,  3 May 2009 16:59:22 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: New: A Tree Underground by Neoxphile
Source: direct

Reply To: Neoxphile@aol.com


Title: A Tree Underground
Author: Neoxphile
e-mail: neoxphile@aol.com
Timeline: Season 8, Christmas 2001
Keywords: Gibson Praise
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Chris Carter, I'm just dusting
them off.
Summary: It's not much of a tree

Author's note: written for Haven's 2004 "Ornament This" challenge

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If I'm perfectly honest with you and myself both, it's not much of a
tree. You've seen the Charlie Brown tree in that Christmas special,
right? I'm sure you have, even I did once when I was trying to block
out the noise. Well, that tree, as small and bent as it was, puts
this one to shame.

I'm not complaining, mind you. In a way this tree is fairly special
since you rarely find trees under the ground. All this sand, I'm
surprised he didn't come back with a cactus. He joked about that, but
not out loud. Even though there are few thoughts of his I don't
overhear - not that I want to - it came as a surprise when he brought
the thing down here wearing a slightly apologetic, slightly proud
look on his face. I told him it was great, since that's what he
really wanted to hear. But not from me, of course.

The problem came when he asked me about traditions, and wanted to
know how I'd decorated trees in the past so he could venture out
again, even though it's dangerous, to try to replicate past holiday
cheer. I thought a little, then offered the fact that one year,
amongst my friends at the school, we'd strung snowflakes cut from
white paper. I know he expected me to say more, but there isn't
really more.

I was only eight when they came for me, and told me that I was
special. Like all kids that age, I didn't want to leave my parents,
but my parents let me go, thinking it would be good for me. You'll be
famous, you'll be rich...what parent doesn't dream that for their
child?

It's funny, but every night I'd cry myself to sleep, wishing that I
could stop pretending to be this big deal, never-lose prodigy, but
now, I can't even remember exactly what they looked like. I know they
both had dark hair, and I think my dad wore glasses. Sometimes I
wonder about them, hoping they're not dead, but they could be. For
all I know, they were killed around the time they drilled that hole
in my head, and Agent Scully told me she'd get them, but didn't. If
she could have, she would have, and since she didn't....I just hope
it didn't hurt too much.

Maybe we celebrated Christmas when I was a little boy, I really don't
remember now. Every time I try to imagine a tree, the ornaments turn
into chess pieces, and I stop imagining because it makes me think of
manipulating, having been manipulated, and being a pawn in sinister
games.

I think maybe Mulder can read minds too, because as I stood there,
and these things ran through my mind, he smiled. A real smile, not
like the sad ones he isn't even aware of when he's thinking of Agent
Scully and their baby, and said, "That's good enough, Gibson. Paper
snowflakes are enough."

But it's not enough. Enough would be him going home and spending time
with his son, instead of a boy his relationship to is shared
experience and shared fear instead of shared blood, and enough would
be me seeing my folks again to ask them if we had any traditions
before I was taken away from them; enough would be an escape from
walls of sand I keep dreaming are going to fall and crush us both
under their weight.

A tree under ground decorated with paper snowflakes... I know it 
means something, but I'm not sure what.

The end


End Note: Despite having been written years ago, this one was never 
archived anywhere but my site. Oops. I only discovered that today 
while working on my new, non-geocities site.