From: Spooky fox Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 19:36:39 -0500 Subject: NEW: Truth (1/1) Companion piece to Cowardice Truth By Spooky fox Classification: VA Rating: PG-13...I use the f-word a few times Spoilers: SUZ Disclaimer: Not even in my wildest dreams... Archive: Anywhere, so long as all the pertinent info remains attached. Author's note: This is a companion piece for Cowardice, from Mulder's POV. You don't have to read them together, but if you feel the need, it can be found on Ephemeral. This one was also completed without the benefits of a beta read. Any mistakes are my fault. The whole story wrote itself in about an hour. I don't even usually write, and when I do, it's not 1st person POV. Did it work? Also, I don't know what's gotten into me. I got the inspiration for this story from the same song as the previous one. It's probably because I've been listening to it non stop. It's a great song. If you want to check it out, it can be found on the Born on A Pirate Ship CD. Feedback: Please...my inbox is lonely. spookyfox42@earthling.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Truth is a word I'd rather not use, 'cause it's always capitalised, and it's only falsehood in disguise."--Barenaked Ladies, "Break Your Heart" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My mother is dead. Scully just came in to give me the news. I was just sitting there in a meeting with Skinner, and she just came in and told me with the same tone of voice she would use to comment on the weather. For a moment, time just stopped. I wasn't sure exactly what I had heard. That can't have been what she said. My mother's not dead, she's at home in Greenwich. I just talked to her last night. But when I look into her eyes, and see the pain reflected there, I know I heard her right. But I still can't believe it. -------- She killed herself. She took her own life with an overdose of pills. At least that's what they want me to think. I know she can't have done this. I can't accept this--I won't. There was no reason for it, not now, not her. All the pictures of Samantha and I as kids are missing from their usual places. That has to mean something. Why would she get rid of the pictures and then kill herself? Someone must have come in here and killed her, made it look like a suicide. That's the only possible explanation. I would bet my life that the black lunged bastard and his bunch of cronies had something to do with this. After all, he's been there lurking in the smoke filled shadows for every pain filled event in my life. Why should this on be any different? I have to know for sure. I need answers. And right now, Scully is the only one who can give them to me. She has to perform an autopsy. As I ask her to look for anything unusual, needle punctures, anything really, I can see that it is taking every ounce of her will power not to bolt out the door. I know this is going to be hard for her to do, since it's my mother, not just some nameless corpse. But as much as I can see that this is hurting her, the answers are more important right now. And she's the only one I trust to give me the truth. -------- When Scully came back from finishing the autopsy, I finally had to admit to myself that it was a suicide. My own mother killed herself. All the while I was waiting, I was hoping that Scully would find something, some tiny, seemingly insignificant piece of evidence that would point to foul play. That would have probably been easier to deal with. At least if it was a murder, I would know what I was up against. Just investigate it like any other homicide case that comes across my desk. Damn it! Who the hell am I kidding? I wanted it to be a murder so that I wouldn't have to feel the way I do right now. Guilty. As if my mother choosing to kill herself was somehow my fault, that I drove her to it. All my life, she's been an expert at laying the blame for everything that happened on me. Like the time when Samantha was in the backyard and broke her collarbone playing on the tire swing. "You're her big brother, Fox. You're supposed to look after her. It's all your fault." But especially the night of her abduction. I was supposed to be baby-sitting. I was supposed to protect her, but I couldn't even move. After that, Mom hardly spoke to me. I knew she blamed me for the whole thing. Hell, I blamed myself. But it still hurt. Like I needed her guilt on top of my own. Sometimes I think that hurt worse than when Dad would come home, drunk off his ass, and beat the living crap out of me. At least that was only physical pain. Those kind of wounds eventually heal. Not the emotional ones, though. She was my mother, the one who was supposed to love me and make it all better. But she just stood by and let it all happen. Yet, somehow, I still loved her. -------- This night just keeps getting better and better. My mother left a message on my answering machine before she decided to check out. Way to rub salt in the wound there, mom. Make me feel guilty because I didn't call you back again right away. What were you trying to tell me, Mom? What? You fucking *knew* something about Samantha all along, and you didn't tell me. Even though you knew how much it tore me up inside, how it still eats away at my soul to this very day. Worse still is that you knew what had happened, and still felt the need to blame me for it. I can't even fathom that. I know you took your own life to end the pain of the cancer. That you felt as if you couldn't live with that hanging over your head. But what about my pain? Did you even stop to think about me? For once in your life, couldn't you do something for your own flesh and blood? All you had to do was say the words, tell me what happened to Samantha. But no, that was too fucking easy. Let Fox suffer, yet again. After all, I'm an expert at it by now. Another dead end in my seemingly endless search for the truth about what happened to my sister. Truth. Heh. I'm beginning to think that there is no such thing, and if there is, I'm not even going to know it when I see it. I've been fed such a line of bullshit over the years, I don't even know what to believe anymore. What about this kidnapping case? Could this be the answer to what happened to my sister? Did my mother write one of those Santa notes all those years ago? Fuck! I can't take this anymore. So I smash everything within reach. I even put my fist through the wall. Scully's here, but she doesn't even try to stop me. I know she wants to, but I don't even stop to think about why she doesn't. All that matters right now is my anger, seething white hot rage at what my mother has done to me that has to be let out somehow. Some time later, I finally stop. I'm just too drained to go on, both physically and emotionally. I just sit down on my couch and cry. That's all I have the strength for right now. And just like always, Scully is there. Somehow she knows just what I need right now, and gathers me into her arms, placing a kiss to my forehead. She really is my constant, my touchstone. Never have I realized more than right at this moment. It's just a simple embrace, but somehow, it is much more than that. She's the only one I have left in this whole world. ------- I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I know, I'm on the couch with a blanket draped over me, and Skinner is at the door. Scully's trying to get him to go away, but this has something to do with this case, Mrs. LaPierre wants to talk to me. Skinner has made two plane reservations for us. Of course I am going to go, this could finally be the answer I've been searching for. I know I'm probably grasping at straws, but I have to have something to hold on to right now, or I might just lose it completely. When we get there, Mrs. LaPierre says that she saw her daughter by her bed, and that she was saying something, but that no sound was coming out of her mouth. I know now that the girl has to be dead. You can't see a ghost if the person isn't dead. And if she's dead, that means Samantha is dead too. The logical part of my brain knows that there's no evidence that this case is connected to Samantha in anyway, but my instinct tells me that it does. It's some kind of twisted logic, but it makes sense to me. I tell them I'm taking some time off, and then I tell them that we are going home. I just don't think I can deal with this right now. On Route 74, Scully suddenly tells Skinner to stop the car. Apparently she saw something on the map. Santa's village, oh my God. Never mind the fact that a little tourist trap like this one shouldn't even be on the map. But I can't think about that right now. I have more important things to attend to. Like finding Santa Claus. It looks as though Santa's been getting everything he wanted for Christmas for the past 30 years. There must be 30 years worth of tapes here. I'm feeling a little sick. We find a tape with Amber Lynn on it. My God...all these kids. ------ Skinner eventually caught up with our suspect in a field. A field fillled with what appear to be graves. I can't be seeing this. It just isn't possible. Could Samantha have been a victim of this man, buried in a field somewhere? I feel the urge to run, so I do. When I get to the car, I break down. I completely lose it. I'm bawling like a small child, but I don't care. I might finally know what happened to her, all those years ago. The truth is within my grasp, so close I can taste it. Whatever we find, Scully and I will deal with it together. That is the only thing I know right now to be an absolute certainty, in a world filled with lies masquerading as the truth. The end...depending on how Sunday's episode goes. I may be inspired.... Feedback me if you want me to finish it. spookyfox42@earthling.net