From: MC CORMICK Subject: NEW Fanfic: Where Are You, China Blue? Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 04:31:25 -0400 Here we go again... All these people belong to CC, the FN, 1013, etc, etc, etc. I'm not getting any money, they are, therein lies the great gulf that us divides. Rating: R (language, situations) Spoilers: Anything about the abduction of Samantha (that's not a spoiler because if you don't know about *that* by now, just give up and start watching 'Friends'.) Oh, yeah, and there's some hommage in here to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and the movie "The Princess Bride". Hardcore fans, you'll recognize it. Summary: Guess what? No really, guess? Okay, you dragged it out of me. Mulder and Samantha reunite. But it's not any mushy-goulash thing (I hope) and may be a little unorthodox. Hope you like it. Feedback is STRONGLY encouraged and will be replied to. Archive this anywhere your little heart desires, just stick my name on it. * * * * "Where Are You, China Blue?" by Amy S I have to tell on you, Daddy. I'm sorry. I know I wasn't raised that way. I know it'll make you mad. I know I promised. But you promised, too. You broke it. Now I break it. It's not vindication. It's peace. * * * F I look across miles of roadway, thick like years, and I have to wonder. In the end, it's all a matter of distance. The burden of physicality requires of us proximity. The molasses slow work of flesh and muscle cannot carry me across these roads to where you might be, because you migth be anywhere. You might be nowhere. My tunnel vision is sees only backwards as a direction, a memory spent in cross-references that wind back two decades prior to this road and this year. It varyingly comforts and depresses me, this distance. In one way, I feel able to overcome it. Only air and land seperate us, in reality, two things most easily breached. I would need no army, no tank, no siege to cross the gulf. I have done so a thousand times, from Washington to the Pacific and back again. I have crossed oceans and continents. It is no magician's feat. Salesman do it with alarming speed and accuracy. Why should such a highly-trained agent have any dificulty at all? Why do I not slice through miles like a blade to where you exist? Another way, of course, is desperation. Not as Thoreau intended, no, not in insectile business as he surmised, but in the dark, flailing, wild perdition that I run against forever, always after you? Never has such a hound run on your track. But I have no sight of you; only a vague whisper that might be just the wind. Distance falls victim to time, the one certain assassin that does not die of bullets or disease. I cannot cross time. Einstein and Hawking are cold comfort in pristine journals that deny my crusade. Time becomes the gulf that divides us. With what weapon can I overcome this? And while I breathe only for this minute concentrated solely in search, I pray with the agnostic's prayer of just in case. How can I find you when you leave no scent, no trail of bread or stones, nor even blood. Any face could be your face. We could be ships that pass in the night or millions of miles away, synchronized in anonymity. I need the peace of your proof, even in your death, if it comes to that. If it came to that. I need answers, and yet- There is a piece of my heart that cries for you. That protects you still from this pain. That would not let you see the wound lest it cause you grief. This part of me, however miniscule and secret, will always deny you. You hurt. You are a constant bleeding. Part of me wants never to know, despite the crusade. Part of me could never handle anything less than everything. So I look out across the night and miles and cricktes singing in unseen orchestras, ringing in the unfathomed mass of molecules in the air that separates us. I look to the sky that stole you and I wonder where. And there comes the voice that warns you away from here, that prays you are safer still afar. Don't come back, Sam, it whispers to nothing. Don't come back. * * * She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, settling back into the dark plush interior of the car, smelling of smoke and factory and shatter-proof glass. This was so familiar. It was safety condensed into four locked doors and a windshield. She scratched her nail across her raincoat absently, teeth sliding across her lip in thought, the same motion as her nails on the fabric. Quiet. Idiosyncratic. "I am upset with your decision." There was worry in the voice, hidden behind coldness, not ssen because no looked for, but heard, half-heard, in the dimness. She sighed. "I know, Daddy. I know. We've had this discusion. Bt I'm an advocate of peace, however naive that sounds, and if anyone deserves it, he does. I do. For everything. It's time to let go and tell the truth. What harm? They all think he's crazy, anyway. No one listens, except her, and no one likes her very much. You're still safe, Daddy." "Samantha," he began. "Samantha, this is unacceptable. He doesn't have the kind of authority to have access to something like this. Think what this could do. One ill-placed word and the entire thing is out. Do I need to remind you what happened in New Mexico?" His voice had a sharpness to it, an exasperated and frightened anger. She expected it. She was prepared. "Listen to me." He looked off, annoyed. "You're not listening." "Yes, I am." "Then stop it, Daddy. Just hear me out. I don't care anymore. I don't care. It used to be fun. It used to be this great game. 'Don't get caught, Sammy', you'd say. It was great. My whole life was great. Until last week, I thought it was going to be that way forever." "That's what I don't understand. You've seen the kid cry before. When he thinks there's no one to hear him. You're used to it. Why should you suddenly start to care now?" She dove headfirst into what had been waiting to be born into language. "Because I realized, maybe for the first time in twenty years, that he's also my responsibility. Somebody has to take care of him. He's scared, Dady. He's out there all alone. I can stop the pain. I can make it okay." "He's got the Other One." "She's not me." "Point taken." He exhaled slowly. "I'm sick of this. It's getting cliche. All these secrets, manila folders stamped 'Top Secret', phone calls to no one, Area 51, men in black. It's stupid and its childish. There. I said it. But it is. All we are is children playing games. No more. Higher stakes, bigger teams, but just the same cowboys and Indians. We just make it all up as we go along. I just realized something. We are the government." "Congratulations, Samantha, I'm glad you've picked up on the obvious. Personal notes on paychecks really do pay off." "Don't be nasty to me, please. I have to do this. It's my secret, not yours." "I didn't raise you to be selfish." "You didn't rasie me at all." He regarded her. "So that's what this is about? Some childhood issue? Your so-called abduction? Let me tell you something, Missy, you ought to be thanking whatever higher power there may be for this great oppurtunity we gave you. We saved you from a life of suburban dish-washing mediocrity and made you one of the most powerful people in the world. And this is the thanks I get? That you would betray me?" He was getting extraordinarily huffy. She dragged her cigarette pensively. "I'm a traitor? Who sold their own daughter? Who allowed government doctors to turn her into a guinea pig? Who let aliens test her for over six months? Who lied to her? Who stole her childhood?" "Who gave her the chance to be something great? Who rescued her? Who gave her everything she could ever want, access to more secrets than any living thing has a right to?" "I'm sick of secrets! I don't care! I'm tired of being me! I hate me! I'm a cold, vicious, lonely thing, Daddy! I'm turning into you! I'm sorry, but it's the truth! I don't want to be you! I want to be me! I lost me somewhere between playing Barbies and ruling the world! I need a vacation. I need to change my life. I need to stop being so wrapped up in this bullshit that everyone thinks is so important and start living instead of breathing! You don't think I can do it, Daddy? You don't think I'm strong enough? Well I am! I have the scars to prove it!" She was yelling at him, her voice filling up the space. The sound swelled, pushed against the air and the glass. It hurt his ears. She sat back and stared at him, chest heaving slightly. He stared back, pressed into the door. He was shocked. She looked from him to the smoking cigarette inn her hand. Suddenly, with agitation and violence, she pitched it out the window. "That's another thing," she said. "I smoke too much." She opened the door, letting outside rush in to purify the ragged hole left by her departure. He watched her walk off, slinking with practiced fluidity into darkness, disappearing. He watched her go. He disagreed. Was angry. Disappointed. Unhappy. But he was proud of her. And somewhere, he was hopeful. He lit another cigarette from the embers of the last and started the car. * * * * "Pick up, pick up, pick up," I chanted silently. I heard the line turn over and a sleepy 'Hello?' ensued. "Lexi? It's me." "Sam? What's wrong?" he asked. I could tell he was worried. Poor Alex. It's all kind of funny. "Nothing, nothing. Calm down. I just have to tell you something. I think you'll start laughing." I heard him sigh, presumably with relief. "Sam, you scared the hell out of me. Do you know what time it is? Do you want to come over?" I almost laughed at the hopefulness in his voice. "Not tonight, Lexi. But I'll take a raincheck." "Duly noted." "Listen, I'm going to tell him." Silence. Christ, I thought, say something, Krycek. Anything. Finally he complied. "Well, if that's what you think is best, Sam, I'm not going to argue with you. I will say this, though- wait a secnod, do you think we're being taped?" "Do you really have to ask?" "I don't care.." "Exactly. Neither do I. I'm just waiting for an explosion," I told him." "Please don't say things like that." "Sorry. But I'm going to call him afterI get off the phone with you. I'll try to go over if he'll let me." "Christ, you want me to come?" "Are you serious? And my big brother, who already dislikes you, find out you've being sleeping with his long lost baby sister for the past two years and, I might add, hiding the secret quite well?" "Still...I don't want you going alone. He's crazy, Sam. You never know what a guy like that will do, especially with his back to the wall." "Oh, and you think you're going to protect me? He'll kill you first and then turn on me." I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "Good thinking, genius. Lot of planning went into that." He sighed again, his lovely forbearing sigh. "Fine. Call me. I'll call you back tomorrow at six AM. If there's no answer, I'm coming over there and cracking skulls." I rolled my eyes. He could be extremely annoying. "You do that. I'll talk to you later." I hung up on him. It's a rude habit, granted. But I had other things to do than argue with Alex Krycek. I had to make an entrance. * * * * The phone was ringing. It jarred him brokenly from sleep. Reaching, grasping consciousness in chunks, he answered. "Mulder," he breathed into the receiver. "Fox? It's me," the voice said. These three words slammed him into his body and into wakefulness. He sat upright, leaning into the receiver. The use of his first name was in itself startling. The use of a personal pronoun without a familiar name was also a shock. A woman's voice at this hour that neglected to identify itself with any form of address other than a pronoun and that did not belong to Scully was too incredible for his brain to process. His grey matter jumped feverishly to send its impulses, synapses firing off seemingly at random in a desperate attempt to ID the voice's owner. Not Scully. Not Mom. Not Phoebe Green or Angela White. Why always colors? he thought briefly, before returning the disembodied voice. He decided directness would be the best assault. "Who is this?" he asked. "This is your sister," the voice replied. "This is Sam." He nearly passed out. Lights rolled before his eyes, his vision danced. Hope flared bright as a sun gone nova before it crumbled quickly under the weight of years of suspicion and paranoia. This is a trick, his brain told him. Don't fall for it. It's a trap. They're after you again. Anger flashed behind his ribcage. "Who is this?" he almost yelled. "Why are you doing this?" "Fox, it's me. It's Sam. It's me Fox, it's Sam, it's me, don't you recognize me?" The voice sounded sad. It sounded desperate. "Don't lie to me, you son of a bitch, you are not my sister!" he screamed into the receiver. The voice began to sob. Mulder shook violently. He registered the sadness, the sobbing. He wondered why they would go to all this trouble. Where was the coldness? The efficiency? "It is, it is, I swear it, cross my heart and hope to die, Fox, it's me, it's Sam." "Prove it." "I'm coming over. Wait for me." "No. This is a trap." "No it isn't! Twenty years, you owe me five minutes. I'm coming, Fox. Just hold on." "You are not..." he yelled. Then stopped. The line was dead. Only the soft hum of electric whirring, the unfeeling buzz of the dialtone to quell his fear. Only I hang up, he thought pitifully, before he buried his head in his hands and sobbed. * * * * "Scully, it's me." He sounded shaken. She immediately sat up and listened, trained to the sound of his voice. Scanned it for any clues. Found none. "Mulder, what's wrong?" Her hands flew to the gold cross around her neck, out of habit and nerves. "I just got a call from Samantha." "From- ? Mulder, are you sure?" "No. Yes. I...I don't know. I...I need you Scully. This could be a trap." "I'll be right there, Mulder," she said clamly, soothingly, although her mind raced. She flew from bed, dragging on clothes. She heard the familiar click of a dead line. Hurried. She arrived at his apartment ten minutes later, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, to find him dressed alike. He opened the door warily, gun in hand. Checked the hall after she entered. Eyes skitted throught he darkness and into corners, trained, Pavlovian, nervous. "Tell me what happened," Scully said. "A woman called and said she was Samantha. She started crying. I don't know.." "You think it's another trick? Cancer Man somehow involved?" "They're trying to drive me insane, Scully," he said brokenly. "I can't help but..." "I know you want it to be true, Mulder, but you have to realize that after all this time, the odds of actually finding her are slim to none. You stand a better chance of getting struck by lighting while being attacked by a shark. Do you really believe.." "I don't know what to believe. But I thik I should at least checkit out. She said she's be here soon." "She's coming? Here?" "Yes. And then she hung up on me." "She could be related to you after all." He gave her a look. They both jumped involuntarily at the knock on the door. Mulder went into overdrive suddenly, leaping up and going for the door, holding it wide and aiming the gun into the hall. A thin young woman in big jeans and a tiny blue shirt slunk in around his gun hand, back to the door, arms up against the sides of her loosely piled brown hair. She was not wearing shoes. Scully noted his and raised her eyebrows. She hoped Mulder was not as ready to fire as he looked. The woman entered the room and sat on the couch, watching Mulder intently. Mulder kept the gun trained on her, unblinking. Scully ran experienced eyes over this woman. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, worryingly thin, lareg panful eyes the same storm grey shade as Mulder's, hair the same shade of brown. Her nose was smaller, her face more angular. But what struck Scully was the deeper resemblance. She lokd like Mulder. Lookd like what Mulder would have looked like had he been born a girl. Finally, she spoke. "You can't shoot me, Fox,so why don't you just put the gun down?" Her voice surprised Scully. Its presence in the room was tangible. "Can't I?" Mulder said softly, menacingly. "No," she said, matching his tone. "The safety's on." Mulder looked, saw that she was right, cursed. Scully almost smiled. Mulder dropped the gun and sat on the chair across from her, across from Samantha. Scully brought a chair from the kitchen table and sat, still watching her partner. She could see the veins in his neck. Half-reached to take his pulse, stopped herself. Samantha smiled. "Let's begin," she said. "You know my name. I know yours. Go ahead and ask the obvious. No, wait, don't bother. I'll just tell you. Remember that night? I know you do, Fox. You have nightmares about it." "How do you know that?" he said. "I watch you. I've been watching you for the past four years." "Because you're with them!" he said suddenly. "That's not the point right now. The point is that I came here to tell you the truth." She pulled the neckline of her shirt, exposing her collarbone, etched against the skin. He hands searched and found a tiny scar there, pointed to it. He stared. "See that? Remember when I was six and I fell out of the tree? The oak on the corner of the property, the one you carved 'Get Christy Love' into with the pen knife Dad gave you for your tenth birthday? I broke my collarbone. It came right through the skin. You thought it was really cool until I started screaming. Mom had to drive me to the hospital because Dad was away, and she hated to drive then. Remember?" She let go of her shirt and pulled up the leg of her jeans. "And this birthmark? The tea stain? The one that kind of looks like the Bat symbol? I now this stuff can all be faked, but you've got to believe me, I really am who I say I am, Fox, it's really me. It's been a long time, but I'm here now, and I want to make it up to you." Tears streamed out of his eyes. "I want to believe," he said. "I know," she said. "Remember that week right before I left, when Mom left us home alone and we broke the dish with the blue flowers onit? The one Dad got in China? And we hid the pieces in the field under the rusted plow piece?" Mulder slowly nodded. "Nobody knew about that but us," he said, unconsciously using the plural pronoun. "We were alone. I never told anybody." "Neither did I. I'm telling you now because I never got to twenty years ago." She started crying, too. Scully felt very removed. She watched, almost tranced, while Mulder, always the impulsive, got up and went to Samantha. She jumped up to meet him and they embraced, hugging each other and crying like children, hanging on one another like tired fighters. "I missed you, Fox," she said. "Why didn't you come for me?" "I tried Sam," he whispered. "I tried so hard. I'm so sorry I couldn't save you." She stepped away from him, holding him at arm's length, knowing that he would never want to let her go. "Fox, it wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done." "I should have...I should have.." he sobbed. She drew herself up and put hand out to him. "Look, this is getting way over the top. We need to slow down. There's so much I have to tell you. Let me explain- no, it's too long. Let me sum up- I'm still alive. I was abducted twenty-two years ago, but not by whom you think. It was your Cancer Man, Fox. It was my father." * * * * * * * * Okay, I'm going to have to end here. Write me to let me know if you think I should post the rest. -Aim