TITLE: AFTERMATH SPENT IN SOLITUDE (1 of 1)

AUTHOR: DAVID HEARNE

CLASSIFICATION: Post-ep for "Paperclip"

RATING: PG

ARCHIVE: Anyone can have it.

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Website is located at http://members.dencity.com/hearne

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I hold the truth in my hand. Or a truth -- small and meaningful to
myself above all. I tighten my grip even though I can feel my skin
burn from the truth's fiery touch.

That's what the truth is supposed to do, right? It's intended to be
painful. However, the scars left by its touch eventually heal and a
tougher, harder skin forms.

Ideally.

I look at a grave and hear its silent response to my questions. What
did you leave to me, dad? What legacy am I supposed to carry? What did
you expect me to do once I knew the truth?

Why me?

I want to believe...I need to believe that something larger is at
stake here than my personal tragedy. I need an answer to make
everything comprehensible.

So does Scully. She's looking in the wrong places for it. Or she's
looking at the right place from the wrong angle. I get frustrated by
this.

I'm also scared. What if she's right? I've seen so many strange
things, but what if I have found the wrong explanation for them? Have
I spent too much time gazing at the stars and not enough on the sins
of those who walk the earth?

Am I heading for the truth or am I just running away?

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I hold the digital tape in my hand. There is a lot of interesting
information on this baby. It will be hard to dig out, but I think I
can find the right shovel.

For the moment, let's just sit back and relax. Have a drink. Flirt
with the pretty stewardess. Or close your eyes and sleep.

Instead I think about him -- that old, black-lunged, treacherous...

One of these days, it will be just me and him. There will be no league
of powerful men for him to join. There will be no protection given by
corrupt agents. He will see me one more time. Then he'll see nothing.

I owe him this much, though -- he lifted up the rock of the world and
showed me the maggots writhing underneath the rock. Only these maggots
are kings, speading an irreversible decay over everyone. He then
told me that the sky *is* falling. And there will be very few roofs
which will survive the collapse.

I plan to be under one of those few roofs. If nothing else, I will
survive. In order to do that, I have to slip into the underworld,
develop contacts, build my own little empire.

So good-bye to you for now, my old boss. I'll keep my distance from
you as long as you keep your distance from me. However, one of these
days, I'll be back to teach you a harder lesson than you ever taught
me.

I just hope that I get to kill you before someone else does.

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I hold a cup of tea in my hand. I sit before a window in my manor. As
I look at the roses in my garden, an album of Purcell's music spins on
a record player.

How very English. How very civilized.

One of my colleagues mocks me for my studied manners. He laughs at the
notion of wearing fine leather gloves to avoid the touch of blood on
your hands.

I'm fully aware of my guilt, though. I know I have walked across
hundreds of bodies. I know the project has been fueled by the blood of
innocents. The difference between me and my colleague is that I still
believe in the possiblity of decency. We have done many horrible
things, but for the sake of an unavoidable necessity. History has
forced our hand. Yet I am not Victor Klemper. I do not hide behind the
tattered disguise of "progress." I have done monstrous things, but I
am not a monster.

Neither are you, my colleague. You are just a reckless, arrogant man
who loves the game for itself. You throw the dice as if you were a
drunken gambler. The results are pointless at best and disastrous at
worst.

This is not to say that you haven't served the Project well. However,
your mistakes are now remembered more clearly than your
accomplishments. We find your assurances less and less convincing.

Be wary, my colleague. You have judged my decorum to be softness.

Now you are the one being judged.

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I hold a cigarette in my hand and try not to drop it. The tremors in
my fingers make this difficult.

I curse every person I know. I curse Mulder, Scully, Krycek, that damn
Englishman. I curse Bill Mulder for his guilty conscience and I curse
Melissa Scully for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And I curse you, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Nobody gets away
with what you did. Nobody.

Do you know what I'm capable of doing? Do you know I've squashed
presidents, kings, leaders of nations under my shoes? Do you think
that I'm going to let some near-sighted Vietnam veteran get away with
what you did?

I'm not going to kiss your ass. I'm going to rip whole chunks of meat
off it.

Just you wait, Walter Skinner. Enjoy your little victory. You'll
understand soon just how small it was.

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I hold the hand of an elderly Native American and shake it. Then
Albert Hosteen leaves me to gloat.

I know this is far from over. The smoking man will be back. Mulder and
Scully have managed to get through this mess with their skins intact,
but that's about all. As for me, I've done something for which there
will be retaliation.

Let me savor this moment, anyway. Let me taste my sweet little victory
as the smoking man tastes the shit which I've been eating.

Was this inevitable? Could I have stayed in line? Well, no to the
first question and yes to the second. Defying the smoking man was my
choice.

That's what makes this moment so sweet. I asserted my own will. I
grabbed the dice and rolled them with my own hand. I was being Walter
Skinner and no one else.

I can now look assassins in the eye. I can look at myself in the
mirror.

I look at the future and feel less afraid.

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I hold a photograph and look at the past. I'm the man seen in the
photo. That younger man is in his twenties and dressed in an army
uniform.

When I worked for the government then, I did so with no illusions. I
could hear ghosts of murdered children whisper to me, "Why do you work
for the white man? Why do you hide his secrets in our tongue?"

I answered that the white man stands on the same land where I stand.
The sins left behind by the army brigade will soon rise up and cover
everyone. And those sins are merely one part of a darkness born at the
dawn of our world.

So I decided to fight alongside the white man against governments even
more corrupt. Soon I will fight with them again in the great war to
come.

I put aside the photo and wait, knowing I shall be called upon even
after I die.

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I hold the bottle of pills and wish I had the courage to die. There is
so much poison in my body already -- so much shame, so many horrible
secrets, so much awareness of what I could have done differently.

Could I have changed anything, though? Is that just another illusion?
Or was my sense of helplessness in the past an illusion?

You tell yourself that you would do anything for your children. You
promise to stand between them and all the evil in the world. Then you
actually see the face of evil and you are shocked by how familiar it
is. You're paralyzed. Everything falls around you while you stand
still.

Is that what happened to me? Is that why I allowed Bill to shatter
this family?

I don't know what to believe.

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I hold a crystal in my hand and try to find the strength of my
sister's beliefs. When she lived, I considered her beliefs to be weak
and carelessly reasoned. If that was true, though, then why was she so
strong? Why did I always end up turning to her for advice and help? I
went to her more often than to mom and a lot more often than to dad.

You always seemed so confident, Melissa. If you had been anyone else,
I would have attributed your serenity to the thoughtlessness of blind
faith. Yet you were able to say the right thing on more than one
occasion. I wish Mulder had gotten to know...

I close my eyes and curse Mulder's quest. I can't help this anger. How
much do I have to pay for simply being assigned to the X-Files? Did I
really have to pay with the rape of my body and the death of my
sister? Just how much blood will have to be spilled so Mulder can
shake hands with a little green man?

I know this anger is unfair. Mulder wants the truth as much as I do.
He has experienced his own loss. The trouble is -- what if the truth
is all he wants? When I faced Victor Klemper, I could only see a
mass-murderer. Could Mulder only see a clue to one of life's great
mysteries?

I don't know. I do know that I have trouble caring about aliens and
spaceships. All of that seems too far away now. They are vague
concepts made even vaguer when placed alongside the reality of my
sister's body.

I look at her grave and I want to believe in justice. I want to
believe only in men who commit crimes on this world. I want to hold
onto something as easily as this crystal.

I receive nothing. The crystal in my hand is nothing more than a shiny
rock. There are no 'cosmic energies' or 'life forces' flowing through
it.

None that I can feel, anyway.

So I place the crystal by my sister's tombstone. I make a promise to
her. I will only return when I have something larger to give than my
grief.

I walk away, holding that cold promise in my hand.

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