I Know
---------------------------------
By Tim Flanders
lathus@hotmail.com
https://www.angelfire.com/tx/timf
*************************
Summary:
At last Mulder has found the truth,
and Scully has been murdered in order
to keep Mulder silent.
This story can take place at anytime. It was written during
the third season, but it could easily fit in the future, or
between the season 4-5 or season 5-6. There are no spoilers.
This is just one man's mad attempt at a possible future for
our heroes.
The 'Higher-Ups' are Skinner and all the High Government Officals.
The 'friends' are the LoneGunmen.
'THE TAPE' is *NOT* the navajo .DAT file found in the second season.
'THEM/THEY' are the 10-Old-Men and all the shadow players.
*************************
DISCLAIMER:
I'll say this just to appease the legal drones at FOX.
Scully and Mulder don't belong to me,
(DUH...NO SH*T!!!) They belong to themselves
(as much as any of us can) and CC, 1013, FOX.
I haven't made any money off this yet, but should the
chance arise, I'll take every penny I can get. I'll just change
a name or two things first. I CAN DO THAT FOX, AFTERALL,
THIS IS STILL MY WORK!!!!
If any of the legal-hounds at FOX want my blood or money, they
won't get it without a fight. If YOU SUE ME, the only things
you'll get are an enemy for life, and a foot UP YER ARSE!!!
You can't have it all
This is my empire of dirt
I will not bow down
I will make you hurt
I will gladly be a martyr to the cause.
I will fight the good fight. Come on FOX, are you willing to risk
turning one man's religion into a crusade? You've already started
the avalanche, do you think you can stop it now?
Sorry, but all this legal bullsh*t pisses me off!!!!
That's probably one of the longest disclaimers written, eh!* ;)
Oh well, tell me what you think of this, and please visit my
homepage, it's getting better ... really it is!
-This is who we are.
And now, on with the show!
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(Sometime in the future ... 2035?)
He came here often ... he still needed to apologize to her ...
even after all these years. He still needed to say he was sorry.
The old man stood over a marble headstone as the first drops of
rain wetted the cold memorial. A simple marker:
'Dana Scully -- Beloved Daughter and Friend'
was all it read.
* * * * * * * *
He came here when he needed someone to listen ... when he needed
to be heard. He came here to be alone, and among friends.
This was the place were the accusations stopped, and the
only voice that filled his head was hers.
He had realization long ago, that nothing was going to make him
feel better about the situation, even if he had never known it
ever existed.
There was once a plea for justice, oh so long ago, then the ache
started to gestate inside his chest and head. He didn't care anymore.
He didn't care about anything anymore. The 'truth' didn't matter ...
he had stopped searching for that ellusive beast a lifetime ago.
The day Dana died, he hadn't cared about the consequences.
He wanted justice -- revenge. For Dana, for Dana's mother,
and even then ... for himself. No law could be passed that
would be justice, it would just be part of a cover-up,
another layer added to the blindfold. His eyes had
become so accustomed to the dark that it was hard to see any light.
"I'm sorry Dana ... I should have done more." the ancient Mulder whispered.
He often thought about what might have happened, if he had
done more ... done something different ... so long ago.
How much might never have happened? If he could have that
chance back again, he would do so much more. He would do
anything to have her back again.
But you never get a second chance.
*********************************
(the past ... 1996-99?)
He had started out with a simple purpose, all he wanted was the answer to
a small and forgotten question, nothing too extraordinary. He just wanted
to know the answer to one question: WHY?
It was a simple enough question, but one that refused to be answered.
A question that those in power did not want answered. He had friends
with the same purpose. Together, they just wanted to know, to
understand. Then they found it. An inconspicuous piece of plastic
and ribbon. Nothing impressive or distinguishable about it.
Just a tape, a piece of magnetic-strip, but oh so much more. Not
just a tape, but THE TAPE. The Tape did not answer WHY?, it WAS WHY?
Unremarkable in every way except for what it held.
What it held was the truth.
* * * * * * * *
"Step away." The Higher-Ups' advice to him, They wanted him to step away.
But if he had, he and his friends might never have found the Tape. No
one would have known about the secret connections in the dark, the
connections to conspiracies and shadow-governments. No one else would
have seen the conspiracy for the light of day, no one but the paranoids
in the basement, he and his friends.
Mulder vented his frustrations and anger out on the system, bucking back
in the face of adversity. Public displays of outrage were expected of
him. He had no inhibitions about making a fool of himself if it was
all for the truth. He had a release. He spit in the face of other
people's expectations of him. It would do to lose control every now and
then, he carried on through adversity. With each passing day it seemed
there were more and more clues to the back-room conglomeration of
financial "well-to-do"s and political opportunists that wanted to make
sure They stayed ahead.
It never ended. He saw the continuation of lies, aberrations of the truth.
He fought to keep the information flowing, the information wants to be free.
But old men in high, dark towers kept the lies in place, even when simple
common sense dictated other answers. Deny everything, believe the lie.
Old habits die hard.
* * * * * * * *
He came home one afternoon to retrieve something he had forgotten. He came
to his house and found his front door open a crack. He slipped inside to
see what had happened. The living room was a mess, and there was a nasty
looking hole in the wall. Then he saw a shadow move and two other forms
escaping out the back door. He didn't see who they were, but knew why They
where here, in HIS house. The Tape. They broke into his home in an attempt
to recover THEIR own salvations. THEY were going to kill the dreamer and
take the truth. They failed.
The shear act of someone breaking into his house did not frighten him as
much as he thought it would; even so, he spent the night awake, with his
gun beside him.
Then THEY took her. If THEY couldn't shut him up, directly, through
intimidation or coercion. Then They would get to him, indirectly, through
fear. Not the fear of what they would do to him, but of what they would
do to Scully. His Scully.
When had he failed her?
"When the men with the strings started yanking all the right chains, that's
when." he thought bitterly to himself. There was so much to say, and other
things better left unsaid that his head spun, just thinking about it.
He wasn't sure when everything had started its downward spiral on the
express track to Hell, but it had been a very long time since anything
seemed to go right. But Mulder didn't need ot ask, he already knew.
It was when he made the deal with the Higher-Ups ... the Tape for Scully.
* * * * * * * *
He had the Tape. The Tape that THEY wanted, the Tape that THEY would kill
for, HAD killed for, and would kill for again. The Tape that would break
all conspiracies, free all truths, and put an end to all doubts.
The LonGunmen, his friends, had been prepared to run forever in order to
release the truth, but he couldn't. He had tried, for the sake of truth.
He had tried to run, he had tried to see the turning windmills, he had
tried to raise his gauntlet to signal the war was not over. But he had
to have Scully, he had to apologize, he had to make the deal.
His friends should have understood that.
It wasn't until those three agonizing hours following Scully's death that
he realized what he had done; he had traded out his friends' and his quest
for his love. The Gunmen felt betrayed, that was why they pulled away,
and why he had pulled away from them.
It was a wound too fresh, too open, for either of them to simply step
away and see the bigger picture.
* * * * * * * *
He was tired. Tired of it all. Tired of the untruths, tired of the lies,
tired of the deliberate campaigns of misinformation. There were delicate
ways to beat around the bush, but none of them yielded any more clues than
the next.
How did the saying go? "All the world's a stage, and all the men and
women merely players." Marionettes was a more apt description. Puppet
strings. It was no longer who controlled the money, but who the puppeteer
was ... who held the strings.
He was tired of playing. The manipulation, the constant denial, the
questioning of beliefs. And not for the first time, he considered chucking
it all. He had paid his pound of flesh, it was time to get out of the game.
He didn't have the energy to try and fight it, not any longer. He did not
like what he had become.
"We would consider it more than a professional loss if you left." His
friends had told him. Practically pleaded with him to stay and give
it another chance, to see this thing out to the end. Those words came
back to haunt him.
* * * * * * * *
Would anyone really care? Would anyone even notice? Who would know of
the things he knew, if he left now? Who would know? There were times
in the past when he had actually been close to finding truth, oh . . . not
THE TRUTH, but A truth none-the-less. But the truth he and his friends had
found, had put them in great danger, their relationship had become as
volatile as sweating dynamite and just as unpredictable. It had been
better in recent weeks, with far fewer inane arguments over nothing at all.
But it was only a matter of time.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Time bomb. His temper, a long, slow fuse that when ignited took a long
time to boil over. He had only seen himself angry, really angry, once in
his life. Stern, yes, maybe even forceful at times. Never vindictive,
never vengeful, and almost never angry. It took a single death, her death,
to light the fuse. And once lit, there was only one result. She was
nothing to THEM and everything to him. Scully knew nothing about what was
REALLY happening. Mulder was willing to return the Tape, he was going to
give THEM what they wanted, in exchange for her, but in the end . . .
They murdered her anyway. She ended up as a 'Jane Doe'
on a cold slab in a small police-morge, outside of Virginia ...
a gunshot wound to the back of the head listed as the cause of death
on the autopsy report.
Mulder was notified of her death, three days after he had delivered
the Tape.
* * * * * * * *
Now he was beyond hate, beyond rage. There was such maddness in his eyes,
he was more frightened, more raging than he had ever been before.
In all his life, he never seen that type of anger in anyone, let alone
himself. He never saw such anger from himself ever again, an anger born of
fear. Fear for himself, his friends, his truth. Fear for what he would
do.
And now he knew that fear, knew it like no other. Hatred had carried
him to Hell and back, a vengeful hope that he would find the ones that
killed her, his Dana, and bring THEM to their knees. There had been no
time to think, only act. Impulsive, reactive. No thought involved.
Do or do not, there was no in between. It had been that way since the
moment she died. There was no turning back now. He hadn't noticed
anything ever again.
Eventually Mulder found THEM. All he needed to do was pull the trigger.
One slight twitch. His fuse had burned long and slow, edging closer and
closer to the gun-powder chamber, and it was then that he knew.
His words came from him like lightening: sharp and fast.
He didn't even realize he was the one issuing the sounds,
not words -- sounds. He was screaming. He saw their faces,
the ones that had done this thing. He saw their color and their form.
One second there, the next not. Time froze, he recognized
their stunned looks. They were surprised he had found them.
They were not ready. He saw Them and he froze Them ...
They were nothing but still targets with expressions of bewilderment
and terror. White and black cardboard cut-outs poised as running
silhouettes, rising awkwardly, bending over, standing . . . waiting.
Not moving.
Then time reasserted itself.
Flashes of light exploded before his eyes, and thunder filled
his hands. There was screaming, yelling, warnings given, bodies falling.
The white and black cut-outs stained red as the cardboard was shredded.
The paper-men floated down, one by one. Their faces, once white and whole,
became fragmented explosions of red.
As the vollies ceased their echoing in the room. A thought whispered
itself to him, "It's over." He was surprised it would be that easy. He
had expected more fight, for some reason. These men had killed to protect
their secrets ... but they died so easily.
Once the adrenalin cleared; and his heavy lidded conscious came to bear
once again, he went to the source. Taking a deep breath, he backed away
from the wall, never looking at THEM or anything else.
"I know.", was all he said.
********************
The End.
********************
*snow on screen*
... CLICK! ...
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