Title: The Sound of Her Wings

Author: Ashlea Ensro

Category: VA

Rating: R

Spoilers: "Redux II"

Archive: If you really want to...

Feedback: to theconsortium6@hotmail.com. Flames will be donated to CSM to light his cigs - he really needs them after this...

Disclaimer: These characters are owned by a bunch of shady government types who meet in a smoky room in New York City. Don't let Chris Carter tell you otherwise. Anyway, *I* don't own them.

Summary: How CSM survived the assassination attempt in "Redux II".

Author's Ramblings: This is one sick puppy. Just thought I'd warn you. And for the purpose of this story, CSM is neither Mulder's father nor Samantha's. That would make it really sick. And even I won't go THAT far...

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Funny, I always thought Mulder would shoot me.

I would have liked it that way, I think. Better than this. At least my death would have meant something to him. I am face down on the floor of my apartment, watching my own blood rise around me but to the assassin it is just another job.

I am familiar with the routine.

One gun, one bullet. Bang, and the target hits the floor. There's nothing after that - you just plan your escape and disappear until they call you again.

Until it's your number that's up.

Right.

I am reminded that bullets hurt. Pain is my purgatory - if death is to redeem me, then I must suffer now, in these few last moments. I reach out for the shattered photograph, baptized in my own blood, pull it towards me with a weakening, shaking hand. Memory is my only comfort and my greatest torment.

And breathing is more difficult by the second.

It's all right, I'm not afraid to die. Don't think that I didn't see you, standing there in the window across the street. Thinking you were so goddamn clever for shooting me. Don't believe for a moment I didn't plan this.

It's all right.

I wanted to die.

To die by the hand of another is the same as to die by my own hand.

And death will redeem me.

Won't it?

I don't want to die.

Not like this. Not alone, lying on the floor, in more pain than I could have ever imagined, a death without meaning, without purpose, bloody and ignoble. I want to cry out for all of the pain I have caused, all the pain they have caused me.

But I do not.

I am alone, but even now, I will not cry. There is no one here, but I must retain dignity, even now.

Someone will see. Someone is always watching.

I will die, and I will not be afraid.

Death will set me free.

If only I can see the faces in the photograph, just once, before I go.

But first...

First I have to sleep.

***

And she drifts through the door, it is locked but locks do not stop her, she has the key to every doorway, even mine. Her feet are bare as she walks across the blood soaked floor, shattered glass reflecting the dying light outside the apartment window. She stares sideways at the picture, then looks down at me.

Her eyes are hazel, and they are the eyes of a madwoman.

She kneels beside me.

Bullets hurt, yes, but memory hurts more.

She is frail, a swath of mist in the darkness, her hands pale and slender, her dark hair falling in a wavy sweep past her shoulders, framing a paper-white face. A fairy tale princess, come to wake me from eternal sleep.

She rolls me over and the pain reminds me that I still live, though barely, gasping for breath. This makes her smile - my body struggles for life even as I have already given up. She finds amusement in it. I feel her small hands touch my chest.

Don't.

Her mouth is taut - not a real smile, I decide, her face is still young though her eyes are ancient. I continue to plead, but if she hears, she gives no answer.

Don't do this to me. I want to die.

She leans close to me to breathe in my ear: "You were always my favourite."

Let me go.

I am old. I want to die. Let me go.

She was always older than me, even as a child.

There is a darkness about her, the First One, the original, that is lacking in the clones. They look hunted, lost, childlike. The one I brought to Mulder was no exception. They are vulnerable.

I loved her once. And grieving for her, I surrounded myself with her image.

She looks like them, but she is different, somehow. She is strong and she is cruel. And even as I beg for death she denies me. I can feel the shattered tissue knitting itself back together, the lost blood flowing in my veins, broken bone becoming whole. And life itself is more painful than death - she makes it this way - surviving never hurt so much before.

I don't want to live. Not like this.

"What's the matter?" Her whisper is taunting. "Can't face up to it?"

No.

"You created me. You made me this way. You made me what I am."

I'm sorry.

"No. It's not enough. You gave them to me. You let them change me. You turned me into this monster.

"Now live with it."

I don't want to live.

She offers me no choice.

This is not healing. This is rape.

This is her revenge.

And when she has finished with me she pins my arms above my head and tilts forward to kiss me, her lips burning where they touch mine, squeezing my breath away.

And then she stands over the place where I should have died.

Death will not save me. Not this time. I live, and I will not be forgiven.

"Give him my regards," she says.

And then she is gone.

I have no pretenses of evil. I am not evil. I have seen what evil is.

The Devil is not wreathed in smoke, hiding in the shadows. The Devil floats in on a bed of light, rises to the sky and falls back down to earth.

The Devil has a face, but it is not mine.

The Devil has a name, and it is Samantha Mulder.