TITLE: Soliloquy (1/1)
AUTHOR: White Star 2 (hila-p@barak-online.net)
CLASSIFICATION: Songfic, Mulder Angst, Vignette
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Demons, and general late season 4.

SUMMARY: When Mulder takes off for his parents' summer home at
the end of Demons, shit happens, and Mulder's had enough of it.

ARCHIVING: Yes, please! Just let me know if you do.

DISCLAIMER: They're not mine. Do you have to remind me? Yeah,
yeah. They're 1013's. But right now they're here in this story
and *I* rule their little world. And yes, I promise they'll be
back on the Fox Studios lot in the morning.

And speaking of not mine... neither is Les Mis or the songs
from it, no matter how badly I wish that was the case. I'd be
rich, for one... 

NOTES: First of all, I never thought I'd ever write an X-Files
fic. And I never thought I would ever write a SongFic. And I
never thought I would ever write something Les Mis related. And
here, I've done all of them. This was sort of a wacky dare from
my muse in an attempt to scare a friend. I still don't know if
it worked.

This story is dedicated to Aris Merquoni, my private
Grammarcheck, who was the reason I came up with all this, and
to Schonberg & Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, who composed/wrote
Soliloquy (the song... if you didn't know this, go see Les
Mis! Now!)

This reads best with Soliloquy from Les Mis on repeat. (Track
14, disk 2 in the Broadway recording and Tenth Anniversary
recording; Track 10, disk 2 in the London recording; Track 22,
disk 2 in the Complete Symphonic recording; Track 15 in the
Highlights from the Symphonic Recording; Track 41 on the
Japanese Red Cast recording; Track 16, disk 2 in the Original
German recording; Track 19 on the German Highlights CD; Track
12, disc 2 on the French Concept Album; Yes, I am a
fanatic. What gave it away? The fact that I spent 20min
listening to snippits of the FCA songs because I can't read
French?)

* * * * *

Soliloquy

        Who is this man?
        What sort of devil is he
        To have me caught in a trap
        And choose to let me go free?

Mulder hugged his knees tighter. Pain was no longer the
issue. Physical pain, at least. He'd stopped noticing
that... it must've been hours ago. But the images that danced
before his eyes, the thoughts in this head...

He wondered why, above all. Why was he still alive? Why was he
still in the Bureau? That Black-Lunged Son of a Bitch had more
to do with it all than he wanted to know. Mulder had guessed by
now he was behind practically everything. He'd also accepted he
could do nothing about it.

He still didn't like being a pawn in their sick game. It wasn't
only him. They'd thrown Scully into it, too. Maybe they'd hoped
she'd be killed. Maybe they'd hoped she'd drive him from the
X-Files. But maybe, just maybe...

The thought that worried him most is that this was just what
they wanted. They wanted someone to keep an eye on their
"project". Someone to investigate from the outside and
report. Not to them directly, of course, but it was almost
obvious that they had access to all of his work.

He thought, for an instant, that it didn't matter. Either way,
he found the truth. But like this, as someone's agent, wasn't
right. It dirtied the work. It changed him. It made him more
like them.

That was what they wanted. That he'd become just like
them. Just like his father, and perhaps more useful to the
conspiracy than good ole' Bill Mulder ever was. If good ole'
Bill Mulder was even his father.

For a long time he wrestled with the surfacing images. He
didn't want to think about it. Not when so much else was going
wrong around him. His entire life was crashing down around him,
and just now this had to come up. And his mother... a slap was
a better answer than some of the things he'd gotten in the
past. But it hurt. Not his ego, not his dignity. But just to
think of it...

        It was his hour at last
        To put a seal on my fate,
        Wipe out the past
        And wash me clean off the slate.
        All it would take
        Was a flick of his knife.
        Vengeance was his
        And he gave me back my life!

They could have charged him with murder. A double homicide
trial would've surely gotten him off their backs. Maybe they
couldn't convict him, but that shouldn't have bothered
them. Something that big could've gotten him out of the Bureau,
alone.

He'd have nowhere to go. The Bureau was his life for more than
ten years. It was almost home... Ironic that even at a place
he'd considered home he was hated. Nowhere could anyone *ever*
like Spooky Mulder.

And out of the FBI, what could he do? Practice psychiatry? He
didn't have a chance. He was bordering on neurotic, at best. No
one would ever give him a license to practice. Police
departments wouldn't take him. Everyone would want to know why
he wasn't with the FBI. They'd look in his file, and there it
would be - 'double homicide charge'. Proven innocent,
maybe. Served five to eighteen, more likely.

Five years in prison would be better than life in the real
world. 

But they hadn't arranged for him to be charged. They hadn't
even tried to connect him to the murder. How could they rule
him out when he didn't even know if he was innocent? It was his
gun. He was there. He was an accessory to the murder in the very
least.

They should have done something about it!

He gripped it tighter - that same gun. He was so angry... angry
at himself, angry at them, angry at the world... he was so
angry he could shoot someone.

        Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief.
        Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase.
        I am the Law and the Law is not mocked,
        I'll spit his pity right back in his face.
        There is nothing on earth that we share,
        It is either Valjean or Javert!

He couldn't live with the rest of the world. He just
couldn't. They were as strange and different to him as, he
imagined, he was to them. But he was one among the many of
them. And there were so many of them... he just felt so alone
sometimes.

So alone he could barely breathe. It had been that way since
Samantha disappeared. Once he'd liked it. He'd liked being
different. It made him special. Now he was just strange. He was
an outsider.

He was Spooky.

What angered him most was that the world always had to be
right. And the world had to be sheltered. It was full of
zombies, slaves to society, who cared more about their fancy
cars and their fancy ties than what really went on around them.

It was for them that he did his work.  It was for them that
he'd covered up his work.

If the people wanted to live in a false sense of security, then
the raving madman Spooky Mulder had to be wrong. If the people
wanted to live in blissful ignorance, then that frantic
lunatic had to be silenced.

And he was. He'd been silenced too many times. So often, that
he no longer thought the public deserved to know if they didn't
really want to. But the truth took precedence to all else. And
the people had to know. He'd lived by that for so many years,
he couldn't abandon it now.

While he didn't want to lie to them, he wasn't obliged to tell
them the truth. He wasn't obliged to know the truth. Maybe
ignorance *was* bliss. Maybe there was a way out for him. A way
to forget all of it and start over.

Or he could just end it.

If only the tragedy had been his alone...

He was kidding himself. It was his alone. Who would miss
him? Who could miss an FBI agent, running around in secret,
finding out the things people don't want to know? He'd be
forgotten, along with his work.

And no matter what, he'd carry the truth with him until the
end. It was the one thing he could do. It was his one defense
against the masses. He had the truth on his side. He had it in
his hands.

Or did he?

        How can I now allow this man
        To hold dominion over me?
        This desperate man whom I have hunted,
        He gave me my life, he gave me freedom.
        I should have perished by his hand,
        It was his right.
        It was my right to die as well.
        Instead, I live... but live in hell.

The images resurfaced again. They were strong this time. The
pain was almost unbearable. He couldn't stop them. Things he'd
done his best as a child to forget. Things he didn't want to
know about life at that age. Things he didn't want to know
about his mother.

What if that man - that selfish, manipulative shell with no
soul... What if that was his father? Would that change
anything? Would it change the relationship between them, that
of hatred and manipulation? Of course not. It would
never.... it *should* never.

But he knew it would.

That was why he feared it. It was one thing to know that his
father was a chain-smoking maniac who had a major role in the
conspiracy he'd worked so hard to uncover. It was another to
know he'd been bailed out so many times because he was that
man's son.

He knew someone had to be protecting him, someone up the
ranks. But he didn't know who, didn't want to believe. Or maybe
he just didn't understand why. Now he knew. And he still
refused to believe.

He could make sure. He could order tests, confront his mother
with the truth. But it was unwise to ask questions that have
unbearable answers. He knew that on his flesh. He didn't
really want to know. He just wanted someone to tell him that
his father is the man he'd thought it was, and that he
shouldn't worry. There was no one that could do it.

And now he'd have to spend the rest of his life wondering. It
wouldn't be a life. Every break he'd get, every time he'd
succeed, he'd always be wondering. He'd always be looking over
his shoulder. Did he do this himself or was it dear old dad's
protection?

It wouldn't be a life.

        And my thoughts fly apart,
        Can this man be believed?
        Shall his sins be forgiven?
        Shall his crimes be reprieved?

Everything that happened came to remind him - what he was
looking for wasn't there. It was impossible to reach. Sure,
he'd gotten this far, but he didn't get there on his own. And
he was still nowhere.

For years he'd searched, and what for? To still be nowhere, so
long after Samantha disappeared it was unlikely he'd ever find
her? He'd never done it just to find her. It was a means of
keeping him busy, a last hope at keeping him sane. They saw
it. That's why they let him keep going.

He'd been stuck on this impossible quest for so long. It
isolated him, kept him from everything.

He worked all day, he barely slept. He'd forgotten how to take
pleasure from the simple things in life. And he trusted no one.

He wanted to be able to trust, but he knew to much to have that
luxury. He couldn't even trust himself. There were times he
felt he could trust Scully, but soon enough, that wouldn't
matter, would it?

All he could do was go back to that world of tapped phones and
propaganda and assassinations. Just flick on the paranoia switch
and live inside his shell. He wouldn't survive very long.

And the truth? What truth? He'd spent his life wanting to
believe. But he had no proof, nothing tangible to show for his
work. Now he couldn't believe anymore...

        And must I now begin to doubt,
        Who never doubted all these years?
        My heart is stone and still it trembles.
        The world I have known is lost in shadow.

He'd wanted to remember. He'd wanted to remember so badly it
hurt. He would've done anything for it. He almost did. Hypnosis
he went through willingly. He put up with the dreams, the
nightmares. He traveled and searched. He even agreed to be
treated by a maniac like Goldstein. But he had to know.

He needed the proof that it wasn't just little green men. He
needed proof that what started it all was real. Otherwise, it
was all for nothing.

And so much of what he'd done over the years was unreal, even
to him. He wasn't as open minded as he used to be. He was
conforming. Maybe he was just realizing how wrong he'd been all
these years.  He *had* been wrong all these years.

And what of their damn conspiracy? What did he really know of
that? It was all mad theories in his head. Mad, just like him.

Now this madness and this obsession were going to cost him
everything. His job, his whole belief system, the life to which
he had become accustomed over the years... and his partner.

They'd been drifting apart for a while. And it was his
fault. He should've been the one abducted. He should've been
the one sick. Maybe if it were him instead of her he could have
proof - any proof. An intact memory. But they wouldn't grant
him that, even.

She was strong, but this was one thing she couldn't beat. All
he could do was stand aside and watch her slip away. He'd have
to, eventually. He couldn't take it. She meant too much to
him. He did love her. Or could have. Or would have. If they'd
only had time. If his mind was only clear enough right now to
really know.

        Is he from heaven or from hell?
        And does he know
        That, granting me my life today
        This man has killed me even so?

So many people would have just been better off if he were
gone. Scully, Skinner, Melissa, Samantha... he had that
special talent - getting other people hurt. So many things
could have been avoided.

Scully wouldn't have been abducted. She'd probably be busy
climbing up the ranks of the Bureau, scientific as ever and
refusing to believe. Her sister would be alive. So many other
people would have been alive. And Samantha... Samantha would be
here.

It was a good tradeoff, he thought. His life for all those who
suffered because of him, and the countless more who were fated
to suffer in the future. Samantha would have just gone on. She
would have stayed away from the conspiracy. She wouldn't have
known about it.

That's where his parents had made the mistake. He should've
been the one to go. He should've been the one not discussed. It
should have been him!

It was supposed to be him. His name was there, covered up by
Samantha's. It should have been him. But it wasn't, and he
didn't know why. Was it because of that man? Did he force his
parents' hand in deciding?

        I am reaching, but I fall
        And the stars are black and cold,
        As I stare into the void
        Of a world that cannot hold.

He really didn't know what had kept him there for so long. He
shouldn't have been sane enough to work as an FBI agent. Or
work at all. Or even be alive. He could see himself in an
asylum somewhere, alone, forgotten.

No one would care if he were gone.... even his own mother
wouldn't notice. She had more important men to worry about. The
conspiracy would have one less enemy, and the Bureau could
close the X-Files for good.

Maybe he should just let them all off the hook.

But there was one thing that had kept him anchored to
reality. He'd been closer to "sane" in the last four years than
he'd been in a long time. Now that he gave it actual thought,
clouded as his mind was, he saw it - the obvious. Scully.

She'd kept him hanging on for so long, and he didn't want to
think what things would be like without her. No time to start
like the present...

He could end up with nothing, no way to continue the work, no
proof of anything he knew. He didn't know what he'd do. The
X-Files were his life. But, on the other hand, he could end up
joining *them*. 

But most likely, he admitted to himself, the thread he'd been
hanging by would just snap. He'd have a long way to fall before
hitting bottom. He needed Scully there to keep him hanging
on. He needed her now, too. He needed an escape from what his
mind was steering toward.

But she wasn't there now. And soon enough she wouldn't be there
at all. He was about to lose his only link to the real world,
and in one of the most painful ways possible. And after that
would come the great fall of Fox Mulder.

Maybe he should just let them all off the hook, he thought
again as he rolled to his back and pointed the gun to his head. 

        I'll escape now from the world,
        From the world of Jean Valjean.
        There is nowhere I can turn.

The barrel felt cold against his temple. His hand trembled. He
shuddered. He hesitated.

        There is no way to go on.....

* * * * *

When Scully arrived, she found what remained of a head,
attached to a limp body. She could've stopped it. She should
have. She fished for her cell phone and made two phone calls -
one to Providence's police department and one for
Quonochontaug's. When she was done, she walked outside to
wait. She couldn't bear looking at the bloody spot on the
floor. She wiped a single tear from her cheek and didn't cry
again for a long, long time.