Disclaimer: People and everything X Files related belong to Chris Carter, 10-13 and Fox; not me. Oh, yeah, and my thanks to Charles Dickens as well. Spoilers: This story is set in Season 3 for the express purposes of spoiler avoidance. What this means is, if you have not seen season 4, I don't think this will ruin it for you. If you have seen season 4, all the better. There is a reference, but it is not really a spoiler. [I don't think] Summary: Alone at Christmas, Mulder recieves three mysterious visitors to remind him what the holiday is all about. Please see: There is a sequel to this story called "The Star." "The Angel" is meant to be read first, and chronologically occurs first, but if you don't read it first, don't freak out...I didn't even write it first. :) Comments: Always welcome. This introduction: may just be long enough! :) ______________________ The Angel by eponine119 eponine119@att.net December 2, 1996 _____________________ December 24, 1995 9:21 pm "I hate Christmas," Fox Mulder muttered to himself again and tried to put the whole sorry holiday out of his mind. He could hear church bells ringing down the street. He pressed the volume button on the TV to try to drown out the peal of the bells. Not like he was exactly engrossed in what he was watching. "V" was playing on the SciFi channel, but they showed it often. Mulder knew half the lines by heart by now, and it wasn't really that good a movie. There was a knock at the door. He sighed and put the pillow over his head. Whoever it was just knocked harder. Mulder got up from the couch and crossed the living room, shocked by how cold the floor was under his bare feet. "Yeah?" he said, throwing open the door. "Please, sir, we're collecting money for Unicef and ..." a pretty little girl said, looking up at him with wide blue eyes. "We're caroling for the money, sir, is there a song you'd like..." Mulder's mouth twisted into a grimace. "I don't celebrate Christmas," he said, trying to explain without being unkind to the child. "But sir, the spirit of the season..." "Bah, humbug," Mulder said and closed the door gently. He really liked that term, humbug. Most people only thought of it in terms of Dickens' Scrooge, not knowing it was the caption of a P.T. Barnum drawing. He knew. "Big deal," he sighed, lying back down on the couch, feeling a twinge of guilt. It wouldn't have hurt him to give the kids some money. Too late now. He felt his eyelids growing heavy as he returned his attention to the alien invasion on the TV screen. Maybe he could sleep right through the holiday... Another knock on the door roused him. Mulder blinked and flipped off the TV. It sounded important. He yawned and saw that it was almost midnight. He'd slept longer than he'd realized. He opened the door. "Oh my God. You're dead." Mulder said, without blinking. He could not turn his eyes away from the man who stood in his hallway. "Some things are not always what they seem, Mr. Mulder," the contact known to him as Deep Throat informed him. "Do you mind if I come in?" "This is not possible," Mulder said. Deep Throat pushed past him. "I thought you wanted to believe, Mr. Mulder." Taunting him, as usual. "Why are you here?" Mulder demanded. "This has to be a bad dream. Any moment, I'll wake up and find out -" "It was just a bit of underdone potato?" Deep Throat asked, his eyes sparkling with a challenge. "Dickens," Mulder said, his disgust plain. "Hell was something created on a piece of undigested apple pie." "Melville," Deep Throat said. "Shall we go on?" "No," Mulder said. He didn't want to get into a literary battle of wills with the ghost of a dead man. "I want you to tell me -" "I suspect you know why I'm here, Agent Mulder," Deep Throat said, looking at him carefully. Mulder rolled his eyes. "Dickens. Scrooge and Marley." "The Ghost of Christmas Past," Deep Throat smiled ironically. Mulder put his head back and wished this could be over. "I have a photographic memory, I think I rem -" "That's a fact you made up to impress women with, Mulder, you and I both know it isn't true. Are you coming with me?" "Do I have a choice?" "No." "I didn't think so," Mulder muttered, but he'd already been gathered into a flash of light and was no longer standing in his apartment. He found himself standing in a place he knew well, a place he still saw in his dreams and his nightmares. His childhood home. Things looked so different from here, from the vantage point of an adult standing invisible in the shadows. It was dark outside, but it wasn't cold like in his apartment. It was warm; the room seemed to glow with love. Love, thought Mulder, wincing inside. He had forgotten. He looked at his mother, sitting under the tree looking so very happy. Her hair was brown and long again - it seemed so long since he'd seen her this young, since he'd seen her smile. He wanted to go to her and hug her, to say the words he had a hard time saying now, that he loved her. His father was alive, and young. He had not yet grown fat and bloated with alcohol and medication. Mulder took a step back as his father turned in his direction, afraid of the man as he had been in life. But the little boy that he saw was not afraid. Dressed in a bulky knit sweater and sporting a dorky but adorable bowl haircut, he ran right up to his father on short legs. His father pretended to ignore him, but Mulder could see now that he was doing it on purpose. As a game. The boy finally got the man's attention and was swept into a giant hug. The sound of their laughter mingling in the air made Mulder suck in a deep painful breath and look down at the floor. When he raised his head again, he saw man and child working together to construction a holiday railroad set. A tiny baby girl toddled into the room. Just over a year old. "Samantha," Mulder whispered, unable to take his eyes from her. The baby stumbled right up to her brother, who picked her up in a hug and smiled down at her. This is what it feels to have my heart break with love, Mulder thought. The baby began to cry and her brother grew short tempered. He pushed her away to work on the railroad. His mother came and picked her up, but his sister never took her eyes off him. A sudden instinct told Mulder to look at his father, and he did. The man had tears in his eyes. Genuine tears of joy and love, watching his children play and fight. And he had never noticed. Mulder moved away, turning his back on the family scene. He looked into the face of the man who stood silently and watched by his side. "I've seen enough," he said, his voice rough. "Have you? Do you remember now?" "I remember, " Mulder pledged. "You remember that this holiday is about love?" Mulder hung his head and nodded, full of guilt. When he raised it again, they were back in his cold, dim apartment. "Your next guide will be here on the hour," Deep Throat said and was gone. Mulder stood alone in the middle of the living room, trembling, trying not to cry. He didn't know how long he stood there - it could have been ten seconds or ten minutes. It felt like ten years. But one o'clock soon came and this time, his informant did not bother to knock. Mr. X appeared before him and Mulder looked up at him with flat, disinterested eyes. "Ghost of Christmas present?" he asked, a smirk he didn't feel turning up the corner of his mouth. "I am," his informant's deep voice resonated through the silent apartment. "I don't want to see any more. You never tell me anything I can use anyway. Just leave me alone," Mulder ordered. "I have brought you one more piece to the puzzle. Its assembly is in your hands." Mulder raised his hands to gesture to the room. "This - is Christmas present. I'm here, I see it. Isn't that enough?" "No," Mr. X said simply. "I'm not going to like what I see," Mulder stated plainly. Mr. X did not answer, although he did raise his eyebrows and give Mulder that same puzzling look he'd seen before. The one that said, 'it's for me to know and you to find out' so teasingly. The scene around them changed. It was still dark and it was still cold, but the wind ruffled Mulder's hair and blew chills across the back of his neck. He stood next to his mysterious guide and waited. A man was singing. It seemed incongruous for a parking lot. X touched his arm and Mulder turned his head. He saw a blind man, his eyes filmy and white, caressing a microphone on a small stereo system with his voice. A figure hovered on the edge of Mulder's perception. After a moment looking at the singer, he blinked and snapped his gaze up. "Scully," he breathed. Her eyes were fixed on the blind man. Her mouth was open and he could see the vapors of her breath. Her eyes glistened and her face betrayed emotion as she listened to the song for a moment. Why had he never noticed that she was beautiful? She dug in her wallet then, her movements awkward because she had her gloves on. He watched as she crumpled a twenty dollar bill in her hand and not hesitate before dropping it into the beggar's hat. "Merry Christmas." It was like a hot fist in Mulder's stomach. She was alone. She was not bitter. She was beautiful and gracious and giving. As usual, she had thoughts only for others. He stretched out his hand to touch her, but she was already gone. He turned to Mr. X. "She's alone?" "We are all alone in this world, Mr. Mulder." Mulder grabbed the man's long black coat threateningly. "I am so sick of your riddles and your lies." Mr. X said nothing. After a moment sank between them, he said with slight irritation, "You've seen enough. Expect your next visitor when the clock strikes two." A moment later Mulder was back in his apartment, alone. He sank down on the couch and put his head in his hands. He was becoming involved in this; he had wanted to see more, terrible as it was. Who the hell was coming for him at two? His stomach tweaked with nerves. What painful thing could they show him? His future could not be more painful than his past. If it were...life surely would not be worth living. He sat and he waited and tried to get the image of Scully's lovely face, so delicate and painted with loneliness, out of his mind. When the knock came, it was gentle. "No," Mulder groaned, but he pulled himself up from the couch anyway. The knock did not come again and by the time he crossed the room to it, he feared the angel from the future had given up on him and gone. The fact that he suddenly wanted to see the future, while at the same time not wanting to see more pain, startled him. Standing on the other side of the door was a lovely blonde woman wearing a long white silk bathrobe. Mulder had never seen her before in his life. She had an interesting face, he thought, looking at her. "I don't believe we've met," Mulder said, sticking his hand out. He couldn't believe he was flirting with the Ghost of Christmas Future. And wasn't the ghost of the future an oxymoron? "You don't know any of your other informants' names," she said slowly and evenly, her rich voice sliding over the words. She sounded almost amused, but Mulder couldn't really tell. "Are you my informant?" he asked, his brows drawing together in a frown. "Marita," she said, but did not shake his hand. "Are you ready?" "No, but that won't stop us, will it?" he asked. "I suppose not," she said still in that carefully enunciated way. She had a self-depreciating quirk about her smile that made it look almost pained. She took his hand then, squeezing it, and began walking with him. It was like walking through a cloud of light. He came through misty on the other side into a brilliant white room. It was what he imagined heaven to be like, or the white tunnel in NDE reports. The walls were white and fluorescent bulbs burned overhead even though bright sunlight streamed in through an uncovered window. But for all the light, it was cold. There was no heat. Mulder blinked and his eyes adjusted. Marita released his hand and went to stand unobtrusively in the corner. Her white robe reflected the light around them and she looked like an angel. He stared at her and she nodded to him, urging him to not focus on her. He tore his eyes away, and then looked back. Angel of death. His skin crawled. This was how the story always ended, wasn't it? His own death, a miserable bitter man. The form in the hospital bed barely made a bump under the thin light blue blanket. Marita's eyes urged him towards the bed. He did not want to look into her cold face any longer and he found himself moving over to the bed, even though he longed to hold his feet still. He did not want to see himself die a lonely old man. An anguished wail broke from his lips when he looked into the face of the person lying on the bed. Because it wasn't him. It wasn't him lying there emaciated and pale. It was Scully. Her lips were dry and cracked. Her hair was thin and faded to a sick, dull blonde. It looked as though if he touched it, clumps would come out in his hands. The shadows were deep and almost black under her unseeing eyes. "What have they done to you?" Mulder choked, dropping to his knees before the bed. The pain in his belly was too intense, too hot and hard. He was surprised to find that he could touch her, and he did, stroking her face. She looked so hurt, so damaged and out of it at the same time. He wanted to hug her and tell her it was all right. He wanted to cure her. He wanted to save her. Her head turned easily in his hand. She was awake, but not alert. The IV taped to the back of her hand probably flooded her tiny body with enough drugs to knock down a basketball team. She was no more than the empty shell of the woman he had known. The fact that he could not find her anywhere in there terrified him. Looking at her almost skeletal face, he realized something else. She was not an old woman. Her skin remained unlined. Her radiance had faded, but her hair was not white. She was probably not even forty, yet she was so ravaged by disease that she looked a hundred and forty. He sat back on his heels, not taking his hands away from her face, not breaking the contact. He blinked back boiling tears and looked around the hospital room. Not one flower. Not one card, not one balloon. There weren't even any pictures. She was alone. She was dying and she was alone. Mulder looked at Marita in confusion. "Why is she alone?" he asked her, desperate to understand. "Her mother is dead. Her brothers have lives of their own," she explained in that calm, no-judgment, no-passion tone she'd perfected. "No one..." the words were to painful for him to say. "Where am I? Why am I not here?" Marita half-shrugged and looked away. "Why would you be here?" she asked. When she met his eyes again, they were not blank. She was sending him a powerful message. He should be here, and she did not approve. "What is it?" he whispered. She continued as though she did not hear him. "You have your work. The search for the truth is neverending. And though it is a lonely journey, you are resigned to it. There are more important things; the truth must be known. There is no room for anyone else in a heart grown cold from searching." "Please. Tell me what's killing her," Mulder begged. "Cancer," Marita answered, her eyes downcast at Scully's face. "And I don't care? How could I not care? Why am I not here?" Mulder demanded, the only emotion he could control - fury - welling up to fill the painful places. "You have your priorities. Your choices have been made." Marita said smoothly. "I don't know," Mulder breathed, realizing it. Where ever he was in the future, he had no idea that Scully was here, dying in agony and alone. "And if I did -?" he looked at her. Her eyes told the whole story. Even if he did know, he would not care. "The future is not carved into stone, Mr. Mulder. You have seen so you may consider your actions. Consider the path you are on carefully. Because one day there will be no turning back." Scully's eyes closed. Marita was gone and he stood alone in his living room, chilled to the soul. The first light of dawn was just peeking in his windows. It was Christmas morning. He had choices in this life. Even when it looked like he didn't, even when he felt powerless against the greater forces, he always had a choice, he always made a decision, sometimes without realizing he had. He'd never before believed that one chose to be alone. He thought it was the way the people 'ended up'. But he saw now that it was a choice he had made. He had a choice. He could not allow himself to push Scully away because it was easy. He suddenly remembered all the times she had stood by him, and he could not think of once he had backed her up in return. He had to go to her. He had to apologize, to explain...in a way that didn't sound crazy. This life was a choice, a series of choices he had made. Choices he could unmake. Now. While there was still time. THE END. Thanks for reading! Comments are welcomed at eponine119@att.net Also, there is a sequel to this story called "The Star" -- ___ _______________________________________ eponine119 eponine119@att.net or Eponine119@aol.com Web:http://members.aol.com/eponine119/ M&S * LGW #110 * Girls From File #4* Relationshipper Pack #C - Fanfic Reader _______________________________________ Winner of the 1996 Starbuck, Best Author :)