A Winter's Tale, Part 15
Jan. 5th, 2008 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: A Winter's Tale 15/23
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: I'm planning to hibernate for the rest of the weekend, now that my errands and housework are accomplished, so that I can really focus on finishing the last three parts of this story.
Daily posts can be read on my fic journal:anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.
As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
When Hannah was settled in her bed watching cartoons with Mulder, Scully washed her hands again and returned her rings to their place. She smoothed her hair in the mirror and was not surprised to find Mulder regarding her with an expression so full of emotion that she'd need a year just to catalogue all the shades of it. What was clear was how very proud he was of her. She turned, and leant against the sink, gazing back at him. He pressed a kiss to Hannah's head and she nodded, picking up the tray that held blood and sputum to be cultured.
"I'll be back," she said to them both.
Hannah was glassy-eyed and mesmerized by the TV, but Mulder nodded. "We'll be here," he said.
She crossed the now quiet hallway without encountering any more of the Kurt Crawford clones, hesitating slightly as she crossed the threshold of the lab. What was it that they were working on here? She had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure if they were reflective of anything other than her own hope. At the far end of the long lab space, she could see several clones working silently. She moved into the room.
"Agent Scully?"
She turned and found the Kurt Crawford that had escorted them into the complex rising from a desk. She was grateful that although they were wearing lab coats, they were not wearing identical outfits. This Kurt Crawford appeared to be reading the disks that she and Mulder had brought. "Mr. Crawford," she answered.
"Please just call me Kurt," he said.
She nodded. "Do I address all of you as Kurt?"
"Yes," he said succinctly. "I'm sure it's very confusing to you, but we all know ourselves as Kurt."
"All right," she answered. "May I ask what you've learned from the data that Agent Mulder and I brought you?"
"Certainly," Kurt answered, "if you'll just accompany me to this hood so I can get these cultures growing, I'll be happy to answer your questions."
The curiousity overcame Scully at that point. "What exactly is it that you do here at Prometheus?"
"We look for answers," Kurt said. "Ways to help the humans."
"Hence the name," Scully said.
"Yes."
"Are you trying to create a vaccine?"
"Yes."
"So you need to make more alien-human hybrids to help you do that."
"No," Kurt said. "We don't make more. We just recreate ourselves."
"I'm not sure I understand the distinction," Scully said.
"There once was a Kurt Crawford," he answered. "Our original self."
"And he was taken," she answered, thinking of Samantha … and herself.
"He was given," Kurt answered. "as many others were given, by the senior members of the project. It was 1973; he was 10 years of age."
Scully could not school her expression fast enough to mask her distaste.
"You have met his maternal grandfather, I believe," Kurt continued, as if he had not seen. "He was an older gentleman, a British national."
Scully stared at Kurt for a long moment, seeing his features reassemble themselves in light of this news. "Yes," she said, "I met him at Agent Mulder's father's funeral, and …" she hesitated, not sure how much more she should reveal.
"And later, he gave Agent Mulder a version of the vaccine to give to you. We worked on that vaccine."
"Thank you," Scully answered.
"There were many of us involved in the necessary work," the clone said mildly.
"Nonetheless," Scully countered, "we're having this conversation because of that work."
"Without Agent Mulder finding you and administering the vaccine, this conversation would not be taking place," the clone rejoined.
"And as I've already thanked him for his effort, it's only appropriate that I thank you for yours," Scully volleyed back, and then changed the subject. "Have you refined the vaccine since then?"
"We are trying to create a preventative vaccine," Kurt offered. "The vaccine you received is little more than a fail-safe we have used to protect collaborative humans in the very early stages of infection."
She considered this statement. "You do not use it to protect yourselves?"
"We are expendable," the clone answered. "We occupy short lifespans and are easily re-created. Since we document what we've done meticulously, the learning curve for our new selves is relatively short."
"I'm sorry," Scully said, "but that seems completely barbaric to me."
"It is our choice," the clone answered. "In any case, the failsafe vaccine is ineffective for our altered physiology, and we have deemed it an inefficient use of our resources to spend time trying to protect ourselves. Besides, our short lifespan ensures that we would not be the target of colonization efforts, as it would have a negative effect on the health of the colonizing parasite."
Scully blanched at the notion of parasites but ignored it for the time being to return to a previous statement for her next question. "You say that you have made these choices freely, yet when Mulder met some of your predecessors, they were working for Dr. Scanlon."
"Yes," the clone answered, "although things were not perhaps exactly as they seemed." He closed the hood and removed the samples to another bench to grow.
She remained silent, hoping that the clone would continue.
"We have had to participate in experiments sanctioned by the main project in order to reproduce ourselves in great enough numbers so that we may do the work that we deem important. It has allowed us to gain access to necessary materials, knowledge and funding." He paused. "We do not trust other clones to participate in what we're trying to do, hence the necessity for secrecy. Our brothers are now a vast network. We collaborate, but we have sabotaged as well. We do what is necessary for the greater good of humanity." The clone spoke earnestly, but still without a pronounced affect.
Scully crossed her arms across her torso and rocked back and forth before she asked her next question. "Did you participate in the experiments that created Hannah?"
"No," he answered succinctly, then explained further when he saw that she wanted more information. "Dr. Scanlon has not allowed us near his projects since Agent Mulder first met some of us in Allentown. In his view, we are a corrupted line. Our original self's grandfather was able to convince the overseers of the project that the Kurt Crawford Agent Mulder met had been seduced by his ideas. Our work on the vaccine was too valuable to be abandoned, so we were not terminated as a line."
"What about the project that produced Emily?"
"Work that our forebears did on refining cloning methodologies was used in the formulation of the Emily line," the clone said, "but we were not directly involved."
"The Emily line?" Scully asked.
"The child that you met was not the only one," the clone said. "The typical presentation is groups of four. Mutations slip in when larger batches are created using the same materials."
"So Emily was a clone?" Scully felt quite nauseated by this conversation, but she wanted to continue it.
"Yes. She was essentially your clone."
"Essentially?"
"She was produced through a somatic cell nuclear transfer. Egg fusion was used but the nucleus of one of your ova was altered with alien material. However, it caused irrevocable damage to the genome, specifically the lymphatic system."
"And the purpose of this alteration was an attempt to make resistant alien human hybrids?"
"That has been the general purpose of the reproductive experiments for the past fifteen years."
Scully caught his distinction. "And what were the other purposes?"
The clone looked around the room where other Kurt Crawfords were working. "There was also the need to create a workforce."
'Drones,' Scully thought sadly. She was just opening her mouth to ask another question, when an alarm on the clone's watchband sounded, and was echoed elsewhere in the room. She looked down the end of the long room to see that most of the clones that had been there earlier were now gone.
"Agent Scully, we have a status meeting at this time," he said. "I can bring you data on what we know occurred as part of the reproductive experiments so far. As I said, we've not been involved in any way in the project of which the child in question is the result. Data on that project needs to be gleaned from the disk."
He began moving her toward the door. "You're free to look around the facility. I believe that breakfast has been brought into the child's room."
She stopped him in the corridor with a hand on his arm, looking over her shoulder to make sure that they were alone. "Just one more question, Kurt," she said firmly. "What happened to the original Kurt Crawford, the boy who was given to the project?"
For the first time, the clone seemed surprised at her question. "He did not survive the experimental process," he said simply, and almost as if he thought it a very silly question. "We have documentation of the process he underwent. It was more than twenty-five years ago -- the methodology was far more crude. The idea of parthenogenetic experimentation was in its infancy, as it were."
"I see," Scully said, forcing an air of calmness that she most certainly did not feel. "What about the other children who were given to the project?"
Kurt regarded her with drawn down brows. "I'm not sure what your question is."
"Did any of the other children that were given to the project survive?" she asked quietly.
"No," Kurt answered. "None of those given survived in their original form. I'm afraid that any others you have met were clones like myself, although some may have not realized it."
"I see," Scully said, in a whisper. God help her, she needed clarification. "So, Samantha Mulder?" She could not finish the question, but stared at the clone hoping he would answer her ellipsis nonetheless.
"Her original self expired in 1975," Kurt answered. "I can have that data brought to you as well."
Scully nodded. "Not today," she said in a ragged voice. "And please do not give that data to Agent Mulder."
"As you wish," the clone answered. "I really must go."
Scully nodded and watched blindly as the clone hurried down the hall. All these years, all this time, all the death and the suffering … this was the outcome she had always feared would come to pass, but being right about it gave her no satisfaction at all.
She had never had to look someone in the eye and break their heart before, not even a previous lover. In their work, it was usually Mulder who broke the bad news to the parents whose child had died; it had only been her responsibility once or twice, and it wasn't quite the same thing. She'd never loved any of those people, past lovers included, the way she loved Mulder.
She'd ached for the pain of bereft parents in a different way in the year since Emily, but this … she'd bleed for Mulder. For the first time, she felt the tiniest spark of empathy for Mulder's decision not to tell her about her ova because the desire to protect him from such sorrow was so overwhelming. But she knew it was not a secret that she could keep for long. Not now.
She turned and walked quietly to the door of Hannah's room, and then had to stop to hide the smile behind her hand, even as a tear spilled over her lower lid. Mulder and Hannah were both asleep on Hannah's bed, the television blaring uselessly above them, their breakfast trays untouched. She wiped away her tears and walked into Hannah's room. She found the spare blanket that she'd used to warm Hannah's arm and covered Mulder with it, then walked around the bed to look at her daughter's beautiful face. She thought again of the men who'd created this project -- of the sacrifices they had made of their children, both the given and the left behind, their wives, her own life. She pondered the enormity of what they had done and wondered how these things could ever have resembled choices worth making, how they had become reasonable decisions.
She sat down next to the bed and covered Hannah's hand with her own, feeling the warmth of her, the life in her. However she had come to be, this was her child. She could never give her up to a life of terror and pain. She would die first. She laid her head down upon Hannah's lap. She would kill them both first.
But before she did, she would take as many as possible of those who would force her to make such a horrendous decision with her, to Hell.
~*~
Part 16
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: I'm planning to hibernate for the rest of the weekend, now that my errands and housework are accomplished, so that I can really focus on finishing the last three parts of this story.
Daily posts can be read on my fic journal:
anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
When Hannah was settled in her bed watching cartoons with Mulder, Scully washed her hands again and returned her rings to their place. She smoothed her hair in the mirror and was not surprised to find Mulder regarding her with an expression so full of emotion that she'd need a year just to catalogue all the shades of it. What was clear was how very proud he was of her. She turned, and leant against the sink, gazing back at him. He pressed a kiss to Hannah's head and she nodded, picking up the tray that held blood and sputum to be cultured.
"I'll be back," she said to them both.
Hannah was glassy-eyed and mesmerized by the TV, but Mulder nodded. "We'll be here," he said.
She crossed the now quiet hallway without encountering any more of the Kurt Crawford clones, hesitating slightly as she crossed the threshold of the lab. What was it that they were working on here? She had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure if they were reflective of anything other than her own hope. At the far end of the long lab space, she could see several clones working silently. She moved into the room.
"Agent Scully?"
She turned and found the Kurt Crawford that had escorted them into the complex rising from a desk. She was grateful that although they were wearing lab coats, they were not wearing identical outfits. This Kurt Crawford appeared to be reading the disks that she and Mulder had brought. "Mr. Crawford," she answered.
"Please just call me Kurt," he said.
She nodded. "Do I address all of you as Kurt?"
"Yes," he said succinctly. "I'm sure it's very confusing to you, but we all know ourselves as Kurt."
"All right," she answered. "May I ask what you've learned from the data that Agent Mulder and I brought you?"
"Certainly," Kurt answered, "if you'll just accompany me to this hood so I can get these cultures growing, I'll be happy to answer your questions."
The curiousity overcame Scully at that point. "What exactly is it that you do here at Prometheus?"
"We look for answers," Kurt said. "Ways to help the humans."
"Hence the name," Scully said.
"Yes."
"Are you trying to create a vaccine?"
"Yes."
"So you need to make more alien-human hybrids to help you do that."
"No," Kurt said. "We don't make more. We just recreate ourselves."
"I'm not sure I understand the distinction," Scully said.
"There once was a Kurt Crawford," he answered. "Our original self."
"And he was taken," she answered, thinking of Samantha … and herself.
"He was given," Kurt answered. "as many others were given, by the senior members of the project. It was 1973; he was 10 years of age."
Scully could not school her expression fast enough to mask her distaste.
"You have met his maternal grandfather, I believe," Kurt continued, as if he had not seen. "He was an older gentleman, a British national."
Scully stared at Kurt for a long moment, seeing his features reassemble themselves in light of this news. "Yes," she said, "I met him at Agent Mulder's father's funeral, and …" she hesitated, not sure how much more she should reveal.
"And later, he gave Agent Mulder a version of the vaccine to give to you. We worked on that vaccine."
"Thank you," Scully answered.
"There were many of us involved in the necessary work," the clone said mildly.
"Nonetheless," Scully countered, "we're having this conversation because of that work."
"Without Agent Mulder finding you and administering the vaccine, this conversation would not be taking place," the clone rejoined.
"And as I've already thanked him for his effort, it's only appropriate that I thank you for yours," Scully volleyed back, and then changed the subject. "Have you refined the vaccine since then?"
"We are trying to create a preventative vaccine," Kurt offered. "The vaccine you received is little more than a fail-safe we have used to protect collaborative humans in the very early stages of infection."
She considered this statement. "You do not use it to protect yourselves?"
"We are expendable," the clone answered. "We occupy short lifespans and are easily re-created. Since we document what we've done meticulously, the learning curve for our new selves is relatively short."
"I'm sorry," Scully said, "but that seems completely barbaric to me."
"It is our choice," the clone answered. "In any case, the failsafe vaccine is ineffective for our altered physiology, and we have deemed it an inefficient use of our resources to spend time trying to protect ourselves. Besides, our short lifespan ensures that we would not be the target of colonization efforts, as it would have a negative effect on the health of the colonizing parasite."
Scully blanched at the notion of parasites but ignored it for the time being to return to a previous statement for her next question. "You say that you have made these choices freely, yet when Mulder met some of your predecessors, they were working for Dr. Scanlon."
"Yes," the clone answered, "although things were not perhaps exactly as they seemed." He closed the hood and removed the samples to another bench to grow.
She remained silent, hoping that the clone would continue.
"We have had to participate in experiments sanctioned by the main project in order to reproduce ourselves in great enough numbers so that we may do the work that we deem important. It has allowed us to gain access to necessary materials, knowledge and funding." He paused. "We do not trust other clones to participate in what we're trying to do, hence the necessity for secrecy. Our brothers are now a vast network. We collaborate, but we have sabotaged as well. We do what is necessary for the greater good of humanity." The clone spoke earnestly, but still without a pronounced affect.
Scully crossed her arms across her torso and rocked back and forth before she asked her next question. "Did you participate in the experiments that created Hannah?"
"No," he answered succinctly, then explained further when he saw that she wanted more information. "Dr. Scanlon has not allowed us near his projects since Agent Mulder first met some of us in Allentown. In his view, we are a corrupted line. Our original self's grandfather was able to convince the overseers of the project that the Kurt Crawford Agent Mulder met had been seduced by his ideas. Our work on the vaccine was too valuable to be abandoned, so we were not terminated as a line."
"What about the project that produced Emily?"
"Work that our forebears did on refining cloning methodologies was used in the formulation of the Emily line," the clone said, "but we were not directly involved."
"The Emily line?" Scully asked.
"The child that you met was not the only one," the clone said. "The typical presentation is groups of four. Mutations slip in when larger batches are created using the same materials."
"So Emily was a clone?" Scully felt quite nauseated by this conversation, but she wanted to continue it.
"Yes. She was essentially your clone."
"Essentially?"
"She was produced through a somatic cell nuclear transfer. Egg fusion was used but the nucleus of one of your ova was altered with alien material. However, it caused irrevocable damage to the genome, specifically the lymphatic system."
"And the purpose of this alteration was an attempt to make resistant alien human hybrids?"
"That has been the general purpose of the reproductive experiments for the past fifteen years."
Scully caught his distinction. "And what were the other purposes?"
The clone looked around the room where other Kurt Crawfords were working. "There was also the need to create a workforce."
'Drones,' Scully thought sadly. She was just opening her mouth to ask another question, when an alarm on the clone's watchband sounded, and was echoed elsewhere in the room. She looked down the end of the long room to see that most of the clones that had been there earlier were now gone.
"Agent Scully, we have a status meeting at this time," he said. "I can bring you data on what we know occurred as part of the reproductive experiments so far. As I said, we've not been involved in any way in the project of which the child in question is the result. Data on that project needs to be gleaned from the disk."
He began moving her toward the door. "You're free to look around the facility. I believe that breakfast has been brought into the child's room."
She stopped him in the corridor with a hand on his arm, looking over her shoulder to make sure that they were alone. "Just one more question, Kurt," she said firmly. "What happened to the original Kurt Crawford, the boy who was given to the project?"
For the first time, the clone seemed surprised at her question. "He did not survive the experimental process," he said simply, and almost as if he thought it a very silly question. "We have documentation of the process he underwent. It was more than twenty-five years ago -- the methodology was far more crude. The idea of parthenogenetic experimentation was in its infancy, as it were."
"I see," Scully said, forcing an air of calmness that she most certainly did not feel. "What about the other children who were given to the project?"
Kurt regarded her with drawn down brows. "I'm not sure what your question is."
"Did any of the other children that were given to the project survive?" she asked quietly.
"No," Kurt answered. "None of those given survived in their original form. I'm afraid that any others you have met were clones like myself, although some may have not realized it."
"I see," Scully said, in a whisper. God help her, she needed clarification. "So, Samantha Mulder?" She could not finish the question, but stared at the clone hoping he would answer her ellipsis nonetheless.
"Her original self expired in 1975," Kurt answered. "I can have that data brought to you as well."
Scully nodded. "Not today," she said in a ragged voice. "And please do not give that data to Agent Mulder."
"As you wish," the clone answered. "I really must go."
Scully nodded and watched blindly as the clone hurried down the hall. All these years, all this time, all the death and the suffering … this was the outcome she had always feared would come to pass, but being right about it gave her no satisfaction at all.
She had never had to look someone in the eye and break their heart before, not even a previous lover. In their work, it was usually Mulder who broke the bad news to the parents whose child had died; it had only been her responsibility once or twice, and it wasn't quite the same thing. She'd never loved any of those people, past lovers included, the way she loved Mulder.
She'd ached for the pain of bereft parents in a different way in the year since Emily, but this … she'd bleed for Mulder. For the first time, she felt the tiniest spark of empathy for Mulder's decision not to tell her about her ova because the desire to protect him from such sorrow was so overwhelming. But she knew it was not a secret that she could keep for long. Not now.
She turned and walked quietly to the door of Hannah's room, and then had to stop to hide the smile behind her hand, even as a tear spilled over her lower lid. Mulder and Hannah were both asleep on Hannah's bed, the television blaring uselessly above them, their breakfast trays untouched. She wiped away her tears and walked into Hannah's room. She found the spare blanket that she'd used to warm Hannah's arm and covered Mulder with it, then walked around the bed to look at her daughter's beautiful face. She thought again of the men who'd created this project -- of the sacrifices they had made of their children, both the given and the left behind, their wives, her own life. She pondered the enormity of what they had done and wondered how these things could ever have resembled choices worth making, how they had become reasonable decisions.
She sat down next to the bed and covered Hannah's hand with her own, feeling the warmth of her, the life in her. However she had come to be, this was her child. She could never give her up to a life of terror and pain. She would die first. She laid her head down upon Hannah's lap. She would kill them both first.
But before she did, she would take as many as possible of those who would force her to make such a horrendous decision with her, to Hell.
~*~
Part 16
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-06 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-06 07:02 pm (UTC)YAY that Scully finally acknowledged Hannah as her daughter!
"She could never give her up to a life of terror and pain. She would die first. She laid her head down upon Hannah's lap. She would kill them both first."
I must say, however, that these lines are quite ominous, and I am not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about how this story is going to end. But I will not give up reading it.
Jenka
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:33 pm (UTC)I hope you haven't given up on the story. What was done to Scully was horrific, and was never really dealt with on the show. In a large way, this story was my opportunity to address that. I'm glad you're enjoying the journey I've sent Scully on.