TITLE: "MULDERMASS" (An X-Files Christmas story) 
AUTHOR: "GenieVB" 
RATING: MulderTorture/Child Abuse. This is not 
a syrupy short. 
SPOILERS: Ice (sort of). 
THANK-YOU'S: This story is free for archiving 
anywhere with my full permission and 
gratitude. 
SUMMARY: A Mulder family Christmas. 
DISCLAIMER: The X-Files series, movie, characters, 
and related props: sugarcanes, mittens, popcorn 
and kittens are all the property of Chris Carter, 
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network. I 
don't want any credit, fame or fortune from X-Files, 
I only want to write about your show and characters 
to entertain myself and others.

******

"Muldermass" by GVB 

<<<<Once when I was eight we went to Uncle Samuel 
Mulder's for Christmas. 

Even God couldn't have created a man so unlike 
my father. 

When Dad's purple veined, angry white fists 
pounded I sometimes wondered who really had made 
*him*. 

Sam's house was a big, sweet-smelling warm place. 
It was like walking into a bakery. The smells that 
filled that kitchen would make any kid happy to
wipe his feet and wash behind the ears. 

Uncle always had something sugary golden in the 
oven ready for us and he did it all himself 'cause 
Aunty had died of cancer before I was born. Guess 
he liked to do things for us since now he had no 
one else to make happy. 

My sister was his favorite and he'd swing Sammy 
up and around and she'd squeal up there in his thick, 
farmers arms. He'd ruffle my hair cause Dad said I 
was too old for childish things like being held. 
"He's too old for that stuff, he's Eight." Dad'd say. 

Sammy'd get carried around a lot, she got to ride 
his horses and he'd lead them around with her tiny 
body perched way up on those powerful Shire whithers. 

"Hold on tight, honey, right here." Uncle would show 
her where to put her little fingers at the base of the 
shaggy mane, and she'd twist them in. I got to watch. 

Dad didn't like me doing things that were, he said, 
only for girls. 

"Horses are for work, not fun." I could always feel 
his eyes at my back making sure I stayed a man where 
ever we went. But I got to watch. 

Whenever Uncle's homemade wine distracted Dad long 
enough, I'd go exploring around Uncle's farm. He had
big horses and Holsteins, chickens, pigs. A few sheep.
He used the wool to weave really cool blankets that 
he'd sell at farmer's markets. 

I don't know why he ever showed them to Dad cause Dad
thought that was a strange thing for a farmer to do and 
just shrug his shoulders. Everybody was always trying to 
please Dad. 

I quit doing that so much when Samantha was born. Up 
until that time, I loved Dad and tried my best to be a 
good boy and eat all my vegetables, play baseball ( I 
got to be really good), not wet the bed and not bawl 
when the fists came down. 

When Samantha came along, I loved her too. Dad loved 
her even more and my beatings eased up a bit. My ears 
stopped ringing that year. 

In Samantha, Dad had found his angel child and loved
her without reservation. I'm not sure what I was to him
then but at least I didn't have to work so hard to avoid 
the lumps 'cause she was his tiny jewel and took up a lot 
of his time. He'd take her out on Saturdays in the car,

I don't know where they went. Those years I could stay 
out of his way for days at a time. I loved her for that. 

But sometimes he'd remember I was there. 

Uncle Sam would show me things whenever it was safe. 
Dad really liked his dandlylion wine and Uncle'd give 
him whole jugs of it. 

Uncle showed me the baby lambs and some kittens hidden 
behind the haybales and I'd go out there and cuddle them. 

"What are you doing in here, Fox?" 

Dad had a voice that killed softly. It had form like 
radiation had form, invisible but deadly when it found you. 

My stomach would roll sickeningly when he spoke in that 
tone, the one he used when he'd decided that I was being 
"bad". That Voice would come crawling over my flesh 
like a great mass of insects intent on their purpose, 
oblivious to the human beneath them. 

(I'd snuck out to the barn before dinner that night just 
for a minute). 

"Nuh-nothing, Dad." (I stuttered sometimes at that age,
when I was nervous, upset or scared). But he'd seen me 
holding the baby cat and now it was too late to try and 
hide it. 

"What did I tell you?" 

My mind would shift into overdrive yet spin in place. 
I try to think of all the things he had told me. So many
of them: Sit up straight, improve your grades, don't 
tease your sister, act your age, stop crying, don't 
be stupid, be a man... 

..never touch kittens. When had he said that? How come I 
forgot it? Why did I make him so mad? Why couldn't I make 
him love me? 

Dad grabbed my hand, the one holding the tiny fluffball.

"What did I tell you?! Uncle Sam would be very angry if
he knew you were screwing around out here! Didn't I tell 
you? Didn't I?!" 

He squeezed my hand, making it squeeze the kittens 
neck. 

"Dad!..." I tried to warn him that he was making me hurt 
the kitten but Dad's ears never worked when he was angry. 
All that anger made him deaf somehow. Blind too. 

To everything but me. 

"DA-AD!" I yelled and he squeezed harder. 

But he was telling me something. "Do you know what a 
bastard is, Fox? Hmm?!" 

"No." I'd sounded pathetic to my own ears but the kitten 
wasn't moving anymore and I didn't care. 

"It means something that has no-good breeding. It means 
something that comes from corruption. It means 
mongrel, tainted, unwanted. Just like this kitten. 
These bloody cats of your uncle's all get together and 
have babies and the babies are diseased and fucked up, 
so they don't matter. That's what a *bastard* is, you 
understand? It comes from bad stock!" 

"Yes." I said, still staring at the kitten who didn't 
breath or twitch, but I didn't know what he was talking 
about. 

He grabbed the dead baby out of my hand and threw it 
against the barn wall. It fell where it landed, it's head 
twisted around. A bit of blood stayed on the wall where it 
had hit. I threw up, some of it splashed Dad and he hit me. 
It was a good hit too, I didn't see it coming and it landed 
square on my left cheek. I fell back against the wall where 
the kitten lay crushed. But I felt too sick to mourn over it. 
My cheek burned hot. 

"One of these days, by god, you'll learn and so will she." 
I didn't know who he was talking about. 

Dad took my arm in one hand and scooped up the dead kiten 
in his other, "Come on." 

We buried the corpse out behind the barn, all the while 
Dad holding tight, so tight it hurt, onto my arm and saying 
"If you'd obeyed me, this would never have happened. Now this 
has to be our secret..." Painful squeeze. "..or your Uncle'll 
be really mad at you." 

I just didn't get it. I thought Uncle had showed me the 
kittens so I could play with them, but I was really dizzy and
my head hurt so it didn't matter. 

Dad made me rinse my mouth out in the horse trough. He 
wiped my vomit off his pants with a handfull of straw. Patted 
my head. 

"There's a good boy."

I nodded, my intentions to be just that, and we went back to 
the house because it was supper time. 

"He fell in the barn." Dad said when Uncle showed concern 
about my bright red cheek. 

Mom was smoking a cigarette and drinking tea and didn't look 
at me. Everyone became invisible when Dad spoke. 

Dinner was good with home baked buns and farm butter. I 
really liked Uncle's place. 

That evening, we all sat around the livingroom, Sammy and 
I under the tree that Uncle had chopped and decorated himself. 
He had us stringing different coloured popcorns and we added 
those to it. The little blinking yellow and green lights were 
like cats eyes. I had a pounding headache but I pretended to be 
glad. I'd become really good at that, putting on the face that 
said "I love you Mom and Dad". Sometimes it worked and I got 
loved back. 

The next morning I got a slew of presents. So did Sammy. 
Always, Dad gave tons of gifts. He'd hand them to each of us 
one and a time and smile indulgently when we'd tear into them, 
commenting "kids!" to the other watching grownups. 

Lots of presents at Christmas and birthdays and Easter. Even
at Halloween, we'd get stuff. Dad liked to give things Mom had 
once said. 

I opened mine a bit slower than Sammy and Dad'd comment about 
not being able to keep up with her and laugh at my clumsy 
fingers as my fuzzy eyes tried to find the tape and ribbons. Mom 
said I needed glasses. But I like to open things slowly. It was 
funner. It lasted longer that way. 

I got books and clothes and games. A microscope once. 

Sammy got girl stuff, dolls and pretend make-up and stuffed 
toys. 

After we were done and had put all the wrappings and ribbons 
in the garbage, Mom kissed us both on the cheek. Dad hugged 
Samantha and gave me another little pat on the back. 

That day Sammy and I made snowmen and ran around a lot. Big 
turkey dinner later and all the trimmings. 

We'd be sent off to bed and the adults would stay up, talking 
about stuff that happened before I was born. Dad talked mostly,
about his work and people he knew, about vacations and friends he 
water-skied with. Mom was quiet. Sometimes I'd listen. 

Other times Sammy came to my bed and curled up beside me. 
She'd even rub my sore spots, knowing somehow when the red mark 
or the bruise was the result of my own big feet tripping over 
something or if it had gotten there by the other method. She 
knew and she would rub it or just hug me close and go to sleep. 

She always waited, though, until she could hear Dad snoring 
because if he'd ever caught her in bed with me, she must
have understood how much worse it would go for me than her. 

Dad would think the worst of me. Dad would think I was 
touching her where I shouldn't and he would have punched 
me and punched me until I learned better. 

Sammy understood these things without me telling her, 
without me ever mentioning Dad's hurting ways. She knew and 
never said anything. But she'd hug me close and those nights 
I'd sleep better. 

God, I miss her. 

I used to hate my father when he beat me. Then I hated him
for loving Sam more than me. Then, when she was gone, I hated 
him for his silence. 

Dad cried a lot after Sam was gone. Sometimes he'd come to 
my bedroom and hold me and cry. I would bite my lip and try 
not to. Sometimes he would get drunk, beat the shit out of me 
and then hold me. I'd cry but it was because Sammy wasn't there 
for the sore spots anymore. 

When I left home for England, somewhere along the line I 
stopped hating Dad. We never spoke, but I stopped hating him. 
Now he's dead and I don't know anymore. I didn't get to 
attend his funeral. I think the only mourning I did was the 
night someone shot him through the head and he died in my 
arms....>>>> 

Mulder's hands shook and his fingers hovered above the keys. 

Then moved a hand to the little white mechanical mouse, 
watching the cursor snake up to "File" to save the document. 

It was the first time he had written or spoken about his 
fathers death outside the official investigation, but his index
finger wouldn't obey and the tears started flowing despite his 
best efforts to hold them back. 

He huddled over the coffee stained keyboard and wept, shoulders
shaking but no arms, not even his own, holding him. From outside,
from a street observers point of view out in the chilly air, he
might have been asleep. 

But for that night, Mulder had never wept over his murdered
father. And he didn't want to cry now. Not for a man who
had beat and humiliated his male child for an undisclosed 
crime. 

Not for a man who had allowed his daughter to be taken.
Who had actually made a choice and let the girl-angel-child 
go, over him, the male-unwanted. 

Not cry for a man who had never taken the time to 
learn what kind of a man his son had become. Which son
on the evening of his fathers first tender words offered
to him in years was, due to an assassin's bullet, denied 
hearing any more forever. 

So much lost. The opportunity to really learn who his 
father had been, who he, the son, was and what they might 
have shared from that night on. All destroyed because of 
a dirty killer. 

He cried until his nostrils clogged and he couldn't breath 
so then stopped. 

Fox Mulder wiped his eyes and shook his head to rid himself 
of the image of blood on tile and words that passed each day
through his memory: "Forgive me." 

He typed. 

<<I don't know if I do. I don't know if I can. I'm not even 
sure what I'm suppose to have forgiven him for. 

I fucking hate Christmas.>>>

Agent Mulder re-read what he'd just written. Used his 
mouse to highlight the entire document and hit "Delete". 

""Personal Journal" bullshit." Mulder muttered aloud and sat 
back. He didn't give a fuck what the books or his therapist 
said - writing it down didn't get rid of it. He still couldn't 
keep his pizza down during the holidays. 

He knew that wasn't the objective. 

"The objective is to admit the abuse and get beyond the 
guilt and blame and anger." Doc had said. 

But it hadn't been just abuse, it - the beatings, Sam's 
abduction, Dad's tears, Mom's silence and pill-popping - had 
become a deep, putrifying family secret that had invaded and 
destroyed all their lives and all for the good of "National 
Security" or something as equally opaque. 

Mulder could hear the therapist's soothing voice in his head. 
"If you don't find constructive ways to cope with what happened 
to you, one day it's going to erupt." 

Meaning he, Agent Mulder, was going to react badly one day 
on a case and maybe kill someone and his career would be over. 

Mulder sniffed, punched in a phone number. Wiped his nose on 
his shirt sleeve. 

"Hello?" Friendly female voice. 

"Scully?" He was suprised to find her home. It was the late 
afternoon of Christmas eve'. "How come you're home?" Scully 
always went to her mothers this time of year. 

"How'd you know I was?' She asked just as suprised by the 
call. 

"I didn't. I took a chance." 

Scully knew him, her partner of five years. She knew him 
better than anyone had ever known him. Except maybe for Sammy. 

"I thought I might just hang around home this year. I just 
don't feel like putting on the face, you know?" She explained. 

Yeah, he did. "Everything all right?" Scully and her family 
were pretty close. 

"Oh, yeah, but sometimes, Christmas with the clan just isn't 
what I feel like doing, as strange as that sounds. I mean, not 
tonight. I am going home for the twenty-fifth though."

Tomorrow. "It's not strange. Not at all. Listen I have an idea. 
Wuh-wuh-would you like to, muh-maybe, go for a walk or something? 
Maybe to the park? Fresh snow, make some angels? Well, you make 
angels, I'll make devils." 

"Angel making? You're weird, Mulder." She laughed but had heard 
the stutter and understood its meaning. When it issued from the
mouth of her partner, it was a warning signal. She hadn't worked
with him for five years and not come to learn something of the
man; when he needed to be left alone for example and, like now, 
when he needed to not be. 

Besides, the only-kids-allowed idea of fun out in the snow 
appealed to her. 

"Guilty. So?" He sounded appologetic and a bit anxious. She was 
glad she'd been home. 

"Yeah, that sounds about my speed this year. But you have to buy 
me a hot chocolate somewhere after." 

"Do you know how hard it is to find any place open on Christmas 
eve'?" 

"Good challenge for you, G-Man. When are you picking me up?" 

"I'm leaving now." 

"K. Wear your MIT-te-n-n-s-s." She sang-spoke the last word. 

He smiled into the phone as she hung up. She'd probably been 
dying for just the right time to use that back on him. 

Christmas carols drifted over him from the radio as he put the 
phone down... 

"...L-a-a-t-er o-o-o-o-n-n, we'll conspi-i-e-e-r-r...."


*End* 
GenieVB