TITLE: The Only Truth That Remains AUTHOR: memories_child RATING: R CHARACTER/PAIRING: Teena Mulder WORD COUNT: 2206 DISCLAIMER: The X Files and all its characters belong to The Syndicate Chris Carter and co. No infringement is intended. Please don’t abduct/sue me. A/N: This was written for the episode Demons. I had a shortish drabble thingy that I wanted to make longer and it fit in perfectly with this episode, and this fic. More notes at the end of the fic, so I don't spoil it. Huge thanks to idella and hummingfly67 for the beta. She is in the kitchen, bent over the sink, when she hears the children’s cries of ‘Uncle Carl’. She hears Bill muttering a hello in the hallway, the closing of the door, the slap of the children’s feet on the mahogany floor. She knows she should go out, greet their guest, offer tea – or something stronger. But she stays at the sink, watching the bubbles pop and fade as she mechanically washes the dishes. “Teena, Carl’s here. Can you bring some glasses into the study?” She knows Bill won’t stay long enough to see her nod, but she nods nonetheless and dries her hands. Bill isn’t in the study when she enters with the glasses and a bottle of port. Carl stands at the window, watching the light dappling the lawn, while Fox and Samantha stand at his side. They point out the tree house they made, the fort amid the rockery, small hands tugging at his jacket sleeves. He starts when she places the glasses on the desk, the chink of cut glass loud in the room, and turns, clearing his throat. “Go on, kids. I need to speak to your mom.” Fox and Samantha run out of the room and he turns to her. She refuses to meet his eyes. “Teena.” “Carl.” She hasn’t spoken to him in weeks. Hasn’t spoken to him since the afternoon they spent on the boat, stealing glances and fleeting touches while the children played in the water. Bill didn’t suspect. “How are you?” She knows he doesn’t expect an answer. Her inability to look at him is answer enough. She told him that night that it had to end, that there was too much at stake, and she avoided his eyes as she said it. She had made love to Bill, later, trying to force the despair in his voice out of her mind. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” “You have to stop thinking about me.” His strong hand grips the back of her neck and there, involuntary, unintentional, is the heat that rises from her stomach at his touch. He pushes her backwards until her hip hits the sharp corner of the antique desk that Bill pays the bills on. He first kissed her here, her back ramrod straight against the smooth oak. He first traced the line of her collarbone here, watching the autumn leaves fall through the leaded window. He first undressed her here, as Bill worked another long day and the snow piled high in the yard. His touch was electric on her neck and she curved into him like a bow; future, husband, life – forgotten. She can smell the nicotine on his fingers that curl around her throat; see the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallows the air that seems suddenly too thick, too cloying. She was taut and strung-out as he knelt before her and rolled her pantyhose over the brow of her knee, past the curve of her ankle. He hitched her skirt above her waist, his fingers lingering on her skin like a musician's. She wouldn’t look at him, at first, wouldn’t look at him as he kissed a path up her legs. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says and the words whisper through the air like a snake. “You’ve never known what I’m thinking,” she replies, and she wonders if he hears the truth falter in her throat. Wonders if he knows she’s lying. She could taste the desire in the air as his tongue flickered higher and higher over the expanse of her thigh. She curled her fingers in his hair when his tongue first flickered into her. He breathed her in, running his tongue along the length of her before lapping at her with smooth, strong strokes. She keened as he sucked at her, a soft sound in the back of her throat, and she spread her legs wider, her hips thrusting with the rhythm of him. Her fingers curled in his hair and she felt the blood pounding through her, pulling at her like the moon and the sea. “Does Bill know what happened on this desk?” He grasped at her like a drowning man, drawing her to the floor to cover her mouth with his. She tasted herself on his tongue as she fumbled with the button on his pants. She was wet and hot as he slid into her, thrusting into her on a wooden floor in a house that had lost everything. She didn’t realise the tears falling on her cheeks were hers. “You called his name when you came.” “That was a long time ago.” “Not nearly long enough.” His fingers are soft and warm at her throat. When the phone rang her eyes were dry, her skirt smoothed in place, her lips a taut smile. He stood by the window and watched her reflection as she wrung the cord between her fingers, whispered to Bill with a mouth that had fastened on his like a lifebelt. “Does Bill know that he’s mine? Is that why he chose Samantha, to punish you?" “He doesn’t know anything. And he wouldn't do that to her." "That's how his mind works, Teena. He's not the man you think he is." "If he knew he'd choose Fox." "If he knew he'd choose Samantha. He'd let them take her so that every day you'd be faced with the consequence of your actions. The consequence of loving me." "I don't love you." The way he looks at her tells her he knows otherwise. "And I won’t let her go.” “You don’t have a choice. You gave that up when you refused to decide between them.” His fingers caress the skin on her neck and she can smell the nicotine on his breath as he leans towards her. “The choice has been made, Teena. Samantha goes.” She sees a fluttering movement out of the corner of her eye and turns her head. Fox hides behind the doorjamb, watching. She doesn’t know how long he’s been there. “Go out and play, Fox.” Carl’s lips narrow as turns and strides to the door, eyes dead and cold. She knows then he’s not the man that he was. The man that she fell in love with. “You’re a little spy,” he mutters. “Just like your old man.” ‘No, he’s not,’ she wants to say.‘He’s just a little boy.’ But she stands there, silent, as he closes the door in Fox’s face. * * * * The arguments rage into the night, well past the children’s bedtimes. She takes Samantha up at 8.30, Fox an hour later. Sam wants to know why Daddy and Uncle Carl are arguing. She mollifies her with a fairytale, an extra long cuddle and a promise of ice cream tomorrow. “It’s work, honey. Nothing for you to worry about.” Fox is harder to appease. He barely says goodnight to his father or Carl, fixes her with a hard stare before turning her back on her to climb the stairs. “I can go to bed on my own now, Mom. I’m twelve, remember.” “But you’re still my little boy, Fox,” she whispers to his retreating back. When she’s sure the children are asleep she sinks to her knees in the bedroom she shares with Bill. A shard of moonlight slices through the window, dividing the room into white and black. She sits in the shadows. She isn’t sure at what point lust turned into love. At what point the first person she thought of calling when something went wrong was him, not Bill. It happened slowly, the way these things do. Innocuous, at first; his touch on her shoulder when Bill stormed off after a fight. His glances accidental, harmless. Bill didn’t suspect. She can hear their voices downstairs, muffled, but still harsh, angry. Bill will be stubborn, unyielding; he will stand in the middle of the room and tick the points he makes off on his fingers. Carl will be passionate, persuasive.; he will throw his arms in the air and pace the room, grinding his beliefs into the grain of the wooden floor. She’s heard their arguments each a hundred times, been torn between the two; first convinced by Bill, lying side by side in the bed they share, then convinced by Carl, curled in his arms in his small Maryland bed. She doesn’t know any longer who she believes. She’s heard their arguments a hundred times and she knows that neither will give in. He didn’t suspect when she came home late either. “PTA,” she said. “We were talking about bake sales, raising money for the new gym.” She shrugged out of her coat, hung her bag by the door. “I lost track of the time,” she threw over her shoulder as she headed into the bathroom to scrub his scent off her with lily soap. She wonders if Carl, downstairs, is trying to persuade Bill to change his mind, to let them take Fox instead of Samantha. Bill’s mind is made up, she knows, but if anyone can persuade him Carl will, and she knows he thinks his boy will be better for the cause. Made of stronger stuff. Either way she will suffer: if Samantha goes she will be forever reminded of her indiscretions; if Fox goes she will lose the only part of Carl she can hold onto. They met in secret, after fictional library board meetings, parent-teacher evenings at the children’s schools. They skulked in the shadows, the brush of his fingers on her throat an electric flame. It was dangerous, she knew. There were too many risks, too much at stake. But when Bill turned his back on her after they made love she thought of him – of his gentle touch, his soulful eyes. The moonlight travels the bedroom floor, creeping along her foot, up her leg; bringing her out of the darkness. When she finally comes downstairs the men are in the living room, a united front sitting on the settee opposite her. She knows that, either way, she’s lost. “She’s my baby,” she pleads, holding onto Bill’s shirt. “Don’t take her from me.” “The decision has been made.” He doesn’t look at her as he turns away. “No! Not Samantha!” Carl grips her arms as she breaks down, salty tears falling onto the hard wood floor. She isn’t sure at what point lust turned into love, but it happened. She isn’t sure at what point love turned into hate, but it happened. It’s too late now for her to do anything to change it. * * * * The dawn sky, when she wakes, is the color of the end of the world. It takes her a minute, lying in bed, to remember where she is and who she is and why she’s lying alone in a bed that, until yesterday, she shared with her husband. The realization, when it hits her, makes her stomach curl, her heart falter, falter, falter, in her chest. She places a hand over her mouth to stifle the moan that rises somewhere in the depths of her ribcage and her eyes frantically scan the room as she prays that she is wrong. The house is quiet. The cacophony that she has come to expect from the TV while the children watch their cartoons isn’t there, has been replaced by silence. She can’t bring herself to rise from the bed, to trace the well worn paths through the house – first to her bedroom, then his, then the kitchen, the play room, the garden. She can’t bring herself to check the empty rooms, the barren hallways, searching for something she knows isn’t there. She buries her face in her pillow, allows the tears to course down her cheeks until, at last, exhausted by grief, she sleeps. She dreams of Samantha, brown haired and blue eyed, building sandcastles on the beach. She dreams of the day she was born, and the way that Bill looked at her, wearing his heart on his sleeve. She dreams of the night he asked her to choose, and the choice she couldn’t make. When she wakes for the second time, on the morning that she comes to remember as the day her world fell apart, Fox is standing above the bed. She doesn’t know how long he has been there, as she blinks at him with red rimmed eyes. “She’s not here, Mom.” He says and his voice nearly breaks her heart. “I looked all over for her, but she’s not here. It’s not funny anymore. She’s hiding somewhere and I can’t find her and it’s not funny anymore.” She pulls herself to an upright position and wraps her arms around the boy. “She’s not hiding Fox. Remember. She was - She was taken. Last night.” "No." The boy stares at her. "I'm sorry" "There - there was a light...." "She was taken. You have to believe me, Fox." "I don't want to." She stares out of the window, thinking of the skeleton trees against the sky, the birds borne by the wind, the first flakes of snow falling to the hard ground; thinking of nothing, as her son breaks down in her arms. _______________ Author's Notes: I wanted to explore Teena Mulder and Cancer Man's background in writing this. The episode shows us so much without really telling us very much at all and it just fired my imagination. I thought I'd explain a bit about why I wrote what I did here, and would love to hear your thoughts too. Trying to work out the timeline and location of Samantha's abduction was...interesting! I don't think the scenes we see in Demons necessarily happened the night of Samantha's abduction, but I think it was close. Hopefully what I've done here is ambiguous enough to be read either way, should you want to. I don't know if I believe what I've written about the potential reasons for Samantha's abduction, or the way that Teena feels about it, but I think it's plausible and interesting. I certainly enjoyed writing it. It made sense to me that if Bill Mulder knew about Teena's relationship with CSM he'd choose Samantha to be taken as some perverse way of getting his revenge on Teena, and that's kind of what I wanted to look at here. I don't think Bill did know; nothing we see in the series suggests that, so Samantha being taken was simply the choice that was made, there was nothing else to read into it. I also wanted to kinda take a look at the relationship Bill and CSM had in this fic, though having it part of the background more than the central atoryline. I find it really interesting to think about CSM must have felt, knowing he was sleeping with Bill's wife, had fathered what Bill thought was his son, and how that would have manifested in CSM's attitude to Bill. In Mulder's scene with Teena at the I wanted to pick up on the fact that, as a 12 year old, he might try to convince himself that Samantha's hiding somewhere because he doesn't want to face up to the reality of what's actually happened to her. I also felt it linked in nicely with the regression hypnosis we discover Mulder had to discover what happened that night. While he wouldn't really believe that Samantha was hiding, I do think it's possible he would have created some other story - either because he wanted to forget the fear he had that night, or because he felt guilty for not being able to save her. So that's a bit behind my writing of this. I've not written author's notes as long as these before, so I hope you found it interesting!