"The Buried Life" part 1 of 1

by Pellinor

*****

RATING: PG

CLASSIFICATION: SA

SUMMARY: Elizabeth Mulder has withdrawn from the world, forgotten 
how to love. As danger reaches out for her son, can she bring 
herself to make contact?
____

DISCLAIMER: None of these people are mine. They belong to Chris 
Carter, 1013, or Fox, and I use them without permission and 
without profit.

NOTES: This story is a companion piece to "The Hills and the 
Sea." These two stories are intended to be read together, in 
either order. Fuller notes follow at the end of the other one.

******

She felt time like a winding sheet, a shroud. As each year rolled 
into another barren November, the sheet jerked tighter round her 
heart, painful, smothering. Enclosed in a life that was not life, 
she drifted. She was a thing apart. 

She was not alive. Not really.

"Mrs Mulder?" A young face, pinched and nervous, and a uniform 
still new. "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Your 
husband...." A cough. "He's been shot. He's.... There was nothing 
anyone could do."

The years wrapped her tight. It was cold there, and lonely, but 
it was what she knew, and there was comfort in that, of a sort. 
She was touched by so little. Living beings moved like shadows on 
the edge of a dream, intangible and remote.  She did not reach 
out to them, knowing that if she touched them they would flicker 
into life, blaze for such a brief moment, then dissipate into 
nothingness. 

"Ah." She had moved her hand to her mouth, then, three years ago. 
The whiteness of the sheet had enclosed her for so long. She knew 
what words she had to say - how to assume the image of the truly 
living. "Bill is dead? How.... terrible." 

The officer's eyes had flickered.

The shroud wrapped her tight. It was cold there, and lonely - so 
lonely. So lonely that she ached, sometimes, with the pain of it, 
and the knowledge that, once, she had been happy. 

"I love you, Mommy." Sticky kisses and the smiling eyes of her 
baby, too young, too innocent, to be touched by the slow poison 
that came to all of them in the smell of cigarette smoke. "I love 
you...."

"Mrs Mulder?" She had been safe behind her shroud, and the 
officer had been nothing. "I'm afraid I have to ask you if you've 
heard from your son recently."

She had laughed at that, then - laughed, as the officer's shocked 
face had wavered on the fringes of reality. "Oh, no." The 
laughter had faded, and she had found that it hadn't been 
laughter, after all. "I haven't heard from Fox. I never hear from 
Fox."

The fibres of the sheet had strained, nearly ripped through. 

There was a worm in the shroud, and the worm had many voices, but 
one, in particular, most of all.

*****

Knocking. The voice was a harsh knocking - hands that ripped at 
the shroud and tore it away without mercy. 

She sighed, let the curtain fall across the rain-darkened night. 
Soft cream chintz, silken and pure. It couldn't shut out the 
noise.

"Mom!"

She walked to the door, took a deep breath, and opened the door. 
A drop of rain stained the carpet dark, tainting it. Dark on 
whiteness, and the cancerous growth that was memory, staining her 
colourless existence.

"Mom! Are you okay?" He was twitchy, glancing over his shoulder 
into the night. His hand shook on his gun. "They said.... They 
haven't...?"

"Fox."

Nothing else. Her heart was beating fast. His eyes would reach 
into her existence, shattering it. They always did. He was the 
past she was done with, and regrets that made her eyes ache with 
tears. He was alive and Samantha was....

She swallowed. She had hated him, sometimes.

"Mom." His head was high, one hand on the door frame. His eyes 
were fire, and fiercely protective. "Let me in. I.... I'll make 
sure nothing happens to you."

Did you say that to Samantha, before? Her silent words spoke with 
the voice of her husband. She said nothing.

"Please, Mom." Desperate eyes in a pale face. Water streamed down 
his cheeks and beaded on his coat. 

She sighed, gathering in the unravelled threads, rebuilding her 
shroud. "If you want to, Fox, but put away that gun. Nothing's 
wrong. You shouldn't have come."

He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again they were 
different, more guarded. It was like looking into the mirror. Did 
he see it as a shroud, too, or as walls of crumbling brick, or as 
a shell, life-giving, but so fragile? 

Pain ripped through her soul. His eyes reflected more than she 
would let herself see. She wouldn't look at him again.

*****

She half-closed her eyes, feeling the cold glass beneath her 
fingers. There was a smile beneath the glass - a warm smile and 
large dark eyes and soft skin that she had delighted in, once. 
Thirty-four long years and the cold barrier of glass kept her 
forever apart.

She blinked hard.

The carpet whispered, and his soft tread made her  gasp, clasp 
her hand to her mouth.  Her heart was loud in her ears. It had 
been a personal moment, remembering things best forgotten, and 
not for the eyes of a stranger.

"Mom?" His lips curved, faltered. The ghost of a smile.

"I was just getting a towel." Pull, tug, slam, her movements 
sharp. "Your hair is soaking wet."

"You've got...." His voice was wondering. His eyes moved 
hungrily, scanning the surfaces in her bedroom, finding them 
empty. "The only one....." He licked his lips, his voice barely 
audible. "Why?"

Her hand shook. The photograph slipped from her grip and 
shattered. Glass fragments on his four-year-old face, but no 
blood.

*****

She shut her eyes, her fingers clenched tightly on the picture. 
The shroud was ripped to shreds, now, and his eyes lashed at her 
soul. 

The past spoke to her, and she gritted her teeth, accepting it.

"Mom. I won." Breathless, his eyes shining with pride. "I was the 
youngest there, but I won." Then faltering, his voice sinking. 
She hadn't looked at his face, but could see his expression 
behind her closed lids. "I told you? You remember?"

Her nails had dug into her hands, red on her palms, but she had 
said nothing. The first thread had been woven.

"I.... I fell off my bike, Mom." His voice had been taut. She had 
glanced quickly at him, seeing him as a dark statue against the 
light, one bloody hand holding onto the door, then had glanced 
away, as if burnt. "I'll be okay, but.... " He had swallowed. 
"Mom?" 

Two threads, three, had tightened on her heart. It had hurt, 
then. It had hurt so much, but still she had said nothing. Her 
life, her sanity, had depended on it. She had been so sure it 
would be him.

"I'm okay, Mom." His words had been slurred through bloody lips. 
"It was just a.... a boy. He was jealous. It was nothing. It's 
just.... It's nothing, Mom. Nothing...."

Rock, rocking in the chair, to and fro, every rocking weaving a 
fresh thread to her shroud.  She had clutched a photograph then, 
too, willing herself to fall into it, to forget everything that 
was not her daughter. Soon. It was coming soon.

"Mom?" Samantha. She had lifted her head slowly, feeling the very 
air resist. Even then, it had been hard to pull back into life. 
"Mom? Don't tell Dad, but Fox is crying."

"Oh." A wary sigh. She had held the arms of the chair, holding 
herself still.

"He won't tell me..." Her brow had been furrowed, her eyes 
shining with impotent tears. "Go to him, Mommy. Please."

"No!" Sharp, desperate.

Samantha had winced as if slapped, and she had reached for her, 
holding her, stroking her hair, and crooning, crooning.... 

"No, Sammie. It's okay. He'll be okay. He's nearly grown up now. 
He needs to learn.... We need to learn.... Without him.... It 
will hurt less, then...."

Samantha had whimpered, squirmed. "Mom! You're.... you're 
_hurting_ me. You're holding me too tight.... Please...."

Her tears had splashed onto her daughter's hair.

*****

"I didn't choose, Fox. He chose. It was him. I... I didn't want 
to lose either of you."

Her hand trembled, caressing the air so close to his face, but 
not touching, never touching. His breathing was deep, his rest 
troubled, but he didn't awaken. Her words to him were but the 
silent words of the mind, mouthed but never uttered.

"I was so sure it would be you. You could do no right in his 
eyes, that summer, thinking for yourself, outstripping him. I was 
so sure it would be you."

His eyelids flickered, then shut again. His head lolled onto the 
back of the chair, and she knew she should waken him, move him to 
a bed, but she didn't dare. She was naked before him, and 
defenceless. She needed time before she could face him - time to 
bury herself again.

"I couldn't bear to lose you, Fox. I had to push away. I _had_ 
to. I had to forget that I had a son. It was the only way it 
would be bearable, when.... when they took you. I had to think of 
you as already gone."

He moaned in his sleep, and shivered. She went for a blanket, and 
softly, hesitantly, placed it over his cold body, his damp 
clothes. 

"I withdrew from you, Fox. I withdrew from Bill, hating him for 
doing this to us. I withdrew from a world that let these things 
happen. I.... withdrew. Only Samantha was real, and...."

Tears trickled down her cheeks. It felt.... human. Wrapped in the 
shroud, she never wept. There, nothing could touch her.

It was not life.

*****

She had sparked only once, truly lived only once, flashing into a 
fire of anger that had echoed in the empty dark rooms of a house 
without children, without joy.

"Why?" Her voice like ice, her eyes like fire. "Why her? Is this 
some male thing, that you need a male heir to inherit your....?" 
She'd slapped him suddenly, knowing even then that this was 
_everything_. Any anger not expressed now would fester, unable to 
be expressed. "God! If you see him as your _heir_, then he's no 
son of mine."

He had opened his mouth, then shut it again, offering no defence. 
His fingers had closed on her wrist, but his eyes had been.... 
She had wrenched her glance away, refusing to look, to 
understand. She had needed someone to hate.

"Or is this revenge for.... for _that_?" She had focused on one 
of his buttons, concentrating all her hatred on that, refusing to 
look at his face. He was an object to her, now. "You knew I 
wanted to keep her, so you gave her away?"

And he had spoken at last, his voice sounding as from a great 
distance, and not like him at all. "I didn't have a favourite, 
then. I didn't want to...." He had swallowed hard, and when he'd 
spoken again, his voice had been level, tight. "They chose."

"You let them." Every word like a dagger. "You didn't stop them. 
Are you a man?"

"Fox didn't stop them. Fox ran away in his own mind, forgetting 
it." Almost chanted, in the voice of an automaton, as if 
convincing himself to believe it. "He's nearly a man."

"Don't you try to transfer the guilt, Bill Mulder." She had been 
steel, then, the fire gathered inside.  "You didn't stop them. 
You let them choose. I will never forgive you for it. Never."

"_You_ let _me_ choose." Quiet. Almost a whisper. "But it's over. 
We will never speak of this again."

*****

"How could you know, Fox? How could you know?"

Her eyes were aching with tears, and her hand.... Resting on his 
shoulder, her hand looked so _old_. A lifetime had passed her by, 
not touching her.

"When you came to me, racked with tears, all those times...."

Memory flashed, raising fresh tears. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so 
sorry. I.... I lost her. I'll look for her, Mom. I promise. I'm 
sorry." The cracked voice of a boy scarcely able to stand. He had 
lost so much weight and his eyes had been grey-lined with 
sleeplessness. 

She had winced at the sight of him, moaned, burying her face in 
her hands.

"How could you know, Fox?" Warm, now, and sleeping beneath her 
touch. Alive. "Just seeing you hurt me so much, and hearing you. 
You weren't Samantha. I'd forced myself to push you out of my 
life, and then.... then you were still there, and she was gone. 
I'd pushed you out, and Bill. She was all I had left. She was my 
life."

The images pulsed, over and over. Cruel painful images of his 
childish face coming to her again and again, fading a little 
every time. She sighed, trembled.

"Oh, Fox. You tried so hard. You thought I hated you crying, so 
you learnt how not to cry. You thought I hated you not 
remembering, so you tried so hard to remember until the 
exhaustion nearly killed you." His face blurred and she leant 
closer, trying to recapture his image. "How could you know that I 
hated you for living? How can anyone expect that of a mother?"

He moaned, and she snatched her hand away as if burnt, her heart 
sounding loud in her ears. She wiped her hand over her face, and 
took deep breaths, desperately pulling the ragged threads around 
her life.

He was waking up. To say the words aloud would choke her.
 
*****

The knocking was a relief, a rescue. Half-asleep, his naked need 
shone in his eyes as clear as words, and she ached with the guilt 
of what he must never know.

Knocking....

His raised his head slowly, blinking. His hand moved sluggishly. 
"Gun?" His voice was a croak. "Need gun. Protect you, Mom."

She turned her back, silent, unable to look at him. It was more 
than she could bear, to see what he had become - what she had 
made him. Her feet padded on the carpet, brisk and controlled. 
She sighed when she was away from him, in the cool of the 
hallway, peering through the glass into the darkness.

"Mrs Mulder?" The woman's white face was tense. "Is M.... Is your 
son here?"

She tightened her grip on the door, her fingers white. His 
partner would retrieve him, take him away, and her life would 
resume its half existence in the safety that was her shroud. She 
had expected to feel relief. Why, then, did she ache with regret?

She swallowed. "Yes. Come in, Agent Scully."

Footsteps on the carpet, hurried. She frowned, seeing the dark 
wet drips on the whiteness, and the invasion of strangers into 
her calm dead life.

"Mulder?" The woman's voice was soft, compassionate, allowing no 
room for others. "It's okay. They've.... Oh, Mulder. You're hurt. 
Your ribs.... Let me see."

She brought her hand to her mouth, pressing it into her lips, as 
her son's partner leant over him, enclosing him with her concern. 
She narrowed her eyes, feeling a sudden flash of resentment, 
almost hatred, at the life he was ripping apart, again.

"You didn't tell me, Fox." She was like steel. "Why didn't you 
tell me?"

The world pulsed in her ears. Soft words murmured beyond her 
hearing as Fox and his partner talked, excluding her. 

"Fox!" She was peremptory, echoing her husband's sharp command. 
"Why didn't you tell me?"

Agent Scully whirled round, her eyes fiery. "He shouldn't have 
_had_ to...."

"It's okay, Scully." Fox placed a hand on her wrist, stilling 
her. His voice was a cracked whisper, the pain clear on his face, 
now. "I'm okay, Mom." He didn't look at her. "There's no need to 
worry."

"Why didn't you tell me, Fox?" She stepped forward, her face a 
mask of anger, so difficult to maintain. "Just like your father, 
having to be a man, pretending to be brave. How I hated that." 

He looked at her for just a second, but it was all she needed to 
know. Cold horror filled her. She had never wanted to know this. 

"Did you think I wouldn't care, Fox? Was that it?" She faltered, 
then recovered. Talking to him was strange, but striking out with 
anger was an old habit. "I'm your mother. Do you have any idea 
how that makes me feel? How can you _do_ this to me, Fox."

And then she turned away.

She had never wanted to know this, but perhaps she always had.

*****

His eyes....

At first, his eyes had made her hate him for not being Samantha, 
for being the one who remained with her, unwanted.

Months passed, and years.... Time changes us in different ways. 
Resentment can solidify, become immutable stone, or it can fade 
away and become but a memory.

Months passed, and years.....

And then his eyes had made her hate _herself_, for doing this to 
him, for pushing him away, for convincing herself that he was not 
loved when she had loved him intensely, once. 

Her arms had ached for him so often. His beautiful hurt eyes, 
begging her to take him in her arms and hold him until his hurt 
eased, until his arms eased her hurt.  

But coldness had become a habit, impossible to break, and guilt 
was a pain even more intense than loss. Nothing touched her. 
Nothing moved on. The grief for her daughter was a stone, 
impossible to erode. If she let herself mourn what she had done 
to the child that remained.... It would have been more than she 
could have borne. Grief had nearly broken her. Guilt would 
destroy her.

He had stopped trying, one icy morning. He had pulled himself 
away from her, cut himself off. He had stopped looking for her 
love and she had sighed with relief that the pain of rejecting 
him was over. The mirror has justified her, telling her that _he_ 
was at fault, now, for becoming a stranger to her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

His silent answer was everywhere. "Because I wanted you to love 
me. Because it hurt so much when you didn't care. Because, if you 
didn't know, I could imagine how you might care, if you _had_ 
known. Because you made your every word into a slap, and it hurt 
less never to speak. Because...."

"No," she murmured, blinking back tears. "No. It's too late...."

If she held him now, there would be no comfort in it, just the 
pain of knowing it was too late, and the guilt for a wasted life. 
The certainties of a lifetime would crumble.

She had built her life as a shrine  to the child who was gone, 
and there was a hollow comfort in what she was used to. Nothing 
else mattered. It was her shroud.

If she allowed herself to remember the child who still 
remained....

She pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob.

*****

"Mom?"

He turned on the path, rain lashing his face, darkness 
surrounding him. 

She was silent.

"Mulder." Agent Scully's whisper was distorted by the wind. "Come 
on. We haven't got much time. Skinner's only won us a few hours." 

She clutched at the door handle, willing herself to move, to pull 
it shut, to retreat into the warm whiteness of the only life she 
knew. 

"Mom?" He pulled his hand from his partner's shoulder, wavering 
on his feet, and reached out for her, falteringly.

She bit her lip. The sight made her want to scream. They seemed 
so small, so assailed by the wind and the darkness, and a 
thousand enemy eyes that seemed to press down on them through the 
night. This night could kill him.

"Mulder." His partner's eyes held contempt as they glanced 
quickly at her, softening instantly as they fell on him. "We've 
so little time. She'll be okay. Skinner has men, watching." 

He stood as one stupefied. Water poured down his face, so pale, 
now - a mask. 

This night could kill him, without her ever....

And then everything came crashing down, and twenty-five years 
became meaningless in a heartbeat.

"Fox." It was almost a croak. She held her arms out to him, then 
let them drop to her side, awkward. 

He took a step towards her, then his legs buckled and he fell to 
his knees. His face was turned up, lashed by the rain. He was 
like a supplicant, with a need in her eyes that she had never 
seen before, not since that last cold November of her entire 
life. _He_ could withdraw as well as she could., and had done so, 
long ago.

"Fox." She crouched down, shaking. "You will come back?" She 
raised a faltering hand and touched his cheek, a feather-light 
touch. "We need to talk."

The darkness roared, and she saw the night as a terrible assault 
of enemies, a burden greater than she feared he could bear. She 
stood up, holding onto the door with a shaking hand, willing her 
strength to support him.

"I'm sorry."

Her voice was a whisper without strength, carried away by the 
wind. She didn't know if she had enough strength left.

*****

END

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