"April Revolution" (X-Files, Mulder/Scully, 1/1, repost)

[mjules.livejournal.com]

Title: April Revolution
Author: m.jules
Summary: "The streets of Paris are burning once more." (Post-Colonization)
Rating: PG-13
Series References: the movie, the supposed mytharc of the entire series, Clyde Bruckman and Tithonus (blink and you'll miss those.)
Disclaimer: I'm sure the aliens would appreciate knowing Chris Carter claimed legal exclusivity on
the idea of colonization - but that's a lawsuit for other courts. In order to keep MY ass out of one, I say it again: The characters herein are not my own. Mea culpa. (But if you sue me, you gotta prosecute Floridiana - she beta'd this puppy.)
Author's Notes: Originally written somewhere around 1999/2000.

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He told me that it would be on a holiday. Some time when everyone was away from home, visiting their families. Apparently no one bothered to tell the colonizing aliens that no one visits relatives on April Fools' Day.

Maybe they know our customs well enough to think it a supremely funny joke. Well, ha ha. Laugh it up, ET; no network in America would lend you canned giggles for this most lamentable comedy.

The fire licks up the sides of blackened abandoned buildings - giant-sized votives burning in testament to a Resistance that was pathetically weak and unprepared, despite years of shaky alliances and dubious research. I admit to having harbored some optimism throughout our years of fruitless searching. I admit to hoping that, when this day finally came - oh yes, I fully expected to see it come in my lifetime - that the formerly-warring earthly facttions could put aside our differences in the favor of the greatest common denominator: human survival.

But apparently the survival of the species is not as urgent an instinct as the survival of the individual. The cries I hear from an alley just slightly ahead of me issue from one of many young children I have seen abandoned on the street because they slowed the flight of their parents. In the beginning, I would pick them up and take them back with me to our bunker - that blessedly cool foxhole where sometimes a rag-tag bunch of survivors can remember what the word friendship used to mean to them. The kids died anyway, but at least they died around people who cared.

My heart breaks as I walk past this one; I feel the most incredible urge to tuck him into my leather jacket
and let him wail his life out against my breast. But I can't. For the safety of everyone in the bunker, I have to leave him.

The Colonists have developed very effective ways to be rid of even the precious few individuals who were vaccinated. One of those is babies. Their own off-spring have learned the art of shifting their shape, and the moment some rare compassionate soul embraces the "orphan," the little leech drinks their lifeblood with fangs Bela Lugosi would envy.

Skinner's death was a hard way to learn that lesson, but none of us have ever forgotten the bloody tutelage. My mind immediately shies away from the memory that he was once human; once a friend who lived and breathed and walked a dangerous line atop an electric fence.

When the time came, Assistant Director Walter Skinner fell to our side - but he fell to his death. And all because of one of those damned alien babies. You'd think he'd know better after Nam, but those heart-wrenching cries have a way of making you forget things, even kamikaze Viet Cong kids strapped with grenades; even that Vietnamese Communists aren't the only ones who turn compassion into the deadliest weapon of all.

So, remembering this hard-earned lesson with an aching heart, I leave this little one to cry his last moments
out against a dumpster.

Turning a corner, I pass by two of their eerily silent storage buildings without a second glance. Hours groping through similar deep freezes proved fruitless in finding Margaret Scully, and the dull glassiness of Scully's eyes told me that further searches would only be a waste of time.

I still remember the way Scully's tears frosted on her eyelashes that night as the barely-lit cryopods swayed and creaked lightly around us. "Let's go," she'd said wearily. Since then, I have done my best to ignore the warehouses when I pass them. Guilt is useless, I know, as we wouldn't be able to save her even if we did find her.

We don't have any more of the antidote. Our supplies, which have been holding at dangerously low for what seems like centuries, finally ran out this morning.

That's why I am here, walking unmolested down a street where intergalactic armies have grown bored of playing Sherman to our once-proud Confederacy and have moved on to richer, deeper fields of humanity. I am here, scuttling like a rat through the blowing newspapers and burning ash, looking for something left behind. Provisions - just food, drink, and maybe a little tterrestrial medicine, honestly. I don't think they would
have left any remnants of that deadly antidote behind when they hopped the pond to rape Europe.

I bet no one ever taught them to enjoy Guinness and good English sherry; bet it's mingling with the blood in the streets.

When Frohike's London contact - who, according to him, was a nubile blonde he'd met at a hacker's conference who thought his kung fu was the best - was ominously silent for the span of three hours this morning, we knew what had happened. We didn't even need to turn on the news.

They left our broadcasting equipment and a few lone journalists alive, presumably to frighten their upcoming conquests with images of what had already happened to a country that has always sung her freedom.

Job's servants - that's what they've made of our media. "I alone have escaped to tell you what has happened." Well, we're already in sackcloth and ashes - it's only appropriate.

My throat constricts at the thought of London's regal austerity being crumbled beneath the weight of alien greed, which seems all too human in its thirst for absolute domination.

I sunk years of my life into the streets and pubs of that city; I have some delicious memories of wandering the rain-drenched streets by myself or with my friends. I can't help but wonder how the perpetual rain and mist have fared since the sky has been torn.

Out of respect, my mind refuses to entertain the thought of what they might have done to Phoebe. She might have been a bitch, yes, but she was human. And in this desolate hour, I'd almost be glad to see her. Fortunately, she probably doesn't even know what hit her. If she's lucky, she was one of the first to go.

The city is quiet, its tattered, forlorn war-banners fluttering in the hot breeze that seems to blow continually. We'd raised them in full faith of the success of our defiance but now the standards serve only to sharpen the poignancy of our humiliation.

Never before has the American flag been seen as a sign of surrender.

It's early morning now, so the wind isn't strong, but when the sun comes up behind a haze of debris, the solar wind will blast through our violated atmosphere. Scully will want me back in the bunker before then, as I refused to put on protective outer clothing when I left.

Sighing, I realize that there is nothing to be found here - no hope waiting at the bottom of this Pandora's
box. The secret of fire has been given to more than just men, and the gods have not chosen to prosecute this unearthly theft.

I know it is time to return home - what makeshift home I have now - before the darkness becomes too much to bear. Scully will have enough on her hands as it is; I will not add to her burden by dragging myself into morbidity this morning.

Our weak antidotes have been keeping the Gunmen alive - Scully and I, fortunately, seem to have been recipients of the stronger vaccine. I wish in vain that their treatments could have built up a stronger resistance, but Langly's been showing signs of infection.

Any day now, I expect his rasps and late-night wheezing to develop into that deep, rattling cough that Marita had in her last weeks. Byers will probably be next, barring a miracle. Frohike, I know, is a tough little devil and will consider himself bound to life as long as Scully needs protection.

Scully.

She is the one thought on my mind as I retrace my steps through this rat's maze, the one thing that keeps me putting one foot in front of the other, what we've found in each other in the wake of all the destruction. The first night, as I lay gasping beneath her, I managed to ask, "Why now?"

"Why not?" she'd answered, and the memory of the dull fear in her eyes still chills me. "We've got nothing left to lose." She'd waved her hand vaguely toward the world outside, saying, "Every thing that ever held me back from you is being burned to a crisp - I won't let them take this from me too."

The Gunmen are silent as I enter - they know by the way my feet drag that I have found nothing. Scully takes my hand and pulls me into our room. The door closes behind us, and she brushes her hand over my face. It comes away covered with blackness.

"You're dirty," she says softly, sadly, as if my being coated with layers of ash and soot is the worst travesty we have yet endured. Who knows? Maybe it is.

I nod dumbly, and she wipes her fingers across my mouth before she follows the path with her mouth and tongue. The kiss is deep, hard, and desperate, though unhurried. When she finally pulls away, I quirk a half-hearted smile at her.

"Spit bath?"

She actually goes so far as to let the corners of her mouth turn upward infinitesimally before the fear and hunger reclaims her eyes and she reaches for my open jacket, pushing it to the floor.

"I was scared," she admits. "While you were gone. I was afraid that some of them had stayed behind; that they'd find you out in the streets. I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

She tosses my shirt aside and places her hands on my chest. "Then I was afraid they'd come here and be waiting to ambush you." She smiles self-consciously for a moment. "Then I was afraid the sky would fall, until I realized that it already had."

Hurrying is not something we do anymore. We know we are living on borrowed time, and we intend to savor every moment.

Afterwards, I open my eyes to see Scully still perched above me, her legs trembling on either side of my own, a trickle of sweat running down between her breasts. I want to lick it away, but can't summon the energy to sit up enough to reach it. She rolls off me with a soft groan, and I tuck her in against my body for a moment before we both get up and clean ourselves in preparation to return to the world outside.

When we're dressed again, she smiles at me sadly and kisses me chastely on the lips before she pulls open the door and walks into what the boys have termed The War Room.

We're barely through the door before Frohike calls flatly over his shoulder, "They're through Spain and they've hit France."

Several half-formed witty comments rise up inside me, but none have the right balance of irreverence and solemnity for the occasion, so I wisely keep my mouth shut.

I don't have to - we're all thinking the same thing. It's just one more revolution for that poor country, ravaged by civil wars for most of its history.

The streets of Paris are burning once more.

In the quasi-silence of our underground shelter, I hear Langly start to wheeze. Scully hurries off toward him in full doctor mode, and I am left standing helplessly to the side, staring at the screen where Frohike has begun mapping the desolation.

"I think we're screwed," he says softly, coughing a little into his gloved fist. "This is all one big game to them, Mulder - and the dice are shaved."

I nod thoughtfully, slowly, thinking of how the Champs-Elysees must look by now. Sadly enough, it probably looks like the barbecue pit that used to be Pennsylvania Avenue here. Fleurs des Champs and Les Diamants Sont Eternels are likely as indisguishable as the ruined Lincoln Memorial and Congress building.

I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face

I'm sure Frank Sinatra and Doris Day would be horrified at the idea. A Parisian honeymoon doesn't seem like
such a grand idea anymore.

"Do you think they know?" I ask Frohike quietly. "Do you think that maybe even one among them realizes
what they've ruined?"

"Do you think they even know what beauty is?" he asks me. After a pause, he continues, "I spent one summer
backpacking across Europe. I was filthy, scruffy, and probably picked up a communicable disease or two by the Mediterranean - had fun doing it, too - but I remember Paris."

"I was supposed to have gone to Paris," I say softly. "Phoebe and I were supposed go one Spring." I don't say any more - no more is necessary. I remember how I spent months torturing myself with what-ifs and might-have-beens. Bogart might always have Paris, but I've never even gotten my chance.

I never knew my heart could sing
Never missed a warm embrace till
April in Paris

Oblivious to the Frank Sinatra accompaniment running through my head, Frohike continues his quiet reverie.

"I remember the morning I got there, I thought, This is it? This is the great romantic city? It's just another clump of brick and mortar, broken dreams and human sweat, overpriced souvenirs and ridiculously expensive coffee."

April in Paris
Chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables
Under the trees

"Tourists were everywhere, man. People speaking a language I didn't understand - nothing but coughing vowels and softly slurred consonants. You have no idea how many times I thought someone was about to hock up a
hairball when they were just trying to say their 'r's. Cigarette smoke hanging over bistros where hopeful, anemic-looking lovers dressed in trendy black sat waiting for words to write themselves into blank journals."

His words describe the Paris I imagined in those months after Phoebe - just another metropolis. Another place
that I thought romantic when I thought in terms of a couple. In the bitter change from lover to "let's just be friends, hm?", it lost its appeal. Especially since Phoebe's idea of "just friends" was closer to my definition of abject enemies.

"So I, already dressed in black, and trendy in my own way, though not nearly as anemic as the natives, ordered a cup of coffee and waited. I didn't know what I was waiting for, and when it came I didn't have any way to record it. It's just as well. Even da Vinci couldn't have gotten that moment down without fucking it up."

"Monet," I correct, just to annoy him.

He shakes his head. "He would've fucked it up too." He seems to be lost in thought, remembering, and my patience is growing thin as I wait for him to speak again.

I wait, dimly aware that I am actually holding my breath, waiting to hear the redemption of the city - what abracadabra might change it from just another twist of metal and stone to the fantasy all romantics have of the City of Lights.

When he finally speaks, his voice is wistful, soft with reverence and his eyes are focused on some point far in his past. "The light softened and it was like the sky was melting over the bricks and cobblestones in the alley until I was sure I could smell and taste the color of that blue light. I swear, Mulder - the air itself was colored... I think I could have put some in my pocket and brought it home with me."

April in Paris
This is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise

"It was incredible, Mulder. I've lived half my life in the memory of that moment."

I am quiet for a moment, steadying myself in reality once again.

"No, I don't think they know what beauty is at all," I answer him, turning away.

In just five days, they have laid waste to centuries of human history. I search for Scully, sentimentally
wishing the color of her eyes would show me the magic of Frohike's Paris evening. They don't, though.

I wish some photographer had managed to capture the atmosphere that night, or that Frohike had managed to tuck some away in his pocket after all, just so I would have something to cling to. I know right now the air in Paris is an unearthly color, but not a beautiful one.

I know that now it is burning with the vengeance and, I say with no small amount of human pride, ignorance of those who don't have mouths that smile or vocal cords that laugh.

What they've ruined is nothing to them. They don't care that I'll never be able to see Paris as it was - never be able to visit a city of lovers as a lover myself. It's selfish of me to even consider it in the light of such widespread devastation, but in this is the symbol of everything they've stolen.

April in Paris
Whom can I run to?
What have you done to my heart?

In the streets of Paris, our dreams are burning.

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