A Blade Of Sunlight

I curl myself into a tighter ball, tighter and tighter as the night gets colder and colder and my cellmates get braver and braver. Or more desperate. Doesn't matter. Either way, my lack of a left arm puts me at a disadvantage that makes me absolutely certain there is no God. To say nothing of the length of my eyelashes or my "fat and fuckable lips," to quote the swarthy guy in the corner. Just thinking about it makes me spit again, although all the residue from last night is gone, now, washed away by the taste of the gritty 'something' they fed us this afternoon and the warm, slimy water that I always try so hard not to need but end up gulping down anyway.

They gather around like encroaching shadows and take turns. It's over pretty quickly, really. I don't think they're much more into it than I am. They're just seeking some warmth, some place to be in control, some place to expel their futility. They figure my body's as good a place as any. I tell myself to relax, as my one arm is wrenched up behind my back, forcing my face to the filthy stone floor. I tell my legs to spread, my muscles to go lax. I tell myself I like it hard, dirty, with an edge of nonconsent. None of that really works of course, but it gives my mind something to do besides scream while they get off in me, and finally I'm shoved forward, arm freed, allowed to sleep again. Shivering, I welcome the peace I've bought with my body and I curl my shaking body slowly into a tight ball and let sleep take me for an hour or two.

The food arrives with the first stabbing light of dawn, and though my body howls with misuse and abuse and fatigue, I scramble to the doors with the rest, snatching at the peculiar foods and swallowing them whole, taste a thing of the past as I try to get enough to fill the hole in my gut. I never do, of course. It's not like I'm the biggest or the meanest one in this cage, and I know I'm lucky to get enough to keep my strength. I fought for days when I first got here, breaking noses, jaws, wrists and a cheekbone or two, before a routine set in and it was decided, without any further input from me, who was allowed to use me and who wasn't. The ones who take me at night keep the others from making too big an issue out of me during the day.

It's not Shangri-la. But I'm alive.

And as long as I am, there's hope of escape. Or maybe even...dare I think it? Release. Maybe he'll decide I've suffered enough, that I'm good and useful enough that I'm of more value to him there than here, and he'll send someone to let me out. To take me home, scrub me down, collar me and put me to work again.

I'll do anything. And I mean anything, this time, for my freedom. I don't care. I don't fucking care. Who do you want me to suck/fuck/kill? It's all the same to me. Only one order would make me flinch, and I think that I could even get my head around that, at this point. Yeah, especially tonight, when the shadows surround me. I'll be ready, then. If they only knew how ready I'd be to just blow his fucking head off.

That's what I tell myself, anyway. And maybe that's why I'm still here. Because there still *is*, even after a coupla weeks in this place, that holdout of doubt in my head that I could actually go through with it. I'm pretty sure I could. When I'm facedown in the filth, pain ripping through my body, shame ripping through my mind, I'm goddamned sure of it. But as soon as I'm free of that, I start to ask myself if it would really happen.

Deep inside, in a place I hope to fuck they never know about, a place I hope to fuck *he* never knows about, I know I'd just turn the gun around and blow my own fucking head off. If there was no other option.

Because without him, all options are...non-options. If he's not around, gravity doesn't make sense anymore. I start to shiver as the day turns to night, the high, small windows letting in a purply-brown dusk. And I watch them clump together in a meaningful group again.

And it's when they've got me on my knees, throat being scraped and battered raw with foreign flesh that the thought hits me. And I scream and gag and all of a sudden I have to vomit, and somehow they know it and they (I've stopped thinking of any of them as individuals; they're just 'they') pull out and pull my head away from them by my hair as I expell the hard-won contents of my guts all over the stone at my feet.

Because what if something's happened to him. What if, in my absence, with my being taken out of the game, what if he wasn't able to evade the most recent encounter with 'them' or with some other evil in the world?

"NO!" I scream out at the bile puddle, wrenching at my restrained arm so hard that I feel like I'd be likely to tear it off and not even care. "NO!" I scream again, unwelcome tears running down my face, washing away days and days of grime and sweat and blood. I scream it again and again, sobs wracking my body so hard I feel like I'll shake into pieces, somehow not having the strength to endure this unless I know he's safe somewhere.

It's several hysterical minutes later I realize that, blessedly, they've left me alone to huddle over my vomit, choking and sobbing, grasping at my own chest with my one hand, ripping through the rotting, soiled fabric, raking scratches into my flesh, uncaring. I've been screaming unbeknownst to myself, and rocking and crying, and I've no voice left, just a hoarse rush of sour wind forced out of my body over and over. I gather enough lucidity to crawl backward away from my mess, then curl into my usual ball, the spaces against the wall all taken by men bigger, stronger, meaner than me. Or men with one more arm.

It makes a difference.

And it's that morning, a couple of hours after breakfast, that *she* comes.

I stare at her perfect, cool, mocking beauty through the grimy bars of my cage, even then jerking away from questing hands brave enough to touch the property of the ones from the night. And through my wide- eyed, trembling, sweaty desperation, I have enough of 'me' to wonder at her in a broken, tremulous voice, "Marita Covarrubias. Last time I saw you, I left you for dead."

"Alex, if it was strictly up to me, I'd leave you here to rot, too."

Pleasantries exchanged, the guard swings the door wide open, giving me over to her eager possession.

The hate and smug superiority radiates from her like air conditioning, and I feel like a dog rescued from the pound as they lead me to the shower at her behest. She watches me shower, and I can't quite gather enough courage to wash myself as thoroughly as I'd like, careful to keep my mutilation turned away. The water cascading over my body is better than sex, and I don't feel like leaving it anytime soon. Then she says it, and my body feels ready to step out of the shower. Ready to do just about anything.

"The smoking man. He is dying."

I knew there was a God.

"It's our chance to rebuild the Project," his failing voice rasps, and I fight not to curl my lip.

You left me there.

You *put* me there.

You may as well have shoved all those dicks up my ass, down my throat.

He once told me, when I'd gone to him to offer myself, when I'd told him I wanted to learn from him, that the only thing he wanted me to learn from him was to keep my mouth shut. I learned it well. I do so now, blinking slowly, inhaling and exhaling very, very carefully.

I'm dismissed, the old man sure he's taught his dog the lesson, and I scurry to follow his orders, to look for the ship. He yanks me around on the leash and I watch the two of them cuddle up in their hotel room, feeling the murderous resentment settle into my gut like an ice-dagger.

It was he who told me they were looking for the right thing. He told me they were going to find it first. Then she goes to him and he tells her that to possess the ship is to possess all the answers. He doesn't realize she'll tell me, or maybe he does. It doesn't matter, because he doesn't know one thing. *The* one thing that will lead to his inevitable fall.

But suddenly, it all makes sense.

Suddenly, I can breathe again.

And with a certainty and a calm born of years of watching, waiting for just the *right* opportunity, the right dowry to offer, I go to *him*.

I dress in the best money can buy. I stand before the mirror, scrubbed pure, the doctors having given me a clean bill of health. The silk and wool catches the light in just the right elegant way. There's no trace of the filth, of the desperation, of the sweaty fear I lived with for what now seems like such a short stint of time but then seemed forever. I look good. All traces of excess weight most definitely gone along with all traces of softness in my eyes, in my voice, still raspy from long nights of screaming followed by days of disuse. He won't notice. He'll only see that it's *me*, and then he'll see nothing but blood-feud red.

My heart's still pounding in my throat, making me sick, as I walk down the corridor between them, toward *his* door, where I know *he* waits. I can feel the tension as Skinner goes in before me, trying to gentle the way. I hear *his* soft, hushed voice stroke placatingly, apologetically over Skinner, and that's when I decide to make my entrance. He lunges for me, and I feel the old hate seething off him, warm as ever. It settles familiar around my throat, making it hard to speak or even draw breath.

"You've got every reason to wanna see me dead," I start, mastering my breath with every ounce of my will. "But ya gotta listen to me now." I feel control slipping, my voice disappearing into my thundering heartbeat. "You have a singular opportunity."

"Here or ya wanna step outside?" he sneers, and I wish it were that simple. I wish I could just give him that and make it all go away, but it's not and I can't.

"Agent Mulder," she intones coldly, chastising him with her voice. I want to bitch-slap her to the ground. How dare she act as though we're allies? How dare she use that voice on *him.* And he looks at her, tearing his acidic, hate- filled eyes away from me, and relief and disappointment war while she explains the plan in her cool, detached monotone. As I regain my voice, I chip in from time to time, and together we dissolve his resistance. I see it, see the fire in his eyes get banked, the tension in his shoulders drop, the set to his jaw relax.

"Why me, why now?" he finally sulks, and it causes me physical pain to see him fold like this, to give in like this. To give in to me, even though I know that what I'm giving him is the Grail. And I know that telling him my first motive is pure stupidity, so I tell him the other, bringing up the one thing we both share between us.

"I wanna damn the soul of that cigarette-smoking son of a bitch," I rasp, losing my voice at the end, sinking into that intense gaze, into the feeling of sharing something, anything with him again. I'm frozen, breath held as he stares at me, seeing into my mind and hopefully not my soul, then *She* breaks the spell with her voice of condemnation and confusion.

"Mulder?"

I duck my head and turn to leave, and he shocks me breathless by touching me. Just a flicker of a touch, almost a suggestion of a touch, really, but his finger does lay itself on my shoulder for a split- second, his eyes boring into mine, and I know he wants me to wait. I nod with my eyes, once, unable to do more until he steps away, releasing my eyes, his hand long-gone and reaching for *her* now. I exit the office, taking my own personal blonde demon with me.

We wait in the fileroom, trying not to let ourselves succumb to the dust, for forty-five minutes while he explains, placates, consoles. But I don't even feel the need to sit down, just standing sentinel, awaiting his reappearance in my field of vision. When it finally comes, I swallow and order my throat to make words in response to his.

"I need to talk to you." It's not a request. There's no room for anything but acquiescence, and I give him a curt nod and follow him out. He walks five steps ahead of me, briskly, his body a straight, slender, strong, hard line cutting through the murky half-light of the basement hall, parting the darkness. He enters a pitch-black room and unhesitatingly, I step in after him. I expect him to turn on a light, but he doesn't, and although I usually panic in the darkness, I feel nothing but a heavy excitement. I can *feel* him standing there, just a few feet away, can just make out his arms as he folds them in front of him, leaning against some unidentifiable hulking object. I stand before him at attention, not breathing. I just listen to his measured rise and fall, and it feeds me nearly as though it were my own breath.

"What's the real reason?" His soft, angry, knowing voice fills the room. I squint and I can just make out the glint of his changeable eyes. And he's looking at me. I can feel it.

"Destroying the smoking man isn't enough for you?" I ask, my voice not able to rise above a hoarse whisper.

"This isn't about me," he rumbles. "It's about you. Why align with me now, after all this time?" His voice goes softer now, and I frown as I realize there's a trembling edge of pain he doesn't want me to hear. Maybe that glimmer is even...tears he doesn't want me to see. Thus, the darkness. I swallow hard as I feel my terse control start to slowly, slowly unravel.

"It's the only way," I whisper, my voice cracking.

The silence hovers between us like a third person in the room, and though I can't quite *see* his eyes, I catch a glint now and then, and when his hand moves up surreptitiously to swipe across his cheek, I clench my jaw hard enough to make it ache.

"What made you finally figure that out?" Now his voice is only slightly more than a broken whisper, but I hear it like thunder, booming through the room and into my ears. I gasp. I can't help it.

"I-I guess," I start, then clear my throat. "I don't have anything left to lose."

I see his slow, small nod in the darkness. This he understands. Desperation. This he trusts.

"I *saw* you, you know," he finally says, his low voice returning.

My lips part, but before I can ask, he continues.

"In the stairwell, when I was lying there, helpless and hurting. You stepped over me and left me there."

I make my face blank, at the risk he can see more of me than I can see of him. Then all control just shatters as I see and *feel* him push away from whatever he's leaning against and come up to me.

"Just tell me why," he says, and the quiet rumble of his voice is colder than I've heard it before. Manufactured cold, covering something else. I swallow.

I need him to trust me. I need him to align with me. I need to him to take what I'm offering, to use what I'm giving him. I can afford nothing less than the truth.

"I had orders," I rasp, now able to see him clearly in the dark before me. I feel the heat of his body, feel the occasional waft of breath against my face as he studies me. He can't feel mine because once again, I can't breathe.

"From whom?" he asks, his hot words bathing my face.

"Diana Fowley," I rasp, the name enough to bring bile to my throat. He's silent, but I hear him ask me to continue all the same. "She was running that whole operation, Mulder," I say, feeling my blood sing at the opportunity to say his name. I don't deserve it. To say his name. Every time, it's like being allowed to touch him with my voice. "She never loved you." And I hate her for it. I killed her for it. Because she got you.

"What do you know about it?" he snaps, raising his chin defiantly.

"Even while she was fucking you," I have to stop, to take a shaky breath. "She was fucking him, the smoking man."

"Liar!" His backhand catches me by surprise, and that's why I stumble backward, just a little, but I quickly recover my balance, not bothering to wipe away the new little trickle of blood. "What do you know about it!?" he yells in my face, grabbing my expensive shirt by the lapels and jerking me in close to his face. I've already answered that question, so I just hold my breath and flick my tongue out to lick at the small wound in my lip. He stares into my eyes, furious, and I stare back, patient. He readjusts his grip on me, and I become aware of the warmth of his fists curled against my chest, a tiny bit of his skin touching my skin where he's pulled the collar of my shirt open. It's all I can feel, that tiny bit of heat. That tiny bit of life.

His eyes change. "What the fuck did he do to you?" he whispers, and I frown. I swallow as his eyes trail down over my split lip, my bared throat, my torn collar, to where his hands are gripping the silk tightly. He steps back, letting me go. I continue to stare at him, feeling my skin grow cold where he's left it. "What did he do?" he whispers again, his own eyes narrowing in confusion. "Something's...missing...from you," he continues, wiping his hands on his pants unconsciously, ridding himself of me. "Tell me."

My lips part, wanting to obey him. And not only that. I want to tell him. I want to let it out, to make it real, to put it into the world the reason why I *will* see that bastard go down in flames. It takes me over a minute to gather my voice, caught in the inescapeable gleam of his eyes, but I lick my lips, tasting the blood he's drawn from me again, and that familiarity, that gift of pain, gives me enough of my center back to speak.

"You ever go to county lockup, Mulder?" I say, stroking myself with the use of his name again. He doesn't answer, and I try a smile for the first time in months. "It's The Hilton compared to a Tunisian prison," I whisper, dropping my eyes in shame. He's quiet, waiting, and I don't look at him, staring at the foot of space between his shoes and mine. "I tried to sell something," I rasp, my jaw clenching on the words. "Something of his he didn't want me to sell," I add unnecessarily. "So he arranged for a little side trip for me."

"How long?" His voice is quiet. Emotionless.

"Only two weeks," I answer in a broken whisper, squeezing my eyes closed against the memory of dark, painful, dirty, hot, sweaty nights. Fifteen of them exactly. It's quiet a long time, and finally I chance a look up at him and he's looking at my prosthetic arm. I make a sound a little like a laugh. "Yeah, made things interesting," I choke out, remembering the first day when they stripped me naked, tearing my prosthesis off and tossing it in a box full of other junk. That was my first rape, clinical and detached, just a brawny finger up my ass, checking for contraband. Call it foreplay.

"I'm sorry." He sighs, and it makes my heart beat faster. He's sorry. He is? I frown. His voice is soft. "Why is that so hard for you to believe?"

Why? Because I'm not fit to lick your shoes. Because every time you see me, you want to hurt me. Because I made you trust me, then I hurt you. Because...

"Just tell me one thing," he says, his voice quiet and too compassionate for my comfort. His violence I can bear, even welcome, but his kindness threatens to break me. He goes silent and makes me ask.

"What?" I rasp out, voice broken.

"Are you going to fuck me over again?" His voice is calm, ready to accept whatever truth I decide to give him.

"No," I whisper, dropping my eyes to stare at the floor, and it blurs for an instant before I force it back.

"Okay," he replies after another long, painful silence. Then he extends his hand very, very slowly toward me, and I look up to see his fat lip sucked nervously between his teeth. I blink and make my hand raise, reaching for him, and he takes it, gripping it strongly, almost painfully. I'm blinking rapidly now, frowning, and Mulder's holding my hand, holding me with his eyes, studying me carefully. Then he steps in cautiously, and even more cautiously raises his free left hand, still holding my hand with his right, and puts it on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Let's get to work," he tells me, and I can only blink and nod and hold his hand, and it's not until he takes his hand off my shoulder and places it on our still-clenched hands, prying them apart gently, that I let it go. Then he walks past me and out the door, turning to wait for me. I step in behind him, a tight, good feeling squeezing my chest.