Blood Valentine

The woman buried her face in her hands and the gun fell to his side. Compassion fell from his heart like rain.

He was a bad-ass. He knew it. It was no revelation that people feared him. Through the years, he grown used to the impact his face made on the unsuspecting victims he was sent to dispatch. He'd memorized every nuance of the look of fear. He had learned to embrace it, as if it were an old friend that played ribald tricks every time it came to visit.

He was not prepared for this. Through all the bloodshed, through all the assassinations, he had not steeled himself against such a simple gesture, a lift of small white hands to hide smooth pale cheeks. It spoke all the words other victims had desperately begged him to hear.

He had learned to think himself akin to metal, for he believed metal had no conscience. Over the years, he felt himself turning into cold steel one blood cell at a time, developing a smelting pit in his core to harden him from the inside out. With every time he pulled the trigger, his contracted finger muscles sent splashes of molten ore to coat a new internal organ, keeping his thinking cold and rigid, keeping his eye steady and firm. The metal in his soul supported him, like a girder, to keep him from feeling anything, anymore.

Until now.

Deep in uncharted emotional wilderness, for the first time in years, he did not notice he was off guard. Up until now, he believed his gun a part of him, extending the metal inside by an extra six inches. He had come to think of his weapon as his sixth sense, always watching, taking care of life-threatening situations, just like his missing hand had once helped him to fold his clothes.

Through the crack in the closet door, he watched her sitting motionless, features buried beneath fingers and palms. Like a painted statue, she sat on the couch, silent and still. A sudden harsh intake of breath from behind her hands made both of them shake from head to foot.

He knew in that instant he couldn't do the job.

Time spun out in endless seconds. He could no longer tell if ten minutes became ten hours became ten days. He stood in the closet, lost in time, and watched her, not daring to take a silent calming breath of his own .

The heart suspended beating when her hands dropped from her face, showing her own hidden tears, held back for days now. This business had to have been hard on her, he thought. Watching Mulder lose so much might be his own personal idea of a good time, but it must have caused her pain. She would be so aware of Mulder's isolation, now all his family was dead. She would go out of her way to support and care for him, even more than before. She was wise to cry in private. Mulder hardly had the emotional capacity of a four year old, on a good day. She'd do better if she bore her portion of related sorrow alone.

She cried silently, precisely, eyes wide, tears running down her face in vertical lines, the tip of her nose red. Her mouth was more pronounced from the ravage of emotions she had quashed with such iron discipline until now. How could such old men fear such a small person, he wondered?

Yet, he had been given an order. He had never completely disobeyed an order.

The man who'd hired him feared Mulder, wanted him broken. It was only a matter of time before Mulder would come after his employer's tar-clogged soul, spurred on by the faces of his dead family. If Mulder's partner was killed, his employer believed it would be the death of Mulder as well.

He looked down in the semi-dark at the instrument of destruction hanging by his side, winking up at him. "You need me," it called to him silently. "I give you strength." Its voice was gritty, a cold siren song in his brain. His hands, phantom and flesh, twitched to raise it and finish the job.

Her sob ripped through the air. The gun stayed at his side.

He had not known he was still capable of compassion after being an emissary of death for so long. He forced himself to think of a bullet entering her; ripping through blood and bone and guts; taking warmth and leaving cold, staring emptiness. He made himself picture the red on the carpet, the leaking of blood from the mouth, perhaps even from the eyes.

The faint rustle of movement brought him back and in an undeniable reflex, the gun raised. Like a mother's kiss, it brushed against his cheek.

He forced himself to lower it again.

She had reached for her cell phone and dialed while he stood unseen and ineffectual. He watched her, so alive in despair. Tears flowed down her face like autumn rain.

She stiffened slightly as someone answered. When she spoke, her voice was low and strong.

"It's me."

Even from the closet he could hear the sound of a deeper unintelligible voice on the other end. He closed his eyes and listened.

"I just wanted to see how you are."

A brief dark response. Her mouth pressed together, her usually full lips thin and white.

"You shouldn't be alone right now. Do you want company?"

Yes, say YES, you bastard, he urged at the unseen man on the end of the line. Get her out of here. Get her away from me. For once in your selfish life say yes to this woman because if she stays much longer you'll lose her, too.

"Okay. About half an hour."

A barely audible sigh escaped him. Her head cocked slightly and for an instant he was sure he was discovered. A mumble from the phone distracted her. She looked back down at the floor.

"I'll pick something up on the way over. Something light?"

Another pause. She severed the connection. He nearly crumpled with envy and relief.

She stood gracefully and wiped her eyes with a tissue from her pants' pocket. He watched fascinated as she donned her composure like a second skin. When she was finished, he couldn't tell she had cried at all. For a hair-raising second, she looked at the hall closet as if she would throw the door open and if that happened, he'd have to kill her. Move on, he begged. Move on MOVE ON...

She walked over, picked up her keys from the kitchen table and turned off the lights. She went out the front door, locking it carefully behind her as if she still remotely believed simple mechanisms of keys and locks would keep her safe from bad men in a bad world.

He waited forever until he was certain she was not coming back. He opened the closet and stepped out, gun drawn and raised. It gave him comfort. He could not shake the feeling he had fallen into a pit when she had shown herself vulnerable.

He would have to report. He had accepted a job and failed to follow through. There would be repercussions.

In the silent apartment, he turned back into steel again, his mind ticking like a warm engine. The only way to correct his momentary lapse was to present an alternate plan. He'd show his employer his idea would backfire and end up driving Mulder harder than before. Besides, the woman was more valuable alive. It would be more effective to use her as a leash, instead.

Skinner could be useful in this. Yes. He'd go have a chat with Walter Skinner. After that, he'd wing it. He'd think of something.

He always did.

As he moved to leave, his eyes fell on a pad of paper on the kitchen counter. Impulsively, he pulled a pen from his jacket and scrawled a blue ink heart with an arrow through it on the top sheet of paper.

It might not be diamonds, but she got to live another day.