TITLE: Facade (1/1)
AUTHOR: Christy
DISCLAIMER: Jeffrey Spender and Alex Krycek belong to Chris Carter and 1013, I just
think I know how to use them better
FEEDBACK: Sock it to me
ARCHIVE: anywhere, just let me know so I can brag that my story's there
SPOILERS: Two Fathers/One Son, Requiem
SUMMARY: Jeff receives a phone call that makes him contemplates who he is and who
he was
RATING: PG
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Insomnia leads to plowing through old videos which leads to
rediscovering characters who you really liked which leads to lil vignettes like this one. I
may revise this in the future because the ending seems a bit incomplete to me.
It's been three hours since I hung up the phone and let it fall to my side. In those three
hours I haven't moved from the chair, not even to turn a light on when the sun set. It had
been a short phone call and I had hardly spoken but then the phone call was for Jeffrey
Spender, someone I no longer was.
"Jeff?"
No one had called me that name in almost two years, at least not aloud. Everyone that
had called me by that name was either dead or thought that I was. My name is now
Michael Denton and his voice at first held no recognition for me. Jeffrey Spender was
dead and no one was supposed to know other wise. I said nothing and was trying to calm
my shaking hand down enough to hang up the phone when he spoke again.
"Jeff, it's Alex Krycek."
Well that explained that, Alex Krycek was the farthest from no one out of everyone I had
ever met. He scared me more then anyone I had ever known and now he was on my
phone and he was calling me by my real name. Part of me was groping for a chair
because the room was spinning but the rest of me didn't care if the room was doing back
flips because I wasn't in it. I was back in that house and that man who had looked as
human as I did was turning into a pile of green goo and every belief, ideal and truth I
used to get me through my life was being completely invalidated and flushed down the
drain. Even now I often wake up in the middle of the night with that image burned into
my mind. That was the true end of Jeffrey Spender, my father's mock murder just made
it official.
I was so numb by the time it happened I didn't have it in me to tell him he didn't have to
pretend to kill me. So I just sat there as he shot past me into the wall, threw a folder on
my desk and walked out of the room. The folder contained my new life and the poor
bastard looked so self satisfied at having erased me. I wanted to tell him that it was too
late, my life had already ended, but he walked out of the room before I could find my
voice. Instead I picked up the folder, went straight to the airport, caught my flight to
Connecticut and became Michael Denton.
To everyone in town I was Mike who worked as a clerk in the local law office, lived
above the pizza shop and was a generally a nice, if slightly withdrawn, guy. But I wasn't
Michael Denton and I wasn't Jeffrey Spender either. Jeffrey Spender had believed that
everything could be answered rationally and logically, that aliens didn't exist, that his
mother was mentally ill and for most of his life had thought that his father was nothing
more then a government employee who had left his family when Jeffrey was three.
Jeffrey Spender was indeed dead, I was a man who believed nothing, trusted no one and
spent every day just trying to grapple with the nightmares that still plagued even my
waking hours. I had no family and no name, I had been born in that living room staring
at the man who wasn't human while Alex Krycek looked on, Alex Krycek who was now
on the other end of the phone and was starting to make nervous noises with his throat.
"Jeff?"
".... I'm here, what do you want?"
"He's dead."
"He's" dead. Krycek knew he didn't have to use a name, truth be told neither of us were
completely sure of what name to use. He had told me his birth name was Charles
Spender but he had told me many things, a good percentage of which were either bold
faced lies or the deluded beliefs of a man whose time was long past. It's started to occur
to me that these are not the thoughts I should be having after learning that my father is
dead but I also knew that if my mind stopped this senseless stream of thoughts I'd start
feeling and it truly frightened me to think of what I'd feel.
"He's dead Jeff, I thought you'd want to know."
Are you sure Krycek? Are you really sure because technically I'm dead too and yet I'm
feeling pretty alive. Actually I'm feeling pretty sick and light headed but the point is I'm
breathing so you better be damn sure of what you're telling me because calling me like
this and interrupting Mike Denton's life is not a very nice thing to do. But then you're
not a very nice person are you; my father wasn't a very nice person. My father is dead.
Oh lord, it's actually starting to sink in so you better be telling the truth you one armed
bastard.
Finally I managed to speak, "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Nothing more, no explanation of how it happened or why, just one simple "yes" said with
much conviction and a hint of pride. So I believed him even though I couldn't figure out
why he had taken the time to call me. Maybe there was more to Alex Krycek then I had
seen in our few brief encounters, or maybe Krycek just felt a bond with someone else
whose life had been so maligned by this one man, whatever the reason he had called to
tell me my father was dead and I believed him.
I found it in me to speak into the phone one more time, "Thank you."
With that I hung up and slunk down in the chair where I've sat these past three hours.
That euphoric feeling of elation I had been dreading did in fact come. The phantom that
had hung over my life and destroyed almost everything about me was gone and I felt a
weight lifted from my shoulders. But eventually it also sank in that my father, the last
remaining member of my family, had died. And even though I had never really known
him, or loved him or felt like his son I felt the loss of something inside me and I felt very
alone.
I eventually made it to my bedroom and as I lay in bed and restlessly tried to fall asleep I
struggled with these dual feelings of freedom and aloneness. I spent the rest of the night
caught in a state of half sleep and my mind was full of the hazy memories of the boy who
wanted nothing more then to know his father and the man who having met him wanted
nothing more then to understand him. The boy, the man and his father were all gone now
and as I lay there in the early morning hours I wept for all four of us.
AUTHOR: Christy
DISCLAIMER: Jeffrey Spender and Alex Krycek belong to Chris Carter and 1013, I just
think I know how to use them better
FEEDBACK: Sock it to me
ARCHIVE: anywhere, just let me know so I can brag that my story's there
SPOILERS: Two Fathers/One Son, Requiem
SUMMARY: Jeff receives a phone call that makes him contemplates who he is and who
he was
RATING: PG
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Insomnia leads to plowing through old videos which leads to
rediscovering characters who you really liked which leads to lil vignettes like this one. I
may revise this in the future because the ending seems a bit incomplete to me.
It's been three hours since I hung up the phone and let it fall to my side. In those three
hours I haven't moved from the chair, not even to turn a light on when the sun set. It had
been a short phone call and I had hardly spoken but then the phone call was for Jeffrey
Spender, someone I no longer was.
"Jeff?"
No one had called me that name in almost two years, at least not aloud. Everyone that
had called me by that name was either dead or thought that I was. My name is now
Michael Denton and his voice at first held no recognition for me. Jeffrey Spender was
dead and no one was supposed to know other wise. I said nothing and was trying to calm
my shaking hand down enough to hang up the phone when he spoke again.
"Jeff, it's Alex Krycek."
Well that explained that, Alex Krycek was the farthest from no one out of everyone I had
ever met. He scared me more then anyone I had ever known and now he was on my
phone and he was calling me by my real name. Part of me was groping for a chair
because the room was spinning but the rest of me didn't care if the room was doing back
flips because I wasn't in it. I was back in that house and that man who had looked as
human as I did was turning into a pile of green goo and every belief, ideal and truth I
used to get me through my life was being completely invalidated and flushed down the
drain. Even now I often wake up in the middle of the night with that image burned into
my mind. That was the true end of Jeffrey Spender, my father's mock murder just made
it official.
I was so numb by the time it happened I didn't have it in me to tell him he didn't have to
pretend to kill me. So I just sat there as he shot past me into the wall, threw a folder on
my desk and walked out of the room. The folder contained my new life and the poor
bastard looked so self satisfied at having erased me. I wanted to tell him that it was too
late, my life had already ended, but he walked out of the room before I could find my
voice. Instead I picked up the folder, went straight to the airport, caught my flight to
Connecticut and became Michael Denton.
To everyone in town I was Mike who worked as a clerk in the local law office, lived
above the pizza shop and was a generally a nice, if slightly withdrawn, guy. But I wasn't
Michael Denton and I wasn't Jeffrey Spender either. Jeffrey Spender had believed that
everything could be answered rationally and logically, that aliens didn't exist, that his
mother was mentally ill and for most of his life had thought that his father was nothing
more then a government employee who had left his family when Jeffrey was three.
Jeffrey Spender was indeed dead, I was a man who believed nothing, trusted no one and
spent every day just trying to grapple with the nightmares that still plagued even my
waking hours. I had no family and no name, I had been born in that living room staring
at the man who wasn't human while Alex Krycek looked on, Alex Krycek who was now
on the other end of the phone and was starting to make nervous noises with his throat.
"Jeff?"
".... I'm here, what do you want?"
"He's dead."
"He's" dead. Krycek knew he didn't have to use a name, truth be told neither of us were
completely sure of what name to use. He had told me his birth name was Charles
Spender but he had told me many things, a good percentage of which were either bold
faced lies or the deluded beliefs of a man whose time was long past. It's started to occur
to me that these are not the thoughts I should be having after learning that my father is
dead but I also knew that if my mind stopped this senseless stream of thoughts I'd start
feeling and it truly frightened me to think of what I'd feel.
"He's dead Jeff, I thought you'd want to know."
Are you sure Krycek? Are you really sure because technically I'm dead too and yet I'm
feeling pretty alive. Actually I'm feeling pretty sick and light headed but the point is I'm
breathing so you better be damn sure of what you're telling me because calling me like
this and interrupting Mike Denton's life is not a very nice thing to do. But then you're
not a very nice person are you; my father wasn't a very nice person. My father is dead.
Oh lord, it's actually starting to sink in so you better be telling the truth you one armed
bastard.
Finally I managed to speak, "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Nothing more, no explanation of how it happened or why, just one simple "yes" said with
much conviction and a hint of pride. So I believed him even though I couldn't figure out
why he had taken the time to call me. Maybe there was more to Alex Krycek then I had
seen in our few brief encounters, or maybe Krycek just felt a bond with someone else
whose life had been so maligned by this one man, whatever the reason he had called to
tell me my father was dead and I believed him.
I found it in me to speak into the phone one more time, "Thank you."
With that I hung up and slunk down in the chair where I've sat these past three hours.
That euphoric feeling of elation I had been dreading did in fact come. The phantom that
had hung over my life and destroyed almost everything about me was gone and I felt a
weight lifted from my shoulders. But eventually it also sank in that my father, the last
remaining member of my family, had died. And even though I had never really known
him, or loved him or felt like his son I felt the loss of something inside me and I felt very
alone.
I eventually made it to my bedroom and as I lay in bed and restlessly tried to fall asleep I
struggled with these dual feelings of freedom and aloneness. I spent the rest of the night
caught in a state of half sleep and my mind was full of the hazy memories of the boy who
wanted nothing more then to know his father and the man who having met him wanted
nothing more then to understand him. The boy, the man and his father were all gone now
and as I lay there in the early morning hours I wept for all four of us.