Title: A Cry in the Night
Author: Jennifer Zoromski AKA Jennis524
Spoilers: Requiem, Season 8
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX
Summary: The Cigarette Smoking Man reflects the life of his son.
Author's Note: I've always wanted to write a story from the CSM's point of view. Enjoy!
Please give me feedback J
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Man walks alone on a barren path. The truth he sought so desperately had all, but destroyed him. The moment he breathed in his first breath he was destined to walk along the lonely path, to a fate that he could not control. When that man took his last, weak breath, he finally saw the light and the truth through the eyes of his son. Through his chapped lips his raspy voice uttered his last words, "Believe the lie."
May 2000
Watergate Apartments
"There is no God, Marita, only alien." How could this woman be so ignorant? I laid it all out for her on the table. Every detail, but she still doesn't get it. She looks at me dumbfounded. What am I thinking? Her and Alex Krycek taking over everything I have accomplished, the work I killed so many for. If I saw how it would have ended I would never have started. The conspiracy was my life; much like the truth Mulder has devoted his life to finding. I used to be naïve like him until I realized the truth was only a bunch of lies.
2:23 a.m.
"What you do to me and to Mulder you do to all of mankind." Doesn't Alex understand we are the ones that will save the world? I hear the groaning of the wheelchair as he tips me out. My life flashes before my eyes, but one event stands out, the birth of my son.
October 13, 1961
Chilmark, MA
It is rather cold for the middle of October. I rub my hands back and forth trying to warm them. The hospital looks so warm and cozy, but I will not let Bill see me. This is supposed to be his child, his moment in time where he takes on the responsibility of raising another life. Nurturing that child, giving him knowledge, a faith, and a life. How many days of stolen passion had I taken with Teena? Could this child have resulted in those wild fits of passion? We both understood each other so perfectly. She was always trying to be accepted by Bill, while I had been rejected by so many.
They had thought me to be strange. I was always the child that was the outsider, the one who knew exactly what was going on in the inside, but I did not want to confront them. They were all ignorant any way.
A man lights a cigarette and I grimace. How could someone find pleasure in breathing in black smoke that will eventually kill you?
Bill exits the hospital in a mad rush and I seize the opportunity to go in and see Teena. I never though she would have become a mother. She is not like most women of this time and age, she is conservative, and her views on children used to be like mine, until she found herself to be with child.
She looks up at me. I expect to see a smile, but all I get is a glare. "What do you want?" she says with an icy tone in her voice.
"Nothing." I look at the small child that lay in her arms. This child already had a personality. He is a stubborn, but has only been out of the womb for a few hours. Perhaps he already had a personality the moment he was conceived, at that moment in time when he began to develop. There was a great life ahead of him.
"Then I suggest you'd leave."
"Teena who's the father of this child?" I didn't need her to answer. The child that is lying in her arms is my child.
"His father is…" she falters, but finally gives in, "You. You are Fox's father."
"Fox? Where do you get Fox?"
"I named him after his father," the way she said it was harsh enough that she might as well have slapped me and got it over with.
"Does Bill know?" I look at her. She looks back at me, her eyes far too old for her age.
"He knows nothing, but you could look at this child and know who his father is." We both look at the tiny infant. He yawns and then goes back to sleep with a small smile of content on his face.
This child has been made from my own flesh and blood, but I will never get to experience watching him grown. Sure Bill will show me pictures of his son, but it isn't the same. Teena looks at me her glare once again icy, "Please leave, leave me, leave my son alone. The only father he will know will be Bill."
I open my mouth to speak, but I have nothing to say. I take one final look at my son and walk away.
January 1963
Place unknown
"He said his first word yesterday. It was JFK." Bill held up the picture of Fox. How ignorant of a man is Bill? My God, the child is a spitting image of me.
"Don't you ever want to settle down and have kids?"
I used to, but there was only one true love in my life and our son already believed the lie and he was only one year old. I look at him. He is so happy to be a dad. I will never get to show that much pride in my son.
"No," I respond, "That isn't a part in life I want to deal with. I'm happy for you, Bill, I really am, but I know I will never live the perfect life."
I had walked away from that life, from the child who would become a man that would take over everything I have worked on.
May 2000
Watergate Apartments
Marita and Alex walk over my crippled body. They are both fools to think I am dead. When I know that they are gone I open one eye. My nurse is at my side, but it hurts too much to move. I close my eyes for what I thought was the last time.
February 13, 2001
Washington DC
My son was found hours ago. His murdered body was found just outside of Bellflower, Oregon. His limp lifeless body was rolled into a huge white room. The child I had created forty years ago through complete and entire love had been taken into another life.
His life long partner doesn't even know that his body was found. They didn't want to upset her in her current state. She had become a mother two hours ago. I stare at my son. He believed the lies because he sought after a truth so desperately it destroyed him, but it is my fault. I destroyed him. I turn my back and walk away from the past.
He is wide-awake. This child already has a personality, much like that of his father's, but this child is meant to succeed and save mankind. A tight smile covers my lips as I look on last time at all that was left of my son and me.
The alley outside the hospital is dark. My fears left me years ago. A masked man walks in front of me and points a gun in my direction. A cry escapes from my lips and breaks the silence of the night. A cry in the night was echoed through the unlit alley as I close my eyes for the last time. "Believe the lie."
THE END