08/22/00
Anything But
by Araxdelan


*-*-*-*-*-*-*

	I've given up so much.

	The world is at stake, and, knowing this, I've cast all else aside.
Gave up my life when I made the shadows my domain. Gave up my soul the first
time I killed an innocent. Gave up my happiness when...

	Sometimes it's hard living like this. It's only human to want to
give up in the most complete way possible. Only human to occasionally touch
my gun speculatively to my temple.

	I'm still human. It's comforting to have been through what I have,
and still be able to speak those words in truth.

	But every time the barrel brushes my skin, I know that it's not the
answer. There are too few people in the world who know what's really
happening. Even fewer willing to stop it. Knocking that number down is no
solution. I'm needed here, yet.

	The gun is always lowered, and I return to making my sacrifices.

	There was once a time when I believed I could give up anything, kill
anyone to save this planet. I thought there was no line that could be drawn.
That time is no more.

	Billions of lives hang in the balance. The future of humanity is at
stake. Whatever I do, the ends should justify the means.

	A problem has come up. The solution? An assassination.

	One man. One bullet. Clean. I've done it before. I don't think I can
do it this time.

	Fox Mulder is the marked man.

	There was a time when I thought I could give up anything and
everything for the cause. Thought I *had* given up everything, short of my
continued existence in this world.

	I was wrong. There's still this one thing for me to give up.

	But I won't. I can't.

	It makes me want to scream, to wail to the heavens, to cry as I
haven't in so many long years, this knowledge that I can willfully destroy
myself, but not him. That I could willfully let every man and woman on this
planet die just to save him.

	I wonder if it's selfishness. If I just want to keep him because I
love him. Because, despite all that's between us, inside he lives as the
one last warm part of me.

	Maybe not. Maybe I don't want him to die because he doesn't deserve
it. But some of the others I've killed didn't deserve it either, and I
never mourned over them. They were paying for the safety of humanity with
their blood.

	So what I'm left with is my love, this warmth and burning desire to
see him alive and bright. To be able to occasionally bask in his angry
presence and feel his skin against mine as his fists strike me.

	I'm left with weakness, and a world that is doomed because of it.
But as I watch him now, from a distance, feeling the strength of his life
and spirit shine out to envelop me even across the divide, I can't seem to
care.

	I'll find another way. I will.

	I make the promise silently, and as I do he turns my way. I smile
softly at him, and against all odds, he smiles back.



*-*-*
 Fin
*-*-*