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Eschaton (3/4) (Chapter 5)
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2003
DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. Interpretation mine.
ARCHIVE: Sure, just keep my name and headers.
RATING: R for low-key sex and adult concepts.
SPOILERS/TIMEFRAME: Pre-XF, through XF and beyond. Mainly Eve,
Herrenvolk, One Son, Per Manum, Existence, NIHT II and The Truth.
CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Mytharc, Knowle/Shannon, Knowle POV. Pre-XF,
post-col. Passing allusions to Shannon/Doggett UST, Doggett/
Reyes, Mulder/Scully and Krycek/Marita.
SUMMARY: You don't have to be mortal to love. You don't have to
be human to feel.
MORE FIC: http://fiction.deslea.com
FEEDBACK: Love the stuff. deslea@deslea.com.
NOTE: This story has a companion vignette, Act Of Contrition.
AWARDS/ELIGIBILITY: Spooky Awards 2003 eligible. Recommended at
Museans (May 2003).
Eschaton: Last things, end times, pertains to the extremity of
life and death. Koine greek: eschatos.
FIVE
He'd never held a human child.
The thought came to him in a nondescript hospital room in
Washington. Doggett's friend Scully was there, pale, sleeping,
hands braced tightly around her belly. He didn't need the files,
or even those hands to tell him of the life she carried. He could
feel it, the way he felt the life in the plants and the soil and
the bees.
He kept looking at her hands.
The life she carried was special to his superiors, but he
didn't think that was the source of his interest. He puzzled over
it in his mind, but enlightenment was not forthcoming. He was not
practiced in the art of introspection, and he felt like he was
going into a tactical manoeuvre without a map. It unsettled him.
"Knowle!"
He looked up. John Doggett was standing in the doorway.
"John," he said. "Good to see you. Come in."
Doggett did as he was told. He opened his mouth to speak, but
Knowle held up his hand. "She's fine. She was frightened -
hysterical. We had to sedate her. She'll be awake within the
hour."
John's lips were tight, but he nodded. "You want to tell me
what happened out there, old buddy?"
"Not much to tell," he said. "I took a team out to
Walden-Freeman Army Hospital, just like you asked. Scully was
there with the other woman you mentioned."
"Mrs Hendershot. Is she okay?"
"She gave birth while we were in transit, but she's fine."
"Any problems with the baby?"
"Healthy boy, six pound eight," he said, manufacturing a wide
smile. He thought about the grey alien thing mewing like a kitten
in his arms. About feeling oddly connected to it. He'd killed it
- those were his orders - but he felt nagging disgust when he did
it, and that was unfamiliar.
John nodded. "And Scully?"
"She was hysterical," he said again. "She overreacted to
everything in there, John. It's to be expected. I understand she
lost her partner recently."
"We're still hoping to find him. I'm not giving up on Mulder
yet." John's voice was mildly reproachful.
Knowle accepted the reproof without comment. "Well,
nonetheless. She's carrying a lot of grief. A lot of fears about
this baby of hers. It's all she's got left."
John stared at him.
Knowle suddenly realised that John hadn't known Scully was
expecting. He felt momentary, malicious satisfaction, and that
was new, too. What the hell was happening to him?
"Are you telling me she's pregnant?"
Knowle nodded. "She had an amnio done while she was in there.
They taped it onto an old tape. She saw the previous patient's
name on it and panicked - said they were showing her some other
woman's tape so she wouldn't know what was really happening. All
sorts of paranoid stuff. Then she took Mrs Hendershot and ran,
and you know, you can't do that after an amnio. If we hadn't
gotten there when we did-"
"Yeah. I know." John frowned. Looking at Scully and those hands
of hers. "This explains some things."
"You really didn't know she was pregnant?" He wasn't sure
whether he was fishing for information or just trying to twist
the knife a little. He hoped it was the former. The latter was
beneath him.
John shrugged. "Maybe I did know. She reminded me of Barb
sometimes, when she was having Luke."
Knowle nodded. He didn't know what to say. They'd never
discussed the son John lost. He'd never known how.
John said abruptly, "You ever think about kids, Knowle?"
"I can't have them," he said. Hoping to nip that line of
discussion in the bud. His thoughts were too out-of-focus, too
disordered for him to make small talk about kids right now.
"Aw, hell, I'm sorry, Knowle. I didn't know."
"I was pretty young when they told me. I hadn't thought about
having them, so it was pretty abstract." He shrugged easily.
Trying to make light of it. This wasn't a conversation he wanted
to have.
Clearly, he was unsuccessful, because John prompted, "But...?"
Shit. He grappled for something to say. Thought about that day
with Lauderton. About that ache. That pang he'd felt.
"I felt displaced," he said after a moment. "Like I wasn't part
of it any more."
"Part of what?"
"Nature. The life cycle. I dunno." But he did know. He didn't
feel part of the bees.
"Yeah."
Knowle cleared his throat. "I have to go, John. Take care of
your friend."
"Will do." John held out his hand. "Thanks for getting her out
for me."
He shook it. Mustered a smile. "Yeah."
He walked away, but the unease lingered.
~x~
By the time Scully came to term, he and John were no longer on
such good terms.
John suspected him of complicity with the enemy, though he was
not sure who the enemy was. And, of course, he was absolutely
right. Knowle wondered if John had ever realised that he was
positioned alongside Scully precisely because of his past
association with Knowle. But he doubted it. John wasn't that
paranoid - not yet.
But he was smart enough to know when he was out of options, and
for that reason, he hadn't entirely cut ties with Knowle. He
didn't come to him for help any more, but nor did he walk away
when Knowle came to him. To Knowle, this dance of mutual caution
was perfectly acceptable - hell, he'd done it for close to twenty
years with Shannon - and the resentment he sensed in John
bewildered him.
Shannon was keeping an eye on the case, too. He assumed that
this was because of his own involvement, but now and then he
allowed himself the nightmarish thought that perhaps she had been
watching John all along. He told himself that it was stupid and
irrational, that John was just one of a very long stream of men
for her, but he was never quite able to erase the memory of her
covering herself that night from his mind. And the fact that she
was always close by when he talked to John did not improve
matters in the slightest.
"Please tell me you're not going to kill that baby," she said
one evening while he undressed.
"You and I have got to talk about doorbells sometime," he said,
unknotting his tie and draping it over the chair.
"You don't have one," she said deadpan.
"That's because you never use one." He stripped off his suit
and nodded to the washbasket on the bed beside her. "Pass my
shirt?"
She complied, but said nothing. Waiting.
He sighed. "You don't know anything about it."
She got up and buttoned his shirt for him, as though he were a
child under her care. This amused him somehow. "I know Dana
Scully is on the run waiting to deliver and I know you're after
her. And I know the alien race thinks her child is important. You
do the math."
"For your information, my orders are to protect Scully - and
her baby." He pulled away and picked up his trousers. Sat down on
the bed a moment to put them on.
She stared at him. "What? Who from? Why?"
"The why, I can't answer," he said, peering in the mirror, more
from habit than anything. "They need the baby alive - that's all
I know."
"Then who?"
He turned to face her. "Fox Mulder."
"Mulder?" she demanded. "Are you insane? Mulder's the father!"
"Mulder and Scully let her daughter die in 1997 to keep her out
of the hands of the old Syndicate," he pointed out. "Mulder is
prone to self-interest, that's true, but we can't count on that.
There have been instances where he's put the big picture first,
especially during his early years on the X Files. He can't be
discounted as a possible risk."
She stared at him. Somewhat mollified. "What do you have?"
He came and sat down beside her. "We know their old Syndicate
contact Krycek implied to Skinner months ago that Scully's baby
needed to die in order to thwart colonisation. I tracked Krycek
to Skinner's office - he was there with Mulder and Skinner and
John Doggett. He's probably told them what he knows."
Shannon frowned. "So Mulder knows they need the baby."
He nodded. "Pretty much. The behavioural psych team are saying
that if he delivers Scully's baby, there's a forty percent chance
he'll kill it at birth and tell Scully it was stillborn. The
numbers drop right off once he's seen Scully bond with it, but
the birth is a danger zone."
She still looked dubious. "You don't really believe that."
"I didn't. But I learned today that he told Doggett not to tell
him where Scully is, and now, I'm not so sure. I think he's
afraid of himself. Of his own thoughts and fears about this
baby."
"I don't like it." She got to her feet and paced a little. It
annoyed him.
"Would you rather I killed it?" he enquired. "After all, it's
starting to look like that might be in the humans' interests."
She glared at him. "Don't be an asshole."
His head hurt. "Jesus, Shannon, you're never happy. You didn't
like it when you thought I was out to kill the kid. Now you're
angry because I'm out to protect it. Just when am I going to
measure up to your expectations? What the hell do you want from
me?"
"I want you to feel!" she hissed. "I want you to stop calling
that baby 'it'. I want you to acknowledge that we're talking
about a life here. Something that matters, even if, in the end,
it has to be killed. I want you to acknowledge that we live in a
world of shitty choices and that's worth grieving for, even when
we can't do anything to fix it. That's what I want." She made a
sound of frustration. "You know what your problem is, Knowle?
Your immortality. You don't value life because it isn't precious
to you. You're so goddamn sure of it. Because you were never
threatened. And you never let yourself love anyone who was."
That was rich, coming from someone who made a career of fucking
up her own. "No, Shannon. It's just that everything I ever had
that made it precious, you threw back in my face."
She gave a sharp, humourless laugh. "Don't you put that on me,
you bastard. It wasn't my job to save you from how they made
you."
"No. You just come back again and again to throw it in my face.
As though I owe you being any different, when you were the one
who walked away." He pinched the ridge of his nose. "I'm so
fucking tired of fighting."
"You're tired?" she scoffed, leaning back against the dresser.
"You don't even know everything they took from us."
"I know we can't have children, if that's what you're getting
at," he said. He looked away.
She stared at him. Stared for a good half-minute. Her face was
white.
"Oh, my God," she said finally, in a very different voice.
"That's why you're doing this, isn't it? Why you want to protect
it? It's got nothing to do with the mission."
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "I'm just doing my
job."
"Knowle-"
He rose up and grabbed her by the wrist. "It's just my job,
dammit, it's my job!"
She stared up at him. Ashen. She rested her free hand on his
chest and patted him there. Trembling a little. "All right,
Knowle. It's your job. All right."
He stared down at her wrist. If she'd been human he'd have
broken it. He released her, ashamed of his outburst. "Sorry."
"It's all right." She said in wonder, "I've never seen you like
this."
"I've just got a lot on my mind. I'm fine."
"I can see that."
The way she was looking at him. As though looking at him for
the first time. He felt exposed, and he'd never felt that way
with her before.
What the hell was happening to him?
"I need to go, Shannon." He grabbed his jacket. Not looking at
her. "Lock the door on your way out."
~x~
"You know, it doesn't pay to leave your doors unlocked," Knowle
said, sliding neatly into the passenger seat of Krycek's car. "I
think you're slipping."
Krycek didn't turn a hair. "What do you want, Knowle?"
Knowle liked Krycek. No bullshit, no mind-games or
ball-breaking. At worst, a wisecrack or two, but then it was
straight down to business. Krycek was all about the work and that
woman of his, and to hell with everything else. Knowle liked
that. Krycek was the kind of guy Knowle would've liked to have
under his command, if not for the fact that Krycek was
essentially ungovernable.
Also, Krycek knew what he was, and that was oddly freeing.
"Just drive," he said.
"You know, I'd sure like to know what it is with you people.
You're always telling me to drive somewhere. Are they too cheap
to spring for a taxi for you guys these days?" There was no
malice in Krycek's voice.
Knowle just smiled. He had been shaken when he left Shannon,
but that was over now. He was serene.
"FBI parking garage."
Krycek obeyed.
"You want to tell me what this is about?" Krycek said when he
parked the car at Knowle's request.
Knowle nodded towards the rear-view mirror. "See that car
behind us? It's Mulder and Doggett."
"And I suppose there's a reason that you've blown your cover by
having me drive up in front of them with you in the car?"
"I might go up in their estimation, actually. But as it
happens, it doesn't really matter any more." He turned to face
him. "It's all unravelling. They know the Purists have
infiltrated the FBI now. Mulder's right on the edge."
Krycek frowned. "On the edge of what?"
"Finding out where Scully is. If he does, it's in your best
interests to stop him. You know he's gonna kill that baby if he
gets the chance. You can see it eating at him. Why else would he
have given Scully to you? He wanted you to do it so he wouldn't
have to." Knowle was less sure of Mulder than he sounded, but
that wouldn't get Krycek moving nearly so well.
Krycek gave a sour laugh. "I've been trying to get someone to
kill that kid for months. Why would I stop him now?"
"Same reason you didn't just do it yourself when you had the
chance. You know it needs to be done, Krycek, but deep down, you
don't want blood that innocent on your hands." Knowle looked at
him, not without sympathy. "I like you, Krycek, but this is a war
you can't win. You may as well try and salvage something of
yourself if you can."
Krycek snorted. "Tell me, has that line ever worked for you?"
"I'm just telling you how I see it." Knowle looked away. He
hadn't wanted to play this particular card, but it didn't look
like he had a choice. "Of course, you could let him kill it. And
then I'd have to tell the Purists that there is an alternative."
Krycek turned to look at him, face pasty and white. "What
alternative?"
"That this is not the only infant you couldn't bring yourself
to kill." He was thinking of a house by the sea in Mexico. A
blonde woman who bore Krycek's name, though she was not his wife.
Delicate, pale, heavy with his child. A secret Knowle had kept,
even from his own superiors, and he didn't even know why.
Krycek swallowed. "Get out of my car."
"I haven't told them about her," he said. "And I won't. Not as
long as Scully's baby lives."
"Just get out of my car."
Knowle felt vaguely dirty.
~x~
He thought about Krycek a lot over the next few days.
It wasn't just Krycek, who died in his bid to stop Mulder from
going to Scully. It wasn't even Mulder himself, who put a safe
distance between himself and his son just days after the boy was
born. It was the whole picture. The mass of human contradictions.
The killer who gave his life to keep two children safe, against
all good sense. The father, torn between the instinct to protect
his son and the inexorable logic that the boy must die. There was
something oddly compelling about the human drama of it all.
Knowle puzzled over this, trying to make the pieces form a
coherent picture, but he couldn't. It was too messy, the edges
too jagged. And yet it was just a little too noble, too decent
for him to completely dismiss as human trivia. He had the same
uneasy feeling he'd had with John Doggett in Beirut: a kind of
low understanding.
But even that wasn't the heart of it, because he had known
decent humans before. They weren't the most common breed of them,
but they were there. He'd known them in General Lauderton, in Mrs
Pendleton, in the people he'd served with in the Gulf and Beirut.
It was something deeper. Something to do with Mulder and Scully's
son, maybe. Or maybe about how he would be used. He knew, deep
down, that even if the child had died that day, he would never
have told his superiors of the existence of the other one. As far
as he was aware, they still didn't know, and they would never
learn of it from him.
He was not sentimental about human life. Never had been. Human
death was as inexorable as the rising and setting of the sun.
Soldiers knew it, accepted it, and Knowle understood that. They
were at peace with what they were, and with their ultimate fate,
just as Knowle was with his.
But that was adults. Soldiers. And he counted Fox Mulder, Alex
Krycek, and their ilk among those. Less formal soldiers, to be
sure, but soldiers just the same.
But a child. Even he and Shannon had not been involved in war
as children. Childhood was a time of formation, not a time for
war. Even to Knowle's sensibilities (which were undoubtedly
dulled by his upbringing), it was unacceptable. So was the taking
over of the humans - so much worse than simply killing them. It
was like skewering them on a stick and using electric shocks to
make them dance. Alive, but subject to the whims of another, all
choices gone. He knew it was wrong, the way he'd known
instinctively that Kurt hurting Samantha was wrong, all those
years before.
He was not devoid of human instinct, he supposed. Certainly, he
had human appetites. Sex. Warmth. Comfort. Love. He could exist
without them - maybe that was the difference - but he wanted
them. Hungered for them. Hungered for Shannon, every goddamn day.
Did it not follow that he knew other human instincts as well?
He abhorred waste, in all its forms. Wasted time, wasted
energy, wasted life. He abhorred senseless violence. Violence
with cause, with purpose, well, he could tolerate that. It didn't
disturb him. But the petty, purposeless violence humans inflicted
on one another every day - so needless. So reprehensible. He had
no horror of inflicting death, but he still honoured life where
he could.
It occurred to him, mulling it over, that he probably had more
respect for life than Shannon gave him credit for.
But what did that mean? He didn't even know who to ask.
He could ask Shannon. Certainly, she would understand the
things stirring in himself. And yet it seemed like ratifying
every bad thing she'd ever thought about him. He wasn't ready to
do that, because he didn't believe that. He'd had something to
offer her, and she threw it away.
"Do you remember what I told you? About following the bees?"
Lauderton asked him when he unburdened himself. He was eighty
now, and he still loved his petunias. They sat there planting
them in his garden while Knowle said what he needed to say.
"Yes, Sir."
"Don't yessir me, Knowle. I've known you since you were wiping
your snot on your sleeve, for Chrissake."
Knowle laughed, and hot on the heels of laughter came
nostalgia. He felt the unfamiliar taste of salt rising up in his
throat. He looked away, blinking, and wondered again - what the
hell was happening to him?
If Lauderton noticed, he didn't say so. He said in that
rumbling voice of his, "Tell me something. Where does the queen
get her authority?"
"She gives birth to the hive. She looks after them."
"Good," Lauderton said, as though they were back in the sunroom
at the Ark with their schoolbooks again. "And are these Purists -
are they looking after the hive? The ones who serve?"
He thought about it. Shook his head.
"They're eating them alive."
"There's your answer, boy," he said. Clapped his hand on his
shoulder. "Follow the bees. You won't go far wrong."
~x~
Shannon came to him three days later.
"We have a problem," she said, closing his front door behind
her. Wonder of wonders, she knocked first. He wondered if that
was a good sign, or a bad one.
"We?" he queried, making room for her on the couch beside him.
"Thanks," she said, dropping down at his side. She helped
herself to a piece of his pizza without asking. "The work that
created us, and has created others like us, continues."
"That's not exactly news."
"No. But there are plans to get it into the water supply. To
induce it as a mutation in children of human mothers."
He stared at her. Oddly outraged. Something flickered in him,
perhaps an ancestor of a paternal instinct. Something he might
have had if they'd been allowed to reproduce themselves. To
conceive a child, and have it turn out to be something other than
you both - the thought of it horrified him.
"How do you know?" he said at last. He felt cold.
"Two whistleblowers approached me," she said briskly between
bites on her pizza. "I killed them." It occurred to him that for
all her principles, Shannon never hesitated to kill when it
suited her.
"You killed them?" he echoed. "Why? Why not use them to stop
it, if that's what you want to do?"
She shook her head. "It's not that simple. There will be
records about us. If it were to be exposed that way, we'd be
exposed, too. At the very least, there would be cellular material
people could study and use. Maybe even use it to craft some sort
of weapon against us."
He stared at her. "You don't really think that's possible."
"Let's just say I don't want to find out." She looked down at
her pizza. "This is good."
"You're buying the next one. What do you need from me?"
"I need you to track down the base of operations and rip it
apart. Kill them, blow it up, whatever you need to do. I don't
want it exposed, Knowle, but I want it to stop."
"All right." It was tantamount to working against the Purists,
and he wondered if her curiosity would be piqued by his ready
agreement, but she didn't seem to recognise that that was what it
boiled down to. On the whole, he was relieved. He felt vaguely
self-conscious about his growing disloyalty to the Purists. Was
it just a fear of admitting he may have been wrong? Was he really
that petty?
"There's another problem," Shannon said. "An assistant director
at the FBI has been digging around the first guy's death. Guy
named Kersh. Now John Doggett's in on the act. He's tried to
contact me."
A wrinkle of irritation passed through him. So that was why she
was preoccupied. "Wonderful."
"Don't worry about John. I'll distract him while you do what
you need to do." He didn't ask how she intended to do that. He
didn't want to know.
"All right," he said, swallowing his dismay. "Tell me what you
have."
~x~
He woke to the salty, sour taste of polluted water. Baltimore
water.
Lovely.
Gradually, as higher thought returned, he became aware that
Shannon was tugging him by the hand. Dragging him ashore. She
dumped him on the sand, and then she kicked him in the stomach.
Hard.
"You son of a *bitch*!" she screamed at him.
"What the-" He stared up at her. Trying to make sense of it. He
focussed on her face, looming over him in a perfect fever of
fury. He remembered blowing up the ship and the evidence within
it. John was there, he remembered - had he rejected Shannon a
second time? - and then -
It came back in a rush. He'd tried to kill John. Shannon had
stopped him. They fell into the water together. She must have
taken his head off - that was why it was unclear. His memories
were still reassembling themselves in his mind.
Did John see that? Shit.
"You bastard!" she yelled. "You were going to kill John!"
His head hurt. He stayed there on his back, grimacing. "You
told me to blow it up and kill everyone. So we wouldn't be
exposed."
"Oh, fucking bullshit! He didn't even make it in there before
you tried to rip his fucking face apart, and since when are you
that fucking brutal anyway? You're fucking jealous of him! You've
always been jealous of him!"
He didn't think he'd heard her swear so much since they were in
combat.
"You were the one who dragged him into this, Shannon. Don't lay
this on me. Believe me, I'd have preferred it if you'd left him
out of it altogether." He winced. The lights were hurting his
eyes. They were brand new, after all.
"Bullshit. You wanted him there and you wanted him dead. I
wouldn't be surprised if you led him down there to begin with."
"It was the goddamn ship's captain. He was the third
whistleblower. Remember the whistleblowers? The ones who started
all this? Jesus, Shannon, you've had a blind spot for him ever
since fucking Lebanon. You whore yourself around to anyone human
with balls and he's the one fucking man who didn't shove it into
you, and you've been carrying a torch for him ever since."
Her face was flushed, hot and pink under the lights. Twisted
with humiliation. "Fuck you, Knowle."
He pulled himself away from her. Sitting up. "No, fuck you. You
demand my help after treating me like shit for twenty years, cost
me my job - I can't fucking go back into a public position after
this! - and then you throw him in my face like that? That's
bullshit!"
Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now. "You are half
the man he is. Not even half. I thought you'd changed, but now
you're worse. Because you know better now, and you're still doing
that same old shit." Her voice broke a little. "You're an empty
shell, serving an army of them. Everything I ever loved about you
is gone." She turned and ran off into the night.
He slammed his head down on the sand and wished she'd damn well
left him down there.
~x~
He went to Canada.
It was deserted now. The Samanthas and the Kurts were gone. He
didn't know why. He didn't really care. It was a relief.
He went there on the basis that he had to go somewhere while
Doggett turned his old stamping grounds upside down. He was
annoyed by the loss of his work in the Pentagon. That had been a
comfortable life. Still, he'd known that would end sooner or
later. That wasn't what had sent him running to the shelter of
the only home he'd ever known.
More than anything, it was the confrontation on the beach, but
that wasn't the whole story either. There was something growing
within him, rolling in lazily like the tide. Since at least that
day in Washington with Doggett, but maybe even earlier than that.
Maybe ever since the Purists came into power.
Whatever it was, it had culminated in the fury that had tumbled
out of him, first with Doggett, and then with Shannon. Some of
the things he'd said to her - he didn't even know where half of
it had come from. There was a hostility, an anger of which he'd
never been conscious in himself before.
Uneasily, he wondered if he were really so at peace with
himself and his lot as he liked to think.
He spent a lot of his time in the shadehouse with the bees.
Human neglect of their environment had been immaterial; they were
self- sufficient. The ginseng germinated wild, and the bees
continued down their simple, time-worn path. He let them swarm
over him. He enjoyed their humming, droning sounds, and he found
their labours soothing. Little by little, over the next few
weeks, he felt his mind grow still.
He was in the shadehouse when she found him.
"Great minds think alike," she said.
He didn't turn around. Just kept on studying the bee travailing
his palm. "I came here to be alone."
"Do you want me to go?"
He shook his head. "It's your home too." He deposited the bee
onto a leaf and picked up another.
"How are they?" she wondered, coming over. She sat down beside
him.
"Seem fine. They have a food source. Numbers are up."
She rested her hand on his shoulder. Fingertips brushing the
ridges in his neck. "Knowle..."
He shrugged her off. "Shannon, I've only just stopped thinking
about that night and I would really rather not revisit it."
"I don't think we should stop thinking about it," she said. "I
think it needed to happen. I think we said a lot of things that
had been festering for a long time. For both of us."
"And what does it change?" he wondered. "You don't want to be
who you are. You don't want what I am, or what we have. You spend
your life chasing pipe-dreams and men who let you down. I've been
there all our lives, always done everything you ever asked, and
it isn't enough for you. And no amount of talking is going to
change any of it. It's just the way things are."
She sighed. "I love you, Knowle. I just can't live with you."
She got to her feet. "I think I should go."
He swallowed hard. Sat there, cold and numb in the morning sun.
"I love you too. If it matters."
She nodded. "It does."
He didn't believe her.
~x~
The last time he saw her was the night before...before...
Before it. Whatever 'it' was.
She was standing there in the middle of the road in the middle
of the night, just over the New Mexico border. Waiting. Hair and
clothes all fluttering in the wind.
He sighed. Pulled over. Got out of the SUV.
"What do you want, Shannon?"
She walked around the front to face him. They stood facing each
other in the middle of the highway. She looked at him, sad,
wraith-like, face pale and thin in the dim light of dawn.
"Don't do this, Knowle. Please."
So she knew he was after Mulder and Scully. He wondered where
she was getting her information these days. Doggett, maybe? The
idea stung.
"I might have known you'd get involved," he said. "What with
John and all."
"It isn't about John," she said. "It was never about John."
"Then what is it?"
"I love you, Knowle. I'm so sick of fighting with you."
He reached out. Squeezed her hand, let it go. Leaned against
the SUV.
"I have to finish this one, Shannon," he said. Looking away.
"It's my mission. I accepted it. I have...I have
responsibilities."
She stared at him. "And after this one?"
He shrugged. Shifting uneasily. "A lot of things don't feel
right these days. That's all."
"You'd really walk?"
"I don't know." He met her gaze. "Maybe."
She came to him. Eyes glittering with tears. "Knowle, you don't
know what this means to me."
It pissed him off. This was exactly why he didn't tell her what
he was thinking, what he was feeling a year ago. He felt like she
was claiming his - his - his whatever-it-was as her victory. As
though she'd finally succeeded in moulding him into whatever the
hell it was she wanted. Somehow, her joy managed to take all her
dissatisfaction with what he was and amplify it until it burned.
"Goddamn it, Shannon, stop it. Just fucking stop it. This isn't
about you. I'm not your knight in shining armour. I'm just the
guy who wasn't enough." He pushed her away and went to the SUV.
He felt her hands on his shoulders. "Knowle, don't."
"It's my job."
"I don't mean Mulder and Scully. I mean - you didn't do
anything wrong. I'm sorry I made you feel like you did."
He leaned his head against the door. "I'm just so tired."
"Do you sleep, Knowle?" she wondered. Her voice was kind.
He shook his head. "Not for years."
"You should," she chided gently. "It's good for the soul."
He smiled a little. "I only sleep with you."
"You should come see me when you're finished up here. We'll
have a sleep date."
He laughed. A weary laugh, but a laugh just the same. "A sleep
date?" he said, turning to face her.
She looked a little sheepish. "I felt bad about how we left
things last time, Knowle. I'd like things to be better between
us. One way or another, you're always going to be part of my
life."
"Whether you like it or not, huh?"
"Knowle-"
"Sorry," he said. She was trying, after all. "I'm just-"
"I know. Tired." She nodded to the SUV. "Go do what you need to
do. I'll see you back in DC."
He nodded. Kissed her diffidently. "I love you, Shannon."
"Same."
He got into the SUV and left her.
END OF PART 3