From: ssteiner@sbcglobal.net   
      
   Scully had packed a thermos of coffee, sandwiches, and the leftover sweet   
   rolls, which she broke out as night fell.  Will napped in the back seat with   
   me, unconcerned with the impending events.  The rest of us were wired with   
   tension and caffeine.   
      
   The snow let up around nine-thirty p.m. A thick, heavy mantle lay over the   
   earth, and the nearly full moon was in the sky, lighting the landscape with   
   a ghastly glow.  The crowd was gathering again with the bonfires warming the   
   scene.   
      
   We heard it before we saw it.   
      
   I shuddered with the dull, throbbing vibration pulsing through me; it was a   
   body memory, I'd felt this before.  The look on Mulder and Scully's faces   
   said they felt the same way.  The radio sputtered off, and the car engine   
   dieseled to a halt at the same time   
      
   Will looked thrilled by the sensation; he was very nearly quivering at the   
   same frequency.  The sound trebled in volume as the ship came closer to the   
   Earth. The sight of the mother-fucking-huge ship was so intense it   
   overwhelmed me, and I felt frozen with the emotion. I had time to turn my   
   head, and Will was out of the car, running through the snow, laughing and   
   looking up to the sky.   
      
   That shook me from my fugue. I shot out of the car after him, dodging the   
   revelers who'd all apparently gone insane and were dancing in the snow and   
   moonlight under the approaching ship.   
      
   I'd almost caught up to him when a brilliant light blasted down from the   
   craft, and caught him in its' baleful glare.   
      
   In retrospect, I can't tell you in words exactly what it was that caused me   
   to do what I did.  Maybe he flickered as if he was about to take off, maybe   
   it was the malevolent look that had overtaken his grin: Will was gone, and   
   The Other was in full control. He raised his hand, and waved it in a   
   sweeping motion from left to right across the crowd of people gathering   
   around the light that shone on him alone.   
      
   They fell to the ground in a wide swath, like dominos in motion, bleeding   
   from their eyes, noses, mouths and ears.  Their cries of anguish merely   
   underscored the powerful noise coming from the ship. Will turned back to   
   face me, and he began to lift his arm again, the sound increasing in volume,   
   and the beam of light that bathed him intensified, so that he took on an   
   over-exposed, alien appearance.  I had no doubt that I was his next target.   
      
   The dormant Oilien entity in my blood erupted, causing me to go blind and   
   deaf.  It felt like my blood was boiling in my veins, scalding me from the   
   inside out as I started to bleed from every opening in my body, even the   
   pores on my skin.   
      
   I raised the Glock, holding on the now slick handle, and aiming by instinct   
   to empty the entire clip into him, his bloody, lifeless body twisting slowly   
   down to the snow. As Will fell, I regained my senses and I heard Dana   
   screaming through the sharp reports of twin gun blasts.  Not just mine,   
   Mulder had his gun aimed at his son, a strong two-fisted stance that meant   
   business, squeezing off shot after steady shot.   
      
   His clip was empty only a couple of shots after mine.   
      
   The sound stopped, the light snapped off as sharply as it had started, the   
   injured either dead or silenced.   
      
   Dana ran to Will and fell beside him onto the gory snow. The ship silently   
   took off, climbing high and fading away into the night sky until it looked   
   like just another star in the heavens. Those left standing held their   
   collective breaths, and the only sound we heard then was a grief-stricken   
   mother crying for a dead, lost child that should never have been born.   
      
      
      
   Epilogue:   
      
      
      
   We buried him there under the cold Moon of December; no one questioned what   
   we'd done. Mulder called Mrs. Matthews at the Center to report that Will had   
   had an episode and had run away, leaving her with the impression that he   
   thought Will was trying to get back to Wyoming.   
      
   Mulder and Scully went to San Diego to have Christmas with their remaining   
   children, and to mourn what had been lost to them.  It was only a matter of   
   time before the authorities took up the matter of Will's disappearance, and   
   their part in it, but I have full faith in Mulder's powers of obfuscation.   
      
   I'm back at the lake house to mourn in my own way: hiding and drinking and   
   smoking pot and boating until the next time I'm needed, for surely though   
   this battle had gone to us, it was only the first salvo.  Except now we have   
   no harbinger, no weather stone, or impossible ancient calendars to act as   
   the herald of our doom.   
      
   We were alone in a war that would never end.   
      
      
   *end*   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)