The Choice 1: The Heart Desires
by Shelba
Feedback, yes please, to kits1013 @ AOL. com.
Disclaimers: Not mine.
Keywords: CSM, Pre XF, Mythology
Archive: Yes. I’d be honored. I’d appreciate a note letting me know where so I can visit.
Washington DC
Unknown Location
May, 1990
He circles slowly, studying the pictures laid out before him. The others have long since gone, their mission accomplished. They have done his bidding, now he shall decide which woman to choose.
He pauses for a moment and considers a picture before him. Dark hair curves around an oval face with full lips and brilliant green eyes. A patrician nose keeps the face from being overly pretty. She is a beautiful woman, but something is missing. He studies it again. No, he realizes, the problem is not that which is missing. It’s what is there. This woman would look much like Samantha Mulder would have, had she not been taken years ago.
He shakes his head when he realizes that many of the women that have been sent to his agent over the years resembled this woman. Tall and dark, with intelligent eyes, sleek greyhound bodies and hard hearts. Not one had been adequate to the task. Not one had gotten close enough to the target to be of use.
One must always be sure to choose the correct tool. His mouth tightens. What were his predecessors thinking? Had they not wondered at the repeated failures? If insanity is repeating the same actions over and over and expecting different results, they were worse than fools. Agent Mulder’s former watchers had apparently failed to learn some simple truths. If one trifles with a man’s soul too often, pain and fear eventually diminish the effects. Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
He doesn’t want to harden Mulder’s heart. He wants to break it.
He plucks the file from the table and deposits it on a small stack with a few others, soon to be forgotten. Perhaps he should simply ignore the intelligence reports, forget about these flat images and take his chances with the Bureau’s partner selection process. Taking the luck of the draw might work as well as trying to choose the perfect partner for Agent Mulder.
For the next few hours he examines photos, studies files; occasionally making notations on one or another. This one is too old, this one too young. This brunette looks flighty, vapid, and her file confirms his impression. Mulder is intelligent, with a dry humor and sharp wit. He would not respond well to such a superficial woman. Well, he thinks, not unless she was on celluloid or there was an exchange of money for services rendered. Finding a temporary diversion for Fox is not today’s goal. He flags the brunette’s file and moves on.
He paces around the table again, pausing to look at each one, growing more annoyed with each pass. This one is too blonde, too much like Marita Covarrubias. Mulder could very well drive a stake through her heart simply to see if she shared Marita’s vampiric traits. But Marita has proved useful in the past. Smoke wreaths his lined face and he narrows his eyes. The file is tagged and he moves on.
Finally, he tamps out his cigarette, leaves the files and photos. Unless noted otherwise, they will be returned to the geneticists, the young women catalogued in the usual manner, and removed from regular surveillance.
He had hoped that one of these would have been suited to his purposes. He shall consider his staff’s deficiencies later, when he has the leisure to do so. The hours of evaluation and investigation must not be allowed to go to waste. Micro-chips will ensure that retrieving the merchandise later is a simple enough matter.
‘Quantico,’ he thinks. A new class is ready to graduate. Before the door closes behind him, he has already forgotten about the subjects and their fates.
Fresh blood is needed. He will do his own hunting.
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NOTES: Thank you to Sallie and Char for their kindness and loving help. You ladies are such a treasure.
“Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a stone of the heart.” Yeats
This 2 part story was inspired by two paintings. The first can be seen at this address: http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/bj/paintings/9.html
This is an excerpt from the text at the site:
“The Heart Desires, the first painting in the series, can be interpreted as a prologue to the [Pygmalion] tale. Burne-Jones depicts the young sculptor, lost in thought, in what appears to be a museum. Although we cannot see the unknown work being contemplated, the sculptured trio of the Graces in the background gives an indication to his thoughts. The figures are illuminated by a light source shining down on their sculpted forms, and their reflection on the glossy marble floor serves to remind us of the artistic ideal for which the sculptor strives.”
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The Choice 2: The Hand Refrains
by Shelba
Feedback, yes please, to kits1013 @ AOL. com.
Disclaimers: Not mine.
Keywords: CSM, Pre XF, Mythology, Impending MSR
Archive: Yes. I’d be honored. I’d appreciate a note letting me know where so I can visit.
This is a story inspired by the second of two paintings. Here is the URL for the second painting: http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/bj/paintings/10.html
Quantico
Virginia
May, 1990
He tamps out his cigarette, draws his coat more tightly around himself. Restless and annoyed, he follows the crowd into the auditorium and chooses a seat near the rear. He settles back into the shadows and stops himself as he reaches for a cigarette. Under normal circumstances he would just light up. No-smoking signs are for others. He’s been beyond the need to follow society’s petty dictates for years, only following them when he wishes. Today, he wishes to do so. No one must notice him; if he lights up here, someone will.
The graduation ceremony goes as smoothly as one as one might expect. He really doesn’t anticipate any surprises but he studies the new agents – – checks out the women and a few of the men.
Too bad that Agent Mulder’s evaluations show him to be so thoroughly heterosexual. More than one male has had the other qualities he was looking for. Under other circumstances, one of them would have done nicely, but he needs to find someone who will be more than a partner. Soon, it will be time for the next step of the project.
Fox is as cagey as his namesake. Only the right person will earn his trust, will win his affection. Affection isn’t necessary between breeding candidates but it will prove beneficial to the Project’s purposes. Mulder is loyal to his friends, but obsessively dedicated to those he loves.
He suffers through the speeches, the class awards. Though he is bored by what will most likely be a fruitless search, he listens and puts names to faces. Then, his eyes fix on a bright spot of copper and a tiny figure and he nearly bolts out of his seat for a better look. Is this who he thinks it is?
The young woman, head held high and shoulders squared, practically marches onto the podium. He blinks and stares.
He can hardly believe his luck. The cold smile that splits his face has stuck fear into the soul of many a man. Even as he gloats over this bit of serendipity, he resolves to find the fools who were apparently unaware that Captain William Scully’s daughter was right here, right under their noses.
Scanning his program, he finds her name. He was not mistaken. She is listed. Dana Katherine Scully, MD. Top five percent of her class. Medical Doctor. Forensics expert. Board Certified Pathologist. Masters of Science in Physics. No-nonsense military family. Integrity with a capital “I”. Intelligence that shines like her hair in the sun.
It had been some years since he had occasion to see her, and the pictures in her file do not do her justice. She has been transformed from an earnest young girl with braces and braids into quite the winsome young woman. She is shorter than he had expected, much shorter than the other Scully females.
Her diminutive stature should rouse Fox’s inclination to protect. Though it was not expected that he would be this way, it seems that it is his nature to be so.
With her earnest face and tiny, curvaceous body, she is nothing like the other women who have used and been used by Fox Mulder.
She couldn’t be more perfect if he had designed her himself.
He imagines reaching out and grasping her before anything can wreck his plans. He wants to take her to Fox’s office himself, wants to see Fox’s face when he realizes the gift and curse he’s been given. He chides himself for his flight of fancy and places a call to Assistant Director Blevins. The wheels are set in motion.
He had hoped to set Mulder up with his permanent partner this spring, but Dana Scully is exactly what he has been searching for, so he is willing to wait.
She will not be ready to move into the field until she has had some experience, until she chafes under the yoke of being simply a teacher, before she will be ready to accept the assignment awaiting her.
He has always been a patient man, but for the first time in many years, he feels the bite of impatience urging him to forgo the schedule. Two years should be enough.
Two years. It is a long time, but it will be worth the wait.
Agent Mulder won’t know what hit him.
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Again, thanks to Miz Sallie and Char for kind assistance and encouraging words. I’m afraid I tinkered a bit after it left their capable hands. Any resulting errors are mine in their entirety.
Thanks to everyone who had kind words for part 1. I hope you liked this additional foray into CSM’s mind. Let me know if you felt the need to shake something off. Thanks for reading.
Shelba