Title - "Blood-stained Banner" Author - Wintersong E-Mail address - wintersong@animatrix.ns.ca Rating - R Category - SA Spoilers - DeadAlive Keywords - none PURity Category: Minor Characters Summary - Wave, wave, the bloody shirt high. This time we go to war. Disclaimer: They belong to CC and 1013. Note: This story was written for the PURity Summer Season Challenge. It takes place between TINH and DeadAlive. *********************************************** Shit. That was the first word that came to mind. God damn and Fuck it all to hell followed close behind. Banging his head repeatedly against his desktop, Alex Krycek considered the fact that there was a reason the fucking roman empire had waved the bloody fucking shirt of a defeated general before the masses. It damn well worked. Come on Alex, he told himself. Think. Think damn it. And while you're at it...he considered the wooden surface only centimeters from his pain- blurred gaze. Find yourself some aspirin. Or vodka. Yeah. Vodka might do it. Tradition was a wonderful thing. Too bad he didn't drink. Mulder had finally managed to get himself killed. And not conveniently either. Mulder, being typically Mulder, had decided to fuck Alex Krycek but good. He couldn't have died in some messy but scientifically explainable way. Nope. Monster Boy had to get fragged in a very public, very noticeable manner. So noticeable that his tragically abandoned, tragically PREGNANT partner got her tragic ass broadcast on national television as she publicly collapsed over his mutilated corpse. Wave,wave the bloody flag of war... Re-broadcasting every hour on the hour in 52 states - oh , and don't forget fucking Canada. Damn FOX satellite feeds. And how the hell was he supposed to know that the news editor for the BBC was a bona fide UFO nut who subscribed to The Lone Gunmen? Less than 1500 subscribers-how serious a threat were they supposed to be? Except now they were 1500 pissed off subscribers. Just when did Agent Spooky and Doc Ice become the poster children for the paranoid pocket protector set anyway? And now they were all mad enough to get off the damn nail and do something about it. Shit. Pregnant women and the sympathy factor. He had seriously underestimated the sympathy factor. He just wished that he'd underestimated Scully. If Mulder had just become the official martyr of the god damn Church of X, Strange and Truth, then Scully had managed to become Mother Mary, Moses on the Mount and the fucking Archangel Gabriel and his fucking flaming sword all in one. Skinner now rode his white horse with all the guilty fervor of the newly converted while the three choirboys from Hell continued their hymns of doom, gloom, and alien invasion. Scully was doing exactly what he'd figured she'd do. She was calling in the dogs of war. It was, he thought morosely, sort of like the homosexual telling the hetero that it was okay to be gay. No bloody credibility. Mulder could spout his scripture to the people and the congregation would nod their heads gamely, give rousing cheers of support and maybe throw a little money in the collection plate. But that's as far as it would go. Because in the end, Mulder was one of them and he was preaching to the converted. But Scully belonged to the masses. She was the sane one. The scientific one. The unbeliever. The one who was causing lab techs and local PD to laugh at her crackpot theories first, then ,after meeting a very focused, very tortured and very sane blue-eyed gaze, pause and ask "really?". Lab techs and flatfoots who were going home with the eerie feeling that maybe... just maybe...what if she was right? And how could any red-blooded American male still call himself a man if he wussed out over a little humiliation and embarrassment in the face of such obvious and overwhelming feminine courage and pain? Guilt with a testosterone chaser was a damned inconvenient thing. Belief was bloody contagious too. Like the case in Jersey. Six homeless men ripped apart by something the only survivor said was a werewolf. Not so unusual. He was 24 ounces into a 40 ounce bottle of whiskey when he saw it. Just another crazy loose on the streets. The PD even agreed. And then requisitioned 1000 rounds of silver plated bullets. The fucking werewolf never had a chance. All because of the sympathy factor. Damn it. It was socially acceptable for men to suffer for unrequited love. For lost love. For the unattainable goal. Hell, it was a Hollywood cliché. Boy meets girl, bad guy does something terrible to girl, boy becomes the tragic hero with nothing left to lose. So much for the girl. Reduced to the currency of a game. The quality of her pain, the extent of her losses used as nothing more than the benchmark to gauge a man's standing among his fellow players. Was she raped? Dear me, you should have moved faster. Was she killed? Ah ha! Now we've got some psychological drama. Will you allow us to use it to manipulate you or will you rise above our petty machinations and prove yourself the better man? And if she lives? Well, hell man...you win. The fools actually bought this shit. Morons. Only now there was Scully. The hell with potentially turning Mulder into the icon of a crusade. They should have been worried about his partner. He'd told them. He'd told them it was a mistake. Hell, he'd known since the minute she'd stuck that pain-in-the-ass nose in the air and snubbed him in the autopsy bay. She was supposed to be glad to get away from her fruitloop partner. Grateful even. Not territorial. But there she was, hiking her leg and squatting with the best of them. When the hell had it all gone to hell? The first case? The third? For someone who claimed the motto "Trust No One", the man had a powerful drive for wanting to trust the women in his life. Brains definitely did it for him. Phobe, Diana - they might as well have taken Scully out and gift-wrapped her. They had, he thought finally, gotten too impressed with themselves. They'd wanted the flexibility to hit every red blooded spinal reflex hot-button the man had. And it had just turned around and kicked them in the ass. Now he had to figure out a way to keep her alive until he could figure out what to do about Mulder. A little more time and maybe they would have an effective vaccine. Just a bit more time. Mulder was safe enough where he was for the moment. His antibodies should be able to hold off this new virus a few weeks longer. Long enough for Alex to do what had to be done about the child. But maybe he should spare a minute to worry about himself. Because he didn't have a clue who the fucking Saracens were anymore. Because Scully was riding the clarion call to battle and her army was gathering. Too soon. Damn it. Too fucking soon. And the last time the Christians went to war... ...they lost. ************************** ~the end ************************** Author Notes: Just wanted to confess that I ...umm...*borrowed* (stealing is such a harsh word;o) Alex's observation about the Roman reason for waving the bloody shirt from David Weber's "Honor Harrington " series.