They said it couldn't be done, but I have done it.  Long ago, 
during a discussion of song stories, Myrke issued a challenge 
for a story based on "Stairway to Heaven".  Well here it is, and 
starring Marita, no less.
"A Stairway to Heaven song story starring Marita?" you say.  
"Why not just give myself a root canal with no anaesthetic?"  
(Been there, done that, sez Liane ;) )  But no! It's really not 
*that* bad!
L.O.
feaeap@worldnet.att.net or romanac@hotmail.com
XF essays and fanfic at 
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8796/xindex.html
Feedback always welcome!
**********************************************
Archiving: Yes
Rating: PG-13 (unsettling themes)
Classification: S
Spoilers: Zero Sum
Summary: Finally, Marita's side of things.
Disclaimer:  Characters are property of CC, 1013, and FOX.  Used 
without permission, but without intent to profit from them.
Dedicated to Nikki B.
**********************************************
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Ooh, ooh and she's buying the stairway to heaven.

The music swelled as she turned the volume up.  She followed the 
melody intently, pretending she'd never heard it before.  The 
madhouse of traffic around her receded a pace and she navigated 
through the snarl by instinct.  She loosened her clenched hands 
on the wheel.
Taking a cab was out of the question.  Cabbies could be paid to 
notice and to report.  Of course, they had offered her a driver: 
one of the nameless henchman with the body of an ox and the dim, 
vicious eyes of a killer.  But... no.
And here was one of the men now, emerging from the cavern of the 
underground parking lot as the iron grating lifted noiselessly.  
She rolled down her tinted window, and spoke not a word.  He 
waved her through.  Everyone who had business here was known by 
sight.
She moved from the damp cool of the garage to the dusty cool of 
the basement.  In the elevator ride up, she smoothed her dry, 
tinted hair into place and commanded her features to settle into 
a mask of uncommunicative regularity.
Everything was still and noiseless here.  The elevator glided 
upward as if by its own will.  No creaking.  No humming.  Her 
footfalls were hushed by the thick carpeting as she walked down 
the hall that opened before her.
In this dead atmosphere, the rasping of the tiny metal wheel of 
a lighter took on an added significance.  She could smell the 
smoke rising off him before he even lit the cigarette.  She 
could smell it as soon as she came within a few paces of him, 
there in the wood-paneled study.  It brought her an irrational 
surge of almost fondness for him.  He was taking his time with 
the cigarette -- taking a slow drag, letting the smoke seep back 
out, staring at her with his cold, hooded eyes.  Undoubtably, it 
was a tactic designed to put her in her place.  He was 
thoroughly dislikable.  Venal.  Banal.  Short-sighted.  But the 
smoke made him real to her...
After readying his cigarette, he held a folder out, just out of 
her reach.  In his flat, measured voice, he gave her 
instructions.
"A new aspect of the work is beginning.  This folder contains 
the answers you are to give Mulder if he calls.  Answer only 
what he asks.  Volunteer nothing."
"Of course."
Her impassive eyes never left his.
He extended his arm further, and she reached out and took the 
folder.  His finger brushed hers, dry and warm.  It must have 
been unintentional, because he was the one who glanced away, 
sideways and down.  His face made some tiny movement, a pursing 
of his lips or twitch of his cheek.  He broke the contact 
immediately, but she pursued it, held it a moment.  She could 
not have said why.
Without further speech, she turned and left the room.
**********************************************
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings
In the tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it makes me wonder

"...Hello?"
"I'm sorry to call you so late... I need your help.  I had to 
call."
"You shouldn't call me here, Agent Mulder."
"You know about Agent Scully's... health.  You know what they've 
done to her.  Isn't there... Can't you find out anything about 
how it was done?  About how to help her?  It's getting worse.  
You have to help me..."
"There's nothing I can do."
Silence.
"Nothing you _can_ do?  Or nothing you _will_ do?"
Silence again.
"There's nothing I can do."
She heard the click as the connection was severed.  She held the 
phone to her in the dark, pressing the cold plastic against the 
thudding pulse at the base of her throat.  She waited for the 
beeping and the woman's toneless voice to begin.
"If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again..."
And after all, what could she have said that would have kept him 
on the line any longer?
"Agent Mulder, your partner will only survive if she becomes 
something other than what she is."
"Agent Mulder, everything you believe is true.  I have been 
there, with Them.  I have been taken apart and put back together 
again.  I have been held in the thrall of unfathomable minds.  I 
am a shameless whore who is willing to sell my people and my 
world for just another moment of that wordless communion."
"Agent Mulder, everything you believe is false.  You are a pawn 
of the enemy, and you are endangering all you hold dear."
"Agent Mulder, you are far happier now not knowing, than you 
ever will be if you find the truth."
All of these things could have been said.
Or not.
And god only knows whether they would have been believed.
Or indeed, whether they would have been meant to be believed.  
But it would have been something to say.
********************************************
Shadows began to align themselves into shapes and forms from the 
moment she set foot in the hospital. 
Children lying motionless.  Needles and shining equipment.  A 
sterile, chemical smell that could not mask the underlying scent 
of fear.  
Silent figures looming over the children...
But the figures _weren't_ silent.  They were yelling to each 
other, instructions for 10cc's of this or that, frantic requests 
for the crash cart, the wails of the parents...  She shook her 
head in confusion and tried to see the scene before her, rather 
than the shadows gathering in her mind.
She wove through the corridor, seeking the man she had come to 
find.
"Mr. Skinner?"
"How do you know who I am?"
"You contacted me.  I'm Marita Covarrubias."
She saw the script in her mind and she read her lines off its 
pages, struggling to pursue her assignment.  But she was 
hampered by the humming, buzzing shadows, just out of the corner 
of her mind's eye... The conversation was slipping past her.
She pressed the attack against him, letting the irony of her own 
words cut her, hoping the pain would wake her up: "If you know 
who's behind this, you have to come forward, Mr. Skinner.  No 
one else can."
He came into focus for a moment.  His guilt.  His complicity.  
His nobility and courage.  His complete lack of suitability for 
the game.  
But she was unmoved, and he dissolved again as she hurried away 
through the thronged hallway.  She trailed her hand across 
objects as she passed: the cold metal and unfeeling plastic were 
landmines that exploded at her touch, and she knew that her 
body's every reaction to the explosions was being weighed and 
measured and catalogued by the ones who stared.
Shaking under the stress of their regard, she fumbled with the 
lock of her car door, then started the car by force of habit.  
The music... she struck at the radio and managed to get the tape 
to play.  She played it loud, louder, loud enough to drown out 
the humming in her blood.  Heavy enough to keep her tied to 
earth.

There's a feeling I get 
When I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smokes through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking
Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it really makes me wonder
******************************************
And it's whispered that soon 
If we all call the tune
That the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forest will echo with laughter
If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
Don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on

"I'll tell him what you want me to tell him."
She paused for the response, and then hung up.
"Now get out of my apartment."  The flat command was directed to 
the man behind her.  She left the room that served as her 
office, not looking back at him.  She went to her livingroom and 
sat in the chair that faced the fireplace.
"I want more from you than that, Marita."
She wasn't sure whether his tone was intended to be seductive or 
menacing.  Either one was bad.
He rounded the chair and leaned in, placing his hands on the 
arms of the chair.  Against her will, she flinched.
"You could bring them down," Krycek said.  "You and I, alone, 
could bring them down.  Hell, it's worth doing just because we 
can!  Just because they're so smug and cocksure, just because 
they underestimate the tools they use and then throw away.  And 
they'll throw you away, don't have any illusions about that."
He backed off a little, and she turned her head to monitor him 
out of the corner of her eye. "And I don't have to remind you of 
all the other reasons to stop them.  You're quite aware of what 
they're doing.  Do you have a conscience I could appeal to, 
perhaps?"
She looked at him, really looked at him, then.  She spoke 
without meaning to: "What was it like?"
He looked confused.
"What was it like, being taken over by... that thing?"
He understood the question now.  But her words continued to 
tumble out. "Were you aware?  Did it hurt?  Could you... could 
you share its thoughts?  Could you feel the power?"
She tried so hard to make her questions precise.  The gestures 
of her hands were like the movements of a bird's broken wing.  
"Does... does it notice us?  Do we mean anything to it?  Or were 
you still... alone?"
Understanding followed understanding across his face.  "You are 
sick," he spat out.  He backed away from her, not hiding his 
contempt, and slammed the door as he left.
She sprang from her chair to follow him, but checked her own 
movement so sharply that she fell as if she'd been struck.  
Questions, inchoate pleas, foamed in her mouth like vomit, but 
she bit them back.  Her mind staggered and then hurtled through 
places that, upon waking, she would deny even existed.
****************************************
Your head is humming and it won't go
In case you don't know
The piper's calling you to join him
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind

She floated through days at her "real" job, processing the 
paperwork of government.  Some days she felt human, solid.  On 
one of those days, she had sushi for dinner and watched a Lauren 
Bacall movie on TV that night.  But other days, she felt like 
she was just a projection, a mere play of colored light against 
a background.  When she opened her mouth to speak, she was sure 
that those around her could see through the back of her head to 
the bricks behind.
Finally, the call came.
She met him at night, in Central Park.
"Ms. Covarrubias."
"Kurt."  
She called him by the name that they had chosen for themselves.  
With his expressionless face before her as a model, it was 
easier than ever to force hers into stillness, even given the 
fire that raced now through her veins.
"Come with me."
Of course.  Of course, Kurt.
He drove the nondescript car, and the trip passed like a dream.  
She was utterly unaware of the route they had taken, far out of 
the city to end up before a low, featureless building.
There were others inside.  Identical.  They fell in around her 
as the whole pack moved through the building to the back.  The 
contrast between her outward icy calm and her inward fever 
piqued her excitement even further.  She was unsteady on her 
feet, and the picture of the beings on either side of her 
catching her in their arms if she were to fall almost did her 
in.
Did she want them to desire her?  Or would such a human response 
demean them, spoil their mystery and sanctity?
No.  Nothing could change their Otherness.  They could fall upon 
her en masse right there in the parking lot and there would be 
nothing sordid or earthbound about it.
The buzzing of her longing and fear was audible, palpable.  She 
could feel it vibrating in her bones and her teeth.  And when 
the solemn progress reached the field beyond the lot, she saw 
the light.
Oh god.  She looked around at the others, and their faces, 
though never moving, seemed to radiate mercy and approval.  She 
abandoned herself to the vibrations and the shadows, but she 
didn't collapse.  The humming kept her upright in the air, and 
she was already lost, in unspoken union or the memory of union, 
when the great beam of light stabbed downward to earth, to 
transport her.


And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll



And she's buying the stairway to heaven.




*****************************************
end "Stairway" 1/1