halfamoon | Three Times Samantha Mulder Ran Away And One Time She Didn't, Fiction, The X Files, Samantha

TITLE: Three Times Samantha Mulder Ran Away And One Time She Didn't
AUTHOR:

memories_child
FANDOM: The X Files
SPOILERS: Conduit
RATING: PG
CHARACTER/PAIRING: Samantha Mulder
WORD COUNT: 1080
DISCLAIMER: I'm not making any money off these.
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i.

She is fed up of being picked on all the time, of being told what to do, of being the youngest. She is fed up of having to hold Fox's hand when they cross the road and having to do what he says, just because he's her brother and he's four years older than her and he's in charge when Mom and Dad aren't around. She's fed up with being bossed around and ignored and not listened to when she has something really important to say.

But most of all she's fed up with how unfair life is.

If she went missing it would show them, she thinks. Sitting in the cherry tree, in the higher branches where she's not supposed to go, but where Fox can't find her, she wonders how easy it would be to go missing. People do it all the time - she's seen their photos on the milk cartons Mom puts on the table at breakfast time, so it can't be too hard. Her things go missing all the time (and she is too much of a little sister to blame that on Fox) and it's always much harder to find them than it is to lose them.

In fact she could go missing right here. No one knows where she is; no one would know where to look. Now she thinks of it, the tree would be a perfect place to run away to. She could eat all the cherries she wanted, so she wouldn't go hungry. And she knows there are birds nesting in the tree because she's seen them, it can't be that hard to steal an egg for breakfast. The leaves would keep her dry if it rains, and winter is months and months away so she doesn't have to think about keeping warm for ages.

She hears voices calling her down below, and climbs higher and higher. This tree is the perfect place to run away to.

ii.

She has been sent to her room. There was an accident. One of Mom's china vases (the nice one that Dad gave her before they started not speaking) somehow got broke, and as usual she's been blamed for it. Mom wouldn't listen when she said it wasn't her fault, that she had been nowhere near it when it fell from the mantelpiece and shattered on the floor, and when she started to yell Mom slapped her. Fox laughed behind Mom's back, and pulled a face at her, and when she called him a bad name (one that slipped out involuntarily) she was sent to her room.

She packs her bag carefully. There is only room in the small duffel for essential items, important items; things like money and candy bars and Mellow the Panda. So she discards the books she had pulled out of her bookcase, the ones she likes to read under the covers at night when she can't sleep, shielding the light with her small palm in case Mom or Dad should see. She throws most of her clothes to one side. She won't need the frilly dress that Mom makes her wear to Church, and she won't need more than three t-shirts because she'll find somewhere to wash them. She'll need her jeans though, and her gloves, because it's cold outside and she doesn't want her fingers to fall off with frostbite.

She ignores the jewellery that's locked away in the little black box on her bedside table, but she keeps the small gold necklace she wears because Fox gave it to her, and as much as he annoys her she'd still like to think of him when she's alone on some street somewhere, years away.

iii.

One night she wakes to the sound of loud voices. It's dark outside, and the moonlight falls in patterns on her bedroom floor, so she knows it's late. It's late, and it's dark, and there are loud voices coming from downstairs. She's scared.

She lies in bed for what feels like hours, and it doesn't get any lighter, and the voices don't get any quieter. She counts to a hundred, and then counts backwards from a hundred. Slowly, whispering the numbers aloud. It doesn't work, doesn't stop her feeling any less afraid so she creeps to Fox's room and crawls into his bed.

"What're you doing?" His sleepy voice mumbles, and she doesn't know how to tell him how scared she is.

"Let's run away, Fox." She whispers insted in the cold room.

"Don't be stupid," he snorts at her in that older brother voice. "Where would we go? And how would we afford it?"

"I've got money." She says defiantly and she's annoyed at him because he's supposed to be the older one, the brave one. He's supposed to be the one who protects her and makes sure that she's scared. "You're just a baby. A big baby."

He pinches her under the covers and she starts to cry.

"You're the baby. Scared of the dark and the loud noises downstairs. Cry baby."

His voice follows her as she runs out of his room and down the hallway, and out through the back door into the cold night.

iv.

She wonders, for a minute, where they are. The light that shone through the window when she and Fox argued over the TV was so bright it hurt her eyes, and even now big blobs of colour and non-colour swirl across her vision. She is aware that she is moving, the low rumble of an engine beneath her means she's in a car. But whose car, and why they have her, she doesn't know.

Thinking of Fox she starts to cry. She can't help it - he is annoying and mean sometimes, but he is her older brother and the thought of being taken away from him (him more than anyone) fills her with such sadness. So the tears pour down her cheeks as she tries to pretend she is still asleep

"Samantha, there's no need to cry."

Wiping her eyes she looks up at a figure silhouetted by the light. She recognises that voice, recognises the stale twang of smoke that surrounds him as he lifts the burning cigarette to his lips. She isn't sure why Dad's friend is here, but he is a face she knows, a face she trusts.

"Come with me, I'll keep you safe."

She takes Uncle Carl's hand and walks into the light with him.