Title:Redemption
Author: Val Carlson
Email: vpcarlso@students.wisc.edu
Disclaimer: Characters mentioned within belong to CC and 1013.
Category: V, A, Spenderfic
Archiving: Gossamer. All others, email first to ask.
Spoilers: "Two Fathers"/"One Son"
Summary: I just thought that it was time to look at Spender as a *real*
character...

Feedback is worshipped at the alter of Vaal.

***
"Redemption"
by Val Carlson


	"You pale to Fox Mulder."  His father's voice sounded in his ears,
repeating the phrase over and over.  "You pale to Fox Mulder."

	He didn't.

	Did he?

	Special Agent Jeffrey Frank Spender, FBI, leaned back in his chair
and put his feet up on his desk, lacing his fingers together behind his
head.

	Fox Mulder.  He rolled the name over in his mind. The man stood for
everything he hated  - belief in the veracity of the X-files, disregard for
bureau protocol, his ability to take the worst assignments, flaunt
authority, and still come up smelling like roses.

	Fox Mulder was an enigma.  He had lost his sister and most of his
family life at an early age; he had thrown all of his energy into his
studies and his career.  If he got away with flaunting policies and
protocol, it was because he was so good at what he did.

	Jeffrey Spender, on the other hand, had always been mediocre.  A
follower, not a leader, he had been a slightly better than average but not
outstanding student.  His history degree allowed him to work the political
system at the bureau; mainly, though, he had just *existed* for his first
three years as an agent, not screwing up, but not distinguishing himself
either.

	Then Fox Mulder had started working with his mother.

	And Jeff had begun to hate the man, for his beliefs, for the
resqect tha coworkers accorded him even when they didn't like him, and for
his unshakeable faith in the Truth.  Whatever that was.

	And, of course, the fact that Fox Mulder was encouraging his
mother's delusions of being abducted by aliens and experimented upon.  It
was hard enough to see his mother struggling with her mental demons, he
didn't need her to be enoucraged, especially not by this man he so hated.

	Diana had come into his life then, with her sweet talk about how
she was going to bring "Fox" down.  She was the only woman who had ever
called that man by his first name and lived to tell the tale; Jeffrey
respected her because of her disrespect for Fox Mulder.

	She knew people, she said.  People who could get Fox Mulder and
that spitfire partner of his assigned to do the FBI's shitwork. Wiretaps,
background checks, maybe the occasional consult on a murder case or
profile, just to screw with his brain a little, until pretty soon he'd land
in a mental hospital and be out of the bureau and away from Jeff's mother.

	Diana had unleashed her final weapon then: used her body to
convince Jeffrey to work with her on Fox Mulder's precious X-files.  How he
hated himself for being so weak, to giving in to her so easily!  But he
told himself that he was doing the right thing, he was finally taking the
initiative in his career.  He was working in a special section now; not a
highly regarded one, but certainly high profile.  He would be better able
to protect his mother from his new position.

	Where had it started to go wrong?  The night that the smokey
bastard had confronted him with their relationship?  An accident of
genetics, nothing more, but a binding one to someone in Jeff's position.
Throughout his childhood, he had not had a father to look up to; now that
he knew his father, he desired that approval like nothing else.

	So he'd agreed to do the old man's dirty work, hating himself as he
agreed.  He was doing the same things that Fox Mulder had been trying to
expose; it should have made him happy, to completely discredit that man's
work in his secret rivalry.

	But it didn't.  The last straw came when his father, his *father* -
had taken his mother away to perform medical experiments on her.

	That was the point at which he'd realized what he had to do.  Diana
was working for his father; he knew that now.  As was he.  All of the
reasons he'd hated Fox Mulder, they were because Mulder was a man of
integrity who stood by his beliefs.  Something which Jeffrey had never done.

	He'd received a phone call that morning from Assistant Director
Skinner, asking for a private conference.  Jeff had gone up to the AD's
office, unsure what the meeting was about; just sure that it would not be
pleasant, judging from the tone in the AD's voice on the phone.

	"It is with deepest regret. Greatest sympathy... very sorry for
your loss, Agent Spender."   He'd barely heard Skinner.  His mother was
dead, and it had been his partner and his father who had killed her.  Two
people who were always supposed to stand by a man.

	He knew now what he had to do.  Maybe he did pale to Fox Mulder, at
one time, but not anymore.  For once he would act like the adult that he
was, and know when to back down, when to learn a lesson from the man he
hated.

	Because in the end, the man he most hated was himself, and what
he'd become in the last year.

	Jeff sat up again, taking his feet off his desk and reaching for
the phone.  "Assistant Director Skinner?  Agent Spender.  I'd like a
meeting with you as soon as possible, please.  And I'd appreciate it if you
could request the presence of AD Kersh and Agents Mulder and Scully."


	finis

	please send feedback to: vpcarlso@students.wisc.edu *NOT*
	violinst@pitnet.net



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