Title: This Is How The World Ends

Fandom: X-Files

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I do not own The X-Files or any of its characters. I am just borrowing them from FOX and Chris Carter's toy collection and promise to put them back exactly where I found them.

Author's Notes: As usual when I don't have the time to begin a new fanfiction journey, a story has wormed its way from wherever it is that stories come from and onto my FanFiction account. This fic is a manifestation of my excitement for the new XF series and is my first real XF fic so feedback is much appreciated. Thanks to soodohnimh for introducing me to The X-Files and beginning the obsession, and thanks to AngryHellFish for being so excited and encouraging when you read the first handwritten notes for this fic.

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The easel in the foyer listed three different events taking place in the hotel that evening. In the Glass Room was the Bryant wedding, its two walls of windows overlooking the romantic city lights; in the Upper Conference Room, up the stairs to the left, the Christmas party for a chain of travel agencies was in full swing; the Lower Conference Room, down the stairs and along a short hall, was booked for the annual members' meeting of The Worldwide Family of Hosts. Cheaply designed and pixelated whether onscreen or printed, the association's little blue logo of an Earth wrapped in two caring arms had been added to the listing, and a bold black arrow pointed the last arrival in the direction of the stairwell.

She knew her lateness would not go unnoticed but it couldn't be helped. Inconspicuous as this conference was, attending was still something to go about very discreetly. The association had a small and steady international membership, a very privileged and proud three hundred and twenty-seven, and when she arrived at the tall double doors, inhaled to steady her nerves and pushed gently to admit herself through the narrowest of gaps she could manage, she found what she expected – all three hundred and twenty-seven members had either made arrangements to be present tonight and were seated around large round tables draped in white linen, or had called in, Skype-like, and were watching the proceedings as staunch disembodied heads from the flat rectangular screens of brand-new tablets.

Each held by one of The Worldwide Family of Hosts' seventy-two pledges.

She quickly joined the long line of them, bowing her head to the displeased glance of the association's Speaker, a Ukrainian gentleman of some political importance and accepting the tablet handed to her by the silent pledge on the end of the line. She directed the tablet's screen and camera towards the front of the conference room so her very important charge, a mid-level dignitary of sorts she was sure (though too wise to risk tilting the screen up, or to even lower her own head, to look), could watch and hear what was said. Once in position she would not dare to move except to breathe and blink; these meetings were much too important to allow the temptation to itch, to cough, to converse with other pledges to compromise the members' involvement in the proceedings for even a second. The faces on the screens, held dutifully and carefully in the hands of the pledges, were a mixture of faces recognisable and utterly unknown – these were the members too identifiable and too busy to attend in person, for their travel here would only draw attention; or they were the members in societal roles too sundry or too secretive to leave their present locations. At least for the time being.

Some screens showed only a wall, or an empty chair. Those members were the ones whose faces were to stay unknown even to the pledges, to the hotel staff who maybe glanced disinterestedly over. The Worldwide Family of Hosts had these few benefactors in very high places, and they preferred to remain anonymous.

The hotel staff shuffled silently between the tables as the Speaker began his opening address. Rolls of bread, curls of butter, stubby little silver knives made their way onto the tables. The members were polite, sparing smiles of thanks, but no words escaped their lips. They were listening to their Speaker, the staff understood; the hotel had been pleased to take this booking once again, now for the third year running. This was an easy group to cater, an easy client to please. Not as extravagant as a wedding but much less effort, and never a complaint directed at the wait staff or the kitchens. Just a room of gentlemen and ladies of excellent manners (and a long line of iPads connected to Skype, apparently arranged by some of the young people holding them, since the older, seated people likely had no clue) and seemingly unparalleled generosity.

The Worldwide Family of Hosts funded an operation to open lives and homes to disadvantaged youth from developing nations, for one year at a time, in privileged communities, where those young people could access healthcare, attend western schools, earn honest money and live in safety. It said so on their booking form, and on their website.

The Speaker addressed the assemblage in English despite his linguistic background. It was a safe base language that each member understood.

"Once again, my friends, thanks to your generosity, three hundred and twenty-seven lives were lived better this year," he said, a projector screen behind him running through a basic powerpoint show of smiling young faces. All anonymous. The Speaker had never met even one of them. A smattering of kind applause moved through the room. The pledges didn't move a muscle. "You have made it possible. Three years ago, the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be was huge – astronomical, some might say. But look now at where we are, the change we have made in the world. We have much to be proud of. Decades of planning, of working together even we would rather not have, of ingenuity in the face of unexpected delays… it pays off in time, and now we are poised to take our great association's next step."

A click of a remote, and the slideshow of faces shut down. A momentary ruffled search through the nearby laptop to find the necessary file. A young waiter nearest to the front smiled gently and offered his assistance; the speaker gratefully accepted, and it was only a few seconds of waiting for the waiter's quick fingers before the projector was showing a new slide, a re-envisioning of the cheap logo, the world now a washed-out powder blue with a bandage in place of the arms. The whole slide had the distinct look of something digitally put together by someone without a clue about graphic design, font size changing in the final paragraph and the title indented accidentally, the creator helpless to correct his error.

"These young people really are a gift to the world," the Speaker said jovially as he took back the podium and the waiter returned to his work with a quick smile over his shoulder. "It's them we are preparing our world for, after all – why we do what we do. For the young. For the new. For the deserving generation of the future. Thank you, young man."

A few people clapped. Again, the pledges dared not. The Speaker returned his attention to the slide, so carefully crafted to look wannabe-professional and unworthy of much notice, and the wait staff continued dishing out bread rolls and offering napkins. How often did they have useless old people flustered and confused by that projector system? Twice, three times a week? But they were patient, professional, unsuspicious, and easily categorised this conference among the many hundreds of uneventful, unmemorable occasions they'd worked in their time of employment.

"Our next move will be to initiate our medical branch, and while I will get into deeper discussion about this later in the evening, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the staff of this exciting new phase of our association's long history. Please join me in thanking them for their generosity of spirit and their willingness to share their many and varied skills in assisting us to make this happen." And he gestured widely along the line of pledges, and for the first time in the three years of this conference they received a loud round of applause. The pledge on the end tried not to tense in response. The wait staff shared smiles, pretending to take interest in the proceedings, but in reality their professionally grafted expressions bore more sincerity than every pair of hands clapping in the room.

No member was grateful to the pledges. Not one. No matter what they'd done for the members in the past, no matter what lengths they might go to in order to prove their worth. They were still only pledges, lesser, and would never be members. The scale was always tipped, the game forever rigged, and the weight of debt was too heavy to ever repay.

Unless.

Unless.

There was one currency strong enough to wipe the debt and buy a membership. Just one coin, and just one place. Every pledge had been thinking the same thing for almost four years.

Like each of the others in the long, still line, she was determined that the coin was hers. And she would not hesitate to spend it to buy her way out of this servitude and the bleak future it held for them all.

The coin's cost – well, that would be somebody else's price to pay.