moments

Author: Sullen Gurl

Spoilers: None, really. Just pretend Redux and Redux II never happened.

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are not mine. They belong to the people over at 1013 Productions. Lucky bastards.

Category: MSR, cancer

Summary: "I hate these moments. When the sadness and the fear grip my insides so intensely, that I can't imagine why I even bother holding on."

I am not fine.

I'm far from fine. Have not been for a couple of months now.

The doctors have been very vague about how much time I have left. Weeks, they say. A month, maybe. All I'm certain of is that I don't have very long. And I don't even need tests to tell me this, because I feel it. Feel the disease coursing through my veins, flowing through my blood. I had denied it at the beginning. Hoped that maybe it was just some weird episode, like all the other bizarre episodes I've found myself in since I've been working in the X-Files. It was the one time I didn't want the truth; the one time I didn't want to rely on science. Until I couldn't deny it any longer. So I thought maybe I could fight it. Didn't I once say that the answers were all there? That we just had to know where to look? So I looked. What I found was that I was the only one left; and that there was just no way out. Because the men who did this, the men who gave me this disease, were nameless and faceless.

So now I've come to accept the fate that is to be mine, as everyone around me has. I feel as though the days were just slipping through my fingers like sand. I'm slowly running out of time.

Because I am dying.

There. I've said it. I don't usually allow myself to dwell on the thought. 'Live each day to the fullest' had become my new mantra. But times like these, in the middle of the night, when all is still and quiet… I can't keep the thoughts from plaguing my mind.

I can't help but be afraid.

I hate these moments. When the sadness and the fear grip my insides so intensely, I can't imagine why I even bother holding on. But I have. Each and every day has become a struggle to hold on. To life. To what I have left of myself.

A faint rustling beside me rouses me from my dark musings, and I feel his warm hand move higher on my stomach underneath the thick blanket. Until it is just below the curve of my right breast. I sigh contentedly at the sensation.

I turn my head on the pillow to see whether Mulder had woken up. His slow steady breathing tells me otherwise. Looking at him like this, I decide that I could never get enough of this sight. Mulder asleep, sated and naked in my bed. Beside me.

I want to watch you sleep, Mulder, I think sadly. Every night, for the rest of our lives.

And because the compulsion is overwhelming, I reach out to brush back a lock of hair from his forehead. Mulder's head moves imperceptibly at my touch. Mulder, the light sleeper. Which is an improvement in itself actually, because he never used to get any sleep. That is, not until we had became lovers. He says it's because now, he's not so restless anymore; that he's found his peace and comfort in me. I swear, for a man who can drone on and on about UFO sighting statistics in Mexico circa 1859 and cattle mutilations on a regular basis, Mulder can sure say the most romantic, heart-wrenching things.

I'm a witness to how much of a light sleeper Mulder is, because whenever I've had to leave the bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or to the kitchen, I'd come back to the room to find him wide awake and propped up on the pillows. The first time it had happened and I asked him about it, he just shrugged and said, "I found that I missed you." Replete with that puppy-dog look that is his trademark. I thought I was going to cry right then and there. So since then, I'd try to extricate myself carefully from his arms whenever I'd leave the bed, but he'd always seem to know, wake up and not fall asleep until I was in bed again.

I'd like to think that what he says is true, though. About him not being so restless anymore. Because I hope I've been a fraction of the peace and comfort that HE has become to me. I had always had the strength of his beliefs.

"Scully…" he mumbles, his eyes still closed as his thumb lazily strokes my bare midriff.

I'm not so sure if he's awake now. Sometimes he does these things in his sleep, like stroke my hair or rub his feet against mine. As though he needed a reminder that I was there beside him even as he slept.

"Shhh, Mulder," I croon softly, stroking his forearm. "Go back to sleep."

He says nothing, but I his head moves closer to mine on the pillow we share, until I can feel his soft breath on my cheek. I raise my head a bit to glance at the clock and read that it is 2:13 a.m. I drop my head back down and sigh heavily, frustrated. I close my eyes and try to focus on Mulder's slow steady breathing. That normally does the trick, but it doesn't seem to be working this time. Sometimes I'd even rest my head against his chest and let his faint heartbeat lull me to sleep. Everything about Mulder just feels like home to me. Safe and strong.

I shift on the bed, inadvertently rearranging the covers in the process. Again, I hear a faint rustling from beside me and I'm afraid that maybe this time, I've succeeded in waking him up. I lie still and will him to go back to sleep.

"Love you, Scully," I hear him say softly, his arm pulling me a little more closer to him.

I smile in the darkness and stifle a giggle. Nice to know I'm still the woman of his dreams. I turn in his arms until my back is to him. He follows my lead and spoons up against me from behind. I snuggle back against him, under the protective hold of his strong arm, and revel in the fact that my brilliant albeit crackpot partner loves me.

"Love you," he murmurs again, although more faintly this time, as I theorize that he must be drifting deeper and deeper into Mr. Sandman's land. I smile as he nudges his legs in between mine. I close my eyes, and suddenly find myself feeling very sleepy, and wonder why that is. Maybe it's because his thumb is still moving oh so lazily over my sensitized skin. Or maybe because now he's humming some tune against my hair. Some lullaby, maybe. Just what I needed, I think happily to myself, as I clutch at the arm draped over me.

At these moments, I'm not so afraid.

These moments, I remember why it is I continue to hold on.

And exactly who it is I'm holding on to. the end

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