THE FOUR
The X-Woman
the_xwoman@yahoo.com
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Disclaimer: The Four, nor any of the others, do not belong to me. They are property of Chris Carter and Co., 1013 Productions, and FOX. No copyright infringement intended.
Rating: PG (only because "G" seems too Disney for a post-Invasion fic.)
Type: Scully POV, Implied Doggett/Reyes, Post-Invasion, Character Death, Post- "The Truth", MSR coda to "Tithonus"
Spoilers: "Tithonus", "The Truth", mythology arc.
Summary: As the years pass, Scully, cursed with immortality, is forced live without those she cannot live without.
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I am the last of the Four.
Of course, there were many more than the Four, but they are all dead now, too. All of them are dead, only I remain: the one, the final. It's ironic, really, that I would be the last to remain; the weakest, the unbeliever, the one that must carry on the story.
My name is different now, a name that I will not write here, to protect me in case these writings fall into the wrong hands. But, the Four knew me as Dana Scully. However, over these many years, I have learned that names are trivial matters; once, I would have connected so much of a person's spirit, a person's being, to their name. But, I have learned much over these years, and among what I have learned is that a name means nothing; it is but a scribble upon a piece of paper, a piece of paper that will one day rot, or fade, or burned away, just as the one who once wore the name will. Some rot, some burn; those, those cursed as I am, simply fade. Fade into nothingness, until I am nothing but a forgotten piece of paper.
It would make sense that, though my suffering, he would be the first to leave me. After all we had fought, all we have survived; he was beat and burned, hated and loved, tortured and touched. He would survive so much only to be taken from me by a man who had too much to drink, a man who thought his life was miserable enough to risk destroying another's. I wanted to kill that man with my bare hands, but they locked him safely behind bars to live the rest of his life in relative comfort, while I stood on the court steps, holding my children, our children, close to me, as I watched my life fall apart.
His name was Mulder, Fox Mulder, although the name upon the tombstone will tell you otherwise. As I said, names are trivial; I didn't call him Mulder since we had fled, changed our names to hide our identities, and hid beneath a shield of lies, lies I had learned how to hate so much. He was always Mulder to me, even if I rarely dared to utter the name, even in the recesses of the night where not a soul but him would hear. But he was always my love. The first of the Four, the one that I could never imagine living eternity without; and the one I would have to learn to live without the longest. I was not even allowed the comfort of wishing I had been in the car with him when the other driver had hit; for even if I had been, I would have no hope of dying. I will never die. It is my curse.
But, even as I lost him, I was granted a blessing to see the other two before they were lost to me, as well. They had aged, as I had not; I had watched the world change, mutate, and shift around me, yet I had stood there, alone as always, like a picture frozen in time. It was only months before the end of the world; before the invasion that Mulder had feared and loved, had fought and searched for. The invasion he would never live to see, the only thing I was thankful for. My children were grown and safe in their own worlds, with their own names; and I, I had no fear of death, for it would never come for me, as it would all others. So, I went back to my home. I went down to that basement office, to find it only storage space now, so many years later. I hunted down the names, feeling like a ghost haunting the halls of the building in which I had once spent my life; having not aged a day, stuck in time, as all ghosts are, searching for something that had, long ago, faded from existence.
I found them, living in a small house in a suburban neighborhood. They had quit; or been fired, for they refused to talk of it. She, Monica, had let her dark brown hair grow out, now streaked with metallic grey; and he, John, examined me with a face graced with perfect wrinkles and lines, as if he was born to be old, his hair losing color, his hairline receding. But, they both looked at me with the same eyes, powerful and deep, reading into me as if they had known me for years, when in fact we had been friends no more than two. But, their years showed their pain, and I feared to ask what toll the X-files had taken upon them. So, I did not.
They are gone now, too, killed during the invasion, as so many their age were. I was saved, simply because I looked so much younger; but inside, I faltered as they would have, I felt wrinkled and old and just as alone, and the nights brought me tears and sorrows that would haunt me forever. Inside, I was too old, but had they tried to kill me, it would have done no good; because I could not die: I was strong. Because I could not die, I was of some use. So, I lived to see the day the rebellion stood and took hold, and the soldiers marched in and finally freed us from the hell we had begun to live.
And life seemed to fade back to normal, and the world became what it once was; but, better, I suppose, for all that it had suffered. I found my children, those who had survived the war. But, those others that I searched for in the aftermath, those that I had once searched with, years before, had perished. All but me.
I will spend all of eternity fading in and out of the woodwork, lying and fading more and more, hoping one day to catch that glimpse of Death that will allow me to leave this world, and finally join those whom I had lost so long ago.
I dream at night of them; of Monica's laugh, of John's tenderness, and of Mulder's love. Somehow, the world seems incomplete without them here; somehow, it seems wrong that I will outlive my children's children. That, somehow, after all the years I had searched, I never found my little boy, my William, the one child that is truly mine.
I kid myself that there is a purpose for me to be here, that I am not just left to be alone. I fear that I may outlive the world, that I may outlast time; an idea I cannot comprehend, for I cannot comprehend the end of the world; not in the same way as I can imagine the end of my life. But it is but a fantasy, now.
My father barely lived into his fifties; Mulder didn't even get that far. I am awaiting my one-hundred and twenty-second birthday, and I do not look a day over thirty. But, my heart is weary, and my spirit is weak. I want nothing more than to find them again: to be with Mulder again. To see my parents; to see my children. I beg Death to take me: but it has it's own plan. And, so, I wait. Haunted by their faces.
I am the last of the Four. But I force myself, even after all this time, to remember them; for as long as they live within me – for as long as I can close my eyes and hear her laughter, see his eyes, or feel his touch – I can kid myself that they are still here. Fool myself into believing that I am not the last.
That I am not, truly, alone.