Author's Notes: This was a one shot I wrote back in 1999 after a roadtrip with a few other X-Phile friends and I got to talking about how Scully would take a non-paranormal case after Emily died, coupled with the song "One More Murder, from the movie's soundtrack. Written from the first person perspective of Scully. Mental flashbacks are italized. Italized and bold text are internal dialoue.
My keys slide smoothly into the door. A soft 'click' and I swing it open, greeted by the usual rhythm - a tired squeak about a third of the way open.
Everything's normal.
I shrug off my coat, toss my keys and their oversized ring onto the end table, making my way to the kitchen. I feel the pinch of my shoes after a long day. All routine. Normal. Life marching on - nothing's changed. I push the cupboard doors aside, my eyes flitting over labels. My mind purposefully empty I'm only concerned with the present moment. Going through the usual motions - auto-pilot - when suddenly my eyes lock onto a box of "Mac 'n Cheese". Yellow powder cakes the arm of a couch, speckled with dots of red, as if someone had tried to dust for fingerprints with the "cheese" from the bullet riddled box of dried pasta lying on the ground.
Don't think. Stop. Just breathe. No.
Control slipping from my grasp, my chin quivers as I try to stem the tide of emotion, "Just like when you were a baby - I always knew you were upset when the quivers started," my mother's voice invades the mental void. I frown.
Breathe.
Normal.
In. Out. In.
My jaw sets, face tenses, then relaxes again and I bite my lower lip - grinding it between my teeth.
Out.
My hand glides out, as if under it's own volition, seizing a box of Oreo's and slides a few onto a plate. I turn to the refrigerator and pull open the door, cold air biting into my exposed flesh after the sultry July night air. I shake the carton, creating a head on the milk just as I have since I was a little girl, and pour. Little girl. My pulse threatens to jump and I stop my breath. No - normal. I sip softly at the creamy liquid and push the cold metal door shut with my foot before kicking off the offending heeled pump and ease down onto the sofa and flip the television on.
Cookies on my lap, milk on the table. See Mulder? I'm fine, no problem. Just part of the job. Professional veneer? Don't need one, just am. I tuck my feet under my body, lean against the armrest. Images flicker unseen across the T.V. screen as I stare blankly at the clean, off-white walls of my apartment. Sterile - like a morgue. My face collapses in on itself, eyes clamped, squeezed, shut.
Damnit! Now I've done it. Why in the hell did I have to go and do that? Damnit! I've always worked hard to give my little apartment a feeling of warmth and hominess - a refuge from the horrors and sickness of the hospital and later, the FBI. A refuge from what I see too much of - from what I fight against: death.
Especially after Melissa. My home. My refuge. My space.
I'd even insisted on sopping up - scrubbing up - the blood when the building's janitor had offered help. I needed to be the one to do it. My face cracks, the last facade of control destroyed. Breathing is harsh - jagged - the wind knocked out of my gut... by life.
God Damnit.
Damnit.
Damnit.
Damnit.
I stand up - I need to do something, move, and the plate forgotten, drops, shattering. Like her. Her tiny skull.
Damnit.
Damnit!
I contract this time, curling up into myself, falling back on the couch. It's just one more murder. One more number on the body count for some news anchor to report. One more piece of footage; crime scene tape, blood, flashing lights, body bags and badges. Old ladies, parents, lock your doors, the Gang Banger - the 'Boogie Man' - is coming.
But it doesn't mean a thing. They don't feel the pain, it's just fears in shadows. One more murder. Media gun glamour and terror that's just as fake. This isn't coming to take them away. This Boogie Man doesn't give a shit about suburbia. These things don't happen to them - they happen to Carrie.
My body is wracked by silent sobs. Tears streak down my face, the tears laced with mascara carving a path down my cheeks. I shove them aside with the heels of my hands.
Damnit.
Damnit.
I've given up clawing for control. Flood gates down. The images run rampant, unbidden, flitting by rapidly behind my eyelids.
Crack junkie mom of two little boys and one little girl - another on the way. Urine stained walls. Children lying starving and forgotten like used up toys left in a 3 year olds' playpen. Wasting away like Mommy.
Meanwhile, I'm in too dangerous a job, my romantic relationships too flighty, to adopt? Unfit is what they said.
This mommy was a deadbeat - Daddy just dead - and still screwing kids up. And tonight Mommy needed her hit. But Mommy owed money to the friendly neighborhood crack dealer. He came around at maybe 4:30 am, by reports, waving a gun around, a semi-automatic, threating, screaming, strung-out, demanding his cash. He and Mommy were both whacked out, long gone, on the latest chemical escape.
He cocked his gun, waving it about the room searching for a target, when Carrie was unlucky enough to come running through, chasing her older brother who fiercely gripped a half-eaten box of uncooked macaroni he'd found behind his mommy's mattress.
5 am, shots rang out - morning anchorman's got a hot new story, and next year an award for his 'talent' at bringing the world more to fear. Carrie gets a blank headstone, and a cheap wooden casket. Mommy gets one less mouth to feed.
Dad, Missy, Emily. Never there. I wonder if you even miss me.
All my training won't get me that. I still can't save one insignificant kid, can't be protector to one little girl who needs a home, because I'm not up to bueracratic snuff. Unfit to care for a child. But hey - we can let you protect the country, lose your family to your loyalty, but we don't give you back another in return. Can't trust you with that.
Boogeyman claims he thought he was shooting a Pitbull - it was going to kill him.
She was four years old.
Damnit.
My body is drained, dry heaves are all that's left.
Damnit.
Damnit.
My ever present mantra. My chant. My meditation. I'd laugh if I had the breath to do so. A redundant pointless phrase - a whispered scream - in my mind from the moment I saw her. Watch out or mommy will wash your mouth out with soap. Golden brown hair, gnarled and matted with blood, skull crushed by a druggies' size twelve boot - bullet in the throat.
... damnit.
The phrase weakens, quiets within anf finally I feel nothing at all. I lie curled up on the couch, body folded in on itself.
Mulder went over the scene, fingerprints the killer, and arrested him this evening. A waste of his talents, waste of my emotional energy. Damn them. We shouldn't be here. He never noticed my mask waver in it's place, keen to crumble, disintegrate, at any moment. I wonder if he struggles too - or is he just like everyone else? Disenchanted. Numbed. Just one more murder.
Why the hell does it have to be like this?! 'Never again' I swore the last time. Why can't I just not care?
"God DAMMIT!!" I hurl a pillow across the room and bounces harmlessly off the television, which just pisses me off that much more.
Why can't I just not care? Because I've got a policy of truth to myself. To never let myself be jaded by what I see. Screw policy! Who cares? She is – was – just a crack baby! She'd just have grown up to be her mother - an anchor weighing society down. Worthless.
The thought paralyzes - disgusts - me. She's still a person. I can't even lie to myself, damnit. That could be me, but for the grace of... I pause.
God.
Grace?
A joke, but I cling to it. It's always been this way - two warring sides, the bitter and the hopeful - but exaggerated since the cancer. A cancer of not just the body, but the soul. Just make up your fucking mind! I can feel my muscles contract again, as if to squeeze the torment from my being. I pull myself to the phone, pick up the receiver, my ears pounding from the pressure in my head, and strain to hear the dial tone."If you want my help why can't you just tell me?" she always asks.
Because I'm never there. I can never accept that help. I should be stronger than that.
I punch the numbers, fingers slick and salty with tears. The corners of my mouth tug downward, as if pulled by some enormous weight as I hear the "Hello?" crackle through from the opposite end.
Another solitary tear slips down my cheek, cutting an icy path down the burning flesh. My voice is tremulous, small, like a child, but I don't care. At this moment I'm there.
"… mom?"
Thanks for reading. This may be an older fic but reviews are always appreciated!