TITLE: "So She Screams"
AUTHOR: Kat Leigh
DATE: 01/24/04
E-MAIL: horse_lover129@yahoo.com
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: "This Is Not Happening."
CATEGORY: VA
DISCLAIMER: FOX, 1013, and Chris Carter hold all the cards. I just hold my keyboard lovingly.
SUMMARY: "She is overly sensitive to every sound, every touch, and every movement. Everything around her is causing her torment."
Everything hurts. She can feel Agent Doggett gripping her arms tightly, and it seems like his fingers are bruising her in their vice-like grasp. He's trying to keep her away, and she feels like she is dying inside. Every muscle is bunched up and cramping in an unbearably painful contraction. She fights him, and it hurts even more.
She is overly sensitive to every sound, every touch, and every movement. Everything around her is causing her torment.
"How bad is he hurt?"
Her throat constricts, and she tears away from Doggett's hold, and that hurts, too. She bends over him—Mulder—and touches his face. His skin is so cold that it burns her hand, and still the pain pulses through her body. Every pulse stabs her.
"No…no."
Doggett pulls her away from her partner, and as the physical distance increases, so does the ache. The wind is stinging her face, the moon is shining too brightly, and Doggett is hurting her even as he tries to protect her.
The starlight mocks her.
"No, no, he needs help!"
"It's too late."
Doggett's lying—he has to be lying—and the lies cut her savagely. The excruciating pain in her throat makes her voice crack. Her voice hurts her own ears. Doggett's voice hurts even more.
"He needs help!"
No one understands, and their naïveté makes her choke back her own grief. Don't they understand that he needs help? They're trying to keep her from saving him. They're killing him. They're killing her.
She breaks away from the crowd, and begins running.
"Agent Scully!"
Her legs are burning, and every breath she takes is a sharp pang in her chest. Tree roots make her trip and stumble, and branches reach out to smack her over and over again. She looks up and sees a bright light in the sky, and the agonizing brightness sears her vision, and there is a roaring pain in her head.
She must hurry. They are trying to take away her only hope, and the pain she thought was the ultimate agony increases tenfold. She runs into the compound, trying to avoid touching the other people inside. Every little touch on her skin burns white-hot across her body.
She hears glass shatter. And inside her chest, her heart shatters.
"Jeremiah!"
Why is the room empty? Jeremiah was supposed to help. The fiery pain sizzles across her skin, bubbling up to a level so intense she can't feel herself think. It scorches beneath her eyes, and she has to close them in an effort to drown out the sight of her own destruction.
Against her eyelids, she can see the pain so vividly it's palpable, rolling over her again and again in torturous waves, bringing about her own demise.
"No."
Her voice slides across her throat slowly, like a razor.
"No."
She can barely hear herself above the roaring in her head. Wild winds of desolation whip inside her body, centering on the desperate vacuum occupying the place where her heart once was.
"No."
She can feel the tears burn her eyelids, but she refuses to let them fall to burn her cheeks. Her denial clenches her, and she can't breath. She can feel the adrenaline in her veins, like poison.
She drops to her knees, and the rocks in the ground dig into her skin. Her anguish is full-bodied, and she feels as though she is drowning in her own misery. It suffocates her.
"THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!"
For a mere moment, the physical sound of her despair is enough to dispel the pain that wreaks her soul.
Everything hurts.
"NOOOOO!"
So she screams.
Author's Note: This episode was so very sad, and it touched me deeply. I thought I would share some of my thoughts with fellow fans, and I figured a vingette was the best way to do so. Criticism and compliments are appreciated: horse_lover129@yahoo.com.