This follows Home Again. It is a sefish and self referential little story, and the first one I ever publish about The X-Files. I hope you like it.
Oh, my grammar and spelling suck. Sorry, English is not my mother language.
Let me add that I do not own any of the characters, etc.
The little questions. Do you love me? Are you proud of me? Have I let you down? Do you hate me? I am sorry, mom, do you forgive me? Mom, do you love me anyway? Bill didn't make it and decided, then, that it was best not to go at all. Charlie didn't even lie his way through not going. It was fine, it was their choice. After the harvesting, the decisions were up to her. A small funeral, cremation because, despite their religious believes, Maggie loved the sea, it made her feel closer to her William Senior. If her brothers didn't like it, that was fine, too; if you're not here you don't get a say.
The guilt made it easier. Doing all of this alone, her siblings leaving her alone in this moment, they were easier to accept because of the ever present guilt. Out of the four children, she had been the one that caused their mother more pain. Cancer, leaving to follow Mulder, giving up her grandchild. She could believe that it was fair. After all, some problems her mom had with Bill and Charlie had been the result of her mother defending her. However, siblings are siblings, the people with whom you have shared memories; they have been there since the day you were born, or you have been since they were born.
She knew her mother loved her. Kind of. She knew the unconditional motherly love was there. Yet… did she really love her? Did she love her now? Reconnecting after being out of the grid had been difficult to say the least. It was hard to accept her support after everything that had happened. It made her feel guiltier. Of course her mom wasn't proud of her. And of course she hated her. She felt guilty for what she had done and guilty for doubting her mothers honesty and guilty for being unable to believe that she might be truly honest.
Now, there was pain. In her deathbed her mother had called for Charlie and not her –or Bill-. During her brief moment of lucidity, she had addressed Mulder and not her. She was jealous of them and very hurt. She could rationalize it, of course, thinking that her mothers worries laid with her estranged son and not with the ones that were present, that she missed him and wanted to know he would be fine because she already knew the other two were fine.
She wasn't fine. She had been broken and lost for the past fourteen years, wondering every day if she had made the right choice. Despite how many times she was told that it had been, she couldn't believe it. Extrapolating her mothers words and worries toward William had been, she knew it, the result of her obsession with William which had grown steadily over the years. She could help other children and feel good about it, could fall in love with every patient and take care of them as if they were her own, but they weren't. They went home with their parents and she never heard of them again. Like with William. To deal with this, she needed her mom. Not her mother, her mom. And she hated herself for not running to her mom when she had years to do so and ask her those little, simple question. Mom, do you love me still?
The last interaction told her that she didn't. That she hated her. Her mother was disappointed in her and hated her and was simply too kind to tell her that. And she simply missed Melissa too much to cut ties with her only living daughter. But she hated her, resented her, disapproved of her choices and didn't feel anything but competent toward her.
And by the water she cried because of William, because of what he might feel, what she certainly felt, because her mother was right, because she felt abandoned by her brothers, because her sister would have been the strong one during this moment, and because of Mulder.
Mulder was there, knowing exactly what to say and what to keep silent. Knowing how to comfort her and ground her when it seemed that she was going to drown in her utter misery. He knew that she hated herself, and he felt completely useless. He wasn't, but he felt like that nonetheless. During their years together he had been unable to convince her that she perfect. No matter how many times he told her that, she wouldn't believe it. Why would she, if the person telling her that clang to her and only her to pretend that he was OK. To her ever present guilt, he had added the impossible pressure of keeping him afloat. He had thrown at her the responsibility of their divorce. They weren't legally married, but it was a divorce. And, mostly, it was his fault.
As she spoke of William, of her fear of being forgotten –not that he could actually remember her-, of the fear of him feeling abandoned because he wasn't wanted, he fought the need to tell her that maybe William was wise, that maybe what he felt was longing for the arms that held him when he was little but knew that his mom hadn't abandoned him, that somehow he knew that she had saved him and that it might have crushed her. However, remained silent, and simply held her as she cried, knowing that his words now would sound cheap. Mostly, though, because he knew that she needed her mom to tell her that it was OK, that she had made the right choice, that she loved her not in spite of that but because of that, that she didn't hate her, didn't resent her, that she was proud of her and that she loved her more than anything in this world.
Today they would cry. Tomorrow, he would tell her these things, and he would do so every day of his life if that was what she needed to believe.
Ok, it is cheesy, I didn´t know how to end it, but I really needed to publish it.
A short explanation: I want to ask this questions to my mom, who, as you must suspect by now, died. When she was in the hospital, coming in and out of consiousness, she asked for my brother. Not for me. Not once. Twelve years after that, it still stings.