This super short fic is inspired by "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie. Mulder's POV.


Love is watching someone die.

I'd read that once, or something similar. Maybe in a poem in a literature course at Oxford or the liner note lyrics of a rock ballad. It echoed around my mind, bouncing off the inside of my skull since the moment I saw Scully in that hospital bed. She was so pale.

Every time I became conscious of my own breathing, I felt guilty and tried to ration it. The air in my lungs felt like a violent wind that was tearing the life away from her. I knew it wasn't true, that Scully would be the first to tell me that one individual breathing steadily didn't detract from a sick individual clinging to life. That I wasn't stealing her air, shortening the already precious time she had been given.

I'd always hated hospitals and their sterile smell. They are places where I've only said goodbye or seen someone I care for suffer. My father didn't die in a hospital, but other fathers did every day. I wondered if my sister had ever been in a hospital after she's been taken and if there was a chance that she'd taken her last breath in a hospital. Or at all. Maybe she still had her last breath within her.

The nurses kept suggesting I sit in the waiting room, but I didn't want to leave her side. There was no comfort in sitting amidst the old magazines and shitty vending machines. Watching other nervous people pacing around, waiting to hear about their loved ones made me even more anxious. I often find that I feed off the anxiety and impatience of others. Being surrounded by people would only make my own fears worse.

Dana was a truth I would rather loose than have never lain beside at all. If she was going to die, I wanted to be next to her. I crawled onto the hospital bed and scooted her tiny body over slightly so I could sit beside her while still giving her space. I didn't know how she would feel about waking up in my arms.

This is all my fault, I wanted to whisper to her. I did this to you and I should be in your place.

Love is wishing you could trade your life for hers.