Title: Miracles of Christmas
Rating: G
Genre: angst
Disclaimer: characters and places belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and to Fox Network.
Summary: Scully's POV at Christmas' Day, three years after losing Emily.
Extra: spoilers from episodes Christmas Carol, Emily, All Souls and also a "secret" from Requiem.
A/N: thank you to my beta-reader, Jane Potter Skywalker, she was the one who helped me with the translation. English is not our first language, so sorry for any mistakes, we're not perfect (especially me).
MIRACLES OF CHRISTMAS
Today it makes exactly three years since I asked for a miracle. A simple request, but with so much meaning for me. I wanted to be loved in that way that was forbidden to me. I wanted – I needed – to love someone like that. It was only a prayer. But He was listening and understood my words. And gave me the biggest and most unbelievable Christmas present that I ever had the honour to receive.
Maybe you can't understand what I'm trying to say. I believe that life has made me discover that I'm that kind of person who only realizes that importance of what I have when I find out that I lost them. Whenever I thought in settling down, start my own family, I just listened to that tiny voice in my head: "Don't worry, Dana! First, you have to assure yourself that you have a firm support to that new style of life, and then you'll look for a man, the perfect husband and father to the children that will come. There's so much time!" Well, I was wrong: that was no time at all!
When I knew that I would never carry out that last part of my dream, I was too worried with my fight for survival to cry my incapacity to conceive a child. However, when my nightmare reached an end, I had to face the truth: I would never know what it's like to be a mother, to have a life growing up inside me. I would never know what it feels like the love of a son. And being next to women that did not knew what it was to live with that weight made me feel uncomfortable. It made me suffer even more with my situation.
So try to imagine my confusion when I met you. I was feeling down because of Tara, overexcited with the baby she was expecting, and the fact that I couldn't tell anyone what I was thinking at that moment. All the memories about Melissa and the horrible circumstances of her death were driving me crazy. And at the same time, I was living another Christmas, my favourite time of the year. I felt like I couldn't live with all those ghosts, in spite of everything that Ahab had taught me through life.
I never expected Him to listen to my prayers. I know His work, I had faith that He would come to light my life up… but give me such a present? To me, who tend to move away from Him every single day? When I saw you for the first time and my eyes crossed with yours, I felt my will of maternity rose in my chest. You were so small, so sweet and you had already passed through so much: your disease, your mother's death, the suspicious over your father. Meeting you made me drown even more in that bottomless well! It made me feel hopeless! And it woke up in me the idea that you were familiar to me.
You reminded me of my sister! Your hair, your delicate doll face, your eyes. Seeing you was just like seeing Missy as a child. My will of having her next to me one more time became an obsession – and you were the only way to satisfy that wish. When I found out that you were adopted, it had the same effect as take a hammer in my head. My theory that you were my niece was growing up day by day. And my own mom and brother would never take that idea of my mind.
Completely convinced of that as the truth, and after the death of the last person who could take care of you, I felt that it was time to reach my greatest dreams. I didn't want to be just a FBI agent. That was the dream of the old Dana Scully, who had died months ago, due to a cancer that had gradually destroyed her body and her soul. It was time for me to take this second chance to live. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to have a daughter that I could love and protect, hug and kiss, could call me mom and ask for my help whenever she woke up at night because of a bad dream. I wanted you to count on me during your hard fight for health, because I had been very ill too and I knew how much important was to have someone by our side to give us strength to continue. I wanted to have my family next to you, give up of my dreams to transmit a new light to yours. And knowing that you could be my niece gave me more hope to get your custody.
The result of the tests, however, was absurd and, at the same time, so true. I wasn't your aunt, I was your mother! A mother that had not carried you in my belly, that had not given you birth… but a mother, actually. Maybe you can't understand why I didn't know about your existence until that day. I'm sorry, but I can't explain it to you: it's so cruel, too complicated! The truth was that you were, in fact, my daughter and I could realize my greatest dream of a life time. I would be a mom. I would make you happy. Three years far away from me, now you would know what it was like to have me by your side. You would have my arms to feel safe and run away from this unfair world.
I couldn't understand His purposes for that ending! Why lead me to you if it was just to lose you someday? I'm so sorry for your pain, for not being me in your place, for not making you better with my love and affection. I'm so sorry that you hadn't a chance to grow up. I know you would be happy, we would be the best friends, each other's salvation. But you passed away so suddenly that I couldn't even say a convenient goodbye to you!
I know that you didn't suffer in that final moment, though. The same cannot be said about me… I had a daughter and I lost her! My heart was bleeding so much that I couldn't even cry! I wondered about the reason of your existence – why born if pain is the only thing that waits for us? Mulder told me that you come into this world to save me and give me a chance to love you like my child. And my life crossed with yours to save you, ending up with your suffering and let you finally run to the Father's home, from where you came, the only place where you would be free of all these torments.
But, call me selfish, but what about me? What should have I done with the emptiness that I felt whenever I remembered your presence in my life and the way you were taken from me? It was me who had to carry the weight of loss over my shoulders, it was me who would carry on, questioning myself about how it would be if you had stayed next to me! And I couldn't forgive God for making me pass through this situation right in the moment when I believed that He was rewarding me for a torture's life.
I couldn't forget you. I couldn't let you go. I would keep you alive around me. Your images, your memories made a wall around my heart, questioning me why did you have to leave so soon. Your flame would be kept alive in my chest, as a love that doesn't ends up after break.
Time passed and I couldn't open my heart to no one. Not even to my mom, worried about the way that I was dealing with your loss. Not even to Mulder, who knew my "Don't make any questions, I won't answer to you" policy. Not even to a priest, to whom I could confess my feelings about everything that happened. I hadn't understood Him yet.
And then Father McCue called me to help that family. I knew how to live their story: a sick child, her happy entry to their home, their thanks to the Lord for such opportunity to love, their incomprehension towards her suddenly, precocious and terrible death. I shared my heart with that couple. I knew what they were feeling! And then I knew why I had been chosen to help them: if I couldn't save you, I would save those girls. This time, I would win the battle against Death – I was prepared, my pride was hurt. And you were there with me, you were giving me the strength I needed to go on with my fight and to save your memory through those four sisters.
Once again, I was wrong! Dara and her sisters died, but their souls went to the place where they belong and could be happy. The same happened to you, Emily: I kept you between the world of the living and the Paradise only for my own selfishness. And so I tied you up to the place that you didn't belong. You had to go, I had to release you from my chains. Only that could make you free and would make me find my rest.
When I saw you in there with me, I wanted to pull you to me and never let you go. You were mine, you should stay with me! But it was a lie! You called me mommy and I felt my heart melt towards your figure. And then you said "Let me go"! I wanted to say no, I couldn't. However, my touched soul didn't want you to pass through another suffering. You deserved better that what I was doing to you and I felt that, from that moment on, I could miss you but I would understand your death. And my hand lost its strength, your fingers slipped through mine and I saw you walk away… forever.
I can't forget you. You're still the daughter that I once had and could accompany during her last moments. I still dream about you, but do you want to know something? I withstand your loss, I let your soul go. And also made it up with God – now I know that He took you because you were very special to Him.
It has been three years, Emily, and I'm still questioning myself how would you be if you here with me. You'll be six… in my mind, you look just like me when I was your age. I would like to see you in the group of heavenly angels. I'm sure you're the prettiest of them all!
Today, December 25, I'm living like in that day when I knew what you were to me! There's still the same joy in the air, the same spirit of the season. In this setting there are only two changes.
Matthew is the real light of this Christmas, the life in this home. He's about to complete three years and he acts like any child in this time of the year. I know you would like your cousin. He's a good kid… just like you!
But the greatest difference is in me, hidden in my belly, like a marvellous secret that should be adored. After everything that happened, I was given a second chance and my prayers were listened once again. I'm pregnant. I'm carrying with me a small but great miracle for about four months ago. After everything that they've told to me, I'm going to be a mother again, I will be able to give to my baby all the things that I never gave to you.
In spite of my happiness, I can't hide my fear. I'm afraid that He'll take my baby, just like He did to you. I want to be a good mother to my child, I want to make him feel grateful for coming to this world with me. Because I love him: he's the greatest miracle of my life and the result of my greatest love ever.
However, I know I shouldn't be worried. Because I know that, besides me and our family, no matter what happens, he'll always have you, his big sister, taking care of him!
The End
