Disclaimer: Not mine...yadda, yadda, yadda...Ten-Thirteen Productions...yadda, yadda, yadda...Poor college student...yadda, yadda, yadda...No profit, hint, hint...yadda, yadda, yadda
Author's Notes: Special thanks, of course, go to my betas- Crysta, Christine, & MrsH you rock!
"Forever" by Gillian Taylor
There would be no grandchildren holding her hand or begging her to read them a story. There would be no time where she would stand at her son's wedding, congratulating him and her daughter in law for their union. The time for such events was over, for the once sharp grey-blue eyes were now dull in death.
The body rested in her memory, condemning her for not finding the answers that her partner so desperately believed. She closed her eyes in sorrow as she leaned against the side of the elevator, 'How am I going to tell him? How can I face him with this truth?'
For a moment, the slight frame of Dana Scully resembled that of Atlas carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She shook her head sullenly before straightening her pose as the elevator slid to a stop. She had to be strong, for Mulder's sake.
Her heart thudded dully in her chest as she approached his door, each step increasing her desire to turn around and leave. She did not want to share what she had learned, but she owed him that and so much more. Scully raised her hand, curling it into a shaking fist and tapped the door.
She waited impatiently for a few moments before using her key in the lock; worried that Mulder might have followed his mother through his guilt into death. The door swung open gently to reveal her partner's frame sitting close to the answering machine that housed the last spoken words from his mother.
Teena Mulder's words whispered from the machine, the tape beginning to scratch at some points. He spoke without turning towards her, but his body spoke volumes of his sorrow, "Glad you're here. My mother was trying to tell me something. I think I figured it out. Something about my sister...that she was never able to tell me. She knew what I'd find with this case out in California."
Scully breathed a sigh, "How could she know that, Mulder?"
"A child disappearing without a trace...without evidence in defiance of all logical explanation. She knew because of what's driven me. What I've always believed."
"Mulder," she began, though all she truly wanted to do was to stop him from hurting himself anymore. The woman with silver hair emerged again in her mind, her body condemning her for not revealing the answers that her partner so desperately needed. She had to tell him the truth, but how could she? How could she find the strength to do so?
"Scully, these, these parents who have lost, who have lost their children, they've had visions of their sons and daughters. In scenarios that never happened, but which they describe in notes that came through as automatic writing, and words that came through them psychically -- from old souls protecting the children. My mother must have written a note like that herself...describing the scenario of my sister's disappearance, of her abduction by aliens. Don't you see, Scully? It never happened. All these visions that I've had have just been, they've been to help me cope, to help me deal with the loss, but I've been looking for my sister in the wrong place. That's what my mother was trying to tell me. That's what she was trying to warn me about. *That's* why they killed her."
Scully drew in a strengthening breath; she could not allow him to keep doing this to himself. He deserved the truth, "Your mother killed herself, Mulder. I conducted the autopsy. She was dying of an incurable disease an untreatable and horribly disfiguring disease called Padgett's Carcinoma. She knew it. There were doctors' records. She didn't want to live."
"She was trying to tell me something... She was..." he said, and he met her gaze, the sorrow in them too much for her to bear. Rage followed the sorrow, the disbelief, and he shook his desk as if by tearing it apart he could bring her back to him.
For an instant, she heard not a sound in the room save for the beating of her heart and the sounds of his grief. Her heart shattered in a million pieces for his anguish and she was moved to him by some higher power or but for the strength of her love for him. Her arms wrapped themselves around his shaking torso and squeezed a physical reminder of her presence. A single kiss to the top of his forehead served as a catalyst and her tears fell to mingle with his in joint sorrow.
She gently drew him closer, speaking her words as if she were at the end of a tunnel, "Mulder, she was trying to tell you to stop. To stop looking for your sister. She was trying to take away your pain."
Another sob heaved from his shaking form as he buried himself further in her arms, seeking a solitude and a safety that his heart and mind would not let him find. Her fingers weaved themselves through his hair, stroking the strands soothingly as she held him. Her own tears were ignored, they did not matter. All that mattered was Mulder and his pain...
"I love you," the words were spoken softly, involuntarily, into his neck. Her heart reached out to the broken man in her arms, willing him to seek solace in her love.
His tears flowed harder, if it was possible, with her words as he crushed her against himself, "Scully, Scully, Scully," he repeated her name as if it were a mantra, a shield against the demons and the guilt of his own psyche.
"I'm here," she responded softly, and it was all that he needed to know.
"For how long?" he asked, the words muffled in her shoulder.
"Forever, Mulder. Forever."
And he smiled through his tears.
THE END
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