LETTER, APRIL 2000
Author: Sophia Jirafe
Classification: V
Spoilers: late S7
Archival: ask for linking details
Summary: The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred
with their bones
----
I'm so sorry you're reading this.
I know you, Scully, and I know what you're like right now. I know that you
spend your days in mindless drudgery and your nights in sleepless hell. I
know that you eat only when you have to, and that when people look you in
the eye you stare them down until they flinch away.
I know because I was you, once, a long time ago.
I can't say enough how sorry I am that you've received this at all. If
things go as I'd like to think they will, this letter will spend eternity
at the bottom of Byers' sock drawer. But since you *are* reading it, I have
to assume--ah, fuck this.
I'm writing this to try and explain why I didn't tell you. I know that's
what you ask yourself every day. You think I betrayed you, that I didn't
care enough about you to let you in. You're running over the last year in
your mind, trying to think of any clue I might have given you, any hint I
dropped that death was in my immediate future. And I know you won't find
any, because I worked so hard to keep my secret. I spent what will be--what
*were*--the last months of my life trying to keep you happy.
I know my deception will have hurt you. I hate lying--maybe as you read this
I've already confessed. But you, Scully, you should understand why we keep
these terrible secrets from the people closest to us. I remember you writing
something similar to this years ago, in your own dark hour. And I remember
you throwing it away because you had found something far more important--hope.
Well, hope is just a distant memory for me now. I'm writing this as my own
poor eulogy. My absolution.
I know how you must appear to everyone these days. Loss doesn't decimate you
the way it does other people--it slices away thin layers of you, and leaves
you so hard inside that you sharpen everything you touch. I know losing me
must have cut you deep, perhaps deeper than any loss from your past, but the
people around you would never know that.
Others--your father, probably--would call you a good soldier, admire your
stiff upper lip and your self-control and the astonishing way you deal with
crisis and tragedy. They'll tell you that your strength and stoicism are
what got you where you are today--and with me gone, I'm sure you're miles
above the basement--and behind your back they'll call you ballbuster and
woman of steel and every other stupid cliche for a woman with a backbone.
I know why you never break down, Scully.
I know that you're thin iron and china, and that cracking is not an option
because one chip and the whole thing goes to hell. I know you're afraid to
shatter.
And now you're angry with me, for thinking you vulnerable and weak, for
assuming that because you're beautiful you must be fragile too. You're
imagining me delirious and self-righteous, the way I could be sometimes,
and spending at least half a moment not missing me at all.
Good.
I want you to be angry with me. I want you to think and feel anything that
will make you let go of me and live your life. I want you to remember the
terrible things I did and said sometimes, and the way I was always trying
to leave you behind for your own sake. I can't stand to think that you would
waste your life missing a man who isn't worth the trouble.
I love you, Scully, honestly and truly. I think I've always loved you. But
that love was never enough.
I could say it under my breath, or when you fell asleep in the car, or when
I was drugged out of my mind. And however much I loved you, I guess it wasn't
enough to stop me from hurting you over and over again. You needed my love
like a hole in the head, if that's what got you where you are today.
As I write this, I can only hope that none of this will be true. This is a
promise shot into a dark future I don't want to think about, a world where I
loved you so much it hurt and yet went on blindly pushing you away. A world
where I left you.
This is for you in case I never make things right.
I shouldn't be writing this. I should be telling you this tomorrow. I should
leave this quiet hospital and drive to your apartment and die in your arms
with love on my lips. I should do all the things I was too cowardly to do
over the last ten years. I should thank Skinner for saving my job and my
life, move out of my shithole apartment, kill the smoking man and tell you I
love you. I should have called my mother. I should have stopped jumping
trains and spaceships and bought a house in the suburbs. I should have lived
my life.
You know me, and you know that I can't change.
But with death creeping so close, I can't help but look back at the tornado
wreck in my wake and wish I was leaving behind something more substantial
than an office full of horror stories and the hardened version of a woman I
met seven years ago.
So I'll tell you now, a year after you lose me and the wounds are dull enough
for you to hear me clearly, that I love you. The coward's way out. My
insurance against the failure of my better self.
I'd like to think that this letter won't be read. I'd like to think that I
have another fifty years of summer nights and winter mornings to love you,
to make myself into a man worthy of loving you.
I can't ask you to forgive me. I can't forgive myself. I hate that I'm
going to die with my goodbyes still unsaid. This coward won't rot away
in a sterile bed with machines stretching out the pain until it's thin
and unbearable. I hate how much I'm going to hurt you.
This letter is pointless.
Don't miss me. Don't think of me. Don't push yourself into exhausted oblivion
for the next twenty years. Don't let yourself die.
Don't let the dark win.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
-----
"There is truth here, old friend, if that's all you seek, but there's no
justice or judgment, without which truth is a vast, dead hollow. Go back.
Do not look into the abyss or let the abyss look into you. Awaken the sleep
of reason and fight the monsters within and without."
-"The Blessing Way"
----
Rabid, heartfelt thanks to Diana Battis and Jintian for the butt-kicking,
encouraging beta. It's all for you, ladies, all for you.
This and more at: http://www.dreamwater.com/mcaact/maren.html
Author: Sophia Jirafe
Classification: V
Spoilers: late S7
Archival: ask for linking details
Summary: The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred
with their bones
----
I'm so sorry you're reading this.
I know you, Scully, and I know what you're like right now. I know that you
spend your days in mindless drudgery and your nights in sleepless hell. I
know that you eat only when you have to, and that when people look you in
the eye you stare them down until they flinch away.
I know because I was you, once, a long time ago.
I can't say enough how sorry I am that you've received this at all. If
things go as I'd like to think they will, this letter will spend eternity
at the bottom of Byers' sock drawer. But since you *are* reading it, I have
to assume--ah, fuck this.
I'm writing this to try and explain why I didn't tell you. I know that's
what you ask yourself every day. You think I betrayed you, that I didn't
care enough about you to let you in. You're running over the last year in
your mind, trying to think of any clue I might have given you, any hint I
dropped that death was in my immediate future. And I know you won't find
any, because I worked so hard to keep my secret. I spent what will be--what
*were*--the last months of my life trying to keep you happy.
I know my deception will have hurt you. I hate lying--maybe as you read this
I've already confessed. But you, Scully, you should understand why we keep
these terrible secrets from the people closest to us. I remember you writing
something similar to this years ago, in your own dark hour. And I remember
you throwing it away because you had found something far more important--hope.
Well, hope is just a distant memory for me now. I'm writing this as my own
poor eulogy. My absolution.
I know how you must appear to everyone these days. Loss doesn't decimate you
the way it does other people--it slices away thin layers of you, and leaves
you so hard inside that you sharpen everything you touch. I know losing me
must have cut you deep, perhaps deeper than any loss from your past, but the
people around you would never know that.
Others--your father, probably--would call you a good soldier, admire your
stiff upper lip and your self-control and the astonishing way you deal with
crisis and tragedy. They'll tell you that your strength and stoicism are
what got you where you are today--and with me gone, I'm sure you're miles
above the basement--and behind your back they'll call you ballbuster and
woman of steel and every other stupid cliche for a woman with a backbone.
I know why you never break down, Scully.
I know that you're thin iron and china, and that cracking is not an option
because one chip and the whole thing goes to hell. I know you're afraid to
shatter.
And now you're angry with me, for thinking you vulnerable and weak, for
assuming that because you're beautiful you must be fragile too. You're
imagining me delirious and self-righteous, the way I could be sometimes,
and spending at least half a moment not missing me at all.
Good.
I want you to be angry with me. I want you to think and feel anything that
will make you let go of me and live your life. I want you to remember the
terrible things I did and said sometimes, and the way I was always trying
to leave you behind for your own sake. I can't stand to think that you would
waste your life missing a man who isn't worth the trouble.
I love you, Scully, honestly and truly. I think I've always loved you. But
that love was never enough.
I could say it under my breath, or when you fell asleep in the car, or when
I was drugged out of my mind. And however much I loved you, I guess it wasn't
enough to stop me from hurting you over and over again. You needed my love
like a hole in the head, if that's what got you where you are today.
As I write this, I can only hope that none of this will be true. This is a
promise shot into a dark future I don't want to think about, a world where I
loved you so much it hurt and yet went on blindly pushing you away. A world
where I left you.
This is for you in case I never make things right.
I shouldn't be writing this. I should be telling you this tomorrow. I should
leave this quiet hospital and drive to your apartment and die in your arms
with love on my lips. I should do all the things I was too cowardly to do
over the last ten years. I should thank Skinner for saving my job and my
life, move out of my shithole apartment, kill the smoking man and tell you I
love you. I should have called my mother. I should have stopped jumping
trains and spaceships and bought a house in the suburbs. I should have lived
my life.
You know me, and you know that I can't change.
But with death creeping so close, I can't help but look back at the tornado
wreck in my wake and wish I was leaving behind something more substantial
than an office full of horror stories and the hardened version of a woman I
met seven years ago.
So I'll tell you now, a year after you lose me and the wounds are dull enough
for you to hear me clearly, that I love you. The coward's way out. My
insurance against the failure of my better self.
I'd like to think that this letter won't be read. I'd like to think that I
have another fifty years of summer nights and winter mornings to love you,
to make myself into a man worthy of loving you.
I can't ask you to forgive me. I can't forgive myself. I hate that I'm
going to die with my goodbyes still unsaid. This coward won't rot away
in a sterile bed with machines stretching out the pain until it's thin
and unbearable. I hate how much I'm going to hurt you.
This letter is pointless.
Don't miss me. Don't think of me. Don't push yourself into exhausted oblivion
for the next twenty years. Don't let yourself die.
Don't let the dark win.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
-----
"There is truth here, old friend, if that's all you seek, but there's no
justice or judgment, without which truth is a vast, dead hollow. Go back.
Do not look into the abyss or let the abyss look into you. Awaken the sleep
of reason and fight the monsters within and without."
-"The Blessing Way"
----
Rabid, heartfelt thanks to Diana Battis and Jintian for the butt-kicking,
encouraging beta. It's all for you, ladies, all for you.
This and more at: http://www.dreamwater.com/mcaact/maren.html