Left Behind
Chapter 20

John saw the circle and his heart stopped beating. He feared he was already too late as he pulled his car off the road. He and Skinner exited the vehicle quickly leaving the headlights striking a beam of light into the darkness. John willed his leaden feet forward toward the Virginia State police officers that stood in a circle on the hill. He was so focused on the circle that he barely even noticed Skinner had fallen in a step behind him.

John knew that circle. He knew what it meant. And yet a small spark of hope in him refused to die upon seeing the circle. The circle always meant death-the living surrounding the dead in an almost instinctive, protective manner. It had been so when he found Luke. It had been so when he first found Mulder. It must be so now. And yet maybe, maybe it's not Monica. It couldn't be Monica. If it was she had to be alive, she had to be okay. He, they, he corrected himself, had just gotten the X-Files back.

John reached the circle and it opened, parted, letting him in, letting him become a participant, he and Skinner. But John refused to be a participant. He refused to be part of the circle. He walked inside the circle and got down on his knees. He knew, he knew it already, and yet refused to believe right up until he gently brushed the dark hair out of Monica's face. It was then that he believed. He believed in it all. In that moment he absorbed her beliefs and yet lost all faith at the same time. He had forced himself to believe in order to find her and it had amounted to nothing.

Inside the circle, John's tears started to course down his cheeks, hot and heavy. He put his hand to her frozen bruised cheek and he mentally cursed those that had done this to her. They would pay for this. They would pay.

He could feel Skinner and the other officers pulling him away, trying to separate him from Monica, separate life from death. Part of him knew they were worried about him tainting evidence. Evidence be damned. He already knew who was responsible. If he had to believe in order to make them pay, then that was a price he was willing to pay. If he believed in them, they couldn't hide from him. They had destroyed Monica and Colin in order to protect the project, to make certain colonization went right on schedule. Somehow Monica and Colin had been threats to their agenda and they had gotten rid of them. Well, John would make them rue the day they crossed his path.

Denial, anger, grief all exploded in John at that moment. He had been a ticking time bomb and he had finally been set off.

"Noooooo! Noooooo! Nooooooo!," John howled as they pulled him away, separating him from her. John refused to be parted from her. He refused to accept that she was gone, lost, and that he was forever separated from her. "Monica!!!!! Monica!!!!!!! Monica!!!!!!!!" he howled again and again and again. But she couldn't hear him. Not anymore.

Suddenly, John thought he saw Monica take in a breath. Through the darkness and his tears he couldn't tell if it was his imagination or not. He continued to scream her name. "Monica!!! Monica!!! She's alive!!! Let me go!! She's alive!!" He really didn't know if she was or not but he continued to scream as they dragged him away.