A/N: Title taken from a Twilight Zone episode, set during season 5 when Scully's cancer is worse. Reflections by Bill, Mulder, Dana, and Margaret when they believe that Scully is dying.

Bill

He doesn't want to believe it.

He won't believe it. He's already lost one sister this year, his father a few years ago, and he'll be damned if he loses Dana too.

Dana's always had such a big heart for lost things, for strays, for things no one wants. He remembers killing a bunny when she was little and she refused to tell him where she'd hidden it so he couldn't hurt it any further.

"It's dead, Dana, you can't hurt it any more because it won't feel it," he'd yelled at her.

If she dies they'll all feel it. Like a missing limb, a missing heart.

It will hurt.

And now this latest stray, this FBI agent Dana's been assigned to—Mulder. Who keeps hanging around like a lost puppy, like he knows something, and it's infuriating. Bill doesn't consider himself a violent man but if he sees Mulder one more time he might deck him.

It's more infuriating because he makes Dana happy. Bill watches the way her face lights up every time Mulder enters the room and he wants to scream at him she's dying she's dying stop getting her hopes up.

But he doesn't. And he doesn't ask him to leave, either.

Dana's always had a soft spot for strays.

Margaret

She can't bear to lose another daughter, and in the back of her mind she knows that if Dana goes then it'll be a matter of time before she goes, too, because as strong as she is her daughter is stronger, and she needs her around.

The little girl who cried when she stepped on a bug has become the woman who would open that bug to see how it ticks, and though it's not what she wanted or what her husband wanted—Dana in the FBI, Dana examining dead bodies—she's still proud.

God, she hopes Dana knows how proud she is.

Dana's proud, too, but a different kind of proud and Margaret knows that's why she didn't tell her about her cancer. She'd been angry about this but angrier still because she knows if Dana weren't in the hospital right now it's likely none of them would have ever found out. Dana doesn't like to be treated with kid gloves, and while she's always been one to cry at things the Scullys quickly learned she didn't want that acknowledged.

But Dana's been crying more lately and Margaret knows it's because she's scared and at the very least she should acknowledge that. So she holds her daughter and strokes her hair and pretend that she isn't crying, too.

She can't bear to lose another daughter.

Mulder

He's seen a lot of things, but watching Scully die has to be the worst.

He needs to find a cure. He needs it more than he's ever needed anything in his life. More than needing to kill the Cancer Man, more than needing to find out what happened to Samantha, because if Scully dies then he knows it will be more than the end of the X-Files, it will be the end of him, because he will stop at nothing to destroy everyone who did this to her.

He wants to break things. He's not violent but watching her on that hospital bed looking smaller every day makes him want to smash something. He's already broken the vending machine in the oncology wing after kicking it in frustration one too many times.

He's watching her die and he can't do anything about it no matter how hard he tries, and that hurts him the most, because he knows if the roles were reversed she'd stop at nothing to save him. All he has is hope for a miracle, for a cure, and like always he hopes his belief will be enough to sustain him.

He wants to believe she'll get better, that he'll find a cure, but every day he doesn't and every day her laugh when he comes into the room fades a little more.

He'll never get to tell her, and that hurts most of all. That she is the best thing to ever happen to the X-Files but also the best thing to happen to him, and sometimes when she's looking at him with her brow furrowed and worrying he wants nothing more than to smooth her skepticism away by kissing her.

And now he won't get that chance.

Maybe watching Scully die isn't the worst.

Watching her die knowing there's a million things he needs to say to her?

That's killing him.

Scully

You didn't want it to end like this.

You didn't want them to watch you die, you didn't think you'd die before your mother and to see the grief on her face is killing you more than the cancer is.

Bill, too. You've had your differences in the past but he's been extraordinarily kind to you these past weeks. You wish he'd rib you, tease you, something instead of looking at you with pity and talking in hushed tones to your mother when they think you're asleep.

They look older. All of them. It's not just you dying, you know, it's the four of you, the cancer killing all of you slowly.

Sometimes when it's really bad you wish you'd hurry up and die, if only not to prolong their agony.

You pray a lot. You wonder what will happen to them when you go. You know, theoretically, what will happen to you but it's them you worry about.

Mulder especially. Your mother and Bill will have each other, but Mulder? Mulder has you. And you have him, and if you go it'll tear him apart.

You can see how much he wants to find a cure, how he's torturing himself placing all the responsibility for taking care of you on himself. You want to tell him not to worry, but you've never been the best liar. You want to tell him you'll be fine. You want to tell him you love him, but what good will that do when you're dying?

So you keep the words behind your lips and you will not say them and God, you know what will happen to you.

But you never wanted it to be like this.