I can't sleep. If I sleep, I stay too long in that middle ground where you're still alive. And then I wake up and you're really gone and it hurts as much as it did when we found you. Over and over and over. I can't keep doing it.

There's nothing holding me down. No constant. No touchstone. I thought that the baby would keep me going. But I think maybe it's not real, or not really mine. I haven't felt it move yet. I should have by now. Maybe it's dead like you.

"There has to be an end..."

I know. I know. I know.

They gave me these pills, after. I was supposed to take them to help me sleep.

They told me to limit my caffeine intake when I admitted that I drink coffee almost constantly now. They said that was why I couldn't sleep. Very rational.I don't even really like it, the coffee, but it makes me feel normal. A warm cup in my hands distracts my overthinking mind, anchors me. If I'm busy fixing another cup, making another pot, I can almost stop thinking about your cold, gray skin. It busies my restless hands that would otherwise rest on my burgeoning belly, another reminder that we're here and you're gone. I know I'm not supposed to. I know this intellectually, I do.

But I've been nothing but reckless since the day you left. How else would you know how hard I fought to find you unless I wrote the words with the scars on my body? How would you know how much I hurt unless you could see it in my sunken, tired eyes? All the stupid, useless things you believe in and you still couldn't believe how much I need you. You never would have left if you did.

I haven't slept since the funeral. I don't think I have. I know I lay down, forcing the air in and out. I don't think anything happens after that. I don't think I'm even really here. At least you're somewhere, finally. You're in the ground, cold and quiet. How long now, 3 days? A week?

The guys keep showing up with food. Frohike stares at me until I eat it. It tastes like nothing. Langly tries to tell me that you wouldn't want me to do this to myself. I can barely even hear him, like I've got cotton in my ears. Byers just sits there watching me.

You're dead and really, so am I. Except you get the luxury of silence. Your voice is thrumming in my ears, still. I can hear you murmuring my name, telling me that you love me as you kiss the pulse point under my jaw. It doesn't stop and it unwinds whatever little bit of stability I had left. Maybe if I just sleep, really sleep.

So I'm sitting here, a bottle full of pills in my hand and thinking that if we're dead, all of us together, that we can just pick up where we left off.

I'm on your couch, I'm wearing your t- shirt. I can't smell you here, anymore, not even in the dirty laundry I never washed.

I've run out of feelings. Is that possible? Is this what it means to be bereft? I'm just here.

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. Why aren't you?

I open the bottle and stare at the little white pills that could take me away from all of this.

I dump them on the coffee table and wonder how many I can swallow at once. 4 or 5 maybe. 4 rounds of 5 and that's the bottle. Maybe I should run a bath too. Take all the pills and just sink under. I'll look like Ophelia. They'll bury me under pink peonies and white lilies. Next to you, I hope.

I line them up, 4 groups of 5 pills. I make a pot of coffee. I go run a warm bath. I strip down to nothing and swipe the pills back into the bottle. I pour the coffee into the mug you'd always designated as mine. I pad into bathroom, mug in one hand, pill bottle in the other.

"Sculleeeee, I love you..." I hear you sigh.

Shut up. No you don't. You'd be here if you did.

"I never saw you as a mother before..."

Stop it, stop it, stop it. I squeeze my eyes shut and will you away.

I slide into the water and rest my head on the edge of the tub. It's warm and it's the first time since we put you in the ground that I feel something beyond numbness. I think about your hands on the small of my back, your lips on the hollow of my neck. I sigh softly and wrinkle my brow. Maybe if it hadn't been so good, this wouldn't feel like it does. Even the good things feel wrong.

I open my eyes and stare at the pill bottle. I know, chemically, what this will do to us. I know the baby will be gone before I am. I know that my breathing will become depressed and I'll stop oxygenating. When I lose consciousness, I'll slip under and the water will flood my airway. My heart will stop and it'll be over. So much easier than being born. There's no fight in it, just flight.

Someone will find me, maybe John or Skinner and they will haul my cold, bare body out of the water. They'll break my ribs doing CPR and press their mouth against my blue lips, a last kiss. Pink froth will bubble out of my mouth and nose as they press and press and press. And they'll give up,realizing that I've made my choice and my peace. That I've gone to find you, really find you at last. Maybe they'll leave me there on the cold tile for the coroner to collect, or maybe they'll put me in your bed.

But then I feel a tremble low in my belly. I suck in a sharp gasp, shocked out of the vision of my own death.

"There's so much more you need to do with your life, Scully. There's so much more than this..."

I sob helplessly as I get out of the water. I dry myself off and put your shirt back on. I pour the mug out into the bath water and drain the tub. I open the bottle and swallow one pill dry, just one, letting it burn a slow track to my stomach. I was supposed to take them to help me sleep. So I did. And I sleep.

End.