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Title : Touched By Darkness
Author : Shawne
E-Mail : shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating : PG
Category: VA
Spoilers : none for the episode itself, but set post
"Elegy". Also mentions
"Memento Mori". If you don't know that Scully had
cancer two years ago, it's
probably not a good idea for you to read this. :P
Keywords : post-ep circumstances
Archive : Just tell me where it goes.
Disclaimers : All our unhealthy obsessions with the X-Files,
Mulder and
Scully are CC's fault and not mine. <vbg>
Summary : The darkness touching Scully's life is also making its
way into
Mulder's.
Author's Notes : This is the second installment in a series I'm
still hoping
to expand upon. :) The first story was set post "One
Son", and is called NOT
THAT DIFFERENT. You can find it on my site. This one jumps two
years back,
to the end of Season Four, and works just fine as a stand-alone.
All you
really need to know - this is a series of journal entries written
by
Mulder, addressed to Scully. As you've probably guessed by now,
this series
evolves only when the Fanfic Muses whisper little bits of
insanity into my
ear!
Thanks to the people who read the original story and warmed my
world with
feedback about it. I really appreciate all your support, and I
hope this
installment will not disappoint.
For Vic - thanks for always being there.
======================================================
Scully--
I saw the tears you wanted to cry tonight. You hid them well,
trapped them
inside the tight composure of your face, locked and laced them
into the hard
set of your shoulders.
But I saw them anyway.
They never left your body, never even moved into your eyes. But
they were
there, somewhere, crystal drops of salt and water and light,
tainted by
darkness and fear and pain.
You held them, those burning tears I knew you were dying to cry,
and tried
to keep them a secret from me. I watched your back, so strong and
yet so
small and so afraid, as you turned away and walked down the
hallway alone. I
felt those tears springing into action, churning into life and
violence
inside you, even as you continued to wage your customary war
against them.
I know you do not want to cry in front of me, or anywhere near
me. You did
so once before - not too long ago, in a hospital corridor, as I
held you and
loved you and needed you. And I know that even then, you thought
of tears as
a weakness, a failing, a wrong that you can never again make
right.
They don't heal you, you think. They leave scars on others.
So just as you pushed me away that night, dashing the tears off
your face
and returning to your room alone... you pushed me away tonight.
Your tears are something I'm seldom allowed to see, Scully. You
think that
if I see you cry, I will lose my purpose, and blame myself for
what has
happened to you. If you don't cry, you think, and remain strong
and
independent in front of me, I will stay true to my quest. As long
as you
appear in control, I will think that's what you are.
You're wrong, Scully. I need for you to know that, but I don't
know how to
tell it to you.
Letting down your guard in front of me, allowing the horrors you
live with
to escape into my world... those things don't make me want to
give up. They
don't destroy me, and they don't tear at my insides or turn my
world upside
down. They don't mean that you've failed me.
They mean that I've failed you.
Because you don't do those things around me. Because you
feel you can't do
those things around me.
You are trying so hard, Scully, to be strong for me. So you build
a
fortress around yourself, close all the doors, and live inside
brick walls I
can't penetrate. Your tears are your only companions... touched
by darkness,
but born of light. They are made of the light that is you, and
they are
sullied by the darkness of a disease I can't begin to fathom, and
a
conspiracy I can't begin to defeat.
I need you, and I think that's the biggest problem of all. I need
you in
more ways than you'll ever know. I need you to give me strength,
and I need
you to care for me, and cover for me, and be by my side. I need
you to be my
partner, my lover, my wife, my soulmate. I need you to show me
the beauty in
a world I'd always thought was ugly, to challenge me and support
me all at
once. I need you to put up with me and my eccentricities, I need
you to
sleep next to me at night and wake up with me in the morning. I
need so much
of you, Scully.
But the thing I need most?
I need you to need me.
You don't let me hold you, Scully, and you don't let me catch
your tears as
they fall. I can't get any closer than your bodyguards of
strength and
suffering allow. You don't tell me what scares you, what you
fear, and you
don't look at me honestly anymore. I only know as much of you as
I can read
from your face and body language... and you're so skilled at
keeping those
aspects of you under control that, most times, I can only guess
at what you
must be feeling.
What would I feel in your situation?
Fear, I suppose. Loss, pain, bitterness, disillusionment...
hopelessness. I
would want to embrace Life, to run from Death, to ignore my
mortality. All
those emotions I can sense, I can see in you.
But I'd also want to share the darkness inside me with others, to
give as
much of it away as I can - hoping that by doing so, the darkness
will not
swallow my light.
And that is where we're fundamentally different, Scully. You
realise that
the darkness invading you is dangerous. Fatal. Lethal. So you
keep it all to
yourself, inside yourself, never talking about it with
me, never once trying
to share it with me. This darkness is the cross you bear alone,
because you
don't want to see me tangle with it. Tangled in it. You
don't want to
inflict it on me.
Scully, that darkness is eating away at me this very moment.
Watching it boil inside you, mocking you, stealing your light and
damping
it down... I can't grab it, or shoot it, or get rid of it. It's
not
tangible. But I can't even help you fight it, because
you push me away,
black tears barely disguised by your light words. To me, you're
always
"fine", doing well... strong.
I can't make your fears or your cancer go away, Scully. I'm not a
fucking
magician. I don't have a miracle cure, much as I wish I did, and
I can't
profess to have more courage than you do. There's no way I can
know what
it's like to be sleeping with demons everyday, or how it feels to
fight
against Time every second.
But I need to do something for you. Even if it's nothing more
than brushing
hot tears off your face, or holding you until the cold leaves
your body.
You are touched by darkness, Scully.
Your eyes used to shine with a light so bright I could see an
entire
universe in them, filled with perfect worlds of love and hope and
life...
hinting of uncharted stars and unexplored planets.
Now they are hollow, bruised, tinged with fear and the tears you
will not
cry.
I used to wait for your presence in my office every morning. You
would
bring your light into my day, through your words, your actions,
and
sometimes, with the rarest gift of a smile.
And now, I see you come in through that same door, and you're
still giving
me your last reserves of strength and light as you do so. But now
there is
an ebony aura that surrounds you, and every smile you bestow upon
me lets
the darkness claim another inch of your soul.
The darkness is killing you, even before your health does. You
are not
dead, Scully, not yet... but you are dying.
And maybe that is infinitely worse.
I confronted you with your mortality today - I wanted you to stop
hiding
your fears, to face up to reality, and to face up to me. To give
us the
truth I now know is in you.
Let me help you. Please, Scully. Let me in, and let me take that
darkness
away, even if I can only shoulder it for the briefest of moments.
It will
kill you faster if you live with it as you do now, watching,
circling, wary
and alert. The darkness ready to pounce - and you, ready to
fight.
Please let me help you fight this, Scully. Don't hide truths from
me, like
you did with this case. Show me this darkness that is sliding
into you, and
let me do more than watch it break down your defenses.
For once, allow me to give you the light you need.
I'll be printing out two copies of this tonight. One is for me, a
part of
the collection of words I have been writing to you - and for you
- over the
past two years. The other will be for you, a letter you will read
when I
decide I need to post it.
Good night, Scully. As usual, I'll be thinking of you. I know
it's a lot to
ask of you right now... but please sleep well. Sleep sweetly. And
sleep
without worries.
I love you,
Mulder
======================================================
I'd beg for feedback, but you've seen so many authors do the
crawling-on-hands-and-knees thing that it's just no fun to keep
them hanging
and/or oblige them anymore. So how about if I pretend I don't
want any to
reach me at shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com - then get pleasantly surprised
instead? ;)
Now serving you at http://www.shawnex.freeservers.com
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti
rice dreamsicles."
Added July 12, 1999