Title: As I Lay Dying Author: Lauren Belmont Archive: Anywhere, just let me know and give me a link! Summary: Everyone goes through hell sometimes. That's just how life is. Rating: PG-13 Classification: VA, various character POV. The format is a little weird, but give it a chance. I PROMISE it has a point if you stick with it. Keywords: Angst-o-rama, baby. MSR Spoilers: Yet another post-TINH. Wait! Don't go! Please!! Disclaimer: Not mine. Feedback: Makes my day brighter in a dark, sad, Mulderless world. Write me at pipntook@aol.com and I'll love you forever Author's Notes: William Faulkner is my favorite writer, author, and novelist. He just has a way of writing prose that captivates me. After I wrote this fic and debated over a title, I realized that the format was somewhat similar to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. (An excellent work of dark humor, by the way. If you have the means, I recommend reading it!!!) Thus the title is born, even though the tone is completely different, and I in NO WAY mean to compare my work to his!! Heaven forbid!!! This goes out to the few of you who took the time to write me back after The Ninth Circle (all of your emails made my day!!), and, as always, all my friends who support me and my writing. You know who are. I love you!!! As I Lay Dying XxXxXxXxX The fog hangs precariously over the earth's dips and rolls, twisting away into the woods and out of sight. Like ink blots -- dense in some areas while thin and stretched in others. The moon bleaches the fog into a pasty, pulsing sea, and the combination of gray, black, and white is enough to make anyone wonder when they fell from reality into the prison their dreams have built. They blend into this placidity. All of them -- suits and jackets matching the colorlessness of the surrounding world. he thinks, hunching in his trenchcoat. The fog, glowing sulfuric from his flashlight, swirls around his ankles. He kicks his foot absentmindedly, and the fog swirls away in tendrilled fingers before reforming stronger than before. "I told her I'd find him," he says, softly. Reyes stands at his side, showing no guilt over the cigarette burning away between her fingers. The smoke curls around her face. he tells himself. He looks over at her silently. She understands and tosses him her pack of Morley's. Stealing one, he turns it gently with his callused, muddy fingertips before lighting up and returning the box. As the poison makes its way to his lungs, he stifles a cough and revels in the damage he's inflicting on his body. God knows her partner went through worse. "Jesus..." he whispers to the thousands of eyes. "This wasn't what I meant." XxXxXxXxX She keeps the lights off. Reyes will be back any moment to take her to the station. Hallucinations. Exhaustion. Stress. Shock. Any on these can explain what she saw. None of them can begin to describe the depth that she saw in his eyes. For these next few minutes, it's just her in this motel room with this chair, the window, and a growing lump in her throat. But she is a scientist, after all. A minute of consideration, and she decides on exhaustion. But she stays here anyway, just in case he comes back. XxXxXxXxX Damn those bastards. Damn them all. By destroying him, they will destroy her, and maybe that was their plan all along. "Shit," he mutters. How is he supposed to tell her? How do you tell anyone that their partner and best-friend is dead? "Shit!!" He walks slowly back to the compound. No rush now. It's over. Life, hope, all gone. The ground feels hard beneath his shoes in the winter air. The atmosphere is electric. Not the electricity of anticipation, but of nothingness. All that's left are the unseen particles spinning through time like the electrons spreading this mood around him. His fault. It's his fault. If he hadn't looked down, if he had told Mulder not to go, if if if if if... "I'm so tired of lying," he says to no one. He opens the door to the compound, still not knowing what to say. In the end, he says nothing. XxXxXxXxX Another night, just like this one. Another abandoned crime scene, just like that one. Another life destroyed, refusing to realize they aren't alone in hell. Another memory she doesn't want. Another drag from her cigarette. She can quit tomorrow. Sometimes she hates her job. XxXxXxXxX The water swirls between her toes and gently caresses her ankles. She hums slowly at the unfamiliar feeling of contentment. When the footsteps creak against the wood, she smiles at his presence. His weight gently rocks the dock as he seats himself beside her. She gazes over the lake and leans against his shoulder, breathing in the warmth his body brings to the dewy spring morning. "Sleep well?" "Mm," she answers lazily, withdrawing her foot from the water and rubbing it against his ankle. The droplets trickle off her heel and plink with an echo in the abyss of this small lake. Traced in evergreens, the water stretches gently to tickle the shore with slippery fingers. "I'll take that as a yes." "I didn't sleep." Although far from awake, she's not tired. She just IS. Like she's hovering between realities, allowing her concentration to fall, even if just for a short while. "I'm afraid to ask how much this cost you." He chuckles and rubs Scully's arms as protection against the chill, and, with a smile, she buries her cheek further into his chest. "I've been here before," she says softly. "You have? Damn, and I wanted you to try something new." His words are light. Carefree. She's missed this. "Oh," she continues with a smirk, "I think we've got that part covered, don't worry." He laughs again. The sound bounces lightly among the trees. "That's not what I meant." A bird flies over the water followed closely by a fish flashing silver above the surface for half a second, spreading ripples to every edge of the lake when it falls. "Have you ever wanted to die?" The question is so contrasting to the atmosphere that she pulls away. "Why?" "During your cancer." She shakes her head, confused. "Sometimes the pain was so strong I entertained the thought, but then I would think of you and know I couldn't put you through it." He stares out into the lake she no longer sees. "I hardly even acknowledged it. Mulder, why are you asking?" He blinks, and the smile returns to his face. "My mind was wandering. That's all." He pulls her back against him until her muscles relax. Her eyes drift closed. "Let's just watch the lake, okay?" she says. The water comes back into focus, and a breeze she hasn't noticed before floats in her hair before nuzzling her lips. She breathes in that spring air and smiles. "Thank you for taking me," she mumbles. The sleep she has evaded all night creeps up behind her. With his arms around her this way, she knows that if she drifted off right now, he would keep her safe. She smiles even as her eyes close for the last time. And she sleeps, feet still tickled by the water. XxXxXxXxX His glasses are fogging. He wipes them on his tie and tries futilely not to listen to her screams. Each one tears at him, but he knows it would kill her if she knew anyone was listening. One of the local agents looks toward the closed door, then over at the man slowly cleaning his lens. He wipes a fingerprint and then rubs at another the other hand accidentally leaves behind. "Go back outside. Check the area again," he says firmly. The strength in his voice surprises him. With a look, the man obeys. He looks out the window into the star- filled sky. "Jesus," he whispers. "You didn't know what you had in her." A vision of Scully with a child in her arms comes unbidden. He stares at nothing. "Well...maybe you did." XxXxXxXxX One hour and thirty-two minutes since they found him. One hour and ten minutes since she kicked Skinner out the door. Seventeen minutes since she stopped screaming. she thinks. Three hours and two minutes since she saw him in the starlight. She screams again. Over and over, wordless howls of agony she has allowed to build up these past months. Somewhere far away, she knows the others will hear her, but she doesn't care anymore. She feels nothing. She can't, and doesn't want to. She doesn't want sympathy, pity, or any variety of "I'm so sorry." She just wants her partner back. She screams to God, to the people in the next room, to Mulder, to the evil that took him in the first place. All of the anger she wants to drown them in flows from her lips, but she knows they won't understand. The cries slowly fade away. "Mulder..." Her voice cracks on the second syllable, and the words are whispers. "I'm pregnant. Mulder, you never knew..." She opens her eyes. The room is cold and scarcely furnished. Listening carefully, she can hear Doggett and Reyes talking softly outside and Skinner pacing on the other side of the door. She takes a breath and swallows the last of the cries for another time. "I never got to tell you..." The numbing comes slowly, but she allows it to flow through her, dulling the pain better than any sedative. It's temporary, she knows, but it will last long enough. Wiping her eyes and waiting for the last of the redness to subside, she stands and puts her hand on the door that she shut an hour before. <"You aren't alone, Dana. No matter what you may think," he tells her before she slams the door in his face. > She closes her eyes and allows the last of the pain to fade away. Nothing. XxXxXxXxX Fog passes over the ground like a rolling sea. She dashes from tree to tree, gun drawn, leading the others through the woods. She can hear him right behind her and nearly chokes from the number of emotions radiating from him. Sometimes she hates this gift. John calls it bullshit, but she didn't ask for this ability, and right now she would give it away in an instant if it meant not being able to feel the pure hatred, worry, panic, and fear coursing through his veins. She senses the agents behind her filled with adrenaline and excitement at the turn in events. She feels her own sense of control sliding down the drain. But try as she can, she can't feel Luke. Another thornbush rips at her clothing as they run, following pure instinct and nothing more. Her body tenses as she runs, stomach churning. She runs faster, because something's not right. Her soul grows cold deep within her from something she has yet to see. She runs. When they enter the clearing, a wave of nausea courses through her. Even before she sees the body, she wants to vomit. she chants. Somehow she reaches the small boy before his father and seeks vainly for a pulse. His frantic footfalls pound against the fog. "Monica, move!!" "Stay back, John..." "Get a paramedic!!!!! NOW!!!" "John, wait!!" "NO!!" Gray. Broken. Bleeding. Cold. "Christ," she stifles as he falls to his son's side. "Jesus Christ, no..." The bile finds it's way to her throat, and she dashes out of the clearing. XxXxXxXxX The worst fear of any mother is waking to the phone ringing after midnight, even when the children have long since left home and have their own phone calls to dread. Margaret has lost touch with Dana over the past three years. Her daughter has been a little harder to reach, a little longer in responding. She received a message one night a few months ago, but every time she tries to return the call, no one answers. she convinces herself. But when the phone wakes her at four a.m. this morning, all the possibilities she has refused to consider crash inside her at once. "Hello?" she asks anxiously. "Mrs. Scully?" The voice doesn't belong to Fox, and this frightens her more than anything. "What's happened?" The caller hesitates, and her body grows cold. XxXxXxXxX "Walt, you gotta go!!!" He watches Chris crumple over Andy as he gasps the last gurgled breath he'll ever take. Blood. So much blood. Rivers of blood, blood raining down. The ten plagues, all of them in blood. Dan shouts again. "What the hell are you doing!?! Get out of here!!" He's watching when the shrapnel tears through his friend's body, ripping flesh from bone. More blood. the still rational part of his mind commands him, the part that hasn't already gone mad from watching everyone die. In some distant part of consciousness, he's thankful the blood on his hands isn't his, but the thought is drowned out by the endless waves of screaming and praying and sobbing echoing throughout this God-forsaken hellhole called Vietnam. His mind battles itself, and a moment later he loses his final link to sanity. He drops his weapon and runs as if all of the enemy were in pursuit. Running running running keep running... Michael stares up from the jungle floor. His eyes are blank. Don't think, keep running running running... He trips on a tree branch and lands, sprawled, in a sea of ferns. But even as he turns, he knows it wasn't a branch. Branches don't lose their heads. He vomits. Out of terror, fright, in fear of the inevitable, retching in the blood-red-soaked greenery around him, asking why he signed up for this -- he never signed up for THIS... He can hear V.C. shouting. He can hear his troops screaming. A flash in front of him. And then he hears nothing. XxXxXxXxX It was all so detached before now. The world spins in circles, even with his head smashed between his knees. Jesus, he's so cold. He cups his son's hands in his, swallows air, and he hears someone say something about shock, but the word has no meaning. Breathing. Breathing. Why isn't Luke?? He wants to throw up. Staring at the ground, he sees the stony terrain without actually acknowledging it. And he snaps, slamming his fist to the earth, he punches. He slams his knuckles against the rocks. Again. Again!! He hits a branch, and his hand bleeds, but he feels nothing. So he strikes again, and again, over and over, punching the earth in a pathetic substitute of the sick bastard who did this to his son. His SON!!! Strong arms pull him off the ground and away from the small body. Body. Dead. DEAD. "NO!!" he screams. He looks around and pulls at the hands surrounding him. "WHERE IS HE?! WAIT TILL I GET YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!" Her face appears in the spiraling world, running up and holding him as any supportive agent would. "LET ME GO! WHERE IS HE?! DAMN YOU!! YOU BASTARD!!" Monica's crying. He doesn't hear her. XxXxXxXxX There. Another potential breakdown averted. She sits on the bench patiently and waits. No rush. Never again. Knees together, feet aligned, hands folded gently in her lap. No one could ever guess what she was about to do. Calm. Heart rate steady. She watches two birds flit on the sidewalk, fighting over a breadcrumb, until a pedestrian walks by and frightens them into the nearby treetop. Her eyes stay on them and their simple lives, and because of this, she doesn't see him coming. "I never thought about it much until now." She turns at his voice. He smiles that small, pained smile of his and continues. "I know where Scully learned to be so strong. She got it from you." Margaret looks at him, knowing that she has just inadvertently been paid one of his highest compliments. "Hello, Fox." He shifts his feet. "Are you ready?" With a gentle motion, she shakes her head and pats the bench beside her. He sits, and she catches a gleam of gold beneath his collar. "That's a good place for it," she comments softly. "I don't want to lose it," he mumbles after seeing the focus of her attention. "I don't...I don't know, Mrs. Scully." "Call me Margaret." "I can't." Another small smile. "I have this strange tendency to call all Scully women by their last names." His eyes are the ones following the birds now; they are flying, weaving patterns through one another as easily as water. Margaret looks straight ahead, folds her hands once more, and raises her head an extra inch. He speaks again. "Sometimes I wished she would just let go, but at the same time I admired her ability to hold it all in. She didn't need anyone's pity. Ever. But I don't think she understood that I never pitied her. It was different than that. Stronger somehow." Her nerves and heart soften at the young man's words, and she finally understands why Dana kept this job. The birds fly away. She clears her throat. "We'd better go inside." Eyes staring forward. "Yeah." Neither move, neither willing to make the first move toward acceptance. In the end, they stand simultaneously and begin climbing the steps, and Margaret prepares herself for the sight of her youngest daughter's gravestone. "I'm not ready to let her go," he says softly. He is staring at the pavement now. "You will be. Eventually." She doesn't admit that she isn't ready either. XxXxXxXxX She remembers her mother driving her home. The plane ride is nothing deeper than a blurred blend of sleeping and waking, the waking only a memory because it wasn't Mulder's shoulder she woke up on. Dimly, she recalls seeing her mother as they exited the plane. Her face was etched in a combination of too many emotions to describe, but there was anger there -- hidden down deep -- but it was there. Nonetheless, Scully finally told her what she had been waiting to say. The ride home is silent. Dreaming and reality blend again, and when she opens her eyes, the car is gone. The trees are just as green as before, and the air even more crisp. He's sitting on the dock, staring over the water. She runs, and when he turns to look at her and smiles, not even a scratch mars his perfect face. Standing, he turns to her, and then she's running. Running, running, then holding him, clutching him, squeezing until she's afraid her fingernails will draw blood. No. No blood. Ever again. "Hey Scully," he says with a grin. His hands are tangled in her hair. She breathes erratically and runs her palms over his arms, face, neck, across his chest, over his lips... And she presses herself against him as if she could melt her body into his. "I'm dreaming," she says against his shirt. But dreams are never this real. They don't allow the taste of the spring air or the sensation of his arms tightening around her. She has never been able to smell his skin or aftershave until now. "That's not important." His voice drifts over and through her like rain, filling every inch of her body with a blessed warmth she's missed for too long. "Why didn't you tell me?" she whispers. Eyes searching his. Seeing the depth saw the night before. "The moment you told me about the cancer, suddenly nothing else mattered. Nothing. Just you." He pauses and presses his cheek against her forehead. "And it came upon me then that we -- our partnership -- wouldn't last forever. It was a negative epiphany. I just couldn't put you through that hell." His hands running down her arms, sifting through her fingers. "When were you expecting me to find out? When the coroner called to tell me the news?" Breathing. Sweet breaths against her cheeks. "I wanted to spend my last months watching you smile. You can't tell me it would have been the same if I had told you." They break away and sit side-by-side on the dock, just like that morning months ago. Slowly, she runs her fingers over his palm and traces his fingertips, memorizes the contours of his chest and slides back to clasp his hand. They sit here for an eternity. "You have to go back," he says finally. "Can you do that for me?" She hangs her head. "How is finding me now any different from watching me waste away in a hospital bed?" Burying her fingers in his hair. "I could have said goodbye," she says simply. "That's the difference." He places his hands over both of hers. "You aren't alone in this. Everyone goes through hell sometimes. That's just how life is." "No one can understand this." He sighs a deep breath. Cups her face in his palms. "Listen to me. Talk to them -- Skinner, your mom, your new partner and his friend. I watch you. Even though I've never known Doggett or Reyes, I do know they've been where you are now. You may not believe them, or me, but they do understand." She pulls away gently and presses her cheek against his shoulder. <"You aren't alone, Dana. No matter what you may think."> She stares out over the misted water, remembering everything and nothing. "When I said I've been here before," she whispers hoarsely, "it was from when I...came back. I remembered you standing right here, and I sat in that boat and waited. I sat there for what seemed like forever, but I valued knowing I had a second chance." She wraps her arms around him once more. His breathing is deep beneath her cheek. "Maybe death is what we want it to be." His chest rises and falls. "That weekend was the best time I've ever had in my life, Mulder. And if we choose our deaths, maybe that's why I waited here in that boat." "Death IS what we choose it to be," he whispers. "Why do you think I'm here with you?" They both watch the water move in slight ripples along the shoreline. She takes one deep breath. Two. "Scully, I can't live without you. But I can't die without you either." She looks at his face. His fingers move again, crossing over her nose and down her cheek, finally gently pulling her chin upward to find her gaze in his. "So I'm going to wait for you here." She's feeling tired now. Knowing what's coming, her throat begins to tighten. "Don't make me go," she whispers. "Shh..." When his lips press gently against her brow, her eyes pinch shut, and the tears begin to fall from silent cries. One by one, he kisses them all away. She feels his lips nuzzling her cheeks, soft and warm, and she knows she can't be dreaming. When he sits back, he's smiling. And she can't help but do the same while watching his eyes sparkle in a way no one on earth could ever make them shine. He bites his lip, looks down, then up once more. "Boy or girl?" She sits up in her mother's guestroom. The moon shines through the far window, glowing through the curtains. She stares out that window for a long while, and she smiles through the tears she's been crying in her sleep. It's the first real smile she's made since he left. One last look out the glass, and she drifts back into dreams under his gaze of starlight. XxXxXxXxX She wore black only because it's customary and because it's the color he always saw her in, anyway. She wants him to remember her this way -- as the woman he would smile at when she walked in the office. She also wants him to remember her as the person who stayed long after the movie ended and the popcorn gone. As the one who sat on his couch and confessed her past, and later the contents of her heart. She will remember him as the person who taught her to play baseball at ten o'clock at night. As the man who agreed to father her child. The man who took her to the lake for a weekend. She'll remember him for all of these things and not the sight of him lying on the forest floor. Because that is not who he was -- not what he stood for. The winter air is frigid as the wind gusts past, but she is not cold anymore. She looks at the people huddled around her with their shoulders tight against the chill. she thinks. She sees a hidden emptiness in each of their eyes -- one that she compares to her own. She'll grieve, and the pain will never heal, but she won't allow it to control her life. She's lived through her father's death, her daughter's, and her sister's. She can survive this as well. The last of the suppressed screams melt away. It hurts when the nothingness finally fades. But it's better than feeling dead. Her mother gently takes her hand. "You ready?" she asks. "No," Scully says. "But I will be. XxXxXxXxX end