Disclaimer: All these people belong to Chris Carter, 10-13 and 20th 
Century Fox.  Not me.

My comments: I wrote this after seeing the movie "Carrington", which is 
really really depressing (I thought). And I borrowed heavily from it. But 
then, sometimes tragedy is good...all those Greeks can't be wrong.

I hope you enjoy it.

Thus with a kiss...
by eponine119 
eponine@uci.edu

	The trail led them to a darkened warehouse.  The air was 
absolutely still.  Mulder turned to Scully.  "This is it," he said.  She 
nodded.  They went inside.
	A putrid smell permeated the air.  The cavernous building was 
empty save for a runny puddle in the middle of the floor, all that 
remained of a decaying lifeform.  Scully clenched her teeth, fighting the 
urge to gag.  The smell was horredous.  She looked down at the puddle, 
her hand reaching into her pocket for her protective gloves.
	She looked up and saw what her partner was doing.  Her voice 
shattered the still air.  "Mulder, no!"

	Her scream startled herself awake, but she resisted opening her 
eyes.  It's a nightmare, she told herself, and then opened her eyes.
	It was real.  She began to shake.
	She was still sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to the 
hospital bed.  Flourescent lights burned overhead.  Tears filled her eyes 
as she looked over at her partner, absolutely still in the bed.
	The scene replayed in extreme slow motion in her head.  The 
texture of the gloves in her hand, reaching out.  The sickening slap when 
she dropped them on the floor, seeing it was too late. 
	Mulder's unprotected fingers digging into the goop.  The look of 
horror in his eyes as they met hers, the shout dying on her lips.
	Damn his curiousity, she thought.  Damn me for being too late.
	She shook more violently, freezing, remembering.  He'd managed to 
go outside with her, to the pay phone, to call for help.  He met her eyes 
before collapsing and she knew.
	She wanted to vomit and cry at the same time.  No one knew what 
was wrong with him, except that he was dying.  The rotting infectious 
alien entity was convienently gone.
	She struggled not to cry, looking at the chemical burns on his 
hands that were eating away at his life.  He was dying.  She hiccupped 
with the effort of holding it all in.
	The nurse in full hot zone protective gear entered, looking at 
Scully, who wore no such protective gear.  The nurse checked the 
equipment, and looked back to Scully.  "I know it's hard," she said, "But 
it won't be long now.  It's better this way.  He's suffering."
	Scully couldn't respond.  She gasped and was unable to keep 
herself together any longer.  She burst out sobbing and ran from the 
room  The nurse stared after her.
	Scully didn't go far.  She stopped out in the hallway, gasping 
for breath, trying to calm herself.  She heard the familiar ring of a 
cellular phone and spotted Skinner across the hallway.  Before he saw 
her, she slipped back into Mulder's room.
	"Damn," said Skinner, refolding the cell phone.  "I have to go."  
He turned to the man next to him.  "Keep an eye on her.  Keep her safe.  
I don't trust you, but you know that your life will be worthless if you 
don't."  The man beside him nodded and Skinner left.
	Scully watched Mulder's vital signs fight and fail.  She looked 
at her partner's face, memorizing it, knowing this would be the last time 
she saw him for a long, long time.  She thought she still believed in 
Heaven, and knew she would see him there one day.
	What surprized her most were her regrets.  Scully never thought 
of herself as a person who would ever have regrets, but there were a lot 
of them.
	I've never kissed this man, she thought, I've never been held by 
him, never experienced a long dark endless night with him.  She realized 
with a sudden gaping pain that this was the man who meanr more to her 
than any one or any thing in her life.  What they had went beyond love.  
She didn't know what to call it.
	The hot tears spilled from her eyes and she shook her head, 
biting her lip to try to stop it.  She had never known such pain, so 
completely.  "Mulder," she whispered, as though saying his name would 
bring him back to her.  This was so wrong.  So incredibly wrong.
	She had never imagined it like this.  It shouldn't end in a 
hospital bed.  It should end with him fighting.  He was a fighter, she 
thought, sobbing, looking at his face.
	It wasn't supposed to be like this.  She had always thought she 
would go first.  She would be killed in the line of duty.  He was strong 
enough, he could go on without her.  But where would she be without him?  
He'd brought so much to her life.
	She looked at his unchanged face and choked.  She knew she 
couldn't watch him die.  She couldn't stand it.
	Scully went to the door, openly weeping, and looked out.  No one 
was about in the hall.  It was the middle of a cold, dark, lonely night. 
She went back inside.
	Her fingers closed around the bottle the doctor had given her.  
Sedatives.  Her shaking hands fought to get the lid off, her mind 
uninvolved.  She put a handfull of the pills in her mouth and attempted 
to swallow them.  She didn't get many down before her throat convulsed 
and closed and the rest of the plastic capsules spilled out of her mouth.
	The room spun.  She reacted in a frenzy, searching the drawers in 
the tiny room, tearing them out, spilling their contents on the floor 
with loud crashes.  She could hear her own wailing sobs.
	The glitter of metal caught her eye and stopped her cried.  She 
held it before her in her shaking hand, trying not to think but it was 
just so hard, the thoughts wouldn't stop coming.
	"Forgive me," she said, now hesitant.  The pain in her stomach 
and her head was unbearable at this point.  She could hear Mulder rasping 
for breath, struggling against the alien substances slowly killing him.  
"It won't be long now" - the nurse's words.  She had to hurry.
	"It should be me," she said, kneeling beside his bed as though in 
prayer.  "Take me instead," she sucked in a deep breath.  "Fox," she 
sobbed.  Damn the X Files, they had taken everything from her and only 
given her pain.  They'd only given him to her to take him away in agony.
	"Fox, Fox," she wept over and over, fighting the sobs for 
breath.  She tried to cut her wrist with the scalpel, but she was shaking 
too hard.  It kept slipping.  She tried to focus on the task.
	A man knocked her to the floor, the scalpel falling from her 
hand.  "No!" she fought him, her legs and arms flailing against him, "Let 
me do this."
	The man squeezed her against him to keep her still.  "Dana," he said.
	She revolted in horror, crying harder to think she would never 
hear Fox Mulder call her by her name again.  Her hand closed on the cold 
steel of her handgun, shoving it into his hands.  "Shoot me," she 
ordered.  "You've tried to kill me before, and him.  Here's your chance.  
Kill me.  Now."
	"I can't,"
	She heard Mulder's respiratory distress and crumpled.  "Take me 
instead.  Hurry.  Kill me." she sobbed, "I can't, I won't, live without him."
	"No." he said.
	The struggle for breath and life intensified.  The gasps were 
rapid, deafening.
	"Now, damn it, I have to die.  Not him." Scully begged.  "Not him."
	Brown eyes met her blue ones.  He took her hand and pressed her 
gun into it.  She wasn't crying any more.  "You can shoot yourself." 
Krycek said.
	Scully looked at the gun.  Felt its weight in her hand.  Listened 
to Mulder, each breath closer to his last.  She couldn't bear it.  They 
would be together in death.  She raised the gun.
	If you kill yourself, you won't go to heaven.
	I don't care.  Her finger was on the trigger, but she couldn't 
manage to pull it.  She was crying again, silently.  Krycek was watching 
her.  Mulder was gasping for air and the sound was killing her.
	She squeezed her eyes shut.  Her arm tensed.
	The rasping took on form, shape.  "Scully."
	Shocked, she opened her eyes and dropped her arm.
	The struggled for life ended.  Fox Mulder was dead.  His last 
thoughts were of her.
	Scully was silent for a moment, the truth sinking in.  It was too 
late.  She'd failed.  "No, no, NO," she cried, "I need you too much, 
don't leave me."  She crawled across the floor to his bedside.  "Fox?" 
There would never be an answer.
	"Fox, Fox," she sobbed his name, rocking back and forth, 
hysterical.  "I need you."  She looked into his unseeing eyes and raised 
herself to press her lips to his.  Then the pills took effect and her 
body dropped to the floor, relaxed in heavy sleep.
	Krycek rose to get a nurse, his lips moving, no sound issuing as 
he quoted:
	"Ah, dear Juliet,
	Why art thou yet so fair...
	...I still will stay with thee,
	And never from this palace of dim night
	Depart again.  Here, here will I remain
	With worms that are thy chambermaids...
	Eyes, look your last.
	Arms, take your last embrace.  And lips, O you
	The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
	A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
	...Here's to my love!  O true apothecary!
	The drugs are quick.  Thus with a kiss I die."

The end.
Quoted lines from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, sc. 2, lines 101-121

So what do you think?  There are a few things I don't like about it (hi, 
how many times did I use the word "sob"?) and I'm still not sure that's 
the quote I want, but...comments?

eponine119 
eponine@uci.edu