From: "Andrea Wiese" Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 22:40:47 GMT Subject: New Story Source: direct TITLE: As Darkness Falls AUTHOR: sunrise10086 SUMARY: I won't give one; it's short enough to read. ;-) DISCLAIMER: We all know that old tune, don't we? Don't belong to me; the surf dude owns them along with that greedy production company aka 20th Century FOX Television (or whatever...) Don't sue me, I won't have enough money even if I get professionally successful and 200 years old. RATING: PG-13 I'd say. No foul language, no sex (just a reference, but HEY, does this qualifies for R already or what?) SPOILERS: Definitely some for En Ami, all things, Requiem CATEGORY: V, slight A, MSR, post-ep. AUTHORS' NOTE: My best friend told me after getting hooked up with fanfiction again (she was clean for almost two months...*lol*) that she couldn't find any good post-Requiem. I don't know whether she is right or not because I didn't check it out. So I tried to write one that she might like. If you like this thing here too although I didn't write it for you exclusively, feel free to enjoy it and much more share your thoughts about it with me by writing an email to sunrise10086@hotmail.com ;-) Since I wrote this at the end of July 2000, I really don't know whether this little thing here might fit into the entire story the surf dude made up for us but I thought it was worth a try. Thanks for reading... As Darkness Falls Darkness surrounds me. The only artificial thing I hear is the ticking of the clock in the next room. And I hear our heartbeats. Mine slower, my childs' much faster. I highly doubt I really hear it. Sure I don't hear it. But I feel it. I learned to feel so much during the past six months. It's been six months... Last night there was the first snow in the D.C. area. It never used to comfort me but last night it did. It covered all the ugliness of the city. I really grew to hate D.C. during the autumn. It contributes pretty much to my melancholy. Although I try to hide it just as I always did. Why abandoning old habits? It used to serve me so well in the past both personally and at work. And it does now. When I returned to work after Mulder had disappeared people had seemed to notice me for the first time in ages. Mrs. Spooky on her own. Suddenly alone but certainly no big surprise. There was talk at great length about it. Everyone had kind of expected Mulder to go with a big bang. Somehow I felt that people had assumed we would vanish forever of the surface of the earth together. Had anyone seen us as separate beings in the past six or seven years? I highly doubt it. After one month in the basement on my own, trying to find traces of him, hints what might have happened to him I grew tired. The feeling of being locked up in the basement made me feel miserable. I didn't leave the city for the summer. Just as I didn't tell anyone about my condition, not even my mother. During the last summer weeks I asked Skinner for re-assignment. He was stunned about this. I sure as hell was myself. And it tore my heart apart. But I couldn't take it anymore. Not now. I needed another perspective. Everything else reminded me of him. I always had the feeling he would walk through the door every second. But he never did. I stopped looking for him inside the X-Files. Not because I didn't want to. But because I couldn't take it anymore. My composure was slipping from day to day. I realized that he really had been my constant as he once told me I was his. A constant that seems to be lost forever. So I got my re-assignment. I got transferred to the domestic terror unit as a researcher. The AD for the department wanted me out in the field immediately but Skinner had refused to let me go. I wouldn't have done it anyway. So I got a desk in the quieter part of the busy sections' bullpen. Most people were out of the office during the day except for me and the two other researchers. They treated me with respect but not with great affection. I didn't care anyway. It was when I really started living inside my head. I realized that I didn't care when my condition started to show. There was talk all over. It was so damn obvious I registered although I didn't want to. People would have seen it if I had wanted them to but I just refused to tell and show everyone. It was and still is none of their business. It's Mulders and mine. And they all knew. Some of them even thought he had just vanished because he was too much of a coward to be a father to our child. How wrong these fools all were... He would be happy. I know for sure. But people don't care about what we both feel. Or even what I feel... How I feel when friendly elderly women in the supermarket ask me when I am due or whether my child is going to be a boy or a girl. So I started to hate shopping. People want to be friendly and be happy for you but it hurts so much. "You and your husband must be so happy..." What am I supposed to say? I mostly say: "Yes, we are." I lie to be left alone. But I smile. Because somehow there is truth in what people say. "Your husband". Strangely enough I think Mulder and I were much more than a married couple could ever be for each other. He completed me, challenged me in every way possible. I depended on him just as much he depended on me. We were equals. We kept each other sane. Not sexually for the longest time anyway. But mentally, personally. Our relationship had evolved so strongly in the past seven years that I cannot reconcile what my life was like before I met him, who I was before 1993. Who was I before I met Mulder? A young green FBI agent, a pathologist for sure. I was a sceptic. But was there more to me? I am not much of what I used to be. It is all so clear now. In my weakest moments I know the Smoking Man was right about me not allowing Mulder to love him. I would have died for him. I still would. But things changed. I made my choices. It was all so clear to me when Daniel walked into my life again. He begged me to be with him again. Just right at that moment I saw there was no place but at Mulders side for me. That very night I was not afraid to make the only right choice. To sit next to his bed and looking at him sleeping. Just looking at him for a long time. Choosing a new path. So I paid attention to my feelings, to my instincts. And when I finally did and kissed him, there was nothing wrong or awkward. Neither did he feel I made the wrong choice. There were no words, just tender and blissful lovemaking. No spoken words, all what we could have wanted to say was expressed by our emotions and actions. No words, just looks, touches, kisses and our closeness. Time had stopped for the first time in what had been ages for me. At this very moment we both knew that there had been no wrong choices. We had taken the right path that night and we both knew. When I left that night and didn't stay it never occurred to me that this might be the wrong decision. While looking in the mirror just after this all-changing moment in our lives, I didn't feel any kind of regret or sorrow. I felt as calm and as strong as never before in my life. And so I continued. We didn't make love after that stormy night in spring. But it had nothing to do with denial or regret. It was just a new experience which had been added to our relationship and which had just shown our deep trust and love for each other. Love being the foremost. But I never felt the urge to go to the movies in the evening or go out with him. It was just not "us". We felt comfortable the way everything went on. Until we went to Oregon. I was fragile already, not knowing why I felt dizzy and why I often bordered at the state of unconsciousness. Every time he noticed whether I wanted to our not, he cared for me. He cared for me without hesitation and I would let him. There was nothing wrong about it anymore. I knew he loved me more than ever. Just as I loved him back. At this very night in Oregon when he told me to go back to D.C, I was more certain than ever. Sacrificing his quest for me was the only proof I needed and the most valuable I could have asked for. He was selflessly and I knew what it meant for him wanting me to go home. He so much wanted a better life for me... Well, what would he say now? When I heard he had disappeared I knew immediately it was the truth. Everything became so clear to me, just as if the fog lifts in the morning from the fields. He was like all the others, he was special for them. His disappearance made me a believer. How strange is that? I told Skinner about my pregnancy and he remained the only one until late September. My mother was calling me all the time asking whether I was fine after Mulders disappearance. She wanted to come around almost every weekend right after Oregon but I refused to see her, telling her I was busy. Of course she knew I wasn't but she respected my will as she always did. During the last week of September she invited me to dinner at her place as Bill was in town. I was not too fond of seeing my oldest brother since I knew his reaction already. When I arrived that night at Baltimore, my mother was shocked at first seeing her daughter pretty pregnant. Then she was hurt because I didn't tell her earlier. My mother forgave me pretty quickly. Maybe she sensed that I would need her support to stand Bills' attacks. The dinner had gone on pleasantly. Too pleasantly for my liking but I was not left down by my brother. While sitting at our parents' dinner table he asked me when I was due. I told him my child would be born some time in late November or even December. At this point I already regretted even having taken all the way to Baltimore just to be questioned by my brother, as I was a prime suspect in a murder investigation. Bill wouldn't stop asking questions which he knew made me uncomfortable just to get to the jackpot. He asked me if I would work part-time after the child's' birth or who would look after the baby if I would have to go out of town to a conference. Or whether I would leave the FBI now and go back to medicine since I was "no longer attached to that shitty program with this sick freak anymore." I bid back my anger at that point one last time. But Bills' last question, the one he had been creeping around the entire night did it for me. His "When are we going to meet the father then?" turned myself into a Dana Scully I had not even know existed. I got up and yelled at him that he "perfectly knows who the father is and if you want to talk to him find him for me for Christ's Sake." Those were the last words I spoke to my brother. I left immediately after that. My mother of course is still devastated that her children don't speak with each other anymore. I feel kind of sorry myself but I will not tolerate Bill ruling and judging over my life just as no one else ever will. I turn around and I am cold. The streetlamps light reflects on the walls of my bedroom. I see the snow falling again. It makes me calm and gives me a feeling of comfort although my body shivers. I pull my legs closer to my belly and let my hands sliding over it. Being tired and lonely lets me slowly drift into sleep. I am thinking about loneliness again. I didn't chose to be eight months pregnant and as lonely as never before. Did I fail to pay attention to the right sings along the way? I don't know. And I am sure that I will not find out tonight. But there is still hope left that things might change. I still hope he will come back. I have to believe that because it is what keeps me sane.