From: "Lisa Reeves" Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 18:23:54 +0000 Subject: Because I Could Not Stop For Death Feedback humbly and gratefully accepted at any of the addresses in the .sig. With apologies to Emily Dickenson, who's poetry I've used here, I submit this bit of Scully-angst. Please archive, and forward to atxc. Title - Because I Could Not Stop For Death Author - Lisa Reeves E-Mail address - lisa@birdfeeder.com Rating - PG Category - VA Spoilers - Gethsemane Keywords - none Summary - Scully ponders a favorite from Emily Dickenson, and her relationship with Mulder. "Because I could not stop for death..." I stand on the brink of emptiness. A testament to what I was before, and what I am no longer able to be. It is done. "He kindly stopped for me." But he never did, you see. Stop for me, that is. I meant it when I said I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone else. And what did it gain me? "The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality." Immortality. Would I trade this, the invader encroaching on my body, leeching away my future, would I trade it for a shot at immortality? No. It seems to me the worst part of being immortal would be the pain of being left behind. Always being left behind to live, while those about you died. Was that it, Mulder? Was it? I'd pay a good part of the time I have left, to see you in the chair in front of me. To ask you these questions, and compel you to answer. "We slowly drove, he knew no haste," And that's not true, either, is it Mulder? Everything was in a hurry. Everything was yesterday. A part of me wondered if perhaps a portion of your "grief" over Pendrell is that I would no longer have hold of anyone in the lab, to get you your instant results. A cynic? Me? It happens. "And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility." My labor, my leisure, my whole life. Put away, put on hold, stopped dead in their tracks. Did you understand that, Mulder? Did you ever? I had the strength of your beliefs, alright. When did your beliefs become stronger to me than my science? When did I begin to make the compromises of empirical evidence against flights of fancy? "We passed the school where children played At wrestling in a ring;" Children. Of all the things they took away from me, I miss that. Not for me, actually. The diaper duty has never held any glamour for me..I'm content with spoiling my nieces and nephews. But for my mother. There's an old saying, "A son is a son til he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter for all your life." She doesn't see my brothers' children often enough. And she'll never have a chance to see the children Melissa could have had. And now, that final opportunity has been taken away. Taken, dammit. If it was my choice, on my terms, I think she could have accepted that. The happiness of her children is her priority. But as it's not my choice, she grieves for me, and for my life, and the grandchildren she'll never see. "We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun." Fields. You and your damned soulmate, Mulder. You didn't see me cry when I found those pictures, Mulder. Not through any misguided romantic ideas. But the thought that you, who hadn't seen (or had chosen not to see) my sacrifices for your quest, would be so willing to put aside that quest for someone you'd never met in this life. And let that quest be second for a time to yet another flight of fancy. "We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound." It's done, now, Mulder. I've spoken to the committee, and debunked your quest. You were correct, you know. Originally I was sent to spy on you. Out of all the times I could have betrayed you, did it ever enter your mind that you were betraying me? Yes, Mulder. You. Every time you chose not to call. Every time you left me back like yesterday's leftovers. Every time I had to follow after you like some over- aged groupie, hoping that this time I wouldn't find you dead. Hoping that yet again there would be enough left of you to put you back together. After a time, you came to expect that, didn't you, Mulder? Just presume I'd be there to pick up the pieces time after time. "Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day" Centuries. I wouldn't want my time to be measured in centuries, but I'm definitely not fond of having it measured in days, either. Or hours. The blip of the monitors, the hush of the doctors, the pain on my mother's face, in her voice. These are my clock, my sunrise to sunset. Time, as we know it, has ceased to have meaning or measure here. "I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity." I lost my sight yesterday, Mulder. They told me I might, you know. I had hoped to be spared that, but like the dripping away of my blood, it was inevitable. Now, more than ever, the tick of the machines are my cadence, my timing. Alpha and Omega. I've seen my beginning. Now I prepare to face my end. I dictate these words into my mind, my consciousness. As I slip into this eternity, and answer the question of ending or beginning, I wonder if I'll ever get the chance to give them to you. On what passes in that ethereal realm as paper, or parchment..can one write on a cloud? Or to deliver them in person. If the concept of heaven and hell are true, if the priests my mother turns to are correct, where would I find you? I can see you as the Dark Angel, Mulder. A beautiful, fallen, angel. So discontent with what heaven didn't offer him that he doesn't see what is there. And so he rejects the paradise of what he could have, for the wailing on what he cannot. Evil? No. But blind. Blinder than I am, these last few hours. My last hours. Yes, I hear the doctors behind the curtain, my mother's soft sobs. I hear the creak of the door to my room, and Death's soft footsteps. I smile, softly, as I gather to meet him. And idly wonder how Death shall introduce himself. "Scully?" Lisa Reeves @-->--->--- | ad483@detroit.freenet.org GDFN Help Staff Administrator | reevesl@pilot.msu.edu /\/\/\Honorary Squirrel /\/\/\ **She who is two leaves short of a full salad** - Gem Gossamer Spokesperson - Send a story - submissions@x-philes.com Gossamer Mirror - http://www.birdfeeder.com - gossamer@birdfeeder.com