Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 13:59:31 EST
Subject: REV:  A Broken Wing  (1/1)
Source: revision

Classification:	V 
Rating:		G 
Spoilers:	Max 
Summary:	Post episode story.  Sharon Graffia thinks 
		about Max Fenig. 
 
 
A Broken Wing 
by Martha  
marthalgm@yahoo.com 
 
 
And with a broken wing, she still sings 
She keeps an eye on the sky 
With a broken wing, she carries her dreams 
Man, you ought to see her fly. 
 
	-'A Broken Wing' written by James Horse, Phil Barnhart, 
	   and Sam Hogin 
 
 
August, 1997 
 
A bright light was shining in her eyes.  There was a strange 
humming in the background, not actual voices but more like the 
constant chatter that one might hear in the outfield of a baseball 
game.  The noises seemed to be coming from one direction, then 
another, forcing her to search in different directions for her 
captors.  Then came the hands, attached to long arms which came 
out of the darkness.  The faces and bodies unseen and unknown. 
Being passed from one set of hands to another.  Being dragged down 
a corridor.  Entering a room that seemed to explode with light and 
heat . . . 
 
Sharon Graffia awoke in mid-scream.  The sudden darkness silenced 
her for a moment until she realized where she was.  She was not in 
the alien vessel of her nightmare but in her own bed, in her old 
room of her parents' house.  The open window across from the bed 
filled her room with the late summer crickets' song, followed by a 
faint cooling breeze mixed with the scent of wet grass.  It must 
have just stopped raining, she thought.  She paused to catch her 
breath and to let her eyes adjust to the evening light.  She left 
her bed, walking across her room to the window and searched the 
skies.  So many stars are out.  Why are some so bright?  What 
makes them twinkle so? 
 
Which one did 'they' come from? 
 
Sharon's heart began to race again.  Thinking about her abduction 
from that New York motel months ago made her uneasy.  The 
nightmares were all too vivid but were occurring less frequently 
now.  As if that were any consolation.  But it only underlined the 
real pain of the past few months.  What she really was afraid of. 
The nightmares were good in one way - it kept her mind off of the 
loss of Max.  The loss of her one true friend.  She could feel the 
familiar emptiness harden inside of her, the weight of it 
pulling her down to the floor.  She knew that she could not stay 
in this room;  she had to go downstairs.  To that one place where 
everything would make sense and where she could be close to her 
memories. 
 
Sharon quietly crept down the stairs.  She knew that her parents 
had found out what she was doing most every evening.  But they 
never scolded her or told her to forget about him or threatened to 
have that thing towed away.  For it was keeping Sharon at home, 
and if Sharon was at home, she was in no danger.  Here, they hoped 
to keep her safe and nurse her damaged psyche and soul.  The 
hospitals had helped, but they could not make her whole.  Her 
thoughts were of Max.  And, her parents' reasoned, if she was able 
to work through her grief, she would come to deal with these 
events, and her nightmares, real or imagined, would go away. 
Sharon made her way across the cold kitchen tile floor to the side 
door and, with little noise, made her way outside.  To Max's 
trailer. 
 
Her parents had thought that she was foolish to want to keep it. 
At first, Sharon just wanted to have the tapes and some personal 
papers that she had found lying around.  But then Max's family 
would only claim his body.  Not his possessions.  They wanted 
absolutely nothing to do with what they viewed as 'his sickness' 
and told her that she could have the entire place.  They did not 
want his things, and they did not want any reminders, especially 
of her. 
 
She was spending most of her time cataloguing the tapes and the 
papers.  Most of Max's letters to her had been recovered after 
her abduction.  They were soiled and torn, but many were still 
readable and would help document the timeline of the tapes.  She 
wanted to do something in memory of him, to make the world 
remember this man.  This was the only thing that she knew to do. 
To get everything in order and present Max's case to the world. 
Or at least to those who would take it seriously. 
 
She climbed up the step to the door.  She had installed a new lock 
on the door, replacing the one that had been busted in that 
break-in.  The key was always with her on a chain that she wore as 
a necklace.  She let herself in and locked the door behind her. 
 
There was just enough lumination from the street lights for Sharon 
to make her way to the small table where she spent her days and 
sat down.  She turned on the lamp and picked up a pile of letters 
that she had been reviewing.  These were the letters where Max had 
detailed his abduction experiences.  She had started to reread 
them yesterday and had caught herself reliving some of those same 
moments.  Maybe that is what had triggered this evening's 
nightmare. 
 
She sat the letters down and looked around the room.  She had 
removed most of the pictures and articles that had been taped and 
pin-punched to the walls, the cabinets, and anything else with 
enough blank space to hold a piece of paper.  But that was Max. 
Why file anything away when you can just hang it up for an easy 
future reference. 
 
Sharon got up to walk towards the middle of the trailer and 
fingered all of the equipment that Max had hoarded.  The computer 
- she had made several backups of the hard drive and distributed 
them;  one set was in a safety deposit box downtown, and another 
was forwarded to Fox Mulder at the FBI.  Just in case anything 
happened.  She wondered to whom most of the other stuff belonged. 
She was so sure that someone, maybe from NICAP, would show up one 
day to reclaim them.  But so far, no takers.  Maybe Max did own 
everything in the trailer.  He never did say how he came by all of 
the equipment. 
 
She found herself at the opposite end of the trailer and sat down 
on the bed.  She picked up one of the pillows and began hugging it 
close to her stomach as she remembered the evenings that she and 
Max had spent there.  Not that they had been lovers or anything 
more than good friends.  Max seemed to realize that the two of 
them had so many problems to overcome that to throw in a sexual 
relationship just might push one or the other over that proverbial 
edge.  Sharon respected that and did not force the matter.  But 
deep within her, she knew that given half a chance, she would have 
taken that leap with eyes wide open and not looked back. 
Sometimes, when he would fall asleep, she would curl up behind 
him and gently wrap her arms around him.  And then she would 
finally be able to drift off to sleep. 
 
Sharon felt a coolness on her cheek and raised her hand to her 
face.  She had not realized that she had started to cry. She wiped 
away some of those tears across the left side of her face.  Her 
hand absentmindedly began to search for the remnants of the 
scarring left behind from her contact with the alien device that 
had started all of this.  It had made those men target Max, and it 
was why she had been taken that one time.  It made the aliens come 
back after Max, and it was the underlying reason for his death. 
 
She would often wrestle with her guilt for having stolen the 
object in the first place.  But Max needed it as proof of the 
existence of alien technology, and she would have done anything 
for him.  And so, in what seemed like an eternity ago, she had 
taken the object from her employers and set into motion those 
events of last February. 
 
Sharon hugged the pillow tighter to her chest.  She lay down upon 
the bed, the tears for Max refusing to stop.  She missed him so 
much.  If ony she knew then what she knew now - would it have made 
any difference?  She understood that Max might never come back to 
her;  he had told her as much.  But to actually face a future 
without him . . . 
 
And in the middle of her memories, her tears, and her anguish, 
Sharon was able to finally fall asleep.  In the only place where 
her nightmares did not haunt her and where Max would always be, 
forever by her side. 
 
 
end