From: Eroticnanny@aol.com Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 17:40:20 EDT Subject: If I should Die Before I wake Source: direct Title: If I should Die Before I wake Author: The Sleeper Archive: Anywhere, man Summary: Scully's tired. Feedback: Eroticnanny@aol.com "Morning Agent Scully." Mulder smiled as Scully came in uncharacteristically late. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair was in dissarray. She didn't even have her briefcase and she was wearing the clothes she had worn yesterday. It was then Mulder realized that Scully wasn't coming into work to stay.Mulder waited for her to say what this is about. Scully sighed and tried several times to start speaking but gave up and sat down. They sat there in silence. Mulder made a quiet noises in the back of hie throat trying to keep as quiet as possible. Finally Scully met his eyes. Her own eyes were hollow, glassy and red. She looked like she had been crying for long time but just ran out of tears. Her nose was chapped from constant contact with coarse tissue. "My brother is coming into town today. I won't be in work today, and the rest of the week. I've already talk to Skinner, that's why I'm late." Scully stopped talking suddenly and looked past Mulder. Her shallow breathing told anyone who was listening that tears were about to flow again. "Mom died last night." Scully said bluntly. Mulder jumped at the shock of her statement. "I'm sorry?" "Is that a question? or a statement?" Scully asked bitterly. Mulder didn't like the bitterness in her voice. It was a new tone that he had never heard before. He was almost sure that Scully hadn't either till recently. "I'm sorry Dana." "Dana?" There was something new in the bitterness. Scorn. "I hope you can manage without me I'll be gone for a few." Scully's speech was choppy and unplanned. "Is there anything I can do?" Scully tilted her head. "Yes. You can help me." "With what?" Mulder asked gently. "You can hold my hair back." Mulder looked at her trying to decipher- Scully jumped out of her chair, with her hand to her mouth and fell down next to the trash can. Mulder got up immediately, kneeled next to her and held her hair back for her. After a few minutes of sobs and retching, Scully stopped and just kept her head in the can silently shaking. Mulder stroked her back and soothed her by saying nothing. She finally pulled her head out and Mulder fetched her a bottle of water and klenexes, both which were always floating around the office. Scully pushed her back against the wall and pulled her knees to her chest. "How?" Mulder asked simply. "Tumor." Scully said simply. "She didn't even know she had one until it killed her. She hated doctors. Loved me." Scully was delerious. "I don't know how she ignored it, she had to be in pain... I should have known. She should have known, gone to the doctor. She even told me about the headaches she had been having. Then she just collapsed in the store." Mulder recalled Scully getting off work early to go shopping with her mother at Margret's request. It seemed strange to both of them that she was so insistent on that day and time. "I think she knew." Scully choked. "She wanted to go shopping. She said, 'Dana, I hope one day you find out how much he loves you'." Scully start to cry again. "I said, 'Mom, you're not making any sense'. Then she started to talk about her wedding day, and when her first time with Dad. That was the only man she had ever been with. She asked me if I love him. Then she collapsed." Mulder's face with streaked with tears. He was crying silently he didn't want to give Scully's own crying fuel. "She died at ten last night, and she just told me that of all the people she met that you were the one she wasn't going to forget. Then she asked me to make sure you say something at her funeral, and asked me to make you and Bill get along for her and then she just fell asleep." Scully dropped her head into her knees and sobbed. Mulder put his arms around her and laid his head on her back and began to cry with her. "I miss," Scully sobbed. "I miss her. I-want, I want my mom." Scully's body began to shake. "I didn't get to say goodbye cos she can't die." Scully's wailing had become incoherent. "I'm sorry." Mulder sobbed into her shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." "She's gone. And Bill's coming and I don't want to get up. I want to sleep, Mulder." Mulder nodded against her back. He wanted to sleep too. He just wanted to collapse next to Scully and sleep until someone else took care of things. "I'm so tired." She said. "I'm so tired." Scully's position with her legs tucked under her chin finally broke and her body was limp in Mulder's arms. "I'm so tired." She repeated. "Will you help me?" Mulder brushed the loose hair back from her face. He stroked her face, he didn't care that she didn't have any make up on or she smelled like someone who had been sick for weeks. "Name it." "I want you to sleep with me." And Scully laid down on the concrete floor. Mulder knew what she wanted and laid next to her. "You can't sleep right now." He whispered. "I haven't slept in years." She said breathily. "I know. You have to get up and take care of things then I promise you'll sleep. I'll let you sleep for as long as you want. All you have to do is get up and I'll do the rest." Scully's delerium was stronger than ever. "I'm going to miss her. She was my mother and now she isn't there. When I lost everyone else she was there. And Bill's so far away she'll probably move out of D.C." Mulder didn't what Scully was talking about, her ramblings had become more inconherent than ever. "Mulder I love you. Not like your my best friend, because you are that, but I love you and I'm going to miss you terribly. I'm going to miss you most of all." "Scully are you okay?" Mulder was fast becoming hysterical. "If God asks me what I like best I'll say it was you. Because you were here when I came to work. You were sad when I was and bad things never weren't as bad as leaving because I'm so sorry." "Scully, you mother isn't dead is she?" Mulder realized what she was talking about. "Mulder, why didn't you ever love me?" Scully asked, ignoring Mulder's comment. "I loved you so much and I wanted you. You never loved me back." Mulder shook his head. "You have to go to the hospital." He raised himself off the floor and tried to look at her face. "I didn't tell anyone about it because I didn't want anyone to know that I can't fight." "Your cancer went out of remission, didn't it?" "Three months ago." "You collapsed yesterday, didn't you?" "Doctors say it won't be long now." "Why didn't tell me?!" Mulder yelled. "Why don't you love me?" "I do!" Mulder yelled hysterically. "I do. I love you so much it hurts and I can't breathe. You can walk into the room and I think about everything I never got and thank God that I have you." Mulder voice became calmer. "I look at you and think 'Why are you with me? You could have a doctor. You could have had children. You could have lived'." "Mulder I'm getting tired, and I'm seeing the end. You don't see that and get to live." "Why didn't you tell me?" "Why didn't you tell me you loved me? I so desperately wanted to hear that." Mulder shook his head. "I guess the same reason you didn't tell me you loved me. It was implied but never said, was it?" "Of all the people I've met your the one I'm going to remember. You will say something at my funeral, right? You will get along with Bill for me. I always wanted you two to get along because I love you both so much... I love you. Sometimes I thought that you didn't care about me but now I know I was just being foolish. But then that's part of life. The most expansive parts of building is the mistakes, the most painful parts of life is the mistakes. You're not a mistake, Mulder. Looking back at life, you see no mistakes, or lost oppurtunities, you see your life and you're happy with that. " Scully closed her eyes and rolled onto her stomache. "I'm tired. Will you lay with me?" Mulder nodded and laid next to her. He didn't know what to do, or say. Scully was going to die. And he wanted to sleep. Maybe, he'll get lucky and never wake up. "If I should die before I wake will you tell everyone not to cry or stop living because I'll be watching?" Mulder put his arms around Scully's waist and felt her breathing, steady. Just like someone sleeping. He must have dozed off or just thought he did, when he opened his eyes, Scully wasn't breathing anymore. Her body was limp and still. Mulder bolted upright and looked at his late partner. "Why didn't you tell me?" He asked. He looked at the trashcan, and found himself retching and sobbing uncontrollably into it. No one's here to hold my hair, he thought bitterly. Next thing he knows is Skinner crying with Margret. She is telling him Scully checker herself out of the hospital this morning and dissapeared. A week later Scully's funeral was beautiful. Of course, Mulder thought everything about Scully was beautiful. The Lone Gunmen came and sat two rows back from Everyone else. Frohike had brought flowers and gave them to Margret. She started to cry again. Bill was with his wife and son. Just like Scully asked he and Mulder were getting along. Skinner was sitting by himself, in the front row, at the opposite end of Mrs. Scully and her sons. No one knew what was going through Scully's mind her last few minutes except Mulder. In all truth Mulder never knew what was going through that mind. But then he didn't want to say that. It was a general agreement that Mulder would be the one to give the eulogy. No one else was up to it, or felt they had anything to say that would seem right. Mulder stood at the podium in this church and felt like he was alone. "Dana was my best friend." He almost started to cry but then stopped himself. "Of all the people I've met through the years she was the most wonderfully loyal, and trustworthy, and just a good person all together. I just knew that when people met us they would walk away saying 'what's a guy like that doing with a girl like her'?" There was a small chuckle at that. "She came to the office the morning she died and told me she was tired. That wasn't like her at all. She was tough, believe me. She would never admit if she was hurt, or sick, or tired. She wouldn't even tell us about her cancer coming out of remission." Mulder looked at the casket. It seemed so small. But then everything in the last week had seemed small. "She was a good person. Even at the end she was. I remember one of the last things she said was 'The most expansive parts of building is the mistakes, the most painful parts of life is the mistakes. Looking back at life, you see no mistakes, or lost oppurtunities, you see your life and you're happy with that.' I don't know if that true for all of us. I don't know what she saw in her life that made her happy, but she was happy when she left. And that's the best way to go. She wasn't in pain, she was happy. "She asked for me to tell you not to stop living because she'd be watching and then she went to sleep. I don't know a better way to go. And I'm glad she went that way. I can't think a better person who deveserved it then Dana." Mulder looked down at his hands and then to Margret. "She was a good person. Mulder walked over to the casket and leaned on it. "I'm sorry," He whispered. "I got along with Bill. And I said something for you. I just hoped you liked it." He looked at the small casket. "When I die and if God asks me what my favorite thing was I'll say it was you." End