Date sent: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 02:13:04 -0400 From: angiehanson@juno.com (Angela L Hanson) "If Tomorrow Never Comes" Author:Jaina Category:Angst, Mulder/Scully Romance (sort of) Summary:Mulder has a very disturbing dream... Spoilers:That wonderful, Scullycentric episode "Memento Mori" and the "Oh My God" jaw-dropper "Gethsemane". Disclaimer:What? They're not mine? Crud! Well, Mr. Carter, if you would just get them together I wouldn't have to pretend! Dana Scully & Fox Mulder belong to Chris Carter, with whom I have a love/hate relationship, the billionaire that is Fox (No, not *that* one) and 1013 Productions, not me. :'-( The song "If Tomorrow Never Comes" belongs to Garth Brooks, with whom I have a love/worship relationship, & Caged Panther Music (I think.) If I'm wrong, please don't sue me, I'm only 16. Timeframe:During Gethsemane. X-Notes:Hi everybody! This is just a short story that I jotted down spur-of-the-moment at 12:30 A.M. I don't have enough free time. I have other more complex and probably better written stories in the works, but this is my first fic posted. I LOVE FEEDBACK!!!! So if you read this, write me and tell me what you think! Praise and comments go to:angiehanson@juno.com Flames go to:IDon'tCare@sucker.com. Just Kidding, I can handle flames as well. Dedication:This may be really corny, but I'd like to dedicate this to Kris "Beast,"Abel, a kick-butt writer who rules, Paula Graves, whose fics taught me good characterization, and Amy Schatz, my all-time favorite scripter of MSRs. Amy, if you're reading this, I love you! Also to my e-mail pal Elizabeth, who stuck with me through a tiring round of "summarize your new story throughout many e-mails." Oh, and UberDA, if you're reading this, e-mail me already, dangit! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If Tomorrow Never Comes" Fox Mulder stared down the barrel of his Sig Saur. It was a small but powerful gun, used to bring down horrible murderers and deranged psychopaths who didn't want to cooperate with Bureau agents. It was capable of taking lives and saving the lives of others. It could be a weapon of destruction, but also a weapon of salvation. For all the fat lot of good it did Mulder. Scully was dying. It was his fault. She had told him so. Samantha was still gone. He had been deluding himself all these years, hoping, praying, believing that one day she would be returned. And then there were the others, Bill Mulder, Melissa Scully, Max Fenig, Agent Pendrell...all gone. All dead because of the actions of Fox Mulder. He, deadly as the loaded weapon he now held before him, had caused their deaths, just as he would cause Scully's. Mulder had been a weapon of destruction. But now he could be a weapon of salvation. He could save the lives of those he hadn't yet killed. There was still one good thing he could do. Mulder put the gun to his head and fired. * * * Mulder woke up in a hazy gray place. He blinked....where was he?...oh yes...he had killed himself. He was dead...so this must be...He looked around, shook his head to clear it. He felt oddly detached from his body...but he no longer had a body. He looked down and saw the faintest shimmer of a transparent human body. His body. So. If he no longer had a physical body, he certainly had a spiritual one. Mulder wondered what happened next. Weren't the angels supposed to come for him to bring him to be judged before the Father? At least that was what he remembered of heavenly stereotyping. He decided to wait and see what happened. He waited a long time. The gray mists continued to swirl around him, but other than that, nothing moved. Mulder decided that if this really was the afterlife, it was a lot more boring than he had anticipated. He decided that if nothing was going to happen here, he ought to go find someone, an Angel-In-Charge or something, to whom he could report his arrival into...wherever he was. He began to walk through the mists, his steps feeling surprisingly normal. The strange mists began to clear and Mulder began to see where he was. Once again Mulder was not sure where he was supposed to be, but he sure didn't expect it to be at his grave. Yet it lay there in front of him. *Fox Mulder, Born 1963, Died 1997.* He noticed an added line, carved in small letters onto the tombstone. He bent over to read them. *He sought the truth.* *They didn't mention that he failed completely,* he thought bitterly. At least now people could get on with their lives without his destructive presence. Mulder heard footsteps behind him. He turned around, and saw someone very familiar:Dana Scully. She looked worse than the last time he had seen her. Her frame was more gaunt, her hair more limp, the fighting spirit that he had so loved about her completely gone from her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes looked dead. Mulder waited for her to recognize him and recoil in shock, but she just walked on by him like she couldn't see him. Mulder reached out for her arm, but his barely-there hand passed right through her. Mulder realized that she truly couldn't see him, nor feel him. He was a shadow walking the earth, nothing more. He watched his partner sit down in front of his grave, a small bouquet of flowers in her hands. He felt oddly like a voyeur, watching Scully like this, but justified it with the fact that it was *his* gravestone. Besides, where else would he go? She opened her mouth to speak. "Mulder," she started out hesitantly. "It's been six months since you've...been gone. I still can hardly believe it." *Neither can I,* he thought to himself. *Time flies when you're waiting around in Heaven/Hell/Purgatory/Wherever.* Scully's face and demeanor changed without warning. "What I can't believe," she hissed, "Is that you could be so selfish. How *dare* you do this?" Mulder's unreal "jaw" dropped. What was she talking about? He had committed suicide for everyone *else,* not *himself.* Scully continued, unaware of the surprise in his mind. "How could you do it?" she demanded of the unresponsive stone. "Was this one final ditch, Mulder? Did you figure that as long as your dream for finding proof about the existence of aliens was gone, it would be just fine for you to go as well? Damnit, I needed you, Mulder!" She cried, throwing the flowers hard onto the grass, scattering them about the ground. "Do you have any idea what it did to me, having to go to your apartment and ID your body? How about my mother, did you think about what it was like for her, losing her adopted son? It nearly killed her! And now....and now I'm the one who's going to die." She quieted somewhat. "My cancer has metastasized. It has spread throughout my bloodstream. The tumor in my head is growing rapidly. I have only days left." Mulder stared at Scully in shock. His death was supposed to leave her better off, not dying! "What hurts the most, Mulder," she continued, wiping a tear that had rolled down her cheek, "Is that fact that you left me alone. You left me when I needed you most. Mulder, didn't you know how much I depended on you? How much I counted on you being there when my treatments were done? It was you more than anything else that kept me going. And I counted on you being here at the end. I at least had peace knowing that you would be there for my mother, that you would continue to search for the truth. You weren't supposed to let them win." The tears came more rapidly now. "I never told you, Mulder, but you weren't just a partner to me," she confessed, bowing her head. "You were my friend. My best friend. And...I think I even loved you. I always knew that you would be there for me. Well, it looks like the joke is on me, because you're sure as hell not here now." She looked up again, here eyes flashing with anger. "I may have loved you once, Mulder, but now I hate you. I hate what you did. I hate the way you abandoned me. I believed that you cared about me. I wondered if you could ever love me the way I loved you. I was obviously mistaken. No one who loved me could have hurt me the way you did." Mulder felt as if his own tears were about to join hers. *No, Scully,* he cried out silently. *I do love you. I do. I did this for you. I wanted you to be better. It wasn't supposed to be like this.* She didn't hear him. Scully, apparently having said her piece, stood shakily up. Her emaciated legs nearly buckled with the strain. He jumped to her side to help her, but there was nothing he could do except be a silent observer. Before she turned away, Scully had a few final words. "I don't have much time left. In a few days I'll be taking the same journey you took, Mulder. But I hope to God I don't see you in Heaven. Because if you could get in, it's not a place I want to spend eternity." With that, she turned and walked slowly but determinedly out of the cemetery. Mulder fell to his knees, imaginary tears coursing down his face, sobs wracking his body. *No, Scully. I do love you. Didn't you know? Didn't you know that I love you? God, why didn't I ever tell you?* And he was once more alone. * * * Mulder jerked upright in bed. Frantically, he felt himself with his hands, then leaped out of the bed and began grasping at the floor. He could touch it. It was real. He was real. Not dead. He was alive. Alive! He began to calm down, his breathing began to slow down. He was covered in a cold sweat, terrified out of his mind, but it had all been a nightmare. God, what a nightmare! But none of it was true. Scully still had cancer but she was showing signs of improvement. No alien body had been found. He hadn't killed himself. He hadn't left Scully alone and hating him, thank God. He wondered what had caused such a horrible dream. He sat down on the bed to collect his thoughts, and noticed that his clock radio was still playing softly. He listened for a moment. "If tomorrow never comes, Will she know how much I love her? Did I try in every way, to show her every day That she's my only one? And if my time on earth were through And she must face the world without me, Is the love I gave her in the past Gonna be enough to last If tomorrow never comes?" Mulder was completely still as the melody faded away. If his calculations were correct, the song had been playing while he'd had the nightmare. Was the song the cause of it? Had it filtered into his thoughts while he slept, triggering such an awful reaction? Was it possible? Mulder shook his head. No, it couldn't be. He never paid attention to song lyrics, anyways. That this song fit with his nightmare so perfectly was pure coincidence...wasn't it? He paused instead of returning to sleep. Whether the song had caused his nightmare was unknown, but did the nightmare have some basis in reality? Did Scully know that he loved her, needed her? If his tomorrow never came, would she be able to live certain of his feelings for her? Mulder stood up and walked into the other room. He had a phone call to make. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sometimes late at night I lie awake and watch her sleeping. She's lost in peaceful dreams, So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark. And the thought crosses my mind: If I never wake up in the morning, Would she ever doubt the way I feel About her in my heart? If tomorrow never comes, Will she know how much I loved her? Did I try in every way, To show every day, That she's my only one? And if my time on earth were through, And she must face this world without me, Is the love I gave her in the past Gonna be enough to last If tomorrow never comes? `Cause I've lost loved ones in my life Who never knew how much I loved them. Now I live with the regret That my true feelings for them never were revealed. So I made a promise to myself To say each day how much she means to me And avoid that circumstance Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel. If tomorrow never comes, Will she know how much I loved her? Did I try in every way, To show her every day, That she's my only one? And if my time on earth were through, And she must face this world without me, Is the love I gave her in the past Gonna be enough to last If tomorrow never comes? So tell that someone that you love Just what you're thinking of If tomorrow never comes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There it is....Whatcha think? Please let me know! :-) Oh, and if tomorrow never comes for me, Mom and Dad, I love you very much, you have been the best parents a person could ever have. Marc, in spite of the fact that you're a pesty big brother, I love you too. Rachel, you are my best friend forever! Heather, Mandy, Patty, Rhonda, Jenny Bills, Josh, Renee',Lindsay aka Del Jr., Jenny Ardrey, and all the rest of you guys, I love you very much. You are the best of friends. I just thought everybody should know. Love you. :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~