From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 13 Feb 2002 17:38:12 -0000
Subject: Lessons by dtg (Redux II) by dtg
Source: direct

Reply To: dgoggans@earthlink.net


Title: Lessons
Author: dtg
Email: dgoggans@earthlink.net
Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~dgoggans/
Feedback: Welcome and always acknowledged.
Keywords: vignette, post ep
Rating: PG
Archive: After the Fact, Ephemeral. Others, just let 
me know first.
Summary: I'd always thought that the saddest people 
were those whose deaths went unnoticed.
Author's Notes: Written for the Redux II post ep 
challenge for After the Fact. http://after-the-
fact.tripod.com/  Scully's thoughts during Mulder's 
late night visit.

~~~

Lessons by dtg

~~~


Four years' experience with connecting doors that 
open silently in the middle of the night tell me he's 
in the room. It took a few times for me to learn what 
to do when he would come to me like this on the road, 
usually in the midst of the worst cases. Pretend to 
be asleep and let him take whatever comfort he could 
from just watching me. We developed a pattern: he 
would stand silently in the doorway, and I would 
pretend to sleep. Sometimes, it would be a short 
visit. Other times, he would stand there for so long 
that I *did* fall asleep. But he never approached the 
bed.

This time is different. I can feel it even before he 
moves. Simply watching is no longer enough. He needs 
to touch me, just as he now does every time he 
visits. Gently holding my hand...kissing my cheek-- 
the kind of intimate contact he would never allow 
himself if not for the awful catalyst of time running 
out.

I keep my breathing slow and even as he quietly 
closes the distance between us and comes to stand at 
the side of my bed. 

I can feel the tension coming off of him in tangible 
waves that make me ache. I knew this would be hard 
for him, but I didn't truly understand that it might 
finally be too much. His strength has always been 
there for me to draw upon, and now I'm terrified that 
I've taken it all.

He drops softly to his knees beside my bed, and it 
takes everything I have to stay still. I want to 
reach out to him, to pull him close and give back a 
tiny bit of what he's given me. But he needs my 
silence more than my love right now. He needs to 
accept the inevitable, and I can't help him.

But when he presses my icy hand to his lips, and I 
feel his face twist in a silent scream of grief and 
loss, I want to scream right along with him. As much 
as I rage against losing my life, the pain of leaving 
behind this man I would willingly trade it for is 
immeasurably worse. 

I'd always thought that the saddest people were those 
whose deaths went unnoticed, who left no one behind 
to mourn. I now see how horribly wrong I was.

I would gladly die alone and unmourned a thousand 
times to spare him this.

~~~
End