From: Jedi Shipper Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 20:19:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: xfc: May You Find Some Peace Tonight Source: xfc From: Jedi Shipper Title: May You Find Some Peace Tonight by the Jedi Shipper Rated: PG-13 Spoilers: No Category: CD- That's character death ::ducks Rotem's flying UFO's:: I'm sorry!! Summary: Mulder watches Scully and wishes he can ease her pain, and maybe he can. Archive: I'd be honored. Keep my name attached and tell me where it is! Dedications: To my best friend Chris who left me all those years ago. I still love you. Feedback: JediShipper@yahoo.com Fox Mulder watched as his partner got ready for bed. He knew her well enough to know that she was on overdrive, she was only going through the motions. There was no life left in Dana Scully's once vibrant blue eyes. She looked up, into the mirror, finding a distorted picture of the woman she had been just a few short days ago. Her skin was a sickly white and she seemed impossibly thinner even though he knew she could not have lost weight already. It was just in the way she carried herself. He had never seen her like this. She'd held so much strength in her slender form that it was hard to believe this vulnerable woman in front of him was the same person. Her eyes were drawn, red from crying. There were puffy black bags beneath them as he knew she had not slept in days. "Damn you Mulder," she said in a whispered, haggard voice. "Why? Why did you leave me alone?" "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Scully," he said coming to stand beside her. He knew that she couldn't hear him. He knew that she couldn't see him. He longed to be able to comfort her. He longed to be able to hold her. For all the longing in the world he couldn't do those things. Not now. She opened her hand to reveal his badge. The only thing she had left of him aside from the things still in the basement office. She hadn't had the strength to go back there. Everything else had been taken away by his mother or kept as evidence. The badge was the only thing she had rights to. The only thing of his that rightfully belonged to her. All she had left was a picture, his signature and the memories that belonged to that badge. She could still hear his voice, "Special Agents Mulder and Scully, FBI," on countless cases. Suddenly, angry at the tears threatening to fall, Scully hurled the badge away from her. A second hand-swipe threw everything from the dresser, breaking the glass jewelry box into a million pieces. He watched her, his own heart breaking. He watched because there was nothing else he could do. "Dammit!" Scully cursed, holding her bloodied hand to herself. Finding her legs unable to support her she let herself sit on the floor, leaning against the dresser. She pulled her knees up and let her head rest on them. She was tired of crying. She was tired of all of it. It had been five days since Mulder had died. Five days since she'd been awakened by a call in the early morning hours telling her his car had been run off the road, she should get to the hospital, he didn't have long. She had gotten there as soon as she could, running through the hallways faster then she'd ever thought possible. When she'd rounded the corner Skinner was there, he'd looked up and she had known. She was too late. She hadn't cried that day. Even at his funeral, looking down at him, it wasn't real. He was just sleeping. He looked peaceful. He always looked peaceful when he slept. The next day she'd walked into the basement office they shared. It had hit her then that he wasn't here. A series of memories had assaulted her rapid pace from the day they meet to the last night she'd seen him. "I don't know Scully, I like my basement office. I'd rather be here then in the bullpen with everyone else," "Well, maybe I'll go up, get my own desk in the bullpen with everyone else," she'd joked. "Ahh Scully, it'd feel empty here without you," he'd said sincerely. The office did not feel empty. It was still full of his scent, his quest, everything that he was, was held in this office. It was then that she realized he would not be telling her another crazy theory, that she'd never come in again to find him excited about a case he'd found. It was the fact that the office was empty that finally broke her. She'd turned around and walked back to her car. It was then she'd started crying, letting his loss flood over her completely. Now, Mulder sat across from her. He studied the top of her head, the once radiant red it had been was now dull. Her shoulders bobbed gently and he knew she was crying again. He reached out and touched her shoulder. She looked up. For a moment he held his breath. Had she felt him? But though his face was mere centimeters from hers it was clear that she did not see him. "Mulder..." she whispered in a voice so soft he could scarcely hear her. "Why? Why now? After so much why would they take you from me now? I don't know how to go on Mulder. You were my one true thing. The only one I could trust. I don't know how to live as half a person," her voice broke and she wiped at her eyes furiously. "I didn't even get to say goodbye Mulder. I didn't even get to say goodbye." She couldn't speak more then that, her voice trailing into sobs. "Scully," he started, but he didn't know what to say. God, he wanted to hold her so tightly. He wanted to tell her that he was here and he knew, he could hear her. It frustrated the hell out of him that no matter how he shouted, she wouldn't hear the faintest whisper. She finally got up and rinsed the blood off her hands. Though there was no point to it she got in bed. Even with all the covers pulled tightly around her she felt cold, so cold. Mulder watched her for a while, wishing he could wipe away the trail of tears that fell down her cheeks, off her nose. He watched as she lay on her side and closed her eyes though he knew she was not asleep. He sat on the other side of her bed and ran his hand over her shoulder. He couldn't feel it, he knew she couldn't. Then she said his name. She said it as if he was actually there, as if she could sense his presence. "Mulder. I'm so tired. Hold me, just tonight, hold me until I go to sleep," He hesitated. "Just stay with me tonight," Then he lay down beside her and put his arms around her. "I'll stay. I'll stay always," he told her. He wished he could feel her. He wished she could feel him. Maybe in some small way she could because as his arms draped over her should she seemed to gain a little peace for the first time in five nights. Enough peace to fall asleep. "I love you Mulder. I miss you," she whispered as she drifted off. * * * About 5:00 P.M. the next day Detective Rob Kowal stood in the apartment's bedroom, looking over the scene deep in thought. Earlier that morning a woman had been found dead in this room and he was supposed to be looking for evidence of foul play, from the call he'd just received he knew there was no need. "Hey Rob," his partner said, coming up behind him. "I just got here. What's going on," "Nothing we can help with. Woman died sometime last night, and was found by her mother when she didn't meet her for lunch,' "Did you get anything?" "There's nothing for us to get here Tom. The coroner just called. She died, in his own words 'of a broken heart,' He says he's only heard about it. The person just... looses the will to live and slips away." The two partners were silent, wondering exactly what loss this woman had to have experienced to cause that much pain. The thing that got to Rob was the bed. There were two outlines on the pillows, two indents where two bodies would have lain. But there was only evidence of one person ever being there. If they'd known where and how to look, the two police officers might have seen them. Two people in the room, together in each others arms in death as they hadn't been in life. They were at peace. Both of them. Forever. _______________________ Feedback is cherished and keeped in a box with velvet lining.