From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 14 Jun 2002 02:30:35 -0000 Subject: Notti Disturbate by junebuG Source: direct Reply To: junebuG_MSR@hotmail.com Title: Notti Disturbate Author: junebug Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with 1013 productions, CC, GA, DD, or the other owners of the X-Files and the characters. No infringement intended. Category: MSR, A, Scully POV, post-finale Spoilers: Series finale Rating: PG-13, for hard issues Feedback: YES! Email all comments (just don't be mean) to junebug_msr@hotmail.com Archive: YES! Just ask first, pleeeease... Notes: Thanks to Navemer for critiquing my scary depressed fic, and for helping to come up w/ the title. Thanks for the tip on the first title, hun, you're a lifesaver (as always). Release the baby ducks! ~NOTTI DISTURBATE~ This is the beginning... how it always begins. I am alone; there is no physical sensation, no sight, just an unbearable aching. My mind is unwillingly flooded with memories... the pain of birth, the first giggle, the first smile, the silky goosefuzz atop his head. Then the sight comes, the aching redoubles. He sits there in his carseat, wearing that silly little hat, looking for all the world like we're just on our way to the park. I know better. Swirling memories. The look in a father's eyes when he realizes that he'll never see his son again. The innocent gaze of an infant, not realizing--not able to fathom that he'll never see his mother again. He'll grow up with someone else as mother. The memories mutate, change into what-ifs, imagination takes over where memory cannot fulfil. The angry eyes of a father, knowing that a child has been given by a mother. HIS child. His trust. The unknowing eyes of a toddler, a child, an adolescent, walking past his mother in the street. Finally, the images fade, the sounds recede, and I am left with the undying ache of lonliness. The nightmare may pass, but the ache will never fade. Awake. A dim grey haze slides through the dusty hotel blinds. A cheap, lumpy mattress, used by hudreds before me assults my back. The noisefromthe nearby highway filters through the door, the windows, the walls. An arm, comforting even in sleep, wraps around me, but recalling the dream, the accusing look in his eyes, I pull away. A painful self-induced solitude engulfs me as I slip from beneath the rough covers. An imagined crying drifts out from the next room, fora moment I look around wildly for an infant to comfort. Our single room is barren. Lost in the fathoms of my own mind, I wander into the bathroom. His little overnight bag sits open on the counter, bathroom supplies spilling out. A bottle of painkillers -the prescription kind-catch my eye. So easy, so very easy. Kill the ache. So easy... <> they say, <>, <>.I pour over the label, cherishing these warnings. So easy to killthe ache, to banish all worries forever. A cough from the bedstartles me back to sanity. Terrified by my own thoughts, I hurriedlyreplace the little bottle. As I sink to the floor I feel him come upbehind me. He sinks down beside me, and I bury myself in hisshoulder. As our tears silently mingle, I realize that no matter how lost we are, who or what is taken away from us, we will always have each other. As long as he is there for me, and I for him, nothing can break us. They have tried to break us, God knows they've tried, but we're still US. When we are no longer us, when he or I is gone forever, then that bottlecan come out. When we are no longer us, the ache will be too great. But for now, for today, we are us. Our child may be gone, our lives destroyed, but we are us. Together. Silently, we rise from the floor and retreat to bed. This has happened before, and it will again. Both of us have before and will again break down, but there is always comfort in love. As we drift into sleep, I knowthere will be more nightmares, but not for a while. Though the ache may beundying, for the moment it has faded. For the moment we are at peace, alone together.