From: TJ <2ISUGRADS@Prodigy.net> Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 22:28:48 -0500 Subject: NEW! Peace Not Found by TJ Source: atxc Title: Peace Not Found by TJ Feedback: Will you please? 2ISUGRADS@Prodigy.net Category: SA, MSR, Post TINH Rating: G Disclaimer: I hate this part, but I don't want to get sued. I'm borrowing characters that are the property of Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, Fox (The Network, not the man who was missing this season) and whoever else profits from the insane popularity of The X-Files. I do not share in their wealth for said reason above. Not mine. I just like to pretend they are once in awhile. I'll be sure to dry their tears and tuck them in when I'm done. Distribution: Gossamer, sure. If you have any of my other stuff, sure. If I haven't heard from you before, please e- mail me a quick note so I know where it gets to travel to. Author's Notes: Here's another one being posted months after it was written. You'll just have to pretend you haven't seen anything past This Is Not Happening. I've decided to stop rewriting this before I go crazy making it sound the way I want it to. Close enough. Hope it moves you. ;) Additional notes at end. How could he have felt the way he had? How could he have accepted such a final truth and be at peace with it? Although she knew much of his solace came from relief that she no longer was suffering, she couldn't comprehend it. She couldn't begin to imagine how he'd given in to the finality of it so easily, when she herself was so desperately fighting the truth of this resolution. As long as she hadn't known, there'd been hope. Doggett was right. She had been more afraid of finding him than not, and it was exactly because of the possibility of finding him like this...too late. If she'd never known what had become of him, at least she might have been able to pretend he was still out there, waiting for her, and there might always be a chance that one day he'd return to her. But that chance, now matter how slight it became as the days turned into months, is gone now, because she knows without any doubt all her hope's been shattered. Mulder was found... but will never be coming back to her. Her mother's hand on her shoulder startles her, and she turns with tear-streaked face towards her, wiping at her cheeks with embarrassment. She hasn't been able to stop crying all morning. She was so much stronger than this when it was her father... when it was Missy. Even with Emily she managed to mourn in private. Where is that strength now? She is ashamed she never allowed herself to grieve for them as openly as she grieves for Mulder. She's made no attempts to hide her tears until now. "How could he feel what way, Honey?" her mother says softly, stroking her daughter's hair back from her face. Scully hadn't realized she'd spoken her thoughts out loud. She wonders what else she's muttered for other ears in the room to hear. There are people still lingering behind after the memorial service, morbidly fascinated by the death of a man they knew little about, besides what they'd heard in office rumors. Why didn't they just go home? Had they cared about him this much in life, maybe there wouldn't be a reason for them to be here now. Maybe he wouldn't have been so reckless, always trying to prove himself. As always, Mulder was a curiosity, an oddity. His wake had turned into a freak show. "Honey," her mother repeats, concerned about the look of anger that descends over her daughter's eyes. "He found peace, Mom," she says, the faintest whisper. "Yes, I believe he has," her mother affirms. "No, that's not what I meant," she corrects with a shake of her head, realizing her mother thinks she is referring to his death. "Then what did you mean?" She is silent for awhile, trying to decide how to explain to her mother something she can't explain to herself. It's a private moment she shared with him what seems a lifetime ago. She hopes she isn't betraying him by discussing this with anyone else now. "When he found out about his sister, when he learned she was gone...forever... it gave him peace. He had closure, an answer. He accepted it with dignity, and grace." She takes a deep breath and shakes her head incredulously, marveling still at the memory of the look on his face when he'd told her it was over. "He never acted angry about it, or bitter. How could he have not been? How could he not feel that way after hoping for so long, waiting to find her? It was his whole life; searching for her. She was his only purpose for so long, and when he found out, he was left with nothing. Yet somehow he was at peace with it." His reaction to his mother's death had been a different story. Her suicide had been so unexpected it made sense he reacted the way he did. But Samantha... losing her after waiting so long to find her... just as she had waited to find Mulder...hoping, always hoping... Scully stopped, the anger returning. Damn him! She couldn't do what he'd done! She felt the anger swell in her at the unjustness of this all and welcomed it. It was an easier emotion to cling to than the unyielding sorrow threatening to turn her inside out. She was too weak to live up to the example he set, and she was supposed to be the one with the faith to get her through anything. But unlike him, she couldn't accept this magnitude of loss and move on, satisfied by the truth revealed. She never would. She refused to let his death pacify her searching soul; put an end to the maddening anxiety of not knowing. Knowing was worse. It was much worse... and she would never find peace in the knowledge her quest for him was over. She was angry at herself, God, and at him, for it to have happened this way. She remembered the look on the other agents' faces at the compound, as she screamed this couldn't be happening; recalled the fear for her sanity on Skinner's, Doggett's and agent Reyes' faces as she kicked at the walls of Jeremiah Smith's empty room where they followed her to. She wanted to destroy everything around her, to match the destruction that she felt within her soul and pummel her hands against the wood until they bled like surely her heart did for him. She couldn't tell any of them she was afraid that if she went back to Mulder's body they would have to take her away from him in a straight jacket. At that moment, when she was so precariously close to the edge of losing herself, she had to do something to release her fury at what fate determined. She was glad she insisted Skinner, Doggett and the Gunmen go home after the service. They'd been with her through so much; helping her select his casket, go through his closet to find his favorite suit...things she wouldn't have been able to do without them; not without being crushed by the enormity of planning the details of her final good-bye to him. Now she needed this time to herself and they needed some rest, so reluctantly they did as she'd asked and told her to call if she needed anything...anything at all. There was relief that her mother was there for her and she wouldn't have to drive herself home. Her friends took comfort that she wouldn't be alone. Not physically at least. Maggie had been silent for awhile, considering the words of her daughter, trying to think what she could possibly say to help her understand that no one expected her to be so strong all the time. Dana was the only one who thought she should be invincible in the face of such tragedy. "Sweetheart, you can't compare that to what you're going through now. He had over twenty years to prepare himself for the real possibility his sister was dead. You didn't have that time; only a few months. This was such a surprise... to all of us. We all held out hope he would be OK, you know that." When her mother spoke, Scully was almost surprised she was still there. She felt emotionally removed from the present. She'd numbed herself to the reality of her surroundings. She closed her eyes, remembering the images of him; tortured, screaming in agony, calling her name to come save him. All those times she dismissed the horror as dreams, as terrible nightmares of a pregnant woman missing her lover; fearing for the father of her child. But had she known the future, and still somehow managed to suppress it? Had she known he was gone even before she was led to the clearing where he lay? When she'd seen him in her room only hours before, had she understood why he was there, what he was, and what he'd never be again? She'd seen the dead and dying before; had visions of people like the one of Mulder in her motel room. The first time it happened, it had been of her father. As soon as the phone rang with her mother calling to tell her he'd died, she knew in the farthest recess of her conscious mind that she'd seen a glimpse of something she never should have been able to. Each time she'd been given these "sights" subsequently, she never allowed herself to believe it was anything more than coincidence. How foolish she'd been earlier not to grasp the significance of the visions of Mulder and taken time to prepare herself for the worst "No, Mom, maybe I did have time to prepare. I had... I had dreams. I saw him. I saw what they were doing to him." "You've been under a tremendous amount of stress, Dana. Maybe your imagination took over. " "It wasn't my imagination," she says adamantly, angrily. "I knew," She's convinced now; speaking the words finally makes the truth clear to her. She remembers a time when she would have reacted to such a claim just as her mother is now, trying to rationalize it, categorize it as something familiar and safe. She wishes she hadn't experienced the things she has so she could become that person once again; naive to the horrors unseen and unheard of by most. "I *knew*..." she repeats softly, "I can't explain it... how or why, but for some reason I think I was allowed to see what was being done to him so I'd be ready to accept his death. But I can't...I just can't accept it!" She starts to sob again as she rises to go over to his casket. Her mother follows and stands behind her, hesitating to reach out to her. Her little girl is so alone right now. Maybe that's what she needs; time to retreat into herself, to reclaim something of herself now that a part of her is gone. Her mother knows that kind of empty ache all too well; of letting go of someone who made you complete. But it will lessen... the pain and sadness. At least Dana has a part of him to help see her through his absence, but in the same thought she also knows that the baby will never take Mulder's place in her daughter's life. Maggie Scully found she cherished her children even more after their father had died. Whenever Bill rubs his forehead deep in thought, when Dana smiles, or Charlie laughs, she sees shadows of her husband, hears echoes of his life. He lives on through his children, just as a part of Mulder now lives on through his and Dana's child. Maggie Scully thanks God for this miracle He's bestowed on her daughter. Perhaps He had given her this blessing, knowing He'd be taking someone else away from her. She doesn't want to think of God as being so ironically cruel, but she's also not one to question His all powerful will. "You need to see something to understand, Mom," Scully says, turning around and drawing her mother toward the closed casket. "You need to see what I saw, before I ever found him." And it dawns on Maggie Scully what her daughter is about to do as Dana reaches for the casket lid and begins to raise it. "Please, Dana..." she begins, but her daughter's not one to be dissuaded when she has a point to prove. Maggie turns away in horror, unable to look, as Scully starts a recitation of Mulder's injuries. "They had him pinned, through the flesh of his cheeks, through the tissue and bones in his wrists and his ankles...they drilled through the roof of his mouth, into his brain... cut into his chest, peeled him open." She speaks in a detached calm, as if describing a routine surgical procedure. Then her voice wavers as she concludes. "They dissected him like an insect all while he was awake, feeling everything, watching them torture him to death. And I *know* this not because of an autopsy, but because I was there, in my dreams with him while it happened." "Dana, don't. Don't do this to yourself all over again," Maggie Scully pleads. Is it possible there is truth in what her daughter is saying? Or is it her grief, anger and guilt manifesting itself in delusions? "Look at him, Mom! Look at him!" she commands her mother, whirling around to face her with eyes aflame. Pain, guilt and bitterness rise in Scully's voice, just like the bile that jumps to her mother's throat when her eyes look upon her daughter's beloved Mulder. "I saw *this*. I saw it as I slept. I *knew* how he was suffering. I *knew* what the outcome would be! Now tell me..." her voice crescendos in a wail that causes everyone in the room to turn in stunned silence to stare. "Tell me, where is my peace in this?!" And with a cry that pierces the stillness of the mortuary, she drops to her knees, no longer able to stand the weight of her loss pressing down on her so fully. One by one the onlookers turn to leave, suddenly uncomfortable with their realization they have no right to bear witness to her suffering; knowing their purpose in being there had been merely to satisfy their sick need to learn more about the death of Fox Mulder. Her mother ignores the shuffle of people exiting the chapel and bends to lay her hand atop her daughter's trembling head. Maggie Scully sighs deeply. She has no answers for her questioning child. Only God does. And for the first time in her deeply devoted life as a Catholic, she wonders if that is really true at all. Notes: I just couldn't get it out of my head the way Scully screamed at the end of TINH. The grief was obvious, but so was her anger. I hope I portrayed her reactions to Mulder's death realistically. (Well, realistically for most of us who think she would have lost it more than what they showed in Dead/Alive.) Thanks to April who gave me an advanced glimpse of TINH (in other words, she spoiled me). If I hadn't been prepared for that ending I think I would have lost it completely; instead I sniffled quietly. Thanks to Denise also, even though she said she couldn't read this because she'd read too much angst lately. She's still a great inspiration to me. And finally to Leah, who is willing to sit at a bar past midnight to commiserate about the X-Files and gush endlessly about David Duchovny over amaretto sours and beer. What will we do in our free time when this show ends?! Probably just keep readin' and writin' fic!