From Glymax@aol.com Tue Mar 11 17:58:12 1997
Subject: Perspectives IV: Salvation
From: Glymax@aol.com
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 18:58:12 -0500 (EST)
--------
Perspectives IV: Salvation
By: Glymax and Anne Cologna
Comments to: Glymax@aol.com
Rating: PG-13
Classification: V, A
Spoilers/Timeline: spoilers for Memento Mori. Set in the fourth season.
  Please note that the following contains what may be disturbing imagery.
Relationship: Platonic
Summary: Scully writes in her journal after her release from the hospital.

Disclaimer: The characters and situations in this piece are the property
of 1013 Productions and Fox Television and their portrayers. No copyright
infringement is intended, nor do we intend to profit from this piece.

Archivists: Please post to Gossamer under Glymax and Cologna, Anne
	    Stef - here's the next one!
	    Lisa - please post to ATXC

Acknowledgements: To Glymax, my partner. Thanks, Anne


Perspectives IV: Salvation


     I couldn't get the blood off. 

     I scrubbed and scrubbed until my fingers were raw, frigid from the
cold, itching from the soap I had used, wrinkled from the water. But
the blood wouldn't wash off. 

     I looked at my fingers, my palms. I could see the scratches. See
where the chemo had dried my skin like the parched desert. See where I had
frantically ripped and chewed my nails to escape the death my body had
welcomed innocently. See where the IV had punctured my vein to allow the
entrance of the drug that was required to kill me before it cured me.

     I stared at my hands. The ones that clutched a gun in fury.
The ones that caught the blood as it slowly left my body. The ones that
flailed wildly in the terror of a nightmare. The ones that comforted
Penny in her last hours. The ones that circled my partner to find the
belief he has in my strength.

     I prayed that Dr. Scanlon told nothing but lies. But I believe he was
correct about one thing.

     I felt like dying. 

     I chose to be a doctor. I pursued a specialty that forced me to
confront death to find the mysteries of life. I have seen the results of
cancer from the inside. 

     I once believed that what one knows as reality is not as frightening 
as what one imagines. But I could not imagine anything worse than reality.
I knew what lie ahead. I have seen what I will become.

     I watched her die. For all of my scientist's knowledge of death, I
was unprepared for dying. 

     I saw her pain. It was sculpted in her lips pressed tightly together 
to keep from crying out. Her eyes watering when she could no longer find a  
release for the terror that came before the calm.

     I heard her pain. It echoed in her labored breaths, growing more
shallow as she fought the invader. Her voice growing softer as it
exhausted its final reserve of strength. 

     I felt her pain. It forced its way into our clasped hands, holding
me in a desperate, futile gesture. Her fingers gripping mine the way the
other women must have clutched hers before their deaths. 

     I have faced Death. 

     I have faced Dying.

     I will live.

     I look in the mirror. Yesterday my lips were chapped, my skin sallow.
In one day, a life ends, a life begins. This is true for me - my life has
ended and begun.

     I have begun anew.

     I stare again at my hands, the hands that have examined the Dead, the
hands that have comforted the Dying. The hands that have held fast to
Life.

     I will find hope. I am an investigator. I know that what questions
I find must soon be followed by answers.

     I will find faith. I am a believer. I know that what is unknown must
soon be revealed.

     I will find truth. I am a scientist. I know that what lies outside
my understanding must be mine to behold.

     I will find salvation.



-End