From: dropdeadred@talk21.com
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 23:58:47 BST
Subject: xfc: *NEW* "Red" 1/1
Source: xfc


Title: Red
Author: Brit*Vik
E-mail: Rapunzelinthetower@talk21.com
Category: V, A, MulderPOV
Spoilers: None.
Feedback: I'll reply to every bit and love you all forever. 
Archive: Same drill; let me know, keep my name and e-mail address
attached. Apart from that, do what you want with it.  
Disclaimer: I do not own Mulder. I do not own Scully. I do not own "The
X-Files." I am using them without permission and without profit. No
copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: For the purpose of this story, assume that Mulder isn't
red/green colour blind. That was just a convenient episodic device,
anyway. I don't believe for one second that Mulder has never seen the
colour of Scully's hair. 

"RED"

I'll remember you in red.

The first time you walked into my office, it was the red I noticed
immediately. How could I not notice it? You were so striking standing
there, the woman I'd known all my life, so beautiful and fragile as
you maintained the veneer of the ultimate professional, medical doctor
and field agent, never betraying the woman underneath. Your beautiful
molten copper coloured hair was as much an impression of you as your
voice, your perfume or anything that is you. Whenever anyone referred
to you, it was always as the "redhead". You left as big an impression
on everyone you met as much as on me. In recent years, you kept
cutting your hair shorter and shorter. For you it was just an
annoyance, something that got in your eyes whenever you needed to peer
into a corpse's deeepest darkest crevices, or when you had to gaze
into someone's eyes and pierce their soul. How could I ever tell you
how much each strand of your hair meant to me? The look of it, the
feel of it, the smell of it... Many an hour I've spent thinking of you
about nothing other than your shimmering halo. Your hair was one thing
about you that almost mirrored the beauty of your soul, although you
were truly a woman possessing more beauty than I could ever have
dreamed of. 

When we realised that our bond was more than just professional...
Well, that's not right. We realised that many years before we started
to... When we were together, as people, as a couple, I would always
bring you red wine. You always seemed so relaxed after you'd removed
the shackles of work for the day, and you looked so exotic the way you
used to look through the wine in the glass at me. The same with roses.
I would bring you the deepest wine coloured roses which you would hold
up to your face and just hold the bloom there, savouring its scent.
You resembled a pre-Raphaelite painting, with your long neck, pale
skin and half closed eyes. Each component would accentuate another,
and I swear, I have rarely seen you look more beautiful. 

Whenever you spoke, your words were coloured. Sometimes they would
come out tinged the blue of your eyes, and sometimes they were tainted
with the red of your lips.  We would argue and your lips and cheeks
would blaze with the fire of reason and passion. It made my head
swirl.  Your hair and lips, so complementing of each other, were so
bright and noticeable, so natural and so you. I always think of you as
being a possessor of red by nature, but there are certain hues I
inflicted on you. The red rim around your eyes, if you were tired
because we'd been working too hard, or if you were crying over the
heartbreak of how our work had devastated your life. And while I can
never forget, I sometimes try to block out these images, to remember
you smiling and happy; the way you would want to be remembered,
although this was a side you showed to me so rarely in our early days
together. And yet, no matter what I know you would want, I can only
ever remember you in red.  Because there was another red I inflicted
on you; the blood you shed. When you were ill with your cancer, your
nosebleeds were, for a long time, the only outward sign that anything
was wrong. You were shot, and your blood spurted forth, as bright and
vital as your life. 

The last time I saw you was in red. I hadn't been with you when it
happened; later I found out that you were on your way to my apartment.
After around nine months of looking, you had finally been able to find
a first edition of "Peter Pan" which had been my favourite book as a
child. I had never told anyone that before you, and you had inscribed
it with, "To my darling Mulder, the boy who never grew up." I still,
to this day, have not read another word contained in that volume.

By the time I got to the hospital, you were already dead. Someone once
told me that saying goodbye is meaningless, it's the time spent
together that counts for anything. For everything. And although I can
recognise the truth in that statement, I cannot get that image of you
out of my head, as you lay there covered in your own blood, your hair
clogged and matted, your skin no longer porcelain but unnaturally
pale. This is the picture of you I see when I wake each morning and
when I go to sleep each night.  I no longer feel the soft caress of
your banana-flavoured lipbalm but your dried cracked lips as I stole
my last goodbye. Not your eyes, your beautiful eyes, so full of
expression and meaning but merely glassy globes staring blankly into
God knows what. I don't even know if you were thinking of me when you
died, or if you journeyed alone between this world and the next. 

I need you and I love you and I miss you. 

Red is how I'll remember you, with silence and with tears.

FIN

"More than words to show you feel 
That your love for me is real. 
What would you say, if I took those words away, 
And you couldn't make things new, 
Just by saying 'I love you?'"