From: Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 23:26:54 -0500 Subject: Remember That You Must Live, by phoenix_echoes Source: direct Author: phoenix_echoes Rating: PG-13 (Deals with Scully's cancer -- but there's no cursing or anything) Feedback: You know why it's called feedback? Because authors feed on it. We starve without it -- really! So feed me whatever you want -- praise is worshiped, constructive criticism taken seriously and flames give me digestion problems! Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files, they belong to Fox and 1013 Productions. I don't own the characters Mulder, Scully, Maggie Scully or Penny Northern, just the ideas I had in my head about them. Authors Notes: This takes place during the episode Momento Mori. The *** detonate a scene change. (And in case you didn't get it, the "she" is Scully and the "he" is Mulder J ) Spoilers: Momento Mori Remember That You Must Live She spoke with tears thick in her voice, hovering on the edge of control. He replied kindly, giving her a way to bow out gracefully. His eyes were dark with pain and compassion. *** "Mulder, it's me." The familiar words gave her the strength to tell him that she had to search for her own truth, without him at her side. Her voice echoing on the empty air waves scared him. He was used to playing their game; him making large leaps ahead of her and then turning back to allow her to catch up in her own time, in her own way. But now she was going too far ahead and he couldn't catch up, no matter how fast he ran. *** Her mother's grip was suffocating and Maggie's words made the burden she carried so much heavier; bending her double under their weight. That burden, though, was her strength -- it allowed her to fight back. He knew she would not want him to feel the sickening pity that had taken residence in the center of his gut, and at one time he did not think it was possible to pity her. But now every time he saw her it felt like she would disappear if he turned his back. *** Penny's hold on her hand was her tether to reality, slowly pulling her out of the hellish nightmare. And maybe, just maybe, Penny had helped her once before. He put the "Agent" in front of her name, emphasizing it as if that would push away the images of his partner, his friend, his touchstone, lying on a bed, helpless to the mutiny her body was committing. Somewhere deep inside his heart, he half-believed that his faith in her would be strong enough to fight her Devil. *** She felt the compulsion to write to him, to put into eloquent writing what she could not express with large and awkward speech. She was grateful that he was out there, fighting for her with all that he had and all that he was. Even though she wished he could be here by her side she knew, with the intuition granted to the dying, that they had to fight this battle on two fronts. Her name, "Scully, Dana," printed so neatly on the card made him want to cry for the ache in his heart and howl for the rage that choked his throat. That they could take this from her, violate her in such an intimately cruel way, made him cold with rage. Her beauty, her feminine fertility, had been stripped and stored in this small metal box and replaced with a parasite. *** The journal, covered in Scully's elegant script, was not a window into her soul, for he already knew that intimately. Instead it showed him the secret and hidden places of her heart and mind. A part of him was intensely curious about what hidden truths she could now see, for the condemned were privy to the things others were not. But another part, the stronger part, feared what insight she would gain from seeing the end of her life and the beginning of forever. He put the journal down, the first lines already seared into his memory, there to be recalled whenever he wished. Penny's charge settled around her, cleared the confused haze from her sight. She remembered who she was and why she was, and that giving up was not an option. She was strong because of her belief in herself and because of his belief in her. And as Penny's last breaths escaped her body, Scully felt as if she were breathing her first gasps of air. *** He held the vial in his hand, well aware that he held her future in his shaking palm. As he watched her walk down the hallway, held high and step sure, he was sure he had made the right decision. He would tell her one day, how he believed withholding this from her would save her, and he had no fear of her wrath. He knew that she would need to marshal all of her strength to fight this and that she could afford no distractions. She stopped around the corner, out of his sight. His faith in her was so beautiful that she knew it would break him if she died. Knew that she had to fight, had to keep going, so that They could not ravage this beautiful thing they had between them. Maybe this battle had to be fought on two fronts, but if they couldn't stand side-by-side, then they would stand back-to-back and be stronger than ever.