From: "Christine Leigh" Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 02:14:10 +0000 Subject: Story Submission - Saints and Poets Source: direct TITLE: Saints and Poets AUTHOR: Christine Leigh E-MAIL: leighchristine@hotmail.com SPOILERS: "One Breath," "The Sixth Extinction," "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" RATING: G CATEGORY: V KEYWORDS: M/S SUMMARY: Does she want to come back? Scully POV during "One Breath." Written for X-Files Drabbles Fate Challenge. DISCLAIMER: All characters are the products of Chris Carter. They also belong to Ten-Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network. No copyright infringement intended. Lines of dialogue from the series included. Saints and Poets By Christine Leigh "You must leave here only when it's time." She'd never considered existence, if that word could even be used, from this perspective. However, she'd never before been dead, and she is fairly certain that is what she is experiencing. Is it completed, though, she wonders? Can she go back? Does she want to? She isn't sure of how to deal with this. And yet . . . and yet, she thinks she may want to stay. She is feeling lulled by the gentle movement of the water against the boat. Perhaps this is where she wants to be. She looks toward the dock and is surprised. When did Melissa return? And Mulder is there. Has he come to say good-bye? *I wasn't ready to say good-bye.* The other woman she doesn't recognize, but somehow knows. How odd that she finds her to be a comfort. Perhaps she will help find some answers. The rope that tethers the boat to the dock snaps, and then there is confusion. Suddenly she is not certain that she's ready to stay. She sees images that she does not recognize and she's feeling distracted and frustrated by that. "Your time is not over." ***** She's died or is dying -- she's seen the light that she has read about, and that she has heard those who have supposedly come back speak of. And more. Ahab had come to her. She hadn't been able to see him, but she'd known his heart when he spoke to her. How it thrilled her to hear him, and how sad it was to not have been able to hear those words when they were both alive. What was that line out of the play she'd been in, her junior year in high school? She'd gone about for weeks after first hearing it, trying to be more aware. Something about saints and poets realizing life while they were living it. She hopes Ahab will visit again. She, too, has things to say. *I love you, Daddy. I'll open my eyes next time, I promise.* ***** *I think that, if you know, that you could find a way to hold on.* She hears her voice -- there is a reverberation to the words, but she doesn't remember having ever spoken them. She sees him in a bed, but doesn't recognize the room. He needs to hold on. She's trying to shake these images, but they won't leave. Then in a split second it hits her. It's vast, what she sees. How cruel a fate it will be, but for the one thing that outweighs all the rest. She wants to return. ***** She feels a sensation of warmth moving through her. It's like drinking hot cocoa on the coldest winter night, and she wants to get up from the bed and tell him that it will be all right. Soon . . . she will do that soon. Hours pass as though minutes. She is moving swiftly now along her road. He left, but she will see him again, and that knowledge carries her through to the end. There are voices and electronic beeping. As she moves her eyelids, she remembers wonderful things, but the details are hazy. She doesn't know that by tomorrow's dawn that these things will have gone altogether from her conscious mind. *And you are mine.* She opens her eyes. - end - Author's Note: The title of this vignette is taken from the following passage from the play, "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder: EMILY: Do any human beings every realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute? STAGE MANAGER: No. The saints and poets, maybe -- they do some. http://cleigh6.tripod.com