From: Horizon Blue Date: 23 Nov 2001 05:17:40 -0800 Subject: NEW: Seconds of the Soul 1/1 Source: atxc This is my very first posting, just a short vignette, and I hope you like it. It has taken me a couple of weeks to screw up enough courage to post it ;-) Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, unfortunately. Rated PG Spoilers: Requiem Summary: Sometimes she wonders how she manages to face each day. Archive: I would be thrilled! Please let me know so I can come see! Feedback: Yes, please! horizonblue@4aliens.com Seconds of the Soul by Horizon Blue She awakens with the sound of the alarm, and fumbles at the nightstand to shut it off before she is tempted to hurl it out the window. She lies there, staring up at the ceiling, although she can barely see in the darkness, and wonders at the state of her life. Her very soul aches. How, she asks herself, after all she's seen, all she's done, all she's endured--how does she rise each morning and go to work, living what is, by all outward appearances, a normal life? How can she face the banality of expense reports when evil forces threaten their very existence every single moment? And yet, what choice does she have? It would be possible, she supposes, to drive herself totally insane with the thoughts--to concentrate solely on the fate of humanity while forgetting daily necessities such as sleeping and eating. She wonders, sometimes, how close Mulder has come to that himself. The thought of Mulder brings her back to the present at once, and without further hesitation, she rolls out of bed. He is with her as she enters the shower, and although she has not seen him in months, she feels his strong arms around her naked body. She rests her hands lightly over her pregnant abdomen before shaking off the moment and beginning to bathe. Later, wrapped in her robe, sipping her coffee, Scully absently wanders her lonely apartment. She fingers the pictures on her desk - her mother, Bill, Charlie, and the others--Melissa and her father...she misses them daily, sometimes hourly, and even though the death of her father had nothing to do with her work on the X-files, she still associates it with such. She was partnered with Mulder then; she was in the basement--therefore, the two are intertwined. Fingering the scar at the back of her neck with gentle fingers, she thinks of the pain that has comprised her life for the past seven years, and wonders at the enormity of it all. How much is it possible for one human being to endure, she asks herself, and then she feels a momentary guilt. It isn't just one human being, she is reminded, it is two. She stares at the photograph of Mulder, reclining in his office chair, and for a moment is tempted to scream and cry and fall apart. She can feel the cry of pure pain building up in her, suppressed for so many years, ready to emerge with a vengeance. Instead, Scully gently puts down her coffee cup and goes to dress, pointing out silently to herself that it is not only two human beings who have endured pain at the hands of the evil forces--every person in her life has been touched by their far-reaching influences. Every person in Mulder's life has felt it as well. She had learned to be grateful for moments of contentment--she stopped calling them moments of happiness years ago. Happiness is too strong a word for what she feels at times, but there are minutes, sometimes only seconds, where she feels content. Leaning against the back of his couch while he slips his arm around her...that was one of the best, and although it only lasted a short time, the memory will be with her always. Since he disappeared, those moments of contentment have fled, but she is determined to regain them someday, somehow, along with her partner. She must find a way to bring Mulder home, because the thought of enduring all the moments of the future without him is unbearable. There is no one else who knows her soul.