From: EnigmaticDrDKS <enigmaticdrdks@aol.com>
Date: 08 Feb 2000 21:32:50 GMT
Subject: NEW: Slivers of Straw (1/1, post SUZ)

TITLE:  Slivers of Straw
DATE:  02/08/00
AUTHOR:  Katherine Matheson
E-MAIL:  EnigmaticDrDKS@aol.com
SPOILERS:  "Sein und Zeit"
ARCHIVE:  Sure, just let me know where it goes, thank you.
SUMMARY:  The end of one life sparks the beginning of a new one.
NOTES:  I suppose this is alternate universe;  after SUZ, it is not 
concurrent with show canon.  My first story, I welcome all comments.

------------

The death of Teena Mulder was the final sliver of straw placed 
on her already-bowed back.  Dana Scully filed her formal 
resignation on February 29, 2000;  it seemed the extra day 
of the year had been added just for her to draw up the 
paperwork that detailed her good-bye.

She cleaned out what little she'd brought to the basement office 
and didn't look back as she left its darkness.  She said she 
couldn't take it anymore;  she had forgotten her passion and 
needed to reclaim it.  She had been offered a position teaching 
medical students;  where didn't matter, as long as it was away 
from the Hoover Building, a place which was haunted for her.

Ghosts of all size and shape seemed to drape the building, like 
Spanish moss brushing her cheeks as she walks the halls.  She 
saw her own ghost there too many times and had to get away 
before it caught up with her.  She was good at outrunning things, 
at turning her back and pretending they didn't exist.  Life was 
easier that way--at least sometimes.

She's still running, though she sees it as running *toward* 
something and not away from.  Running toward the future 
that others tried to stifle;  running toward places she doesn't
have to fear, places that won't get cluttered with ghosts and 
secrets.  She won't allow that;  she's had too much of that already.

Her resignation said as much.  She couldn't continue in an 
environment such as this, one that was robbing her of everything 
and everyone she cared about.  True, Teena Mulder hadn't been 
a large part of her life, but Scully can feel her absence through 
Mulder, who has been there for the past seven years and change.

He wants to deny the pain, but Scully can still feel it.  She sees 
it on his face, not as boyish as it used to be, eyes no longer bright 
as they look up from a lightbox.  The enthusiasm is forced these 
days;  the will to stay in bed, burrowing under the covers, is all too 
strong.  Don't come to work, don't endure the ghosts, walk in the 
sunshine instead of the shadow.  Don't allow someone else to place 
one more sliver on your back.  The weight is too much to bear.

The Latex gloves have worn thin, though they are as heavy as 
anything.  The smell of a morgue has become as familiar as a 
lover's scent.  Time to move on.  Even lemon soap doesn't remove 
the stench of the bodies anymore.  The shower cannot scald away 
the memory of Teena Mulder's body laying still before her.

These are things she did not say in her resignation, but they are 
clear even so.  These are things that hang in her eyes, things that 
have been there for more than a year now.  She is tired, she needs 
to live again and not be afraid.  She needs to bury the ghosts and 
shake off the slivers of straw.

Watching her from my window, her copper hair is less bright than I 
remember.  She crosses the street, her hands empty.  But her step 
is light, lighter than it has been in years, and she's standing tall again, 
no longer bowed.  She looks back once, squinting against the afternoon 
light, and I can see a smile threatening to turn her lips upward.  I raise
my hand, but know she doesn't see.  I stand in the shadows she has 
walked away from.  I silently wish her well and hope that someday, I 
will find the same courage.

Perhaps she left a ghost of it behind and it will brush my cheek as 
I walk these halls.

THE END