TITLE:            Sisters Across Time
AUTHOR:           dlynn
CATAGORY:         post episode, Scully pov
FEEDBACK:         dlynn1550@my-deja.com
SPOILERS:         Closure, Tithonus
SUMMARY:          "Samantha, in the simple words of 
                  a child, had conveyed the same things she had felt 
                  ever since her abduction. And as she lay there 
                  weeping for Samantha and what she had endured, Scully was 
                  forced to acknowledge the bond they shared." 

Distribution:     Xemplary, Gossamer, Spooky's, yes. All 
                  others, yes, but please let me know so that 
                  I might visit.
RATING:           G
DISCLAIMERS:      They aren't mine.

My other stories can be found at http://home.mpinet.net/laster



"Get some sleep, Mulder." Scully tapped him gently on 
the arm as she passed. She noted the rueful laugh that escaped 
him, knowing sleep would not come for either of them tonight.  

Mulder would stare at the diary for hours, reading every line 
over and over, looking for every possible nuance that could 
exist between lines ... between thoughts. Her partner would 
profile his sister by examining the words of a fourteen-year-
old girl, letting her adolescent cries of sorrow eat away at 
him like a cancer attacking his soul. 

Scully walked briskly to the hotel door. Slipping her card key 
in the lock, she released the tumblers allowing her entrance 
to her room. Shutting the door behind her, she reached 
for the light. But she paused, trailing her fingers 
hesitantly across the switch before she dropped her hand 
down beside her, leaving the room in darkness.

Instead of turning on the overhead light, she slipped into 
the bathroom alcove and flipped the switch there, illuminating 
the alcove but diffusely lighting the rest of the room. She 
peered at herself in the mirror, noticing the haunted look 
present in her gaze. Scully was on the edge of breakdown. She 
could see it in her face; she could feel it in the crumbling
of her soul. 

She took the shrink wrap off one of the small plastic drinking
glasses by the sink, turned on the tap,  and filled the cup with 
cool water. While taking a swallow to help steady her nerves, 
Scully shrugged out of her leather jacket, tossing it 
haphazardly across the closest bed. She swished the water 
around in her mouth before she swallowed, trying to alleviate 
the bitter taste of desolation that was slowly overwhelming her.

As she walked over to the bed, she picked up the TV remote and
flipped the 'on' button. The room was instantly bombarded 
with sights and sounds as the TV blared out a Nissan Truck 
commercial. Impatiently, she snapped the television 'off'
and threw the remote control across the room, where it 
landed softly on the carpet by the wall.

Scully impatiently wrenched her shirt from the waistband of her
pants and tugged at the buttons on her blouse, removing the silky 
garment from her shoulders and tossing it on the bed with her 
jacket. She finished stripping off the rest of her clothing 
and reached into the open suitcase sitting on the luggage rack 
in the closet. She audibly "harrumphed", realizing she 
hadn't even taken the time to unpack. 

Rummaging through her things, Scully pulled out a pair of mens 
style pajamas. She laid them on the end of the bed and walked 
back into the bathroom alcove. Looking at the connecting door 
between her and Mulder's room, Scully hesitated. Part of her 
yearned to cross to that door, open it and seek the comfort 
she knew she could find. But she also knew Mulder 
needed this time alone. He needed time to process all that 
had happened to him these last few days.

And looking up at the mirror, she saw her own tired 
countenance. She knew she was holding things together by only a 
thread, and she didn't need to add to his burdensome guilt 
by falling apart at his feet, another living sacrifice on the 
altar of his life's damnation.

Scully ripped the pajama top off the bed and angerly began to 
pull it on. As she reached down to gather up the buttons, her hands 
trembled. She leaned forward, bending at the waist, her palms 
placed flat atop the bedspread. Taking deep gulping breaths of 
air, she attempted to steady herself and draw on the 
natural reserves of strength that had always served her so 
well.

Only this time, it wasn't working. She could feel the pain 
welling up inside of her like large rolling waves of an ocean. 
Each wave was immediately followed by another, no ceasing in 
motion as each tumbled fast and furious behind the other until 
physically she was knocked from her feet by the crashing 
intensity of her emotions. 

Fisting the bedspread in her trembling hands, she slid 
downward. Her legs collapsed bringing her to her knees on the 
well-worn carpet.  The bedspread shifted off kilter as gravity 
and sorrow brought her soundly to the floor. The emotional pain 
seared through her like a piercing knife in her heart. Scully 
felt the agony lance straight into her psyche.

"Nooo..." she murmured over and over again as the tears she'd 
held at bay in the restaurant now flowed in earnest. Feeling 
her throat tighten and her stomach roll with nauseousness, she 
curled up in a tight, little ball on the floor and wept. 

Scully wept the tears of the damned. She poured out years of 
pain and grief, mingling the salty testament of her anguish 
with the carpet's dirt and grime. She screamed silently in 
frustration and grief for the girl whose words she heard 
tonight, the child whose words touched her deep within 
herself. 

Samantha was her, in so many ways.

As Mulder had begun hesitantly thumbing through the pages, 
reading excerpts from Samantha's diary, Scully had felt 
herself tense up inside. Not only had she realized the 
tremendous pain this was causing her partner, but with every 
word he'd read, she'd felt one more squeeze of her own heart. 
In some respectsk, listening to his words and trying to offer 
whatcomfort she could, tore her apart. All she had wanted to 
dowas leave ... escape that which she had denied for so very
long.

Samantha, in the simple words of a child, had conveyed the same 
things she had felt ever since her abduction. And as she lay 
on this grungy floor, weeping for Samantha and what she had 
endured, Scully was forced to acknowledge the bond they shared. 

Samantha's childish scrawlings of anguish, pain and suffering 
not only filled her childhood journal, but they filled the 
empty pages of Scully's own diary. A diary which was filled 
with page after page of blank, white paper because Scully 
didn't have her own memories with which to line the parchment. 

She didn't have all the particulars, but she knew as she 
listened to a child's hellish account that she and Samantha 
were bound tightly together by experience and by horror. 
Hearing Samantha's words, Scully now realized the same 
emotions in herself. As much as she tried to suppress those 
feelings, she knew she too had wanted to run away, had wanted 
the tests to stop, and had hated the control being ripped from 
her.

Bringing her legs tightly into her chest, Scully moaned and 
rocked on the floor. Samantha was able to verbalize through 
her written words more than Scully had in the last five years 
since her abduction. The child spoke of the violations of her 
being, the medical rape of her body with such eloquence that 
Scully felt their shared pain conjoin across time.

For that moment in a dismal hotel room, she and Samantha were 
one.

Sisters across time.

Shakily rising to her feet, Scully padded hesitantly over to 
the bathroom mirror. Stopping in front of the glass, she 
raised her tear-streaked face and stared at the woman before 
her. She noted the smeared and smudged make-up, the eyes red 
and puffy, and the hair in disheveled disarray. 

Sliding the pajama top from her form, she stood there naked 
before the mirror. She bent her neck forward, letting her cross 
dangle on her chest as her fingers probed at the back of her 
neck, feeling the tiny raised bump from where the chip 
remained just beneath her skin. Tilting up her head, she 
then ran her fingers over the front of her body, touching her 
throat.  She slid her fingers across her skin, over her Adam's 
apple and back up to her mouth, where they gently rested at 
her lips. 

She felt the alien tube that had engorged her throat, having 
been shoved into her body with callous disregard for her 
humanity in that icy hell she'd suffered. It was just one 
more violation to her person, one more agony she'd been forced
to endure.

Bringing her hand away from her salty lips, she placed it next 
over the bullet scar on her abdomen, another painful reminder 
of life's fragility. It was another example of when she was 
forced to dance to the tune of another's whims. She and Mulder 
had been separated against their will, and she had almost died 
because of someone elses stupidity. 

Then with soft hiccups and quiet tears, she lay her hands 
across her barren womb, splaying her fingers out in tender 
caress.

What violations had occurred to her against her will? Besides 
the obvious ones that her body documented -- her sterility, the 
cancer held only in remission because of an alien chip 
implanted within her, her memories perhaps forever gone --
what else had been done that she could not, or would not 
remember?

And would Samantha's child/woman words help bring closure to 
her as well, or would they only open afresh the lightly scabbed 
wounds? 

Could she delve farther into the secrets of Samantha's past, 
at the expense of her own future? 

Because Scully wondered, as she stared at the woman she had 
become, would retrieval of the truth bring her the freedom her 
partner sought?

Or would it chain her more tightly to memories too painful 
to bear?

Looking at her now still features, Scully realized there was 
really no option. Grabbing the pajamas once more around her, 
she gathered the edges, buttoning them with sure fingers. In 
the morning, she would look; she would dig and bring them 
evidence on Samantha. She would help bring closure to Mulder 
and if that should re-open her own wounds, so be it. She would 
deal with them as well.

Staring into the mirror and looking deeply into her own eyes, 
Scully made peace with herself. 

She was a survivor. 

She would do this for him, for herself, and for their future.

The End