TITLE: With You Here AUTHOR: QueenMab E-MAIL: chivefairy@hotmail.com DISTRIBUTION: Everywhere okay, but mail would be appreciated. RATING: PG FEEDBACK: Would absolutely love some. CATEGORIES: S, V, MSR KEY-WORDS: None I can think of. SPOILERS: Requiem (of course) SUMMARY: This is an inner-monologue job on Scully's part. Her train of thought just before and when Mulder returns. More emotional than informative (if you get what I mean). NOTES: I know I disappeared for ages, but I'd say I'm pretty well back now. Consider this little story as a warm up for my next epic, and then I'll really be back on track. My next big projct is going to be a runes story too, about a crazy girl who gets struck by lightning and gets posessed by a Celtic goddess who makes her do things by sending her messages through the runes. Pretty cool huh? Anyway, enjoy my first ever non-epic! The rune featured in this story is 'Ing' from Tyr's Aett and is described as meaning "completion - the certaintly of a conclusion. This can include, for example, the male orgasmic force (!) or the birth of a child as the conclusion to pregnancy...It also symbolises protection, and contains the idea of a beacon - a light shining in the darkness, and therefore, spiritual aspiration." -From 'Runes' by David V. Barrett. DISCLAIMER: The characters of Mulder and Scully or the show The X Files doesn't belong to me (at least, that's what I'd like everybody to *think*...) they belong to CC DA MAN and Ten Thirteen and Fox sure. fine. whatever. DECICATED: To myself for getting predicted all A's for my A Levels. ***** With You Here ***** Morning is almost here, let it wait I just want to lie here a while, tempting fate I don't think I could breathe now, with you gone But its not weakness, its just something I've become - Heather Nova: Not Only Human. ***** With you gone I see blood in your veins. I see your heart and it beats, and it keeps you warm, and it beats. I look at your mother across the table, and I feel sick. And I feel useless because I can’t answer her questions, and I feel dread because I can’t answer mine. Why did you leave me here? She gets up to show me something. A picture sits in the top drawer of your desk. “We keep this here now - with him gone,” she says. With you gone. She takes out the back of the frame and reveals a silver pendant shaped like a hollow diamond. There are tiny crystals embedded in the silver. I hold out my hand and she drapes it over my palm. “It’s a rune. It symbolises the certainty of a conclusion. It belonged to Samantha. He never even knew he had it. I think you should keep it now.” Then without another word she leaves, her voice silent to the loss you left her with. The door closes and shuts me in with you. It’s the way I like it to be, with the rest of the world shut out. With whoever stole you shut out. The picture, I realise, is of you. I look at it searchingly, trying to force your image to come alive by sheer concentration, trying to find a glimmer of what I’ve lost in two-dimensional remembrance. But the more I try to find you, it seems, the further away you become, and the bleak silence of a mere memory protrudes through the picture frame and slowly, I place it to one side. This place still smells of you, even though its been over two years since you left. The overhead fan is on and every few seconds I get a blast of you, of the way things used to be. I pull the cord to stop it, and hang your sister’s pendant on one of the paddles. Then I start it again and lie down on your sofa. Partly, I admit, because I am afraid of the necklace flying off and having my eye out. That wouldn’t do, would it? Not with you gone. But it doesn’t fly off, it just stays there, going round and round, not reaching any particular conclusion. I watch it travelling round, I don’t know for how long, but soon the sun is reflecting little rainbows onto your walls off of it, which means its shining through your window, which means it must be sunset. I see your eyes in every spectrum on your wall, and your memory invades my space once again. I turn away from your apartment and your fan and your sister and your convictions and creak in the leather sofa towards the wall. Life is silent now, peaceful now, now that you are gone, now that all that remains is your memory. Though perhaps just a memory is all you could ever be. I’m sure we were something more than that - I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure. I search my mind for something to prove it, something to show that we had more than we had. Did you ever belong to me? Am I justified in feeling so grieved as I am? No; nothing is broken as nothing was made. I have to get upIhavetogetupIhaveto- No. Not with you gone. You were the fire in the furnace - you were - I felt your heat in me I felt it! But not now, not anymore, not here, not where I am, where I am your light is no more than a vague glow. Come back now please, come back. Mulder, I am afraid of the dark. I can’t breathe with you gone. I’m afraid of what I am without you. Do you remember now? Do you remember what you stole from me, all those years ago? Do you know what has been stolen from me now? The light, the flame, you were thelightyouwerethelightyouwerethelight. Are you alive? Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why ask myself questions I can’t answer? I breathe in a sigh and turn on to my back. The cracks on the ceiling offer me temporary relief. I can’t do this to myself. I have a daughter now. I never imagined that I would find it difficult to get close to my child, after all that I’ve been through, but to tell you the truth the more pregnant I got, the less I wanted your child. And she is your child, much more than she is mine. Oh God, I’m so sorry. Its just that she reminds me of you and I can’t - I’m sorry. God. Time. Time is so hard to live with. Time dampens my cheeks like the dawn with the dew. Oh why get poetic? Silence is another thing that I hate. I want to scream but I can’t. I envy your daughter’s noise. I do love her I do love her, I do. I have to love her because she is part of you. If I lose that love then what do I have left? Now that I’ve lost all hope, all faith, of you ever returning. I look back a the pendant swinging round maddeningly. Here’s a conclusion for you. Here’s what I think: I think that they saw it, they saw that I was getting too close to you, and that you were too close to them, and that therefore the answer is simple. Therefore you disappeared to smother the flame. Was I really such a leech to you? Well I’m sorry that I had to suck so much out of you, Sorry I took up so much of your time, Sorry I woke you, Sorry I had to feel your skin and hear your voice. I should never have met you. Please come back, please come back so that I can love her without feeling guilty, so that I can love her without feeling sorry for myself. God I am so awful. Why didn’t they leave you and take me? You should have had this baby, I don’t deserve to be a mother. I know that she is the best thing that could ever have happened to me (apart from you) and I do love her. I love her too much. Yes, perhaps that’s what it is. Maybe I love her so much that it eclipses itself. Maybe its just that I can’t take how much I love her, because in loving her I am loving you as well and I can’t stand it. The necklace is suddenly flung away from the fan and it snaps into the wall next to me, and falls down the back of the sofa. I sit up because I feel you close. It’s boiling hot in here, I realise. Dragging myself away from my hurt I stand up, pausing only momentarily while a head rush passes. First I open a window, then I struggle to move the sofa away from the wall so that I can reach your sister’s pendant. I can’t see it down there, but I reach my arm in the gap nonetheless, because its yours and I’d feel bad if I had lost it. I reach and I reach and I reach and I still can’t find it. I sit back on my heels, dejected that I’ve lost my conclusion. No, this won’t do. Where the hell is it? It fell down there, for God’s sake! I push the sofa out further still, but it won’t go that far because of the rug and the coffee table. I lie flat on my stomach so I can reach further in - I’d go around the other side if it wasn’t for that damn fish tank, which, by the way, still has your fish in it. It’s not here it’s not here. As I stand up and walk around to push the sofa back I stub my toe on the coffee table. It fucking hurts, and before I know it I am crying again. I sit down on the sofa with my head between my knees and I hate myself because I can’t stop weeping. No, this won’t do with you gone. I can’t become like one of those crazy people, I can’t - its just not me. But I keep crying because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of myself and I’m afraid of what might happen if I stop. IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou. Why did you leave me with my fear? I’d stop crying now that I’m angry with you but its only that now I can smell you and I’m wondering why, and it hurts because you aren’t this real anymore. I’m crying and I don’t notice you standing there infront of me, but you lay your hand on my head. I gasp because I know that its you but I can’t believe it. I look up and almost break my neck with the sharpness of it, but there you are, with a silly grin on your face, marred only slightly by your concern at my present state. “Oh my God,” I hear myself mutter as I stand up suddenly, forcing you to step back so that you nearly fall over the coffee table. My hands are shaking as I grab your thin face, as I pat your haggard shoulders and your dry hair clumsily like how a baby would stroke a cat. I’m shaking I’m shaking uncontrollably and my blood is thick in my ears. I want to scream but I have no voice - not with you - he’sherehe’sherehe’shere You’re here, you are. I can’t breathe with you here. You grab my wrists because I’m becoming quietly hysterical and you can see it coming. If anything, the strength you have retained in your arms despite how weak you look has stopped me from collapsing. God all I need is for you to be real, that’s all. All I need is a little bit of dream to become reality - please, please let this be real. “Scully,” you say firmly, “Scully, calm down. I’m home.” And that’s it. You’re home. That’s all I need. I have so many questions to ask you, so many things to tell you, so much to inform you of, that I brim over and actually cry out, falling into your arms. “Scully, God, you’re worse than I am,” you chuckle. And I feel you, and I smell you and your laugh resonates in your chest and I’m so happy that I can’t even comprehend - Now that I’ve stopped shuddering you sit me down and kneel infront of me, holding my hands. I can’t bare to look at your face because I’m worried for my mental health at this point. I breathe deeply. You appear to be speechless too. You haven’t said anything anyway. I turn your hands over in mine, so that I can look at them and feel them just incase it isn’t really you. Your hands look older but they are so warm that I can’t believe anything but them being yours. Now I can look at you. “Mulder, if I look up and you disappear I’ll never forgive you.” You chuckle weakly, and I draw my eyes to yours. They are there, the same sad eyes, the same eyes as the eyes that left me, deep with character, shimmering with light, saturated with love. And you don’t disappear. Your eyes flit rapidly from one of mine to the other, like a match trying to strike a flame. I smile broadly, and I give you my focus, and you know that you’ve reignited me. “I-” But I stop. I mustn’t say anything now. I will tell you about your daughter later. Right now it is just you and me, like it always was, with you here. There is time for the future, but there is no time like the present to act as a fuse to the past. You let go of my hands and I grapple for you, but you take my hands and lay them gently back in my lap. “It’s okay,” you say, “I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not ever again.” And I feel so encapsulated by your love that I might suffocate but I don’t say anything. I can’t. You reach round your neck and I notice that you are still wearing my cross. You take it off and fasten it back round my neck, and for a moment I am still terrified that I might lose you again, and this time without a little piece of me. I clutch your hands again just incase you do. “I wish I could speak,” I say. You laugh. Louder this time, and it makes me smile again. “Don’t worry,” you say. “I’ve been waiting two years to talk to you again, once I start talking you’ll never get me to stop.” I have to hold you now so I throw my arms around your neck and cling to you. I don’t know what happened to the calm and collected Scully that you left, but for now my stoicism is definitely lying low. You begin to talk quietly to me, your hands on my back. “Scully I’ve been in a strange place for a long time, and I worried that when I got back I wouldn’t feel the same about this place or the people I left here as I did before. I was right; I do feel differently, but not in an anxious or awkward way. I feel more at home than I ever did, and I don’t think I even realised that I missed this place as much I did.” You keep saying “this place.” Do you mean your apartment, Washington, DC or Earth? “There was one thing that I was certain about the whole time though, Scully. And that was how much I wanted to get home to you, how much I missed you. I didn’t know what was going on half the time I was away, although I know I played an important part in something huge, but every waking hour I spent on my own, and every time I went to sleep, the only thing I thought of was you. I wondered for a long time if I’d ever get back to you, and I thought of a million things I wish I had said before I left. Now we have the rest of our lives for me to say them, and I’m so happy about that.” You are crying now, I can feel your tears running down the back of my neck. I pull away from our embrace, and you hang your head, as if you are ashamed. “Mulder you’re right, we do have the rest of our lives. And I never doubted that you wouldn’t come back, and I’ve known what you would have told me then all along.” You look up now, and your eyes are smiling, and they say “I love you.” I take your face in my hands, and I kiss your forehead, just as I used to do whenever you moved me to tears. Suddenly you look distracted, you have noticed something somewhere to my left. With one hand resting on my knee you stretch around the left arm of the sofa with the other. I am concerned because I can see your spine too clearly, and my medical mind immediately starts to prescribe you with various remedies. You move back and open your hand. In it is Samantha’s rune pendant. I look at you and you look up at me, surprised. “How did this get here?” You ask like your daughter. And I stare at the pendant in your palm and I know that I have my conclusion. “You had it. You had it all along, and you didn’t realise.” I say it to myself. If I ever get over the shock of this I will tell you what I’ve been doing for the last two years, not that I really remember anything clearly, and you can try and tell me, but I’m sure you feel the same. Nevermind, then we won’t talk of that, it doesn’t matter with you here. With you here the flame is alight. With you here I can love you. With you here. ***** END ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Worldwide Calling with Firetalk! 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