DISCLAIMER: The characters, Melissa Scully, Margaret Scully, Fox Mulder, and Dana Scully, do not belong to me. They belong to Chris Carter. Title: Breathe Again Rating: I can't imagine this being more than PG. Category: Melissa Scully/Margaret Scully relationship, Melissa Scully/Dana Scully relationship, Melissa Scully/Fox Mulder relationship, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully relationship Spoilers: One Breath Summary: Set during One Breath, the emotions and experiences of the characters in One Breath. It is largely on Melissa Scully's emotions and experiences, but also has Margaret Scully and Fox Mulder's emotions. Comments: I'd like to thank of course Chris Carter for creating this incredible show. I'd like to thank David Duchovny and GILLIAN ANDERSON for creating the sexual tension that no one else ever has. You guys have so much chemistry! Also, Melinda McGraw for portraying Melissa Scully. Others, Sheila Larken, all the shippers, and my mother! Breathe Again Melissa Scully’s Apartment November, 1994 Melissa just stepped out of the shower, the fastest shower she’d ever taken after a long exhausting day. The phone rang and made her jump, and she knew this wasn’t going to be good news. She tripped over a shoe on her way over to the phone and fell flat on her face. She struggled to get up and grab the phone. "Dammit, hello?" "Missy?" "Mom...what’s the matter?" "Melissa, it’s been so long since I’ve heard your voice." "What’s wrong mom?" "It’s...Dana." "What’s wrong? What happened?" Margaret Scully’s tears began eating her away. Melissa could barely understand her mother before, but now it was impossible. "Mom, whatever it is, tell me, it’ll be okay." "Your sister, she’s in the hospital. She’s in a coma, they don’t know why or what’s wrong with her." "Oh, Mom, I’ll be down there as soon as I can. I love you, it’ll be okay." Melissa Scully slammed down the phone and swore under her breath. Dana, what was wrong? Why didn’t they even know what was wrong with her? Melissa dried herself clean, and put on a dress. It was one of her favorites. She quickly put on a little make up, running around trying to gather everything she would need, for she knew her mother would want her to stay with her. She yanked up her shoes, put her hair up, gathered some clothes and put them in a suit case, grabbed her crystals, all in less than five minutes. She was exhausted. But she had to get to Dana. Nothing mattered as much as her sister. _______________________________________________________ Hospital 10:38 PM Melissa walked into Dana’s room. It was so difficult to see her sister hooked up to so many machines. Although Dana was a doctor, no one wants to be attached to equipment mechanically keeping you alive. She didn’t have any idea what some of them were for. She’d never had an interest in science like Dana. She’d had an interest in life, and people. Melissa’s eyes started to swell with moisture as she saw her sister mechanically breathing, eyes taped shut, EEG hooked up to her, monitoring her every breath. The breaths they helped her with. Melissa walked over closer to her sister, and placed her hand on Dana’s. She locked her fingers with Dana’s limp, lifeless hand, and Melissa kissed her sister’s cheek. Melissa opened her purse, desperately needing to talk to her sister, took out a crystal, a crystal Dana had given her when she was eighteen and moving out. Melissa smiled at the memory of her last night at home, talking with Dana all night. Melissa closed her eyes and concentrated. "Dana," she whispered. "Melissa...what’s happened? Where am I?" "Dana, you’re in the hospital, what do you see, where are you?" "I’m, I don’t know where I am. I’m tired, and I’m...alone." "Don’t be scared. You’re not alone. What do you see?" "I see you, you’re on land, I’m in the water. I’m being held to the land by a rope attached to the boat I’m sitting in. I feel so at peace, wonderful, but I feel trapped." "You see me? This is your mind’s way of showing you what’s going on. You’re trapped between two worlds. The world I’m in, and the world Dad’s in. Who else do you see?" "No one. Who else is with you? What happened to me?" "I don’t know Dana. I don’t know why you’re in this condition. Mom called me and told me you were in a coma. She said they didn’t know what was wrong with you. Do you remember anything?" "Missy, no, I don’t, I don’t remember. Is mom there? Mulder?" "Your partner? No, he’s not here, he’s probably with mom and your doctor. Does he have a first name?" "Yeah, it’s Fox, and he hates it. Missy...I see him, he’s behind you. I can’t make out his expression, but tell me how he is." Melissa opened her eyes from deep concentration. She looked at this man, Mulder, Fox Mulder and smiled slight. "I’ve been told not to call you Fox." "By who?" "Dana, just now," Melissa said calmly looking down at her sister. "Dana talked to you just now? If she’d talked, the EEG would’ve moved." "No," Melissa replied with a laugh, "Her soul is here." Margaret Scully walks in to see Dana, and is surprised to see her other daughter. "Hi Mom," Melissa says with an almost chaste smile. Margaret’s eyes filled with relief. "I’m glad you could come Melissa." "You’re Scully’s sister," Mulder asked stunned. Melissa just smiled. she thought. Melissa Scully closed her eyes and placed her hands over Dana’s dying body. She felt how much Mulder feared the death of her sister. She could feel his tension and angst. Anyone could. He really cared. "She’s choosing whether to...whether to remain or move on," Melissa said softly. Margaret Scully couldn’t stay. She walked away in more pain than she’d ever remembered. She couldn’t hear her daughter saying these things. Her baby girl, never coming back? It was too much to bare. "You can feel her," said Melissa as she gently took Mulder’s hand and placed it in the air over Dana’s body. Melissa felt her sister. She was there. Dana saw her sister, Mulder, and a nurse on the land. It pained her to see them, all safe when she couldn’t reach them. She sat there, quietly, in complete peace, and thinking about whether or not she wanted to go on, or come back. When you’re only thirty years old, you’d think that of course you’d want to return to your life, but here, there was no more suffering and there was so much comfort and peace. But there was her sister, her mother, Mulder, they all needed her... "She’s not here," Mulder said as a statement. "No your, your anger, your fear’s blocking the positive emotions she meets you." Mulder dropped his hand from Melissa’s, and looked at her. Melissa opened her eyes again. Concerned. "I need to do more than just wave my hands in the air." And he walked off. Melissa turned back to Dana. "Dana, I’ll be here. I’ll come and check on you again soon, but I need to go see Mom. We’ll both be back." _______________________________________________________ Margaret Scully’s residence 11:39 PM Melissa Scully knocked on the door, feeling bad for hurting her mother. She hadn’t intended it to be quite as painful as it sounded, but now looking back, Melissa felt stupid. How could she be so careless to say that Dana was thinking about moving on? Maggie Scully opened the door. Her face red from tears she’d wiped away. Melissa looked at her with complete empathy. She reached towards her mother, and embraced her soothingly. Maggie Scully slowly hugged her daughter back and broke down in tears. "Oh Missy, I love you so much. You two are everything and I cannot live without either one..." she cried. Melissa supported her petite mother to the chair in the eating room. Melissa’s eyes began to fill herself. Even though she knew death was perfectly reasonable and possible at any time in everyone’s life, this hurt. "Mom I know. I know you’ll live through it though. And I’m sorry." "For what?" "I was insensitive today. I didn’t mean to say what I did. But I didn’t think." "Oh, Missy," Margaret reached for her daughter’s arms and collapsed in the process. She cried and cried. "My baby girls, my most precious angels. You both, you’re so different, you always have been, but I love you both. I was coming home to gather some photos and belongings. They say that if you just keep talking to someone in a coma..." she cried. Melissa hugged her mother with supporting arms, trying to stay strong herself from her own soon to be loss. "You know, the most incredible injustice in this whole thing Missy is that...I can’t fix it. I can’t save her. I can’t bring her back. And I can’t help her because no one knows what’s wrong. And we don’t even know who’s to blame." Melissa’s silent tears now rolled down her face. Sure, she knew that Dana was at peace and was complete, but she had so much left to accomplish. She was only thirty. And she was dying...and no one knew how to fix it. Melissa and her mother cried themselves to sleep. _______________________________________________________ Hospital Next Day 1:32 PM Melissa and Mulder sat eating, or, she was eating, remaining calm and almost professional about the whole thing. She was staying together much better than the man who sat across from her with his head on the table, in irreversible guilt. She tried to comfort him, but it didn’t help. "You know Fox...sorry, Mulder," he shook his head telling her it didn’t matter. "You could spend the rest of your life trying to find out who’s responsible and it’s still not gonna bring her back. Whoever did this has an equal horror coming to them." "Including myself?" He surprised her. She knew he’d done everything he could’ve. Then, someone interrupted him asking for change for cigarettes, and he was out the door so fast Melissa didn’t even have a chance to hear his reply to her question. "What do you mean, yourself?" He was gone before he even looked at her again. _______________________________________________________ Dana’s Hospital Room 2:02 PM Melissa went into Dana’s room. Calm and hopeful, and eager to talk to her. "Dana?" "Missy, I’m still here." "You still feel trapped between two worlds?" "Yes, it’s peaceful, but...I have no where to go." "Dana, what’s your relationship with Mulder?" "Why? Is he okay?" "I don’t know. He found something written in a pack of Morleys, and left so quickly I have no idea what to think." "It sounds to me like he’s trying to find out who kidnapped me and what happened." "He feels responsible Dana." "But he’s not. He had nothing to do with it." "He cares so much, he hasn’t left you once. Well, just now, but he’s been here the whole time." "He and I are friends. Missy...tell me he’s okay. Tell me he didn’t go off and do something stupid." "Oh Dana, he’ll be fine. I think he’ll be back soon, but right now, I’m going to go talk to your doctor and Mom. I’ll see you soon. I love you. You’re my baby sister." Melissa bent down and kissed Dana’s forehead and squeezed her sister’s hand. _______________________________________________________ Dana’s Hospital Room 3:34 PM Melissa and her mother were about to let Dana go. It was the hardest thing Margaret Scully had ever done. Let her daughter go for respect and love. She wanted her daughter to be free. Free of being a vegetable for the rest of her life. Memories of her baby girl poured into Margaret’s head as she walked towards Dana, speaking words only meant for Dana. Giving birth to her third child, holding her for the first time and seeing the recognition in Dana’s eyes, her first smile, her first step, the first time Bill and Missy held her, Melissa and Dana playing in the snow...she could go on forever, and she wanted to. She wanted to remember all of those moments and keep them clutched to her heart forever. Melissa, standing back letting her mother have time with her dying daughter, once again had been a little, well, quite a bit insensitive. About terminating Dana’s life support because she was so far below the criteria written in her will. She’d been thinking only Melissa thoughts. What Melissa thought was best. She was a stone cold bitch sometimes. She’d hurt her mother, and Mulder. How could she be so obsessed in being right, than to try to comfort those who were losing the most? She’d originally been trying to defend Dana’s rights as a human. <‘We need to study her,’ she remembered Mulder saying. That is not what a dying person trapped between two worlds deserves. She deserves to be free, and it is no one else’s choice to make.> Melissa loved Dana, but people often thought that what she was more interested in, was being right. She’d been wrong her whole life, and she found something...faith that made her feel whole, and made that the biggest part of her life. Her faith. Dana had hers, Melissa had her own herself. When Melissa’s mother had stood up and about to decide to let Dana go, Melissa wanted to just have her mother comfort her as if she were a little girl again, but it was her mother who needed the comforting most. Melissa saw her sister, and her mother on the other side of the room, and realized that these two people were the ones who had loved her the most in the world. And now one was almost gone. It was so much to take, and she refused to believe that this wasn’t for the best. Margaret Scully walked away from her daughter, for a chance for Melissa, with a hand over her mouth and the other over her heart as two large tears rolled down her face. Melissa exhaled and walked over to Dana. She bent down and looked at her sister. "Hi sweety. I love you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be free. You are not a prisoner and there was no intention you would ever be. So, in a few minutes, you’ll be free. I’ll always love you, and you’re the role model for any woman on the planet. I want you though to come back to us if you can. I want you to breathe again. Breathe because you want to. "Do you remember Dana when I cut my foot on the back porch and got a splinter? I was sixteen and you were fourteen. You wanted so badly to help me, and you did. I was in so much pain but you got the splinter out. That’s when we all knew that pushy Dana was going to be Doctor Scully. I love you, and I know you’ll always be with us." Margaret and Melissa Scully they held each other and backed away with tears forming and pain increasing, and they released her. Freed her. Liberated her. Melissa could feel Dana drifting away, and it scared her. She knew though that they had done what was best... _______________________________________________________ Fox Mulder’s Apartment 7:30 PM Melissa knocked on the door, two or three times. "Mulder," she called listening at his door. He opened the door and startled her. "Sorry," she said. "Can I come in?" He just looked at her as if she were imposing. "For a second," she asked a little more demanding. He took her shoulder and lead her inside. She noticed his apartment was entirely dark and depressing. "Why’s it so dark in here?" "Because the lights aren’t on," he said. She looked at him with an almost sarcastic smile. "Okay," she said slowly. "I just came from the hospital. They said...she’s weakening, it could be...anytime. So I figured you’d wanna come down and see her." "Well I can’t," he said quickly. She was stunned. "Well I’d think that you would..." she said. "Yeah, I would, I can’t, not right now." She walked slowly over to him. "Listen. I don’t have to be physic to see that you’re in a very dark place. Much darker than where my sister is." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Willingly walking into darkness cannot bring her back at all. Only the light that..." "Oh ENOUGH, with the harmonics conversions crap okay, you’re not saying anything to me." Now she was getting angry. He was sitting in a dark apartment, losing himself and ready to point a gun and someone who he wasn’t even sure would be the key players in her sister’s abduction. He was waiting to throw away his life to protect someone who’s already moved on, and she’s crazy? "Why don’t you just drop your paranoia, and your cynicism, and your defeat. You know just because it’s positive and good doesn’t make it silly, or trite. I mean, why is so much easier for you to go around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel? I expect more from you. DANA expects more." She sighed as though she were talking to a brick wall at moved towards his front door to leave. She turned back towards him as he was leading her out. "Even if it doesn’t bring her back, at least she’ll know...as so will you." She slammed the door behind her. He felt embarrassed but grateful and amazed that she’d heard him. Her sister and mother were watching him. He wasn’t used to that. He took her cross out of his pocket. He held it in front of her. "I was holding this for you," as he gave it to her. Scully turned towards her mom who was smiling slightly with watery eyes. Scully turned back to Mulder not knowing exactly what to say. He turned to leave and looked for a second at Melissa. She watched him walk through the door with a hint of jealously and that look of, ‘I told you so’. The End Thank you for reading. I hope it was good. This was mainly what I believed was occurring between all the characters, and I added in scenes. I know this wasn’t a huge MSR story, this was mainly about Dana Scully’s family. Thanks. Completed in 1999