Title: Timeless Author: Foxie Meg Rating: PG Spoilers: Requiem, This Is Not Happening Summary: Just a little conjecture and character-study for the above-mentioned episodes. Disclaimer: I don't care what you say, Chris, Mulder says he's mine, and that's the end of it. Just kidding! Don't sue! Feedback: It's not even a question anymore, is it? megan86@thexfiles.com Archive: Just tell me where (I like to know these things) and keep my name on it. Author's Notes: Inspiration is owing to Stevie Nicks' song "Beauty and the Beast" that just reminded me so much of Mulder I had to do something with it; to Gillian Anderson for a breathtaking performance that still rips my soul into tiny little shreds; and to David Duchovny, for loving Mulder as much as I do. ------------------ You're not a stranger to me And you, well you're something to see You don't even know how to cling You say a lot but you're unaware how to leave My darling lives in a world that is not mine An old child, misunderstood, out of time Timeless is the creature who is wise And timeless is the prisoner in the stars Oh, who is the beauty, who the beast? Would you die of grieving when I leave? Two children, too blind to see I would fall in your shadow, I believe My love is a man who's not been tamed Oh, my love lives in a world that calls pleasure "pain" We come from different worlds, but we are the same I never doubted your beauty -- I've changed --"Beauty & The Beast" - Stevie Nicks --------------------- Not a stranger. A mystery, yes. Stranger? Not at all. My God, I love this man. I love to look at him. Lying next to me, beautiful sensuous mouth relaxed in sleep. His face is more familiar to me than my own. I have never allowed myself to think of my own beauty; rarely indulged myself with long, studious sessions with just my mirror and myself. Melissa used to do that. She said she didn't like the idea of living with a stranger, so she got to know herself. I don't like the idea of living with a stranger either, so I am getting to know myself in the form of the graceful, fluid lines of the almost feline body stretched out beside me. Now that I think about it, he is very much feline. He brings to mind one of the big cats at the zoo. Not so much a lion, but even more sensuous -- more feral. A tiger. Yes, a tiger. The way he prowls, pounces, plays. All so much like a tiger. His massive hands, so delicate and so strong... long, artistically sculpted fingers that can make me shiver with delight simply by fluttering across a map to show me where we might be going next. Feral eyes, glittering green or gold or deep, warm brown. A mouth that can only be described as =lush=... soft, gentle... harsh lines of anger at times... delicious curve of sunshine at others... but always utterly beautiful. That's what he is, beautiful. But he won't allow himself to need me too much. Not even in this moment. He says everything to me in his eyes... he can't hold me when he is asleep. He sleeps with his arms crossed over his chest, protecting himself. Tonight... tonight he has relaxed and reached out. Tonight his fingertips barely brush my stomach, and I touch his hand with my own. He whimpers in his sleep, and his hand catches mine -- clings, reflexively. "Scully!" his voice is a hoarse burst of panic as he awakes suddenly with a jerk of pure fear, and he almost throws himself onto me, his face burrowing into my neck. "Ssh, Mulder, I'm here... I'm here..." I whisper soothingly, stroking his neck and the back of his shoulders, occasionally trailing my hand down his spine a little ways before it comes back up to cradle his head, sifting through his hair. "Scully..." And his voice is a broken sob. His body is wracked with them now. His arms are around me, clinging desperately, almost crushing my ribs. But I don't mind... I don't mind at all. I am relieved that he is awake, or at least in a normal nightmare. My mind is running through fragments of words that might be used to comfort them but none are coming. His pain, his desperation is ripping apart my soul and I want nothing more than to swallow his tears, his sobs, the blood of his soul... and to kiss away whatever wound is causing them. "Scully, I love you and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." He is still apologizing for things I never blamed him for. He has been apologizing for them all night, ever since I came into his room, shivering and needing to feel his arms around me. I find it fittingly ironic then that I am comforting him now. "Ssh... sweetie, it's all right... it's all right... I'm here, baby, I'm here..." It doesn't occur to me until much, much later that I cooed terms of endearment to him that are usually reserved for dealing with hurting children. But that's what he is. He is still a child in so, so many ways. "An old child." His life is defined by pain. Everything he has is painful to him; even his love for me is twisted by the acid of the soul-tearing pain that sometimes rips through his trachea in the form of chilling screams in the middle of his worst night terrors. Night terrors are different than nightmares, and most people grow out of it. In fact, I have never heard of a case where anyone experienced them past childhood. But Mulder is wracked by them. My heart breaks every time. They were fewer and less frequent for a while, but after his surgery in the fall, they have become more violent and visit him almost every night. He sits up in bed, his eyes wide and glassy, and throws himself backwards, his back flat against the wall as if he is trying to shrink into it, his arms splayed out from his body, gripping the flat plaster surface so hard his fingertips and knuckles turn ghostly white. He presses himself into the wall, scrambling to escape unseen terrors, and screams -- high and shrill, like those of the Irish banshee spirit that foretells someone's death -- tear from his throat and chest as he begs some unnamed entity to let him be. Not to take him. To leave him with me. I wonder if he dreams of aliens, ever since the space ship I found in Africa. Yes, I do admit privately to myself that it had to have been a spacecraft. I wonder if he dreams of mutants, of hideous beings that want nothing more than to suck his lifeblood. I wonder if he dreams of serial killers, souls that are perhaps more monstrous than the "monsters" we sometimes chase. I wonder, too, if he dreams of Death. Simple Death, his old friend... his friend that has never been far from him all his life. Death that barely bypassed him when he was twelve, snatching his sister from him instead. I cannot wake him when he is in the grip of these terrors. He is in the deepest part of sleep, deeper than any part of the cycle any normal adult experiences, and absolutely nothing will wake him. I can only sit beside him in the bed, clutching myself and crying silently for him, praying that he will not harm himself in his desperation to escape whatever viciousness fights to take him from me. That is why my tears are half of joy as he clings to me now, because I know he is lucid, that he is not fighting this nameless, faceless foe that I cannot help him battle. The relief in my chest is a burst of tangible pleasure-pain as I sob into his hair, vowing to fight whatever I can for him, with him... silently pleading with him to not face those things that I cannot help him face. *** My breath catches in my throat, my heartbeat stills to nothing, and I feel I am suspended in time. It lasts longer than forever, as I see him in front of me and feel the tears in my eyes. Feel the contraction in the pit of my stomach. The love, the fear, the desperation, the joy... the emotions that want to rip themselves out as a scream of panic... of ecstasy. His name is on my lips but never makes it to my vocal cords. The enigmatic smile is on his lips, he is dressed in shadows long familiar to me. His hands are stuffed casually into the pockets of his trench coat, and his eyes sparkle with a mirth and a love that makes my pulse sob with the need to clasp him to me. The blue halflight that filters in through the window makes him appear ethereal and unreal, and I almost think I could breathe him in. He is possessed of peace now, and his timeless beauty makes me want to cry at the peculiar, sharp pleasure of this expression. Then my name is called. I turn, eager to tell this woman that he's come back to me after all. That he wasn't part of a cult. But as soon as my eyes leave him, I know something is wrong. Time began again, and he is out of time. I whirl back to look at him and he is gone. Only the starlight remains. Dear God... I know he was there. He has left me, after all, hasn't he? *** His night terrors have become mine. This is no nightmare; this is worst than the worst nightmare. Nothing but adrenaline pumps through my body and all I can do is run, run, run... the pain in my lungs from gasping the suddenly-chilled air is welcome, it makes me feel alive. It makes me hope he is alive, or will be soon. I swallow the darkness with every breath and it swells inside of me until it is part of me and I am flying through the night sky, feeling the breath of starlight on my forehead as time melts and leaks out the corners and seams of eternity. I hear his voice, rumbling deep in my own throat as if he is murmuring it against me in a haze of contentment as he often did just before he would drift off to sleep. "I love you, Scully." Then I feel the pounding of the hard earth beneath my feet and know I am once again in time, my lungs screaming with the pain of desperation as I gulp in deep breaths of air, stopping uncertainly at the bright shaft of light bursting through the slats of wood. "Jeremiah... Jeremiah..." He is gone. He is gone now, isn't he? Oh God, no, no, no... "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!" No, Mulder isn't gone he isn't dead he can't be dead he isn't dying this is just another bad dream I'm going to wake up in a minute and find out that he is holding me... And I am suspended once more, facing eternity... a dark pool, bottomless with pricks of starlight swimming in its depths... it becomes his eyes and I hear his hoarse whisper. "Goodbye." And the scream of denial that rips through my throat tears the bottom out from under me and drops me back into the harsh realm where time marches on without him, without his beauty, without his soul that now dwells in the timelessness of the stars with his sister and my daughter. I feel the starlight trickle down my throat and wonder if it is his tears... the last tears of regret he will ever cry... apologies for leaving me here in time. ---------------------------