For my grandmother, Marjorie.
 

ASHORE  1/1
By: Jennifer Maurer
 

"I felt the nurse had been instructed to show
me my alternatives.  Either I got better, or I
fell down, down, like a burning, then burnt-out
star..."
        --Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar>
 

God, I'm so tired.  How many times have I had that thought? Too many to count.  People say
that all the time; I've said it myself, around a big yawn.  <I'm so tired I could die.>  I
never really knew what that statement meant until now.  This time I mean it literally.
Melissa is here, she's pulling on me, but it doesn't help.  Not enough.  That nurse was
right, death is in arm's reach.  The rope has snapped.  I am the only thing holding myself
here.  And I'm so tired...so heavy.

Mulder was here before.  I could feel him.  "She's not here," he'd said curtly to Melissa.
That hurt.  I'm right here, I wanted to scream at him.  I can see you standing there on the
dock, can't you see me?  Look at me!  I'm not *that* far away!  Melissa can feel me.  Why can't you?

Anger.  That's all I felt from him.  Not anger at me, but at himself.  At the people, whoever
they were, who did this to me.  It flowed from him in waves, like opening an oven.  That's
what Mulder's heart felt like, an oven, full of nothing but white hot baking heat.  Dry as a
desert.  It hurt more to breathe when he was around.  I wondered what he'd been like while I
was gone.  I had a pretty good idea.

I heard the doctor tell Mom and Melissa that I had no awareness of myself or my environment.
Hey, I wanted to say, just because I chose not to respond to your stimuli doesn't mean I'm
unaware.  What's the old joke---I'm not deaf, I'm ignoring you.  This *is* my choice, right?
I could wake up if I wanted to, couldn't I?  I just choose not to yet.  I may *never* wake up
but oddly the thought doesn't scare me.  Sitting in this little rowboat is nice, maybe
death is a luxury cruise.  See, I've even retained my sense of humor.  I am *too* here, Mulder.

I admit it, I was scared when they took me off the ventilator.  I knew they thought I wouldn't
survive and I had my doubts, too.  I watched the rope tethering my boat to the dock grow
taut, stretch, and snap.  My lungs locked.  I fully expected to drift farther away from that
dock, watching Mulder, Mom and Melissa recede into the distance in complete silence.  But
that didn't happen.

After what felt like an eternity, I felt my chest expand with air.  I drew a deep breath, let it out.
One.  In, out.  Two.  After the fifth breath I decided I was going to be okay.
Mom and Melissa were relieved, I could tell.  The oxygen helps but I *am* breathing on my own.
It feels more natural than having some respirator pushing my lungs full.  It also feels more dangerous.  If
I stop, if I can't breathe, I know they're not going to save me.  My living will forbids it.

So now it's entirely up to me to keep going.  The desire is there...for now.  The
ability...well, that's another story.  So far, so good, but I think I felt better when I knew
I was tied to the dock.  Now I'm frozen in this boat, afraid the tiniest motion will start a
whirlpool that will suck me under.  Fragile, I feel much more fragile.

Mulder isn't helping.  I heard him screaming at someone, that was the first I head his voice in
what seems like forever.  Thanks, Mulder, nice welcome.  Have a temper tantrum, then deny my
presence here.  So much anger.  He sounds like he hasn't been sleeping, his smooth tones are
jagged and harsh.  I miss his voice, miss his little whispers under his breath to me when
he's trying to be coy.  Mulder, why don't you come sit by me and talk to me like *that*?

Every time he comes to see me he never stays, and that hurts.  Couldn't he take a break from
his investigation of me and just *be* with me instead?  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate his
efforts to learn the truth about what happened to me. But what good will the truth do me right
now?  It won't make me decide to come back.  Can't it wait, Mulder?  It's kind of unsettling
to know that *I* have become his new quest.  His new obsession.  I imagine I've even taken
priority over Samantha, and that scares me the most, I think.  I've watched Mulder obsess
about his sister for almost two years now.  I've seen what lengths he'll go to, the risks he will take.  I don't want to be responsible for him that way.  Especially not right now.  I'm having enough trouble feeling responsible for myself.

It's funny, I've always been the responsible one in the family. Melissa was always the free
spirit and Dana was the rock.  Even when I went against Ahab's wishes and joined the FBI
instead of going into private practice, we all still knew I was going to have a solid career,
unlike Melissa, who's been drifting around God knows where for the past few years.  I wonder
how Mom even got in touch with her, anyway.  Doesn't matter.  I'm glad she's here, I can
feel her strength and it comforts me.  Even if she's not sure I'll survive, either.  I know
Melissa thinks I'm on my way to a better place, and her conviction in that helps me maintain my belief.

I want Mulder, though.  Without him there's just something missing.  I think it's the fact that he still refuses to give up on me.  Despite all his anger and fear, I can sense that he knows I'm not a lost cause yet.  Mom and Melissa are trying to be optimistic but I can tell their hope is fading the longer I stay
here.  Mulder, oddly enough, is the beacon of hope.  In spite of all his cynicism, he wants to believe.  In *me*.  The irony does not escape me: not only does Mulder flout my scientific logic every chance he gets, he also refuses to believe the doctors who say that I am going to die.  His stubborn refusal to
accept cold, scientific facts has always driven me nuts.  Tonight it just might save me.

The frayed end of the rope sways back and forth in the water, still in reach of the dock, but
just barely.  Someone could reach down, grab it, and tie it back onto the dock.  Or, I could
reach down and reel it in, coil it on the floor of my boat so no one can get at it.  Neither choice seems the right one so for now it just floats along.  I wonder which way the current will carry it.  I wonder if Mulder affects the current, if Mom and Melissa do.  If I do.  If that nurse does.

The nurse, Owens I think she said her name was, seems to be the only constant in this scenario.
Mom and Melissa come and go.  Mulder makes his occasional appearance, smoldering like a dying
coal.  Even Frohike was here, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I noticed his bow
tie.  And flowers...he brought me flowers.  Very sweet.  I heard him and Mulder talking,
hushed tones.  Conspiracy talk, I'm sure, theorizing about what happened to me.  Give it
up, I wanted to shriek, wanted to bolt upright in bed.  Wouldn't *that* freak Mulder out?
It's alive, the monster walks...

I feel like a monster with all this machinery hooked up to me.  Melissa doesn't like it
either, and it strikes me as odd that we feel the same about this.  The scientist and the
psychic.  She doesn't think it's natural, and although I can't believe I'm saying this, right
about now I agree with her.  Well, maybe it's not *that* surprising, I did write this living
will, after all.  Being a doctor, I knew better than most the steps that are taken to prolong a
life.  And while I appreciate the technology, even take advantage of it, I do not want it for
myself.  I drew thick black X's in the boxes: after a certain point (and my "point" was more
specific than most), no feeding tubes.  No medications except to keep me out of pain.  No
heroic measures. When I was eighteen I watched my grandmother die a slow, horrible death
and I vowed that would never happen to me.  I watched her struggle to go, even while medicine was
doing everything in its power to make her stay.  She wasted away into a shadow of her former
self, no longer the woman I had loved and yet at the same time still familiar to me.  Was this what death looked like, I wondered.  Since becoming a pathologist I have learned that
death takes many forms.  Even after everything I've seen, however, my grandmother's long road
to death still haunts me as the worst way to leave this life. Becoming a doctor only
strengthened my resolve: if I'm going, let me go in peace.  When it becomes medically,
scientifically clear that I can no longer stay in this body, do not force me to.  Melissa is right, it isn't natural.

This seems to be something everyone can handle...everyone except Mulder.  Odd, because
he signed the living will as my witness, just as I signed his.  It was no big deal at the time; in our line of work, you know the worst can happen at anytime.  Never did I dream, when
I asked Mulder to sign, that it would end up like this.  A car crash maybe, I thought; at
worst, getting shot in the line of duty.  But not this.  Never this.  I asked him to sign
because I knew he would respect my wishes.  Of course, I know Mom or Melissa would, too, but
somehow I thought Mulder would handle it better, perhaps be able to detach himself more.
Then again, I didn't take into account his need to blame himself.

I wonder what he was like after Samantha was taken.  He's obsessive now, and we both know
when it started.  What a terrible thing to have happen to a boy of twelve.  I know his father
allowed Mulder to blame himself, and for that I would happily wring his neck.  What would he
have been like if none of it had ever happened, if Samantha had remained where she belonged to
grow up happy?  A mind boggling thought, since so much of Mulder's life was destroyed by her
absence.  Has my absence destroyed the rest of him?  Would my death finish him off?  The
thought makes me sad but does not inspire panic in me like it would the living Dana Scully.
What a horrible way to refer to my waking self, as "the living."  But that's who she is, I am
someone completely different here.  I am aware of my emotions but I'm not actively
participating in them.  It's an odd sensation, and hard to describe.  I think it's because
Someone, or Something, wants me to make the decision to stay or leave with a clear head,
and emotions don't often allow you to do that.

The best way I can think of to describe it is like watching a movie.  I hesitate to use the
cliché because that's how everyone describes near-death experiences.  I rose above my body,
and traveled down a tunnel to the bright light...I mean, come on.  Give me a break.
Maybe I'll come back and write a book disputing all the other books about near-death
experiences.  Mulder would love that, I'm sure.  Tunnel?  Bright light?  Nah, just a rowboat on
a quiet lake.  My book could sit on the shelves right beside the "true" stories of alien
abductions.  Come to think of it, I could probably write one of those too, couldn't I?

How ironic.  Why didn't they take Mulder?

That's a thought I hate myself for having.  I do not wish this on him; I wouldn't wish it on
my worst enemy.  I can't remember anything of what they did to me, I only know it was bad.
Painful.  Wondering why he wasn't taken, it's not a malicious wish.  Merely curiosity.  If
they wanted to knock the life out of the X-Files, why not him?  Take him and never bring
him back.  Mulder was the heart and soul of the X-Files, I was just the observer.  No, that
wasn't true.  Working with Mulder, the X-Files have come to mean a lot to me.  But I don't
have his drive, his obsessiveness, and they know it.  They should have known he'd do
anything and everything to find me, to bring me back.  Now here I am, lying right in front of
him, and he's careening out of control.  This isn't what they wanted.  If they actually
thought I could be used to bring Mulder into line, they were dead wrong.  That was my
original purpose, yes, but the time for that has long since passed.  I haven't been their
puppet for a long time, but after this little field trip...no way.  Oh, I'll still be the
skeptic, the anchor that keeps him from going completely off the deep end...but on *my* terms
from now on.

Mulder...where are you?

Mom and Melissa are losing hope for me.  Mom is so sad, she doesn't want to lose me so soon
after Ahab.  Melissa is sad, too, but it's tempered by her belief that karma will repay
whoever did this to me.  And that I'm going to a better place.  Oh, Mom believes that, too,
like a good Catholic.  But Melissa *feels* it more deeply, I think.  Just like she can feel
me.  She told Mulder I was deciding whether to stay or move on.  Very perceptive, Missy.  For
once we agree on something.

I think the mist is getting heavier.  The forest around this lake is getting harder to
make out, the trees are blurry.  It's not bad, though.  The mist is soft and cool.
Refreshing.  It feels nice to breathe in, like stepping outside on a sweet spring day.

Mulder's not here but he's still angry.  I can feel it.

I'm glad they took the tape off my eyes.  It made me feel claustrophobic.  How the hell was
I supposed to wake up with my eyes taped shut?  Oh, right, I'm not expected to awaken.  Ever.

Funny how that still doesn't bother me.

God, I'm tired.  Bone tired.

Is this what dying feels like?  It's not so bad.  I was scared when the rope snapped,
freeing my boat from the dock.  Rather, I knew I was *supposed* to be scared.  I was
intellectually aware of the concept of fear, but it's not like I was shaking with fright or
anything.  If this is what other people experience I can understand why they'd want to
write about it, tell others not be afraid of death.

My breaths are getting shallower.  Is my heartbeat slowing down or is that my imagination?

I think the doctor is back.  I can feel Mom and Missy nearby and their anxiety is more acute.
Must not be good news.  I think this is the home stretch.  I have been feeling myself
weaken bit by bit.  I'm really dying.  My first thought is to compare it to hanging from a high
place, and watching your aching fingers slowly slip off.  No, that's not right, there is no
clenching of hands.  It's more as if...I'm a child, falling asleep, and gradually loosening
my hold on a beloved toy.  The relaxation sinks deeper and deeper, gently unhanding me.

It's colder on the lake.  Cold that is getting ready to sink through my flesh.  I'll be cold
all over soon.

More mist, it blocks the sun.

The boat's rocking now.  The mirror of water shows ripples.  Oh, God, I'm going to drift
away.  I wish I could say goodbye, tell Mom and Missy that I love them.  I wish I could tell
Mulder...what?  That I love him, too?  Yes.  No room for lies here, might as well admit it to
myself.  I love him.

Too late.  I'm sorry, Mulder.  I can't...can't do this anymore.

In, out.  Another breath.  How many left?

There was a phrase by Sylvia Plath I always liked..."I took a deep breath and listened to
the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am."  My breathing chants the same, only to a
slightly different beat.

I am.  I...am.  Slowing down, like a forgotten watch.

Mulder, why...

The boat's moving.  Drifting.  Where?  Away.

It's not a whirlpool, as I'd feared.  Just floating.  Hypnotic.  Soothing.  The surface is
calm but underneath I sense a strong current.

A grunt of surprise escapes my lips.

The boat jerks, once.  Someone has the rope.  I squint through the mist to see.  Mulder.  He's
lying on the dock, with one arm stuck in the water up to his shoulder.  He's...looking for
the rope.  Seems to have found it.  He stands up, the frayed end clutched tightly in one
hand.  He wraps it around his fist and the boat jerks again.  He sits down on the dock, and
stares across the water at me.

"I feel, Scully, that you believe...you're not ready to go.  And you've always had the
strength of your beliefs.  I don't know if my being here...will help bring you back...but I'm
here."

Oh, my God.  Did Mulder really say that?  Those are the first words I've heard from him that
weren't laced with anger.  I want to answer him more than anything, but my throat closes with
the threat of tears and all that comes out is a small, choking noise.  Can he hear that, did I really make a noise?  I don't know for sure but my hand is held in his strong, warm one.  Oh, I wish I could squeeze his hand back, let him know I heard him.  I concentrate all my energies to moving my fingers even a little but
I sense nothing.  Will he let go if he doesn't get a response from me?  Mulder, please don't
let go.  You are all that is keeping me here, I think.  Any strength I have right now comes
from you.  I hate to admit that but it's true.  I am weak, Mulder, I need you to anchor me.

This is the crisis.  This is when I make my decision, which seems a powerful thing to say
until I'm reminded of how powerless I am right now...I can't even hold my partner's hand.  My
desire to do so matters not, I don't have the ability.  If I can't even squeeze Mulder's hand
how will I ever get myself back to shore?

For the first time, I am scared.  For the first time, I feel an emotion...I want to stay.  I
want to wake up and live. I want...to see Mulder again.

He sits on the dock, unmoving, cross-legged like a Buddha.  His steady gaze pins me.  He
*sees* me!  Mulder can see me!  He may not have been able to before, when he'd snapped at
Melissa, but now he knows I'm here.  Relief sings in my veins, revitalizes me.

I sit still, watching him.  Waiting, I'm not entirely sure what for.  Isn't he going to pull
me in?  He has the rope in his hand, it would be such an easy thing for him to do.  Doesn't
he sense how worn out I am?  Help me, Mulder, I can't pull myself in.

But maybe that's the whole point.  I *have* to pull myself in because it must be *my*
decision.  Mulder may be a deciding factor but he can't do the work for me.  He seems to have
fallen asleep anyway, I can see he still holds the rope but his head droops on his chest. I
don't feel his gaze upon me anymore.  But even in sleep his hands clench the rope.  I know he
will not let go.  Mulder is only the anchor, however; I must put out the effort.

I reach one hand out towards the fat knot of rope on the bow.  I stop, horrified by how
badly I'm trembling.  Well, of course I'm not at full strength but I *can* still do this,
right?  Have I lingered here too long, let myself go past the point of no return?  The
thought chills me.

No.  This is still in my hands.  I have only been shown my alternatives, nothing has been
taken away from me.  My time here was well spent, I have come to terms with a few things.
Now it is time to leave this place, get myself ashore.

I reach out again, sliding forward slightly in the boat.  I dig my fingers into the knot of
rope, feeling all the tiny fibers scratch at my skin.  I reach past the knot, to the rope
itself, and wrap my cold hands around it.  I pull with all my strength and the boat rocks
violently.  No, God, please, I think desperately, don't let me capsize.  <Slowly>
says a voice in my head <Go slowly, you've been adrift a long time.>   Nurse Owens?  Whoever
speaks, I take the advice.  Hand over hand, one section of rope at a time.  I smile with pride
in my newly rediscovered strength as the rope coils up in the boat beside me.  I can see
Mulder much more clearly now and he is awake, if he ever was asleep, and he is watching me.
He holds his end of the rope effortlessly.  A tiny smile softens the weariness in his face.
As I drift closer I have to force myself to keep a slow, steady pace.  The last thing I
need is for something to go wrong now, when I'm so close.  Close to getting back...close to
Mulder.

I pull in the last few yards of rope.

The boat hits the dock with a soft thud and a splash.

Mulder holds out both hands to me, his smile widening to match my own.  I take his hands.  I
slowly rise to my feet.  He steadies me as I move from water to land, helping me keep my
balance.  I step up, and out, and into his welcoming embrace.

I am home.
 

End 1/1

"The eyes and the faces all turned themselves
toward me, and guiding myself by them, I
stepped into the room."
        --Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar>