GRAINS OF SAND by Kelida Flynn (Kelida_Flynn@hotmail.com) Forwarded to ATXC--at least I hope so. Please do not Archive--already sent to Gossamer. Spoilers: Memento Mori Rating: PG Category: V, A, MSR Summary: Scully's cancer worsens and causing Skinner to confront CSM on the 'deal' and triggers a change in her relationship with Mulder. Distribution: Anywhere you deem my story worthy. I would like to know if you archive it though. Just to know--you know? Disclaimer: As though you haven't read enough of these. No infringement inntended whatsoever--Fox yadda yadda...same old drill. But here it is officially: The characters and situations of the X-Files are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, nor are the characters being used for commercial purposes. Author's note: I would like to thank Miki and Meredith--the two greatest people, the two best editors. If not for Miki, I would've stopped reading fan fic. Also I would've never had read stories by Meredith--nor would I have met her. To both of them for their support and especially inspiring me to start writing fan fic. To both, I am indebted. I've been sucked in, and I think I'll stay awhile. Grains of Sand by Kelida Flynn A life is a journey. A road set forth with crossroads, ends, beginnings. It is not one so lucid and easily traversed. There are always jungles to explore, to cut through; always mountains to tame and oceans to span. And then there are the deserts, wherein lies the contrasting forces of hot and cold; light and dark; calm and storm. These creatures so expansive in their sand-madness--their greatest obstacles, their emptiness. On her sojourn, not all paths were in her power to take. Redirections, detours--the choice between the lesser of two evils. New routes continuously generated themselves offering her new options. When she had first stepped onto this road a nebulous mist had clouded the path. Almost fearlessly, recklessly she continued on, confident that she could handle any adversity thrown her way. That when the haziness had cleared she would find the way back onto the road she had been traveling on. Straight steps to the higher goal. But in her abandon she had wandered astray onto a path not so clear, so predicable. Like a toddler her first few steps were wobbly, but she adjusted; stabilizing. What might have seemed to be a mere hindrance had now blossomed into a decision--a choice. She stepped forward and fell into the then not-so-welcome arms of Special Agent Fox Mulder. They were antagonist and protagonist head-to-head in the basement of the FBI. But now head-to-head had become hand-in-hand, and together they embarked on the longest and darkest journey of their lives. ***** Her work was now her life more than it had ever been. She made herself put aside thoughts of her own mortality. She could save her tears for later. She wasn't ready to let go. Her focus on work was now partly driven by a sense that her life was not in vain--that it would not be in vain. As for contentment, that would remain a void, at least as it stood now. There was another reason for her fervor. It was an excuse to spend more time with someone she considered an essential element to her life. Like air, water, and blood, Mulder was irrevocably part of her, and damn him for that, she thought wryly, damn him. She was unaware though that she was also essential to him. That if and when she died, half of his soul and the whole of his heart would go with her. ***** Mulder had changed. His lightness of humor only appeared on rare occasions now, and he fretted over her with increasing consistency. She also noticed that he watched her all the time now, an eternally forlorn look marring his features. In turn she felt the intensity of his stare. It made her tremble and all she could do was look away. She left early one day for an appointment at Holy Cross Oncology. He stopped to ask, and she watched his face fall as she explained. She turned to look at him a moment as she left. He removed his glasses--as if that simple task might make him see her more clearly--and held her in his eyes. A sad, lost look upon his face--contorted with such dejection, it seemed as though he was thinking that he would never see her again. She shuddered. ***** Time passed--trails of sand in an hourglass. Sorry. Goodbye. We'll miss you. Had this longest road suddenly ended, dropping her into this chasm? She could not quite fathom just yet what was happening. These few, banal, little words. "The cancer has spread." "There's no more we can do." "I'm sorry." "Perhaps . . .perhaps it's time to say goodbye." She had faced death many times. She had died many times, but only to revive with a new sense of faith. But now, now that her end was certain, it tore her apart. She thought of friends and her family. Then she thought of Mulder and acted with uncharacteristic panic and emotion. She did not call him then, nor did she later on. Dana Scully was at a loss for words. No logic or reason could penetrate this wretched despair she felt. Each minute dissipated like vapor, and she felt herself slipping away faster and faster like a helpless grain of sand being flung about in the desert winds. She hid from him--that much she admitted. As though time away would lessen the pain. She could not bear it though, but believed it would be for the best, though she knew it would hurt them both in the end. Detachment--to separate from each other. It was hard enough...To make this final goodbye easier. She sat with a cup of tea in her apartment and saw her life laid before her. An apartment full of nothing, really. It was no reflection of her. Her family of wanderers still roaming about to the edges of the world, or long lost in the sandstorms of the salty, liquid desert. Again her thoughts turned to the X-Files and Mulder. Then she saw it. Herself and always, him. Her partner. Her best friend. Her companion. Work and Mulder had ended her wanderlust. Now death would simply end her. Soon that life would be gone, but what would have been achieved by her short stay? There still were no answers. Would the truth lay buried forever? Would Mulder continue his search after she was gone? She knew how his state of mind was. Sometimes. Would he believe that in some way he had failed her? She couldn't let him think that. Then he found her. A soft knock on the door and quietly agony of his voice calling for her. Half pleading for a response. She complied. She did not struggle, but shied away when she saw him. His very manner was reticent. Each step nearer spoke volumes, but neither verbalized what was painfully apparent. His long figure drenched in thick shadows continued to advance, his face plaintive. She finally stopped. "Mulder . . ." He looked at her, his lips slightly parted. Yet he remained silent. She sunk into an armchair and bowed her head away, facing the wall. He knelt down at her feet and took her hands into his. "I . . ." "Scully." He said this slowly, so achingly pained. His hand touched her face. She flinched in sudden surprise but relented. He brushed her upper lip so slightly and removed a trickle of red. Warm trails faded on her skin as his hand moved away, kissing her lips gently with the wind. "Why didn't you tell me?" She bit her lower lip as the first salty tears made their way down the smooth surface of her face. He said nothing and she saw in his eyes that he understood. Then he stretched his arms out across the patch of darkness that separated them. His arm slid into the crevasse of her back, his hand resting on the coolness of her neck. She shed her armor. Quietly, slowly, she crumbled into his embrace and let him comfort her now when all seemed lost. She wept silently in his arms like a frightened child. Throbs and spasms. The tears stopped. The cries subsided. He soothed her throughout the night and until morning. She woke with him entangled about her looking very peaceful. They regained their composure and readied themselves for work. Another day. But not. It was different. These days and nights. To talk, to make up the time they had wasted in silence. About their pasts, their wishes, their futures. Of everything except of the heavy shadow that loomed in the background behind their conversations. He was brave enough to ask though, one late night. He was curt and to the point. He had to know. "How much . . . longer?" She stopped, as did her heart. "Let's not talk about that now." "Why not?" he demanded. "I'm fine Mulder. There's no need to discuss this. Don't treat me like I'm dying. End of subject." "But that's just it, Scully. I'm not treating you like you're dying, but the fact is that you are." His voice faded. "It's not that simple. This isn't what this is all about. Can you understand that Mulder? There's so much more to this. We all die . . . someday . . ." "But not now, Scully. Not . . ." They both fell silent. Awkward in each other's presence, like never before. The clock was ticking. "Goodnight, Scully." She watched him stand and walk away from her. Flashes of their relationship fired in her neurons and began a catharsis on her soul. The rage she contained would not hold much longer. The anguish she concealed peeked through in beams. She was not as strong as she seemed, she knew that. She could maintain the air coolness all she wished, but inside she burned. She could not continue on this road alone. Strength needed a source, and hers was now at its last drops. It was no so much giving in, but relenting to the inescapable reality. The truth of the matter. "Mulder." The hesitance in her voice. The regret. The longing. And he came back and took her in his arms, and again they comforted each other and separately began to measure the time left. ***** The measurement of time is simply an increment of a lifetime. Time means nothing if it is not put to use. It needs to be utilized. They put theirs to a purpose. She was deteriorating though it didn't show. Haste was of the essence as was patience. They made do. They continued to work but perhaps not as feverishly. He would not allow it. She did not resist. And somewhere a man laughed softly through cigarette smoke. In between quiet moments and raucous pranks there lay something dormant. Fragile and complex but durable through its abuse and neglect. It waited, but again, time hampers possibility of success. They remained together, closer as they fought to bridge that gap, fingers twitching for the smallest touch. And occasionally they succeeded, but it remained a distance to be fully conquered. ***** There is an inevitability that comes with the passing of time. Mulder was painfully aware of this. Scully was bound to its reality. So when the cancer worsened to the point where getting up in the morning on certain days became a task, she did not fight anymore. She took her past and placed it in a cedar box and closed it for preservation. Agent Scully handed in her resignation with Mulder at her side. Skinner looked shaken, his Marine discipline slightly rattled at the shock of the news. But it was only for a moment, and then it returned. "I'm very sorry, Agent Scully, very sorry. You've been one of the best agents to have served this bureau. It has been a pleasure working with you and you will be sorely missed." "Thank you, sir." Scully and Mulder left for the basement. They had to begin the long, painful process of removing her things from the office. After the meeting, Mulder closed the door to the A.D.'s office, but behind him in the room there sat a very unhappy Walter Skinner. ***** "We had a deal. I filled my end of the bargain." "Patience." "My patience ran out when Agent Scully turned in her resignation." "Oh? Is she very ill? I am sorry." "Like hell you are, you black-lunged son-of-a-bitch. This isn't a game. A woman's life is at stake and you mock her? You won't think this is so goddamned funny when I expose you and your cohorts." "No reason for petty threats--rashness does not suit a man in your position. It's rather unbecoming. "You have to understand that it's all part of the master plan. We do have our reasons, but I assure you, Agent Scully will be restored to good health in due time. But why take away the sense of drama? It's rather exciting, don't you think? It makes for great theater--especially tragedy." "Do what has to be done. This discussion is over." "No need to worry about my end of the deal, Mr. Skinner. Even the devil makes good on his promises, eventually." ***** They found themselves communicating constantly now. Rifts had healed and intimacy--though at times uncomfortable--was found. Skinner had silently respected Mulder's wish and had not assigned another agent to replace Scully. He now willingly took mundane cases--non-X-Files--in order to fulfill his case load and stay within arm's reach of Scully. Their lifeline became the phone. A way to stay connected regardless of the distance of space. Scully slowly began to realize exactly what Mulder meant to her--and what she meant to him. She watched as he distanced himself further and further away from the rest of his life--his work--in order to remain at her side whether or not she wanted him there, the latter rarely the case. His mothering was little more than an afterthought now, because she knew why he did it, and because she didn’t want to push him away anymore. He was at her beck and call, doing whatever she desired of him, which was not too much, yet they both still felt empty inside. ***** One night he came to her apartment and she was not there. He waited--yet she did not come. He sat alone half-cloaked in darkness--yet still no Dana Scully. Weariness became worry, then grew into abiding despair as his mind plunged into the darkness of nightmares. Fox Mulder blacked out--from tension, stress--sometime between 11:43 P.M. Thursday evening and 2:08 A.M. Friday morning. ***** Dawn came in husky golden-grays. He jerked awake in sudden realization and in a frenzy and ran out partially blind into the hallway, screaming her name. He was not going to wait for her anymore. She was officially reported as missing at 6:05 A.M. With each passing day, each minute, Mulder sank deeper and deeper into his private desolation. Scenarios of her previous disappearance played like acid flashbacks, gaudy in the garish colors of pastel lights and fluorescent illumination. They flickered in and out of smoky flames and moved like time lapse photography, at times stopping abruptly and jerking with a stutter. Faster and faster images played of her falling--screaming--dying--filtered into his mind. His raw nerves screamed of Margaret Scully's curses and cries, and bled with her tears for the lost Dana Scully. Their fears were not of any supernatural phenomenon but were of the fear of Nature and its unforgiving temperament. His search became a relentless fight in its severity. He tore and clawed--destroyed whatever impeded his pursuit. He let it gnaw away at himself. He did not relent--it seemed a betrayal of her. He had been killing her--if she wasn't already dead. Fox Mulder held vigil in his apartment in the hours where he could do nothing but pray to a god that he didn't believe in for her safety. In those sleepless nights when the moon bathed the world in half-crescent and Dana Scully ceased to exist, Fox William Mulder felt himself dying. ***** A man sat in the neon glow of city lights. Unshaven, uncleansed--impure and damned in his own ideas of himself. He sat like a marble statue, cold and distant. It was the middle of a Friday night at the hour when the dawn is still frightened of the evening shadows. The door to his apartment creaked open and somebody came in. He had every right, every instinct that should make him cautious. He should be frightened, but he remained sitting, unmoving. He did nothing but think of lost moments and could-have-beens. It is a cold place where he resides. He did not notice the rain. Here in this place alone in his aimlessness, he found release, and for the first time in years he let himself go completely. He let himself ache. He let himself ache for her smallness. He ached a lover's ache for Dana Scully. ***** Familiarity did not breed contempt. There was joy in touch and scent and sight. Comfort in the crumpled trenchcoat on the floor. It smelled musty--damp. Heartache was the lanky man in the chair, unkempt and draped like a cheap suit. She said no words, made no sound. She went to him. Her hair was wet from the storm. The pale face was the shade of death. Clumps of red locks clung to her flesh and bones. The petite frame staggered weakly, trying to fight off the fatigue, the dull throb in her head and the numbing in her limbs. It seemed like such a long time gone. It had only been nine days. He looked as though he had aged twenty years. She stared. The wait for him to answer, to respond, was oppressive. Her voice sounded so tiny. "For once when one of us comes back from the dead, can we both be at least semi-conscious?" A small spark. Fire. His face was spread wide in agony. Tears. Relief. On his knees. He pulled her to him. Head buried in the flatness of her belly. She had become so thin. They drew together closer, nearer, feverishly, to close the gaps in between. Close was not close enough. She gently held him--he gripped her violently, madly, to make sure she was really there, something tangible. To convince himself that she was not an apparition come to haunt him in his delusion. When he relaxed his hold she slid down to face him. The lamppost outside flickered. Crack of lightening. No thunder. A curious look on her face. He gently reached across and stroked her cheek. Her hand came to cover his. They were seemingly locked like this for minutes. "You're ill, Mulder. What . . ." He choked the words out. Bile. "What did they do to you this time?" "Mulder . . ." She started clearly enough, but in truth she didn't know. It was a feeling. "It's just a game, isn't it, Scully?" He released her. "God, I'm sorry. Scully, this is my fault. You have to get away from me. I've lost you so many times . . ." "Then why lose me again?" Almost pleadingly. "None of that matters. C'mon, you're stronger than this." His eyes darkened. Only with you. She understood. She always had but had blocked it. Fought it. They were walls and only that. Built up to protect herself because she had been scared of the truth. Scared of him--of herself. To let it die with air, without release was wrong, but then seemingly necessary. Time and hardship could destroy it though--if she let it. To let the flood waters loose. Instead you let the gates open. "Did they . . ." "I think we have similar theories." A smile. "For once. I'll have it checked out." He examined this woman for a moment. "I'll drive you there." He stood up. She guided him back down. "It can wait until tomorrow, Mulder. I don't have anywhere to go tonight. I just want to be here." He looked at her incredulously. "Believe me." "We should call your mother . . ." It was her turn to touch him. A palm on his chest over the rapidly beating heart. The heat on her fingertips. "You're trembling, Scully. You're all wet. You need to dry-off before you catch something." For a man with an Oxford education, he was incredibly dense. Or perhaps just frightened. "Mulder . . ." One word and he knew. She in those brief years had eaten away so much of him. They lived as two bodies but one entity. Their thoughts, their beliefs. The nexus reconnected them and bound them together--tighter. "Should we? Is this a mistake . . . ." She had to ask. "Never." Rapture. "Never." His breath was warm on her neck. They drew closer with the awkwardness of youths, tried to calculate each other’s movements. It was in vain. They touched. His lower lip on hers. The electricity shocked them apart, but the magnetism bought them back together. And they fit. Perfectly. Harder and deeper the kisses. Release. His arms cradling her protectively. Her hands on his rough face. And the stone-faced doctor cried. For all the time in between. For what she had lost--and for what she had gained today from beyond that dark place. For love she could never express--until now. He kissed her eyes, and her tears became his. Empty for so long. Practicality was folly. They would be sensible later. In another time; another place. That night of nights they tumbled towards ecstasy unimaginable in fantasy. They filled in each other's void. The emptiness. They completed each other. They didn't have to say the words to each other. It was unnecessary. They knew. ***** They woke, no regrets. It was morning. There were only beginnings. The End -------------------- This is my first ever fan fic--how was it? Was it worthy of finishing it all the way? I must say--FEEDBACK PLEASE! My fragile writer's ego is simply going nuts conjouring up the guts to post this. Humor me? Please? Enough groveling...... Kelida Flynn (kelida_flynn@hotmail.com) ***********The X-Philes Finis Romantics Society***************** http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/2098/ ***********************************************************************