TITLE:  Reprise (1/1)

AUTHOR:  Susanne Barringer

EMAIL:  sbarringer@usa.net

ARCHIVE:  Anywhere okay with these headers attached.

CATEGORY:  VA

KEYWORDS:  Mulder/Scully UST

RATING:  PG

SPOILERS:  up to Brand X

SUMMARY:  Missing scene from Brand X.  Scully must have noticed the

irony of sitting vigil once again in such a short period of time.

DISCLAIMER:  Just borrowing from CC, 1013 and Fox.  No infringement

intended.

THANKS to Suzanne for betaing and for showing more patience with this

story than is usually required.

~~~~~~~~~

Reprise

by Susanne Barringer

I watch Mulder breathe.  He is asleep and still, like the night.  I

have no idea what time it is--too late or too early, judging by the

absence of people and movement in the corridors.  I have been here for

hours, or is it days, watching Mulder breathe.

It is exhausting to be helpless.  Mulder is dying and there doesn't

seem to be anything I can do.  The larvae remain in his lungs,

hatching probably right now, coming to life and existence as Mulder

sleeps and tries to fight.  His breathing has become more labored in

just the last hour, each intake sounding harsh and noisy, not like it

should.  He is struggling and I am dying, as each breath takes a

little more out of him.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I sat this same way at Daniel's bedside,

watching him breathe, watching his heart slow and weaken.  I thought

then that I could not survive such a suddenly profound loss, that I

had been meant to find again what I had given up so long ago.  I was

wrong.  The horror comes in losing what is--not what was.  The past

dies all the time, but lately I've come to realize my present is meant

to become my future.

This isn't how it was supposed to be.  This is not the moment to which

all my choices have led.  It can't be.  Not when I finally understand

what I have chosen--this need, this love, this pain.

As I sat by Daniel, watching the beat of his life fall toward its

collapse, I felt an entire lifetime slipping away from me, all the

memories of my life years ago before I became who I am.  There was

pain in my heart and an ever-present feeling of nausea as I

contemplated the sheer serendipity of how I had come to that moment of

watching him take his last breaths.

With Mulder the pain is near excruciating.  It is not the ache or the

nausea of watching Daniel die, but rather a stunning shooting pain and

a hollow feeling in the belly that I fear might never leave me again.

Even if he recovers, will I ever recover from the emptiness I feel

now?

With Daniel there was guilt.  Though I couldn't have pinpointed

exactly its source, I knew generally the many directions from which it

came.  Guilt for what I thought was my contribution to the destruction

of his family, guilt for not loving him enough, guilt for having

insisted on shutting him out.

With Mulder, the heaviness of guilt is outweighed by the overwhelming

sense of loss that I feel already.  Guilt is simply the side effect of

helplessness.  I can only watch his breathing become more labored, his

voice become more silent, and hope that the answers come in time.  For

Daniel, the answer came in a flash of something I can't explain.  For

Mulder, the cure is held in the body of a man engineered by an inhuman

corporation.  The answer is in my science, yet I am too far away to

reach it in time.

Daniel brought conflict into my life, even as he was dying.  The

emotional upheaval of his reappearance in my life was matched only by

the upheaval of having become part of his life in the first place.

His confessions to me after so many years magnified the load I felt

obligated to carry, his self-absorption not allowing him to see what

he was doing to me.

Mulder brings no conflict, simply trust in my attempts to save him and

the realization that I have done all I can.  He remained unselfish,

joking about his situation to make it easier on me, sparing me as much

of the burden as he could.  I am fully aware of how he sacrifices for

me.

I wept and mourned for Daniel's near death from a heart shattered due

to misuse and loving wrongly, an organ overworked yet underutilized.

His heart was a damaged machine in a functioning body, broken in ways

beyond the literal.

Now I face Mulder with steely strength, no tears, no mourning.  Not

this time.  There is one thing I am sure of.  I will tell him I love

him before he goes.  Mulder will not be the one to die with a broken

heart.

He stirs suddenly, and I lean forward anxiously to make sure he's

breathing.  His heart labors to keep up with the lack of oxygen, and,

no matter what I feel or say, I cannot mend that.

I close my eyes and anticipate clearly the events to come, the same

events of my vigil with Daniel.  This moment of my life winds its way

toward the inevitable reprise--the screaming beep of monitors, my

hands on his heart, frenzied rush of people, code blue in my ears and

eyes, panic denial guilt terror love loss.

I breathe deeply, wishing I could do it for Mulder, and pray for one

more reprieve.

~~~~~~~

END

I've been in a writing slump recently.  This is my short attempt to

get back in the spirit.  sbarringer@usa.net

All my fanfic housed at http://www.geocities.com/s_barringer