TITLE: Twice AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net ARCHIVE: Anywhere okay with these headers attached. CATEGORY: barely long enough to even be a V RATING: G SPOILERS: Vague references to Sixth Extinction and Memento Mori SUMMARY: Missing scene from Sixth Extinction. A little bit of Scully's journal, written during the long trip from the Ivory Coast back home to Mulder. DISCLAIMER: Characters borrowed from Fox, 1013, Chris Carter. No infringement intended. Thanks to Sue for betaing and answering the question "Is it too short?" a million times -- a true mark of friendship (or insanity?). :) _______ Twice By Susanne Barringer Twice now, I have shared myself with you--once when I was dying, now again that you are. Twice I have told you what is in my heart, each word on the page a single beat of my being, a single pulse of life soaring its way to you. Words spill easier than tears, releasing fear and panic into neatly patterned strokes of a pen. I cannot afford the luxury of tears, but these words strengthen my resolve. Let them strengthen you. Twice now, I have shown you who I am. Once before, you read them, the words that sustained me through death's rendezvous. You read them as I watched death come for Penny, knowing that my name was to be the next engraved. I did not mean for you to realize my heart then, despite my declarations. This time, however, I carve words for you, praying that you will get the chance to read them. This time, I will not think of concealing them. Last time, I tossed the words aside, believing they were only for my dying self, not my living one. Resurrection of hope made the words seem inadequate, out of place--like tears of life in dead rooms, smiles within the grave. This time, the words comfort me, a reminder of what I must do and why, a lifeline of reality in a world that suddenly declares no substance. You and I have loved for quiet eons wrapped up in six short years. We love beyond the words, as if articulating thoughts brings them too close to mortality, to possible extinction. Silent words can never be destroyed, their existence never proven. But lack of proof brings doubt. Here are your words, Mulder. Yours, coming from me. Do not doubt. Words arrive and depart in waves, only some seized here. The rest linger in my mind, perhaps forever unspoken but infinitely realized. I reach for them when needed, when my heart cries out for stability, to be grounded in the only thing left I know to be true. Will I ever have the courage to capture them all for you to see and know? Hold on to read the words I have intended for you, the thoughts that have been invented and reinvented in dark ink on white paper. These words are your answer--not to the questions that have consumed our partnership, but to the unasked question that has enveloped our lives. One question, for us alone. Here is my answer, pressed between cheap cardboard covers. Twice now, I have answered you. END ____________ Short and sweet and hopefully not quite as overblown as the monologues that CC writes. :) Feedback to: sbarringer@usa.net All my fic available at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dreamworld/2442