by M. Sebasky
msebasky@yahoo.com
 

Archive:  Xemplary, Gossamer, Spookys, Ephemeral, any sort of larger archive sites YES.  For personal archives, drop me a note.  I like to know where I am when I wake up in the morning.

Rating:  R. As so often happens in life, this is an adult in an adult situation.  But there's no profanity.  It's all just subject matter.

Spoilers:  Requiem.  I'm sorry.

Category:  Vignette.  Scully POV.  Angst.  Trauma.  Sorrow.   Breast-beating.  Garment rending.  All that good stuff.

Disclaimer:  I don't make any money off of 1013 characters and I fully respect those that do.

Thanks:  The whip-down beta team.  Ropobop, S.E. Parsons, Cofax, Luperkal and Marasmus.  I tell you, you haven't lived until you've experienced such cleansing beta.  And of course, YV.   Always.

Notes:  The idea came from a number of sources, but formed around the following two quotes, generously provided by S.E. Parsons:

 "Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weaknesses. "

Mme du Deffand to Voltaire, Letters 1759-1775

 and

 "Work is love made visible."

Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet

 Thanks, S.E.  Drinks are on me.

 Special thanks also to Robbie for live beta.  That just rocked.   I'm glad you made your plane.

 _________________________________

There are millions of stars in the sky. 

There are millions of possibilities in the universe.

I don't know what to call you.  You could be Susan, you could be Jack.  In our unheard exchange of blood and sound, I think of you only as "You."  I know all new things about you as they happen.  I sense your dedicated purpose to grow, to develop each minute into more than you were seconds before.

Tonight, in familiar darkness, you float in warmth, eyes unformed.  The sound of my heartbeat is the scope of your heaven. 

Listening to the rush of blood in my veins, you cannot see these stars in the sky, the same lights seen by countless women throughout the ages.  Long-dead heroines gazed at them from casement windows in Berlin and from tobacco fields in the Carolinas.  From stone balconies in Venice, they looked to them for answers, as I do now. 

I wonder if you can feel those women as they press against me, a timeless sisterhood brought into being by grief and circumstance. They alone understand. 

I tell them that in this time, a woman can do anything a man can. They smile sadly and shake their heads. There is still one thing that only women do, they murmur.  There is one decision that only women make.  We alone.

So alone.

I look up at the moon from my bedroom window.  I press my face against the cool forgiveness of the pane, so different from your warm world, as I trade one path for another.  

When daylight comes, I will not flinch.  Regrets and guilt will stew on back burners so I may taste endlessly of them later.  Tomorrow, neither the tug of the Church's teachings nor sentimentality will stand in my way.  At two o'clock, I will let the anesthetic send me away.  When I awake, you'll be gone, out of harm's reach forever.

I believe this to be the wisest choice.  It is not the decision I would make if circumstances were different.  My body is mine; I believe that.  But now my body is also yours.  That's what makes this so hard.

You may be here, ready to begin, but that does not change the fact your father has been taken.  I owe him.  I owe him my life a hundred times over.  I will not forget this man who would trade his existence for mine without a second thought. 

The only certainty left in my life is that there is work to be done and I am the one to do it.  I long to tend to home and hearth, but necessity dictates I turn hunter now.  I must try and find my partner.  I have no other choice.

I need him.

I've agonized over what he will think of my reasoning.  I hope he will understand, as I do, that your birth would put you directly in the path of the storm.  I realize no parent can completely protect their children, but this is not a matter of bullies on a playground.  The dangers that would surround your life are much greater.

My worst nightmare is just as we got to know each other, you would be taken from me.  Inevitably, I would arrive at my mother's or at your daycare and an empty crib would greet me instead of your sleeping face.  I cannot allow you to become a card they can play and use, like Emily, like Samantha, like so many other nameless children who had the bad luck to be dealt into this no-win game.  I let go of another child to stop her pain.  I'll let you go to make sure yours never begins.

I fear for your father as well, hidden in one of the cold pinpricks of light shining down on my wet face.  I miss him.  I miss him so much. 

A mirage of a life, streaked with moonlight and tears, hovers before me.  A gentler existence of strollers and car seats, of 3 a.m. feedings and stuffed animals underfoot.  I hunger for it.  There are moments I almost trick myself into believing it is viable.  I tell myself I could be content to wait; my partner could find his way back on his own.  I could gladly abandon my search and dive into PTA meetings and Pokemon.

However, I am a realist.  I know I can't.  I don't believe for a moment we would be allowed to live peacefully.  And, I have a debt to pay.  I owe this man, with interest.  He has traveled to the ends of the earth to save me and I will do the same for him.  I cannot find a way to reconcile what I must do with the bare minimum you deserve:  a stable home and a mother that is focused on you.  

It's not that I don't love you.  You have redefined what love is for me.  I had no idea I could love this fiercely.  Even if you never cover yourself in oatmeal, wake me at 4 a.m., even if you never take a breath, I want you beyond reason.  I ache to hold you.  I weep because I can't. 

If I am very still, I believe I can hear your thoughts.  I channel your embryonic dreams under closed eyelids.  In the brief time left to us, I try to color them with all the things I wanted for you.  You have had tea-parties and won baseball games.  You have flown barefoot on a swing under a summer sky.  We have shared early morning coffee when you've come home on break from school.  You have taken your first step and borne your first child.  I have imagined your perfect life, a life I cannot provide at this time. 

In our last night together, dream your watery infant dreams and I'll try to fill them with as much happiness as I can.  It is the only gift I can find to give. 

There are millions of possibilities in this vast universe just as there are millions of things I will never understand.  I don't understand why you were given to me.  I don't understand why your father was taken.  What I do know is that I have to find him and I have to keep you safe.  This is the only solution I see that will allow me to do both.

I need to sleep so tomorrow I will have the courage to be unconscious.  I'm frightened by the ache that will have replaced you when I wake.  I mourn being all alone in my body as well as the world.     

Sometimes I think I see you, standing in the threshold of my consciousness.  You have your father's hair and my eyes.  Your nose, thank God, is your own. 

Stay with me until I fall asleep, little one. Let me pretend to feel your tiny fingers curled around mine.  Grant me some of your father's strength. 

Help me find some of my own.

______________________________

Finis