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SPOILER::: Requiem
Angst. . .MSR. . .Angst

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Unravelling
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I wonder how I am still here
I don't want to move a thing, it might change my memory
oh I am what I am, I'll do what I want, but I can't hide
I won't go, I won't sleep, I can't breathe
until you're resting here with me

--Here With Me, Dido

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She's curled on her side, tight and small and pitiful. The lights are all out, the windows muffled with blindes and curtains, the television blank. His T-shirt is draped over one arm of the kitchen chair and she can't bear to look at it, yet moving it would be profane. She has her hands clutching her stomach, as if that might protect herself from another great loss.

She wants to sleep but nothing will come. She wants even to dream him in nightmares, at least then she would see him, but her daydreams are filled with faceless forms of him and bright lights that he disappears into. She chokes on sobs and presses the heel of her hand to her eyes.

"No, no, no," she whispers. If they start now, they won't stop. They just won't stop.

Her mother will be coming back from -- where? -- in minutes and if she starts crying now, she will not stop. She knows it. She will not stop.

There has to be something she can do. There has to be a plan, a way to search him out, some kind of deal to be made with --

Her hands spasm around her belly with the thought and she finds a deep sick fear at the back of her throat.

What can she do? What can she do at all with this promise being fulfilled inside her now? There is nothing but waiting and making phone calls, the same calls, every day for the rest of her life, of their lives.

Wildly, she sits up and rushes to the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet with a force that collapses her against the cold tile. She hasn't eaten since. . .hasn't been able to look at food. How is it possible that they could all think she could eat when he's gone? Gone.

Gone gone gone--oh God, he's really gone. . .

And she sobs now, her head cracking against the tub as it drops forward in such agony, her entire body tight and tense with the vast and empty space inside her now. Such a gaping hole of loss that no individual feelings or thoughts are found, only this drifting panicky vacuum. . .will she ever be able to feel again?

"Dana! Dana. . ."

Her mother's arms pull tight and firm and anchoring around her, but there's still that black space unfilled. . .

"Momma," she sobs, because she cannot hold herself up any longer.

"Dana, oh my baby. . ." she whispers, rocking slowly back and forth, caressing forehead and cheek and hair and arm.

"I can't. . .I can't. ." she whimpers, shuddering with weeping.

"You're going to have to pull yourself together, Dana. You have to start living again. . .as impossible and unthinkable as it sounds. . ."

"I can't, I can't--"

The bathroom tiles are cold. The overhead light makes her head hurt. Her stomach is clenched tightly and she gasps, relaxing slightly, just in case. Her mother feels the draining and pushes back, hands cradling her daughter's face.

"You were gone for three months, sweetheart. Three months."

She blinks back the tears and listens, hoping wildly for a lifeline from her mother, a life preserver thrown out to her, here drowning in her emptiness.

"It's been two nights. We were without you for three months, and you think Fox let himself give up?"

"I haven't given up!" she speaks harshly, but quietly, frightened now that she had given up.

"Don't give up, Dana. You can't possibly do yourself any good--and you're definitely not doing the baby any good. When Fox gets back he's going to want two healthy and whole people to greet him."

Scully's lips are twisted in a grimace, something between the abject darkness in her and the smile she wants to feel at her mother's words. She looks away, her eyes concentrating on the pattern of small flowers that dots the wallpaper in her bathroom, needing a focus. She breathes a few shaky breaths and then impulsively hugs her mother, seeking solace.

"Oh, Dana. . .I know it hurts. I know, baby. And the waiting is the worst part of it. But you're going to make it through this, if only for the baby. You're going to see it gradually lessen. . ."

"It won't ever," she whispers. "Too much. . .he's too much in me."

"Then you'll find him again."

Scully nods against her mother's shoulder. "I have to. . .I have to."

There is a long moment of silence, and Mrs. Scully begins to think that her daughter is going to pull back with dry eyes and a stubborn chin and insist on making dinner or something else ridiculously stoic like that--but she's mistaken the deepness of this.

"Oh God--" she gasps and the tears begin again. . .

"Dana, Dana. . ."

"He's gone, gone. . .I can't--can't have this baby without--"

Margaret Scully knows now it is pointless to offer words in the face of such grief. A grief which is not a grieving really, but a bursting of helplessness and frustration and fear and loss that leaves them both so lonely feeling, so alone.

Oh God, she's so alone now. Alone with the blossoming promises of a life that should have been shared, alone with a future that is ripe with love but not with any real whole joy. . .

Alone in her need to hope that one night. . .one night he'll be brought back to her.

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end
adios
RM

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