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Take My Hand
CLASSIFICATION - MSR, Vignette, Post-ep 'Per Manum'
Scully POV AUTHOR'S NOTES - Amongst other things today, I listened to a new CD I bought. One particular track drew my attention and seemed so fitting to Mulder and Scully that my muse had kicked in with a vengeance before I'd even finished listening to it! This fic is as a result of that and my thanks go to DIDO for giving me this inspiration. Full lyrics can be found at the end of this story. Thanks to Pamala for being the best friend I could wish for right now. 'Touch my skin and tell me what you're thinking,
What is a miracle? Is it something we can reach out and touch? Is it tangible enough to even recognise? To understand it's power, it's majesty. Or do miracles happen everyday only to pass us by? Are we too blind to see them? I wish I knew the answers. I wish I could believe Mulder as he holds me gently against him as I cry a thousand angry tears. Tears that have been so long in coming and that now take my breath away with the sheer effort it takes to cry them at all. It's so long since I cried like this. So long since I allowed myself to dissolve in to pieces in front of him. I try to remember when I last felt this hollow, this empty, but I just can't. The effort is too much for my bruised senses right now and I'm aware of nothing else but the feel of his arms as they tighten around me. His whispered words reverberate around my head. Mocking me as I stand there. <Never give up on a miracle Scully> Words meant to comfort me. To take away the sadness I saw reflected in his beautiful hazel eyes. My sadness. Linked with him forever. But I don't believe in miracles the way I once did. I don't even want to believe anymore. Believing is false hope. Hope that I just can't face anymore. The past seven years have been an emotional roller coaster ride of hope and disappointment. Everything I once hoped for has been torn away from me. And for what? A handful of answers balanced against a hundred questions just isn't enough anymore. It's not enough to justify what we have been through together. Not enough to justify what has been taken from us. In my moments of human weakness, when I am alone at night unable to sleep, I sometimes allow myself to fleetingly think that it might be better if I had never met him, wondering how my life might have been had I not chosen the path I did. But like I say, those thoughts are fleeting. Chased away by images of him that take me gently in to sleep. I think of him often. Over the years we have been together he has somehow taken up residence in my heart. He doesn't reside in a tiny corner though, to be thought of only when my mind is quiet, because that would be too easy. Nothing about our lives is easy. We are intertwined in ways I would never have thought possible when I made that first trip down to the dankness of the basement in search of him. Because what I found was so much more than I ever could have imagined. Because just as he resides in my heart, I too reside in his. He belongs to me in ways I still find hard to fathom. What we share cannot be broken down into simplistic terms. We're not lovers. We never have been, despite what our colleagues may imagine. I'm not stupid and neither is Mulder. We both know that we have been the subject of speculation for some time now. Maybe even forever. What we share is so much more than the physical. A connection so deep that it would take nothing less than death to tear us apart. Maybe even more than that. He loves me in a way I have never been loved before. He would lay down his life in exchange for mine without even giving it a second thought. Because I am his life and he is mine. I feel it in every fibre of his being as he holds me now. Allowing me to cry my tears that are surely scalding his soul the way they scald mine. He rocks me gently against him, telling me without words the things I just don't deserve to hear right now. Because I failed us. He warned me not to have too much hope when we entered into this thing, his words telling me one thing whilst all the time his eyes and his heart betrayed him. And I didn't believe him. He wanted this as much as I did. Maybe more so. I know he was hoping for a miracle for me...for us both. A way to carve out a future. To drag us away from a past that haunts us. A new beginning for us both. But there will be no beginnings now. There will only be the recriminations for things past as we struggle to exist in the depths of the darkness that threatens with every new day to consume us. To tear us apart. To finish us. But while we are together we have strength. Together we will survive it. Whatever else I don't understand about my life I at least acknowledge that much. The thought of losing him has the power to reduce me to nothing. It's a horror I just can't comprehend despite everything I have experienced in the past. Because I love him. I love him with an intensity that blinds me to every other emotion I have ever felt and as he holds me in his arms, allowing me to cry, I realise that he loves me too. It's not a flowers and candlelight kind of love. That would be for others, never for us. Our love is born of a lifetime of pain. Of suffering. Of loss. It is an enduring love. One which will never be broken. Because no matter what else they take from us, they can never hope to steal that away. I feel Mulder's lips as they place the gentlest kiss against my crown. So soft I can almost imagine that it didn't happen at all. It's always been that way with us. We don't take anything for granted anymore. We've lived through too many lies for us ever to fully believe. But he is here and this is real. At least for the moment. But I feel him begin to loosen his arms from around me and I know that in a few seconds he will step away, to gaze in to my eyes and search for the answer he needs. To affirm to himself that I am all right. That I can deal with this. But I can't deal with it. Not anymore. I don't even want to try. I'm so tired of never admitting anything to him. This man, my dearest friend. The man who once called me his touchstone, never realising that I might need him every bit as much as he needs me. I don't want him to ask me if I'm okay. Because I know when he does I will lie to him, just as I always lie to him when he asks me that question. And when I do, he will turn and go. Giving me the space he stupidly thinks I need, he will leave me alone to face another night without him. But space *isn't* what I need right now. What I need is complicated. Unattainable even. Because all I need is him. I wish he realised that, understood his place in my life. Because telling him would be too hard. I want him to read my mind. I want him to look into my eyes, to tell me finally what he really sees, to understand what I want from him. I want him to take my hand and lead me away from all of this. To a place that exists for others but which has never existed for us. I want to know where I'm going now that the road has fallen away from beneath me. I want to lay down beside him and trace my fingertips along his bare skin, to affirm once and for all that what we have is real. I want to scream out my need of him in the dead of night. I want to shatter the stillness that surrounds me. But more than anything I want to become a part of him. I want us to meld together, to become one. To finally break down that final barrier that separates us. So complicated and yet it should be so simple. But nothing is ever simple for us. I should know that by now. I stiffen as I feel him step away, to release his hold on me. And I feel the tears threaten again because I'm not yet ready to break that connection with him. I'm not ready to smile at him with trembling lips and affirm that I'm fine. That I'm dealing with this, just as I have dealt with everything in our turbulent past. Because right now, I want to die and he's the only thing that's keeping me breathing. Why doesn't he realise that? I can't look up at him. I know that if I do I will break down completely, so I take the easy way out. I begin to turn away from him, wanting, needing to be the one who walks away. Because as much as it tears me apart I know it's the right thing for both of us. I don't want to be able to blame him one day for leaving me when I needed him the most. "Scully wait..." His whispered words envelop me, surrounding me with emotions so intense they stop me in my tracks. So much yearning in his voice. So much pain. I sometimes wonder how much more pain we can be expected to bear before we shatter into a million pieces. And the urge to turn around, to throw myself against him is strong enough to make my heart miss a beat. Yet another piece of me gone forever. Surrendered to him. But I don't. Instead I begin to slip my coat from my shoulders, conscious suddenly that it's added weight is just too much to bear. I know he is still standing behind me though, waiting for me to respond and finally I am able to turn to face him. "I'm fine Mulder." There. I've said it. Now he can go. He can walk out the door with a clear conscience. With the knowledge that he has comforted me as much as I will permit him to. But he doesn't walk. He doesn't move. And for the first time I'm aware of the streaks that shine wetly against his skin in the soft half light. Tears of his own that I was too consumed in my own misery - in my own failure - to even notice before, but now I watch as his eyes fill up again, watch a single tear break free and trace a path down those same salty tracks. Less than a foot separates us, a mere few inches that seem like infinity as he works his mouth like a little boy desperately trying not to cry. I wonder if he's even aware that it's too late for that as the tears trickle steadily down that face I love so much. "I'm not." He finally manages. And it's enough. It's enough for me to step forward, to cradle his face in my hands as I bring my lips to his skin. Kissing away his tears, even as my own begin anew. I feel his fingers in my hair, guiding me towards him until finally I feel his mouth on mine, not in an explosion of fire and passion, but instead in an statement of infinite tenderness, of two lost souls who have finally found each other through the darkness. Nothing else exists for me now but the feel of him against me. The feel of his lips on mine as we finally admit what we are to each other. Of everything we *can* be. And then he releases me, leaving me bereft. Hollow even. Because I can't bear it, I can't bear to have him leave me now. I can't bear to have to accept another disappointment tonight. I don't want to have to lay in my bed, sobbing into the darkness for all the things I will never have. I think it might kill me eventually. The sadness that lives deep inside of me and which steals away all that is good from my life. That might one day steal him. But he doesn't go. Instead, a tiny smile plays across his face, softening his features, chasing away the pain for an instant. His eyes shine with something I have never seen in him before, something I feared I might never live to experience. And right now, red-rimmed or not, those eyes have never seemed more beautiful to me. Because finally, after all these years I see hope. Hope that somehow, we can make everything all right again. Slowly, hesitantly, his eyes never leaving mine, he holds out his hand to me. I take it. End Take my hand by DIDO Touch my skin and tell me what you're thinking So sit on top of the world and tell me how you're feeling what I feel now is what I feel for you take my hand and if I'm lying to you I'll always be alone if I'm lying to you See my eyes, they carry your reflection watch my lips and hear the words I'm telling you give your trust to me and look in to my heart and show me show me what you're doing so sit on top of the world and tell me how you're feeling what you feel is what I feel for you take my hand and if I'm lying to you I'll always be alone if I'm lying to you take your time, if I'm lying to you I know you'll find that you believe me, you believe me feel the sun on your face and tell me what you're thinking catch the snow on your tongue and tell me how it tastes Take my hand and if I'm lying to you I'll always be alone if I'm lying to you Take your time and if I'm lying to you I know you'll find that you believe me, you believe me. |
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