Wanting
ALLY112038@AOL.COM 

SPOILERS - The whole cancer arc shebang. 

SUMMARY - You don't always have the strength to get what you want.

"Wanting" by Ally 1/1

DISCLAIMER - Not mine. Never have been. No infringement or disrespect intended towards Chris Carter, 1013 Productions or Fox. This is all just for fun.

FEEDBACK - YES PLEASE!!! I’ve received such wonderful messages for my other wanderings in to fic land, and I cherish it all, no matter how short. All feedback to - ALLY112038@AOL.COM 

It's funny really because now I sit and think about it I've spent half my life wanting things I can never have.

I still remember how once I enjoyed the nomadic existence that early life connected with the Navy afforded me. The way my life constantly shifted and changed was exciting. An adventure.

Until I grew old enough to realise that the world consisted of more than just the people around me. That safe haven where I spent golden summer days surrounded with the love of my earliest constant. Safe in the warmth and protection that was my Mother, I never gave a second thought to saying goodbye to the familiar walls that surrounded us. Because she was there with me and that was enough.

And then that painful day whenl I discovered that nothing is constant. That I had to leave that comforting embrace. I can't really remember my first day of school. Only that suddenly I wasn't important any more. Just one of a group of kids, no more special or precious than any other. There were advantages sure. I loved to learn. Loved to explore this new realm of knowledge that grew bigger every day. But that's all there ever was.

I suppose I was considered a geek. It's hard to tell because friends were thin on the ground and no one really ever took the time to bother to inform me of the fact. Moving around so much during my formative years did nothing for the friendships I might otherwise have made, friendships that weather the test of time. Real friends who remain there throughout our lives to share the pain and the joy of everyday. So instead I submerged myself in the acquiring of knowledge. Used it to fill a void that tore at my heart for so many years. The pain of knowing I never quite fit in anywhere so intense that sometimes I could have just screamed out at the injustice of it all.

But in spite of that I did well. Made my parents proud. Never did anything much to make them angry. Played the part of the dutiful daughter with such consummate skill that they hardly noticed just how wild Melissa had become. Because they had me. Brilliant student, hard working, great future ahead of me. Enough to make any parent proud I was forever the sensible one. The one with my feet firmly on the ground.

Until of course things began to go wrong. Until I began to question the plans I had made. Wondered if I was taking the right path.

I still shudder when I think of the night I sat before my Father and announced my plans to join the FBI. That with all the exuberance of youth I wanted to make a difference. Wanted to make a mark in the world. Wanted to do something for myself for once.

I'd like to believe that in time my parents - my Father in particular - came to understand my choice. To respect it even. But I know deep down that from that day on I became something I had never before been to Him. A *disappointment*. Maybe even a failure. I don't know. I never really got a chance to ask him and although Mom takes great pains to assure me that he was always proud of me for just being me, I find it hard to believe her.

I look at myself now and wonder how one can be proud of a non-person.

Because that's what I've become. I've become so embroiled in this quest that is Mulder's that I've forgotten who I am. I used to think that what we were doing was right and just and good. But somewhere along the line I've begun to lose myself. I've started to forget who I am. If I ever really knew that is.

It's not really his fault I suppose. He tries hard to be to me what I want him to be. But like me he's selfish. Driven by his own motivations that sometimes blind him to everything around him.

Of course it's worse now. Since I was diagnosed with cancer it seems as though he's simply stopped trying. I see it every time he looks at me. The guilt radiates from him as he watches me become weaker and more dependent on those around me whilst all the time I fight against this disease with everything I have.

But he doesn't let me fight any more. Because somewhere along the line he has even taken the responsibility for that on to his own shoulders. He refuses to acknowledge that in staying with him I bear the responsibility for what has happened to me. That I and I alone have always had the power to control my own destiny. To walk away or to stay by his side. I chose to stay. For a million reasons I chose to stay with the man who has become so much more to me than simply my partner.

But right now I could scream at him. I could scream at him for not understanding me when I need it the most.

He's different now. I see it in his face in the mornings when I arrive at the office and I've stopped even bothering to ask him if he's slept. I don't need to ask whether he's spent yet another night trying to figure out a way around this. Because I already know what his answer will be. I already know that he will attempt to give me hope when truthfully we have no hope left. So I let him continue, to offer me empty words designed to smother the emotions I know we both feel as we continue to make futile attempts to fathom the unfathomable.

But it's not what I want now.

What I *want* is for him to stop scrutinising my every move, my every word, my every thought.

I want him to stop constantly asking me how I'm feeling then not believing me anyway.

I want him to go back to being the way he used to be.

It's all I ask and at the same time I know it can never be.

I want us to be able to go back in time to before all this happened. Back to a time when his obsessive open mindedness used to pierce me like a knife as I tried to make him see sense. Back to a time when we used to argue. That electric back and forth that used to infuriate me and thrill me all at the same time.

Now he doesn't argue with me. Takes great pains never to say or do anything that might upset me. Now he brings me flowers and appears on my doorstep with excuses so flimsy a butterfly could rip it's way through them. He's not the Mulder I knew. Not anymore.

To others it might seem like concern for me and I know that a part of it is exactly that. But I also know Mulder well enough to know it's also a way of easing his own troubled conscience. That he is using my illness against me in some way. Maybe one day I will find the strength to tell him how I really feel.

That every morning I wake up shaking with relief that I have even awoken at all.

That sometimes when I'm lying in my bed trying to sleep through the pain I close my eyes tight and try to imagine what it will be like to die. For conscious thought to be replaced by a dark nothingness where neither sight nor sound holds any meaning.

To tell him just how scared I am right now. How I wanted to do so much more with my life. How cheated I feel. How sometimes I can't even bear to be in the same room with him in case I inadvertently let some tiny emotion escape, knowing that he will crumple before me as he tries to say all the right things and instead winds up saying nothing at all.

I wonder how long I can continue this charade that has become my life. How much longer I can smile when all I want to do is to curl up in a corner and cry. I want to cry until I have nothing left inside of me. I want to tell him how I really feel. How when I've gone he has to somehow find a way to carry on. That he can mourn me when I've gone but not before.

How none of this is his fault.

But I won't. I can't. I can only wonder about how things might have been had I had the courage to tell him all the things I wanted to. To tell him what I so badly want him to hear.

Maybe one day the time will come. Maybe one day he will ask me if I'm okay and I will shake my head, letting him put his arms around me. To let him hold me as he held me for that brief, sweet time at the hospital when I allowed my guard to fall for just a second. I can still remember how strong he seemed that night. How he promised me that somehow, someway, everything would be okay. I still remember how much I wanted to believe him.

I wonder if I will ever feel that way again? Even for a second before I die. Because that night I almost felt safe. In the arms of a man who has become everything to me.

I wonder how it would have been had things been different. How *we* would have been. But I will never tell him. That's a punishment he doesn't need to bear and one that maybe I don't either.

So I will continue to play the game his way. To do anything else would be too cruel to the both of us and I think we've suffered enough to last a lifetime. I suppose I'm lucky in a way. My suffering will end. Mulder's will last forever. An eternity of waking up every morning with the knowledge that this was one battle we couldn't win no matter how much we wanted to. I wish I could ease his pain in some way, but I can't and that's why I will let him carry on playing this the way he needs to. Why I will never let him see how much he's hurting me even when I want to.

I am aware now of his eyes on me from across the room and before lift my head I close my eyes briefly, dispelling any images that my quiet musings might leave reflected in my eyes.

He is frowning at me. Just a slight furrowing of the brow and for a heart wrenching second I am terrified that he can see straight through my carefully applied facade and deep in to my thoughts.

That he is going to ask me a question I just can't answer.

But the moment passes and finally he smiles. It's a smile I have seen a thousand times, barely lifting the corners of his mouth and I relax, anticipating his question.

"You okay, Scully?"

I allow myself to return the smile. Knowing that for the moment at least everything is easy.

"I'm fine, Mulder."

End