Title: Hoping For Different Miracles
Category: A, UST/MSR (you decide), letter-fic <g>
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Little ones for Revelations, Talitha Cumi/Herrenvolk.
Heavier for
the cancer-arc (yup, I'm back there again), particularly Elegy
and Redux II.
Archive: Yes to Gossamer. Anywhere else please ask first so I
know where
it's going.
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013 and Fox, even
though
sometimes I like to put on surfer gear and a blond wig and
pretend they're
mine. No copyright infringement intended, and I'm not making a
penny
off this.
Feedback: cazfic@ymail.com
URL: http://cazq.freeservers.com
Summary: A man wakes up each day wondering if today will be the
day the
miracle arrives. In time we come to hope for different miracles.
Author's note: Some months back I wrote a Scully-to-Mulder
love-letter in
answer to a Scullyfic writing challenge, 'Peanut Butter and
Chocolate'. I
told the folks who asked for a sequel that I doubted there'd be
one, but
hey, if I got writer's block again, you never knew...well, in
that this is
Mulder's turn to send love-letters, this is a sequel, but not
quite,
perhaps, the sequel you might have expected. Indulge me, I'm
blocked. Whether or not Mulder ever sent these...that's up to
you to
decide .
Muchos gracias to EPur, for a speedy beta. Here's the end of the
dry spells,
darlin'!
******
Hoping For Different Miracles by CazQ
(cazfic@ymail.com)
******
Scully,
As your illness progresses, I sometimes wonder if I should try to
persuade
you to stay out of the field. I haven't acted on that thought
yet, and the
truth is that I doubt I will, until I can no longer avoid it. I
know you
would be furious if I suggested it, that continuing to work on
cases gives
you a sense of purpose, a direction, a mental true north to keep
pointing
to. More than that, I know I still need you there, perhaps more
than ever.
I'm too selfish to let you leave me now, when suddenly I've begun
to feel
the shortness of a minute, an hour, a day.
It's getting harder, though, isn't it? For both of us. Your blood
is so
bright, Scully, the brightest, *reddest* red I've ever seen. When
it dropped
on to Harold Spuller's records yesterday, it was so red against
the
whiteness of the paper that it hurt my eyes.
So you saw something. A death omen, a ghost, a fetch, a
wraith...the name
makes no difference, really. It still signifies the same hideous
thing. I
can try to imagine the fear...because I know something of how it
paralyses
you, how it seeps into your blood and covers your skin. I told
you earlier
that I knew what you were afraid of, because I was afraid of the
same thing.
You're afraid of losing everything, and I'm afraid of losing
you...and for
me, it comes down to the same thing.
I know you remember the Kevin Kryder case, Scully. Sometimes it
seems like
you remember everything we've ever done, although perhaps I only
think that
because I need it to be true. Do you remember the time on that
case when I
told you that every day I wait for a miracle?
That's still true, you know. I just hope for different miracles
these days.
I daren't hope for the biggest one of all, not consciously:
instead I hope
for small things. I hope each day that I won't see that thin,
bright trickle
of blood on smooth, pale skin, the awful signature your disease
writes on
your face. I hope that if I do have to see it, you won't look
down at the
ground with those large, liquid, fear-filled eyes, and run away
to
nurse your hurt in private, although I know that's a vain hope. I
hope for a
blush of colour in your too-pale cheeks. I hope for at least the
flash of a
smile when I crack a weak joke.
Most of all, I hope for one more day of...of grace, I suppose.
Isn't that
what the Church calls it? Divine acts of love, given although not
deserved
by man. If there is a God - if - He hasn't shown me much in the
way of
grace in my life...but He brought me you. I've come not to expect
any more
grace, because then it's easier to take the disappointments in my
stride,
but I hope He has some left for you.
I still hope for miracles, Scully. I hope for yours. I hope for
you, always.
Mulder
******
Scully,
In the X-files there are dozens of folders filed under H. H for
Healers. Men
who claimed to be able to heal by the laying on of hands. Men who
claimed
they could reach into people's bodies and draw out their sickness
like they
would a splinter. A five-year old girl who healed her cousin's
limp 'by
asking Jesus'. Mysterious healings by bright white lights, for
God's sake.
I would give up the entire X-files this moment if by some miracle
just one
of those files could offer up a cure for you.
Scully, all those nights you thought I was watching the channels
you have to
pay for on the other side of motel room walls: some nights you
were wrong.
After our run-in with Jeremiah Smith, after my mother was somehow
turned
away from death, I started reading up on miracles in those
Gideon's Bibles
you find by every motel bed.
You know what struck me after a while? How arbitrary they were.
Jesus would
pick out one lame guy, or one blind beggar, and heal them...but
the Gospels
never say how many lame or blind people went away without being
healed that
day. If Jesus had lived to be 90, he'd still have been having to
turn people
away without their miracles, wouldn't he? Do you think the ones
who got
turned away would have hated him for it, Scully? I have to think
that they would,
because some days lately I wake up hating a God I'm not even sure
exists.
Maybe we can't rely on Him for your miracle. Maybe we'll have to
make our
own. But if He is handing out miracles just to the lucky few, the
only
comfort I can find is that no-one I've ever known deserved one
more than
you.
Mulder
*****
Scully,
Today I was offered a deal, one that might save us both. I stood
on a busy
sidewalk, looking at the man who offered me your salvation, and
for a second
it seemed like the hand of God was reaching down and re-arranging
the world
around us, like you were going to get your miracle.
I said no. Someone's hand was reaching out to me, but it wasn't
God's. I
said no, Scully, so now the only hand I have left to hold on to
is yours.
I noticed earlier that the colour of your eyes hasn't changed.
Your whole
body is betraying you, your eyes are sunk deeper into your face
and circled
with shadows, you seem to get thinner and paler by the day, until
you look
as if a puff of wind might blow you away, but your eyes are still
exactly
the same shade of...I don't even know what to call the colour,
it's
somewhere between green and blue, but that doesn't even come
close. Saying
your eyes are green-blue is like saying that the Pope is kind of
religious.
It's like leaning over the rail of a sailboat on the waters off
Rhode Island
on a July day, a sea-breeze stroking over your skin, looking down
into this
one particular stretch of water where the sea is just shallow
enough for the
water to turn...that colour, that colour I can't name, the one
that I'd like
to swim in, to cover myself in.
If your..., no, when your miracle comes, Scully, I'll take you to
Quonochontaug, in the height of summer. We'll open up the old
summer
house, keep all the doors and windows open all summer long, let
the air and
the light into all the corners. I'll take you out on a boat, if I
can still
remember how to sail, and we'll find that one stretch of water,
and you'll
look into my eyes with your ocean-eyes, those eyes with the sea
bred into them that
can see tiny sails on distant horizons, and throw back your head
and laugh, that
rare healthy sound I want to hear a lot more of. And then you'll
dive in,
and I'll follow, and catch you, even though you'll swim like a
fish, and when we
come up for air your hair'll be dark mahogany, sleek to your
skull. I'll kiss you, or
you'll kiss me, it won't matter, and I'll taste the sea on your
mouth as we
swim in the colour of your eyes.
The colour of your eyes hasn't changed at all, and that's miracle
enough for
today. Now, if you'll let me wait with you, we'll hold out for
yours,
Scully. I can't just hope for it anymore.
I have to believe.
Mulder
******
FINIS
******
cazfic@ymail.com
