CHAPTERS (1/1)
BY: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

DISCLAIMER: The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not 
belong to me; they are the property of Chris Carter and Ten 
Thirteen Productions, which is a division of Twentieth Century 
FOX. The lyrics that introduce the story are by Sarah McLachlan 
and are from the song "Do What You Have To Do", which is on 
_Surfacing_, one of my favorite albums. 

SUMMARY: Scully struggles to come to terms as the pages continue 
to turn.

CATEGORY: VA. Some romantic thoughts, but I don't think it 
constitutes a romance categorization.

RATED: PG-13.

SPOILERS: US6, up through "One Son".

ARCHIVING NOTES: This piece will be premiered on my website, 
which is at http://members.aol.com/auralissa/index.html. It will 
also be shown at XAPEN and ATXC. If you have any requests after 
those two spots, please ask me first for my permission.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Though this piece does not have character death, 
it is *very* heavy and there are serious implications of 
character death in the near future. It's not a happy piece at 
all, and it's dark.

Also, all of the excerpts that Scully reads from in the story are 
of my own work.

I would like to thank a few people on this story: Heather Stone 
for beta-reading the piece and Kristin Pohaski for being a lovely 
friend and for encouraging me to write the concept.

Feedback is greatly appreciated at Auralissa@aol.com.

*****

CHAPTERS

*****

"And I have the sense to recognize
 But I don't know how to let you go
 I don't know how to let you go"
 --Sarah McLachlan

*****

"'I watched the birds flying gently outside of the window, soft 
and swift, assured of their steps and of their flight through the 
Alabama sunset. There was no hesitation in their path, no 
uncertainty in every careful beat of their wing. I longed for 
their steadiness, especially now...'"
	
Her voice was rough, ragged, like shredded satin. Every word 
ached, a dark physical pain that shot like dull fire through her 
throat. Days of reading, days of speaking, had shot her smooth, 
unflinching contralto to hell. Talking hurt, but not as much as 
thinking beyond the words. As long as she was speaking, she 
didn't have to listen to him.
	
"'The richness of the dusk was enough to make my breath catch in 
my throat; the way that lavender feathered the light rose of the 
clouds and then infused the entire canvas with oils of gold and 
copper was astonishing. I found myself transfixed by the 
brilliance of the colors before me, and a low, rich chuckle 
rumbled from deep inside his chest as he wrapped his hand around 
my arm...'"
	
The novel itself was of no significance. Just something that she 
had picked up at the gift shop downstairs, grabbed off of the 
paperback shelf without glancing at the title or the cover. The 
words were meaningless; the plot was of no value to her. It was 
just a distraction, and the novel had been handy. But each day, 
as she passed through the chapters and the pages, she wished that 
she had picked a longer book.
	
"'He liked to murmur things, liked to mumble and sigh rather than 
speak his mind with any clarity. I think that he thought this 
took away from the genuineness of his words, that somehow, if he 
spoke softly, then the meaning was less forceful. Ironically, it 
had the opposite effect, making my heart ache for his 
anxiety...'"
	
Men and women before had said that whenever they had been met 
with a horrible situation, everything had been emotional. They 
would cry at odd things, like the plights of fictional characters 
or the way that a child's fingers curled around a parent's larger 
palm. She found that now, she disagreed. Empathy was gone; all 
emotions were ripped from every other part of her life and now 
focused on this current crisis. It was as if she had no emotions 
to spare.
	
"'The sky's vivid china was slowly deepening into a richer, more 
majestic plum, and Jack slowly whispered the hell of his life 
into my shoulder. I was just grateful to have his lips pressed 
against my skin as I watched silver slowly stud the sky...'"
	
Her voice never tripped over the words; her eyes never 
mispronounced a single syllable. The reading was flawless, the 
language effortless and flowing. Everything was automatic, 
mechanized, like a book on tape. She only paused to turn the 
page, or when the outer noise threatened to pierce the thick 
armor of prose that she encased herself in. Sighs, sneezes, 
coughs and stumbles were not acceptable, and when she had cut the 
tip of her ring finger on a sharp corner of the paperback's page, 
she had let the blood tint the vanilla paper vermilion and kept 
reading.

"'He told me that he had always been in love with me, that his 
heart had always wanted me, but that he knew it wasn't right. As 
much as I didn't want to hear it, I was smart enough to know that 
he was right. We were never right for each other from day one; 
like night and day. But what about the sunset in between, when 
colors were passionate and violet was vivid...'"
	
The words blurred before her weary eyes for a moment, and 
suddenly, the English language lost all definition for her. All 
meaning, all comprehension was gone, and the detached consonants 
and vowels poured from her mouth in automation. The ink swam in a 
mass of letters on the page, and she was forced to halt her 
reading.
	
The sound of his breathing wafted toward her, and she looked up 
from the paperback novel that she hadn't even been following, and 
a shuddering gasp was ripped from her throat.

Beyond the thick fog the words, of those strings of sentences and 
the barrier of fiction, he could not be denied. He could not be 
ignored, and he was all consuming in his seamless slumber. Though 
it hurt her eyes to look at him, once she saw him, she could not 
tear her gaze away.

And Scully's voice was silenced.

The vividness and liveliness of Fox Mulder was gone now, stolen 
and pillaged. The wildness of his youthful pursuit, the madness 
of his passion, had been aged and then stilled. His radiant life 
had been shelved, and all that was left was the beautiful man 
that had once held the gold of heaven.

Amidst the sea of equipment, Mulder lay on the hospital bed, his 
breathing dictated and regulated by technology and machinery. His 
heartbeat was nothing more than a forced pulse. Nothing was his 
own anymore, and beneath the copper skin, the fine eyelashes and 
the sculpted mouth, there was emptiness.

Mulder had died ten days ago, when the doctor handed her the 
readings and told her that he was brain dead.

Scully had cried ten days ago, when she had realized that his 
brilliant mind and radiant spirit were gone forever.

And though she knew that this was just his shell, his ruin, she 
could not sign the papers and turn off the machines. She allowed 
herself to surrender to the deceptive warmth of his skin, to the 
lying luster of his hair, and to the occasional twitch of his 
fingertips. But she always knew that his heated skin was just the 
automated beat of his heart, or that the shine of his brown hair 
was just the increased fineness of it, or that his moving fingers 
were just muscle spasms. She knew that the respirator instructed 
the rise and fall of his chest, and she knew that behind the 
façade, Mulder was not there.

That was what hurt.

She would never hear his voice again, the sumptuous ripple of 
velvet tenor and bass, whispering in adoring intimacy or rising 
in indignant pain. She wouldn't hear him murmur out her name 
again, and no one would ever say "Scully" like he did. Scully 
would never watch his eyes turn dark mocha when he was troubled 
or flaming emerald when he was determined. The kaleidoscope of 
olive and mahogany would never shift hues again, and she would 
never get to see that blend of dark cherry wood and forest 
flecked with gold that told her she was everything to him.

Simple things, like his uniquely sloppy handwriting or his 
scattered sunflower seeds, were lost to her now. Those were what 
she missed. The small of her back was sore from the absence of 
his guiding fingers, and her palm ached to slide over his square 
shoulder. Scully had run across a dress shirt of his in her 
closet the other day, and she had spent a half an hour just 
remembering the way he had rolled up his sleeves to expose his 
long, slender forearms.

She knew that those things were gone, knew that companionable car 
rides and heated arguments were now memories of yesteryear. No 
matter how many meaningless chapters she read to him, she 
wouldn't be able to revive that part of Mulder from the empty 
vessel that lay before her now. Those lovely bits of him were now 
just pictures in scrapbooks, and she regretted never taking his 
picture. She regretted a lot of things.

Quietly, she placed the book on the nightstand by his bed, by the 
wilting daffodils and brittle roses that had been sent by well-
wishers days ago, when hope and Mulder had still been alive. 
Slowly, her fingers slipped around his wrist, and it hurt to 
acknowledge his slenderness. The coma had eaten away at him, 
stealing weight and beauty from his body, and she knew that she 
could probably count his ribs. The bruising on his face from the 
car accident were shadows on his cheekbones, and a bandage on his 
forehead concealed the cause of his death.

A car wreck; an absent-minded woman had run a red light on her 
way to work. Something mundane, something simple.

Something that never should have killed a man.

His airbag had malfunctioned, causing an accident upon an 
accident. He had hit the steering wheel hard, and the impact had 
caused internal bleeding inside of his bruised skull. His face 
had been somewhat spared, though cuts peppered his skin from the 
shattered windshield.

They had tried to save him.

But there was nothing they could do.

Three days after the accident, he had slipped away. He had just 
gone. The worst part was receiving the news from the doctor and 
knowing that she had been there the entire night. Scully had been 
there when he had died. When the fire and passion that had marked 
Fox Mulder had dimmed and then been extinguished, she had been 
holding his hand and telling him that everything was going to be 
fine. While she had been pleading with him not to leave her, he 
had left. Mulder had just left while she had been stroking his 
hair, or tracing the shape of his awkward nose, or just looking 
at him.

Scully looked down at him now and touched his shoulder. "Hi," she 
whispered, and some old, stubborn part of her expected a 
response. "It's me."

She stood there in silence for a moment, listening the hypnotic 
and eerily uniform rhythm of his breath, and then finally took 
her seat next to him. Slowly, she curled her hand around his, 
lacing her fingers through his limp ones, trying to recreate that 
intimate way that he had always held her hand. He had always 
tried to twine body and soul by interlacing his fingers with 
hers.

Scully opened her mouth to speak, but found that words didn't 
exist. She had never prepared for a situation like this. She had 
always thought that it would end differently, and how stupid it 
was of her to think that. To imagine that their deaths would be 
heroic or glorious, that this was something romantic or 
cinematic. Death did not have a sense for the dramatic. It could 
claim a man like Mulder with something like a car wreck.

She should have known that much.

Now her naivete had cost her. She paid the price for assumption 
with the pressure that the doctors had placed upon her. Everyday, 
she had to find a way to close the book on her partner's life, 
had to try and find a way to let him go.

Everyday, she came home to more and more painful reminders of his 
passing. For some horrible reason, Mulder had named her as the 
executor of his will, and she had to conduct and arrange his 
funeral. She had dully stared at the papers on that wretched day, 
and the agony of trying to bury a man like Mulder was a weight 
upon her shoulders. She could not do it. 

She couldn't do simple but heartbreaking things like order flower 
arrangements or decide on what casket to place his body in. //Why 
do we have to do these things?// she had desperately thought. She 
had spent hours in front of his closet the other day, trying to 
pick a suit to place his body in but instead becoming lost in the 
memories of him wearing them. How rich his hair had looked in the 
dark brown, pinstriped suit. The slim elegance of his body in the 
subtle charcoal Armani. She couldn't even bear to pick a 
headstone for him.

The thought of writing a eulogy was unbearable.

Eulogizing Mulder...

The slow, rhythmic beat of his heart was marked by a harsh, 
clipped electronic beep, and Scully covered his chest with her 
palm, feeling through the layers of skin his dulled pulse. She 
missed his heartbeat.

She had asked for time, time to find a way to let him go, and she 
had given herself the span of three hundred and five pages in a 
mass marketed paperback novel to do so. Day after day, she read 
the chapters to him, dreading the day that she reached the final 
page and had to sign the forms. Had to pull the plug, in those 
thoughtless and cruel terms. Had to let his heartbeat still and 
his breathing cease, and let all of Fox Mulder exit her life.

"You..." she whispered, and her voice caught in her throat. She 
had tried to speak to him with her own words a thousand times, 
never with success. She could not bring herself to continue the 
farce on that level. Mulder had gone, and speaking to what he had 
left behind was pointless. He wouldn't lean his lanky frame down 
to catch every word, his eyes wouldn't glitter like fiery 
confetti, and his breath wouldn't fall on her cheek. Mulder 
wouldn't listen now to a single word that she said, and God, he 
had always listened.

Sighing, she rested in the back of her chair, and thought 
everything that could not be said in words. Felt everything that 
could not be expressed in thoughts. The jubilance of existing 
with him, the passion that had marked them, the heat and 
sensuality that had always crackled between them, the love that 
had connected them, the madness, the mayhem, the fire and the 
light. All of it was now scattered to the wind and replaced with 
the poor substitute of grief and wistful longing.

Scully held his hand for as long as she could, touching the back 
of his hand with her thumb, and sighed. //Mulder...// She bowed 
her head, and then leaned her head to one bruised cheek. The bare 
shadow of stubble grazed his face, and Scully paused. She 
couldn't even kiss him here, not when he wouldn't feel anything 
from it.

Couldn't even kiss him goodbye, because he had left without a 
warning and without a word. And she was left to pick up the 
pieces and try to carry on. She would do it, she would find a 
way, but God, it would be hard.

It would be hard to learn how to live without him again.

And she couldn't live without him now, even if it was just the 
broken man that lay in the bed without a soul.

Squeezing his hand one more time, she watched his artificial 
breathing, and then walked back to her seat further away from 
him. She had to finish this night's chapter, and then she had to 
go home and try not to cry. But God, it was hard.

Scully settled down again in the novel, picking up where she had 
left off last.

"'But as the sky settled into a dark, harsher midnight, I knew 
that purple was only temporary, and that we only lived in the 
hard, concrete colors of black and blue. And I knew that Jack's 
mouth on my shoulders was not as beautiful as it should have 
been...'"

She should have picked a longer book.

There were just four more chapters to go.

*****

(end)

*****

Feedback will be *very* appreciated at Auralissa@aol.com. Thanks 
for reading.

*****