Darkness and Light III by Leyla Harrison Disclaimer: All characters owned by CC and Fox. Classification: VA (*lots* of angst), MSR hinted at but not referred to Rating: R for language. Spoilers: Gethsemane. Summary: You should read the first two in this series to understand what's going on here. Scully's still dealing with her mortality and is trying to figure out what role Mulder is playing in her life. Stories in this series: (this may be redundant, but I feel like I have to do it anyhow) - Darkness and Light - Darkness and Light II - Darkness and Light - Round Table Discussion (this is the only fun one in the bunch) - did anyone read it, anyhow?? Warning: This one's a killer. Keep tissues nearby. I'm *not* kidding. This one's for MJ. ***** He's alive. God, thank you. Thank you for bringing him back to me. I shift position slightly in his arms. He's here. Nothing matters. Nothing at all. I open my eyes. Oh, God, no. Nononono. I'm alone. Mulder's arms are not around me. He is not sitting with me on my couch. He is not holding me safe in his arms. I was imagining it all. Imagining it. How can this be? How could I have imagined him calling, leaving a message on my machine, being here when I got home? How could I have imagined all of that? Pain stabs through my chest and I close my eyes again. I can't take this. I can't have him here, then gone. I can't handle it. Tears prickle from behind my eyelids. Not this, Daddy. I can't handle this. I open my eyes and get up, shakily. I'm still fresh from the treatment and I know I'm going to be sick later. I want something to drink, though, to quench my thirst. My throat is dry as if I've been in the desert for days. Tea. Something light. Something that won't upset my stomach. On second thought, fuck that. Fuck me being careful and conservative and cautious. I'm sick of it. I pour myself a healthy glass of Scotch and take a large swallow. It burns going down. The bottle's been sitting here for over a year - and it's still unopened. I haven't had a drink in ages. The alcohol hits my system quickly, and my face flushes. I feel warm. I go to pour more and I instead put the glass in the sink and carry the bottle with me to the bedroom. So it was a hallucination, I think, setting the bottle down on the bedside table and getting undressed. I pull on a t-shirt and sweats, something comfortable. I imagined him there because I wanted to. Because I can't deal with the possibility that he's really-- Stop it. Stop it right there. Don't even think that. Don't say the word. But I know it. I know, without a doubt, that Mulder is dead. He's dead. And I was imagining him there in my living room, just as I was imagining him on the answering machine. I take a swallow from the bottle. The sting is not as bad this time. God. I must be so far gone. Far enough gone to have imagined seeing him. It was one thing to see him while I was getting the chemo - at least I know that was just a drug-induced hallucination. But this - this is far more humiliating, even though I am the only one to know about it. I get into bed and leave the light on. Since this has gotten worse, since I've had those two "appearances" from Mulder during my chemo treatments, I've left the lights on at night. Just in case. I shake my head. I'm going crazy. The cancer must have pressed into my brain, I think absently, even thought I know from the last MRI that this is not true. I must be insane. I take another few swallows from the bottle, wincing at the taste. Wincing at the slight nausea that is already beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. My body can't handle this kind of an assault. I know that. I'm going to be sick later. I know that. And I don't care. I close my eyes. All I want to do is sleep. I want to forget all of this. Minutes later I drift into a deep sleep, helped along by the alcohol. **** "Scully. Wake up, Scully." Mulder is shaking me. No, he's not. I'm dreaming. Dreaming, I remind myself as I open my eyes. I pull myself up from the laying position I am in. Mulder is standing at my bedside. "OK, Mulder. Enough, already. Stop this. I know I'm dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or both. I don't care which it is. Just stop this. Stop, do you hear me?" My voice is loud and angry. "You shouldn't have had so much to drink," he says softly, sadly. "You're going to be sick later." "I don't care." Stubborn. Petulant. "Scully, you should care. You--" "You're dead, Mulder. And soon I will be too. So leave me alone." His face clouds with concern, his eyes growing dark with pain. "Don't look at me like that. You were the one who told me that I was going to die. So don't look at me like that. Don't." "Scully, I want to help you." I laugh out loud, a bitter, dry, laugh. "Help me?" I ask incredulously. "Help me how, Mulder? Help me with the nosebleeds? Help me when my hair is falling out from the chemo? Help me when I throw up from the side effects? How the hell do you think you're going to help me?" His eyes are sad and he sits down on the bed next to me. "I want to help you face what you need to face." Realization hits me like a punch in the stomach. He *is* dead. And he wasn't lying when he said he would see me soon. That we would be together soon. Oh, God. No. I'm not ready. Not ready for this. Not ready to die. He sees the understanding was over my face and touches my cheek tenderly. "It's OK, Scully." I push his hand aside. "Don't touch me." "Scully--" "I said, don't fucking touch me. You're a ghost. Is that what you're saying?" He bows his head. He looks up. He can still hear my thoughts. Well, of course he can. He's a ghost, for Christ's sakes. "You lied to me," I spit out. "What?" he asks. "You said you were coming back to me. You said that you had to let everyone believe that you were dead-" the word comes out harshly on my lips - "for you to pull it off. You lied, Mulder." "I didn't," he asserts. "I did come back to you. I'm here. I never told you I was alive, Scully. You know I never said that." My mind races over the previous conversations I had with him. God, he's right. He never once said that he was alive. I sigh heavily. "What is it I need to face, Mulder?" "Scully, I know you don't want to hear this. But the cancer...it's not getting any better. It's spreading. Quickly. And you need to face that. You need to face the fact that you're going to die." The last sentence comes out softly, slowly. It obviously pains him to say this. "I don't want to die, Mulder," I say to him, tears sudenly choking my throat. I am suddenly scared. Pain. It's going to hurt. And then what will happen to me? All that I have learned from being a good Catholic girl tells me that I need to get to confession. I'll need last rites. God help me. I walked away from God, and now I'm running back to him when I realize that I'm really, truly going to die. Imminently. His thought, even though it is communicated from his mind to mine, is unbearably tender. "I'm going to help you," he murmurs, brushing his lips across my forehead. "I promise." And then he's gone again. My eyes are heavy. I want to get up and look for him, but I can't. I have to sleep first. ****** Nausea. It hits me like a sledgehammer. I'm clammy and shaking, my head aching. My stomach is rolling violently as if I'm on a ship that is on out of control waters. I open my eyes and head for the bathroom as quickly as I can. The nausea is so strong that I almost don't make it. I vomit several times into the toilet, gagging and choking. I hate vomiting. I'm always terrified that I am going to choke and stop breathing. I throw up several times, tears coming from my eyes unbidden. I'm gasping and whimpering. Alone. I'm alone in the apartment. Damn, I should have stayed with my mother. Mulder's voice comes back to me. "You shouldn't have had so much to drink. You'll be sick later." Finally I am heaving, and nothing is coming up. This goes on for another few minutes, and I finally am able to reach for a washcloth and wipe my mouth, my eyes, my nose. Blood comes back on the washcloth. Another nosebleed. No. Not just that. I'm throwing up blood as well. Oh, God. God, help me. Please. I sit on the bathroom floor, the cold tiles under me. My hands are trembling. My whole body feels as if it is trembling. My heart is racing. My head is still pounding, as if someone is hammering on it with a blunt object and yet I'm unable to pass out from the brutality of it. I'm having trouble catching my breath. Oh, God. What's happening to me? Anxiety, Dana, I tell myself. Just anxiety. Hold it together, girl. I push myself up from the floor and realize that my legs are hardly able to hold me up. The weakness is almost paralyzing; I can hardly make it to the bedroom and to the phone. I slump over on the bed, pain pushing through my head now, through my chest, and I am truly frightened. This isn't just anxiety. This is something much more terrible, much more ominous. I grab the phone and dial. "Mom," I gasp into the phone before she can even say hello. "Mom, help." "Dana?" her voice comes through the line. Her voice is filled with panic and I know that she hears the agony in my voice. I breathe heavily against the mouthpiece, her voice saying my name a huge relief. "Mom, help me. Help." The pain in my head is blinding now. Where the *hell* did all of this come from so fast? What's happening? The phone slips from my hand and I am in darkness. My world goes completely black. ****** I can't open my eyes. I'm blind. "No, you're not." Mulder. "Mulder, what's going on?" I ask. "Where are you?" I reach for him blindly in the dark, and can't find him. Can't touch him. "Mulder?" "It's OK, Scully. Soon." ****** My eyes open, barely. The room is dim. I can hear beeping. I feel pain, but it's dull. In the background. My mother is sitting beside my bed. I'm in the hospital. Her head is down and her eyes are closed. Dozing. I hate to wake her. But there are things I have to say. "Mom," I whisper, and she stirs. "Dana," she says, her eyes open in a flash. She moves to my bedside quickly and takes my hand, touches it gently. "How are you? How do you feel?" "I'm dying," I tell her. Her face is frozen. "I'm dying, aren't I." A statement. Not a question. Tears fall over her cheeks like rain. "You've been unconscious for three days. It spread - somehow it went right into your brain. Oh, Dana." That explains the pain. "She'll be all right. Your mother is strong." Mulder is across the room. So close, yet so far. I look to him. "She's hurting, Mulder," I tell him, and he nods his head. He knows, and he feels her pain as well. He loved her. I know this. My mother strokes my forehead gently. She cannot see Mulder; cannot hear me talk to him. The pain lances through my head again. I cry out. The room explodes into a bright white light and I cannot see. ****** The next time I open my eyes, I am sitting beside the bed. I can see myself laying there. My mother is standing next to me, holding my hand. My brother is there. A priest, murmuring soft words. Skinner, standing back behind them all, his face just as pained, though. Mulder is standing beside me, one hand on my shoulder supportively. "God," I breathe, realizing what I am witnessing. I'm dying. Right before my own eyes, I am watching my death. Mulder's helps me to stand next to him. "You're in no pain, Scully. They made sure of that." I look up at him. Tears are wet on his face. "Why are you crying?" I ask him, catching some of his tears on my fingertips. "I'm almost here. I'm almost with you." "I know." "Then why are you crying?" "I love you." He pauses. "It hurts me to see you like that, Scully," he admits, his voice low. It's the same reason why I can't bring myself to look. A sudden lightness fills me. As if a breeze has passed through my body. A sigh escapes my lips. I feel free and strong, as if I could run the track at Quantico again for hours. As if I could run and jump and scream. I feel as if I could fly. I don't have to look back to know what has happened. "I'm ready to go now," I tell Mulder, and he takes my hand in his and we walk away. END Don't worry - there *is* more to come, if you can believe that...Darkness and Light IV will be coming out within about a week. Mulder: "What is that look, Scully?" Scully: "I would have thought that after four years you'd know exactly what that look was."