DISCLAIMER: Hah! I never mention any names in this story so I
have nothing to disclaim!! Yay! But to be on the safe side -- me
being terrified of those tricky lawyers at the Fox Network -- Mulder
and Scully are not mine, they belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen
Productions and Fox Broadcasting. No infringement intended.
SUMMARY: Mulder tries to help Scully drown out her pain before
she sleeps. She orders him to make her laugh, in truth, to make her
forget her present condition for a moment and feel the pure joy of
being alive.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a caffeine-induced story written
around midnight so YES, it will be strange and melodramatic, full
of symbolism crap. YES, the author was manic and
'out-there-somewhere' during this creative effort. At least for my
part, I've attempted to avoid any in-your-face MSR and UST,
making the dialogue as laconic and direct as possible. It's sad stuff
and pertains directly to Scully's cancer.
***
Title: Distant Suns
Author: Susan Lynn
Rating: G
Category: S
yaphome@tac.com.au
There were days like these. When the clouds seems to bear down
upon the horizon like a thick woolly blanket, blocking out the sun
until it was a mere luminous orb in the distance. She would sit at
the window, her delicate finger tracing the path of the droplets as
the rain fell lightly from the sky. The faint golden light of the sun
shimmered vaguely, reflecting off the wet road, a dull presence in
the quickly approaching darkness.
There were days like these when the atmosphere felt heavy, bearing
down upon her shoulders, nothing seems clear but hazy and
feverish.
"Make me laugh," she asks softly to the man sitting on her
armchair.
He had been watching her for the last half-an-hour and she had
remained oblivious. Her preoccupation on the weariness and pain
of the last treatment at the hospital. After taking her home, he had
refused to leave, waiting for her to need him.
Now she did.
"Do you want me to tell you a joke?" he murmurs, barely able to
form a sound, drowsy from the darkness of the apartment. They
should turn on some lights but he didn't want to wake her from her
languid condition. She was near sleep, he could feel it.
She leans her head against the window pane. The cold seeped in to
counter the warmth of her body. Refreshing, cool, like water and
air. "Tell me anything. Just make me laugh."
"Why do you want me to make you laugh?"
She continues to watch the dying light as the darkness marched
across the landscape. Silent soldiers that shadowed half their lives.
She knew he stayed because he could not leave her alone, to be
alone in this terrible dream which she could not wake.
"I don't know. Seems as though it gets harder and harder to smile.
Even more difficult to laugh. I don't want this to happen to you."
"It's too late."
"I never wanted it to be this way for you." Now there were tears.
Must be the medication that was amplifying every word, making it
harder to shake off the tremor in her voice. She never cried and
now there were tears, gliding down her cheek in random
succession. But not a sound or sniffle from her. She's always been
good at silence, the best shield to hide behind.
He felt glued to his seat. Moving would change the scene before
him and her profile against the monochromic sunlight. Such a
strange creature. He may consider her in aesthetic terms of
feminine beauty but that would never do for her. She was more
than a female to him and thus, she became an enigmatic creature
which he sometimes stared at in awe. Only sometimes because she
was human after all. She was not flawless nor immortal.
No, she was not immortal.
Though sometimes, he believed that she was more than a mere
mortal. He also believed that if love makes us see in rose-colored
glasses, then she would be an angel. He knew she was not but it
seemed appropriate to contrast her to such a heavenly thing. His
admiration of her, of everything about her, was endless. Beyond
reason.
He loves her spirit. He loves her silence. He loves her serenity.
He loves her truth. Which kept him alive. Which keeps him alive.
He didn't want to disturb the picture of her by the window by his
crude presence. But the need to touch her overwhelmed the will to
preserve the scene before him. So he moves to sit near her and
reaches out to smooth the back of her hair. "Why don't you get
some sleep?"
"Seems as though all I do is sleep. I'm losing time and I might as
well die now if that is what remains of my life. Keep me awake,
make me laugh," she orders drowsily, her eyes dilated and cast out
into the distance. Finally she tears away and looks at him, eyes
shining though he couldn't read them.
"I don't know how to make you laugh."
"You used to."
"I did?"
"You made me smile all the time with your dry humor," she smiles.
"You made me smile when no one else could. And you made me
cry for you so many times I've lost count. You still do."
"I'm sorry. Don't ever cry for me."
"Then who will?" she asks cryptically. "I don't want you to cry for
me. Because I know you do and you may deny it but I know you
too well. It's not your fault we're here now. Me sitting in the
twilight and you watching me, feeling this guilt I know you feel."
Sighing, he shifts so that she tucks under his arms and they sit
leaning against the wall, gazing out the same window except now,
the sky had grown inky black.
"You know me too well. You're like my mother," he grumbles into
her hair.
"I know you better than your mother," she says, sounding more
lucid. "I'm not your mother. Sometimes, I wonder who I am to
you. Tell me so I'll know before I sleep."
He thinks about it. Both his hands reaches out in front of him to
clasps her's into his palms. They hardly touched and when they did,
it was brief and affectionate. Like brothers and sisters. But she did
not fulfil the role of a sister. They didn't share a childhood
together.
Was she a friend? A best friend? Yes.
"You're my best friend," he offers.
She doesn't reply. Instead, she turns his palms over and studies the
lines like a foreign map, her fingers trailed along the path leading to
his wrist, near his pulse. Without much thought, she brings the
palm up to her lips and kissed it gently. she whispers
silently in her mind. Then she smiles.
"And you wonder why I cry. I'll only ever be your best friend?
Never your soulmate?" she teases, recalling a collective memory.
In her own words, forgiving him for never considering such a
possibility.
He laughs and pulls her closer, the burning kiss still searing his
palm. "I never thought you had such thoughts in your head. I
suppose I do make a good fantasy."
She laughs this time, from deep in her soul and out in a marvellous
spill of sweet melodic laughter. "I suppose only in my dreams."
As he clutched her fragile frame against his chest, he felt the rise
and fall of her breathing like the rhythm of some ancient ocean.
Her laughter sustained him, kept him from falling into depression.
She curled up against his chest and fell asleep, peacefully, knowing
her best friend kept her safe in his arms. Having laughed for the
pure joy of it.
So he sits and she sleeps, under the guiltless moon and crystalline
stars, where the clouds had parted and allowed the faint shimmer of
distant suns to shine.
No, he thought, don't ever cry for me. Keep laughing for you and
me.
I'll cry enough for both of us.
END
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