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Candlelight 2/4 I'm still finding it hard to get used to the fact that, instead of the strident tones of my radio alarm jarring me awake, I now enjoy Scully's feather light touches as she coaxes me gently to full alertness. Gone are the days when I used to throw myself awake in a futile effort to escape the nightmares that haunted my dreams. Visions of a world where faceless men lurked in dark corners waiting to consume me - to consume us - where commonplace. But now I don't really dream. When I do, I dream of her. Sometimes when I open my eyes and see her beside me I have a hard time believing that she's really there, that I'm not locked inside my own head, wishing for things that could never be. Today is no exception. Still groggy and only half-awake, I reach out my hand to touch her, to affirm her continued presence in my life. She smiles. Her eyes soft and warm as she whispers in my ear that I should sleep a little longer. That I look exhausted. No surprise there. I had lain awake, silent and still as I watched over her through the darkness. Eventually though, somewhere between the lessening of night and the breaking of dawn, as the sky became streaked with that golden light that heralds the start of a new day, I finally switched my brain off and let sleep overtake me. But before I succumbed completely, a germ of an idea had begun to formulate in my mind. It is a plan that both terrifies me and fills me with blinding hope that I can somehow help her to mend. That I can dispel the fear that lingers inside her as a result of what he did to her. That I can help her find a little peace to help counteract the shadows that come to plague her delicate features every time she allows herself to remember. It's a hope born of a love for this woman that blinds me so completely I am powerless to resist it. But I'm terrified because I know how much of a gamble I'm taking by even thinking like this. There are pros and cons to every action we take. I've learned that the hard way. In one sense to carry out my plan would lend me a rare opportunity to take us both away from the lives we lead. An escape from the harsh realities that still steal upon us to darken our days and damage our souls. But maybe more than that, it would give me a chance to right at least one of the wrongs that Scully has had to endure during the time she has walked beside me in this quest that has taken over our lives. It's not even a question of guilt. I no longer bear the burden of that aching responsibility that once almost tore me apart as, slowly, I have accepted that Scully is her own person. Always was, always will be. She herself has made her choices. What she has done is as a result of her own commitment to bringing about some kind of personal justice against those who have wronged her. For a long time, I refused to believe that the responsibility belonged with her. Self obsessed and hurting, it was easier to ignore her need to take that responsibility, to make it hers. In doing so I almost lost her for good. No second chances. No turning back. I had watched as she drew further and further away from me, retreating deeper inside herself as she fought to survive in the only way she knew. By shutting me out of her life. Sure, we had still worked together but our relationship, professional and personal, had been left in tatters. We were both skilled at hiding behind our professional facades and truly, to the casual observer it would have seemed that little had changed. But at the end of the day the masks would be discarded and I would look in to her eyes, searching for answers I knew I didn't deserve. She didn't hate me exactly for what I'd done. What she had felt for me was worse - because in my blind self-recrimination, I had reduced her to feeling nothing for me at all. To her I had become a non-person. I had betrayed her in the worst way, only realising too late just how much I'd hurt her. It had been easier for her to shut me out than to face up to the consequences of *my* actions. I'm not exactly sure when things had begun changing. How she had made the decision to turn back to me. To speak to me with her eyes. But she had. Slowly at first as the humiliation that was Diana Fowley still burned and simmered inside of her. I had watched as she began to let go of the betrayal, perhaps accepting finally that I too was hurting. That I had behaved like a fool. That I would do *anything* to change what I had done. But even as the acceptance had developed it became clear to me that she would only return to me on *her* terms. She had laid down the rules specifically. The conditions that would allow us to move on. To put the preceding year behind us. And for once in my life I had done the smart thing. I had listened to her. I learned. I *understood*. From that day on I've tried to abide by those rules. I've bitten my tongue on countless occasions when she's been scared and hurting. I've let her make her own decisions as to what she needs. I've learned that what Scully needs doesn't always go hand in hand with my own selfish motivations. In doing so I've been rewarded a thousandfold as with each passing day she has revealed a little more of herself to me. She has opened up in ways that hitherto I had only dreamed about, allowed me to take residence in a corner of her heart. A corner that before was always inaccessible to all those who knew her. It's an honor and one I do not take lightly. But this time it's different. Because this time the pain isn't hers alone. Because no matter how selfish she might imagine my motivations to be, I too have a pain that needs to be healed. It's a pain that has gnawed at me since that awful night when I watched my partner lose control. Watched as she ended the life of a man who had nowhere to go and nowhere to run. I've had to watch as the knowledge that I lied for her in front of an OPR committee eats away at her for months and months. We've never talked about it. Not really. Like most things we just picked ourselves up and carried on, burying the memories behind our daily living. I never told her that I had secretly rejoiced at the fact that it had been she who pulled the trigger. I never told her that she had done me a great service. Because if it hadn't been her, it would surely have been me. I still close my eyes sometimes and see the alarming blankness in her face as she ended his life. The way she cried in my arms for hours afterwards, seeking absolution for what she had done. I allowed her to bear the burden of guilt without ever speaking up. Without ever telling her that what she did was *right*. That in killing Pfaster, she had slain a monster. That it could just as easily have been me in front of the OPR. The difference being, of course, that Scully had ended his life with a single well placed shot. A quick, merciful death. I wouldn't have shown the same mercy for him. I would have made the bastard suffer. I would have emptied my clip in to every conceivable part of his body, slowly and methodically choosing areas that would cause him maximum pain whilst keeping him alive. Until finally, I would have stuffed the barrel of my Sig in to his bloodied mouth and made him eat it. And all the time I would have relished hearing him scream. Just as he had made my partner scream. It's not a nice thing to admit. More than that, it's not a nice thing to have kept to myself. I could have eased her pain a long time ago and I didn't. I've tried to tell myself that she wouldn't want to hear it, that it would just stir up memories that are best forgotten. But if I'm honest with myself, I know the real reason is simple cowardice. I don't want to have to admit that I wish it could have been me who pulled that trigger. I don't want her to look in to my eyes and see the face of a cold-blooded killer. Scully had her reasons for doing what she did that night. I didn't have that same luxury, so in a split second I allowed her to do what I couldn't. I allowed her to squeeze the trigger. I allowed her to wipe him off the face of the earth. I allowed her to take *responsibility*. That's why I need to do this. I need to make amends in whatever way I can. Not just for her, but also for me. And regardless of the potential consequences should my plan backfire, I am determined to do just that. To do something I should have done a long time ago. |
