Title:      Illumination
Author:     dtg
Email:      dgoggans@earthlink.net
Website:    http://home.earthlink.net/~dgoggans/
Rating:     PG
Category:   Vignette, missing scene
Spoiler:    The Truth, FtF
Summary:    Their pursuers are, for the moment, off
            the scent. Reality sets in with a 
            vengeance.
Archive:    Sure, just let me know where.
Disclaimer: Anyone you recognize is the property of
            Fox, 1013 and Chris Carter. No copyright
            infringement intended.
Author's Notes:  This is a follow-up to a piece I
            wrote a few days ago and posted to 
            Ephemeral titled Kinship. This story 
            begins right after Kinship and refers to
            events that took place in it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Illumination by dtg



Mulder feels the tremor in her body before his mind 
identifies the sound. When it does, his heart folds 
in on itself.

She doesn't say a word as they leave the motel 
manager's apartment and he doesn't know how to deal 
with her silence. Every line of her body screams to 
him for help that he has no idea how to give. He felt 
the baby's cries like an ice pick through his heart. 
He can't begin to imagine what it was like for her. 

They reach their room, and he unlocks the door while 
she waits patiently in the rain. She walks in ahead 
of him, then stands in the middle of the room for a 
moment. 

"I'm going to take a shower." She doesn't look at him 
when he hands her the small suitcase that holds all 
that is left of their worldly possessions, mostly 
recent purchases from a Wal-Mart a few hours ago. He 
watches her walk slowly to the bathroom and close the 
door behind her without a backward glance.

The adrenaline has worn off. Their pursuers are, for 
the moment, off the scent. And reality has set in 
with a vengeance.

He realizes he's standing exactly where she was a few 
moments ago, motionless in the dark. The rain 
sluicing against the window echoes the sound of the 
shower on the other side of the door. He knows that 
if he listens at that door, he will hear her crying, 
and that he can't bear. Not now.

The rich stew that had felt so satisfying going down 
is a heavy mass in his gut, and he now recognizes the 
hunger he'd thought to satisfy with food. An 
emptiness that will never be filled. A hole in his 
soul.

He knew his son for two days. Scully carried him in 
her body, cared for him, feared for him, loved him 
and, in the end, gave him up. She traded a broken 
heart for the hope that her son might have a normal 
life.

A normal life.

How can he tell her what he now believes? How can he 
make her understand that there *is* no hope? That it 
was all in vain? Every moment of the past nine years. 
Wasted.

Worse than wasted.

A flash of lightning and its simultaneous bone-
jarring thunderclap make him jump. 

"Scully, are you all right?" 

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop 
them, and he instantly feels ridiculous. As if this 
woman, with all she's survived over the past nine 
years, would be afraid of the storm.

As if he could do anything if she were.

In the silence that follows, he moves to the bathroom 
door. Presses his forehead to the cool wood.

He hears the metallic rattle and wet swoosh of the 
curtain being pushed aside, then her soft footsteps 
as she approaches the door. When it opens, he steps 
back.

Her hair is wet, slicked back from her face; her damp 
body enclosed in the white robe he recognizes from 
that last night they spent together nearly one year 
ago. The night she had convinced him to leave her 
alone with their son. To save himself.

*Mulder, if you stay, they'll kill you. And if they 
kill you, I won't survive. Not this time. I can't do 
it again.*

It had been easy to tell himself that she would be 
safer without him. That he was protecting her. And 
his son. Too easy. Too damn convenient. And totally, 
tragically, irrevocably wrong.

She comes toward him now, not stopping until her body 
is touching his. She reaches both arms around his 
waist, buries her face against his chest, and his 
breath stops in his throat.

"No. I'm not." 

The words are whispered into the fabric of his shirt, 
and it takes him a moment to connect them to the 
question he asked. 

"I know." He pulls her tightly against him, feels her 
shiver in his arms. "Scully, I'm so sorry. I--" His 
voice, already squeezed to a whisper, breaks. He 
shakes his head, swallows around the tightness in his 
throat. "I can't tell you how sorry I am."

He feels her nod against his chest, his vision 
obscured by the darkness and the tears he's trying 
desperately to keep at bay. It's too late for tears. 
It's been too late for a long time and he refuses to 
allow himself even the small comfort they could 
provide.

Her body promises comfort, too. Comfort he has no 
right to accept, and he pulls gently away. She has 
followed him through hell so many times, but there 
was always a way out. That is no longer the case. Not 
for either of them. He can't even send her home to 
keep her safe. There *is* no safe place, and there's 
nothing he can do about it. 

She looks up at him just as another flash of 
lightning pushes the shadows away. The thunder that 
follows is distant, rumbling. The storm is moving 
away. 

"Mulder?" She reaches up to touch his face, but he 
intercepts her, his fingers circling her wrist. 

"I'll bet Salt Lake City is looking pretty good about 
now." Humor, even as feeble as this, is his last 
refuge. "I should have let you go." 

She would be married now. Living a life that is now 
forever out of her reach. But he was weak, selfish, 
too terrified of losing her to consider what she 
would be giving up by staying with him. Nothing else 
he's ever done comes close to the shame of that 
moment. 

She pulls her hand free and cups his cheek. Her 
fingers are warm against his skin, and his eyes close 
of their own volition.

"It wasn't your choice to make. I quit because I 
couldn't let them send me halfway across the country. 
Away from you. I couldn't leave you, Mulder."

"Then *I* should have left." 

She goes quiet again, utterly still against him, and 
he opens his eyes. "Scully?"

A flash from the departing storm lights her face, her 
unfocused gaze. "You did." 

He flinches at her words, and she shakes her head. "I 
won't allow you to blame yourself for what's 
happened. You did what I asked you to do. You did the 
only thing you could." She looks up, seeks his gaze. 
Holds it. "And so did I."

She's seeking absolution as well as offering it, and 
that knowledge humbles him. Shames him.

He bows his head and lets the tears come.

~~~~~

end