Title: 37 Author: Maidenjedi Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: X-Cops, One Breath Summary: Mulder POV, MA. The date is February 23rd, 2001. Scully's 37th birthday. Disclaimer: Scully, Mulder, and the rest of The X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox entertainment. Archive: List archives, otherwise please ask Author's Notes: At the end. ------------------------------------ Mulder puts the roses down as he stoops low to the gray headstone. He wasn't the first person here today, apparently, because there are two other fresh bouquets of roses, both white. He figures it was Bill that left them, and maybe Skinner. The red roses he has in his hand stand out well, and he thinks it is ironic. He never stood out enough for her when it counted. It's dank and chilly, a typical February day in D.C. Mulder pulls his black trenchcoat tighter around himself, thinking about that day last March. It hadn't been much different outside, in fact it had been raining. *I never should have let her go*. The thought doesn't surprise him...Mulder had always been the type to blame himself. Samantha, Melissa, his father, and even Scully. God, almost a year and he still thinks of her as Scully. He reaches out and traces the letters on the stone, D-A-N-A. His Scully. Even now, he wonders if she thought of him at the end, if she blamed him, if she forgave him. He still hasn't forgiven himself. "Scully..." he whispers. No answer. Not even the birds are chirping in this dead people's place. He never used to mind cemeteries, probably because the X-files had often led him there. But as he knelt there, he could hear the thump of dirt hitting the casket, the soft crying all around him, and his own\ traitorous emotions running away with him. If he listened, Mulder could hear Skinner telling him all about it, his own tears barely held in check. "Agent Mulder, I have some bad news." Even now the scene played in his head like a bad movie, over and over. The months melted away as he remembers everything, and the pain in his heart is as fresh now as it ever was. ------------------- March 31, 2000 Mulder straightened up as he watched Skinner walk into the room. He saw the struggle in Skinner's eyes before the man spoke. Something was up. Why else would Assistant Director Skinner bother coming down to the X-files office? Walter Skinner had never wanted out of a place more. One look at Mulder told him that this was not going to be easy in the least; these things never are. He wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to need someone to help him out here. Deep breath..."Agent Mulder, I have some bad news." "Bad news?" Mulder tried to act nonchalant, but his heart was racing so fast he could hardly breath. The playacting between the two men, the pretending, disappeared. No manly pretense now. Skinner's news was going to devastate them both. "Its about Agent Scully. Her plane, uh, went down over the midwest. There, um, were no survivors." There. Said it. Skinner felt his face flush, and sweat broke out on his upper lip. Mulder froze. No survivors...plane down...Scully... He fell into the chair, the news hitting him with tremendous force. She'd been going to Los Angeles, to do follow-up on the fear contagion case they'd worked on in February, the one that got so much publicity when COPS aired it a week later. He'd sent her there, alone, because there was so much backlog at the office he felt he couldn't leave. He hadn't gone because he thought she'd be okay. She was a big girl, after all, and she could handle the case. The case, perhaps. But the gods of the sky were a different story. Ravaged eyes looked up at Skinner's own. The two men sat there, each grieving for the light that had gone out of their lives. ----------------------------------- 2001 Mulder shakes as he remembers that day. He can't remember much about the ensuing days, but the funeral...tears begin to fall with the rain that has begun. The funeral... ----------------------------------- April 3, 2000 She was buried on a Monday. Mulder had been asked to give the eulogy, but he refused, knowing he could never have the strength for it. Bill did it instead, for once not arguing with Mulder, though he had done so plenty since the crash. They had been lucky, that her body had been found so quickly. Mulder was grateful; the thought of Scully trapped under all the rubble had given him nightmares. He imagined the surrealistic drop from the sky, the distant screams of tiny children, the pressure change in her ears... The tears wouldn't stop. No one comforted him. No one knew how. Scully had been the only one in his life by then, and the fates had seen fit to take her as well. Mulder hadn't eaten, hadn't slept. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." He hated this cemetery. And why was it raining? Scully would've hated the rain. It was a good thing Mulder didn't believe in God, he figured. Easier to blame it on fate, because fate can't send you to hell for cursing it. Though he figured it no longer mattered, because hell was right here. Thump. The dirt hitting the casket made him cringe, and he realized he was the only one left standing. Scully, I need you. --------------------------------------- 2001 The roses suffer from the rain, he notices. Like he had that day, withering under the weather, letting it touch him. His soul was, for all intents and purposes, with her in that mahogany casket. He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a tiny gold cross on a gold chain. Once, he had held it and begged for her to return, to have strength, and she came back to him. It feels so long ago now, and he longs to hold her hand again, just once more. The cross lays in his palm for a while. He kisses it, like he has done every night since that fateful day. And for a moment, he could swear she is beside him, giving him that wry smile he loved so much once, and still does. And for that moment, he is grateful to have known her. A smile graces his lips, and the ghost-Scully he thinks he sees laughs and teases him. For that moment alone, he knows it was not his fault, and he knows he can find the truth without her there, just by keeping her memory warm. He speaks to the ghost he thinks he sees, "Hey Scully, how bout those Yankees?" The rain has stopped, and the sun pushes through just a little, enough to warm Mulder's cheek. And he is able to say the words that have eluded him for so very long. "Dana, I love you." He knows its silly, but he hears her anyway..."I forgive you." His smile grows wider, and his heart feels full for the first time in a very long time. The sun hides again, and the warmth dies around him. In his palm the cross feels heavy, and he knows the guilt has returned. But he is changed. He has found his soul, and knows that hers is with him. ------------- A/N: begun Feb. 23rd, 2000. I was a newbie. This was a very early effort. Feedback/criticism to texgoddess_at_yahoo.com