Title: Artificial Darkness Classification: SAR Keywords: MSR/UST Spoilers: cancer arc episodes Rating: PG-13 Distribution: not that would, but you could. Just let me know. Disclaimer: these characters don't belong to me, they belong to Mr. Chris Carter, lucky bastard Thanks: to my betas realb, Karri, and Vicki. They went through six different versions of this fic without complaint. Feedback: pretty please to lil_gusty@hotmail.com Notes: "Requiem?" Season eight? Season nine? Not in this universe. Summary: After five years, they say you're cured. "And the fool on the hill sees the sun going down and the eyes in his head see the world spinning 'round." ~ The Beatles Sometimes, it hits me how surreal the Earth is... When I'm driving at night, peeking at the stars from between the purple-black clouds that sit low in the sky, trying to pick out the constellations. I was never good at finding them except the Big Dipper. Scully could always do it, though. Once, when we were on a case, we got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to our hotel. We'd been at the police station all day and by the time we were on the road again, it was well after sunset. Instead of sitting idly, impatient and annoyed at the setback, we just stared up at the sky through the windshield and she pointed out the constellations to me. She told their stories as she said her father had told them to her. More than once that night, she'd gotten tears in her eyes talking about him. When the wind is blowing those same purple-black clouds much too fast for tiny water molecules to keep up and they scatter, forming different shapes and lancing across the moon, eating up the light it reflects. When little invisible raindrops start lightly pelting the car as I slowly drive along; just water falling from the sky. It's so simple, but it sounds so amazing. Just water, that's all. I've seen toads fall from the sky, but the fact that, periodically, water falls from the sky astounds me sometimes. At those times, it occurs to me yet again that I and the other six billion people on the planet are nothing special. We are merely a highly developed, intelligent life form on another sphere that happens to support our existence. If the Earth were a few centimeters closer to or farther away from the sun, we wouldn't be here. If the Earth rotated slower or faster, or if gravity wasn't just the rate it is, we would've never developed into the organisms we are today. We're not alone, either. Who's to say that on the other planets - Venus, Mars, even Neptune - that there aren't life forms just as highly developed and intelligent as we are, only we don't know where to find them. As Scully told me once, the answers are there, you just have to know where to look. Our planet is simply floating through the vast, never-ending universe, one out of an infinite number of others. And as we look into the sky, marveling at the stars that manage to sneak through the clouds, something else is out there, looking at the same stars, trying to find a pattern and meaning in their arrangement. Surreal. Transient. Lonely. Finite. And one day, when our sun gets old and tired, it will start to expand until it envelops our tiny, insignificant planet and everything - every one of the unknown billions of people, every plant, animal, single-celled organism, every tall, unyielding building, every thousands of years old ruin - will be destroyed and forgotten. And the universe will not mourn our deaths. Our existence will have been erased, leaving behind the history of the civilization that thrived in this corner of our galaxy. Cleaning up. Taking everything away. Five years ago, my sun was old and tired, every day growing larger and larger until its nearness was starting to singe the hair on my arms and redden my skin. And I leaned into it, urging it on, grateful that it was erasing me. <><><><><><> She stirs slightly, pushing her face further into the pillow, then deciding the oxygen canula makes that position uncomfortable, and shifts back. Kicking her legs under the massive blankets, she blinks, not really awake, but not asleep anymore, either. "What day's it?" She mumbles, catching me with her dull, heavy eyes. "Still Saturday," I tell her, reaching for her hand under the sheet and lacing my fingers with hers. They're cool and the skin is so thin that I can feel the blood rushing through them. "Your head still hurt?" She nods against the pillow, closing her eyes again. "It's been Saturday forever." I smile slightly. "No, just for the past nineteen hours." She slides her other hand over mine, pulling it towards her. "Have you been here the whole time?" "Yeah," I whisper, brushing the limp hair from her clammy forehead. She knew the answer to that before she asked, though. On the weekends and after work, I've become a permanent fixture in her bedside chair. Every evening, I tell her goodnight and kiss her cheek under the guise of going home and getting some rest. What she doesn't know is that I wander up and down the hallway until I'm sure she's asleep, then I return to her room, lay my head beside hers, and try to sleep. I don't usually succeed, but I'm gone before she awakes in the morning. I guess I just feel guilty going home to my comfortable couch, warm blanket, and healthy, normal life while she lays here suffering in a tiny hospital bed with way-too-perky nurses. I should be here, suffering beside her. And I wonder if she needed to talk to someone, or just want someone's company - if she needed me - if she would call me or if she would just do her suffering in solitude. I can't stand the thought of her crying alone in the darkness. Like I've done. "Need t'go home." Such has become our other nightly ritual: her telling me to take care of myself while her control over her body slips away. Maybe she's trying to compensate. Maybe she just cares. "I will in a little while," I assure her. "Do you need me to get the nurse?" Shaking her head, she tries turning onto her back, thinking that it will alleviate the pressure in her head, letting go of my hands as she does. Evidently, it doesn't work, but she compromises turning her lower body to its side, leaving her upper body flat. "We need to talk about something." "Okay." Blinking open her eyes again, she reaches out her index finger for mine and we lock them around each other's, connecting. "Mulder, I know you've been sleeping here," she says evenly, becoming more awake. I take a quiet breath, looking down at the moonlight reflecting off the tile between my shoes. "That's what we need to talk about." "Scully," I say softly, looking back at her. "I can sleep just as well here as I can at home. Better, even." "It's not that. It's what you're doing to your life." "What do you mean?" "Your whole life revolves around being here. When you're not here, you're at work; when you're not at work, you're here. I worry about what's going to happen after I die." The way she said it, so detached and unemotional, starts the nightly onslaught of tears. "Scully..." but I don't know what else to say. "You can't reduce your life to me, Mulder. You have to have other people around you. You have to have things to do. You can't just go on sitting in this room forever." I would if I could. "I want to be here with you." "But what happens after I'm not here anymore? I worry about that." I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers and trying not to sob. "Mulder, you have to move on. Your life isn't going to stop with mine. The sun will still rise in the morning and set in the evening, the FBI will still need you...you need to be getting used to me not being here." Last week, I'd overheard one of the hospital's grief counselors having the same conversation with her mother. These doctors and nurses, they all treat her like she's dying... At a loss for anything intelligent to say, I lay my head down on her bed and cry into the stiff blanket. Without a word, she lays her head on top of mine - she's crying, too. I didn't even realize it. Her breaths are coming in hot little pants against my scalp, making millions of tiny goosebumps rise there. "Mulder, you have to move on," she repeats, though not as detached as last time. For a long time, we don't say anything. "I want you to do something for me, okay?" She asks softly after my sobs have quieted. I raise my forehead to hers. "Anything." "Go home. Take a long, hot shower. Shave." She scratches her nails lightly through the three day old stubble, smiling sadly. "Then go out and be with people. It can be the Gunmen or you can try to meet someone somewhere, just find other people to be around for a few hours. Try not to think about me, okay?" I shake my head, holding her palm to my cheek. "And I don't want you to come back until Monday afternoon, after work. You have to live your life, Mulder, okay?" "No." "Yes," she says firmly. "Do it for me, okay? Try. Please." After a minute, I finally decide to give her some peace. "Okay. For you." "Thank you. Now, go." Standing up, I kiss her cheek lightly, my lips wet from her tears, then walk out of her door, content to spend about an hour roaming the hallways until she falls asleep again. <><><><><><> Time passes quickly now. I'd heard when I was younger that time seemed to speed up as you got older but for me, it could never go fast enough. I couldn't wait to be eighteen and move out of my house, pursue my own life. Then, I was twenty five. For some reason, I thought that by the time I was twenty five, I'd have everything I wanted: wife, kids, house. Love. I expected it all to drop into my lap while I sat back and waited. And I kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Until one day I woke up and was about to turn forty, still single, having accomplished nothing in my life that I had planned to. And then I wanted time to slow down, to crawl along slower than a box turtle, so that I could catch up to it and do something with it. But the green- blue planet that sits third from the sun just went right on turning, oblivious. It paused once that I can remember - no, twice. The first time was when I got a call from Scully asking me to come to the hospital. She wouldn't say why, but I could tell by the sound of her voice that something was wrong. Of course something was wrong, moron, Scully wouldn't call you if everything was dandy. When I walked in, hiding behind those stupid flowers, she told me that she had cancer. I heard the Earth's brakes squeak and grind as it slowed its rotation. The world became wavy, like I was looking at it through oil, and then, just as quickly as it had begun, it ended. The Earth began rotating normally and the waviness vanished; all was right again. Except it was anything but right. I did what I do best to deal with the abrupt alteration of millennia-old physics: I ignored it. As long as I didn't recognize its reality, Scully did NOT have cancer. She most certainly did NOT have cancer because she removed the computer chip that They put in her neck when she was abducted because of me. She was NOT sick; she was NOT tired; she did NOT have nosebleeds and turn as white as the thin, wispy clouds. The clouds were gray anyway, and Scully was NOT gray. She was healthy pink with red cheeks when I threw a "sarcastic" comment towards her. Red. Blood red. I saw a lot of red during that time. I always wondered what it looked like. The second was a more abrupt slamming-on-the-breaks-and-getting- the-wind-knocked-out-of-you-when-the-seat-belt-locks-across-your- chest cessation of movement: "They gave me this disease to make you believe." And like the complete, selfish asshole that I am, I just stood there in front of her with a blank "like-I-give-a-shit" look on my face. Two days later, she was in a coma. She was dying. I didn't know how bad it had gotten. She was always reserved, but she seemed to physically pull into herself during that time. We would spend the days together, working, chasing criminals like we always did and at night, she would disappear into her hotel room and I wouldn't hear anything from her for the rest of the night. No, that's a lie, now that I think about it. Sometimes, I would hear water running for ten, twenty minutes, and soft sniffles. I didn't think anything of it. If Scully needed me, I was just on the other side of the wall. I always expected her to reach out for me. Sure, she lost weight and her hair began getting thin, dull, limp. She was constantly tired. Seemed depressed. I never thought to simply ask her if she all right. Of course she was, she's Scully. She's fine. It was probably just stress; what else would it be? She didn't have cancer or anything. And then, suddenly, she was just dying. It was so simple - the cancer had spread to her bloodstream and she had weeks to live. My partner and friend, who just two days before had been strong and healthy and angry, was soon going to be gray and cold. The end. That time, the world didn't start turning again for a few days. <><><><><><> "Mr. Mulder, Dana asked me not to let you in until Monday," Anna, one of the nurses, tells me as I walk quickly through the doors of the oncology unit. Last night, she'd gone in and told Scully that I was still here an hour after I'd left her room, so I'd conceded defeat for one night and left. I just nod at her and open Scully's door softly, not wanting to wake her if she's asleep. Which she isn't. She doesn't look happy to see me, though. "Mulder..." "Look, I shaved," I tell her as I bend to kiss her now-dry cheek and take her hand. "Is that the only thing you did?" She asks disappointedly. "No. I took a shower, too." She sighs. "Mulder, I'm serious. This isn't healthy." Neither is cancer, but she doesn't seem too concerned with that right now. "Scully, you don't need to worry about me. You have bigger things to think about." "Tell me," she starts, arching that right eyebrow. "What are you going to do after I die?" She obviously expects an answer, but I don't have one. In my world, Scully isn't dying, so I don't have to worry about it. "Are you just going to let them win?" "Who?" "The men that did this to me. The men who took your sister. Are you going to give up on finding the truth? Are you going to make my death meaningless?" Her voice breaks on the last phrase and she closes her eyes, not wanting me to see her cry. "Mulder, I want my death to mean something. I want it to help you. If this can help you to find your sister, that's all that matters to me. Promise me you'll do that." "Scully...I don't want to talk about this right now." "Mulder, we don't have much time left!" She shouts, nearly sobbing now. Leaning into her, I wrap my arms around her and pull her against my chest. Too tired to resist, she burrows her face into my chest and sobs long, loud, painful sobs, digging her nails into my shoulders. We stay like that until the sun comes up the next morning. Every day, it gets a little brighter and bigger in the sky. It won't need to come up much longer. <><><><><><> I told myself that time had gone too quickly. It seemed like only yesterday that she had been unconscious in another hospital and I was faced with the prospect of her dying for the first time. I had pissed away the two years in between - I hadn't told her how much I appreciated her loyalty and companionship, how much it meant to me that she was my friend in addition to my partner, how much safer and happier I was since I began trusting someone other than myself. How much I had grown to love her. It wasn't fair that the Earth turned so quickly. Why couldn't we live on Jupiter where one year there is equal to almost twelve here? I wouldn't waste my time on Jupiter. The few days after that, time went slowly, torturing me by making me watch my partner, best friend, love of my life agonizingly suffer while she prayed for death at night as a reprieve from the pain. And the selfish asshole that I am prayed for one more night of holding her hand and not telling her about the blood that slowly dripped from her nose as she slept. She used to get headaches that were so intense, tears would slip out from under her closed eyelids and she would clench her jaw, whispering to whoever was in the room to please close the blinds. The blinds are already closed, Scully. Then close the curtains. I can't, Scully, I'm sorry. Just make it darker, please, I can't stand the light. Okay, Scully, I'll make it darker. I'll make the sun go down. I would stand in front of her bed, holding a blanket stretched out in front of me for hours, moving as the sun did, to give her the reprieve she desperately craved. And then her brother told me that she was in remission. The Earth jerked and shuttered as it starting turning again. It made me dizzy and I had to sit down. No one else seemed to be affected. No, Mr. Mulder, she can't see you right now. She's tired. Let her rest, for God's sake. To make up for its lethargy, the Earth sped up after that and, before I knew it, five years had slipped by and I still hadn't fulfilled my promise. I was sure that at any time, Scully was going to call me and tell me to meet her at another hospital and her cancer would be out of remission. The world was going to realize my mistake and take back its end of the deal. You told us if we gave you more time, you'd use it, and you didn't. Now, we take away your time. So before the intergalactic repo man can pay me a visit, I'll celebrate. It's been five years. She's cured. Fuck you, space-time continuum. <><><><><><> It's our anniversary. We should celebrate, because that's what you do on anniversaries: take Scully out to dinner, back to her apartment to talk. According to my script, it should go something like this: "Scully, I promised myself five years ago that one day, I'd tell you how much I loved you. That day is today. I love you, Scully. More than anything." "Mulder...I love you, too." And then, we kiss softly and sweetly for a long, long time. Then, I take her to bed and show her how much I love her. Twice, if I'm lucky. She seemed depressed today at work, though. I imagine that this day is more of a reminder of how close she came to dying, not of how she got another chance at life. We worked in silence most of the day and I never ventured to ask her what was wrong - I knew anyway, it's depressing for me, too - but she gave me a small smile as she walked out the door when she left. I'll change her mind. I can show her how this day should be one of happiness and looking forward to the future, not sadness and dwelling on the past. Yeah, that's me, Mr. Not-dwelling-on-the-past. Well, now it is, since I have a reason to be excited about the future. Today is the first day of a new life for both of us. Today, we'll stop tip-toeing around the obvious, that I'm in love with her, and the less obvious, that she's in love with me. She thinks she's good at hiding it, like she would've put up with me for this many years because she's, I don't know, loyal to the Bureau or something. I see right through her, though. We'll start our new life together after tonight. We can quit our jobs at the Bureau and Scully can get a job as a doctor somewhere that she'll be revered and appreciated and I can...do something somewhere. We can buy a big house in a quiet suburb, get married, and adopt lots of babies. Then, the Earth can go as fast or as slow as it wants to. As long as I have Scully with me, I don't really give a damn what it does, although I'd rather it let us enjoy our happiness for a while. I probably look like a moron when I knock on her door, grinning, but I can't help it. This is a monumental evening. And if she'd let me in, I could share that with her. C'mon, Scully, open the door! After another few seconds of waiting and not hearing any footsteps or muffled sounds of life from the other side, I stick my key in the door and turn, letting myself in. Maybe she's, I don't know, doing something and she didn't hear me knocking. Oh, she's definitely doing something all right. She's sleeping on her couch. In her pajamas. At six thirty in the evening. All the lights are out in her apartment, but the TV is on, the volume turned down so that it's almost inaudible. It looks like she was watching the news and just fell asleep. She seemed a little quiet today; I guess she didn't sleep well last night. I don't want to disturb her, so I just sit down on the floor next to her head. A wave of remembrance washes over me - I used to do this every night when she was in the hospital. Like I did then, I gently brush a stray piece of hair off her face and find her hand under the blanket, linking our index fingers so that we're connected. After almost forty five minutes of steady, deep breathing, she finally stirs, jerking her hand away from mine before she opens her eyes. "Hey," I whisper as she slowly focuses on my face. I can't help but smile at her, knowing that, this time, I don't have to commit every nuance of her being to memory so that I can still see her after she's gone. "Hey," she says, not surprised to see me here. "What are you so happy about?" "Our anniversary," I tell her, grinning even wider. "Anniversary? Of what?" "You don't know?" Isn't she supposed to be seeing her oncologist every three months to make sure the tumor hasn't started growing again? Surely he would've reminded her that she's cured. "Think, Scully." She yawns suddenly and winces as her mouth opens too wide. "I don't know, Mulder. Just tell me." "You're no fun," I pout. "Today is the anniversary of your cancer going into remission. Five years. You're cured." The slight smile that was on her lips falls and she stares straight ahead, looking at nothing. "Oh." Oh? OH? That's it? OH? "Don't get so excited, Scully," I say sarcastically. Scully doesn't do sarcasm well. "Why should I be excited?" "Because...five years ago today, you were given a reprieve. Another chance at life -" "And it could be taken away at any moment," she interrupts, still not looking at me. "Mulder, you believe that this chip is what put me into remission, right?" I nod dumbly. "Then who are you to think that they won't bring me out when it suits them. I'm not cured, Mulder. I'll never be. Not as long as this chip stays in my neck." When she finally turns her head into the pillow, trying to escape my eyes, I notice that her skin has a gray pallor to it. Oh no. Oh, God, no. Nonononononononono. And there's a far-off sound of metal grinding against metal. The Earth should really get those brakes looked at if it's going to stop so suddenly. How long has she been like this? How long have I not noticed it? How long has she known and not said anything? Why didn't she say anything? "Scully -" She shakes her head at me. "Scully, if it came back, if they made it come back, you would tell me, right?" She doesn't answer immediately. When she does, it's just a faint, insincere, "Yes." I keep staring at her, wanting to believe her and not knowing if I should. "I'm fine, Mulder," she assures me, reading my mind. "No, you're not. You're pale and tired and you've lost weight and -" "I didn't sleep well last night. And you know that I'm perpetually on a diet. I'm fine, Mulder. Really. Fine. I just don't want to celebrate something that we have no business celebrating. This isn't a happy day for me, it's a very sad, lonely one. It was five years ago today that I realized I had handed my life over to a man who would kill me simply because he had a bad day. For five years, I've been living under a gun, wondering if I'll wake up in the middle of Pennsylvania again or if my headache is because of a case we investigated and not just allergies." She shrugs, losing steam and her original point. "I just...don't want to celebrate." Of course, Mulder. Duh, Mulder. You're such a selfish moron, Mulder. She's good at this conspiracy stuff; I've taught her well. Suddenly, I don't want to celebrate either. It's not just her that's been living under a gun for five years but, as usual, I'm too busy noticing the rate at which the stars morph and fade into and out of the sky while she stares into the shadows, wondering what lurks there. "I'll let you get back to...what ever it was you were doing, then. Sorry to bother you," I tell her sadly, already at her door and waiting for her to call me back, to tell me to stay, to ask me not to leave her alone. "Okay," she says instead. So, I walk out her door and close it softly behind me, taking out my keys to lock it. As the metal engages, I remember the one thing I've been forgetting to tell her for five years. That I love her. As I'm sitting in my car, staring up at the sky and thinking of how surreal the Earth is, I'm tempted to go back upstairs. What if she needs me to make the sun go down for her when she has a headache. If she has a headache. Sometimes, the world is just too bright for all the darkness in it. <><><>An end<><><> Feedback makes me happy. Good, bad, and indifferent to lil_gusty@hotmail.com, please.