TITLE: Shadows: Reflections 
AUTHOR: Spooky's Girl  
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, they belong to the XF god CC, and it's probably a 
good thing they do cause believe it or not, he treats them much nicer than I usually do 
RATING: PG-13  
CATEGORY: UST, hint of MSR, angst 
SUMMARY: Man made placed in such a spot where it could kill yet couldn't be killed.  It was created to do its job with maximum efficiency. 
SPOILERS: Season four, mainly Momento Mori and Gethsemene
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is the fourth vignette in a series of nine.  Basically simple summary, one vignette per season, a reflection of sorts of Mulder's impact on Scully's life.  A complete list of titles in the series can be found at the end of the vignette. 
THANKS: To Nancy for the beta, and to Ashley for allowing me to continue with the idea even though she had the same one in mind. 
FEEDBACK: As always, I love feedback...that and chocolate are the necessary 
ingredients to life, and yes, I do respond back to it denisegilliland@hotmail.com 

~*~*~*~

Time is slipping through my fingers faster than grains of sand through an hourglass.  Last year we discovered something that I could only wish we hadn't.  The source of all my nightmares had finally been realized and despite our knowledge of this event, the final tests still hit me like a ton of bricks.  She had become expendable; a waste product left over from two years ago, left over from the experiments performed on her during her abduction.  That's not what hurt the most though.  We had prepared ourselves for side effects; we had prepared ourselves for most possible outcomes, however, despite indicators, we had not prepared ourselves for this.

Scully was dying.

And even more so, there was nothing I could do this time to save her.

She was pale and exhausted, and she continued to fight when I couldn't.  I never once let her see my weakness, but it was there, and it was eating away at me inside just like the disease was eating at her.  Man-made, placed in such a spot where it could kill yet couldn't be killed.  It was created to do its job with maximum efficiency.  And when she decided to reject rejected treatment, I couldn't watch her waste away without doing something myself.

It is after all, me, who in the long run, had given her this disease, and I hated myself for it.  

There were mornings where I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed, where I couldn't go in and look at her face where behind only a layer of skin and bone, my new enemy housed.  There were days where I wanted this entire ordeal to be nothing more than a dream, vanishing as I awoke, seeing everything as it was supposed to be, morning banter in the office, chasing little gray men together.  Of course then reality would set in at the slightest sight of blood on my partner's face.

I was slowly killing her; I sure as hell wasn't going to give her up without a fight.

Man made this, man can destroy it, it was just a matter of how, just a matter of who I could go to for help.  It was her turn now to give up and while I listened to pleas of allowing her to live out the rest of her days doing the job she loved without interference, I couldn't follow those pleas, it was not a request I could grant her.  In order to do so I'd have to give up the fight myself, something that I wasn't physically or emotionally capable of doing.  She meant too much for me to do so.

I lost her once before, they returned her to me.  If I were to lose her this time to this, she'd never return, and I'd be alone with my mind, which would in most likelihood die along with her.  For the first time in four years I am not thinking of Samantha, or government conspiracies, or ways to infiltrate them, I'm thinking Scully, and how to keep her in my life, if not for forever, then for as long as possible.  I've recruited the help of the Gunmen, and of Skinner, who didn't seem like an ally at first, but has proven otherwise.  At all hours all they've done is search for; the cure to destroy the enemy deep inside her, the necessary means to bring my Scully back to me. 

It wasn't too long ago that I held her, pale and distraught in the hall of the hospital, silently promising her that I'd go to the ends of the Earth to make her better, that I'd 'die' to save her.

And I have, the only thing giving me solace as I've 'moved on' and she's alone in the hospital fighting for her last breath, are the words I spoke to her in that very same hall earlier this year.

"The truth will save you Scully.  It'll save both of us."

I have never believed anything more in my life. 

~*FIN*~

Shadows: It Begins
Shadows: Darkness
Shadows: Discovery
Shadows: Reflections
Shadows: Broken
Shadows: Destinies
Shadows: Freedom
Shadows: Breakaway
Shadows: It Ends