When I Am Gone Away
halfamoon entry for February 12th.
TITLE: When I Am Gone Away
AUTHOR: memories_child
FANDOM: The X Files
SPOILERS: Post The Truth
RATING: PG
CHARACTER/PAIRING: Scully
WORD COUNT: 452
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, I'm borrowing them. But CC, if you're reading this, I could do with a job...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The italicised text is the poem Remember by Christina Rossetti.
_______________
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
This too is a death of sorts, she thinks: the silences where once there was truth; the empty space at the small of her back where once his hand lay. From being partners, lovers, friends, they have become strangers. Two people trapped in some nightmarish world where nothing exists but them, and they have run out of words.
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
She doesn't know where she stands with him anymore. He is sullen, standoffish. His days are taken up with scanning the headlines for dates and names that she isn't sure he'd recognise if he saw them. The nights are long, spent oceans apart on the expanse of the bed.
Remember me when no more day by day.
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
She slips out of the motel room in the dead of night, one of those rare ocassions where Mulder is asleep. His breathing is the metronome to her escape. The rise and fall of his chest as the moonlight seeps through the cracks in the curtains
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
She tries not to think of how he will react when he wakes to find her gone. Tries not to remember the way he looked at her the first time they made love; the pull that only he has on her heart.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
Part of her, that perverse part of her that has always allowed her to switch off, hopes that he will forget her. That he will lose himself in his quest for the truth, the quest that has occupied so much of their time, and she will become a footnote to their story.
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
She doesn't want him to look for her, to blame himself for her leaving (for they are both to blame, she knows). She doesn't want him to grieve for her the way that she has (will) grieve for him. Doesn't want him to lie alone on a bed in a motel room, the way that she is lying alone on a bed in a motel room, and wonder what would have happened if...
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
The thought slips, unbidden, into her mind as she clutches his faded shirt to her chest, and tries not to cry.
TITLE: When I Am Gone Away
AUTHOR: memories_child
FANDOM: The X Files
SPOILERS: Post The Truth
RATING: PG
CHARACTER/PAIRING: Scully
WORD COUNT: 452
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, I'm borrowing them. But CC, if you're reading this, I could do with a job...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The italicised text is the poem Remember by Christina Rossetti.
_______________
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
This too is a death of sorts, she thinks: the silences where once there was truth; the empty space at the small of her back where once his hand lay. From being partners, lovers, friends, they have become strangers. Two people trapped in some nightmarish world where nothing exists but them, and they have run out of words.
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
She doesn't know where she stands with him anymore. He is sullen, standoffish. His days are taken up with scanning the headlines for dates and names that she isn't sure he'd recognise if he saw them. The nights are long, spent oceans apart on the expanse of the bed.
Remember me when no more day by day.
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
She slips out of the motel room in the dead of night, one of those rare ocassions where Mulder is asleep. His breathing is the metronome to her escape. The rise and fall of his chest as the moonlight seeps through the cracks in the curtains
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
She tries not to think of how he will react when he wakes to find her gone. Tries not to remember the way he looked at her the first time they made love; the pull that only he has on her heart.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
Part of her, that perverse part of her that has always allowed her to switch off, hopes that he will forget her. That he will lose himself in his quest for the truth, the quest that has occupied so much of their time, and she will become a footnote to their story.
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
She doesn't want him to look for her, to blame himself for her leaving (for they are both to blame, she knows). She doesn't want him to grieve for her the way that she has (will) grieve for him. Doesn't want him to lie alone on a bed in a motel room, the way that she is lying alone on a bed in a motel room, and wonder what would have happened if...
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
The thought slips, unbidden, into her mind as she clutches his faded shirt to her chest, and tries not to cry.