Title: How It Might Have Been (1/1) Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. Warning: Spoiler for Season Four and Redux. Character Death ( but not really) How It Might Have Been He felt the uneasiness of their sudden beautiful cure weighing on him. He watched her smile at her family, talk with Father McCue, and throw dark glances at him from time to time, all with the sense of dread that this had been too easy. But he wasn't going to tell her that. At ten that night, Bill Jr. left, guiding their mother out with him and smiling at Dana with a bit laughter, Mrs. Scully trying to throw last minute love over her shoulder. Mulder stayed with her for a while, concerned that she needed sleep and not him, but she made him stay. "I want to talk with you for a little bit. Tell me what's happening." she said, her voice soft and new. Changed. That was how it was. Everything seemed changed, now that she was back. "Nothing much is happening. You. You're happening." he said, throwing her a saucy look meant to make her laugh. "Oh, really." she said, smiling and reaching for his hand. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed them. "Is that all?" she said, eyebrows lifting. "It's all I want to talk about." "I'm all you want to talk about?" she said with a teasing smile as she twisted his words around. "You're all I want to think about." he said, managing to turn her playful words right back on her. She didn't acknowledge it, as always, but he seemed to think it had gotten to her a little more. Maybe it was the reason for her next words. "Thank you for being here with me, Mulder. It was very important to me. I thought I had hurt you because of what I'd said." He tilted his head, pretending he had no clue what she meant. But he did. And it had hurt. But he wasn't going to show her that. "About the cancer. I needed you here with me, and even though I'd said that, you were here. I didn't mean it. Mulder, I don't blame you, okay?" He nodded and squeezed her hand, but he didn't know if she truly felt that way, or even if she would have felt that way had the cure not come. Would she still be so willing to forgive if she hadn't made it? "I'll let you sleep now, Scully. Good night. Sweet dreams." She smiled up at him as he rose from her bed and let his hand go. He enjoyed the warmth of that smile all the way home. ~~~~~ He knew he was dreaming but it wouldn't leave and he couldn't find something to wake him up. Pinching wasn't working, and his usual self defense mechanisms weren't working either. It seemed almost as if he were a ghost. Looking back on the past, replaying over and over again. But it was changed. He saw himself come in to her room, but there was no smile, no relief, but still the same people. Bill, who glowered at him until he looked away, Mrs. Scully, who had eyes only for her last daughter, and the priest, all were there again. But it was changed. He sat beside her, took her weak and trembling hand from the bed and kissed it, ignoring the hate in Bill's eyes and trying to forget the already haunted look of Mrs. Scully. He watched her try to move, to respond to his presence, but she was too weak, and probably not going to make it through the night. Bill left to escort the priest back to his car, and Mrs. Scully went outside, not able to bear it any longer. Once again, he was alone with her. But it was changed. "Scully?" he whispered, moving close to her face to see if there was any reaction, any acknowledgement of him. Her eyes flickered and opened and he saw her blue eyes, paled and sapped of color as she herself was sapped of life. "Oh, God, Scully. Don't die." he moaned. She shook her head and her chest rumbled as she tried to clear her voice to speak. The words failed and her mind failed and he felt as if he too had failed. He laid his head to her pillow so that he could feel her against him, one last time, one last time. "Muld..rr" she murmured and even though it was the dying cry on fading lips, it sounded like an angel's symphony. "Oh God, Scully..." "Mulder..." She turned to him, her eyes incredibly close to his, so that her face was out of focus and her image blurred. He drew away to see all of her and stroked her cheek. "Mulder, tell me . . ." She paused to cough, a sound so loud and hard it made him agonize to hear it. "Tell me what I did wrong," she whispered, her voice so dry and brittle he wondered that it hadn't been snapped in two by her coughing. "Tell me what I did wrong and I won't do it again." He began to sob. "Oh, God, Scully." He managed to speak between hiccups and sobs and the tears raining on his droughted cheeks. "Nothing. You didn't do anything wrong. It's all my fault. I should be punished. Not you, not you." She put her palm to his cheek and turned her head away from him again, eyes closing, shutting out the weak light from her ice blue eyes. "No, Scully. I'm sorry. Please don't give up yet." She nodded and yet let her eyes slam shut, like a door in his face. "Scully?!" he said, panicked that she would die, here without her mother to see, or her brother to protect her. But it was only him. Suddenly she turned to him, eyes clear and lucid and brighter than heaven and he felt relief. "It's not your fault." she said and then she crashed down. Everything went off at the same time, making a cacophony of horrible music that assailed his ears and stole her away from him for forever. Forever. And everyone came running, but it was too late. She was gone. ~~~~ He woke up sucking in great greedy lungfuls of air, trying to get the horrible pressure off of his chest, and feeling that everything had changed. He saw her dying in his mind's eye, in burning, horrifying color and shook so hard that he fell from the couch and onto the floor. On his hands and knees he rocked back and forth, feeling every last fiber of life in him slowly x-ing out. "Oh, God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God." he ranted, shaking, trembling. She hadn't come back; she hadn't come back.... The words of mercy: "It's not your fault.." And they shifted and flowed through his heart and head until they became something else. "I don't blame you." In her voice, her happy, relieved, alive voice coming at him from reality and reminding him. He called the hospital, called her room phone, anxious for the truth, draeding the truth. "H'llo?" came a confused, garbled, just woken up . . "Scully." "Mulder?" she answered, her voice come quick and heavy. "What happened? Where are you?" "No, it's okay. You're okay. It's okay." He was rambling but he didn't care. "Yeah," she said softly, cutting off his parade of 'okay's. "Yeah, Mulder. I'm okay." He shuddered out a grief worn sigh. "I dreamed that you being okay was a dream." "No. I'm right here. Fine and going to stay that way." she said, giving him the confirmation he needed. "Thanks." he replied, embarrassed now that sense had returned. "Thanks Scully." She nodded even though he could not see that and clucked softly on the phone to him. "Get some sleep Mulder. I'll see you tomorrow." "Yeah. Good night." "Sweeter dreams," she replied and they hung up. Two miracles in one day. end adios RM