Title: Shades Between
Author: Dreamshaper
Feedback: Again, email problems bound...dreamshpr@aol.com still *works* but 
not too well. Pensivedreamer@aol.com works better, for some wierd AOL reason.
Archival: Goss, Spookys. Others, ask please if this is the first. 
Rating: PG-13. Come play in the kiddie pool with me, folks, I promise, it's 
not *that* shallow! ;)
Categories: VRA
Spoilers: Emilyarc
Summary:  "Only one death had ever pulled her secrets so close to the 
light..."
Notes: This would never have seen the light of day were it not for Shawne 
Wang and a car accident...two things I could have lived quite well without. 
<eg> Kidding! I owe huge thanks to Shawne--tireless nitpicker, and relentless 
carepackage maker. ;) If you like this, write to her too and tell her to post 
her next story, godammit! Also, lil poetic moment buried in there, hence the 
quote...but blink and you'll miss it ;)
Disclaimer: Only this story is mine, the characters belong to someone who 
surfs creative seas <g>

**********

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
From "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"
by Robert Frost

**********
  
  She crouched above a body, noting with forced detachment that the girl had 
been lovely, a fragile blonde child of no more than seven. Undoubtedly, her 
full lips had been cherub-pink, her baby skin lightly flushed with youth. Her 
eyes had been blue, as brilliant as the sky that glimmered above them both, 
and maybe they had once sparkled with childlike vitality, the enthusiasm for 
life that only the very young could exude. Perhaps, Scully thought, perhaps 
she had even known love once.
  
  But it was doubtful. The girl was covered in bruises, faded and new, and 
her delicate skin was stretched tight over her narrow bones. The beautiful 
child had been harshly abused, and neglected, and eventually murdered. 
   
  Still, all that is gone, Scully thought, part of her refusing to remain 
detached. Her beauty, her youth, even her pain. Gone, never to be retrieved.
   
  A sharp shard of pity pierced her, for the girl resting in the grass before 
her, for the many children whose lives ended like this. The indignity, the 
cruelty of Death...Scully had always wondered about the children exposed to 
it, those forced to experience it before they could even understand it. If 
ever a ghost had existed, she imagined it would be a child, overlooked and 
afraid, unable to understand that the flesh was gone and Heaven was waiting.
   
  As she gently tugged the sheet back over the girl's face, Scully let out a 
short, sharp huff of breath. Part of her was bleeding, she could feel it. But 
it bled cold and deep inside, in places she barely acknowledged and couldn't 
imagine confronting. That was how she worked, how she survived. Nothing had 
changed that part of her, not since she had first looked upon the corpse of a 
child. She doubted that she would ever be different, would ever change and be 
able to grieve openly for the small and innocent, the lost.
   
  Only one death had ever pulled her secrets so close to the light, the death 
of a child who reminded her fiercely of the fragile blonde lying so still on 
the grass, a princess frozen in a beautiful meadow, awaiting a prince and a 
new life to begin--
   
  Scully pushed the thought aside, deep inside, where part of her cried a 
name into the stillness and the cold, and part of her fought a brutal battle 
for self-control. She rose with creaking knees, and turned in a slow circle, 
scanning the bright, sunny, perfect meadow for a glimpse of her partner. She 
ignored her unsteady knees and the fact that her eyes were 
watering--allergies, she told herself coolly. Just allergies. Or something in 
my eye.
   
  She frowned slightly, unable to find Mulder. She had left him gathering 
details from the sheriff, but now that man stood with one of his deputies and 
they were conferring in soft voices, sadness etching deep lines into their 
already craggy faces. Mulder wasn't mixed in with the forensics people 
either, or the crime scene photographers.
   
  A bit unsettled, she caught the sheriff's eye and mouthed her partner's 
name. He motioned in the direction they had come from, the wide cobblestone 
pathway that led from the road to the clearing, and Scully headed for it. She 
studiously avoided looking back at the small form covered in cloth as she 
ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, and strode into the woods.
  
  They were lovely, these woods, thick and spectacularly green, cool, silent. 
 Like the clearing, they were almost too perfect to be anything but planned, 
perhaps the result of telling a landscaper too many fairy-tales. The winding 
path was elegantly cobbled and nicely maintained--but to Scully, it was a 
blatant mark of civilization that was completely out of place.  There should 
only be deer trails cutting through the mosses and undergrowth, no human 
should ever have trespassed in a place so lovely, let alone made such a scar.
   
  Still, the effect was probably very grand when one wasn't highly aware of 
Death in the shadows.
   
  She supposed there were few better places for a child to rest than in a 
forest so seemingly enchanted. Had she died of natural causes there in the 
meadow, with her family surrounding her and the blue sky waiting...
   
  That wasn't her fate, Scully reminded herself as she passed through the 
dappling shade. When you perform the autopsy--
   
  The very idea was repugnant. She wanted to fix that child, mend her broken 
bones, heal her bruises, the *idea* of performing an autopsy felt like a 
violation.
   
  She's beyond violation now, Scully thought. Well beyond, and you can help 
find her justice. Justice, in the end, will have to be enough.
   
  But she wondered how she would apologize for doing what *had* to be done. 
With a prayer, a simple plea for forgiveness? And then she wondered what the 
girl's name really was. Part of her heart murmured a name, one that would 
suit the girl too well, one that would slip easily off her tongue, but she 
couldn't accept it, *wouldn't* accept it. 
   
  She tilted her head back, lifting her face to the sun. Remembering death 
always made her so cold, but if she could find a little warmth and comfort in 
the bright gleam of sunshine, she'd be all right. Ignoring the birdsong, the 
far away click of cameras, the faint echo of voices, Scully closed her eyes 
and hoped for tranquility.
   
  But the light hit her just the wrong way and the shadows behind her eyelids 
were deeply red, too evocative of the horrible scene she had just left behind 
her in the cheerful, fairy tale meadow. Her eyes popped open and she looked 
almost directly into the sun, grateful for its burn, taking deep, careful 
breaths and struggling not to think.  
   
  She needed to find Mulder. She needed to match a new name to the face in 
her mind, the pale, creamy skin and angel eyes, and she needed the name to 
erase the one that ran through her, threatening to tear her apart. And Mulder 
would have her name--he'd talked to the sheriff, he was the one who actually 
*knew* what this was all about.
   
  She knew that she could easily turn around and head back, ask the sheriff 
or one of the men, and leave her partner to hunt up aliens or whatever he was 
ready to blame this death on. She hesitated on the path, considering, but the 
woods were before her, dark and green, and Mulder was waiting for her 
somewhere inside them. She knew it, and stepped forward.
   
  It helped that she was in no mood to go back.
   
  Mulder, with his crazy theories and his sometime manic energy, his odd 
style of empathy and his simple way of *knowing*...he would never be able to 
fix what was broken inside her--how could he when she couldn't fix it 
herself? But he knew her well enough to let her fall apart, just a little, 
and would be distraction enough until she pulled herself together again. That 
was the most she could ask for. It was more, perhaps, than she had any right 
to expect.
   
  And there it was. A path, overgrown, untended, almost hidden, yet somehow 
inviting. It was directly before her, seemingly waiting. She had noticed no 
such trail when they had first come down the path, had not noticed it until 
she was almost past it. If she hadn't been deliberately and methodically 
searching, she never would have seen it, and she wondered how Mulder had 
known it was there.
   
  She had no doubt that if she followed it, she'd find him. The air *felt* 
like Mulder, was charged with his energy, and she'd argue against the 
paranormal till she passed out but she wouldn't be able to deny she could 
feel him, electric on the crisp air. Mulder left a trace of himself wherever 
he went, and Scully had long ago accepted that as fact in one of those secret 
corners of her heart where truths waited.
   
  Still, she eyed the path with some trepidation. Inviting, certainly. Beyond 
lovely, without doubt. But still...it was oddly out of place. Strange and 
dark, Grimm in a forest of Mother Goose.
   
  Perfectly Mulder, she thought with a wry smile, and headed deeper into the 
trees.
   
  She pushed her way through the forest, but more than once, she stopped and 
came very near to turning back on the narrow path. Her shoes weren't meant 
for the impolite roots that reached out to trip her, the rocks that scrabbled 
underneath her. They were made for the well-heeled cobblestone of the path 
she had left behind, the gleaming and smugly perfect ribbon of civilization. 
But unnamed needs drove her on past every pause, as they often had, and as 
she suspected they always would.
   
  And beyond need...there was something comforting in the woods, cool and 
quiet as they were. Something that called out to her and made her welcome, 
something that eased some of the ache that had tightened beneath her 
breastbone. Something that had been lacking before, in the meadow and on the 
path. Character, perhaps. It was there in the gnarled, knotty trees, the 
thick moss, the mushrooms. In the tiny wildflowers that peered bravely out at 
her from the shadows of the trees, bright heads bobbing in the crisp breeze, 
points of light in the green, green undergrowth.
   
  This, Scully thought as she gently brushed her hand over a delicate fern, 
this is what a real enchanted forest would look like. If ever fairies had 
danced, they had done it beneath the trees that towered overhead. If ever a 
ghost had *really* haunted, it had come home to the shadows she herself 
passed through. Undoubtedly, a unicorn had walked the same path, quiet and 
solitary but never alone, trailing mystery.
   
  And she didn't feel alone either. She could almost imagine that the soft 
sighs of the wind in the trees were actually the words of a dreamer, 
whispering to the night. An angel, lost with her in the trees. Or perhaps the 
sound of a child whispering secrets to a new companion.
   
  Maybe all three. 
   
  She had to smile at her own fanciful imagination. Rarely before had such 
ideas been entertained by her logical, scientist's mind. Certainly, they 
hadn't since she had been a child, sitting at her grandmother's knee, 
listening to old tales, telling secrets with the sister who would never 
outgrow unicorns. She hadn't had the time, or the inclination, for such 
dreams since then.
   
  The thoughts were lost as she stepped into the clearing and spotted her 
partner. The clearing was small and dark, deeply set in twilight despite the 
sun overhead--except for where Mulder rested, on a large, flat rock in the 
center. He was bathed in sunlight, basking in its glow, and she paused for a 
moment to envy him his apparent ability to enjoy the warmth.
   
  "'The woods are lovely, dark and deep,'" he murmured, making no effort to 
move more than was absolutely necessary, all of his prodigious energy 
apparently focused on absorbing the light.
   
  "Have you kept all of your promises, then?" Scully asked, stepping into the 
clearing, wondering why she felt like she was stepping into a novel, a story. 
A life that wasn't her own.
   
   "I haven't made a promise in a long time, Scully, when you think about it. 
And the old ones...well, I guess they'll have to keep a while longer." He 
settled himself more comfortably on the mica-flecked stone, patted a flat 
spot near his hip with an inviting hand.
      
  He wasn't giving himself enough credit, Scully thought as she accepted the 
invitation and moved to sit beside him. His every move for the last 
twenty-five years had been a new promise, his every action meant to keep an 
old one. But...if he wanted to dismiss the weight of them for a moment, if he 
wanted to forget the face of a little girl and rest in the sun...who was she 
to blame him?
   
  What wouldn't she give to be able to join him? *Really* join him, lying 
back calm and relaxed, absorbing the light like a cat on a windowsill?
   
  But she was too tightly wound up inside, and she knew it. So instead of 
lying back, she bent forward, plucking a leaf off the ground, carefully 
tearing it into little pieces and then releasing the portions, allowing them 
to fly or float to the ground.
   
  "Why are we here?" she finally asked, disturbing the quiet reluctantly, 
understanding that her question could be interpreted a dozen ways, each of 
the hidden meanings worth more and more, knowing there were a thousand ways 
Mulder could respond. 
   
  And Mulder was silent for a long time, long enough for her to think he was 
perhaps going to explain to her why they were *there*. For a whimsical 
moment, she expected the meaning of Life.
   
  "Because there was another little girl who disappeared into these woods a 
few weeks ago, Scully, never to be seen again. Kidnapped, lost, the sheriff 
isn't certain yet. I lean towards a kidnapping myself, and I thought, for a 
while, that perhaps this...was like that."
   
  Not the meaning of Life, but in that moment it was close enough.
   
  "But now?" she asked, watching the last of the leaf bits flutter to the 
ground, thinking about kidnapped children, wondering if there would ever be a 
day when Mulder didn't hear of a missing child and immediately fall into 
memories of his sister.
   
  Mulder shifted beside her, pressing his hip to hers for a second before 
answering. 
   
  "Now," he said, "now I think child abuse. From what the sheriff was 
saying--"
   
  "I'd have to agree, Mulder. Her bruises, her state of malnutrition..." 
Scully shook her head, still staring down at the fragmented green pile of 
leaves at her feet. The air seemed to vibrate around them, closing in small 
and tight, and she could feel his words before he said them, could feel them 
in the tightness of her chest and the faint headache that brewed.
   
  "I still want you to do the autopsy, just to note it all down." 
   
  Scully started to breathe more shallowly. If she was going to do the 
autopsy--and who did she think she was kidding, *of course* she would do 
it--she would need to know the child's name. And she didn't want to read it 
off some chart, hear it muttered in a monotone whisper, because she had a 
feeling she already knew what it was. It would be worse if she heard the name 
come from the mouth of someone who didn't care--
   
  Excuses. She just wanted...she needed *Mulder* to say the name, Mulder to 
add his special emphasis to it, Mulder to understand why she paled and 
clenched her fists like she was spoiling to fight the world.
   
  So she asked him.
   
  "Mulder...what was her name?"
    
  Then she held her breath, and the air was so still that she knew Mulder had 
done the same.
   
  He sighed finally, very faintly. "Emily," he said, not trying to cushion it 
or deny her what she needed. "Her name was Emily."
   
  It wasn't the biggest shock. She'd known the girl's name, her subconscious 
had murmured it the second the sheet had been pulled away from that sad young 
face. The name had just *suited* her, too well, had been whispered by the 
breeze in that meadow and acknowledged by her own heart.
 
  That didn't mean it didn't hurt to hear it. 
 
  For a moment, there was a wild, searing pain in her chest, a coil of agony 
in her stomach, despair arching across her nerves like electricity from a 
live wire...
 
  Then it was fading, as fast as it had come,  lost in the woods like the 
giggles of little girls, and only the echo of pain was left behind.
   
  That should have been the end of it. She should have climbed off the rock 
and headed back for the meadow, made her apologies beneath the blue, blue 
sky, and then returned to the town so that she could begin her task. But for 
a while, her task was set aside. Not lost, not even misplaced, just set aside 
so that she could be allowed to sit, and to think.
   
  And perhaps to talk, to the man lying so carefully behind her, his hip 
pressed lightly against her own, lending her strength if she needed it, 
support if she asked.
   
  Scully spoke, her voice carefully hushed and reverent. "I wonder, 
sometimes, what she would have been like if I had been allowed to raise her. 
If she had been allowed to live. Who she would have become if I had had a 
chance to love her for years and years." She paused, studying the carpet of 
pine needles and leaves surrounding the rock they were perched on. "I wonder 
if she would have rebelled, if she would have been the perfect, good 
daughter. If she could have been both. I wonder if she'd have died young 
anyway, a car accident, dating violence, cancer. I wonder..."
   
  She hesitated again, breathing deeply of the pine scented air, and silence 
fell between them, as deep as the forest. Then Mulder sat up beside her, 
close enough that he touched her from hip to shoulder.
   
  "She would have been *yours*," he said slowly, carefully. "And completely 
her mother's daughter. Strong and cool, beautiful and efficient. Smart as 
anyone has any right to be." Reaching across, he slipped a hand under her 
chin and drew her face around so that he could search her gaze, and she was 
surprised to note how all the colors of the forest were deep in his eyes. 
"She'd have been loved, Scully," he murmured. "Well loved. That's all you can 
know, all you can be sure of."
   
  A sigh slipped through her then, and she closed her eyes. That was what she 
wanted to believe, that her daughter would have been the best parts of 
herself. That she would have been well loved, no matter how much longer her 
life had been. But regret and guilt were trapped inside her, locked deep down 
with the memory of her child's somber eyes.
   
  She'd never know. Never know what Emily would have been like, how she'd 
have grown. Strong, smart, she'd have to guess from that little bit of time 
she had been allowed to spend with the child she had never even *imagined* 
would exist. That was the most she could have--
   
  Mulder's hand tightened on her jaw, and she opened her eyes to look back at 
him. His gaze was intense, certain. 
   
  "*Loved*, Scully," he said again, and she knew he meant it and that he 
meant much more. "Isn't that...enough? For now, anyway?"
   
  There were whispers in the trees and very soft shadows in Mulder's eyes, 
and a rarely experienced kind of intensity in the air--and after a second of 
fighting it all, Scully gave in. The regret, the guilt faded just a little, 
just enough, and in a heartbeat, the moment passed. 
   
  Mulder smiled, his hand dropped from her skin, leaving behind warmth and 
comfort, then he was lying back down against the rock and closing his eyes. 
Scully only wondered for an instant if he saw blood or shadows behind his 
eyelids, and then she too settled back against the rock. She wasn't even 
thinking of the autopsy, of what the sheriff might think were he to stumble 
upon her and Mulder communing with nature when there were more important 
things to do. She just half-closed her eyes and allowed the sun to warm her 
finally, letting the light settle deep inside her.
   
  And when Mulder's hand closed around hers, his thumb rubbing the back of 
her hand in a gentle caress, she closed her eyes all the way and fell into 
warmth, hues of red and gold and a thousand shades in between dancing in her 
eyes.
 

**********

Someone, somewhere out there hates me right now, I can feel it. But someone 
else really enjoyed it...and I'm hoping they write...<g>

You all know where I am!

Dreamshaper
(dreamshpr@aol.com or
pensivedreamer@aol.com)