TITLE: The Shrine Whose Shape I Am

AUTHOR: Aloysia Virgata

DISTRIBUTION/FEEDBACK: aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com.

RATING: PG

CLASSIFICATION: Vignette; Scully angst

SPOILERS: Requiem, DeadAlive, This Is Not Happening, Quagmire,


SUMMARY: Scully reflecting not long after Mulder's
funeral.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, Chris Carter, 1013, no copyright
infringement intended, all that stuff. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As ever, thanks to Scarletb and Lily Moon
for invaluable insights and the hunting and trapping of
adverbs. Also, because the canon timeline from Requiem
through DeadAlive made no sense at all, I have a
different one in my head. So bear that in mind if
anything seems off.


********************************************

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth 
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. 
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, 
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 
Heaven did a recompense as largely send: 
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear, 
He gained from Heaven('twas all he wish'd)
a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, 
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode 
(There they alike in trembling hope repose) 
The bosom of his Father and his God.

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", Thomas Gray


********************************************     


Days have become long ordeals. I could barely keep my
eyes open when I got home this evening and considered
sleeping in my suit. I rallied the last of my energy for
pajamas and tea and now lie in the muffling embrace of
blankets, willing myself to slip away with the lingering
twilight.

Memories come flooding in to keep me awake.

Every morning is the same. I can feel their stares
sliding over me and their whispers curling like smoke
into the dark places inside my head. I attract all the
curiosity - though not the respect - of a widow. People
skirt me in the hallways as though madness and tragedy
are contagious.

Hell, maybe they are. It would explain a lot.

Call me Typhoid Mary.

I'm an object of pity now and I'm finding it a far more
bitter pill to swallow than being an object of scorn.

But I'm fine. 

I'm always fine. I'll adjust.

I remember sitting on a rock in the dark with Mulder and
telling him he was Captain Ahab.

"If you have a peg leg or hooks for hands then maybe
it's enough to simply keep on living," he mused. "You
know; bravely facing life with your disability. But
without these things you're actually meant to make
something of your life."

It's where I find myself now. Maybe it's enough to show
up and stare pointedly ahead as I walk to the elevator.
Maybe it's enough to pretend I don't see Skinner
watching me like I'm a rabbit among wolves. His gaze has
been flicking towards my waist of late and I wonder if
he sees anything or it's merely in anticipation of the
inevitable.

I can detect a slight swelling below my navel but I
think it's imperceptible beneath suits which are,
ironically, growing looser. I know I don't eat enough
but I also know my body will strip its own resources for
the baby.

The baby will be fine. 

I do what I can, but food makes me queasy. I drink
orange juice for the folate and dutifully choke down a
prenatal vitamin the size of a cockroach every morning.
There are many days when even that won't stay down.

A few people have caught me in the bathroom; seen my
knees under the door of the stall and heard me gagging.
I'm sure to be officially bulimic by now. Whatever.

Skinner's assistant was in there once but if she knew
anything, she didn't give it away. She stared at me the
way people do now; with a mix of morbid fascination and
relief that they are not me. I've become a disturbing
cautionary tale. She looked away when I met her eyes.

They always look away. 

Doggett doesn't know yet. Or at least, I don't think he
does. But he's dealt with a pregnant wife and maybe he
sees the things I think I'm hiding. I must spend two
hours each day peeing, though I make sure to let
everyone see me drinking a lot. Flimsy cover, but I'm
just not ready to deal with everyone knowing. 

I'm scarcely dealing with it myself.

Maybe Doggett's just letting me bide my time. He doesn't
press me the way Mulder did.

I told my mother about the pregnancy not long after I
got out of the hospital and the way she looked at me
during Mulder's funeral was unforgivable. Et tu, Mom? 

Mulder's funeral.

I don't dream much anymore but when I do, it's often of
the night we found his body. 

In my dream I get to Jeremiah's in time and glory,
hallelujah, we are saved. I wake up crushed afterwards
but the promise of that fleeting joy is the only thing
that lulls me to sleep these days.

I lie in bed with my hand on my belly and hope to dream
of miracles. There's nothing crueler I can do to myself,
but I have little else. I've always picked at scabs. 

I scar better than I heal. 

I close my eyes and see him lying gray and broken in the
clearing. I can feel Doggett grabbing my arms and the
tingling Victorian fear that the shock of it all will
make me miscarry. 

In my dream Mulder's face lights up when I tell him
about the baby. 

But here in the wakeful dark every beat of my
unforgiving heart says, "He is dead, he is dead, he is
dead." 

This same heart that pumps life into our child.

He is dead but lives also in me.

This is your body, Mulder. This is your blood.

What I told my doctor wasn't strictly true. I told him I
didn't know how this happened, but I do. And simple math
tells me when. What I don't know is why.

After the IVF failed, with nothing more to lose, I'd
thought it was high time I gained a little. We had the
better part of a year together and they were the
briefest, sweetest months of my life.

Nothing gold can stay.

I remember lounging on the bed in one of Mulder's dress
shirts; the cuffs turned back twice. He loves me in his
shirts.

Loved. 

It's amazing how one letter can send the world crashing
down again.

We spent nearly the entire weekend in bed, getting up
only to shower or pay for the food we'd ordered. 

Mulder's watch glinting in the morning sun. He was
reflecting the light into my eyes and laughing.

I swatted at him, grabbing his arm while he fought me
off with a pillow. I was laughing too as he pinned me to
the bed again, his shirt unbuttoned to my waist.

Warm, lazy kisses on my neck and the comforting weight
of his hips against mine. 

The smell of his cologne in my hair.

This is where life began and where I wish mine had
slowed down; the last time I slept with him.

Our alpha and omega.

Sleep, Dana. Sleep and all of this will go away until
morning.

Skinner urged me to take some time off; spend time alone
before getting back to work.

"You don't have anything to prove, Scully. You can't
push yourself like this. You have... other priorities to
think about now."

His concern was at once touching and exasperating.

"Sir, I'm grateful for that; I am. But I can't just sit
home and watch the clock or knit booties. I have to
work. I have to continue what we were searching for, and
I have Agent Doggett now. Please tell me you
understand."

He held me with his eyes and I thought he was going to
argue again, but he squeezed my shoulder and sighed.

"Just be careful, Scully. From me as a friend."

I managed a jerky nod and left his office before I gave
into the urge to soak his tie with my tears. I'm so
damned weepy of late.

Bill says I spend too much time alone already.

"Go out with Tara; meet some other mothers. She's
friends with the youth director at our church and you
can get to know some of the young families. You need to
start creating a social network for when this baby
comes, Dana. You can't do everything by yourself
anymore."

I bit my lip and looked down. Bill threw his exasperated
hands into the air.

"Dana, he's gone and you have to let go. Go be an agent
in a normal division. Or a doctor. Be someone with
regular hours who isn't hospitalized or taken hostage or
shot at every other week. Be someone with a life. I know
how hard this is for you, but you can't sacrifice
yourself to his memory. You think he'd want this for
you? For your child?"

He said it out of the deepest concern imaginable, but
that last part still felt like a cheap shot.

I hugged my brother as hard as I could and felt his
cheek pressed against the top of my head.

"I worry about you, kid," he mumbled into my hair. "And
don't tell me you're fine."

Laughter at this.

"I'll give Tara a call later, Bill."

We both knew it was a lie, but it was a good lie and it
comforted us.

What neither of them knows is that time alone would be a
healthy improvement. I spend too much time with the
dead.

My mother is already talking about a baby shower, an
idea which appalls me with its cloying potential. But
there is little I do to make her happy anymore and I
guess I'll let her have this. She and Tara can fuss over
me and give this some semblance of normalcy.

Maybe it'll be fun.

I stopped by Target one afternoon to look at breast
pumps. There's an overwhelming array of them. One's
called the Isis.

Isis?

Who names these things?

I wonder if there's a line of Osiris condoms. 

Horus diapers. 

Saint Veronica tampons.

These are jokes that Mulder would have made and the cold
feeling starts in my stomach again.

I spent a few weeks hating him for leaving me. Skinner
told me how he walked right up to them and remained in
the starlit circle even when he realized what would
happen.

He let them take him. Just like that.

The Gunmen stopped by my hotel after the funeral and sat
with me in the falling dark while my hands were still
crusted with the dirt of Mulder's grave. We didn't have
much to say and when they left I stayed under the spray
of the shower until the water started to turn cold.

I could still feel graveyard dust worked deep into my
skin.

Skinner didn't come, but I know it's because he didn't
want me to have to face him after I broke down that
morning. 

Bless him.

Kersh flew back to DC shortly after they lowered the
coffin.

I went to the cemetery before heading home and wondered
what I was supposed to do. The raw wound of his grave
looked so fresh and naked next to its grassed-over
neighbors. 

I don't let myself think about what lay beneath. 

Not much, anyway.

I do think about what I'm going to tell my baby of its
father. How do you explain Mulder to someone? I need for
this child to know the man that I did. 

The one I loved.

"Your father was the bravest man I ever knew," I will
say.

He was honest.

He was kind.

He was not crazy.

My eyes are getting so heavy that they're burning. I
start to drift off and remember that I made an
appointment to see Father McCue in the morning.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

I have believed in fairy tales.