Title: Beaches.
Author: Becca
Rating: G
Category: V, A, Scully POV.
Archiving: Gossamer, fine- others let me know.
Disclaimer: Not mine: CC, 1013 and Fox made these.
Feedback: Please? Pretty please? At nightgarden@hotmail.com. You'll be my bestest friend :)
Summary: Dreaming of beaches and daughters.

To those who swim in the autumn, after the tourists and the lifeguards, and who have spent a lifetime of summers on the sand. You  know who you are.
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I love the sea.

I think I always have; was born with it sloshing through every vein. It intoxicates me: it is so brazen, so uncontrolled, yet spectacularly beautiful, so gorgeous I can barely breathe in its presence. I could walk along a beach forever, watching long ribbons of bluey-green chase each other in, playing a silvery game of tag amongst the pebbles and the sand. I would drink it in if it would not intoxicate me; indeed, I am tempted to anyway- to feel the chill Atlantic in my stomach and upon my lips.

I love the sea.

That is why I dream of it tonight.

Dream of this sandy strip, all craggy rocks and breezy sky, a beach in two halves. It is split- on one side, towering rollers crash over each other, tumbling in a mess of foamy white. Half way down the shore, the sand extends out in a raised strip, curving a protective and motherly arm around, forming a natural breakwater. The water here is lagoon-like and mirror still, reflective and shining beauty.

I stand at the edge, in the middle of these halves, my hair whipping red and damp, slapping my cheeks and stinging me. I am ankle deep in tide-line water, and it is shockingly cold. My feet are a gentle purple hue, numbed and lifeless. The hem of my aqua-marine cotton dress is soggy, and it clamps itself to my calves. I shudder at the cold, a shiver scurrying its way up my spine.

It is silent, but for the crash of the waves. There are no wheeling gulls, no screaming curlews, and no giggling children building castles of wobbly sand. I am glad. This beach is mine, mine to run on, to swim in. Mine to climb the cliffs and picnic on the sand. Mine to jump from the dunes, to land deep in soft powder that sticks beneath my fingernails. There are few things that are mine alone, and this beach is one.

I want to bathe in this water. I want to feel the coldness run over my limbs and goose bump my skin. I want to dive under until I can hold my breath no more, until my lungs ache with the effort, and all I can hear are the currents of the water and the thumping of my heart.

So I do.

I wade into the lagoon fully clothed. The sand slopes in a gentle downslide, a ramp made for dreaming swimmers. My dress darkens, increasingly soggy. the water is warmer than I thought; a gentle mix of buoyant salt and shimmying currents. I duck my head under, and my hair is a swirling, shimmering halo of copper that dances in the water. I can see in this stillness- a hazy green that mists before my eyes. This is timeless. And I close my eyes, float, and relish this opalescent stillness.

The mind is odd in dreams. We can fly, walk on water, turn lead to gold at a mere touch. We can meet idolised heroes, fade back to the past, or shoot forwards to an imagined future. We can kiss dreamed lovers and fly aeroplanes. Imagination, wish fulfilment, or some altered reality? I hope that this exists somewhere.

I saw her head first. Honey-blonde flash out of the corner of my eye, short hair mussed by the water, a wave of a chubby hand. And I swirled round in the water to see her.

My daughter.

My child of light swimming, confident and sure and strong. Her toddler limbs graceful and sturdy. And I hold my arms open and she swims to me, a miniature mermaid, who takes my hand and leads me in a swallow dive of ecstasy around the pool. The water eddies and spills from my back and combs through my hair. And Emily spins and skews in the green, tumbling in an acrobatic spin. I am with my daughter.

So why do I cry?

She swims to me once again, and looks at me with her knowing eyes that are sunk into a baby face of puppy fat. Gentle beads of light bounce off the silver crucifix that rests around her neck. She runs her pudgy little fingers under my eyes and wipes my watery tears to mix with the sea.

Oh God.

This is crazy. This is a dream, and it is wonderful. I want to be here forever, just me and Emily and the ocean. I want to cradle my baby girl, away from the demons that would haunt us and steal her life away from her. I want to breathe her in, and make up for all that lost time.

Instead, she slips away.

Softly and quietly, over my left shoulder. I whip round to follow the tiny whirlpools of water she leaves in her wake, grabbing for her ankles. She is too quick, too elusive, but I see her. She sits on the sandbank, carelessly kicking her short legs, while behind her crash seven foot breakers, spraying their foam skywards. She beckons me, then places two fingers to her lips. Quietly, I slosh towards her, my dress pooled on the surface at chest height, ridiculous and dragging.
I am close to her, perhaps a few metres away when she stands, turns, and hops off into the crashing waves.

I scream.

She is too little, too small to live through this. And I plunge after her, every maternal instinct in me shrieking aloud to pluck my child from this torrent. I should have known better of this dream daughter. She plays in the huge waves, giggling with glee as they knock her sideways again and again. I guess she inherited the old Scully tenacity.

Have you ever played in the waves? Not the gentle, heel nipping waves of childhood holidays and shrimping -nets, of castles on the sand. I mean the waves whipped up on an early autumn day, the sea warm enough to swim, but wild enough to be dangerous. The sort that knock you and pin you to the sand, holding you underwater until your vision is red rimmed, before letting you burst to the surface and gasp desperate lungfuls of air. The kind that send you tumbling over and over, scratched by the sand so that you don't even remember which way the sky lies. The ones that toy with you, letting you think for all the world that you will die, before spitting you out, salt-drunk and dazed at the waters edge, just before you wade back in for another fix. The walls of grey-blue that you can dive under to escape, until you are beyond them, bobbing up and down on a regular swell, watching them crash to shore like some omnipotent God.

I play in the waves with Emily.

And for such a small person, she handles this admirably. I'd swear she was part mermaid, arching her back and diving, dolphin like through the torridness. And I am adrenaline-buzzed, heart pounding in my chest, stealing breaths wherever I can, surfacing for seconds before the waves cover me again. Bone tired though I am, I come back for more, swallowing great gulps until I am bloated with salt water.

My daughter cannons into me on the next wave, and I catch her as she squirms and giggles. I swing her high in the air, standing firm against the current, and we laugh together, blue eyes locked on blue. I lower her down, and we regard each other solemnly, white horses foaming and pooling around my waist. For the first time, my daughter speaks to me, and it almost snaps me in two.

"Love the waves," she murmurs, " Goodbye." In barely a whisper. And she wriggles from my grip, slippery wet baby skin that dives under the water and kicks strongly out towards the open sea. I dive under after her, but all I see is swirling sand, a confusion of yellow; no kicking toddler feet--just nothing.

I crawl out onto the sand. For a long time I just lie there, cheek in the sandy-yellow, without the energy even to cry. The sun has crept out from behind the scudding clouds, and it dries me gently, leaving a thin layer of salt on my skin. My hair lies in unattractive rat-tails on my neck. When I do sit up, knees hugged to my chest and bare feet buried in the powder of the shore, I look out to the sea. And I whisper my soft goodbye to the child I could have loved, given just a tiny bit of time.

I know that I will love the waves. I will choose the rough over the smooth every time; because that path is infinitely more interesting. It is more dangerous, more heartbreaking; but I play the game now, though not from choice, and the challenge is in playing it as well as I can. My daughter has gone. But if not for this path I tread she would never have been born at all.

  When I wake, there will be no beach. There will be no sand, no rolling Atlantic breakers. And no daughter. But when I sleep, I will always have beaches.

And a small girl with honey blonde hair who giggles in the waves.

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End.
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