TITLE: No Visible Sign of Injury AUTHOR: JB < JessLB@aol.com > RATING: PG, for a swear word or two KEYWORDS: UST (or friendship, if you want to take it that way), ScullyAngst CATEGORY: VA SPOILERS: Christmas Carol/Emily, The Ghosts That Stole Christmas ARCHIVE: Yup. Let me know where you put it, though. SUMMARY: Scully's thoughts on how the loss of her daughter has affected her life. DISCLAIMER: I'm just playing with them, Chris, relax. You can have them back at the end, all right? AUTHOR'S NOTES: Although I had always been aware that the show hadn't really addressed the Emily issue past CC/Emily and All Souls, it wasn't something I was really *aware of*, if you know what I mean. It was a surprise, recently, to realize that they treated the loss of her daughter as casually as they have everything else. Which, as a person whose been to far too many funerals during her life, angered me. So I decided if they wouldn't address the issue, I would. (Is it wrong to feel the need to add a 'so there'?) Now while I am a Scullyist, and I can usually see Scully's reasoning behind a lot of things, I'm no Mulder. So while this is how I think Scully feels about Emily's death, I also took some minor, minor liberties and threw in a few of my own opinions too. Very minuscule, I promise. ********************* I hadn't thought about her once that day, but all it took were three little words to send my equilibrium flying. "Emily, come here!" Outwardly, I'm not sure that anyone could see how much the words had affected me. Inside, I was dying. The little girl in question, a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel, suddenly popped up out of a pile of late autumn leaves and ran past where I sat on the bench to her mother, waiting impatiently a few feet away. They held a hurried conversation, the mother explaining to her toddler the importance of never wandering off. And then, hand in hand, they made their way up the sidewalk and disappeared. I made it back to my apartment in a rush, barely shutting the door behind me before I slid to the floor against it. I wonder, sometimes, if hearing her name on another woman's lips or seeing another blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl should affect me as much as it does. My mother would probably tell me that, regardless of how long I knew her, she was still mine. She'd argue that not only do I have the right to be affected, but it *should* affect me. She's probably right, but then again, my mother has four children and I have none. I can barely remember what happened in those last whirlwind days of her life in San Diego. The images may have faded, but the emotions - the guilt, the fear, the disbelief ... the pain - all still register. I remember the surprise that my sister had possibly born a child in secret. I remember the world dropping beneath me when I read the DNA results and realized she was mine, not Melissa's. And I can recall with perfect clarity, laying in bed that night and thinking that maybe - just maybe - I would have my chance at motherhood after all. Telling Mulder ... the one phone call I'd never expected to make. 'Mulder, Emily - Emily is mine, she isn't Missy's, and I-I need your help. I need ... you.' There was silence for a brief moment, and then he was hanging up, telling me he'd be there as soon as he could and that we'd get through this together. And when he came into the hospital with that Mr. Potatohead face and those longing looks he kept throwing at Emily ... I think I know now that if being on my deathbed mere months earlier hadn't made me realize I loved him, I think would have realized it then. He would roll his eyes and laugh if I ever told him this, but Mulder is one of those rare men who would make the perfect father. For all his imperfections, he's a wonderful, caring person. I wonder, sometimes, if he felt that little tug on his heart that I felt when he saw Emily. If he maybe wonders who her father was, like I do. If maybe, by some shimmer of luck, They decided to use he and I to create that little girl. That perhaps if this were another time, another situation... And in the whole minute he crouched next to us on the floor, I began planning. I'd transfer to Quantico, get a bigger place, probably a townhouse with a yard - she'd need room to play; we'd buy one of those toddler beds and I'd make sure she felt like such a big girl, and I'd enroll her in the best preschool in DC. And then I saw Mulder watching her color, and suddenly, the townhouse became a regular house at the end of a regular street with a regular mailbox with 'Mulder' painted on it. With a normal yard, a normal dog, and a normal sister for Emily to play with, along with an equally normal brother. I felt guilty when I realized, weeks after her death, that I detested her name. Emily. Far too girly for a daughter of mine. She was a strong little girl, beautiful and capable, and she deserved a fitting name. Nothing too adult, of course, but something not as sweetly feminine as Emily. Perhaps Madeline. Julia, Erica, even, or maybe Angela. And then as the months passed, and I went to bed with her name in my head, I knew I could never have called her anything different. She was Emily; she was *my* Emily. Mulder and I don't speak of her. He always gets this haunted look in his eyes whenever we take on a case that has to do with children. When we spent Christmas together last year, I knew he was holding back, trying not to say the wrong thing. Sweet, yes; annoying as well. I wonder where I'd be in my life right now, if Emily had lived. Teaching on dead bodies at Quantico, a once-a-week phone call to or from Mulder, hassled with the daily bustle of being a single mom? I spend most of my dreams wishing for that so-called normal life; would I have found it in Emily? Could I live my normal life, after everything I've seen and done? Is it possible to bare witness to the crimes and injustices that I've seen, to have been experimented on and abducted numerous times, and still live contentedly in suburbia? I miss my daughter - and I'll continue to miss her for the rest of my life, each and every day - but there's a nagging feeling of guilt in my heart that whispers the truth to me; that if I had settled down for family life those two years ago, there's no doubt I would have ended up feeling tied down and wanted my old life back. The grass is always greener, I guess. I'm surprised to hear a soft knock at the door. For a moment, there's the sound of keys in the lock, then the knob turns and the light from the hallway outside illuminates the darkness of my apartment. I'm even more surprised that he's waited this long to follow me up here. He probably thinks I didn't see him watching me at the park. Mulder closes the door behind him and silently crosses the room. He sits next to me on the couch. We wage a silent war with our eyes, and he loses. I know that he knows I'm upset, and I know he's doing a quick assessment - no tears, no angry words, no visible sign of injury. Visible. He leans back, making himself comfortable on my couch. He must have come to his conclusion; I'm tearing myself up on the inside over something I think I'm guilty of. And he's waiting for me to talk. And maybe one day, I will. Maybe one day, I'll open up and tell him sometimes I just want to stand in the middle of the street and scream at the top of my lungs. Scream my fears and my pain. Unburden myself onto strangers who could give a damn. One day I'll tell him that I've never quite forgiven myself for the words I spoke to him in the hospital as Emily lay dying in front of me - that even if I had a cure, I wouldn't save her. Someday I'll tell him that those words have eaten me up inside; that I'm angry at myself for not trying hard enough to find a cure for her, for even saying that I wouldn't allow her the chance to live. That every time I think about her, times like now, I curse myself for feeling more pain at the fact that I'm unable to have children than for Emily herself. And that when I am grieving for the daughter I never truly knew, that I wonder if I even should mourn her. Someday, I'll let him in. And when I do, maybe then he can help me heal. the end. ********************* http://members.tripod.com/~SueBridehead_2/fanfic.html