ENOUGH (1/1)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

Disclaimer: Ten Thirteen Productions owns these babies.
They are beginning to let them have some fun, for which
I'm appreciating GREATLY. <g> I'm just going to borrow
them for this little vignette. I promise you that I make no
money from this. All that I have in my wallet is my driver's
license and my Camelot music saver's card. And some
pennies. :)

Summary: The tethers loosen. Missing scene from
"Redux II".

Category/Rating: VAR(implied Mulder/Scully). PG.

Spoilers: "Memento Mori", "Redux II". That's really it.

Do not post to Gossamer. Do not send to ATXC. Other
than that, e-mail me! I'm fairly lenient about where my
stories go. <g>

See bottom for author's notes.

ENOUGH

Ever since childhood, she has lived her life with pride. The
vehemence that she invests into her beliefs is riveting, her
battles are selected carefully and fought passionately, and
her level of endurance inspiring. Her beliefs are founded in
a simplicity that contradicts her partner's complexity. The
faith that she holds is inextinguishable and driving, and she
relies upon her sense of justice and morality to lead her to
her truth. It is because of her logic and her clarity that this
quest has continued. Living her life with the vitality and
fervor that was the foundation of her existence, she has
soared where others fall.

To the wronged, she is a champion. To the oppressed, she
is a warrior. To one man, she is a savior.

And now, she is exhausted.

Lying amidst a legion of machinery and monitors, the
fragile form of Dana Scully is lost between the steel and
metal that is keeping her alive. No shallow breath goes
unrecorded; not one irregular heartbeat is able to escape the
mechanical touch of an electrode. Surveyed around the
clock by faceless doctors and cautious nurses, there is no
action of hers left unnoticed, and privacy has been
decimated and scattered to the winds.

No one understands her sudden failure. Her disease is
select and fatal. Doctors attempt to condescend to her in an
effort to conceal the seriousness of her illness, and she
swiftly reminds them of her medical experience. Terms
like "malignant", "metastisize", and "invasive" are not alien
to her. She has been repeating them like a mantra during
the months following her diagnosis.

They are her mantra to pursue her quest with the remaining
strength that she has. Each reminder of her sudden physical
frailty fuels her need and her desire to pursue her truth and
hold it in her hand at least one before she dies. That's all
that she wants, just a taste of her goal, and then she may die
at peace.

The man next to her holds her frail hand and bows his
head, the muscles in his jaw clenching in the condemnation
of his failure. Knowing that she will die without the
realization of her journey and sacrifices is the burden that
he, as the living, carries within.

Swallowing back his discontent, Fox Mulder forces his
thumb across the tissue-paper that is her skin. "How are
you holding up?" he asks, his voice a disruption in the
symphony that the electronic noises create.

Scully follows suit and swallows back the words that she
wishes to tell him before she passes on. "Okay," she
hoarsely rasps. The medicine and the tube that feeds her
has robbed her of her cool, collected alto. This robbery has
ripped through him. In all of his troubled years, Scully's
voice is the only music that has ever been able to reach
him. She has always been an awful singer, but her off-key
notes and flat delivery was able to soothe him out of
insomnia with the simple recitation of an old folk song or a
ballad. Now, each word that escapes her mouth is both
fragile and blaring, and Mulder can hear the phlegm rattle
inside of her throat.

Carefully, Mulder takes his thumb over the thin, delicate
webbing that connects her thumb to her forefinger. Scully
senses her this ginger attempt at contact, the way his
fingertips tremble over the bridges between her fingers, and
she strains to squeeze his hand in affirmation. The
weakness in her grip causes every part of him to scream
with indignation. This is a strong, capable, brilliant woman,
his mind cries. What did she do to deserve this? How did
our fates get mixed up?

Licking his dry lips, he struggles to compose himself and
speak again. "The results of the latest round of tests should
be in soon. I spoke to the doctors just a few minutes ago,"
Mulder whispers, not meeting her face. Each meager scrap
of news regarding her own condition is a taste of ambrosia
to her, and only Mulder sees the injustice of concealing the
progress of a disease that threatens to conquer her. If Scully
is to ever come to terms with what may lie ahead of her,
then she needs to understand the progress of the cancer
within her.

Besides, he already knows the reaction on her face. Over
the past couple weeks, since her admittance into the
hospital, Scully's face has illuminated like a torch with
each dangling sparkle of hope. Recovery is the only idea
that can make her smile stretch against the tight skin of her
gaunt face, and Mulder wants to deliver that promise to
her.

So, rather than torture himself by watching her discontent,
he memorizes the pattern of her blue veins on the back of
her hand. Scully has such small, precise, nimble fingers. It
is becoming difficult to distinguish her pale skin from the
multitude of tubes and IV's that lay entwined about her.

"And?" Scully asks, and he flinches at the possibility that
screams from her damaged voice.

Pained, Mulder flicks his eyes away from her, toward the
crease of his wrinkled trousers, and her eagerness
evaporates. Through the years, their language has become
based not in the brashness of words, but the subtlety of eyes
and face. Scully recognizes each emotion that pours into
his individual muscles, and the lines that appear in his
brow, the tugging on his lower lip, tells her the news.

"I see," she murmurs in response, retracting her hand from
Mulder and placing it cautiously in her lap. There, they
flutter like white butterflies, entrapped by the cords and
tubes that keep her alive by refusing her freedom. The
desolation and resignation in her voice and in her downcast
eyes stabs into his heart, and he clenches down on his lip
with his teeth, drawing blood. The coppery taste washes
over his tongue, and she smiles shakily, reaching out with
her fingers to temper the wound.

"Don't do that," Scully whispers, her voice fond and her
gesture intimate. The feathery touch of her fingertips on his
lip is still enough to thunder the force of their passion that
had always existed between them. Startled, his eyes flutter
up to meet hers, deep jade underneath the fringes of dark
ebony lashes. Gently, she smiles, and Mulder swallows.
"You'll scar it." Wistfully, she allows her hand to remain on
the silk of his mouth for a moment longer, reveling in a
sensation of him that will soon be robbed from her with the
passing of her life. All throughout their years together, this
yearning has existed; burned between them. It began with
the suddenness of spark chasing onto wick, and then
slowed to simmer in the subtle flame that it is today.

Scully regrets never stoking that flame until now. Every
possibility of recognition of love is in the creases and
crevices of Mulder's lower lip, and etched into the
indentation of his satin lips. She believes that she should
stop, but her heart begs with her to hold onto this man as
though he can be an anchor. Bitterly, she inwardly laughs.
To use such an unstable man such as Mulder for an
emotional binding is as hopeless as her dreams of recovery,
and yet she clings to his face.

"Are you afraid?" His words are sudden and come from
nowhere, and Scully is jolted out of her reverie. Scrambling
for composure, she jerks her hand away from his lips, not
dwelling on the possibility of whether or not he had kissed
her fingertip when he had spoken. Quietly, she folds her
hands once more on her lap, and her rough palms catch on
the cotton of her bed sheet.

"Sometimes," she admits. Hasty lies to cover up her
discomfort with her condition would only be a
contradiction to her belief in truth. When she was still
active and out of the hospital, she had often used false
promises to ease his mind of her health issues, but there
were no pretenses now. Mulder knew more about the
failure of Scully's body than she did.

Concerned, Mulder inches nearer to her face on the bed, so
that when he breathes, she smells the cinnamon chewing
gum that he had been gnawing on earlier. The dot of
crimson on his lip is a stark reminder of her own
nosebleeds, signature reminders of her tumor. "How so?"
he inquires, folding his own slender hands near to hers.
Next to her pale, porcelain palms, the splayed gold of
Mulder's tapering fingers and delicate wrists are a sharp
contrast. Scully's fingertips dance toward those hands,
wanting to let herself be covered by them, and she instead
rests next to them.

"My faith has been questioned so often during these years
that I am unsure of what the afterlife is," she muses.
"Religion dictates eternal heaven and eternal hell. But I
can't trust my religion. My own mind can't invest any stock
into that thought."

"What do you believe the afterlife to be then?" Mulder
questions.

She shrugs her bony shoulders, the collarbone shifting
through her transparent gown and skin. "I believe the
afterlife to be a multitude of possibility," she decides.
"Perhaps life after death is only what you perceive it to be."

"And what do you perceive it to be?"

A darkness settles over her drawn, pinched face, circling
under her china eyes. "That's where I'm worried, Mulder,"
she breathes. With the low pitch of her voice, the roughness
in her tones is smoothed out slightly, giving a husky quality
to her already rich alto. "I cannot perceive an afterlife, and
I'm terrified of living out death in nothingness."

Understanding suddenly, he moves from his plastic chair
next to her bed, and perches on the mattress next to her.
There is a sudden need to be near to her, to touch her and
cling to her as though she were his anchor. It is a ridiculous
thought, to try to find stability in a woman whose life is
slipping away surely and swiftly, but Mulder's only anchor
has been this woman. In her strength, he has found a
common ground.

Delicately, so not to jiggle the bedside and upset her
already weak stomach, he settles down next to her.
Flattening his hands on the indentation of her abdomen, he
aches at the skeletal shape of her body. Scully has always
taken pride in her physical condition, and he can feel the
muscle wasting away underneath the sheet. The other day,
he saw her walk to the bathroom, dressed only in her
hospital gown and thick cotton socks, and he had to excuse
himself before seeing her.

Mulder had never thought that he would see Scully hobble.

"Then let me give you my images," he offers. Cautiously,
she smiles, and he reaches up to smooth back her brittle red
hair. He cannot dwell on her hair now. Later, he can mourn
and weep, but not now. "I believe that there is no such
thing as heaven and hell. I believe in reincarnation."

"Soul mates," she murmurs, her voice low with a heaviness,
and he shakes his head fervently.

"Not soul mates," he corrects. "Different lives, and
sometimes the same people. But you have to choose your
own fate in the next life. You get another chance to make
something wonderful of your life. Even if you have
committed the most vile act against another person, you
still get the chance to correct your mistakes." Without
another word, he smoothes back her hair again. He needs
this. "And if you've lived out your life in pain, then you can
live out one in joy."

She doesn't need to know that he is winging it. Mulder has
no idea if he truly believes this or not, though every word
that spills from his mouth is making more and more sense
to him. And the sense that it makes is painful, for he
realizes that he is preparing Scully for her life after death.
He is not preparing himself for a life without her.

A life without Dana Scully is simply not life anymore.

Somehow, she knows what he is thinking, and she finally
initiates the first contact. Tangling her fingers in his, her
smooth hands now rapidly aged from the many needles and
probes, she looks up at him. "What are you going to do
when this is all over, Mulder?" she asks, and her voice is
with such concern that he blinks back tears. He can't do
this.

"I don't know," he whispers, his voice suddenly no bigger
than her own small, sick tones. "I just don't know." Leaning
his head toward hers in weariness, his entire frame seems
to collapse. "I can't think about that now. I can't let this
end."

"It's going to end," she sadly acknowledges, and his chin
drops to his chest. "When the doctors walk through my
door, I already know what they are going to tell me. And
then, it's just a matter of waiting."

Anguished, he turns his face to hers, and she catches her
breath in her throat before he even speaks. Every color of
emotion is splashed across his face in a rainbow, and
Scully finds her own lip tugged on in an effort to keep
herself in check. "I can't let this end," he repeats, his voice
strangled. "Don't you understand? It's the only thing in my
life that had a beginning."

Oh, Mulder, don't tell me that. Please, don't tell me that.
But he is not finished. With a plea, his dark hazel eyes
fixate on her blue ones, and she is captured. "There are too
many doors left open," he decides. "I need to close those
doors. When every room is explored, and there's still
nothing to be found, then I'll let it go. But not till then."

Furrowing her brow, she speaks. "But how many doors are
you opening just for the sake of saying that they're open?"
she chides, and he looks down. The healthiness of his
hands is starkly compared to the sickliness of hers, and he
aches to infuse his life into the skeletal fingers and
fleshless palms. If only he could give her everything that he
had never deserved, then perhaps she will live.

"I can't let this go," he forcefully whispers, and then
confesses. "I can't let you go." There is another pause, and
when he speaks again, his voice is thick with despair. "I
just don't know how to let you go."

There it is, revealed and open to the world. She knows with
the shattered quality to his voice, and with the sudden
creases around his hooded, sullen eyes. Scully sees for the
first time every emotion that this man holds for her, and the
effect is overwhelming. For a moment, she wishes that she
had never seen it, and had instead remained unaware of
every falter in their relationship. In Mulder's open face, she
sees what they could have, and perhaps should have,
shared.

But before she can open up her mouth to speak, something
warm drizzles down her face like a steaming raindrop, and
she quickly conceals her face with her hand. But he has
seen the evidence that mars her perfection, and Mulder
freezes as the blood flows like a river down her translucent
skin. With jerky movements, he rises from her bedside. His
mouth opens and closes as though the words yearn escape,
but he cannot collect himself. "I'll... I'll get the doctor," he
stammers, but she shakes her head and reaches out with
one blood-stained palm to stop him.

"There's no need," she protests. "These happen now and
then... It'll pass." She speaks the truth. Ever since Scully
was hospitalized, she has been victim to these sudden
attacks. She has just been fortunate enough not to have had
one in the presence of her partner. But the blood that flows
like copper spittle down her chin cracks the mask that she
has tried to don, and Mulder stares at her with shock and
horror.

"There's got to be something that..." The sticky palm that
had touched his forearm lightly tightens in a vise-like grip,
and he is shocked by the sudden strength that she is able to
conjure up. Of course she has this reserve, he chides. She
has always had more strength than meets the eye.

"Stay with me, Mulder," she says, and there is no query in
the tone of her voice. She does not command, but decides.
Wisely, Mulder shows no resistance, and swings his long,
lanky legs up next to her shorter, atrophied limbs. The tips
of his wing-tipped dress shoe push against the floorboard
of the hospital bed, and together, they swim in the ocean of
Scully's electronic life.

With an arm protectively slid around her shoulders, she is
wrapped next to him, her petite red head leaning against his
breastbone. Her right hand floats tentatively to his chest,
and he covers the wired hand with his healthy, strong palm.
Finally, she nuzzles into his necktie, and he leans down to
rest his chin on the top of her head, disregarding the smear
of blood left on his patterned tie. In the rare occasions that
they had come together in the intimacy of an embrace, they
had always found that they were interlocking pieces.
Mulder and Scully fit perfectly together.

In this moment, they both see the past four years of their
lives whisper around like phantoms, singing of a time that
they had spent together, and of a sacrifice that neither is
willing to make. Mulder has sold every part of his life in
order to attain this Holy Grail of truth and justice, but to rip
Scully from him would be to tear the marrow from his
bones. The loss of her would be crippling. She is too much
a part of him for him to let slip away.

Perhaps in this moment, she recognizes this, and she
whispers her confirmation to him in what others would
perceive as ambiguity, but what Mulder perceives as
directness. "Thank you," she whispers, "for taking the pain
away in this life. I want you there in my next one."

This is all the exchange that they need, and the only
physical confirmation is the union of her hands with his
over his heartbeat. Both pray that the persistence of
Mulder's pulse is enough for the two of them to live on, and
that her wisdom and strength is enough to carry his heart
through.

And then, the doctors leave, and Mulder leaves, too. This is
not his time, and this is not his body. She needs this time to
know her own fate, and her silence speaks volumes to him.
There is no pity in her luminous blue eyes now, only a
poignant clarity and acceptance as she turns to him. With
her eyes only millimeters away from his, she feels that one
escaped tear would fall free from her lashes and dangle
easily on his. Fortunately for the both of them, there are no
tears to be shed. This is her fate, and her time to hear out
her fate.

With a final pat of her palm on his fuzzed cheek, she nods
her relief to him. "I need this time," she croaks, and he
swallows.

"I'll be just outside," he manages, and with great effort,
swings his legs off of the bed and onto the floor. Odd, how
the solidity of the tile floor beneath him offers less
steadiness than the wisp of a woman in the hospital bed.
Scully has always provided him with a source, and now her
well is drying up.

With a final, wavering smile, he turns his back to her and
begins his way out, pausing briefly to meet the eyes of the
doctors who march in with the solemnity of pallbearers.
The corpse that they carry is Dana Scully's diagnosis,
encased within the casket of a manila folder. Mulder sees
this report in the middle doctor's hand, and wrenches his
eyes away from that promise of death. He was never one
for an open-casket funeral to begin with.

Wistfully, her eyes follow his stooped shoulders out of the
room, and she turns to her doctors momentarily. For the
past months, she has faced this nemesis, this foe, and the
final battle has been fought. With the flimsiest of Mulder's
untamed beliefs, with the most experimental science, and
with the most founded prayer, she has armed herself
carefully, using these three sources of faith to draw upon
for warfare. These doctors, her battalions and army, wait
beside her for the word.

The battle has been fought, and the war is over. Only the
results remain undetermined, and the victor waits to be
named inside of that thick medical file.

A doctor opens his mouth to speak, but she holds up her
hand. "Wait," she requests, and the men are silenced before
the shadow of beauty within and without. They have known
this woman for months, and they have seen her body
disintegrate and decompose. Never have they seen her
spirit falter, and they do not catch a glimpse now.

In this pause, she holds onto her life once more. Every
memory whispers past her in a flood of emotional
experience and tumultuous sensation. This is the
exuberance of life, and the whirlwind that is existence.
Memory is a mere history of this hurricane, and her life
will leave her behind as a part of the wreckage and
carnage.

It will also leave him behind, and for a moment, Scully
lingers on him. Knowing that he does not believe in prayer,
she instead bows her head, and hopes. She hopes that his
life can go on with the persistence and power of his
insurmountable spirit and heart. She hopes that he knows
that she is still with him, and hopes that this is enough.

Once having left her, Mulder faces a row of plastic chairs,
colorful in hue and purpose, and bites his lip in fret. These
chairs are empty, and reserved for the beloved and bereft of
the dying. Their sole purpose in this world is to house the
weeping and grieving of the driftwood and debris that death
brings, and Mulder takes his place in this elite club. The
chairs provide no comfort; they allow no hope. Instead, all
that they do is exist.

The only comfort and hope that is left in Mulder's twisted
life is a slip of a savior entrapped in the maze of tubes and
monitors, and his body jolts forward, lolling around in the
desire to break and bend underneath the pressure. He is not
built for this, he tells himself. He is not made to be alone.
Perhaps once upon a time, seclusion and separation was the
only answer. But after feeling the fleeting touch of actual
human affection, something that he has been starved of his
entire life, there is no way to return to his existence before.

The life that he knew as the Fox Mulder with Dana Scully
will die when she is removed from the life support, or when
the final nosebleed robs her of her lifeblood, or when the
aneurysm explodes within her skull. In many ways, he has
been given a similar death sentence.

Only she is the one who will not have to forge a new life
after he is gone. God cannot be kind to Mulder, for Mulder
does not believe in God. God is a giver, and the only person
to give has been Mulder himself. There has been too much
blood spilt, too many sacrifices made, and too much
innocence shattered.

Despairing, Mulder arches his back against the restrictions
of the plastic chair, and he turns his face to the ceiling. His
hands curl into claw and talon. Why is there no more time?
Why does it have to be this woman? Why does it always
have to be us? Why can't someone else have a turn in the
roulette wheel he has been spun in for the past thirty-seven
years? And why can't he keep her alive?

Then, his body relaxes, and he sinks. Oh, Scully, he
bemoans. There is supposed to be more for you than this.
But there will never be more. He can only offer what is his
to give, and the possessions of Fox Mulder are few in
quantity and tainted in quality. He can only offer love,
something that has been tampered with since childhood and
betrayed in adulthood. But he can offer his heart, and he
can offer his trust.

Wearily, his face sinks into the blindness of palm and flesh,
his profile covered by the steeple that his hands create. He
can still smell the scent and tang of Scully's blood on his
skin. There is nothing fragrant about it.

He does not pray, for the words and prayers have been
forgotten and abandoned over the years. But she has taught
him hope. She has taught him hope, sculpted his love, and
then refined his truth. Through her empathy and passion,
she has saved him, and he loves her for it. Whispering her
name with the most fragile of breaths, he hopes for her, and
he hopes that it is enough.

Minutes pass like hours, and they are moments that he fears
that she cannot afford. Finally, the door to her room opens,
and the doctors leave. Their faces are expressionless and
blank, neither joy nor pity nor sorrow revealing their
prognosis to him. Mulder's face turns upward, and a young
doctor looks at him with a nod. Slowly, he rises from his
chair, and he pauses.

This is the last time he has with the fragile faith that she
will live forever. One last moment, he promises himself.
He just wants one last moment of a future together. Just to
believe for a second longer before his world is shattered.
And then he re-opens his eyes, and returns to Scully's room
to receive news of her fate.

There is no tension in her body as he walks into the room,
and it eats at him. He cannot interpret her composure as
either courage or relief. Finally, from the folded, calm
hands, his eyes move upwards to meet her face, clean of
blood. Cerulean eyes stare blankly back at him, and the
hoarse voice speaks to him in a mockery of Dana Scully's
rich alto.

"It's over," she murmurs, and he stiffens. Each and every
muscle, involuntary and voluntary, contracts with the
impact of her words, and the marrow turns to lead within
his bones. The fight to save her life is over. "It's all over."

Terrified, he cannot read her words, and he finally drifts
beyond the color and shape of her eyes to the soul
underneath. That is where the true confusion settles in, for
what he sees is a puzzle. "Scully," he chokes, and she
flutters her eyelashes in an effort to conceal her emotional
jumble. Silence stills them and holds them in its grasp,
numb and icy in its talons. Deprived of air, drained of
energy, he stands before her empty and hollow, waiting for
his future to be determined with her grim prognosis.

Mulder stands an empty vessel, ready to be filled with
either despair or joy.

"Remission," she blurts, and the word slams past Mulder.
Remission... Revival. Redemption. Resurrection. Redux.
This is what her word means to him, and he finally
staggers. Grace robbed from his step at the wonder of her
truth, he stumbles to her bedside, and drops to his knees in
a jerky, fumbling movement. Hazel eyes wide with
disbelief, he frowns at her, and she tugs at her lower lip
with her teeth. It'll scar, Scully, his mind absently throws at
her, and she reaches out with her hand to trace the silkiness
of his disheveled brown locks.

The gesture rips through him with realization, and he
suddenly recognizes every single impact that her word had
on him. Images of mornings beside her, of nights in her
company, of words that they may speak and breaths that
they would take spill through his mind like abandoned
wine, and he feels himself shatter. He has existed in a
precarious state the past days, and every emotion that has
rested within the secretive hollows and hallows escapes.
The tears spill down his cheek, his heart filled to the brim,
and his cup runneth over.

In agreement with his display, she cups the back of his
head with the curve of her palm, and weaves her fingers
through the curling threads of mahogany against the nape
of his neck. The gesture is soothing, and she sighs. "Shh,"
she whispers, "it's enough."

It is all enough. It is enough to be the champion. It is
enough to be the warrior. It is enough to be the savior. And
one day soon, it will be enough to be the lover.

As Mulder allows himself to weep, Scully holds him and
whispers to him again. "It's enough,"

And it is.

(end)

Feedback? Did anyone say feedback? Why, sure, I'd love
some! Just send it down to Auralissa@aol.com! I reply to
every letter! <g>

Author's Notes: I have wanted to do a vignette for this
episode for a long time now, and I took the time out to
write out the inspiration that came only days ago. I am a
shipper. I tried to keep the romance down to a minimum in
this story because I felt that it would have detracted too
much from the impact of the story. However, I make no
promises from here on out. :)

You may also have noticed that my Scully was in worse
condition than she actually was in "Redux II". I took some
artistic license with this because I felt that a woman dying
of cancer would be in less-ideal shape. And I didn't think
that her lipstick would be perfect or her hair would be
blow-dried. ;)

I wrote this story as an elaboration on the triad of
possibilities that were supposed to have saved Scully:
Mulder's beliefs, Scully's science, and Scully's faith. But
what if it was hope that saved her life? I think that one of
the most wonderful things about "The X-Files" is its
underlying ribbon of hope, and I thought that this, while
maybe not a cure, was a nice way to save a woman like
Scully. Thank you, Kris, for helping me think of this one.
<g>

Credit is deserved to Sandy Pell, for making this work
come about, whether she realizes it or not. <vbg>

Special thanks to Alexandra Moody and Francesca
Panerosa for editing and critiquing the story. Welcome to
the wonderful world of "The X-Files" and its fanfiction,
Lexy! And this David's for you, Fran. ;)

But this story is, as always, for Kristin Pohaski. When two
people such as us live so far apart physically and so near
spiritually, we can only hope that our friendship, trust, and
confidence will be enough. And I think that it is. :)