Title: Flowers in the Rain
Author: Jenna Caplan
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Triangle (but it's not a Triangle fic at all!)
Disclaimer: The characters of Scully, Mulder, Skinner, and
all others recognizable belong to the wonderful stingy folks
down at 1013 and Fox, not to me. I'm not making any
money, don't sue, yadda yadda yadda...
Author's note: Don't flame me...a main character dies.
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Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

My partner is dead.

I'm in law enforcement, Father. I'm used to colleagues
being injured or killed in the line of duty. But this wasn't
the line of duty.

How can someone who saved the world be killed so pointlessly?

I think I've blocked the accident from my memory. All I
remember are brief flashes. I remember seeing the car out
of the corner of my eye. I remember hitting it and being
hurled forward into an exploding airbag. I remember seeing
her laying on the ground. Dead. And then I was outside
myself, as if I were another person watching myself press
my hands to the side of my face and scream and scream
and scream.

The rest is a blank.

I wasn't able to block the funeral. It rained that day. I
remember her mother's face looking so white as she
watched her last daughter being lowered into the ground.
And then she looked at me, in despair and dis-gust. She
thinks to this day I killed her daughter. She's right.

I placed flowers on the top of her casket as they lowered
her into the grave. They were roses, red and delicate. I
thought they were fitting. The rain wet the petals and made
the flowers limp, and they looked like smears of blood
>from six feet away.

I stayed next to her for a long, long time.

I remember a deep, unfathomable grief whose pain could
not be lessened.  I felt like my entire world had been ripped
apart and hurled through my chest with the sharpness and
intensity of spears. I'd never have another conversation with
her, or argue about a case with her, or have her chew my
ass out over some stupid thing I always seem to do, ever
again.

The realization of all that I'd lost bubbled out of me in a
scream of desperate agony that shook me to the core of my
being. I stood there in the rain, soaking wet, and just
screamed and sobbed all of my grief to the world. I yelled
till I was hoarse.

And as I tilted my face up to catch the rain, the sun broke
through the clouds and the storm ended.

And so, Father, I did what I decided she'd want me to do. I
continued with our quest. I'll always grieve, and I'll always
remember her, but I'm not going to give up. I owe her that
and much, much more.

My only condolance is that, before she died, she at least
knew. I told her, after that Queen Anne fiasco. The wall she
built at that moment was one that screamed, 'you're
delerious and you don't know what you're saying', but I
know that she knew on the inside that I meant it.

And for some reason, I know that she loved me too.

I'm moving on. Out of some sense of pity, I suppose, Kersh
has reassigned me to the X-Files and booted Spender into
my former spot in the VCS. I think that they think that I
won't be able to get on with my life after this. They couldn't
be more wrong.

I can function without her. Maybe someday I'll get to the
point where I'll be able to feel again. But I won't really live
again until the moment before I die.

I'm going home right after this, Father, and I'm going to
write a letter to someone very, very dear to me. I'm going to
tell her about the woman who saved my soul. And I think
my sister will write back.

end

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