DISCLAIMER:  These characters and situations belong, not to me,
but to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Network.  I
mean no infringement.

This is a SONNET story, taking place near the end of "Redux II."
Spoilers abound.

Category:  V, A, MSR commensurate with that of the episode
All other information withheld at the request of the author



SONNET:  "Time's Best Jewel"
by Anne Haynes
AHaynes33@aol.com

Sonnet LXV

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
                           - William Shakespeare


9:35 p.m.


On impulse, he had stopped in the hospital lobby and bought
flowers for Scully, although he couldn't really say what had made
him think to do so.  Neither he nor Scully were particularly
conventional people, and flowers seemed a distressingly normal,
conventional gesture at a time like this.  But the daffodils had
struck Mulder as a peculiar sight, happy yellow harbingers of
hope and new life, out of season and out of place, somehow, in
this antiseptic atmosphere of death barely held at bay.

He held them behind his back as he entered her hospital room,
playing an old, infrequent game.  He half-expected, half-hoped
that she would greet him with a tired but curious smile. 
Instead, she greeted him with eyes brimming with tears and a
shell-shocked expression on her pale, haggard face.  Next to her,
in a bedside chair, Margaret Scully wept silently, her fingers
curled around her daughter's hand.  Bill Scully stood apart at
the window, staring out into the night, his face set like stone.

Mulder let his hand drop to his side, the daffodil petals bruised
as they thudded against his thigh.  He swallowed hard and took an
involuntary step toward the bed.  "What is it?"

Bill Scully turned away from the window and looked at him, his
expression fathomless.  But in the Navy man's eyes, Mulder saw
a mixture of anger and shock and something else.  

Tears.

Mulder's stomach coiled as Scully's older brother stared him
down for a long, tense moment.  Then Bill shouldered past
Mulder, almost knocking him off balance, and left the room
without a word.

Margaret Scully released her daughter's hand and stood, dabbing
at her tear-stained face with a crumpled tissue.  Her gentle face
was ravaged with emotion; Mulder couldn't lower his gaze from
that face as she slowly approached, held out her hand to him
and murmured his name.  He lifted his free hand and closed his 
fingers around hers.  She clenched his hand tightly, crushingly, 
then released him and followed her son outside.

Mulder stood frozen a few feet from the bed, gazing at the wall
beyond Scully's hospital bed, digging deep for control before he
found the strength to meet his partner's eyes.  She was crying
silently, and the unaccustomed sight ripped a hole in his heart. 
He lurched to her side, taking the hand she outstretched to him,
terrified.  He couldn't even find his voice to ask her what had
happened.

Her hand was surprisingly warm in his clasp, or was it that his
own hand was icy cold with dread?  He didn't know.  He only knew
that he had to hold onto that small, warm hand, hold her in this
life as long as he could.  

She blinked a couple of times, spilling tears down her cheeks as
she wrestled for control.  Her fingers tightened around his, her
grip amazingly strong.  He watched her throat bob once, twice,
three times.  Then her lips parted and her voice emerged, thick
with emotion.  "Dr. Zuckerman did another PET scan this morning
after you left for the hearing."

No.  He shook his head almost imperceptibly.  No, don't say this,
Scully.  Don't tell me.  Don't take away my hope.

Her mouth worked silently, trying vainly to form words.  She
licked her trembling lips and tried again.  "The cancer--"

He shook his head again, his heart shredding.

Her jaw went suddenly firm and steady, and her eyes blazed at him
with a fire he'd begun to wonder if he'd ever see again.  "The
cancer is in remission, Mulder."

He blinked. 

The world spun around him in utter silence.

A voice, ragged and raw, sliced through the quiet.  His own
voice, he realized.  "Remission?"

Her lips began to tremble again, and tears welled in her eyes. 
"Yes.  The PET scan showed a massive reduction in the size of my
tumor." 

He took a slow, shuddery breath.  His body was suddenly wracked
by a strange, prickly pain--like a limb coming slowly, achingly
back to life, he realized with a frisson of wonder.  He was
acutely aware of his pulse thudding in his ears, the feel of the
cool, sterile air of the hospital room playing over his flesh. 
He heard Scully's soft, sniffly intake of breath and felt the
satiny warmth of her skin underneath his fingers.

We're alive, he thought.  

"So soon? How?" he asked when he could find his voice again.
  
"I don't know."  Her answer spilled out in a shuddery chuckle.  
"But the tumor is only 1/3 the size it was yesterday, and 
Dr. Zuckerman thinks it's continuing to shrink.  He did a battery
of tests--blood chemistries, CBC, T-cell levels, the works--and
it all looks...incredible."  Her lips curved in a mega watt grin.

He lowered himself carefully onto the bed next to her, laid the
slightly rumpled bouquet of daffodils to one side and clutched
her hand with both of his, staring at that wonderful smile.  A
bubble of laughter spilled from his throat, and he let it go. 
Scully answered his laughter with her own.  

It was almost almost ten seconds before Mulder's laughter turned
into hard, gasping sobs.  She reached for him then, and drew him
into arms that had already regained a surprising amount of
strength.  Like bloodied comrades, they wept together for their
losses and for their victories and for the battles still to come.

After a few moments, the floodwaters of emotion subsided, and
they fell to a pensive silence, still locked in a tight,
comforting embrace.  Scully's nose nuzzled slightly against
Mulder's throat, making his heart clench into a hot, tight fist. 
Then she moved slightly, breaking the embrace.  She wiped away
her own tears with her fingertips, then reached out and brushed
away the tears dampening his face as well.  Before his eyes, she
transformed into Special Agent Dana Scully and asked, "So what
happened at the hearing?"

He related the details of the inquiry quickly, not really wanting
to waste time on shop talk right now.

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. "So Blevins is the mole?" 

He nodded.  "I don't think he's the only one."

She looked up at him, her shadowed eyes warm.  "How about you? 
What was the outcome of the hearing as far as you're concerned?"

"Skinner and I spent a few hours this afternoon trying to gather 
up what evidence we could against Blevins.  I don't know if we
were successful.  I get the feeling there's some kind of clean up
job going on, erasing all evidence of the conspiracy.  The only
good thing coming out of it is that it looks like nobody's going
to press any charges against me."  He grimaced.  He'd taken
extreme measures to save his life--and Scully's--but it didn't
make living with what he'd done any easier.  Getting away free
and clear didn't seem right.

"Are you sure we can trust Skinner--?"

"Absolutely."  More than she would ever know.  If Mulder owed
anything to Walter Skinner, it was his silence about the lengths
to which the assistant director had gone to save Scully's life. 
Telling her would do nothing but hurt two good people who'd
suffered enough already.  

And Mulder had no room to condemn Skinner when it came to making
deals with the devil.  He'd come far too close to such a bargain
himself.  

She nodded.  "Okay.  I trust your judgment on this."

Something in his chest seemed to burst and spill at her words. 
"I still can't believe this," he murmured, touching the curve of
her pale cheek as if to reassure himself that she was still here
with him.  

"Of course you can," she said with a wry smile.  "I think maybe
you were the only one who ever did believe."

He smiled then, because she was right about one thing: he hadn't
given up on her.  And even if his faith had been born of
desperation and terror, it had devoted and true.  "You didn't
give up either, Scully.  No matter what it was that put your
cancer into remission, it was your strength and your
determination to fight that saw you through it."

She touched his hand.  "It's not really a cure, you know.  But I 
have a good feeling about this, Mulder."

He squeezed her fingers gently.  "So do I."

"There will be more tests--and I'll probably be here in the
hospital a few more days.  But I believe the worst is over."  She
fingered the small golden cross pendant nestled in the hollow of
her throat, then dropped her hand to her side, her expression
pensive but happy.

He reached out and ran his fingertip over the cross himself, 
not realizing until after he did so that he was touching it like 
a talisman to ward off evil.  He'd worn this cross once, during
the time she was gone--to stay close to her, he supposed.  To
have her with him even when she wasn't with him.  The cross was
evidence of her faith; maybe it had also been evidence of his own
faith.  In the truth.  In her.  

Always.

He envied the sense of peace he felt in her.  "So you think faith
is what saved you?"

She met his questioning gaze.  "I know it did.  I have faith in
three things.  In God, in science--"  She reached out and took
his hand.  "And in you, Mulder.  I have faith in you."

God, she knew how to deconstruct him.  "Scully--"

She squeezed his hand.  "I don't know what it was that turned
this disease around.  I just know that I couldn't have survived
without every bit of faith I have.  And that's all I need to know."

He lifted her hand to his lips.  "Then that's all I need to know,
too."

She brushed her thumb across his bottom lip.  The touch was
featherlight and undemanding, but his body responded with a
ripple of awareness that he'd not allowed himself to feel since
the day she told him about her tumor.  Not desire, exactly--or,
at least, it wasn't just desire.  His need for her eclipsed any
sort of rational description.  

She seemed to read his thoughts, for her eyes softened and her
face creased with a tender half-smile.  She lifted her other hand
to his jaw, cradling his face.  "We still have a lot to accomplish, 
Mulder.  And it looks like I'm going to be around to see it happen."

She didn't say the name, but he knew what she meant.  

Samantha. 

He hid the pain from her, never once considering telling her
about his meeting with the woman who called herself his sister.  
There would be time to tell her later.  Now that they once again 
had time.  He still had so much to sort through in his own mind, 
not the least of which was whether or not the woman he'd met 
last night was really his sister at all.  And he had questions of 
his own faith to work through, as well.  What to believe and what 
still remained unknown.

But this wasn't the time to ask or answer those questions.  This
was a time to be grateful for what had been returned to him. 
He'd been given a gift far beyond his wildest imaginings, and
right now, he just wanted to be happy.

Scully leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.  The kiss
was sweet.  Simple.  Breathtaking.  He moved his lips beneath
hers, silently speaking his gratitude and devotion.  The caress
lingered for one perfect moment.

Then he drew away from her, not wanting to complicate this brief
interlude of peace and contentment.  There would be time for
that, too.  Later.

"I'm sure your mother and brother want to spend a little more
time with you," he murmured.  

She nodded.  "I called Father McHugh, too.  And Dr. Zuckerman is
going to come by later with more detailed test results."

Mulder felt a niggle of worry, but Scully's knowing smile brushed
the anxiety away.  "Relax, Mulder, it's not going to be bad news.
Dr. Zuckerman just wanted to share some of the things he's
learned from treating this case.  For my professional
edification.  This is pretty big stuff, you know."

"Doctor stuff, huh?"

She nodded.  "Doctor stuff, Mulder."

"I'll go get your mother and your brother."

She squeezed his hand.  "You don't have to leave."

He smiled.  "I don't think Bill wants me underfoot.  I'll be
outside if you need me."

She clung to his hand as he rose to leave.  "Mulder?"

He turned back to her.  "Yeah?"

She opened her mouth as if to continue, but she couldn't seem to
find the words.  It didn't really matter; he saw the message in
her eyes and felt it in his own core.

"I know," he said.

And finally, he did.


The End