Fw: The Last Gift (14/14) By: Morgan
Shannara
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The Last Gift (14/14)
By: Morgan (prom...@hotmail.com)
See disclaimers etc. in part 1
~~~~
" 'Hope' is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops at all.
- Emily Dickinson
~~~~
Mom,
There was this one time, I couldn't have been much older than six
or seven, when we had stood, you and I, looking out over the sea
together. Dad had just left on some assignment or another. I can
remember that the air was crisp and cold, you had bundled me up in
that
purple scarf that made my chin itch so badly. I hated that scarf.
Melissa and the boys were back inside the house together, playing a
game
I was "too young" to understand, and so you had taken my hand and
walked
out onto the porch at the back of our house.
Of all the myriad houses in which I spent my childhood, I think
that one was my favorite. Even though I was young when we left it, I
can remember that the sea stretched out forever from its back, that
the
beach was rough, more rocks than sand, and I will always remember what
you said to me that day on the porch, watching the graphite colored
tumbling of the sea.
I had always been too young before, every time dad had left, too
young to really understand. He had always gone, and eventually
returned, bringing with him new stories and always some gift or
trinket
from places with exotic names that blurred together as a solid jumble
in
my mind. The time between departure and return passed easily for me
with the preoccupations of squabbling siblings and swing-sets and
scrapped knees. But as I stood with you that day on the porch, I
remember wondering for the first time why it was that daddy had to
keep
leaving us, why we were always forced to endure his absence.
I asked you, though I can't remember exactly how, but your words
ring clear in my head to this day, that one moment sealed in crystal
clarity. You looked out over the water, the boundless sea that stole
him from you every time, and you said with a faint smile on your lips,
"because he loves us, you and me and your brothers and sister. He
loves
us enough to leave us, because he is doing what's right, what he
believes in." Then you looked down at me, placed a hand on my
shoulder.
"Your father's love is so big, so strong for us that it can stretch
all
the way across the sea, back to us, and we have to be strong for him
in
return, so he can feel our love even when he's far away."
That's the single most important gift you gave to me as a child.
The gift of love, sure and strong and enduring. The art of strength
and
tenacity in love, that those we love are worth fighting for, worth our
sacrifice. It was a foundation that shaped my spirit, guides me to
this
day. I will forever be the woman molded from a little girl who
learned
the security of love and trust in the sheltering arms of her family.
Now, with this letter, I ask of you some things I know you may
find
hard to accept. I ask you to trust that the men from whom you
received
this are friends, trusted friends, some of the greatest friends I
could
have ever hoped to know. I ask you to trust that I am safe, that I
write this to assure you of that fact. For reasons I think you may
partially understand, I cannot tell you where I am or why I've left.
Whatever you may hear, whatever they may tell you, I need you to
believe
that I left of my own free will, that by leaving I saved myself and
that, in the process, I've regained my soul.
There was something else someone once told me, a man we both
know.
Many years ago, sick, with deep circles etched in pallid skin, he
spoke
to me of the renewal of hope. He had endured a frozen hell, fought
for
his own life, returned with nothing, and when I asked him what he'd
found after all that hardship, his voice was raspy when he told me
"something that I thought I'd lost." His faith, his hope, he'd found
it
again that day, and even through the pallor of his skin, I could see
the
gentle light of that flame burning anew.
You've watched me for three years now, struggling with the loss
of
my hope, my spark slowly dying. I called it strength, lying even to
myself, and you stood beside me unsure of what to do. I've found
something I thought I'd lost, Mom. I've found it again after thinking
it gone forever. Hope, I now know, can be embodied in flesh and
bone,
and pain is sometimes necessary to thaw ice that no other heat can
melt.
I feel pain now, and loss, and grief. Happiness, love, and hope.
The ice thaws more with every day's passing, and I again find myself
smiling into the sunrise. I am not alone, this also I promise you,
though I think you may already suspect it. I now realize that I never
was, never could be, never will. Love is a tie even death doesn't
sever, and hope is a gift no sorrow ever truly smothers.
Finally, I ask you to accept my absence. This is the hardest
request of all. I do not know for sure where my journey takes me now,
or when I will return. All I can promise is that I will try, with all
my strength, to make it back to you and our family, that I will never
stop trying. This journey pulls me forward and away from you now, but
you are always with me, tucked deep within my heart - the memory of
your
smile and the smell of the sea.
Please tell the rest of the family that I love them, that I miss them.
Tell them that I am safe and will be thinking of them always.
My love forever,
Dana
~~~~
I'd almost forgotten the full intensity, the majesty of the sea.
He is walking ahead of me, eyes downcast, troubled somehow. His feet
shuffle along through the sand in an awkward gait, preoccupied. I can
almost see the whirlwind of thoughts swirling around his silent body.
The ocean is mostly quiet, tranquil. Occasionally, a wave breaks
roughly against the sand to spray a fine mist of salt and water up
along
my bare arms. My jeans are rolled up and away from my ankles.
Skirting
along the edge, I walk just within the reach of those waves, allowing
warm, tropical waters to wash up and over my toes sinking into wet
sand.
I've never been much for living in the moment, always too realistic,
too
pragmatic to allow for an uncertain future. Always planning ahead.
Worrying too much - plagued by doubts of what might be. His eyes are
the color of these waves, gray and blue, dark and light and all the
hues
in-between. Shifting, restless motion with the same power to drag me
away and under as those tides. He looks out over the water, scanning
the horizon in absent-minded reverie, and I absorb the memory of his
eyes, the way his hair lifts and falls with the rising wind,
scattering
across his brow, falling before his eyes.
Live in the moment, and the moment may be all we have now, Mulder and
I.
"I don't know where we go from here, Scully."
His voice breaks my concentration, forces me back to a world of sound
and sensation.
"We just keep moving." My simple reply, but it's all I know how to
say.
"Where? For how long? Forever?" His tone is resigned, frustrated,
sad. "I don't want to run forever, Scully"
Mulder is having doubts, the first clear doubts I have seen him
exhibit
on this journey of ours. Up until now, he had been the one pushing
*me*
forward, blindly maybe, out of desperation and a desire to avoid the
future by not dwelling on it, but pushing nonetheless. He needs my
strength now. Now that the most obvious threat is over, he looks to
the
future and is swallowed by the darkness.
You need to live in the moment, Mulder. The dark isn't as cold as I
had
thought, and not nearly as frightening.
"Not forever," I finally say. "For now, for a while, for as long as
it
takes."
"As long as it takes?"
"As long as it takes to find safety again, as long as it takes until
we
can stop and be still."
He is turned away from me, not meeting my eyes. "What if it takes
forever, Scully? What if we can't ever stop?"
I pour newfound strength and assurance into my words. "Then it takes
forever, but at least it's a forever by your side, at least it's a
forever where we are no longer alone." My last thought is spoken
quietly. "That's a forever I can face."
Storms brew and dissipate across the landscape of his features. "That
was never the future I wanted for you. That dangerous unknown was
something I had always wanted you to be spared."
Hands balled into fists at his sides, his fingers are clenched tight
and
strong as I pry them apart with my own. Insinuating myself into the
warm clasp of his hand, I squeeze his fingers gently, thrilling to the
way they seem to melt under my attention. "I want that future,
Mulder,"
I assure him. "I need it. We have this now, we have each other."
Lifting my other hand to his face, I nudge gently with just the tips
of
my fingers until he faces me, looking down, our other hands still
clasped together. "Even if it ends tomorrow, next week, next month,
it
will have been enough for me. It could end right now, and I still
wouldn't regret it, still would treasure every moment of peace we've
stolen for ourselves out of all this madness."
His eyes soften, turning more gray than green, more light than dark.
Rough and raw, sounding scratched from the depths of disbelief, his
voice finds me. "Are you sure?"
Low and reverent. "I love you, Mulder." It's the first time I've
ever
really said it, the first time the intangible has been given form and
substance. The words are sacred and pure slipping from my tongue,
they
feel like the simplest truth, easy and sure and beautiful.
Tears build slowly in his eyes. He needed those words, to hear them,
as
much as I needed to say them. I blink, and there is a warm splash
upon
the swell of my cheek. Dampness I didn't notice, tears I hadn't
anticipated.
"Our battle, our quest?" The question I knew he would still have -
the
uncertainty of what we've fought for. He had abandoned it for three
years, content to let it lie unfulfilled. Beside me again, I know he
feels the need to continue. Reunited, there is an inescapable sense
of
purpose between us. It is our destiny, after all. Together, the
promise of what we could accomplish is heavy and tempting, necessary
and
strong.
"Is not forgotten," I affirm. "We will continue, Mulder. I want
that,
too. But right now, until then, until that's possible again, the fact
that I can concentrate on this..." I rise up softly on my toes to
place
a chaste kiss upon his lips, "is enough for me."
His eyes light up with a small fire as I lower back down onto solid
ground and smile up at him.
"You just have to let it be enough, Mulder."
Slowly, tentatively, the hand I don't hold comes to steal around my
waist, resting with almost invisible pressure in the curve of my back.
He smiles, a thing shy and wondering at the newness of this, the
indulgence and luxury, and then pulls more firmly, drawing me forward
and into his embrace.
The kiss is pure and unhurried, just the gentle brushing together of
our
lips at first. Growing out of love and comfort rather than passion.
Fusing, perfect softness of his lips. It is an exploration, a lazy,
drifting warmth. Somewhere, one of my hands steals up and around his
neck, the other clutched between our bodies, fingers still entwined.
He
holds me possessive and strong, as I drown willingly in his taste, his
smell, this thing of beauty we create between us.
Breaking apart a fraction, he murmurs against my lips and I can feel
each letter as it is pronounced, "It's enough for me, Scully. It's
more
than enough."
He kisses me again, and I smile into the action. He can feel it and
returns the gesture. We are smiling as we kiss. Eyes closed, his
teeth
scrape and soothe, his lips translate unspoken things, and a wave
crashes roughly against my legs, soaking my jeans to the knees.
Once we are still again, I rest my head in the crook of his neck,
feeling his pulse against my cheek, my new favorite place to rest. I
can feel the exact moment thoughts begin to crystallize in his head.
Waiting, I anticipate the wistful tone of his voice when it meets my
ears.
"I just can't help wishing, dreaming..."
I dream, too. For the first time in too long. I wish.
"It's not sorrow or fear..."
No, Mulder, no more fear now between us.
"I just want, I wish..."
It's too much to put into words.
He struggles for a moment, fumbling, searching for a description of
dreams and desires. "It's foolish I know," an unnecessary apology,
"But
I can't help wishing we could just let it go, leave it all behind,
find
some little house on a beach somewhere and just *be.*"
I don't interrupt him, don't squash his lovely dreams. What point is
there? We both know the future has never held calm domesticity for
either of us. There is no little cottage sitting on a pristine shore
waiting in our future.
Not the near future anyway.
But I allow him his dreams because they are such a gift to us now.
Such
a blessing, such a wonder, this ability to dream. Such a small,
brilliant, amazing thing, such an intrinsic component of who we are as
human beings - the most necessary of common graces. I allow Mulder
his
dreams, his fantasies, his future ramblings. Standing at his side,
feeling the shift and swirl of sand around my feet, I allow him to
grasp
onto something I had once feared lost to us forever.
I allow us both to glide along on the fragile wings of hope.
I want to see it...
I do...
< I'm sitting, staring out at the sea. Storm clouds gather on the
horizon. Huge, dark, ominous clouds reaching for the heavens. They
loom large and threatening on the edges of the sea - but I am not
afraid.
Around me, the calm wraps as a blanket. Sitting there, feet tucked
under, head resting against the chair at my back, I watch the first
drops of rain slip slide over the roof's edge and form baby puddles on
the steps leading up to the porch. The old, rusty whine of the screen
door sings in accompaniment to the growing wind and I can feel you at
my
side.
"It's going to be a bad one," you say.
I don't answer, closing my eyes, embracing the kiss of damp wind on my
cheeks.
"You should come inside." I smile at your words.
Looking up, you're standing there above me, offering your hand. My
smile is mirrored in you and I delight in the wrinkles it etches
around
your mouth, the sparkle of it in your eyes. It is in that moment that
I
can see beyond the gray hair now turning white, beyond the fissures of
years and experience worn so clearly on your skin. You take my hand
in
yours and it is not old and lined with wrinkles and time. I do not
cringe or ache as I rise to meet you. Our lifetime together has not
weathered these hands.
Warm and sure, the hand of a woman well past her golden years lies in
your steady and loving grasp made young and smooth again...
And we watch the storm roll in together. >
~~~~
End.
Notes and thanks from me -
What a long, (long, long, long... ) strange trip it's been...
This story started off of such a basic idea. I had just read JC
Sun's beautiful "Envelope." (If you haven't read this, go do it now!
It's gorgeous!) I was struck by her interpretation of how Scully
would
react to Mulder's death. She described Scully appearing to move
forward
despite the loss, living on because that would be the best and
brightest
way to honor his memory. This rang true for me. Very along the lines
of Scully's character. However, I wondered if this wouldn't just be a
facade, if deep down she wouldn't be falling apart. Mulder is the
center and foundation of Scully's world. It may not be like her to
weep
uncontrollably and have a nervous breakdown, but wouldn't burying that
grief have an even more devastating impact? What would happen after
years of pushing forward and trying so stubbornly to be strong? How
could anyone ever recover from that loss of emotion? These questions,
and a little too much Edith Hamilton's mythology, sparked the first
chapter which was written without much idea of where it would go.
Shortly after starting this, I drew up a tentative outline. I
had
six, short chapters set up which I planned out with the intent to have
the story finished before the end of my last semester of school. That
was a little over two months time allowance. It didn't quite work out
the way I had planned. <g> So here we are, seven months later, and
it's
finally finished, but not solely by my efforts alone.
Extreme praise, utmost gratitude, hugs, kisses, and general
fanfare
belong to the following people without whom this story would never
have
been finished.
- Deb, who's been hanging around since the beginning, doesn't
nag,
doesn't push, and always amazes me at the tiny details she's able to
catch. An eagle eye and a trusted opinion. Thank you so much for the
patience, it's meant more than I can ever say.
- Lena. My muse thanks you. She's been saving up all of that
virtual wine and those Godiva truffles and is now in a state of utter
post-fanfic-posting inebriation. It's nice to laugh when reading
through editing stuff once and a while. Don't worry, I know you'll be
hearing from me again soon. (too bad for you <bg>)
- Jeanine. Who believes honesty is always the best policy and
never fails to tell me when it's a bunch of crap - though she probably
wouldn't use those exact words (I think). I cannot say how much I
treasure the phrase "don't you think you've gone a little overboard
here?" I need that sometimes.
- Chris. Who has been adding a little voice now and again for
constant encouragement. Not a beta-reader, but just a friend. One
more
person I count myself fortunate to have met during this little
endeavor.
- All those nice people who followed this thing while it was
going
up on my web page. Your patience and the occasional nagging letter
were
what got this thing going and kept me from abandoning it. Stick
around,
there's more to come. ;)
Thus begins the general feedback plea - this has been fun, but I
would love to hear what others have thought. Write me at:
prom...@hotmail.com. I *do* make a point to respond to all letters.
Thanks for reading -
Morgan : )
(now maybe I can move on to those three half-stories stuck on my hard
drive)
(stories, poetry and other general nonsense at:
http://members.tripod.com/~promise64/index.htm)
< Oh my God, it's over. >
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