Author's Notes: It's been a long time since I've felt I just HAD to write a fic in response to seeing a couple of fuzzy mpegs. <g> But this is one of those times. Hope you enjoy.

'Goodbye'

by Ally

I once thought I understood what pain was. Emotional, physical, mental. I thought I had experienced them all in their fullest degrees.

Of course like most things in my life I was wrong. So wrong in fact that I'm having trouble grasping the enormity of it.

Mulder's gone.

Not just missing. Not injured. Not on one of his AWOL episodes that used to infuriate me to a point I could happily have walked away from him never to return. Just to teach him once and for all that being ditched is not high up in my list of fun ways to spend a day.....or a week for that matter.

No. This time he's gone. He's never coming back to me and the finality of his death leaves me struggling to breathe sometimes.

It's been six days since we found him. Six days since the very essence of my being seemed to desert me forever. Six days since I fell to my knees and screamed out my denial of what I was seeing as the tears streamed down my face. Six days since Skinner took me in his arms and cried along with me. Bound together with a loss that most seem unable to comprehend.

Because after all, it's not like the FBI lost one of it's finest. If anything I get the distinct impression they are actually relieved it ended this way. That they can finally shut the book on 'ole Spooky and pretend he never happened at all. Right now I find myself wondering if he ever actually did.

Maybe I'm in shock. Perhaps Skinner's right. That I need time to process. To come to terms with the loss of this man who became so much more than merely my partner. A man who became so much a part of me that I can't imagine what my life is going to be without him by my side. I can't imagine what it will be like to wake up every morning knowing that he's gone forever. I can't even begin to comprehend it, but I suppose it will eventually come. Life goes on.

Or so I'm told.

I feel like I'm sleepwalking. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stop. How can I ever allow myself to ever come fully awake again now he's not here? How can I even want to? It seems almost disloyal to his memory to even think about my future because right up to the night we found him my future was linked with his. Right up to that moment, when time seemed to stand still as I looked in to his face, touched his skin, felt the coldness beneath my fingertips, I had hope that he would come back to me.

Now I have nothing. Nothing but sketchy memories of the way he used to smile at me. That special smile that reached his eyes and told me everything I ever needed to know about the way he felt about me. I close my eyes and try to conjure up his image but no matter how hard I try I see nothing except the sight of his face, battered and scarred that peeped out from the rough grey blanket someone had thrown over him. I had clung on to the hope that where ever he was he wasn't in any pain. Now I know that hope to be false. Like so many things in my life it was merely a misguided placebo to help me cope while he was missing. I never realised my capacity for denial until now.

I wish I could scream or cry or throw myself on the ground in an expression of the total mind numbing grief I feel. It's with me every second of every minute of every hour of every day. But I can't. Because every time I think of him I feel myself shutting down. Maybe I can't handle it at the moment. Maybe it's my body's natural defense. A way to protect the growing life inside of me.

A tiny new life who will never know his Father. Who will grow up listening to meaningless stories of the man he once was. A father he has been taken away from him just as so many things have been taken before.

I could scream at the injustice of it all. For us to have come so far only to stumble at the last hurdle.

And then there is the guilt. I've tried to rationalise it in my mind but no matter how many avenues I wander along in the middle of the night I always find myself right back at that same place. At night I stare up at the patterns on the ceiling, listening to the wind rustling through the trees outside my open window and I know I could have saved him. That I held in my hands the key to his safe return and I was too blind to see it. I realised too late of course. Always one step behind.

Knowing now that if our positions had been reversed that Mulder would have known what it meant. But I'm not Mulder. I never will be and now he's gone.

Gone.

It's all so final. He's not coming back. He's never coming back to me and I don't know how I am going to stand it, knowing that things could have been so different.

He will never know about his child. A child that was born out of love. A miracle when we thought all was lost. I remember him holding me in his arms and imploring me to never give up on the chance of a miracle. But I don't believe in miracles anymore. That belief was torn from me when we found him.

A miracle would be Mulder walking in to my apartment at this very moment. That teasing expression on his face that says nothing but promises everything as he takes me in his arms and alights a passion inside of me that I had never known existed. To entwine our bodies just as we had entwined our hearts so many years ago.

So much wasted time. So many years when we refused to acknowledge what we were to each other. And now it's too late. Everything that should have been ours ended six days ago. Ripped away from us along with what was left of my heart.

I glance in the mirror and am startled by my own appearance. I suppose I have got used to seeing myself laid bare during the past week or so. But today I see that my carefully applied mask is firmly back in place. I spent time today, filling in the cracks so as to be what he would expect me to be. I will be strong for him. For just a few more hours I will hold on to everything. I'm not sure what will happen later. I can't even bring myself to look past today.

Tomorrow doesn't exist for me anymore.

I'm wearing a suit that I know he loved. It's not the conventional black, although in an obscure way I think he would appreciate the fact that I am going against the social protocol that has existed for hundreds of years. Instead I have surrounded myself with vibrancy. A color that makes me think of him. It might raise a few eyebrows when I arrive at the church. Red is not a color people associate with mourning. But for him I will wear it. I haven't worn it for the longest time and hadn't intended wearing it today until it caught my eye this morning as I prepared to dress.

I sigh and smooth my hands along the front of the jacket, allowing my fingers to briefly caress the black velvet buttons that co-ordinate with the collar. The color reminds me of wine. It reminds me of happier days when we held on to each other and promised we would never let go again. Of days when we believed we might have actually won.

But we should have known better. Because where we were there could only ever be losers and I'm bitter, so bitter that it ended this way.

A knock at the door pulls me back in to reality. I know who it will be. He insisted on driving me to the church, offering assistance blindly in an attempt to ease his own pain. I didn't resist. I don't have the energy anymore. What I really want to do is to crawl beneath the soft covers of my bed and sleep until this all goes away. I want to wake up tomorrow with Mulder beside me, watching the sunlight playing across his face as he sleeps, tracing a finger along his jaw as I wonder how we got to be so lucky.

I want so many things that will never happen. Like I said, I stopped believing in miracles. I think I stopped believing in everything.

I step towards the door, ignoring the coat that hangs accusingly on the rack. I refuse to wear a coat today. I'm aware that I'll be cold in the church. But that's okay. I'll know I'm still alive that way. I want to feel everything today. I want to be able to acknowledge that this is real. That it isn't a nightmare I will wake up from to find him there.

Despite myself though, I can't help but smile at the figure who faces me when I finally ease open the front door. I'm not sure what I expected. Army fatigues and latex gloves maybe. But today, Melvin Frohike has dressed in his very best. He looks so respectable it is blinding and something inside me cracks painfully as I realise perhaps for the first time, just what Mulder meant to him. I doubt there is anyone else on this earth who would induce Frohike to don a suit and tie. But I appreciate the effort he has made. The effort gone in to this final goodbye to his friend.

In his hand he holds a small bouquet of white rosebuds tied together with a length of satin ribbon. They are delicate and exquisite with tiny green leaves that resemble lace hearts and their scent drifts up to me. A scent that transports me to a different time, a different place when Mulder reverently laid white roses atop the tiny coffin that should have held my daughter. Another painful memory I wish I didn't have.

But in a way it seems fitting that Frohike has chosen these flowers to bring to Mulder. Such simplicity that hides a thousand words. He has chosen well I think. I haven't bought flowers. I can't bring myself to think that they will eventually die along with him. Maybe later I will visit his grave with flowers. But not today. Today I will bring him my heart and soul. It's all I have to offer him now.

But Frohike surprises me by holding the roses out in front of him and without thinking I take them, bringing them up to my face as I breathe in their scent, feeling their silky softness caress my face as the first tear escapes from my eye and slowly makes it's way down my cheek to mingle with the tiny petals. He has brought me roses. Just as Mulder brought them to me so long ago.

But they are not solely for me and before I lay them gently atop the table, I ease a single stem from within the satin binding. I will keep this with me and when everyone else has left the cemetery I will leave it for him. A single rose that is soaked with the tears I am sure I will be able to shed now.

My heart and soul left with him as I finally say goodbye.

End