Title: Silent All These Years 1/1
Author: Pale The Chicken Slayer
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Millennium (slightly) The Sixth Extinction 1& 2,
and parts of the cancer arc.
Category: MS friendship, Character deaths, vignette.
Summary: Keepsakes are not just dolls.
Notes: Okay, what the hell is up with this story? Well,
I don't know and I hope **someone** out there does.
*
"We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did"
-'Forgiven' Alanis Morissette
*
Dana looked down at the broken heart.
A porcelain figure and symbol of what went on. What lies and deathly evils occurred there. She no longer had to fight the tears. She no longer had to remain silent.
An innocent girl's face was printed on the china. One of those sweet 'Precious Moments' birthstone keepsakes. The golden rod yellow topaz jewel still filling a tiny space among the broken bits, it was a clean bone white. All the other forensic bits of evidence were, to say the least, covered in a beautiful blood.
*
"Please, god, don't let it be real." Dana begged, crying into her cotton-pressed summer dress. The delicate rose pattern on the dress became a darker red then the light pink hues before.
The summer winds whispered tales through the mourning pines, the ones that always cried when the rain fell. The hot cup of tea, peppermint, her favorite, spilled when the winds sang their summer songs. She ran her fingers through her light summer bleached hair, her fingers felt numb against her scalp.
The world blurred in front of her azure blue eyes, the air got caught in her chest.
She watched outside as the sun shone happily upon the country fields. She only wished for snow, that dismal ice crystal snow.
But Mrs. Winter would not oblige, she had to wait until the sun hung low in the sky early afternoon. What Dana was left with was the last of the lovers and the fear of what silence can distroy.
*
"I made a mistake," Dana said surveying the scene before her. "I remained silent for years, pushed the truth to the back of my mind. Look where it brought me, look!"
*
Now she had something to fear, she had to fear what she did not know, she had to fear the reasons why.
A champagne bottle fell with a flurry of broken glass from the old woman's tiny hands, she look so fragile, so tiny. Dana helped her pick up the shattered bits from her hallway, cutting herself many times.
When she arrived home, the unmistakable trails of her blood were dotted all about the house. A drop here, a puddle there. The wounds did not hurt as much as she had hoped they did, she felt she had to bleed to know she was alive. Even the blood drops didn't make it real, it was still a dream.
The whole world was stuck in Dana's dream, a horrible nightmare that refused to fade away. She could watch those movies, an escape from reality. She loved movies, she loved how you always knew they were over when the credits rolled and the exit music played. Then she knew it was over, it wasn't that way in life.
*
"A shiny silver paper cup is all you have now," she says to the blank sheets of parched paper. "A shiny silver paper cup to drown you sorrows and your horrors in. Mother would bring me to confession, tell me I'd be washed of all sins. I have no one to confess to now, I have no one to lay my burden on, no one to share my love."
"But then again, what is love if it remains silent? Oh, would it be of nothingness? Just a sharp prick every now and then to awaken those old feelings, but nothing to bring the shadow of uncertainty to light, to confess."
By the fickle flames of summer's dying light she would speak aloud what she wrote, each journal entry being read for all heavens to hear. As the doves sighed their mourning and their fears for her, she would tell them what she felt. Even if they never stopped her on the street to ask her if it was okay, like a human would do, she knew they listened. She could tell my their changes in their song.
Dana walked along the softened earth to the grave, her heals sinking in the muddy earth. A black veil fell over her face, a long dismal trenchcoat shielded her from the torments of the sun that dare not show it's gleeful face that day, but there was nothing to protect him from the elements. He was gone, gone back to the nothingness that he was before.
"Fox," she whispered to the soft, upturned earth, "I know you don't want me to call you Fox, but I don't know what to call you anymore. We are no longer partners, no longer together trying to find those pieces of the past that eluded you your whole life."
"Things are so different now, Fox," she cried, letting the tears mesh into the earth. "There is nothing worth fighting for. Even if there was, what would be the point? You'd never know, you'd never know my faultiness and my congratulations. I do believe in life after death, but it doesn't exist here."
"I could die today, be buried by your side, and I could grin. I can no longer be that cold, icy, person anymore. It's as if you don't know life is real until you lose someone you love. Or you lost part of you, as I have lost here."
"Fox, my cancer has come back. There is no stopping it. I know you believed those chips would save me, I believe they would have if I had kept them. Do you remember not so long ago when they had taken you? And I told you Fowley had given me the information? I lied, goodness, I lied to you. They made me sacrifice my everlasting life for you, the Diana Fowley thing was a cover up." Her sobs were muffled by the falling rain and the crashes of lightning overhead.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the things I never said. I'm sorry for being silent, silent through the storm and silent through the years. I could've said those things I dreamt, but the words, the words, they never seemed right. I could grasp and grasp for them but they would never completely satisfy my needs. Or the needs I had for us. Touching and feeling those things would do them some justice, but why only one little taste? A tease? Goodness knows why...goodness knows why."
*
"Hi mom," Dana said as cheerfully as she could muster. Her slender arms were more fragile now, her figure more porcelain than before.
"Mom, don't say anything, please? I know you know why I did what I did, you understand, right?" She shook her head sympathetically. "He didn't know, Mom, he didn't know. After his murder, it didn't seem as if I had made a mistake. It feels right though, for the first time in my life. I know I'm still too young to die, Mother, it's the right time."
Through tears her mother whispered, "You know what to do, dear. You know what's best, you know where to look. So, go on, leave this torment behind. Don't let me stop you."
With silent whispers and delicate songs streamed through the night, bringing in Cinderella's chariots of fire and setting her free. Free to fly and free to cry.
*
'mom,
i'm free now. i'm so alone, but that's okay. that's all
right, because i know the path. i know which ways
to turn and which ways to navigate my end. i know
i cannot stop the hurt, nor the tears. but, please, let
me reassure you, i'm well. i'm as well as the glistening
mocking birds of summer.
i was dying, my whole life. so don't take this as a final
finale to my short world, hell, it may only be a
beginning. remember, mother, goodbye's are never for
forever, never.
Dana Katherine Scully'
*
End
*
Silent All These Years
Tori Amos
Excuse me, but can I be you for a while?
My dog won't bite if you sit real still
I've got the anti-Christ in the kitchen yellin' at me again
Yeah, I can hear that
Been saved again by the garbage truck
I've got something to say, you know, but nothing comes
Yes, I know what you think of me--you never shut up
Yeah, I can hear that
But what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of his with her name still on it
Hey, but I don't care, 'cause sometimes,
I said sometimes I hear my voice, and it's been
Here, silent all these years
So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?
Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon,
How's that thought for you?
My scream got lost in a paper cup
You think there's a heaven where some screams have gone
I got twenty-five bucks and a cracker
Do you think it's enough to get us there?
Cause what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of his with her name still on it
Hey, but I don't care, 'cause sometimes,
I said sometimes I hear my voice, and it's been
Here, silent all these..
Years go by, will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand?
Years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds raining in my head
Years go by, will I choke on my tears
'Til finally, there is nothing left
One more casualty, you know we're too easy easy easy
Well, I love the way we communicate
Your eyes focus on my funny lip shape
Let's hear what you think of me now,
But baby, don't look up--the sky is falling
Your mother shows up in a nasty dress,
And it's your turn now to stand where I stand
Everybody lookin' at you, here take hold of my hand
Yeah, I can hear them
But what if I'm a mermaid
In these jeans of yours with her name still on it
Hey, but I don't care, 'cause sometimes
I said, sometimes, I hear my voice, I hear my voice, I hear my voice
And it's been here, silent all these years
I've been here, silent all these years
Silent all these...
Silent all these years..
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@ pale the chicken slayer @
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