From: Kelley Walters <psai@slip.net>
Date: 8 Dec 1998 16:04:15 -0800
Subject: A Rose In the Deeps51/9

PART 5/9

The early afternoon sun burned gently down on her shoulders, and Katherine
winced as the apples thudded resoundingly when they fell from her apron
into the basket.  Usually she didn't come out to pick apples; she stayed in
the house with Mama to peel and can them.

But Mama had decided it was time for Mary Margaret to learn how to put up
apples, and so here she was, with Colleen, picking apples like a child. 
But it was a beautiful, early autumn day, and Colleen was home from school,
so at least she wasn't out here alone.

Her skirts swished as she climbed back up the ladder.  Darn these things,
she thought.  Just once, I'd like to do this in pants.  Colleen clamored up
the tree next to her, chattering about nothing important.  As usual,
Katherine thought.  That girl was as bad as Susan. But it gave a body time
to think about things, and for that she was grateful.  

Things, in part, being the advancement of the war, already being called the
Great War.  She didn't know what was great about it.  Not too many years
ago, over 100,000 men had died in these fields.  Families were just getting
over it, even now, and sometimes, at night, she could smell the blood, feel
the fear that still floated in the air.  She shivered and turned her
thoughts to the poem that she had read this morning.  And what she would
write in her journal next. And Daniel, of course.

Now that she knew his name, it was even worse.  She truly could not stop
thinking about him; the way the light played on his hair through the
stained glass windows that day she'd seen him in church; how he moved so
relaxed but like he could take quick action at any moment.  She sighed.

"Hey, Kath," Colleen called as she dropped her apples into the basket
below.  Katherine looked down at her younger sister, whose fair face was
turned upward, her blue eyes peering out from under dark brown bangs.

"What?" she asked, still far away.

"We've been out here for /hours/!  I'm too hot to work another /minute/! 
I'm going to take my lunch down to the creek and cool off.  You coming?"

"Maybe in a minute," Katherine replied.  "I want to get a couple more
baskets filled, then I'll join you."  Her sister picked up her lunch and
disappeared through the trees and down the hill toward the creek.

Katherine slowly made her way down the ladder, feeling carefully with the
toe of her shoe before taking the next step.  Now that her sister was gone,
she sure didn't want to take a spill.  Knowing Colleen, it could be an hour
before she came back from lunch.

"Here! Let me help you!"  a voice called from behind her.  She started,
turned, felt the ladder wobble, and nearly dropped the apron full of apples
she held.  The next thing she knew, there was a pair of hands around her
waist, and she was lifted down onto the ground.  She turned quickly and
found herself staring into his eyes....  

"Daniel," she whispered, a flush crimsoning her already warm skin.  He
smiled at her and her heart thumped against her chest as loudly as an apple
meeting the bottom of a basket. It was a wonder he didn't hear it.

"Oh, dear.  My reputation precedes me," he said with a laugh.  She dropped
the apples into the basket without any grace at all, and looked back up
into the face of the man she'd been dreaming about for weeks.

Try as she could, she hadn't been able to get any more information on him. 
And he hadn't been back to church, either.  But now he was here, walking
confidently through the fields...her family's fields, she thought, and felt
a shiver.  He was much better looking up close, if that was possible, her
foggy mind registered.

"I'm sorry to admit I don't know your name," he said, smiling.

"Katherine," she said, "Katherine O'Donnelly."

"O'Donnelly, hmm?"  She nodded, suddenly feeling horribly self-conscious. 
"I was just coming over to introduce myself to your family.  My brother and
I came up from Charleston a few weeks ago to set up his farm-we're a couple
of miles beyond the creek, there, and wanted to get to know our neighbors. 
It's the first chance I've had since we got here to come 'round."

As he smiled again, she noticed that his nose was a little too big for his
face, but his mouth was beautiful, almost like a girl's.  She flushed again
and dropped her eyes downward, wishing she had on something besides her
chambray workday dress for their first meeting.  She was glad that today
hadn't been the day she'd decided to try wearing pants.

"I'm sure Papa will be pleased to meet you," she said, looking back up at
him, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands.  She remembered what
Susan had said about getting a man's attention, and tried to remember just
when she should flutter her eyelashes, when she should lower her head
demurely.  

Oh, fiddle, she was terrible at this.  Where was Susan when she needed her?
 She hoped she didn't look as uncertain as she felt.  Well, she decided,
she'd just have to be herself.  That was the best she could do right now. 
She cleared her throat, looked him straight in the eye, and said steadily,
"If you'd like, I'll be glad to take you to the house and introduce you."

"That would be mighty nice," he said softly, his words curling up with her
heart like sunshine on a drowsing cat. He smiled again, full mouth opening
over strong teeth, and she flushed hot and cold.

"Just a minute, I have to let my sister know where I'm going," she said,
even as she dashed off toward the creek. She paused, turned back. "Don't go
away!"

"I won't," he called back, and it sounded like a promise.

"Colleeeeen!" she yelled, going as far away as she could without actually
losing sight of Daniel. When she heard the answering 'halloo' at last, she
hollered that she was heading back to the house, then turned and jogged
back to where Daniel waited.

"Follow me?" she panted.

"Yes," he replied, and she had that feeling again, only this time it was
like the breath finally came free. She took the proffered arm and they
began the short hike back to the O'Donnelly home.

()()()())(()()()()

"Katherine!  You're beau's here!" Mary Margaret called in a sing-song
voice.

"Oooh, Mary Margaret," Katherine growled as she hurried out of her room,
"how many times do I have to tell you he's NOT my beau?  We're just
friends!"

"Of course you are, dear," said Jenny soothingly, as she shooed Mary
Margaret up the stairs to do her lessons.

"Now, you don't stay out long," she said.  "I want you back in before
dark."

"Yes, ma'am," Katherine said, dashing down the stairs to meet Daniel.  They
were going for a walk together, something they'd done most evenings after
dinner since that day she'd met him in the orchard six months before.  Now
that she thought about it, as she flew down the stairs, she realized that,
except for the times when she couldn't see him because of bad weather,
they'd been together every night since that first meeting.

She grabbed a book of poetry on the way out.  Now that April was here, and
the promise of spring was heavy in the air, they had begun stopping before
coming inside, and sitting in the grass to read poetry in the dying light
of day.

Tonight, she thought with a thrill, Yeats.  She opened the door to see him
on the porch, cleaned up after a day's work and smiling at her.  She
thought she'd never seen anything more beautiful. He took her hand.

"Good evening, Katherine. I like the dress," he said, and she flushed.  It
was new, a soft violet fabric that turned her eyes to cobalt, her hair to
flame.  He brushed his hand across her cheek and she turned her blue gaze
on him.

"Ready to walk?" he asked.

"Of course.  I brought Mr. Yeats tonight," she said, and she showed him the
book.  He smiled.  They loved Yeats, and she especially loved it when he
read the poems to her.  It made them even more magical, she thought, and
almost laughed at her fancy.  She took his outstretched hand, and they
walked along the road, under the young magnolia trees her father had
planted when the family had moved here, the year before she was born.

()()()())(()()()()

"It's such a beautiful night," she whispered, watching twilight steal
across the lawn as they headed toward the house.

"Yes, it is." His voice was soft, and deep; he squeezed her hand.  As
usual, they'd spent the last hour arguing everything from politics to
poetry; who should be elected president next and which Yeats' poems were
their favorites.  They even talked about the advancement of the war,
wondering whether America should join the Allies.  Not the usual
conversation for a man and a woman to have, but Daniel was a miracle, not
discounting her thoughts and feelings because she happened to be female.

He listened, he considered, he discussed.  She delighted in the fact that
she had someone she could talk to so easily; even arguing was easy and good
natured with him, and they seemed to do a lot of it, she thought with a
smile.  She thought that it should be impossible to love him any more than
she did when she met him, and yet, each day what she felt for him grew. 
Maybe it went beyond love, now, and into hope and trust.

But he would be leaving soon, she knew, now that the winter was over and
his brother had settled into the farm.  Leaving to go back to Charleston,
and then they'd only have letters.

She felt herself grow sad at the thought, and then reminded herself that he
was here now, her best friend, and that was what mattered.  That, and the
fact that he should never know how she felt about him, lest he feel
obligated to her somehow.

Too much to risk, too much to lose. Their friendship was more precious to
her than anything she owned, and to risk losing it because she was so
foolishly in love with him....   The only safe place to say this was bound
in leather and sealed with a ribbon. And that was how it would stay, she
thought.  Better to have loved and lost....  

"Katherine," he said softly, turning her face toward him.  "I have
something for you."

"You do?  What is it?" They were within sight of the house now, and she
could see her father in the rocking chair on the porch smoking his pipe.
Daniel waved and Mr. O'Donnelly waved back.  Daniel reached into the
satchel he'd been carrying, and tugged out a small, burlap wrapped...twig?

"It's lovely," she said uncertainly, allowing him to press it into her
hands.

He laughed. "Not yet, but it will be. It's a rose," he said, "a cutting off
a rose bush.  Give it some time, and attention, and soon it will bloom.
It's got such a lovely, lemony fragrance..." he paused, looking for the
words, "...a soft scent that enfolds you, draws you into its secrets."

"A rose?" she breathed.  He knew how she loved roses, how she always had a
small vase on her desk with roses she'd picked, herself.  But this one
looked different.  She ran her finger over the twig and gasped when it
struck a thorn.  He reached down and soothed the mild stick with a caress
of his callused fingers, his warm hands cupping hers lightly.

The wild roses barely had thorns.  Was he sure this was a rose?   She
looked up in confusion. "Like the wild roses down by the creek?" she asked,
as she looked again at what she cradled between her fingers.

"No, this one is different.  It's cultivated, brought over from England. I
saw them when I was in 
Charleston, before we came out here.  It's the palest white...it reminds me
of your skin," he said, and Katherine looked up at him with tears in her
eyes.

"Beautiful," she said, already imagining the rose fully in bloom.

"Yes," he agreed, his eyes intent upon her face, and she realized he wasn't
talking about the rose at all.  He lifted her hands up, complete with their
precious bundle, and dropped a gentle kiss along the knuckles.  She
started.  It was the gesture of a lover, and they both knew it.

"Katherine..." he said, his voice as full and shaded as the night.

"Daniel..." she echoed, out of breath, eyes large.

"Katherine, what would you say if I asked your father if I could court
you?"  Katherine felt her heart speed up.  Words were drummed out by the
thunder of her pulse, and she couldn't seem to make the world stop
spinning.

"Wh...what?" she asked, and Daniel smiled down at her.

"Surely you're not surprised, Katherine?" he said.  But she was, she was
stunned.  She'd only dreamed, barely hoped-and here was this miracle.  She
remembered the words of longing, the wishes from her heart that she'd
penned in her journal.  Were they coming true even now?

"Oh, Daniel," his name was a little more than a breath, and she was afire.
She could feel something burning through her, could feel her eyes glowing,
her face glowing.  She threw her arms around him and kissed him, fully on
the mouth, in front of her father.

Daniel, surprised for a moment, pulled her closer and kissed her back. And
it was right, they fit, and she was right, he tasted like blackberries,
sweet and  full of summer. It lasted a second, it echoed forever. They
pulled apart laughing.

"I'll take that as a yes," he murmured.

"What about Charleston?" she said.

"Everything I want is here," he replied.

They went to talk to her father.

()()()())(()()()()

She shifted in the bed as the dream moved through her. Her hands reached
out for the smooth, worn leather, wanting to write it down, wanting to save
the kiss for all time should memory fail. But it was not there, she
couldn't find it.  She moaned as her hand worried over the damask.

()()()())(()()()()

"What do you mean, war?" she asked, the horror of it dawning in her eyes. 
"The country is at WAR?"

They'd all known it was coming, of course, for the last two years there had
been nothing but talk of war was on everyone's lips, in the newspapers,
about how the United States would, at some time, have to become involved in
the fight overseas.  About how they must do what was right, join up with
England and France and become Allies.

But still, it didn't stop the shock that rocked her to her heart.  War. 
Even the word, itself, sounded 
horrible, the worst kind of word.  She shivered as she sat with her mother
in the kitchen, listening as Daniel told the news.

"Katherine, you knew this was happening.  We've been talking about it for
ages," Daniel said reprovingly, but not unkindly.  Jenny put a hand on her
daughter's shoulder and squeezed lightly.  She knew how Katherine felt
about this young man; and she was ashamed to admit, even to herself, that
she was glad her Liam was too old to fight.  But that didn't stop the pain
she felt for her daughter, or for Daniel, whom she'd grown to love like a
son.

"Of course, you're right, Daniel," Katherine said.  And then a horrible
thought struck her.  "You're not waiting for the draft, are you?  You're
going voluntarily."  Daniel looked down at his feet.  He took a deep
breath, squared his shoulders, and looked Katherine in the eye.  She
flinched.

"Daniel," she breathed.  He reached for her hand.

"Katherine," he beseeched, looking deeply into her eyes.  She saw there
what she needed to know, and she dropped her head.  A flash of anger roared
through her.  She looked back up at him, eyes hard.

"Of course, Daniel," she said through gritted teeth, "you must go and
fight.  You must go and fight for your country."  And leave your loved ones
behind while you die in some terrible trench, surrounded by rotting corpses
and buzzing flies, she thought, eyes watering.

She knew that he saw this, saw what she was thinking, and he reached up and
clasped her jaw in his hand.  She shuddered, and watched tears came to his
eyes.  She hated hurting him; it was the first time she'd ever done it. 
But at that moment, she was hurting more.  And she was hating him.  Hating
all those things that so drew her to him in the first place: his courage,
his honor, his strength.  For they were the very things that were taking
him away from her....  

She watched his face as he looked down at her and knew why he was going to
do this thing.  It was simply that he felt in his bones that it was right. 
He'd told her one night as they walked through the trees that he /must/
fight for this country because, without it, he would never have met her. 
They would still have lived in Ireland and England, miles and miles apart,
separated by more than just a channel of water. 

Words, ideals, notions, that meant nothing in the face of her despair.

She let her hot blue gaze drop.  She felt him flinch as he heard her fight
a tearless sob.

"I could not love thee, dear,  so much/Loved I not honor more," she quoted
softly, not quite bitterly, and only felt a little ashamed when he winced.

Jenny left the kitchen silently, giving them time alone, as Katherine
turned to look out the window. Her fledgling rose garden was just blooming
now, in the early April sun, opening up like she'd opened her heart.  The
new gazebo was framed in.  She could see the fresh new wood, the lovely
patterned gingerbread of their special place, their own place, and she felt
her own despair swallow her as she looked at it.

He tried to explain it to her again, in her mother's kitchen, why he must
go.

"Here, Katherine," he said, "It was here in the apple orchards and
battlefields of the Virginia tidewater, that we met.  I must protect what
we've been given, even if it means giving my life in return.  You /know/
that." He squeezed her hand.  She knew, in the part of her that was still
rational, that he didn't want to leave her.  But if he didn't go, he'd be
compromising some integral part of himself, of his soul.  If she held him
back-and she knew he would stay if she asked him to-then he would grow to
resent her.  She knew that their life together would be spoiled by what
she'd asked of him.  

She felt damned either way.

She wondered how long he would be gone. The awareness of his mortality
lanced through her yet again, and she hated him a little more for accepting
it so blithely. His warm hand came to rest on her shoulder and she turned
to him as she felt his arms wrap around her and pull her tightly against
him.

()()()())(()()()()

A light breeze blew through the window carrying the fragrance of the roses
in the warm summer night.  The golden light bounced fire off her hair as
she twisted in the bed, unable to find comfort in the cool cotton sheets,
and her glasses fell to the floor, landing softly on the old carpet.

()()()())(()()()()

She'd been up all night, unable to sleep.  Even writing in her journal
didn't comfort her, as it usually did.  She knew why she felt like this.
Daniel had left for England today, and then on to France, most likely,
though none of them knew for sure.  She'd spent the week helping him
prepare, getting his gear together, washing and ironing his clothes.

For the past month, he'd been in training.  He'd endured rigorous exercise
regimens, gone without food and water, slept outside with the other men in
the tents they'd set up on the edge of town.  He'd lost weight, lost sleep,
even while his conviction grew.  He was doing the right thing.  He knew it.
 

She was still not convinced.  The night he came home, hair cropped close to
his head, it became real.  She'd gone into the house weeping when he came
up the walk.  His shining, chestnut hair gone, and with it any illusions
she'd had left. He's looked harder, older, and so removed from the man
who'd kissed her hands that first time. 

During the last week she'd thought many times how wonderful it would be if
she really were his wife, and she were doing his laundry, his mending and
ironing in their own home, instead of at his brother's house, an empty
mockery as she helped prepare him for war. Since that first day, she'd not
told him how she felt; he knew just by looking at her that half of her soul
was going with him.  It was the same for him; half of his would be staying
here.

It was the actual goodbye at the boat that was the worst.  They'd all gone
to Newport News, with the other families who had sons setting off for
Europe, and she'd watched as he made his way up the gangplank, duffel bag
shouldered high, his hair, which had begun to grow again, shining like a
pelt in the morning sun.  He stood there on the deck, with the other men
from the counties who had signed up, and shifted his duffel bag on his
shoulder as he'd waved.

She'd waved back, trying to hold back the tears, and succeeding, really,
better than she thought she would.  She didn't want the last picture he had
of her-might ever have of her-to be red-faced and weepy.  No, she wanted
him to remember her smiling and happy and loving him.  Now she understood
what Rossetti had meant in that poem.

Jenny and Liam stood with her; Jenny wept silently, watching as Daniel
waved to them.  The two younger girls stood next to their parents, caught
up in the excitement of it all but still too young to understand what war
meant. Eventually, the boat pulled away, taking the young men with it, and
the families headed to their homes, handkerchiefs wiping tears from wet
faces, arms wound protectively around each other.

The trip back had taken hours, even in Papa's new auto, yet she remembered
very little.  Only Jenny clasping her hand, stroking her hair, telling her
in a soft voice that everything would be fine, that the war would end, and
he would come home.  Empty promises, she knew, but the only promises she
had.

Now it was nearly dawn, and Katherine hadn't been able to sleep.  Didn't
want to sleep, for to lose 
consciousness even for a moment would mean putting an end to the day.  It
would mean losing contact with Daniel, once and for all.

She was so tired, but fought against sleep, struggling to hold onto the
memory of their last walk, their last night together for months, for years.
 Maybe forever.  Now there was only dreaming, remembering.   She must steel
her heart, she thought, shield it against the desire she felt for him;
ignore the longing she felt, the longing for the evening walks, the long
discussions, even the arguments.  The things she knew she couldn't have,
except by letter, until he came home. Whenever that was.  If it ever was.

She felt the sadness rest heavy on her shoulders as she looked out the
window of her girlhood room.  She loved this view, over the maturing
magnolias to the fields, with the lilacs edging the road, and the rose
garden below.  She looked down on the newly finished gazebo.  Daniel and
her father had worked so hard to complete it before Daniel left; for it was
imperative that she have some physical reminder of him during his absence. 
He'd told her it would keep her company, like her journal and his letters
would while he was gone; he'd promised her he'd come back and they'd sit
and read Yeats there, just like always.

Before she realized what she was doing, she'd pulled her robe and started
silently down the stairs.  She picked up the book of poems he'd given her
before he left today from the shelf in Papa's study and slipped outside to
the gazebo.  The dew came up between her toes, riding on the chilly green
grass to soak the hem of her nightgown.  She was barefooted, but she didn't
care.  The cold dew made her feel alive and she was glad for it.

She shivered as she crossed the lawn, touched the rosebushes as she passed,
being mindful of the thorns, and sat on the bench, their bench.  She opened
the Yeats book at random and began to read.

The first line of the poem twisted her heart.

"I dreamed that one had died in a strange place," she whispered, and feared
it was prophetic. She felt her eyes sting and fill, and the first drop fell
on the pages below before she could stop it, the pages he'd held in his
hands only hours before.

It was suddenly too much to bear, his absence, and the memory of his
presence, and she burst into tears. 
At first they moved through her silently, her shoulders shuddering under
their weight.  But then the dam burst and the tears fell, and the sobs
poured through her, and she was keening, not caring who heard, not caring
if the whole world heard.  It would not matter.  There was nothing that
could stop this pain.

"Daniel," she moaned, clasping the book to her chest and rocking as the
first rays of the dawn sun slipped into the garden.

"Scully," she heard, someone dimly reply.  Scully, she thought, who was
Scully?

"Daniel," she keened.  "Don't go...."

"Scully," it was more urgent, louder this time.  Her feet were cold and she
shifted on the bench.  She felt warm hands cover hers, and the book slid
away.

"Daniel," she cried.  "Daniel!"  She opened her eyes and saw through the
tears that it was him, that he had heard her heart's call, had returned to
her somehow, that he was here, kneeling in front of her in their gazebo.

But the war, she thought.  He has only just left for the war.  What miracle
of God /was/ this?  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him
fervently, afraid that if she let him go he'd leave her again, and that,
she knew, she could never bear.

()()()())(()()()()

Mulder had expected many responses when he'd knelt in front of her.

This was not one of them.

As her lips met his, he shut his eyes reflexively.  This was his partner,
and something was obviously, terribly wrong with her.  What would draw her
out of the house at dawn, clad only in her nightgown, and cause her to sob
and call out a stranger's name?

But the thoughts quickly became dust as he realized that she was here in
his arms as he'd longed for last night, alive.  Even more incredibly she
was kissing him, as if she could somehow crawl inside him. For a moment he
tried to resist, tried to be noble, but she was ruthless and he was so very
hungry. 

He couldn't stop himself from kissing her back, couldn't stop himself from
diving into the heat of her seeking mouth, couldn't stop himself from
cupping her face in his hands and drawing her against him, so close that
she could never slip away again.

Even as he did this, he felt her start and pull back, her fingers coming up
to rest on her lips, her face beautiful and bemused in the strengthening
light.

"Scully?" he whispered, a hoarse noise in the stillness.  At that she awoke
completely, the clouds clearing from her blue gaze to reveal confusion and
a hint of disquiet. She looked like a child against the backdrop of the
gazebo and stone bench, the early dawn light rendering her damp nightgown
translucent even as it set fire to the roses of the garden.

"Mulder?" she asked, hesitantly.  He looked down at her, his face mirroring
the confusion and longing that curled inside her.  His long fingers reached
out and brushed the drying tears from her face. Small ripples of sensation
pooled through her at his touch. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he said, as he picked up the battered
book of poetry from her side.  The kiss hung between them like an
unanswered promise.  Scully looked down at her lap.

"I didn't know you liked Yeats." It was all he said.  She knew he was
letting it go...for now.

Yeats, she thought.  The tears welled up in her eyes again.  She brushed at
them and looked at her fingers in amazement.  She noticed the sunlight for
the first time.  What time was it?  Where was she?  She looked around and
the dream flooded back.  The rose garden....  

"Here," he said, "you must be freezing."  He stood slowly, slipping his arm
around her and guiding her to her feet.  "Let's get you into the house."

She shivered as he pulled her from the gazebo, glancing at him quickly when
he muttered, "You scared the hell out of me," as they made their way across
the yard.  Scully leaned into him, allowing her head to rest against his
shoulder in a rare moment of vulnerability, allowing herself to be
sheltered by his arm and warmed by his body.

Her mind was swirling.  She had no recollection of leaving the house, no
memory of being in the gazebo until she woke to Mulder's mouth on hers,
soft and hot and sweet; the reality and the dream twined together like the
old vines and wood above them.  She looked down at her feet, startled to
find them bare on the grass and chillingly wet with the dew, as was the hem
of her nightgown.  Jesus.  What had happened?

Mulder felt her shoulders slump, and he looked down at her, taking in the
rumpled hair, the edgy movements, the clinging damp of the nightgown.
Questions welled up; he let his territorial soul ask the one question he
really, really wanted the answer for.

"Who's Daniel?"

He'd searched his mind and couldn't remember a Daniel, either in their
cases or in her family.  She wiped her hand across her face.  She looked up
at him and held her hand out for the book. He handed it to her and watched
her touch it lovingly, stroking it like one might stroke a child's hair.

"The man Aunt Katherine loved," she said, and opened the book to the front
cover, where the inscription read, "To Katherine: true love never dies,
Daniel."  She showed him the inscription and he looked at her strangely.

"He gave her the book when he went to war," she said, realizing that she
wasn't even sure if it was true.  How did she know that, she wondered?  She
hadn't gotten that far in the journal...the journal, she thought, suddenly,
where's the journal?  It would tell her if what she dreamed was real.... 
She was dashing up the stairs and into the house, out of Mulder's arms
before he realized what was happening.

"Scully?" he called behind her, "Where are you going?"

"Up here, Mulder!  In Katherine's room!" He followed her up the stairs, his
long legs negating her head start. He found her in her great-aunt's
bedroom, looking like a wraith in her now-transparent nightgown as she
frantically searched the area around the bed, crawling under it, shaking
the covers. The longer she searched the more distressed she became; a wild
look replaced the clouded confusion of her waking.

Her glasses sat on the floor next to the bedside table, as if they'd been
knocked carelessly off the bed, something Scully would never do.  He picked
them up and replaced them gently in their case.

"It was here," she said, panting, panic edging her voice. "I was reading it
when I went to sleep and it must have fallen out of my hand."

"What was here?" he asked patiently, his concern at her odd behavior
growing. "What are you talking about?"

"The book.  Katherine's journal.  I KNOW it was here!" and she tossed the
covers off the bed, running her hands along the pillows, under the
mattress...wait!  She turned to the enamel box on the bedside table and
placed her hand on it.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"She always kept it in here," she said.  She tried to open the lid, but it
was locked.  She looked up at him, then walked to the desk and pulled open
the drawer.  It slid open easily.  And yes, there was the false bottom,
just as Katherine had written about so many years ago, and surely there was
the key...yes!

The tiny gold key fit in her palm, not much larger then the cross around
her neck.  She turned and looked at Mulder.  He was looking at her with a
mix of concern and fascination, as if not sure what to think about the
tableau unfolding before him.

She walked to the box and put the key in, turning it in the lock.  The lid
drew upward, and there was the journal, in its hiding place, as it had lain
for so many years, ribbon tied neatly around the faded leather.

"How'd you know...?" he asked.

"She wrote about it," she replied.  "I must have put it here when I was
sleepwalking...." she let the 
sentence trail off.  Mulder saw a flush creep up her cheeks as she suddenly
realized just what she had done, how he'd found her outside in the rose
garden at dawn, weeping uncontrollably over the book.  How she'd kissed
him, wildly, passionately, with a heart full of feeling he'd only suspected
she possessed.  She looked at him defensively.

"I fell asleep reading it Mulder," she said, and he could hear the distance
between them growing with every word.  "I dreamed about the book.  I went
sleepwalking.  It could happen to anyone," she finished in a huff.  The
corners of his mouth turned up slightly.  His Scully, he thought.  Or maybe
he should call her Cleopatra.  Queen of Denial.  He snorted softly, shook
his head. There was more here than met the eye.  He could feel it.  But he
wouldn't push her on it.  Yet.

"Why don't you get cleaned up and we'll go out for breakfast," he said.  He
ran his hand along her hair, letting it fall to rest on her bare white
shoulder, where the lace-edged cotton nightgown had slid down her arm.

He was going to grill her about that journal.  About why she hadn't told
him about it in the first place.  Oh yes, he was going to grill her.  And
he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

But not now.

Later.

He'd do it later, when she wasn't looking so vulnerable...or so beautiful. 
When the vestiges of the kiss weren't still quaking in his soul.

(Continued in 6/9)


PART 6/9

Scully sipped at the coffee, and surveyed her surroundings. The small diner
they had found had a cozy, mom-and-pop feel to it, with shining Formica
counters and blue vinyl booths. The coffee was hot and the food was good.
Not too much more you could ask for at seven on a Sunday morning. She
returned her attention to her plate and the few, lonely mouthfuls that
remained of her fruit salad and bagel.

She was very careful not to look at Mulder.

He had been patient, she had to admit. He had kept all conversation small
and casual, talking about the book he had read last night, the war waged
against the insects that had found the miniscule tear in his window
screening, the benefits of bacon and eggs over bagel and fruit.  He talked
about everything except finding her half-dressed in the garden at sunrise,
and the kiss that still scalded her mouth.

But she could feel it, like the heavy weight of air that precedes a
thunderstorm. Even now, the fine hairs on her arms prickled with the memory
of what had passed between them, the electricity of it. It was a live wire
that danced between them, humming with connection. She knew, without
looking, that his eyes followed her. She could feel the questions he kept
at bay.

She could still taste him, mixed up with the memory of roses
and...blackberries?

"I've never really gone sleepwalking before," she offered hesitantly. "It's
unnerving, the total lack of control."

"At least you don't sleep naked," Mulder offered, his own peculiar brand of
comfort. She choked on her coffee and shot him a terrible glare, at last
making eye contact.  He offered her a lazy smile, little more than a slight
quirking of his full lips and a warm gleam in his hazel eyes.

"Mulder!" His name was a mingling of exasperation and amusement. "Why does
it always come down to bare skin with you?" she asked at last.

He snorted. "If that were the case, I wouldn't have a drawer full of videos
that you know nothing about." He paused, let the laughter linger between
them. 

"So, tell me about it." It wasn't a request.

She traced a pattern on the table top with a nervous finger. "Where do you
want me to start?" she asked, as the silence threatened to swallow them.

"How about with why you didn't mention the journal?" His tone wasn't
accusatory, but there was a faint current of reproach all the same.  "Seems
to me like you were withholding evidence. That's not really like you,
Scully."

Nervous fingers found their way into the wet rings left by her sweating
orange juice glass. She'd never been one to fidget, but now she couldn't
seem to stop. "I wanted you to approach it objectively, I think."

"You think?"

Blue eyes locked with hazel. "I think," she repeated, and he could hear
something rare in her voice: uncertainty. "And perhaps," she continued,
"because it seemed personal. Intimate." Her gaze pleaded with his for
understanding.  That, too, was rare. 

His mouth quirked, but not in laughter. "You've never been terribly good
with sharing anything intimate, have you?" It was almost, but not quite
bitter.  She flinched, but held his gaze.  Neither of us has been, he
thought. "So, you read the journal and you dreamed.  What did you read, and
then what did you dream?"

Scully sighed, and then launched into the details he requested, a part of
her mind detaching from the narrative. Mulder's attention never wavered,
and his only interruptions were to ask questions about details in the
journal, and details in the dream. After she finished, she sat back in the
booth and watched Mulder process.

He had long, graceful fingers. She watched as they fretted away at the
sugar packets in the container. If there had been a straw or toothpick
handy, she was sure he would have been chewing on it. She wondered if she'd
caught her restlessness from him. 

"You dreamt more than you read," he said suddenly, startling her from her
contemplation.

"More than I remember reading," she corrected automatically. "I fell asleep
reading; I probably processed a lot more than I can consciously remember."

Mulder rolled his eyes. "Sure. At any rate, I suspect that the journal
might be the key to this haunting. It's your aunt's house that's haunted,
and her journal that has you playing Juliet in moonlight. Perhaps you're
susceptible to the feelings, the old memories." He held up a hand to quell
her rising protest. 

"Scully, this wouldn't be the first time, and we both know it, so let's
just not argue. I'm not even going to try and convince you of anything." He
smiled at her. "In my increasing old age I've learned to pick my windmills.
But it is the beginning of a hypothesis. Feel free to prove me wrong, but
/prove/ it, don't just argue it." 

The words were firm, though not unkind; all the same Scully still felt a
clutch of pain in her belly.  They often disagreed; it was an integral part
of their relationship. Right now, however, it hurt. She wondered it she was
a little too predictable, a little too unyielding.  

Mulder waved to the waitress for the bill, and began fishing around in his
wallet for smalls to leave a tip with. "I say we go home and finish the
journal together, and then search around for scrapbooks, photo albums. 
There's a story here that needs telling."

She watched as he took a toothpick from the holder on the counter when they
left, and set it between his teeth. The hurt receded, and she allowed
herself a small smile. In a world of uncertainties, it was good to have
something you could rely upon.

()()()())(()()()()

It was only a short drive back to the house, and it was passed in silence. 
Scully gazed out the window, obviously replaying the conversation in the
diner. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, the faint pulse of
muscles along her jaw.  Mulder glanced at her from time to time.  It wasn't
the first time she'd been haunted, but that didn't make him any more
comfortable.  If he were ruthlessly honest, it also made him a bit jealous.
 It seemed just unfair, somehow, that the skeptic always got to see the
ghosts. Maybe it was like cats, he reasoned. They always jumped in the lap
of the person who wanted them least.

Scully was out of the car before they came to a complete stop.  He frowned
at the slamming car door and made to get out of the car.  Something stopped
him, held him in place; it moved inside him, a feeling in his gut.  What is
it, he wondered, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of...homecoming? 

It was as if all of the loneliness, all of the isolation he had known since
Sam had gone just lifted, to be replaced by a ball of light that expanded
within his chest until he could barely breathe because of it. He felt good.
He felt safe.  He gasped as it continued to swell within him, and then,
suddenly, it felt like it fragmented into a million pieces.  When he came
to himself again, Scully had disappeared into the house, and his face was
wet with tears.

He wiped his face hastily, got gingerly out of the car, and jogged to catch
up with his partner. "Hey, Scully," he called through the screen door,
"Slow down!  Or is the little agent's room calling your name?" 

He caught up to her in the hall.  She shook her head. "No, just a feeling
that I need to hurry. That time is running out, y'know?"

He glanced down at her, and realized he was feeling the same thing.  He
nodded. "Let's get to it."  He walked toward the study.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the interior after the brilliant
sunlight. For a span of heartbeats he saw only the haze of dust motes
dancing, and then his gaze steadied. He felt his mouth open and close, but
could do nothing about it. 

His sudden halt forced Scully to run into his back, and he was sure that
she felt his indrawn breath deep in her own body. "Mulder, what...oh, my
God."

On the coffee table was the enamel box she had shown him earlier, now open.
 The journal was visible inside it, as was a bundle of papers, tied by a
blue ribbon. Something long and slender stood out, starkly brown against
the cream and sepia of the paper. With a start, he realized it was a rose.

"Call your cousin, huh, Scully? Ask if she stopped by this morning while we
were out."

Scully reached into her handbag and pulled out her cell phone. "Why? You
don't really think she did, do you?" she asked, even as she dialed.

Mulder surveyed the box and its treasures grimly, and then looked at his
partner. "No, I don't. I just thought I'd get your most obvious argument
out of the way before we sit down and read what /someone/ has so
thoughtfully provided."

()()()())(()()()()

"So you're sure you didn't stop by?" Scully asked again, a little
imploringly.

Karen laughed. "I'm sure, honey. I did mention that things had a tendency
to get up and move there, now didn't I?" Her voice sounded amused. "I told
you about the box, now it's gone and performed its little parlor trick
especially for you!"

Something clicked inside Scully's head. "That's how you found the journal
to send to me, isn't it?" she said, accusingly.  Her temper didn't subside
at all when the older woman laughed again.

"Guilty as charged. Dana, honest, it seemed the right thing to do, like a
message.  Has something bad happened?" The warm voice shifted from
amusement to concern. "Has something gone wrong?"

Scully touched her mouth and wondered if smashing every wall that let her
keep her balance where her partner was concerned qualified as 'something
wrong'. "Not wrong, precisely," she finally responded, aware that her
cousin's concern grew the longer she stayed quiet. "Just a little weird."

Karen's laugh returned. "Well, according to your mom, weird is what you do
for a living, hon. D'yall need anything? We can stop by after Mass if you
want."

A small voice inside Scully protested the possibility of intrusion, and the
same urgency that had driven her from the car spurred her now. "No, no,
we're fine. I suspect another quiet day here will let us settle everything
out. We'll drop the keys in the mailbox at your place on the way out of
town tomorrow, if that's all right with you?"

"Sure thing, Dana, provided you promise not to wait years before coming our
way again. Family means something, honey." Her cousin's voice was only
moderately reproachful.

"I promise," Scully replied, a slow warmth spreading through her. "You're
right, it does.  I'll talk to you soon."

She joined Mulder in the living room after her cousin's good-bye. He was
already untying the bundle of papers. Letters, she realized suddenly,
Daniel's letters.  

"Karen didn't stop by," she offered, reaching for the journal.

"What a surprise." He fingered the rose distractedly, yet with wonder.
"This is very old, Scully. Should be powder, by the feel of it, but it
isn't." He held up the small bundle in his hands. "These are Daniel's
letters."

"I know," she replied, clasping the journal loosely between her hands.  He
glanced sharply at her.  

"I mean, it's a logical deduction, isn't it?" she fumbled, resolutely
ignoring the look her partner shot her. "I take the journal, you take the
letters?" she offered after a moment of silence.

"You're on," he agreed. "We'll take a break and compare notes in a couple
of hours."

She nodded, settling back into the solid embrace of the old sofa, and
didn't even protest when he sprawled out and tucked his bare feet under her
legs.  She had already fallen back in time.

()()()())(()()()()

//July 8, 1917

Life moves along here, though I'm not sure how.  Without Daniel, everything
in my being comes to a standstill.  It seems strange that the outside of my
life keeps moving.

We get news of the war every day in the papers. I haunt the general store
with the other wives, the other fiances, waiting for them to come in,
eager to know what is happening even as I dread to hear more. It is
terrifying to think of Daniel in that place, doing those things. But the
alternative is to know nothing at all, and that would be worse.

Colleen has gone off to boarding school in Charleston.  She's decided to
become a teacher, and the school offers a study program in education.  I
envy her independent life, the new people and the new city.  I'm sure it's
exciting for her; I'm also sure that it wouldn't keep my mind off of Daniel
for one moment.  It's much better for me to stay here with Papa and Mama
and Mary Margaret.  I couldn't live far from our roses, from our gazebo. 
Each day they remind me of our love.  A love that I know will never die.//

()()()())(()()()()

//Katherine, love:

I knew this would be hard. I just did not expect it to be like this. 
Sometimes, I think I could forget to breathe, I miss you that much. We have
arrived in England, and that is all I can really tell you about anything
from now on. Unless, of course, you like having my letters to you full of
little black lines? Please smile at that, my dear one.  Please smile.

The trip over was long and rough. Apparently I'm one of the few recruits on
board who does not get seasick. I do not feel particularly lucky. It was
like the picnic last summer, where Billy Henderson overindulged in cherry
preserves, only multiplied a hundredfold. Those who could stand were
pressed into service. I had laundry detail. I know you are smiling at that.

Before I left, my brother and your father took me aside for a little talk.
When I get back, and we marry, they want to give us some of the land along
where their properties border. It will be our own, and we can build a
house, if you would like. It won't bring that much income, but I will also
be helping them both out with their farms. Rachel is in a delicate way, and
so Jacob will need the help, and then there is your farther, cursed with
nothing but beautiful daughters. I think it will be good. I think we will
be happy. You can be near your Mama, too, and I know that is important. Nor
can we forget about the roses.

I still remember the night before you drove me down to the boat. Katherine
in moonlight-I swear it should be a poem, if it is not one already. Your
skin goes all mother of pearl, like a set of combs my mother wears. The
roses just starting to come into bloom, white and sweet. Of course, I had
to bring you another rose, fool that I am. You have your little garden now,
roses we planted together. But this one was red. You know what red roses
mean, do you not my dear? One red rose, one true love. Forever.

You still make me dizzy.

With Love,
Daniel//

()()()())(()()()()

Her father had wanted them to stay on the porch in plain sight, but
Katherine's mama had overruled him, quietly but firmly. And so he got to
walk with her, going down by the creek and then through the orchards where
they first met.  They didn't talk much, because the silence was just too
hard to fill. Already the ache of separation echoed hollowly within, and
there was nothing anyone could say to ease it, fill it. Once, he stopped
and kissed her, right under the tree that she had been in the day they met.
It was a gentle kiss, but it was a good-bye kiss as well, and it left them
both feeling bruised.

Eventually he led her around to the gazebo, where the roses were finally
blooming, and the moonlight would make her skin glow and turn her copper
hair titian. He had a present waiting there for her, something to hold onto
when she couldn't hold onto him.

"When I'm gone, you'll come here. Read poetry. Smell the roses. Know that
wherever I am, I'm picturing you here, and that my heart is with you."  He
tried to give her that, tried to forge the connection, but it sounded weak
even in his own ears. She simply nodded her head and sighed.

Daniel echoed the sigh, and then reached down under the gazebo bench to
retrieve what he'd hidden there earlier. First came a small, flat package,
which he passed to her in silence. She opened it slowly, moving aside the
soft cloth packaging. He watched as she held it aloft, a small silver
locket on a length of blue ribbon.

"It matches your eyes," he said softly. "I thought for now, you could keep
a bit of my hair in there. I've already put it in," he confessed a little
sheepishly. "Later, well, later, it can be used for-." he trailed off,
uncertain of what to say. He hoped she'd understand enough that words
wouldn't be needed.

"Thank you," she said at last, her voice catching.  "It's beautiful."  He
reached down again and pulled out the second gift. 

"I know it seems a little strange to be giving you in the middle of a rose
garden, but I wanted you to have it, all the same." He held it out to her,
the single long-stemmed rose that he had hunted the area for.

"It's red," she said at last, not taking it, her hands still looped in the
ribbon of the locket.

"It's red," he agreed, struggling against the loss in her voice, clutching
the fragile stem too hard and not even noticing the thorns. He wanted,
desperately, to quote Ben Jonson at her, to compare her to the rose in his
hands. He wanted to touch her with words, kiss her with poetry so deeply
she felt it until the day she died. He wanted to woo her, win her, and
cherish her. He wanted a hundred dead poets to say all the things he
couldn't say in this last private half-hour, things that propriety and
convention wouldn't allow, to make promises he couldn't, in good faith,
give.

"I've got to go, you know," he said softly, at last. Her eyes were shadowed
in the twilight, and he was thankful for that. They saw too much in full
light. 

"But I want you to know, I'll write. I intend to come back. I can't not
come back." The words were heavy, awkward in his mouth. He let the rose
drift between his fingers, plucked the petals off, one by one, crushed them
between his clumsy fingers until the fragrance rose up and mixed with all
the other roses blooming in the night. 

"I'm going to lie there at night, and remember that in the middle of all
these roses, you're the one thing that made me dizzy."

His rose-stained hands came up, held her face and tipped it up so that the
moonlight left her blind. He kissed her again, and it still hurt like hell,
but it had to be done. The pain was worth it. It let him know he was still
alive. When it ended, he pulled her towards him so that their foreheads
touched. They sat like that until their hearts grew quieter.

"I crushed your rose," he said at last, ruefully.

"It's all right," she said softly, her breath feathering across his face.
"You can bring me another when you come home."

Daniel had to swallow hard to clear away the sudden lump in his throat. 
"I'll do that."

"You'll do what?"

Mulder started, staring up into a Scully-shaped shadow, outlined in a fiery
corona. For a minute or two he could merely gape at her open mouthed, until
he realized that his left hand hurt like hell. 

"Shit!"

Immediately Scully was beside him, and he realized suddenly that he was
sitting in the gazebo. 

"Yeah, well, if you're going to rip roses off the bushes, you're going to
get hurt," she said, forcing his hand open to reveal the mangled flower and
bloody palm. 

"You scared the hell out of me, Mulder," she said quietly, echoing his
words from that morning.  She began plucking out thorns with her
well-manicured nails. "One minute you're reading, and the next thing I know
you're out the door, wandering around the back yard, muttering something
about Ben Jonson!"

Mulder shook his head dazedly. Ben Jonson.  The rose.  He looked at
Scully's bowed head.

"I'm not sure what happened-ouch!-to me. I was reading through the letters,
and suddenly...it's like a technicolor dream, and I'm in the middle of it."
 She lifted her face, her eyes steady on his. 

"It was like I became him. Daniel." He paused, lost in thought. A small
smile played over his features. 

"He promised to bring her a rose when the war was over. Probably that rose
that was tied to the letters.  Your uncle must have been some romantic,"
Mulder said softly.

Scully looked up at him, a small furrow forming between her eyebrows.  

"Daniel never married Katherine. She married Edward Spencer, at the end of
the war."

Mulder made a soft 'o' of surprise, his eyes widening, then narrowing. "I
think the other shoe just dropped, Scully.  Unfinished business is usually
a prime motivation for a haunting."

She returned her gaze to his palm, idly picking out the few remaining
thorns. "So you honestly believe this is a haunting?" she asked carefully,
her voice steadfastly neutral.

Mulder pulled his bloody hand away, examining it with displeasure. "Yeah,
well, I know I'm a bit of a masochist sometimes, but I didn't exactly do
this on my own." He wiped it on his denim cut-offs, hissing in pain as he
snagged a missed thorn. "My guess is that someone wants a story to be told.
And the story is back there in the living room."

Scully reached for his hand again, and examined the small wounds still
bleeding sluggishly. "Is it wise?" she asked softly, stroking his fingers
as she scanned his face with her eyes. "If we go with your theory, this
haunting has taken on elements of possession. Is it safe to just keep
ourselves available for that? And if it isn't a haunting...well, this just
isn't...healthy," she finished weakly.

Mulder shrugged. "I doubt we're in any danger. I don't feel frightened by
any of it," he offered.

"You don't have the common sense to be frightened," Scully commented dryly,
curling his fingers protectively over his palm and setting the hand in his
lap. She shot him a warning glance as he began to protest. "I'll bring up
anecdotal evidence, if need be. Then we'd be here for a month."  

Mulder pouted at her. "Thank you for that vote of confidence, Dr. Scully. 
Seriously, though, I say we go back to what we're reading.  If we watch out
for each other, we can probably make sure nothing too dangerous happens.  

"But first, I want Bactine," he said with a grin.  "And an ice-cream bar,"
he finished, his grin becoming wicked around the edges.  He stood up,
offered his good hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Bactine you can have. The ice-cream is mine," Scully said firmly as they
headed back towards the house.

Mulder held up his bloody palm face up, as if in supplication, and let his
mouth slide into another pout, one which said, "I know you can't resist
me."

"But Scully, I'm hurt.  Didn't your mother ever tell you that ice-cream is
good for owies?"  On top of the pout he gave her his best little boy look. 
Scully, determined to resist him if only to show she could, shook her head
and glared.  The man's ego was big enough as it was.

"You touch my ice-cream and /I'll/ give you owies. C'mon, Mulder. Let's get
going," she said firmly.

He shot her a surprised look, as if he couldn't believe she would deny him
anything.  "You must've missed out on the whole 'sharing' section of the
kindergarten curriculum, Scully. Either that or you're totally heartless,"
he grumbled as they went in the back door.  

Scully smiled sweetly at him. "Take your pick, Mulder. Make it a damn
X-file if you want. But the ice-cream's mine."

()()()())(()()()()

Mulder shot Scully a malevolent look as she sat down on the couch with her
ice cream bar.  Meanie, he thought.  Won't share her ice cream with an
injured man.  With a sigh he worked steadily through the bag of sunflower
seeds he'd settled for, and skimmed over the letters as he crunched. He
marveled at the depth and length of the missives; with a rueful shake of
his head, he realized that he was lucky if he managed one-line responses to
most of his e-mail.

Even with the surface reading, the love was there in every line, every
word. He almost felt like a voyeur, despite the fact that this had happened
decades before he'd even been born. Yet somewhere in the middle of all
these letters, an answer lay waiting to be discovered. The fact that they
had been set out for him eased his conscience. He pulled one at random,
from 1917, and began to read it in earnest.

()()()())(()()()()

//August 27, 1917

Beloved Katherine:

"When my arms wrap you round I press/My heart upon the
loveliness/That has long faded from the world"

I look at the picture your Mama gave me of you every night, and I swear
that it is everything lovely in the world. I am not in the middle of a war,
I am not trudging till my feet ache so bad I'd take a mustard bath, and
gladly! I am instead lost in you, and all your high, lonely mysteries. 

Have I told you that I miss you?

We've covered a great deal of ground. I'm not even going to try and tell
you what ground, since that would make the censors whip out the scissors
and black ink. Some nights we camp in tents, but when we are near a town we
can usually get lodgings with the locals.

The towns are chilling, Katherine. They echo a bit, I swear. There are no
young men left at all; the women, the infants and the elderly are left here
to fend for themselves. And it is quiet, but not in a comfortable way. It's
like everyone is waiting, if you can picture it. Like the stillness right
before the thunderstorm. It is a little unsettling.

Tonight Davey and I are sharing a broom closet (that is the approximate
dimension of the room, at any rate. I don't actually see a broom!), which
means we are in out of the elements. There is even an indoor water closet.
The line is long. I thought I'd take the time to write, since I have the
time, a flat surface, and bunk mate who is lined up to take advantage of
the W.C.

We are getting nearer to our destination. We'll be taking over from a
British unit that has been on the lines for three months now. I must admit
to a certain amount of trepidation. I know that we will acquit ourselves
well, but still, there is so much unknown and unknowable. I can't prepare
for what is coming.

I was thinking that when I get home we should set a date for our wedding
right away. 

The longer I'm here the more I miss you. I want to build us a home, and
work a farm, and watch our daughters grow up to have beautiful red hair,
just like their mother.

The boys downstairs have gotten some sort of talent show going. We amuse
ourselves, and some of the fellows are pretty entertaining. Ira Wright is a
fine tenor, and Jubal Washington tells a good story. They are a good group.
I'm lucky to be with them. I suppose I should get back to them. I promised
to read something to the group. Maybe some Browning.

Good night. Please take care.

I love you.

Daniel//

()()()())(()()()()

Mulder shifted in his seat, stretching and twisting like a cat. Because of
the censors, and Daniel's own discretion, there were very few details to
glean about the war itself. He didn't even know what company the young man
was with. But at the same time, he felt a surge of liking for him, a sense
of depth. He was intelligent, literate and possessed a sense of humor. And
he knew how to love; that alone made Mulder admire him. With a sigh he
shuffled through another couple of letters, only settling to read when one
pulled at his attention.

()()()())(()()()()

Scully settled back into the couch and looked thoughtfully at her
half-eaten ice-cream bar.  For the last few minutes, she had resolutely
ignored the occasional grumble and glower from Mulder, trying not to gloat
as he made a great show of eating his sunflower seeds.  So she'd failed the
"sharing" class, had she?  Well she'd see about that.  She held the other
half of the bar under Mulder's nose.  He looked up from his letters, his
eyes focusing on hers.

"What...?" he asked.  She reached for his hand and wrapped his fingers
around the stick.

"See? I know how to share," she said.   His mouth fell open, and then he
grinned. 

"Well, wonders will never cease," he said, and took a big bite.  Ice cream
dribbled down his chin.  Scully wiped it away with her fingertips and then
licked it off.  She heard his quick intake of breath, felt his eyes search
hers out. She finished licking her fingers with slow deliberation.

"Missed some."  Her voice was unbelievably prim. Her eyes were anything
but.  Paybacks are hell, she thought.  She met his gaze a moment longer,
then turned her attention back to the journal.  Mulder just shook his head
and took another bite of ice cream.
 
The book sat unopened on her lap, a strange and awkward weight. She knew
she was avoiding picking it up again, despite the odd ache inside that had
her brushing her hand over it every few minutes. It had been nice when she
had merely felt this as a sort of kinship, but now the thought of something
outside of herself pushing at her...it made her rebel at the most
fundamental level. She was uncomfortable at best with the thought of such
matters. While she believed in life after death, she didn't claim any
insight into the details of it. She was a rationalist. She was an
empiricist. You couldn't put your hands on a ghost, measure its shape and
weight like you could a brain or a heart.

But you saw those girls, a traitorous inner voice chided her. You felt
their terror and their suffering. You saw them as they died, and you
couldn't measure it, you couldn't rationalize it. You could only feel it
until it made you shake apart, until it made you vomit.

But even at its worst, they had been a presence alongside her. They had
never crawled inside her, walked around in her skin. They had never invaded
her, controlled her.  In some ways, this haunting was a compulsion in line
with what Modell had done, and she hated the sense of violation it brought.
The potential loss of her free will terrified her almost as much as the
journal called her.

Almost.

With a sigh she gave in and opened the book. The words swam into focus.  It
was like warm water closing over her head.

(Continued in 7/9)


PART 7/9

//Sept. 9, 1917

The town is so empty, now, with all the young men gone.  Even Daniel's
brother, Jacob, is preparing to ship out in a few weeks, leaving Rachel and
baby Sarah behind.  I see sadness and fear in Rachel's eyes each time we
meet.  I've taken to walking over most days to help with little Sarah.  It
eases my mind.  Even after Daniel's been gone for over a year, I miss him. 
It is impossible to describe this feeling of longing.  It is the deepest
pain, the most overwhelming sadness.

Yesterday I was walking through the orchard and passed under the tree where
we first met.  My knees gave way and I sat and wept.  I was glad there was
no one to see, for I covered my face with my hands and bawled like a baby. 
You must come home soon, my beloved.  Please.//

()()()())(()()()()

Scully flipped quickly through the book, skimming the entries until one
caught her eye.  The journal looked as if it continued more in this vein,
and finished out the year of 1917.  She leaned over and picked up the next
book from the coffee table.  Yes, here's where 1918 picked up.  She drifted
into the words....  

()()()())(()()()()

//January 3, 1918

Some Happy New Year this has been.  It began with a snowfall that has
stranded us here, away from any news of the war.  No newspaper, no letters.
 I can neither send nor receive, and I am increasingly frustrated. 

The house is cold; we have firewood, but we're trying to burn it mainly at
night.  We've begun living in the kitchen; it's easiest to heat the one
room, as opposed to the whole house.  I'm sleeping with Mary Margaret to
keep warm.  The girl kicks so, but she does keep the temperature up.

Mama has been baking bread to pass the time.  We've been eating it with the
tomatoes we canned last summer.  She's always right; as miserable as it is
to do that job, it is wonderful to eat tomatoes while there's snow on the
ground.

I've been embroidering linens for my hope chest when the light is strong. 
Today I finished the pillowcases for our bed.  The creamiest linen, they
are, and I worked the thread through their tops, embroidering our initials
into the twining roses I'd already sewn there.  I'm not a very patient
seamstress; especially not when it's so cold my fingers ache.  But these
turned out so beautifully, even I have to admit it.  Mama and Mary Margaret
cooed over them.  Papa merely raised his eyebrows and patted me on the
cheek.

"A lucky man," he said, "to have you as a wife!" and then he turned back to
his book.  Ah, Papa. 

I slipped into the study once the light started to fail and got the Yeats
book Daniel gave me.  It's now in my apron pocket, and I've been reading it
by firelight this evening.  It's so chilly I've had to keep my gloves on,
and it makes writing in my journal difficult now, but without my little
books I'd have no company at all.  My heart is lonely enough....//

()()()())(()()()()

Scully read entries from each month, noting the number of names in the
growing list of dead that Katherine commemorated.  She noted the change of
seasons, the comments on clothes, on books, on Katherine's family.  Read
about the advancement of the war.  Not much was different from the journals
of years past, except that the war was on.  And Daniel was gone.  That
alone changed everything.

Her fingers paged restlessly through the small book, finally coming to rest
on a single entry in June.

()()()())(()()()()

//June 24, 1918

Oh, God.  Daniel.  The news is terrible.  The papers say that we have gone
over the top-that the fighting is more severe than it has ever been.  The
telegrams come every day to our friends-their loved ones, their sons and
husbands and brothers-gone.  Our families, only now healing from the War
Between the States, rent apart again like rotten fabric.  I pray every day
that the telegram will not come.  I am with you, Daniel.  Are you getting
my letters?  Can you hear me, feel me, taste me, as I can, you?  Why aren't
you writing to me?  I am yours forever.//

()()()())(()()()()

"Here, Scully, read this," Mulder said, and handed her a letter.  She
marked her place in the journal with her finger and took the missive from
her partner.  She glanced at the date.  How did he know that this
corresponded to the entry she'd been reading in the journal?  Or was it
merely coincidence that he handed her this letter at this moment?

()()()())(()()()()

//June 16th, 1918

My Dearest:

I'm sorry I haven't been able to write more. I start letters, but by the
time they're ready to send off, everything is old news and I've thought of
a hundred better things to say. I always have so much to say to you, I
sometimes just say it aloud and pretend you can hear. Not too loudly
though. I suspect it might put the other men on edge. Thank-you for the tin
of hard candies you and your sisters made. You were right.  Had you sent
cookies they would have been inedible by the time they arrived here. Not
that they'd be all that different from what they're serving now. I swear,
there is a place in the 7th Level of Hell reserved for army cooks. I have a
confession to make. Some nights, instead of dreaming of you, I find myself
envisioning fresh eggs and warm bread that tears instead of crumbling. And
meat that is identifiable. Forgive me my unfaithfulness.

It's been raining for two weeks now. The ground is a slogging mess-like the
far field on my brother's place, last fall. You sink at every step, and you
are never completely dry. If we ever take a honeymoon, Europe is not even
to be considered.

It's strange to think of the enemy soldiers so close by. Sometimes, late at
night, when the rain isn't too hard, and everyone is settling in, you can
hear the German soldiers talking and laughing. You can picture it in your
head, really. A bunch of young men like us, playing cards and racing rats
(You remember that from my last letter, don't you? Richard is still the
undisputed champion. Long may his whiskers wave!) and scratching at the
bugs that live cheek-by-jowl with us in the trenches.  Maybe one of the
Germans is writing a letter home, to the second-most beautiful girl in the
world.

Things are coming to a head, here. The rumor is we're going over the top. 
I see the other men writing wonderfully bracing letters home, reassuring
their wives and families that all will be well. I love you and respect you
too much to pretend. I am disquieted. I suspect part of it is fear. Only a
fool feels no fear. I suppose that means I am very wise indeed.

Whatever happens, though, know that I love you. They're such pale, small
words to express this depth of feeling. They don't even begin to say all
the things that I want to say to you. All the things you are to me.

Alpha and Omega, Katherine, and heaven help me if that's blasphemy, but
it's true. I'll come home to you, Katherine. I can't not come home. I owe
you a rose.

Pray for us all.

I love you, and your pilgrim soul,
Daniel//

()()()())(()()()()

Scully felt it happening again, felt the pain, the longing, roll through
her like a wave.  Felt her world tilt, her head spin, felt the old book in
her hands fade away.  Felt as if it ceased to be outside of her, and
instead, she dissolved inside it.

()()()())(()()()()

"Mary Margaret, give it to me."  Katherine's younger sister stood at the
road, the just-delivered mail clutched in her hand.  Katherine had been
watching for the mail truck, and she rushed out begging her sister to let
her sift through it, desperate for any word from Daniel.  Mary Margaret
held the mail behind her back.

"Give you what, Katherine?" she teased.  She knew how Katherine wanted the
letters, the letters that were coming fewer and farther between.  And
really, she wasn't being cruel.  It was just that everyone was so glum,
lately, with this stupid, never-ending war.  Nothing fun ever happened any
more. 

Ever since Daniel left, it felt like the light had gone from her sister. 
She had faded without him.  She was almost hollow looking, like an egg that
had had a tiny hole poked in it and all its insides blown out.  Mary
Margaret only wanted to see her sister laugh.

Evidently this tactic wasn't the way to win her good humor, for Katherine
simply stood at the base of the driveway, under the shadow of the arching
lilac, and held out her hand.  Her skin was sallow, the shadows under her
eyes the color of bruised plums.  Mary Margaret slipped the mail into her
palm and watched as Katherine sorted through it, watched as her face fell. 
Nothing.  Again. Mary Margaret put her hand on Katherine's shoulder.

"It's okay, Kath," she said.  "He'll be back soon."  

As she said this, she heard the growl of an automobile making its way
slowly up the road. Mary Margaret turned toward the sound, while Katherine
stood, head down, staring at the letters, worry and fear etched plainly
into her young features.

Mary Margaret held up a hand in greeting as the car drew nearer.  The
driver didn't return the wave. Mary Margaret felt her stomach twist like
the clothes in the wringer she'd used that morning.  She clasped
Katherine's hand hard as the car drew to a stop.

The officer stepped down from the passenger seat, put on his hat, and said,
"Katherine O'Donnelly?"  She looked up from the letters as if startled to
see him there.

His face was grim, his eyes soft with sadness, defeat.  He held out his
hand.  A flat, brown envelope lay on his upturned palm.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said, and he turned back to the car.  Katherine's
eyes looked from the letter back to the man.

"What...?" she asked.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and then the car was gone in a plume of dust and
fumes.

Mary Margaret 's heart twisted in her breast as she took in the slack gaze
of her older sister, the sharp, shallow pants that preceded weeping. Oh
dear Lord, no. 

Daniel. 

No. 

She reached out and plucked the letter from her sister's nerveless fingers,
then draped her arm around Katherine's shoulders and drew her gently toward
the house.

"Come on, Kath," she crooned.  "Let's go find Mama."

()()()())(()()()()

//August 23, 1918

No.  

No it is not true.  It cannot be true.  I cannot even write it here.

I have burned the telegram, for I know that it lies.  My Daniel is not
dead.  He cannot be dead, for my life, too, would be extinguished.  I will
wait for you Daniel.  Forever, if I must.  But I will wait for you, my
beloved.//

The words stared out at her from the page. For all the denial they held,
their very presence sounded like a death knell throughout her body. 
Shivering, Katherine put the pen down and crawled into the uncertain
comfort of her bed.

()()()())(()()()()

The winter wind slashed through the trees, snapping branches with abandon. 
The very rosebushes seemed to shiver in the relentless chill of it. 
Katherine pulled the shawl around her too-thin shoulders, felt her hair
whip free of its pins.  The snow lingered on the ground; it had been so
cold that the snow hadn't melted since November.  

She was tired of the snow, tired of the bleak sky.  January 1919 had come
and another year had passed.  A year without Daniel.  Nearly six months
since she had received the telegram.

Edward Spencer had asked her to marry him.  Good, kind Edward, whom she'd
known since they were children.  Good, kind Edward, who, it seemed, had
loved her more than half his life.  Half his life, and she had never even
known-had barely known he had existed at all. She had seen only Daniel,
blinded to anyone else.

Edward knew this.  He knew how she felt about Daniel, but he was kind, and
he was gentle, and he didn't begrudge her the loving. He seemed to think
half her heart was better than none, that they could build something from
friendship and loyalty and trust.

She walked out to the orchard, her hair streaming behind her as the wind
clawed and tore over her. The fierce bite of it stung her eyes to tears.
She found the tree where she'd been picking apples, where she'd first met
Daniel. She wrapped her arms around the trunk, and pressed her cheek
against the cold, rough bark of the tree. The tears continued, and she
didn't even try to pretend it was the wind.

()()()())(()()()()

//February 3, 1919

Daniel, where are you?  It's been months, and you have not returned.  You
must be alive, you must, or I would surely have died.  My heart would have
stopped with yours, wouldn't it?  

Wouldn't it?

I am beginning to doubt myself, as the days pass.  Beginning to doubt that
you are alive.  For if you were alive, wouldn't you have come to me? 
Wouldn't you be here with me now, your warm hand clasped in mine as we
walked these fields?  

Daniel?

Mama says this is for the best, for me to marry Edward.  Marrying him,
getting on with my life, this will help me live with my loss.  How do you
get on? How do you live with loss? I look before me, and missing you
stretches out like a road to forever, without end, without respite, without
ease. I hate you just a little for it, I think. For leaving, and leaving me
alone to try and figure out what to do. 

Whatever happens, whether or not I marry, it doesn't matter. You were the
sun in my life, the light, the heat, the passion-whether I'm alone or
married to Edward, I'm still dead inside, empty. Like the roses are now,
waiting for a spring that will never come. Either way, I stay barren. But
at least with Edward, I would not be alone. 

Please forgive me, but you are not here.  You have not come home.  All the
other boys have come home, ages ago, to be welcomed by their families, to
become part of our lives again.  All but you, Daniel, and the only thing I
have had to go on is my belief that you are alive.

I have lost the strength of my convictions.

I walked our land today, the land that was to have been ours. That is ours.
All our dreams are buried there.  I feel like I should mark it somehow,
mark the small deaths that destroy me every day. But at the same time, it
gives me hope. Whatever else has happened, whatever may come, you'll always
be a part of me.  Like the trees bury their deep roots in that soil, your
soul is buried in mine. 

But I can't wed myself to a ghost, Daniel. I can't wait for a dream. I must
go on with my life, my beloved.  I will marry Edward, and I will do right
by him. I will be a wife to him. I cannot give him love, but I can give him
friendship. I can build something from this grief.

I wish you could tell me that it's what you would have wanted. I wish-I
wish so many things, and writing them is pointless, because if wishes came
true, I'd simply wish you were here.

Please forgive me.//

()()()())(()()()()

Katherine stretched slowly in the early summer afternoon, slightly drowsy
with the heat of it, her hands moving gracefully over the whitework she was
sewing.  Mama had sent her to the porch with it, decreeing that she'd
looked too peaked and drawn to be doing the chores, and that she'd best
rest and get ready for the "blessed event."

She set aside the sewing, and let her hands caress the gentle swell of her
ripening belly. She
marveled at the spark of light, the only brightness in her grayed world. As
if aware of her touch, the baby kicked. It had started this about a week
ago. Mama had called it the quickening, and the word seemed right somehow,
as though the baby had suddenly become a person, a soul. A life ripe with
possibilities and hope, able to jump and flutter and tumble. It had become
amazingly, heart-stoppingly real, then. It stopped being "the baby" and had
rapidly become "my baby."

She crooned to it, sang to the little pulse of life that trembled under her
hands. In a rush of unreasoning emotion, joy tumbled into despair. 

"Oh Daniel," her voice cracked, and the tears that had come so easily these
last few months fell yet again, "what am I doing making this baby without
you? This was supposed to be ours, our daughter. Our baby." 

She wept a little, then wiped away the tears, ashamed. What sort of woman
was she, to be carrying one man's child and weeping over another. Yet she
couldn't help the tears, or the sorrow. The need was bone-deep, and not
even the baby in her belly could begin to fill the emptiness inside.

()()()())(()()()()

Scully felt herself drift back to the present slowly.  The room, the old
study, began to take shape.  She moved her hand to her belly, feeling for
the baby, panicking at the flatness, the emptiness.  Her heart contracted
as memory returned.  Not her baby, Katherine's.  

Oh, God.  

The pain was almost too great to bear.  Her own longing for her lost
children.  Katherine's longing for Daniel. The empty ache that had dogged
her for so long became a tidal wave, and she thought she might drown in it.

Jesus, she whispered, little more than a breath.  It sounded like a prayer.
 Take away this pain.  It is too much for me to carry.  She looked back at
the journal, at the entries of love and sorrow.

How did Katherine do it?  How did she live with not knowing?

She remembered Mulder's absence from her life earlier in their partnership.
 Remembered her conviction that he was alive.  He had come to her in a
dream.  It was the only thing that had kept her going in his absence, when
everyone else believed him dead.  She had known differently.  For he had
come to her.  Scully wondered if Daniel had done the same for Katherine.

She glanced up as she heard Mulder shuffle into the room, his thoughts
years away with Daniel.  She hadn't felt him get up; hadn't realized he'd
stepped away.  She watched as he inched toward the sofa, two cans of soda
clutched in one hand, the other holding a letter.  As he eased down into
the cushions, he glanced up from the letter and really saw her face, the
naked loss painted there.  The letter fluttered to the floor.  The cans
dropped with a thump onto the carpet.

"Ah, damn, Dana," he breathed, not even realizing he'd shifted to her first
name.  He cupped her face in his hands and wiped the tears with his thumbs.
 She hadn't realized she'd been crying and she huffed out a soft laugh,
made as if to pull away from him.  His hands tightened on her face,
capturing her.  His eyes were gentle.

"How did they do it, Mulder?" she asked at last, her voice a ragged sigh. 
He knew what she was asking, but had no answer.  He could only remember how
he'd felt when she was gone, believed dead; it had been as though some
vital part of him had been torn out with her leaving. Like he'd been left
to bleed, to die by inches. He had felt utterly, completely alone. The
thought of trying to go on without her indefinitely chilled him utterly,
making old wounds ache.

"I honestly don't know," he acknowledged.  He rested his forehead against
hers and closed his eyes. Her skin felt warm and smooth against his.  He
smelled the faintest scent of lavender.

"If this is too hard, Scully..." he started.

"No, Mulder, they need to tell the story.  Let's let them tell it."  He
leaned back.  Dropped his hands from her face. She met his gaze quietly,
steadily. He took her hand.

They continued reading together.

()()()())(()()()()

Katherine felt the soft tickle of grass on her ankles, heard the dirt
crunch under her shoes.  She knew that if she were to turn around, she'd
see the house behind her, the early afternoon sun turning its soft yellow
paint nearly white.  

Instead she stepped onto the path to the orchard, a bag for gathering
apples slung over her shoulder, a walking stick in her left hand.  The baby
kicked, turning restlessly in her swollen belly.  The baby was too big to
somersault anymore, and Katherine missed the wild fluttering movement.  But
this meant she was getting bigger, nearer to being born. 

She hadn't told anyone that she knew the baby was a girl, but she felt it
to her core. Already she called her by name, crooning Elizabeth. Gift of
God. She stopped on the path, rubbed her belly, circling her hand over the
distended fullness. Her daughter.  Katherine laughed aloud, at the thought
of her busy little girl, always moving, always kicking. Just like her mama.


But she hadn't been that way, not for a long time.  It'd been too easy to
stay inside, to fall into a stupor after lunch, to let the day slip away
into nothing.  She'd spent too many afternoons that way, hiding in the dark
rooms, avoiding the world in a pretense of getting ready for baby.  She
couldn't do it any longer.  Like the baby, she had grown restless,
impatient as the baby as gotten bigger.  She couldn't sit still any more
and wait. Memory and loss were making her insane, and that was just no good
for the baby.  Just not fair to Edward. 

Everyone had cautioned her about these walks.  You're too far along, they'd
say.  It's not good to go walking alone.  What if you twist an ankle?  What
if you fall?

But I must be alone, she thought.  I must get out of the house, away from
mama, away from Mary Margaret.  Away from their prying eyes, their
solicitous commands.  Lie down, Katherine.  Eat your vegetables, Katherine.
 How'd you sleep, Katherine?  You'd think I was sick, not pregnant!  

If Daniel were here, he'd shoo them all away, tell them I can take care of
myself, then proceed to badger me, too.  She smiled at the thought even as
she wiped at her eyes. "Daniel.  God help me.  I miss you so much." She
realized with a start that she'd spoken out loud.

The wind felt crisp and cool today, and the baby kicked again.  Sometimes
it tickled.  Sometimes it hurt.  Katherine knew she'd be glad when the baby
was finally born.  Glad to have her body back.  Happy to be able to bend
over, to tie her apron, to buckle her shoes.  Such simple things, really. 
But her life had been reduced to the simple.  To eating, to sleeping, to
getting through the day without Daniel.

The orchard was so beautiful the afternoon, with the light coming through
the trees.  It had gotten a bit chilly out, with the wind.   Fall was
finally here, and she felt her heart gladden.  She had swelled all summer
long as the baby grew inside her small frame, tenting under long dresses
and those awful, scratchy petticoats.  At least she'd been able to put away
her corset.  Thank god.  She could breathe so much better without it.  And
now the cool air felt good on her swollen ankles, her puffy face.

She'd been craving apple pie.  And the apples from the orchard trees made
the best pies, tangy and tart.  And Mama had such a light hand with pastry.
 Katherine quietly and ruefully despaired of ever being able to equal her
in that regard.  

She stepped into the orchard and reached for an apple, pulling it from a
low hanging branch, and dropping it into the bag she'd slung over her
shoulder.  It was impossible to carry a basket now, her belly sticking out
so far, and no hips left to balance it on.  

She remembered the day she had met Daniel, so long ago. She'd been picking
apples, then, too.  Climbing the ladder.  Filling her apron.  Dropping them
in the basket.  Thunk.  Thunk.

Now they slid into the bag with a shush.  She could feel the tug against
her shoulder as apples contacted the canvas. She paused, leaned against the
tree, resting her forehead against the bark. 

She wanted to pound her fists into the unyielding trunk, beat and wail
until her hands were bloody, until she hurt as much on the outside as she
did inside. How could he have left her? What a mockery, to live in the
middle of the garden they'd planted, breathe their roses day and night, sit
in the gazebo they'd built, but without him, always alone. She pressed her
face hard against the tree, let the uneven surface roughen her cheek and
lips, and hated Daniel with an intensity that left her breathless. "How
could you make me love you, and leave me?" she whispered against its bark.

Her husband's face flashed before her eyes.  Poor Edward. Katherine pulled
away from the tree, drew in a steadying breath.  He was a good man, a kind
soul.  And he respected her.  He always quietly listened to what she had to
say. It wasn't the challenging, laughter-filled conversations she'd known
with Daniel, but they were, at least, friends. It was more than she'd
expected to have, more than she'd expected to feel after the telegram had
arrived.

She was so grateful to Edward in many ways, and at the same time she felt
unworthy of him. A man deserved more than just friendship in a marriage.
Edward deserved so much more. Her hands drifted over her swollen belly,
back to the ache in the small of her back, and for a moment she pictured
Daniel's hands there, easing the pain away. Strong, courageous, faithful
Daniel. The memory of his touch moved through her like summer sun.  It
always would. She shook her head, dispelling the memory, and reached for an
apple, tottering precariously onto tiptoe, swaying as her center of gravity
shifted, knocked her a little off-kilter. 

"Here, let me help you," a voice murmured from behind.  Longing clutched
her heart, and she knew that it was only her imagination, knew it because
she heard his voice always, waking and dreaming. They talked often, in her
head, in her heart.  She continued reaching for the apple.  Her fingers
closed around the ripe, red fruit; her heart fluttered to stillness when
suddenly there was another, larger hand around hers.  

"Katherine," he whispered, his voice a caress.  She turned her head, looked
upward into his eyes.  He stood next to her, his body brushing hers, as
solid and real and as full of life as the trees around her.  

Her blood sang  insanely through her veins, and there was a ringing in her
ears, like church bells when the funeral procession passed.

"Daniel?" she whispered, even as she slid toward the ground, vision
narrowing to sudden blackness, then shattering into a million pieces that
bled a searing light.

()()()())(()()()()

"Oh, my God...Daniel?  Daniel, is it really....   Oh, Katherine,
Katherine...what's wrong with her?  Is she okay?" He saw Jenny O'Donnelly
rushing at him, her fine Irish face three different shades of white as her
wide gaze shifted from him to Katherine lying slackly in his arms.  The
screen door slammed behind her as she ran down the steps.  He worked on
instinct, only thinking of Katherine's safety, unable to fathom the weight
of her pregnant body, the unthinkable weight of the slim gold band on her
left hand.  His Katherine needed help, and that was all that mattered.

"Daniel?" Jenny asked again as she reached them. She was crying now, her
face red and splotchy with fear and grief and wonder. "Oh, Daniel, it is
you," she wept, touching his face, touching his hand, looking at her
daughter.

"But how...?" she asked, and then, disjointedly, "Oh, Katherine, what
happened?"

"She fainted," Daniel offered, pushing past the distraught woman into the
house. He carried his fragile armful gently up the stairs, directed by
Jenny into Katherine's room.  He set her down on the counterpane, realized
with a start that this was the first time he'd ever been in this room, that
it was her childhood room. Vague eyes took in every detail, noting that it
was clean and neat and utterly divested of any hint of his beloved. She no
longer lived there. She lived somewhere else. His eyes were drawn to the
awkward swell of her belly, the cruel glint of gold on her hand. She lived
elsewhere.  With her husband.  

Jenny had said nothing, too busy pulling off Katherine's shoes, unlacing
her dress.  She looked up 
at him finally, stricken, still crying. "Daniel," she said, "go downstairs
and get a towel.  Soak it in cool water and bring it up here to me. 
Please."  She touched his arm again, and then went back to her daughter. 
He did as she bid, hoping that they were alone in the house, knowing that
he could not bear to meet with the rest of the family, their anguished
eyes. No matter what words he used, he could not explain his absence, or
his more damning presence. The living always resented the dead come back to
life.

Daniel tried rushing to the kitchen, but collapsed halfway down the
staircase, knees buckling.  Katherine, oh Katherine.  He covered his
too-thin face with scarecrow hands, and wept.  Oh, no.  No.  He heard Jenny
come up behind him, felt her heat as she sat next to him on the stairs. 
Felt her hands pulling his away from his face.  Her small hands lifted his
head with ruthless pity.

"Oh, Daniel," she breathed.  "I'm so sorry.  I'm so sorry." She pulled him
to her and they cried together.  He felt her small body, so like
Katherine's, heave against him. Moments passed, and then she pulled back,
wiping her eyes on her apron.

"Daniel, we thought you were dead, we got a telegram...."   She trailed of,
made a helpless gesture.  Her face was a mixture of despair and shame.

He nodded. He wanted to tell her that he knew, that he understood, but he
didn't have the words, couldn't find the words, there were no words. How
could he explain shell shock and misidentified bodies and a catatonic state
to a woman whose daughter had just fallen to flinders at the sight of him?
But she seemed to see it in his eyes, in the bones that threatened to break
through skin stretched thin to the point of gauntness. She touched the scar
on his neck, the one that showed above his collar.  Her eyes grew huge in
her tear-streaked face.  He could see her wondering how many more there
were.  He would not tell her. He pulled her gentle fingers away from his
ruins, clasped them gently between them.

"Daniel, she waited for you.  We told her you were dead, but she waited. 
For months, she waited.  She refused to mourn, said she knew you weren't
dead.  But months had passed, and all the other men came home, and we heard
nothing more....   Even your brother, Rachel, they did their grieving.  We
all thought...."  She looked down at her hands. Guilt and shame and just a
hint of defiance were in the bow of her wind-burned neck.

"We didn't know, we didn't believe her.  We told her it was for the best to
marry, that she wouldn't be so lonely." She looked up at him again. "She
was lost without you, Daniel; we didn't know what else to do," she
finished, the tears spilling again. He reached out to wipe them away.

He tried to find the anger he knew he should be feeling, but he could not
bring himself to be angry with Jenny.  She loved Katherine, only wanted
what was best for her. Had he truly died, it was what he would have wanted,
too. He wished he had the strength to tell her that. But now, right now, he
just wanted to leave, to get out.  He longed to have a moment to think, so
he could decide what to do. A moment in which to remember Katherine's hand
under his, warmer, softer than it had been in his memories.  Warmer and
softer and better than she had been when he half-remembered her in his
battle fugue.  When the memory of her touch, her laugh, her quicksilver
mind were the only things real in his universe.

Jenny was staring at him. He wondered what she saw in his eyes, if they
told her that he'd killed and watched men killed until he couldn't, just
couldn't bear to even just be any longer. He wondered if she could see the
memory of five-nines, mud thick with blood, and the hazy coil of mustard
gas. He'd learned that there were many ways for a man to die.

He'd just found another.

"I should go," he said quietly.  She moved to stop him, her hand on his
arm, mouth open to say something.  He held up his hand to stay the words. 
"No, Jenny, I must go."  He pulled out the rose he'd cradled between his
jacket and his shirt, slightly crushed from his mad hurry to bring
Katherine safely home. He could feel where the thorns had pressed through
broadcloth into his chest. The pain anchored him, steadied him. He handed
her the flower. 

His insides were churning, like he'd missed the scramble to get his mask in
place in time and the corrosive gas had eaten its way into him. The
shrapnel of loving. The thorn-bites stung smartly.  He found himself
wishing he'd just died after all, never having to return to this. It would
have been so much easier. So much kinder. Jenny looked at him, holding the
rose gingerly, eyes filling  yet again with tears.

"Give her the rose for me, Jenny.  Tell her that I still love her.  That I
forgive her." The last almost wasn't a lie at all. "I promised her the
rose. She'll know what it means." he whispered, as he stood and made his
way down the stairs.  He left her there crying.  He left his Katherine to
make her life with another man.  A man whose name he didn't even know.
She'll know what it means, he whispered again, letting the porch door swing
shut behind him. True love never dies.

No matter how much you might wish it to.

(Continued in 8/9)

PART 8/9

She awoke, finally, to feel a cool cloth over her forehead, to feel a soft
hand holding hers. The hand was tender, soothing, the same hand that had
nursed her through whooping cough and measles. There was no comfort in it
now. No comfort, for it was her mama's and not Daniel's.  She reached up,
pushed the cloth away, but didn't even try to open her eyes.

"Mama," she said, voice like stone.  "Daniel is alive."  She felt Jenny's
hand reach out, smoothe back wet hair from her chilled forehead.

"I know, love.  I know." Jenny's voice was rough and sweet and broken. 

Katherine felt the stone move inward, eating into her, turning her granite
bit by bit.  Daniel.  Alive.  

And Edward, her husband, out in the fields with her father.

The baby kicked in her belly, hard. Not all stone, then. Still some flesh
and blood.  Elizabeth, she crooned silently. Oh, Elizabeth, what are we
going to do?  She touched the hard curve of her distended belly, and felt
her mama reach up to cover her hands. Katherine opened her eyes at that.
Jenny had been crying.  She looked shattered. Katherine wanted to offer
something, some sort of comfort, but she had nothing left to give.

"Daniel wanted me to give you this," Jenny offered, taking the rose from
her lap.  Katherine closed her eyes, opened them again to see the rose
before her still, rich and red and damning.  She smiled brokenly, clutched
at the stem, glad for the pain of the thorns, glad for any feeling at all.
The twisting, burning anguish that had held her hostage for so long had
been replaced by something darker, something infinitely deeper. She thought
she might suffocate in the stillness.

"He said that you'd know what it meant," Jenny finished, her voice a thick,
tear-blurred whisper.  Katherine heard the words and the stillness was
shattered. She knew then that the darkness, the stone, had been the easy
part.

She had not believed. 

She had been unfaithful to her heart.

She was broken.  

She had not believed.  

She would never stop paying for her lapse of faith.

"It means that true love never dies," she offered, and the stone was gone. 
Her mama trembled at the sound of her voice.  She struggled up to her
elbows, hair wet and wild about her face. "Mama," she whispered, harshly.
Her mama flinched again, avoided her eyes. She wondered what Jenny saw
there.  "Tell no one what you saw today." 

Jenny reached out to her, tried to pat at her, soothe her like one would
soothe a child. "Katherine, no," she said, "no-."  Her voice was sad, so
sad, so full of pity, but Katherine shook her head, unyielding to the
tenderness offered, resolute against the softness of sympathy.

"Mama, I'm married now.  I'm pregnant with Edward's child.  I must do what
is right by him." Katherine knew she was pleading, knew she was begging.
She saw Jenny waver, and pushed harder. She had to have this. Had to take
the penance God had given.

O ye of little faith.

"Mama!  I promised him for better or for worse. If he were to know-."  Her
mama looked at her then, clever hands nervous in her lap.  Katherine
watched as Jenny's shoulders hunched under the weight of secrecy.  She felt
it too, if only a shadow of it.   

Jenny sighed.  Katherine knew she had wanted so much more for her.  But God
had played his hand.  And now she must play hers.

"For better or worse," Jenny repeated softly, colorlessly.

Katherine nodded, took her mother's hands and it was a pact between them,
sealed as solidly by tears as any oath sworn by blood. She must go on, move
forward. There was no looking back. Only think what had become of Lot's
wife. 

Katherine had been ready for better or worse.

She just hadn't known worse would come so soon.

 ()()()())(()()()()

They were still holding hands, the heat of the late afternoon settling
around them like a blanket. The silence was a low hum that vibrated against
them, set their teeth on edge.

"Goddamn," Mulder swore softly, violently, his voice frayed by emotion. 

"Goddamn," Scully echoed, her face wet with tears yet again. 

"Scully, they-he-shit." Mulder gave up trying to speak, trying to
articulate the loss that gaped like a wound inside him. "I give up. I just
fucking give up!" He was up and away and in the kitchen before she could
even draw a clear breath.  She found him rummaging through the fridge,
pulling out the makings of dinner. 

"Mulder, what's the matter?" she begged as he shoved past her to the
counter. "What are you doing?"

"Making us something to eat," he replied evenly, beginning to chop carrots
with a vengeance. "A chicken salad okay with you?"

Scully opened and shut her mouth, at a loss over how to deal with him. Now
she knew what he had felt like, all those times she'd clamped down on her
emotions, evaded his questions with ruthless guile. 

"Mulder, don't you think we should talk about what's just happened here?
Compare notes? Sort things out?" she demanded, feeling strangely at a loss
in the face of his desertion.

He stopped chopping, knife tip digging into the cutting board. She could
see the tendons on his arm strain, the muscles pump and flex with tension.
"Give me time, Scully, give me some time, okay? After dinner. Please." His
voice was harsh, almost angry, but it was the plea underneath that won her,
wrung at her. She reached out, tilted his face up so she could see his
eyes.

They were darker than they'd ever been, and empty to the point of aching.
She understood it then, saw the ghost of Daniel's loss mixed up with all
the times Mulder had been forced to mourn her. Her abduction. Her dying.
This last, latest defection, when she'd tried to tender her resignation. 

"Oh, Mulder," she said softly, her hand gentle under his chin, keeping the
fragile connection in place. "Chicken salad sounds just fine."

()()()())(()()()()

Dinner was quiet. They ate wrapped in the silence of their thoughts, with
nothing more than a 'pass the salad dressing' exchanged between them.
Scully nodded him towards the living room, and cleared the table alone. She
was very thorough, knowing that this would be their last night there,
feeling a need to leave the place unmarked. She hoped it gave Mulder enough
time. 

He was sitting in shadow, the last of the sun slanting through the window
and puddling on the floor at his feet. He held the rose in one hand, the
letters in the other, as though weighing them. "He went on, you know. He
lived a life without her-almost. Not really, though. He was never really
alive without her."

His words slid ghost-like through the darkness and bright, curled inside
and haunted her. She saw in them the allegory for his own loss, his own
despair. Heard the echo of longing in the words "without her."

"She felt the same. The journal entries after that are-empty. Daily
routine, mother things, housewife things, but not Katherine things.  No
poetry. No joy.  It's like she set that part of herself aside, like she-."
Scully floundered, trying to find the words.

"Died." Mulder's voice was harsh, cracked with grief. "She died, he died.
Walking around dead, pretending to be alive. How absolutely, fucking
horrifying." The swear word jarred, tore at her. It was said with such
anger, such venom. The intensity of it frightened her.

"Mulder?"

"I'm so jesus-fucking tired of walking around dead, Scully," he said at
last. 

There was nothing she could say to that.

He held the letters aloft, letting the last of the light flare against the
soft, sepia paper. 

"There are just over 30 letters here, from 1920 to 1938. Some are from
Europe, some are from the U.S., two are from Canada.  They are polite, like
old friends talking about things that barely matter. He sounds like a
goddamned travel writer. He mentions books he's read, sends her snippets of
poetry, tells he what he's doing-but Daniel's gone, you know? The man he
was just curled up and died." 

He thumbed through the letters, opened one at random, began to read.

"Toronto is a busy place. I've managed to find work here in warehouse,
manual labor. Long hours, but I enjoy the work. It feels good to be using
my hands again. It's just plain good to be working. The library here is
excellent. I managed to find an old favorite. Do you remember this one?"

Mulder's reading paused, his voice rough and deep. A long shuddering breath
inhaled and exhaled, and Scully sat helpless as he read, as he continued.

"The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart."

The silence was deafening, and quickly shattered. He threw the letters down
in disgust, set the rose down with infinite care. "How the hell could she
not believe in him? How the hell could she not wait? How the hell could she
just walk away?" 

Tears clawed down his voice, and she saw him rise from the seat, pace the
room in long, agitated strides. "How the hell could she?" he cried again,
and she heard, clear as anything, "How the hell could you?"

She didn't even see him leave, locked in her private shame. So many times
she had left him behind, so much worse than his little disappearances and
dodges.  He had run in pursuit, while she had run away. Mulder, I'm fine,
echoed in her head like an indictment. That, perhaps, had been the greatest
sin of all, all the times she'd been so afraid she'd pulled away, left him
alone not by circumstance but by cowardly, beggarly choice. 

She heard the door to his room slam shut, pulling her from the morass of
her self-blame. Without 
conscious volition, she pulled a journal out of the small pile, and
followed him up the half-lit staircase, stained rose and gold by the
sunset.

She could hear his weeping through the three inches of wood that separated
them. A part of her longed to open the door, to offer him comfort, but she
didn't have the strength. Instead, she sat down against the door, and
opened the journal to the last entry. A small, yellowed paper fluttered
out. She knew, without looking, that it was Daniel's obituary. Knew,
without even trying, that he had died in Toronto, in an accident, in the
warehouse where he'd worked. The senselessness of it was an old ache, pale
beside the overwhelming grief of her partner.

She tried to read the last entry. Her voice wouldn't co-operate, and she
had to cough and clear her throat twice before she could proceed.

"When you are old and Grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

For a time there was only drowsy hum of night insects, her harsh breathing
and the final shudders of Mulder's weeping. At last she spoke. 

"Mulder, she loved him, she really, really loved him. But she was afraid,
and she was alone, and she didn't know what to do, couldn't trust her
heart-but she never stopped loving him, never stopped." She pressed her
flushed face against the wood. 

"I'm so sorry. So very sorry," she whispered in a broken voice.  She didn't
know if she was Katherine speaking to Daniel, or Scully speaking to Mulder.

The silence continued. She dragged herself from the floor, and headed for
her bedroom.

()()()())(()()()()

The night air was tinged with the scent of magnolias, of roses.  The
cicadas droned in the in the soft night; the lightning bugs flickered and
flared in the magnolia trees below.  Scully pulled the brush through her
hair.  98-99-100.  She would miss this ritual, she thought as she lowered
the brush, laid it gently on the dresser.  Would miss the brush and the
mirror.  Would miss the rose damask spread on the bed, the view from the
windows.  Would miss Katherine, she thought, as she slipped off her robe.  

She heard the bathroom door close down the hall.  Mulder, she thought,
getting ready for bed.  She'd miss that, too.  The little sounds that were
him, the sounds that were muffled by hotel room walls and doors, but laid
open to her here, in this old haunted house.  He had not come to her
tonight, not since he had locked himself in his room, weeping.  She pressed
her hand to her heart, took a breath.  Thought of going to him.  Then
remembered the locked door, and turned, instead, to the bed.

Life doesn't always give you a second chance, she thought.  The words took
on new meaning now.  They chimed in her head as she pulled the covers
around her.  The moonlight slanted through the window, rendered almost
invisible by the golden light of the globe lamp at her elbow.  Scully
stroked the cover of the journal where it lay on the bedside table.  She'd
read the end of it.  Now she must go back a few pages and read the entries
she'd dreaded since she read the Yeats poem outside Mulder's door.  She
opened the soft cover and began thumbing through the pages.

()()()())(()()()()

//June 28, 1938

I can hardly record it here, hardly make it real.  My Daniel, gone.  I felt
it the moment it happened.  Those funny flashes I get from time to time,
those little knowing.  Papa used to call say I had Faeroe blood, used to
laugh at how it didn't show until after Elizabeth was born.  Elizabeth, all
grown now, my little Faeroe girl. 

I knew it, I felt it.  I was in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast. 
Edward had gone to work, kissing me on the brow as is his custom.  My
sweet, patient friend.  How has he lived with me all these years?  And how
will he live with me now?  For I thought I was dead before, but I was still
half-alive.  Now, with Daniel gone-.

I was reaching across the table to pick up the bowl left over from
Jennifer's oatmeal.  I swear, she looks just like Mama; the name is so
fitting.  I know I keep writing things that are off the subject.  I know
it.  It's just that the subject is so awful, so unbelievable.  My Daniel. 
Killed by a load of lumber crashing down upon him in that warehouse in
Toronto.  Not by poison gas or gunfire.  Not in this new war, building. 
Not even of old age.  He was still young, healthy.  Taken by an accident. 
It's all so senseless.  

I was reaching across the table when he appeared to me, there, as he had
appeared when I first met him, all power and grace, chestnut hair falling
in his eyes, and he reached out for me and smiled. 

"Daniel," I whispered.

"True love never dies," he said, and he smiled that smile, and then I was
looking at the wall behind him, looking at the spot he had just been in,
feeling lost because he was there one second, and then gone. 

I dropped the bowl.  It shattered at my feet and I remembered how I felt
all those years ago when he came back, when all that darkness shattered
into a million pieces of light. I was lucky this time.  When I fell, the
chair caught me, and I didn't make it to the floor.  The irony was not lost
on me that, this time, it was a piece of furniture, and not Daniel, that
saved me. 

I reached for him, but of course I was too late.  I thought, here is my
heart, Daniel. Take me with you. This time, take me with you.

I called Rachel as soon as I could.   She didn't ask how I knew, just began
weeping softly and gave me the number of the foreman of the warehouse.  I
had to wait for several minutes to speak with him; he was already attending
to the business of death.//

()()()())(()()()()

//July 2, 1938

 How do I even begin to write these words?  For it has happened, the day I
dreaded for so many years.  The day I buried my Daniel is slowly fading
into night.  There is no point in staying awake, in putting off the close
of day, for he is truly gone.  With war, at least, there was hope, even if
I forgot near the end. Now I know he will never return.

I had Daniel shipped back to Fredericksburg, had the men dig his grave on
the strip of land my father gave us, within view of our apple tree.  No one
questioned my decision; no one asked why he wasn't being buried in the
cemetery at the church.  Jacob took Matthew, his oldest boy, went to meet
the driver from the warehouse somewhere in New York.  It was kind of the
driver to come that far, to bring Daniel back onto American soil.  Jacob
and Matthew were silent the day after their long drive.  They had returned
home in the middle of the night, having taken Daniel to their house so we
could prepare him for burial.

I went over at dawn, found Rachel and Sarah already bathing him by
lamplight.  Jacob had taken the boys out to start their chores.  Edward
stayed at home with the girls; he touched my hand softly as I left, his
eyes sad, his mouth soft.  I think I smiled at him, said something, I don't
know what. Kind, good-hearted Edward.

Rachel and Sarah were not surprised by my presence; Rachel merely nodded to
me and handed me the rag and the bowls.

I thought that morning in the gazebo right after Daniel went away was the
worst morning of my life.  I was wrong.  This morning was beyond awful,
beyond cruel.  For then, I saw the body of my love, fully, for the first
time.  One of the greatest ironies of my life, that I should become
acquainted with Daniel so intimately only after his death.  

Death had not been gentle with Daniel, any more than life had.  His body,
already scarred from his days overseas, was terribly bruised, terribly
broken.  My beautiful Daniel, reduced to nothing more than simple flesh. 
It was a shameful thing, and it would have been impossible to look at had
it been anyone but him.

I found my eyes dry, my hands steady as I bathed him.  Behind me, Sarah lit
another lamp and began singing, as if to drive out the grief.  

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er
And neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I

It was comforting to hear the words, comforting to hear Sarah's voice, so
light and lovely, carry the tune through the house as the first rays of the
sun crackled through the windows.  I imagined that Daniel would have liked
to hear it, to hear his niece sing the old song his brother had taught her,
the old song from his childhood.  I wondered if he could hear it, and felt
the tears come, the tears I had denied myself all those years ago.

Oh love be handsome, and love be kind
Gay as a jewel when first it is new
But love grows cold and waxes old
And fades away like the morning dew

"Katherine," Rachel said.  I looked at her.

"What would you like to dress him in?"  I realized I hadn't thought of
this.  In the confusion of his death, in having to trust others, so far
away, to get him home to me, I'd never thought-.  She must have seen the
look of utter despair that crossed my face.  She put her hand on my arm. 
Sarah's voice dropped to a whisper in the background.

Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I
And both shall row, my love and I

"I have just the thing," she said, and she left the room.  I looked down at
my hands, resting on Daniel's arm, saw the white sheet draped across his
hips in an attempt to preserve his dignity. There was no dignity in death,
only emptiness and awkward silences. Sarah stopped singing and all I could
hear was the waking-up noises of the birds.

"Sarah," I said, glancing at her.  She looked so sad.  I returned the soft,
wet cloth to the bowl and went to her.  She wrapped her arms around me and
we held each other, two women, made family by our love for one man. 

"Oh, Katherine," she said, and I felt her tears slip down the scooped neck
of my cotton dress.  

"I know," I whispered, and we stayed in our embrace until Rachel returned. 
I heard her footfall in the doorway, turned to see what she had brought. 
It was an old suit, one I had never seen before.  It must have been several
years old, by the cut and the fabric, but it was a lovely blue color.  It
would flatter him, I thought, and I stepped from Sarah's arms to take it
from her.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"It's one of Jacob's," she replied.  

"He got too fat for it," she continued, and I glanced sharply at her.  The
look on her face as she said it was too much for me.  Suddenly we were
giggling, like girls in church, holding our hands over our mouths, tears
streaming from our eyes, trying to hold back the laughter and only making
it come harder.  

Laughing in the face of death, I thought.   Laughing at the fact that we
are here, at dawn, laying out Daniel for burial, putting him in a suit that
his brother had outgrown on Rachel's good cooking.  It was too much to
bear, this idea that life could be funny in the face of such pain, yet we
couldn't stop laughing.  Even Sarah, who had looked askance at us when we
started, had joined in. It was unimaginable, and yet, I could almost hear
Daniel laughing, too. 

Within the hour, we had dressed Daniel, had made him as presentable as we
could.  I had brushed his hair, had kissed his sweet, beautiful mouth. No
hint of blackberries, but the memory was enough.

"My love," I said, as Rachel pulled Sarah from the room.

"Let's go," she said to her daughter quietly.  Sarah watched for a moment
as I took Daniel's hand and then followed her mother to the back of the
house.

"Daniel," I whispered, "wherever you are, wait for me." For the first time
since he'd given it to me, I took my locket off.  I had put my picture in
it last night after the girls had gone to bed, while Edward smoked his
cigar on the porch.  I slipped the locket around Daniel's neck.

"Think of me, my love. Think of me in the roses."  I straightened his tie,
smoothed his hair, and kissed him again.

"Rachel, Sarah," I called.  A few moments later, they came back into the
room.

"I'm going to get the girls ready for school.  The priest should be here
mid-morning."  Rachel nodded.

"Who all will be there?" Sarah asked.

"Your family, my mother and I," I said.  Sarah clasped her hands in front
of her, leaned back against her mother.  The understanding in her eyes was
far too adult.  Maybe everyone understands longing, I thought.  Maybe
everyone understands love.  

I touched Sarah's soft cheek, squeezed Rachel's hand, and started the walk
through the fields to my house, where my daughters would be waking and
wanting their breakfast.  Where my husband would be reading the paper,
listening to the radio.  

Edward had known that I needed to do this alone, had told the girls that I
was going to help prepare an old friend for burial, had answered their
questions patiently so I wouldn't have to.  Ah, Edward, you deserve so much
more than I can give you, I thought as I closed the door behind me. Always
making the better from my worse.  

The sun had crested the hill; the trees Jacob and the boys had planted this
spring looked young and strong in the early morning light.  I was grateful
for this sign of life; like our laughter earlier it helped me see past the
pain in my chest, to see past the endless, lonesome road before me.//

()()()())(()()()()

Scully closed the book, marking the page with her finger. Her eyes burned
with dryness, all tears already wept.  How did Katherine survive that? How
did anyone survive that?  To have lost him three times, it was unbearable. 
It was so unfair.  She heard the bedsprings squeak in Mulder's room as he
shifted in the bed.  To have lost Mulder once had nearly been her undoing. 
But to lose him again, and again.  It was unimaginable.  She took a deep
breath, held it for a moment.  The heady smell of roses washed over her and
she sighed.  

She felt the weight of the door he'd shut between them, all the words she's
barricaded herself with. Losing each other, again and again. "Stupid," she
whispered as she opened the book and began reading again.

()()()())(()()()()

//Edward and the children were gone when the priest came.  I had arranged
to walk Mama over to Rachel and Jacob's, to accompany the casket as the men
carried Daniel to his final resting-place.  Mama met me at the bottom of
the stairs as I made ready to leave.

"Katherine," she said, "I'm so sorry."  I wrapped my arms around her.  She
felt so small, now, so small without Papa to bolster her up.  There was
pain in her eyes, and understanding.  I remembered the day Papa died; I
knew she still pined for him.  Her Liam.  My Daniel.  Both of us widows.  I
knew now what she felt when she awoke that first morning alone.  

"Just a minute," I said, and I picked up the book of Yeats from the shelf
in Papa's study.  She smiled at me as I handed it to her to carry.

"But what will you carry?" she asked.  I picked up the small cloth package
that had been resting next to the book.  She glanced down, blinked back
tears.  I heard her sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes search for mine.

"Yes," she said.  I drew the pillowcases to me, smoothed the blue ribbon
I'd tied around them.  My initials entwined there with Daniel's.  The faded
embroidery caught the light as it filtered through the window and she took
my hand.

We started our walk to Rachel and Jacob's house, stopping only at the
gazebo to pick one of the red roses that grew there, and a few of the
white. Mama smiled as I did this, took the whites I offered and let me keep
the red. Then she took my hand again as we started walking down the path,
through the orchard to meet Daniel. Here, I thought, the journey will end. 
We will close the circle we'd opened so many years ago.

"Have your hankie?" I asked.  Mama laughed and pulled two hankies out from
the bosom of her dress.

"I came prepared," she said, and we laughed quietly together.

As the priest read from the bible, I fingered the rose in my hands.  The
last rites were administered there in the bright, strong sunshine, just
down from the apple orchard, in the Virginia tidewater where we'd met.  On
our land, the land my father had given us for our marriage.  I listened as
the priest eulogized Daniel, a man he had never known.  The eulogy was
short, and too general for my taste.  I would have said it differently, but
then I knew Daniel better than anyone else had.  

I listened to the creek chatter as I mumbled the appropriate response to
the call for the Lord's Prayer.  I watched the birds wheel overhead as we
sang the funeral hymn.  It wasn't a Catholic song; it was one I'd learned
in school as a girl, from a friend of mine who was a Baptist.  I thought I
had forgotten it; yet it came to me the night that Daniel died, just as I
was on the edge of sleep.  I knew it was his way of saying goodbye.

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling in my ear
The Son of God discloses

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that he gave to me
There in my heart is ringing

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

I'd stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling
But he bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

Mama had already started on her second hankie by the time we sang the last
line.  Mine stayed where it was, tucked into my sleeve at the wrist of my
dress.  The brook and the birds and the memories of our garden were comfort
enough.  

Then it was time to push the dirt over him.  I stepped forward, dropped the
rose into the grave, then knelt and let the pillowcases fall softly.  I
felt my head spin, and then the soft doves of Mama's hands landed on my
shoulders.  It strengthened me enough to drop in the first handful of dirt,
and then Rachel and Sarah were there with Mama, pulling me back so the men
could start shoveling in earnest.  I had pulled one petal off the rose
before I dropped it in.  I clutched it now in my hand, smelling its slight
fragrance as the dirt began pouring over the simple wooden coffin.

I stayed until the only thing left of Daniel was a mound of dirt, glowing
rich brown in the morning sunshine.  The others had left me there, left me
to say goodbye once and for all.  But I couldn't.  I couldn't say goodbye
because I know we'll meet again, my love.  Somehow.  Somewhere.

True love never dies.

()()()())(()()()()

The petal fell like a drop of blood onto Scully's nightgown.  Old now, and
sepia colored, but preserved by the pages of the book.  She could see the
place where it had stained the paper, so long had it lain there.

Scully stroked the petal lightly, then returned it to its proper place,
closed the journal.  Set it back in its nesting place in the enameled box. 
Extinguished the light and pulled the old damask over her shoulders.  She
felt the longing spear through her, and thought again of going to Mulder. 
Remembered the weeping, the locked door.  She sighed as she drifted off to
sleep, listening to the cicadas drone, the story of Katherine and Daniel
whispering through her heart.

(Continued in 9/9)


PART 9/9

He was waiting for her in the gazebo. He was tall and strong and utterly
beautiful, looking exactly as he had the day his hands had spanned her
waist and he had lifted her from the tree. She realized, with a thrill of
joy, that she was once again the girl he'd known, untouched by war or death
or marriage or birth.

"You waited for me," she said, coming to sit beside him on the bench. 

He slipped an arm about her waist. "I waited," he agreed, smiling.

She buried her face in the curve of his arm, smelling him, feeling him,
knowing him even after so many years apart. "I missed you. Every day, I
missed you. I'm so sorry. So very sorry. I should have had faith. I should
have believed."

His hand was soft on her face, forcing her to look up at him. His eyes were
gentle. 

"You were frightened, you were alone, and life had to go on. There's
nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry that you spent a lifetime mourning me. I
wish you could have been happier. I always loved your smile." 

"I'm happy now," she replied at last. "I'm happy now."

He pulled the pins and combs from her hair, buried his face in the deep red
tresses, smelling her, feeling her, knowing her even after so many years
apart. 

"So am I," he breathed against her, kissed the tender skin behind her ear,
along her jaw. "So very happy."

()()()())(()()()()

She moved in his arms, and he pulled her closer, tighter, fingers lacing
though the short bob of her hair. "Scully," he sighed, and she returned his
kiss with a gentle one of her own.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm sorry." She looked up into his eyes, saw the silver
gleam of moonlight and the last wisps of Daniel. "I'm glad you didn't just
wait," she said, "That you came for me. Wouldn't let me slip away."

Mulder's hands slipped from her hair, tracing her face and shoulders as
they drifted down. 

"So am I," he breathed, his fingers kissing the tender skin of her nape and
collarbones. "So am I."  He turned her slightly, and settled her against
him. Together they watched the stars creep out, and the moon move slowly
across the sky.

She watched the stars sparkle, pointing the way to other worlds, and
marveled at the boundless possibilities of second chances.

The night air was wonderfully cool after the blistering day, and the smell
of roses made her pleasantly dizzy. She could feel the heat of Mulder's
chest where it pressed against the thin cotton of her nightgown; it soothed
her gently, leaving her feeling a deep sense of relief, of homecoming. 

She let her head lean against his shoulder, almost sighing as she felt him
slowly lower the weight of his chin onto the top of her head. After a
minute or two, a strong arm snaked around her waist, and he gently clasped
one of the hands resting in her lap. 

She smiled and closed her eyes, breathed in his scent as it mixed with the
odor of rose petals.  She thought then that maybe this was who Dana was: a
woman in a garden, at peace with heaven and earth, with Fox Mulder holding
her hand.

THE END


References:

Minor reference to Brighid's story, "Poryphyria's Lover."

Poetry by William Butler Yeats:

"When You are Old"
"The Lover Tells of the Rose in his Heart" (hence the title!)
"Forgotten Beauty"
"A Dream Of Death"

Poetry by Richard Lovelace:

"To Lucasta. Going to the Wars"

War info:

http://www.u.arizon.edu~rstaley/wwletter1.htm
http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/EMS/WW1/WW1.html
http://www.rootsquest.com/~amhisnet/ww1/index.html

Song credits (songs used without permission):

"In the Garden."  Words and music by C. A. Miles
"The Water is Wide."  Unknown, traditional.