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Contents x-libris.xf-redux.com Vox Series by Catwoman Link to main vox series page Vox By Catwoman Classification: V, A (for the most part SA), UST (sort of) Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST (again, sort of) Rating: PG (With a MAJOR Angst Warning.) Disclaimer: The X-Files and all of its ilk do not belong to me, but to Chris Carter, 1013, Fox Television, and all of their ilk. I would never propose to assume that I do own Mulder and Scully; if I did, I would not be quite so unduly cruel to them. I mean, sure, I’m willing to do some pretty awful things to them to get a good plot line going, but to my thinking, Emily and all that has followed is simply unforgivable. The song ‘Vox’, as quoted in this story, belongs to Sarah MacLachlan. I would not presume to own anything of hers either, simply because there are very few people on this earth who can presume to do any number of the beautiful things Sarah can do. The very last quote is from ‘Strange World’, also by Sarah. Distribute: Please post to XF Fanfic, ATXC, and Gossamer. Spoilers: The Emily arc, including ‘All Souls’. This story takes place directly after the events of ‘All Souls’. WARNING: Mulder and Scully get sensitive with each other, if nothing else. If this repulses you, leave now. OTHER WARNING: If you are not into angst, you will despise this story, and even if you are into angst, if you are at all like me, this story will scare you away from this degree of angst for a good long time. Just thought I’d warn you. Note: This story’s been running around in my head since I first saw ‘All Souls’, and when I watched it again tonight I knew I had to write this down. See, as with many of this seasons angst-infested episodes, ‘All Souls’ made me feel physically sick, just because of the general unfairness of it all. We know from the episode that the events in the episode also https://x-libris.xf-redux.com/story/vox-series/ 2/40 x-libris.xf-redux.com Vox Series by Catwoman made Scully sick, emotionally if nothing else. I would guess that Scully was haunted by the events of the episode, and will continue to be haunted by them, for quite some time afterward. Well, I think it’s about time Mulder sees what losing Emily has done to Scully, and what he’s doing to aggravate the hurt. And yes, I know that sounds suspiciously like the plot line to ‘Mother’, but I assure you, this is completely different, if the underlying sentiment is the same. This story is completely apart from the ‘Mother’ arc. Dedication: This one’s dedicated to Marlie, who never knew her mother, and now lives with a mother who will never understand. Other Dedication: This is also dedicated to Brandi, who agrees with me on the whole Emily issue. Summary: Post-‘All Souls’—enough said. ***** In the desert of my dreams I saw you there And I’m walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed And the pain that’s in your truth’s deceiving me, has got me scared Oh why? ***** It seemed odd to retain the ability to stand when all other strength had left her body. It seemed logical that her knees would fail her, along with common sense and all other logistic instrumentation she’d ever possessed. But her knees remained strong, while her science remained gelatin, permeating the softer emotions of her mind like a wet and rusted yet achingly sharp knife. Somehow, free of her mind, her body carried her out of the confessional and away from the priest’s confusing words and painfully objective viewpoint. Her feet, which to her limited thinking should have been as useless as her eyes which seemed unseeing, propelled her slowly but effectively out of the church and into her car. And she drove, with virtually no awareness that she was doing it, and by some miracle she not only survived the drive, but survived it smoothly, pulling up in front of her apartment building as she always did, each and every day of her mortal life. It all seemed too normal now. And beautifully mundane. She even managed to get up the stairs, fit the right key into the lock, and make her way into her apartment, closing and locking the door behind herself as always. Her purse and shoes were left by the door, and her sweater made itself into a pile on the couch. Then, without warning, she was in the bedroom, and her dress and hose were on the bed, neatly folded by some stranger’s hands. Dimly her mind registered that she was mostly naked and that the air conditioning was blasting in her apartment; her skin was rising in goosebumps from a cold nothing that her heart felt. Through a haze, she watched herself pull on a pair of shorts, old cutoffs from jeans her mind remembered her body outgrowing years before. Then her hands, apart from her emotions somehow, slipped a shirt over her torso, leaving her not so naked but immensely more cold. She found herself in the living room, again without warning, and sitting on the couch. She started to feel her eyesight clearing, or at least clearing enough so that she could tell where she was, and that she was sitting in her living room, and that she was staring into space. https://x-libris.xf-redux.com/story/vox-series/ 3/40 x-libris.xf-redux.com Vox Series by Catwoman She saw her surroundings in a drunken stupor, her eyesight that of an astigmatic without glasses. All senses seemed to have dissipated somehow without her knowledge. All except memory. She remembered everything. She remembered Emily. She remembered Mulder. She remembered the priest in the confessional. She remembered Father McCue. She remembered Father Gregory. She remembered the messengers. She cried. She didn’t notice it until the hot drops of moisture were running in small rivulets down her chest and arms, leaving tiny trails of ice where they passed. And then she was startled; it did not seem proper to cry: she had just cried for forty-five minutes in the confessional, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she was doing it again? Then her mind remembered, and her body started to sob, and she was left behind, shaking in the wind, wondering what was happening and why she was so disconnected. Before her body had informed her of its intentions to move, she was lying curled up in a tiny ball of human woman in the corner of the couch. Her body was convulsing, rising in waves and crashing like thunder. Her mind was shaking with the force of her emotional storm, and some part of her, the part of her that remembered that she was a doctor, tried desperately to tell her that she was sobbing too hard; the stress was building up and she was forcing her body into overdrive. She was going to be sick. Her mind in its entirety didn’t register this complaint, and her emotions didn’t care in the slightest. Her emotions were running the more terrifying moments of last week’s case through her mind in devastating slow motion and then sudden high speed, moving like an old early 20th century newsreel. She saw Emily lying underneath a cold green sheet on an autopsy table, her eyes awake and pleading. She saw the messenger girl, whose hot hand she had held in hers less than a moment before, frozen in an immortal pose of genuflection. She saw a man in black with four faces. Abruptly, her body was moving again, running into the bathroom, leaning over the toilet. She was sick, and intensely so, her body trying desperately to vomit all of the vile memories that had accumulated without its permission. And as she leaned over, losing several days worth of nourishment to the cold porcelain of ancient and strange technology, she snapped back into herself, and realized where she was, and who she was, and what had happened, and what she’d done to herself. But it was too late. Body had taken over. ***** Through your eyes the strains of battle like a brooding storm You’re up and down these pristine velvet walls like focus never forms My walls are getting wider and my eyes are drawn astray I see you now a vague deception of a dying day Oh why? ***** Mulder felt sick. He had been feeling sick since four o’clock that morning, when he’d awakened from the harsh world of his nightmares to the even harsher world of his real life. He’d dreamed of Emily. https://x-libris.xf-redux.com/story/vox-series/ 4/40 x-libris.xf-redux.com Vox Series by Catwoman He’d dreamed that Scully was alone on a plain of sand, bared and vulnerable to the biting winds. She walked through the sands aimlessly, unknowing and uncaring of where she was going; simply walking, walking and waiting, for all eternity. She’d stopped before eternity was over, however; she’d found the one thing that could make her stop, make her hesitate. A tiny golden cross, buried in the sand. She’d held it within her fingers, and that was when she’d faded away, her substance blowing away with the sharp winds, taking her from his view as suddenly as she’d entered.