Spoilers: Tithonus
Summary: What if. . .you left something vital unfinished? What if
there was no more time to change it?
Notes: The quotes are from the poem "The Lady of Shallot" by Alfred
Lord Tennyson.
Disclaimer: Forgive me Chris Carter, for I have sinned. The X-files and
its characters belong to you, Fox Network and 1013 Productions. I'm
just borrowing them. I'll say 5 hail Mulders if you don't sue me.
This is not for profit.

Silent into Camelot
by
Amethyst

The morning window injects harsh light into the room. There are no shadows now. I drink the light, taste the day with all of my faces. The light replaces me, replaces the blood flowing from my body and welling in my throat, and I become the light.

I never told you how a river in moonlight made me feel silver. Once my father took us camping in a grove of cedars. It was late and Mom was putting Charlie to bed, when my father stuck his head in the door of the RV and said, "Come here, Starbuck. You have to see this."

I rolled off the bed and followed him. He held my hand and took me out onto a dock to watch the moon rise over the trees. The long path of the moon on the river was magic, breathtaking. And in that moment I saw my father's spirit. As he watched the moon, I watched him, felt his soul, and was speechless there under cedars that loomed dark and fantastic over me. Showing me the moonrise, he had shown me himself.

Was there ever a time like that, when you saw me? When you saw who I was underneath the professional facade? I have seen your spirit too, even though I said I don't believe in ghosts. . .

Running through my head are words about someone living isolated in a tower on an island, forever weaving images seen in a mirror, because she can't look directly at them. She has heard the whispers say the curse is on her if she stay to look down to Camelot.

My tapestry hangs in the center of my life, waiting for the next threads to make it whole. To finish what emptiness began. I don't know when I first came here. My memories were stolen from me by time and by a different light. Your quest became my tapestry, its threads defining who I am and who I will become.

The river flows like life, like time, like years. I lose myself in swirling water that is never the same, that changes with days and moonlight passing. I learned from the cancer that time is a friend and a bitter enemy. I learned that I am free as the river, as the ever-changing light that masks my doubt. But my silent heart hears tunes blown by the wind to land here, whispering at the door for me to let them in.

A song, just one song from outside enfolded me, swayed me to complete its meaning in my tapestry. I looked down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide, the mirror cracked from side to side.

I am not permitted to touch you, as the moon is not permitted to touch the earth. Only in tides and eclipses and wistful silver. There is no earthly song for what the moon feels. She makes the water bright and drinks shadows. She peers through clouds and hangs shaggy in trees.

I used to wait for a time between cases, between obsession and argument when you might have let me take your hand, when you might listen to a different voice from me, and see a different face looking into yours. But the time was never right and I was afraid.

There is beauty in sadness; without it I would flee and never think to stand here wondering where I've been, where I'm going. It is myself I am creating.

Singing in her song she died. . .a gleaming shape she floated by, decked there between the houses nigh, silent into Camelot . . .And Lancelot never knew, he never knew. . .

Now this man Fellig is asking me if I see him...."Do you see him? Close your eyes, don't look". . .

Oh God I am so sorry. . .Did you know?. . .

I close my eyes because I don't want to see him, I only want to see you.

I am so sorry I left without telling you. Oh God I hope you know that I love you.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Scully? You awake?"

Light is filtering in through a different window and I don't know where I am or why I am still alive. I look down at the hand holding mine. He's sitting by my hospital bed again. He gives me a beautiful smile.

Now. It's now.

"I have to tell--" My voice sounds like a squeaky door. I try again. "I have to tell you something--"

He shakes his head gently. His eyes are like sunlight, like moonlight on water. "I already know. You've been saying it over and over coming out of the anesthesia."

"I have?"

Still holding my hand, he sits carefully on the edge of the bed.

"Seems like we keep telling each other these things in hospitals."

"Not any more." I sound like a frog. "There's a better place I want to take you to."

He raises an eyebrow, questioning.

"When I get out of here, we're going camping.

-END-