FORBIDDING MOURNING
by MeridyM
meridym@attbi.com

Key words:  Post-colonization.   Angst.  Romance of a sort.  
For the sake of the story, I can say no more.
Rating: R.  
Disclaimer:   Are these characters mine?  Well, a few of them 
are.  You already know about the others.
Summary:  "Death and sorrow seem to be our constant companions, 
don't they?   But I just hope we never get to the point where we 
can't feel anymore.  I think that would be so much worse than the 
pain."
Note:  The tiniest glimmerings of this story came to me months 
ago during brainstorming sessions for a collaboration.  That 
story never happened, but this one just wouldn't go away.
Thanks, always, to Jenna for all her loving work maintaining my 
site and for decorating it with such wonderful pictures!   


"Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 
Like gold to aery thinness beat."
         --John Donne, from "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

 

The soldier toiled up the rocky path, putting one scuffed boot in 
front of the other and hoping to whatever spirits inhabited this 
place that the compound wasn't much farther up the hill.  A 
breeze pushed a dark lock of curly hair across her sweaty 
forehead, and she impatiently shoved it back 
away from her face.  

She shifted the leather shoulder pouch she was carrying and 
lifted her battered Nalgene water bottle to her lips.  She sipped 
the lukewarm water slowly, almost reverently.   Dragging the back 
of her hand across her mouth, she replaced the cap and shoved the 
water bottle back into her belly pack.   The leaves of the old 
aspens shook in the wind and shimmered in the sun, and the 
soldier looked up at the splash of autumn gold against the blue 
of the sky.

Bet they called this God's Country back when there *was* a God, 
she thought.

A twig snapped, loud in the afternoon stillness.  Whirling in the 
direction of the sound, the young woman slid the old rifle out of 
its sheath on her back and raised it at the two men stepping out 
from the stand of trees.  

"Put it down," said the taller of the two men.  "Or we'll have t' 
hurt ya." There was just a hint of a smirk on his dark face.  

The young soldier scowled, sighting down the barrel of the rifle 
at the tall man.  "Like hell you will," she said.  "Just take me 
to your number one.  I have things he needs to see."


***


Wary, the young soldier walked between the two men, her watchful 
eyes not missing anything.   They marched her on up the rocky 
track, through a wooden gate, across a dusty commons, and up to 
the door of a barrackslike building. She held tight to the strap 
of the leather pouch slung over her shoulder, thankful for the 
solid weight of the rifle in its sheath.  She knew she could pull 
it out fast if she needed it, and she knew how to use it, 
probably better than these two numbnuts escorting her did.  And 
neither one of them had even bothered to try to find her knife in 
its arm sheath, something else she knew how to use.  She almost 
smiled.

"Hey, Morse, where's the Loot?" the taller numbnuts called out to 
a blonde drinking chicory at a table in the ersatz mess hall.  
"This chica says she needs to see the old man, and I'm thinkin' 
she'll see the Lieutenant first."

The young woman shook the shorter soldier's hand from her arm and 
stopped walking.  "I came to see your Captain," she said.  "And 
that's who I'm gonna see."   

"Loot's down in Nederland today, anyway, Chavez," the blonde 
replied over the rim of her cup.  

"Ah, fuck me, that's right," Chavez almost groaned.  "Looks like 
you win," he said to the woman standing next to him.  "You stay 
here till someone comes to get you," he added, annoyed.  "I'll go 
tell the old man."  He slung his rifle across his shoulder and 
walked back out the way he'd come.

The other man shook his head and wandered over to the counter, 
grabbed a mug, and filled it with the hot, bitter liquid.  He 
leaned against the counter and slowly sipped from his mug, his 
dark eyes watchful.

Irritated, the young stranger was left standing in the middle of 
the mess hall, shifting the leather pouch on her shoulder.  She 
looked at the man lounging against the counter and back to the 
blonde woman, who tilted her chin, a subtle invitation.

What the hell.  The young soldier walked over and sat down at the 
table across from the blonde.  She slid the pouch off her 
shoulder and dropped it on the bench next to her.  

The blonde lifted her mug.  "Want some?"

The other girl shook her head, made a face.  "No, thanks."  

"Suit yourself," the blonde replied.  "I'm Kat Morse."

"Bree McConnell," the other woman said.  

"You're Pony Express?"

"Yeah."

"Well," Morse leaned forward a little.  "Let me apologize for 
Chavez.  He's not normally such a--"

"Dickhead?" Bree offered.

Morse smiled.  "Yeah.  I think he was just in the mood to fuck 
with someone.  There hasn't been a lot going on here the last 
couple weeks."  She sipped the chicory slowly and sized Bree up.  
"So where's your pony?" 

Bree snorted.  "My *bike* is down the hill a ways, in some 
underbrush.  The track up here's too damn steep and rocky."   She 
raised her brows.  "You *do* know that most of us don't use 
horses, right?"

Morse looked a little uncomfortable.  "Yeah, I know.  I didn't 
mean any offense."

Bree waved a dismissive hand in the air.  "No problem.  We may 
all end up on horses yet, anyway.  There's only so much gas left 
to steal."

Chavez came through the door, all business this time.  "The 
Captain'll see you now," he said to Bree.  "Follow me."


***

Chavez wordlessly escorted Bree across the commons to a log house 
with a porch that extended its entire length.  On the porch were 
a couple of rocking chairs and a swing with a colorful Indian 
blanket thrown over its back.  Bree thought she'd never seen such 
a inviting spot.  Chavez led her inside and down a hall to the 
door of a quiet room, nodded to her, and turned on his heel and 
walked away.  She looked into the room, her throat suddenly dry.  
Maybe I should have had that chicory, she thought. Too late to 
pull out the water bottle now.  

The afternoon sun was slanting through translucent window shades, 
giving the room a soft gold glow.  A man stood next to an old 
desk, reading something.  He was dressed just like every other 
grunt around here, in fatigue pants, boots, and a T-shirt.  So 
this was the famous Captain she'd been hearing about since she 
was old enough to understand what the rebellion was about.

She knocked weakly on the doorjamb.

The Captain turned, pulling off his reading glasses and laying 
them and the paper on his desk. 

"Come in, soldier," he said, and Bree walked inside.  For a crazy 
moment she wondered if she was supposed to salute him.  It wasn't 
something she was used to doing in the Pony Express.

Medium-tall and lean, he stood straight, as if his body had 
forgotten how to slouch.  His lined face was grave, still except 
for his startlingly alert eyes, his short brown hair shot through 
with silver.  There was a pale scar on his face that ran from the 
top of his right temple, across the edge of his eye, almost to 
his upper lip, giving him a vaguely sinister appearance.  

The Captain assessed the young soldier in turn, from her glossy 
dark hair to the tips of the weather-beaten boots.  Her hair was 
tangled and wild, tied back with a strip of leather.  She had a 
scrape on one cheekbone, raw in the sunlight, and her skin was 
pink from sun and wind.    He could tell her body was thin and 
hard beneath the baggy fatigues.  The fatigues and the boots were 
too big, probably hand-me-downs from an older brother, or a 
lover, or a soldier long dead. 

The Captain's cool gaze finally settled on her eyes.  They were a 
crystal blue-green rimmed by dark gray--unusual eyes, shaded by a 
dark sweep of lashes.  

As she looked back at him, something shadowed his face, something 
behind his eyes.  He blinked, as if he were trying to chase away 
some vision only he could see. 

Bree wondered what it was that could make this man flinch.  

"Please," the Captain said then, "sit down.  You must be tired."

At that, her eyes narrowed, but she recovered quickly.  "Thank 
you, sir," she murmured.  Bree sank down into the proffered 
armchair, also draped by a color-splashed blanket, and dug around 
in her leather pouch.  She pulled out a folder held together by a 
rubber band and looked up at the Captain.  He was totally still, 
watching and waiting.  "I have mail for you.  Orders from Colonel 
Markham in Denver, and something personal. . .from Arizona, I 
think."  She opened the folder and pulled out two envelopes.  

He nodded and took the envelopes from her.  "You've been on the 
road a while?" he asked.

She shoved the folder back into her pouch.  "Yeah, I was in Moab 
this morning to pick up mail, then back to Denver Center.  And 
then, here."  She swallowed, uncomfortable under his sharp-eyed 
scrutiny.  

"Thank you, soldier," the Captain said, his mind clearly no 
longer on her or her concerns.  He half turned away and then 
stopped.  "There's a bathroom upstairs if you'd like to clean up 
a little.  And then go talk to Corporal Morse about getting some 
chow if you're hungry."

"Thank you, sir," she said.  

"The stairs are out the door here to the left," he added.  "The 
bathroom's the first room on the right upstairs."  

She stood up, shouldering her bag once again.  She'd been 
dismissed.  "Thank you," she said again, nodded to him awkwardly, 
and made her way out of the room.  

The Captain looked after her and then back down at the envelopes 
in his hand.  He sat down slowly in the armchair and stared 
straight ahead for a moment.  He knew he was going to open one of 
those envelopes and read a directive that would put his young 
soldiers--and him as well--in danger.  That came with what he 
did, what he'd always done.  The other letter was from a friend 
he hadn't heard from in a while.  He didn't know what to expect 
from that, and it filled him with a mixture of excitement and 
dread.  "No news is good news" had been true more often than not 
in the last 20 years.

Looking at her letter brought on a momentary vertigo, made him 
feel displaced in time.  Was it 2002, the first year he'd lived 
underground?  Or maybe 2012, when the world had ended.  Or maybe 
it really was 2021, with the world still here but desperately 
altered.

Despite the letter in his hand, he'd never felt more alone in it.

The rebels had cobbled together a communications network over the 
last decade, but they didn't have anything remotely like what had 
once been in place--no computers, no cell phones, no telephones 
or televisions, only a rudimentary kind of radio.  A Pony Express 
for the New Era had slowly been pulled together.  It was 
dangerous work, but it was gradually reconnecting a country that 
had been thrust back in time about 200 years.  So were the 
printing presses that had begun to operate again underground.

It was a consummate irony that the natural world itself was still 
so beautiful.  Despite dire predictions of pole shifts and 
nuclear winter, the invaders hadn't made any attempts to destroy 
the planet--that would have been against their own best 
interests--but they'd come up with a number of simple ways to 
neutralize or remove the current residents:  Electronic 
disruption had set up one pinball-like economic crash after 
another.  Nothing could be maintained the way it once had with no 
new fuels being produced, no power plants on-line.  The aliens 
had infiltrated at almost every level, and no one knew who 
anybody else was anymore.   Whatever trust and civility had been 
the norm in human existence had given way to varying degrees of 
paranoia and violence.  It was simply the way things were, and 
one either adapted or one died.

But the invaders' most effective weapon by far was the designer 
diseases.  No one knew who would get sick and who wouldn't.  
There was no immunity except by fluke, and there was no cure.  
People had already died in the millions, and many more would die 
in the days to come.  

The Captain opened the envelope from Colonel Markham.  He scanned 
it quickly and set it aside on the arm of the chair.   He'd deal 
with that in a while.  It was the kind of thing he could do 
almost by rote, and it would be good to be busy again.  Training 
young soldiers was good, but action was even better. 

The letter was addressed in purple ink, and he wondered vaguely 
where she'd gotten it.  He knew her rounded handwriting almost as 
well as he knew his own angular scrawl, and it made his heart 
ache for all the years of forced separation, for the kind of 
friendship that might have been possible in a different world.

He opened the envelope and slid the yellowed letter out, opened 
it slowly.  

"Dear John,

"I had to write to thank you for letting me know about Mo.  I 
don't know if I can express how sorry I am.  I just want you to 
know that I truly believe her spirit is at peace.  You have to 
believe that yourself and know that she fought alongside you all 
these years because she loved you and believed in you.  She 
believed in what we all had to do, and she was where she 
wanted to be, right up until the end.  I know you made her life 
so much happier than it ever would have been without you."

She knows me too well, he thought.  She knows I'd blame myself.

"I'm afraid I have bad news too, John, and I hate it that you 
have to learn about it this way.  I'd give anything to be able to 
be there with you, but it's not possible right now--it may never 
be.  I don't know when you'll receive this, but Dana passed away 
on September 21, three nights ago."  

Today was October 13.  Three weeks, give or take.  The Captain 
lowered the letter to his lap and closed his eyes, let his breath 
out in a long sigh.   He rubbed his rough hand down his face, 
suddenly bone-tired, the feeling of loss an ache in his middle.  
God almighty.  Dana.  She'd always seemed so vital, so 
indestructible.  She'd given so much to a cause that had 
started out Mulder's and had slowly become everyone's.  It had 
been the defining force of her life for almost 30 years.   

He raised the letter again and forced himself to read on. 

"She had the same wasting disease that took Mo, and from what you 
told me in your letter, she caught it the same way Mo did, taking 
care of the sick, even though Mulder didn't want her to expose 
herself that way.   Mulder is pretty much out of his mind, as you 
can probably understand better than anyone.   I haven't seen him 
since the 22nd, but I plan on being with him and the others 
tonight at Dana's memorial.

"If we can scare up enough gas (so far it looks good), I'll be 
leaving tomorrow to go back to Oregon with Gibson and Will and 
some other young people you don't know.  (Odd how we both ended 
up Cub Scout Troop Leaders in our old age, huh?)"

He smiled in spite of himself.  Monica had always been a good den 
mother.

"It should be a smooth trip, though you never know.  We'll be 
going up through the Nevada desert, and there isn't a lot of 
cover.

"I should stop here and just say again how sorry I am about Mo.  
I know how much you loved her.  And I'm sorry to have to tell you 
about Dana.  Death and sorrow seem to be our constant companions, 
don't they?   But I just hope we never get to the point where we 
can't feel anymore, John. I think that would be so much worse 
than the pain.

"You know that you have all my love.  Write to me when it's safe.  
Monica."

He folded the letter carefully and replaced it in its envelope.  
He turned it over in his hands.  Death and sorrow as constant 
companions--that rang true.  But he wasn't sure about the other 
part.  Almost anything would be better than the constant pain.



The aspens had leafed out and the days had begun to warm when 
she'd finally slipped away.   He still expected her to be in the 
kitchen in the mornings, swore he could still smell her scent on 
the bed linens, even though in the last few months they'd been 
washed whenever there was water enough for laundry.  He figured 
that if she knew he felt those things she would just laugh and 
say that she'd always known he was psychic, that he knew she'd 
always be with him.

Every morning, he awoke with half of the bed barely mussed.  He 
wondered if it would be that way forever, after most of a 
lifetime of sharing his bed with a woman, the second one as dark 
as the first one had been blond.  Lately he wondered if he was 
losing his mind even thinking about such bullshit.

Honor was all he had left, honor and duty and the company of 
comrades who were willing to die for the same things.  He wasn't 
the only one who'd lost people he loved, though some days it felt 
that way.  Some days it felt like he was the oldest man still 
alive on the planet, with no one else left to talk to who could 
remember the world the way it was before.   Funny, he thought, 
that they'd put him in charge of a bunch of raw kids, a man 
who'd never see 60 again and whose only child had been dead for 
decades.  

He picked up the orders from the chair arm and stood up, crossing 
to his desk.  He filed the orders in a drawer and slipped the 
letter into his back pocket. 


***

Bree unfastened the too-big fatigue pants and slid them down, 
sighing as she sat down on the old toilet seat.  Why do things 
like peeing and sneezing always feel so good? she wondered.  
Almost like sex.  Not quite as much fun, but you take what you 
can get in this fucked-up world.  

She looked around the bathroom.  The walls were paneled in old 
whitewashed barnwood that someone had carefully cut and planed 
and nailed into place just so.  There was a small clawfoot tub 
with a shower curtain hooked on a roundel of metal tubing.  The 
tub didn't look like it got a lot of use, but the rug on the 
floor was clean, and the wicker clothes hamper was an oddly homey 
touch.  The pressed wildflowers in frames on the walls were 
distinctly nonreg--strangely girlie for a Captain's quarters.

But it was the black silk nightgown hanging from a hook on the 
back of the bathroom door that really took her by surprise.  She 
smiled.   Either the Captain had kinky taste in sleepwear, or he 
had a doxy.  He wouldn't be the first officer to keep a woman, 
and a Captain's woman often enjoyed comforts everyone wanted:  
real coffee, good food, maybe a soft bed to sleep in. . .maybe 
even chocolate.  Of course, it also meant she had to 
open her thighs for the Captain, which wasn't always particularly 
fun.  But then, if there was one thing Bree had learned long ago, 
it was that nothing came for free.  Everything had a price.  

At least this Captain wasn't fat or ugly, even if he *was* old.

Bree looked around and found the little basket of cloth scraps.  
She wiped herself and tossed the cloth, pulled the pants up, 
tucked, zipped and tugged the belt tight.  She ran a trickle of 
water in the sink.  The little bar of soap in its dish was rough-
edged like soap always was, but this one had little flecks of 
some purple flower in it, and it didn't smell bitter like normal 
soap.  She lifted it to her nose and sniffed, smiling.  It 
smelled wonderful.  She soaped up her hands and watched the gray 
dirt swirl down the drain as she rinsed.   She peered at herself 
in the mirror and smoothed her hair back, rubbed a smudge from 
her cheek.  She grabbed her bag and went back out into the hall.  

She meant to go downstairs and back to the mess hall, but this 
house and its occupant had her curious now.  Instead of turning 
left at the bathroom door, she crossed the hall to a room with an 
open door.  

It was a bedroom, and she slowly walked inside, her eyes wide and 
mouth open in wonder.   She was old enough to remember her 
parents' bedroom back in their quiet Denver ranch house.  It had 
been nice, but she'd never seen a bed like this one anywhere, 
especially in the more recent years of her short life, lived 
mostly in crowded rooms with cast-off furniture and old 
mattresses on the floor.  The bed was big and high, covered 
with a soft old comforter and lots of pillows.  The rug on the 
plank floor was old and faded too, but it was soft and thick, 
woven with an intricate design.  It made her want to take off her 
heavy, hot boots and walk on it barefoot.  

Bree walked over to the dresser.  Feeling uncharacteristically 
guilty, she glanced over her shoulder, expecting someone to catch 
her snooping.  There wasn't much on top of the dresser:  a book, 
a couple of beeswax candles, a small photo in a wooden frame, and 
a ceramic dish holding a silver earring, a few coins, a small 
gold ring.   

It wasn't like her to feel so nervous about trespassing, but the 
nerves didn't stop her.  She reached out slowly and picked up the 
little picture frame, peering at the photo in it.   It was a 
dark-haired woman dressed in what looked like a white nightgown, 
her arms wrapped around her body.  The woman's eyes connected 
directly with Bree, with a warmth the girl could feel even 
through the photo.

The woman's face was open and friendly, her curly hair a little 
wild.   But those eyes. . .  They could be Bree's own.  *That* 
was fuckin' wack, but it might explain why that spooky-looking 
Captain had looked at her like she was a ghost. . .

"What the *hell* are you doing?"  

The Captain's voice was like a slap in the face, and Bree jumped.   
The picture frame slipped from her fingers, and she watched, 
horrified, as it hit the floor, its glass shattering.   She fell 
clumsily to her knees and began gathering up the shards of glass.
  
She heard his heavy, angry footfalls approach, and then his boots 
were in front of her.  

She looked up at him, her eyes dark.

*Jesus Christ.  She's either scared to death of you or she's 
gonna cut your throat.*

The Captain knew that Bree had come of age in a world where 
nothing was ever safe, where everything was a potential threat.  
She'd never had much of a chance to learn what trust was--and, 
for all her toughness, she wasn't really much more than a child.  
She could *be* his child, if he'd ever had another.  

But, child or not, she was a little like a feral animal.  He let 
out his breath in a long sigh and knelt down next to her.  "It's 
okay," he said softly, taking her hand.  "Here, let me have 
that."  He carefully eased the glass shards from between her 
fingers and put them back on the floor. "I'll clean up later."  
He examined her fingers and palm.  "I don't see any 
blood.  But you should go wash your hands to make sure."

He helped her to her feet, and she looked at him wonderingly.  
"Go on," he said, giving her a gentle nudge. 



At the sink again, Bree inspected her hands.  No cuts.  She 
washed her hands with the wonderful smelly soap and dried them on 
the soft towel.

She walked silently back to the bedroom.  The Captain was sitting 
on the edge of the bed, looking at the photograph.   As quiet as 
she could, Bree walked to the rug beside the bed and stood, 
waiting.    

He laid the smashed photo on the bed with a gentleness that 
seemed out of character.    

"She's pretty," Bree said.  "Is she your d--" She caught herself 
before she could use the other, less polite, word.  "--woman?"

The Captain looked at her with an odd not-quite-smile. "You could 
say that," he said. 

Bree nodded, misunderstanding entirely.

"The photo's almost 20 years old," he explained.  "She passed on 
a few months back.  She's my wife."  

Bree bit her lower lip, not wanting to say the wrong thing.  So 
she said the obvious.  "You miss her."

He was silent for a long time, and Bree wondered if he'd heard 
her.  "Yeah," he finally said, not looking at her.  "You know," 
he added, softly, "before she died, she told me not to mourn her, 
that she wasn't leaving me but somehow making us both larger with 
her passing."  He glanced at the young girl, checking the effect 
of his words.  "She. . .had some odd notions."

He knew that she'd told him that long before he'd accepted the 
inevitability of her death.  But *she* seemed to accept it from 
the very beginning of her illness, and maybe she also knew that 
when death came closer, she'd be too ill to tell him anything.

She'd died slowly, at the end not much more than bone and wasted 
muscle and desiccated skin.  By then, she didn't know who he was 
or who she was because of the herbs the healers were giving her 
for the pain.  She'd been too thin to maintain her body heat, so 
even swathed in blankets she'd been cold, as if she were already 
dead.  As he'd watched the vibrant woman he'd loved for so long 
turn into a lifeless shell, more than once he'd considered 
helping her on her way.  He still felt guilty that he'd 
entertained the idea and that, in the end, he couldn't steel 
himself to do it.  

"But was she right?"  Bree asked, barely able to breathe, wanting 
to know his answer.  "I mean, about her death making you both 
larger?"

He looked off.  He didn't want to look into those eyes that were 
too much like *hers.*  "Sometimes I think she was.  Sometimes I 
think that no matter how many of us die, we're doing the right 
thing, fighting for a just cause, for honor, for freedom, for the 
truth. . .and death doesn't separate us, doesn't diminish us."  
He shook his head.  "But then when I look around this room and 
remember what it was like to love her for the last 20 years, I 
think she never could be right about that, that there's no way 
her death could do anything other than make me and the rest of 
the world smaller and sadder."  He finally met her eyes.  "I've 
been a soldier most of my life. I've killed a lot of people.  
I've lost track of how much killing I've done, in how many 
different ways.  But it's only lately that I've come to remember 
what death really means, what it feels like in my gut."  

Bree didn't say anything.  She didn't want him to stop, hoping 
that if maybe she was quiet he'd keep talking.  

He shook his head.  "What the Christ am I tellin' you all this 
stuff for?"  He ran a hand back through his hair in frustration 
and stood up.  

She backed up, giving him plenty of room, knowing that his 
customary reticence had returned and that whatever had loosened 
his tongue was no longer having that effect.  It was time for her 
to go. 

She felt him looking at her.

"Did you ever get anything to eat?" he asked.

"No," she admitted.  "I'll go on over to the mess hall now."

The Captain checked his watch.   "There'll be staff over there 
now.  Feel free to go over."  He almost smiled.  "We can't send 
you back to Denver Center hungry, after all."

She nodded, backing out the door.  "Thank you, sir."

"Soldier."

"Sir?"

"What's your name?"

"Bree McConnell, sir."

"Private McConnell, are you happy runnin' mail?"

"Happy, sir?"  Bree frowned.

"We need good people here who aren't afraid to fight," the 
Captain said.  "And who aren't afraid to stand up to their CO's."  

As she studied him, a blush spread up her neck to her cheeks.  
She took a deep breath.  "Sir, are you asking me if I want to 
stay here. . .with you?"

It took a minute, but then it dawned on him what she was asking 
him:  if he wanted her to move in with him, be his. . .woman.  He 
didn't know whether to be angry or embarrassed, and ended up 
being a little of both.

He'd never tumbled anyone that much younger in his life, though 
he'd come close a few times.  That girl, back in that ferny 
Georgetown tavern, in what, '99?  He knew damn well she was 
barely legal to drink in that bar, and he'd just turned 40 a 
couple months before.  She'd wanted to take him home, God knows 
why, and he'd been tempted.  It had been a steamy summer night, 
and he was a little drunk and more than a little lonely.  And, 
yeah, it hadn't hurt that she was a sweet, pretty thing, with 
big blue eyes, lots of soft brown hair, and a body that he knew 
would feel so good under his hands.

But it was just too weird.

*This* was even weirder.

He scowled at Bree.  "How old are you?  17?"

She stood up straighter, scowling back.  "I was 19 in March.  
Sir."

"And I was 62 in April.  I'm old enough to be your damn 
grandfather, so I'll pretend you didn't imply what I think you 
just implied.  And for future reference, I don't *ever* wanna 
hear any more crap like that from you.  Is that clear?" 

"Yes, sir!"

"You think about what I said," he added, pulling the letter out 
of his pocket and tossing it next to the broken photo on the bed.  
"And let Sergeant Merritt or Lieutenant Stanz know what you 
decide.  I can talk to Colonel Markham about a reassignment.  But 
if you come here to be in this unit, you'll pull your weight as a 
soldier and not as a whore.  You got that?"

"Yes, sir." 

"You're dismissed, Private."  The Captain watched as she nodded 
and left the room.  He blew out a long breath and shook his head. 

*And you thought you were through with fathering all those years 
ago.  Well, it never goes away, and it never gets any easier.*
   

***


The Captain lit both the candles on the nightstand and lay down 
on the bed.  He folded his hands behind his head and let out a 
long sigh.  

Gradually relaxing, he breathed in the sweet breeze coming 
through the window.  It was so quiet.  He could hear the leaves 
of the cottonwoods whispering outside the window and the owls 
calling to each other out behind the barracks.  Over the years, 
he'd grown to love the harsh majesty of the land here, even the 
waist-high snowdrifts in the winter.  The natural world had a way 
of persevering against the toughest odds.  He wondered if the 
humans on the planet would persevere the same way.   

He remembered something he'd asked Mulder once, so many years ago 
now:  "When the hell is it all gonna end?"

"I don't know," Mulder had said in reply.  "Maybe it doesn't."

Maybe the son of a bitch had been prescient all those years ago, 
but he'd been right:  Maybe it *doesn't* end.  Maybe they'd be 
fighting until they were all dead.  In his darkest moments, it 
seemed to the Captain that that was the likeliest ending to the 
story.

She'd told him not to mourn her, but he mourned not only the loss 
of the woman he'd loved, but the loss of the life they might have 
had together had things been different.   They'd lived first in 
hiding and then in open rebellion, moving from one place to 
another until the last few years, and he mourned that he'd never 
been able to provide a truly safe place for her in all their 
years together.  He sometimes wondered if she'd had regrets, if 
she'd wished she'd chosen better.

He took her old book of poems out of the drawer of the 
nightstand, where it had been for the last many months.  He found 
the passage from memory, and reread it, squinting in the 
candlelight:

"Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 
Like gold to aery thinness beat."

He wasn't sure he believed it, though he wanted to so very much.  
He laid the book back on the nightstand and blew out the candles, 
then settled back onto the bed.

He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, letting it all come, 
letting the anguish wash over him, a heaviness pressing down on 
his body, a stinging behind his eyelids.  So many things lost--so 
many people he loved.

*Every place with you was a safe place, my darlin', because you 
loved me.*

Had he really heard that?  Or had he just imagined it?  

*And you know I'll always be with you, I'll always love you.*

Was it real?

It didn't matter.

"I know."  His voice was a whisper in the darkness.

*Be at peace, my love.  You have a lot to do, and you can't give 
up.  Sleep now.*

He sighed and rolled over, burying his face in the old down 
pillows that still smelled like the lavender she'd used in her 
hair, the warm sweetness of her skin.

And, after a while, he slept.


End