New: "The Children's Teeth: Guardian Dear" by Erin McCole Cupp (CathyLex@aol.com) Category: V, MSR/kid, AU -- "The Children's Teeth" Rating: PG Spoilers: Vague references up to and including US5 & da Movie (Emily, All Souls, Wetwired, Revelations). Yet *another* prequel for "The Children's Teeth" 1-11/11. Email me if you want to read that story, or just visit my web page, The Basement Office, graciously admin'd by Galia at http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htm Summary: "We've tried to protect her from everything.... The world, the whole universe is full of pain, and not even a mother's arms can keep all tragedy at bay." Disclaimers: Mulder, Scully, Emily, Maggie Scully, Melissa Scully, and other assorted characters mentioned/alluded to herein are the intellectual property of 1013 Productions, Chris Carter, and the Fox Network. No commercial gain or other harm is intended. Meg Mulder and Kevin *Declan,* however, are MINE! ALL MINE!!!! Archiving: By permission only. Feedback: Pleeeeeeeeeeze? To CathyLex@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have not wrapped my arms around our daughter like this for a long, long time. I think the last time may have been nine years ago, when she had the chicken pox. The fever and the itching would not let her sleep, so we stayed up into the wee hours -- eleven o'clock for her -- taking turns reading to each other. We read to her, and she read to us. She's always been ahead of herself. When she finally grew sleepy enough to admit she needed to go to bed, she insisted on kneeling by her bedside for her prayers. I let go and knelt next to her as she began her favorite prayer, and I prayed along with her. Her father stood in the doorway, keeping a respectful silence. //Angel of God, my guardian dear// //To whom God's love commits me here// //Ever this day be at my side// //To light, to guard, to rule and to guide.// The first prayer I ever taught her. Easy to remember because of its sing-song quality. Also, it speaks of angels, and I cannot shake the feeling that she has an angel watching over her. At least one angel. Perhaps more. A sleepy "Amen" fell from her lips, and I put my arms around her to lift her into bed. Her usual response. "I can do it myself." Our Meg has been independent from the womb. Her first full sentence, in fact, was, "I can do it myself," spoken on her first birthday when her namesake Grandma tried to help her balance a piece of cake on her baby fork. Those five words soon became her faithful standby. Putting clothes on: "I can do it myself." Hand washing: "I can do it myself." Shoe-tying: "I can do it myself." Not that her independence has made her any less affectionate. Her first single word was "hug." Her grandmother, her father and I were amazed. The 'h' sound is one of the most difficult sounds to make, and she chose to make that her first. Ever since she has always done things the hard way. She is,after all, her father's daughter. Now our daughter is thirteen. She leans against me, her head tucked into my neck. She shakes and shakes and no matter how tightly I hold my arms around her, she still shakes. Maybe that's because at thirteen she is already taller than her mother, and my arms aren't long enough to still her anymore. Or maybe it's because she is my baby girl, and I will always shake for her at times like these. Once, my mother reminded me that a parent's love is the only kind of love that moves towards separation. One day I will have to let this daughter go, too. In nothing like the same way I let go of my first, but I have to wonder... which loss will be the more painful? We sit in a hospital waiting room, familiar territory for both of us. More familiar for her sometimes. She has never stayed overnight in a hospital bed since she was born in one, but she has had her share of waiting room vigils, telling her father or my mother or myself that, "It'll be okay," through a voice straining to contain all fear and tears. "It'll be okay." The magic words in our little family. Now, I whisper those same words to her and kiss her cool, damp forehead. She takes a ragged breath and I know she is choking back the tears she thinks would be babyish and immature. She is always so very, very brave and tries so hard to be very adult. "Only-child syndrome," Mulder calls it. This moment is the first lull we've had today. My adrenaline is still shooting through my veins, as it has been ever since the first moment the phone rang and I heard that word: the one word no mother wants to hear screamed. "MOMMY!" Meg only calls me that when she's feeling particularly sad, cuddly, or the rare times she is frightened. Usually she opts for the quick, casual "Mom." She had just left our house not one minute before, walking three doors down to her friend Kevin's house. "Mommy," she sobbed even as I could hear her diligently trying to control the rising panic. "Mommy, Kevin's slit his wrists. I called 911, but there's blood everywhere and I--" "I'm on my way," I gasped into the phone and took off for the Declans' house. As I ran down the sidewalk without a parting word to either Mulder or my mother, images of my daughter and her neighborhood buddy flashed through my mind. Some distant part of me always thought it appropriate that a boy named Kevin had appointed himself the protector of our child. "Kevin said I was too little to climb that tree, but I did it anyway." And Meg, at four years old, fell out of that tree. She would have gone to the hospital herself that time had Kevin Declan not been there to break her fall. And then, on the occasion when the two of them went sledding at the park on a rare snowy day: "Kevin said I should stop picking fights with the fifth-grade boys." They ended up carrying each other home when the fifth-grade boys, with whom our third-grade Meg had picked a fight, shoved them into the half-frozen creek. I did not enjoy seeing my daughter come in the back door dripping wet, her hair strung with bits of ice. "Kevin said I'm acting like an airhead." This she said not two weeks ago, after we had come home from visiting her Uncle Billy and his family. As soon as we got in, Meg rushed over to Kevin's to share the news: she'd met a boy while out in California. A *fifteen year-old* boy. Her father was not impressed, and apparently Kevin was even less so. Meg stormed home, told me what Kevin had said, and then she went out to the driveway, practicing foul shots for an hour, slamming the ball against the backboard with more anger than precision. As the number of days since they had last spoken to each other grew, my mom quietly urged Meg to go see Kevin or at least call him. Meg kept sticking out her jaw and saying, "I'm fine, Gram." Both my mother and I bristled at that. Mulder, however, took the opportunity to give me a "see how it feels" look. Meg is the best of us, but she can also be the worst of us. Finally, she got sick of waiting and went over to the Declans' house. Thank God her patience had chosen that moment to run out. So I ran to her. When I burst through the Declan's unlocked front door, I yelled, "Meg!" "Mom!" She called back. "Up here!" Her voice sounded less panicked, but barely. I followed my daughter's call up to the bathroom to find her fifteen year-old protector sprawled groggily on the tile floor. He had hung the throw rugs over the shower rod to keep them from getting bloody. The thought was chilling. At thirteen would I have had the presence of mind to start tying tourniquets of ripped bath towels on my best friend's arms to stop the bleeding he had caused by his own hand? I don't know. I'd like to say I would have. Our Meg, however, had started such first aid already. She is a miracle in so many ways. "Am I doing this right?" was all she could ask. The sirens were not far behind. Neither was her father. In the car, as Mulder drove us just behind the ambulance, I could hear Meg in the back seat whispering a prayer. Her prayer was not "Our Father," "Hail Mary," or even the short "Glory Be." "Angel of God, my guardian dear..." When she came to the "amen," she began again. "...to whom God's love commits me here..." Under her breath, she repeated the prayer all the way to the seat she now holds in this waiting room. "... ever this day be at my side..." My heart breaks for her with every rhyming couplet, and it occurs to me that she is Kevin's protector just as much as he is hers. "... to light, to guard, to rule and to guide, Amen." I wonder where she learned that trick? "Angel of God, my guardian dear..." Now the four of us sit, waiting for word. Mulder was able to find Rayelle Declan's cell phone number to let her know what had happened to her son. Ray is with her child, and Mulder and I are with ours. My mother sits next to me, her hand steadying my right shoulder. Mulder steadies my left. He asks our daughter in his softest, most fatherly voice, "You okay, Miss Molly?" The nickname fails to bring the usual smile to her face. She takes a shuddering breath and begins, "I'm fuh--" A stifled sob snags in her throat. Her blue-green eyes fill with tears, but she refuses to set them free. "Oh, Dad, Gram, Mom," she cries, burying her face farther into my neck. "I did everything wrong..." I could see this coming -- the guilt. After all, she is half-Catholic, half- Mulder. The poor girl was doomed to the guilt monster from the start. I pull her even closer, soothing, "Meggie..." We've tried to protect her from everything. Moments like this intensify my instinctive mother's fear that we cannot protect her from anything. The world, the whole universe is full of pain, and not even a mother's arms can keep all tragedy at bay. She goes on to explain in a halting, strained voice that when she was waiting for me to come over, she called Kevin a "rat-bastard" for doing this to himself. She yelled at him for being selfish. And now she's berating herself for not seeing the signs earlier, for turning her back on him, for being an airhead. She's accusing herself of being immature, of not thinking before she acted. At thirteen. My God. We listen. At times like these there is not much more a parent or grandparent can do. My Meg is stubborn and independent and arrogant and reckless and smart beyond her years, and she knows it; she doesn't need me to remind her, so I don't. I just love her. I think that's all she needs. She stops ranting at herself. "Meggie," her father murmurs, "it'll be okay." In my embrace she raises a hand to wipe her eyes. Her father hands her a tissue, which she takes with a grateful, quivering sigh. When Meg is done with it, my mother holds her hand out to take the used tissue and throw it away for her. I just hold her. "Mommy?" She asks at my silence. I kiss her forehead again. "What, baby?" She is still my baby girl. Even as she strives for adulthood, even through each growth spurt, she is still my baby girl. Just as I am my mother's and always will be. My mother and I. We have both known the loss of a child, and we both cling, albeit lightly, to our younger daughters. My mother has passed her faith on to me, and as I have made that faith my own I have offered it to my daughter. That faith tells me that all souls in heaven still care for us, the living. They still watch over us. I close my eyes briefly, and I can see a small blond girl watching over the left shoulder of our coltish, reckless Meg. I can see Emily watching over her sister, my baby girl. I dimly remember, through the mists of temporary delirium, a time when my own mother called me "baby." She said it as she stepped in front of the gun I aimed at the man who is now the father of her granddaughter. Did my mother know even before I did? I would step in front of a loaded gun for Kevin Declan. Meg sits up straighter and I loosen my arms around her. "It'll be okay?" She asks. She just needs to hear me say it. "It'll be okay," I reassure her, knowing the outcome before the doctor has made any diagnosis. END 1/1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit The Basement Office: http://members.xoom.com/galias/erin.htmI "I just want to be taken away to some place where I don't have to worry about finding a job."