"There Shall Come No Ghost of Grieving" (1/1) 
by Jean Helms (Jeanlhelms@yahoo.com) 
CLASSIFICATION: V, A, MSR 
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Post-"The Truth" fic 
ARCHIVE: Nope. Save it now if you want it. 
SUMMARY: "In certain parts of the World the custom still prevails
of telling the bees that a member of the family has died." Daniel
Henderson, 1920.

Many thanks to my lovely betas, Linc, Norma, Tali and nja. You
ladies do rock my world.

******** 

It is almost two years since they began living off this
rich land, and she is still learning the taste and the weight of
each month as it goes by.

Most of the time, Scully takes the days as they come, awakening
at dawn, slipping noiselessly from the bed where her lover still
sleeps, going outside to tend to the still unfamiliar chores of
milking the goat, scattering feed for the chickens and gathering
the day's eggs, hauling water, firing up the stove.

It is difficult work, a far cry from the life she had planned so
many years ago, but she is finding her place in this life. She
loves the sounds and smells of the breakfast she makes for him,
the crackling bacon, the percolating coffee, the thick slices of
white toast. She loves the sight of Mulder, still warm and sleepy
but smiling as he runs a hand uselessly through his tousled hair,
loves the touch of his lips as he bends low to give her the first
kiss of the day.

When they sit at the table together, she feels a fierce pride in
the meal, knowing that she made this with her own hands. She
canned the cherry preserves, churned the butter, kneaded and
shaped and baked the bread. The things she makes, her labor and
her growing knowledge, are her gift to him. At the end of a long
day of backbreaking work, he will sit down at this table again
and they will share another meal, gathered together in quiet
under the roof that he raised with his own hands.

In those moments, her love for him grows so powerful and so large
that she thinks it may consume her, and she rushes into the
circle of his arms, steadying herself against him, warming
herself against the chill of morning, marking the beginning of
her day by the strength that is in him.

It has been two years since she has seen him wear a coat and tie,
two years since he drove a car, two years since anyone but she
cut his hair. Each time she stands behind him, scissors in hand,
there is a little more gray, a little less brown, a little more
sun-bleached lightness to transform him from what he was into
what he is.

Sometimes it frightens her; sometimes, she fears that he will
become a stranger to her, or she to him, that the long days of
working, of farming, of building and repairing will take him from
her in a way that even death could not.

Each night, when he creeps into their bedroom -- always late, so
late that she fears he will exhaust himself -- she turns to him
and he takes her in his arms. There is no more strangeness then,
despite the growing strength in his arms from swinging the ax and
hammer as he builds their world around them, from walking behind
the plow or shouldering the gun as he hunts and farms and gathers
to fill their larder with food for the winter.

It is in those times that she feels safe, feels that she has
become herself again and that she has found him again, the man he
once was, and has become the woman she was, the woman she will
always be to him.. There are nights when they make love, and
there are nights when they simply fall asleep in each other's
arms, but always, always, he is her lover, warm and tender, and
she is his, forever, always...

At first, there were many places they sought shelter, hiding from
the death sentence that hangs over his head : The anonymity of a
bustling city, the quiet of a small European village, the
remoteness of a South American mountain. The options seemed
endless, once.

In the end, though, they came here. Out there, there were too
many strange and frightening faces, too many people whose
interest in them seemed too great, too many miles between them
and the answers they hadn't yet found.

They came here, and they sought out anonymity of a different
kind, living off this land that once was a family farm and would,
God willing, be one again. They spend their days wrestling the
barest necessities from the earth, the wind and the water. By day
he fights to feed and house her, and by night he fights still
against a greater death sentence, fights against the rapidly
dwindling store of days that separate them from Armageddon.


All day long the windmills turn outside, feeding electricity to a
bank of storage batteries so that he can continue his quest over
the tiny laptop, connected by a slender cord to a carefully
hidden satellite dish outside. Together, these tools are their
only concession to technology.

And now so many of those nights have gone by, so many days, and
the rhythm of her life has come to please her. It lulls her pain
and her fear to sleep, and when it does not, there is always the
shelter of his arms ...

And yet April still can catch her unawares. She's never truly
understood "The Wasteland" -- she's not sure anyone can -- but
she knows that April's cruelty goes far beyond taxes, even beyond
anything that Eliot intended to convey with his confusing images
and words. April will always be the month of lost love, its
dripping rains always a reminder of all the tears she has shed
because of this month.

No one will ever know the terrible losses that April has brought
her.

Only Mulder could begin to know, and even he does not know it
all. He knows that Melissa died in April, of course ... he never
lets the anniversary of Missy's death go by without some kind
act, some soft word of love to let her know he has not forgotten,
and yet in her worst moments she knows that it is his own pain he
seeks to assuage as much as her own.

April, for her, is always a month of wrenching pain, of her own
demons, her fight for her own sanity as her mind brought her, in
imagination, a last sight of Emily. It must have been that, she
thinks, and almost believes it for 11 months of the year. When
April comes again, she knows it was real, the feel of that tiny
hand, the sound of that baby voice when -- for what she feels
will be, must be the only time in her life -- her child called
her "Mommy."

There will be no other voices, no other Aprils, no more sight or
sound of touch of tiny hands and voices, for April is also the
month when she kissed her baby and gave him to strangers as he
slept.

Too much loss for any mother; that both should come in April is a
cruelty beyond her ability to imagine.

There is also the April of Quonochontaug, when she tasted the
bitterness of his pain and helplessness as death reached out to
take her from him, when she watched in agony as his own April
demons arose from the grave to wrap themselves around them both.

Mulder knows all that. He remembers those, and perhaps that is
why he steps so carefully around her this April. He does not know
the other pain, the softer, more subtle pain that he dealt her in
another April, with the death of Melissa Riedel. She has tried
not to nurse that pain, but even in its starved state, it has its
revenge in an annual resurrection.

And now April has come again to their fine and private place, its
pain slowing her steps and her thoughts while outside the rain
pounds the earth and bruises the tender shoots of her summer
vegetable garden. She sits at the window, trying to quiet the
ghosts of April with an intense study of recipes for home-canned
tomatoes, but it's no use, no use at all... the intricacies of
pressure-cooking and sterilized jars are no match for the dreary
April in her heart, and with a sigh, she puts the book down.

"Something wrong?" he says, glancing up from the computer screen.

She shakes her head. "Nothing," she says. "I'm just tired of this
rain. There are so many things I need to do, and I can't ... not
until it stops."

"Scully, you've been working sunup to sundown, seven days a week
for the past two years," he says. "I think you can let yourself
rest just this once and count the rain as a gift from God."

"I would love to, but the bees need to be fed," she says. She
stands up, rolling her shoulders back and forth to ease the
strain. He sees it, and comes to her, placing his large, warm
hands on her shoulders and massaging gently.

"How's that?" he asks, in a whisper as warm and slow as she could
have hoped for.

"Better," she says. "Thanks." She starts to sit back down, but
his hands are still on her shoulders and he stops her.

"What's wrong, Scully?" he says, turning her to face him. Without
her fashionable shoes, she is far, far shorter than he, and just
now she is not willing to face him anyway, so she fixes her eyes
on the worn fabric of his jeans.

"Nothing, Mulder," she says. "I'm just tired, and I'm afraid I'll
lose my hives if I don't feed them soon. They'll swarm."

He's not convinced, she can see, but he knows her well enough not
to push too hard. He's learned that, she thinks, just as he's
learned how to fell trees and turn them into firewood and
furniture and shingles for their roof. He shrugs, and lets his
hands fall to his side.

"You know," he says, folding his arms across his chest and
looking out the window, "one of the things I could never have
predicted when we started this project was you wanting to raise
bees. I mean, bees, for Christ's sake, Scully ... shouldn't you
be the last person on earth who'd want to have anything to do
with bees?"

"I'm just being practical, Mulder," she says as she sits back
down and picks up her book. "Bees give honey and wax, and we need
both those things."

"They don't give anything, Scully," he says, still looking out
the window. "You have to take it. And it's not that much of a
gift anyway, if you ask me. You're talking about feeding them,
and what you're feeding them is sugar. How's it benefit us if we
use all our sugar to get a few jars of honey?"

"For one thing, honey has preservative and antibacterial
properties that sugar doesn't," she says, her eyes carefully
fixed on words that might be Sanskrit for all she comprehends of
them at the moment. "Anyway, once the hives are established I can
feed them honey and water through the winter and they can forage
for nectar in the summer. It's just that there aren't any flowers
now for them to feed on."

Her tone indicates that the discussion is over, but he doesn't
walk away, just stands there looking first at her and then out
the window at the rain. Finally, she raises her eyes to his
again. "Any more questions, Mulder?" she says, a bit more sharply
than she meant to. "Can I get back to my book now?"

He shakes his head. "Not just yet," he says, and he extends his
hand to her. "Come on ... let's go outside. There's something I
want to show you."

"Outside?" she repeats, incredulous. "Mulder, in case you haven't
noticed, we are in the middle of one of the heaviest April rains
I have ever experienced. This is not a good time to be outdoors."

"Actually, it's the perfect time," he says. "Or it will be, in a
day or two. You just look like you could use a little break from
things... I guess it won't spoil anything if we go now."

"Go where?" she says, but she takes his hand anyway, without
thinking twice. "Not into town, I hope. We're not that short of
coffee and sugar yet, and it's too far to walk in this weather."

"Not into town," he says, patiently. "Come on, Scully. If you get
chilled, I promise I'll warm you up."

The sexual innuendo doesn't move her at the moment, but she gives
him a polite smile anyway; when the real invitation comes, she
will not refuse him, and he knows it. She lets him raise her to
her feet.

"This way," he says.

******

The rain has slacked off a bit by the time they reach the shed,
but she is soaked through to the skin anyway, feeling more dismal
than ever, wondering why she let him talk her into this.

"Mulder, where are we going?" she asks, grasping at his arm as
her foot slips over a mud-spattered rock. "Is there something
wrong with your satellite dish?"

"The dish is fine," he says, taking her arm and tucking it under
his own. "We're almost there."

He leads her around to the back of the shed, to the place where
the dish sits tucked among low-growing evergreen shrubs, hidden
from all but the most determined eyes. This is his place, one
that he created, that he maintains, that he needs, and it is
still unfamiliar to her. She looks around, and then back at him,
the question in her eyes.

He gestures with his free hand. "There," he says, pointing to a
spot on the other side of the dish.

And then she sees it: a small patch of brown earth, carefully
delineated with smooth round rocks from the creek, alive with
color and shape and shoots of green. It serves no purpose,
provides no food, no clothing, no heat, but in the midst of his
endless toil, he has stolen the moments here and there to grow
her a flower bed.

"I would have put it out front, but then you'd have seen it too
early," he says, softly. "That would have spoiled the surprise."

"Mulder ...," she whispers, and for a moment she can say nothing
more, only look in wonder at the splashes of color that are
blurred and dimmed by the rain and by the tears in her eyes.

"You like it?" he says, and she is ashamed at the honesty of his
question. He is actually unsure.

"I love it," she says, and she squeezes his arm and lays her head
briefly against his broad chest. "How did you ever find the time
to do it?"

"Oh, you know," he says, sounding pleased. "Just a minute here
and there ... anyway, I thought it would be good to have some
food for your bees. I mean, some food that didn't come in a bag."

She smiles, but she does not tell him that what her bees are
waiting for is wild clover, the wide fields full of white
blossoms that will rise with no help from her and feed her hives
through the summer. There's no need to diminish his joy with any
scientific pronunciations. The bees may visit this bed, but they
will never get enough nectar from a few dozen ...

And then she sees it.

"Mulder," she whispers. "Mulder, how did you choose those
flowers?"

"Oh," he says. "There were a few of them growing in the woods
next to the goat pen. I just gathered the seeds and kept them for
the spring. They looked a lot like a garden I used to admire in
Oxford. Why, do you like them?"

"Yes," she says, and emotion nearly makes her voice fail. "Yes, I
like them very much."

"I'm glad, then," he says, simply. "Scully, I know this isn't
much of a life for you ... it's hard work, and it's isolated and
you never get to go anywhere or do anything ... I was afraid for
a while last spring that ..." He breaks off and looks away, and
she can see that there are tears in his eyes as well.

"Afraid of what, Mulder?" she asks, gently.

He looks down at her again. "Afraid you would leave me," he says.
"Afraid that this was finally too much for you, that there really
would be an end ... and I wouldn't blame you. I know how much
it's cost you, being with me ... how much you've lost."

She is silent for a moment, wondering how he knows, wondering how
--since he reads her feelings so well -- he cannot read her
thoughts. She shakes her head.

"Never, Mulder," she says, and there is no hesitation in her. "I
will never leave you. For whatever I've lost, for whatever it's
cost me, I've found my home, and it's here with you. I don't ever
want that to change."

"Thank God for that," he says, his voice shaky, and he bends to
kiss her. Straightening again, he looks up, toward the western
sky. "Look," he says. "The sun's coming out. I guess your bees
won't starve after all."

"No," she says. "No, they won't. They'll stay put now."

He smiles. "You want to go back inside now?" he says. "I could be
talked into making a pot of coffee."

She shakes her head. "You go in and get the coffee started," she
says. "I want to stay here and look at my flowers for a while."

"Okay," he says, sounding pleased again, and he walks off with a
bounce in his step she has not seen for months, his hands deep in
his pockets, humming something tuneless and unfamiliar.

She watches until he is completely out of sight, and then she
turns to look at her flowers again, at the clusters of bright
blue against the shed wall, the fringed scarlet blossoms in
front. She kneels down, oblivious of the mud, and reaches out to
touch one of the tiny blossoms, startling a solitary bee who was
feeding there on the tiny drop of nectar inside. She watches as
the bee flies away, back toward the hive. She waits until the bee
returns, and she knows that others will soon follow.

She does not move.

"My sister is dead," she whispers. "My sister is dead and my
children are gone. And I can never bring them back."

She wipes the tears from her eyes, rises to her feet and brushes
at the mud on her knees, then turns and makes her unsteady way
back toward the house where he is waiting with hot coffee and
warm love.

She goes back to him, and she leaves the bees to carry the news
as they hover and dart among the rows of forget-me-nots and Sweet
William.

END

The title comes from "Cadences" by John Payne (b. 1842) It is a
poem about spring and death and love.

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