LIGHT THAT BRIGHTENS THE DARKEST HOUR

BY

AllyinthekeyofX & Strbck23

Some notes before we start! From Sarah first (Strbck23)

2016 has been the "best year of my life" for the second year in a row. On top of a ton of "real life" adventures, I got new X-Files. And along with that, some amazing friends that share my passion and I love them all.

It's been a ton of fun collaborating with Alison and working together to feature our individual strengths.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone reading this. Peace, love and aliens.

The line Mulder says about Scully dreaming is from a song Toadies-Pressed Against the Sky. I have totally always wanted to use it and finally got the opportunity.

Thanks to Suzanne Feld (WildwingSuz) for a beta read so fast I almost missed it

Sarah x

And from me

Pretty much what Sarah said. I have had more X-Files related fun this year than I think I ever had...and I'm an old gal who remembers the very first time Pilot hit our screens. For me it has been a love affair that has lasted over half my life and which I can't see ending any time soon.

I have never wrote a Christmas fic. I have never collaborated. I have loved attempting both.

Thanks to Sarah, Suzanne, Crispita, Dash and Marissa for giving me a reason to keep doing what I love.

Peace, Joy and hope to you and yours this festive season.

I hope you enjoy our combined efforts and remember – Santas reindeers love reviews. The more reviews you leave, the more gifts Santa brings ;)

Ally x

PART ONE

The lights are twinkling on the spruce tree which is a year-round fixture in the small communal space that serves as a garden for the residents who share the old building I call home. The tree has been there since before I moved in, has grown strong and proud over the years, just waiting for the brief period of time each year when it is dressed in Christmas finery that transforms it from drab winter green to a dazzling display of colour that endures through even the darkest night or the fiercest winter storm.

In years past I have rejoiced in the transformation, lain in this bed watching the tiny pin pricks of red, blue, green and orange chasing each other across the needled boughs of this majestic tree, soothed by the almost hypnotic repetition that softly tinges the surface of my painted walls. The flickering hues reminding me of childhood past where Christmas was cloaked in an aura of wonderment, when magic seemed real in a way that offered a future filled with endless possibilities and when life seemed limitless and connections forever constant; a childish certainty that nothing ever really changed, at least not in any tangible way.

Even as an adult, when I had grown and flourished and supposedly left childish flights of fancy far behind me, this special time of year still managed to hold me in its thrall. The sights, sounds and smells all contributing to a delicious build up of anticipation that imbued me with the spirit of the season even as I tried to temper my enthusiasm; to bring it down a notch to a level more befitting the adult Dana Scully who had long ago replaced magic with science, and wonderment with clinical investigation; and yet I hadn't ever been able to completely let go of the emotions those memories of Christmas past stirred up within me.

But all that changed abruptly the year my Father died. Because suddenly there was an empty space at the table that no matter how hard we tried, how much we all rallied to compensate by ensuring we celebrated his memory in some small way so as to create the illusion that somehow he was still with us, the loss of him created a chasm within me that nothing could fill. And as the years went on and the losses – the sacrifices – began to stack up, that chasm just kept growing and the bad memories began to overshadow the good until Christmas became nothing more than a collection of painful reminders of everything I had lost over the years.

Of course I still maintained a careful facade – an illusion that everything was fine – as I hovered on the peripherals of the occasional social gatherings I forced myself to attend, always painfully aware that somehow along the way I had become disconnected from my family, from myself and from everything I used to hold dear. And certainly the last couple of years, the one thing that had kept me sane was the knowledge that at the end of the day I could at least escape back to Mulder and he would, without me needing to say a word, understand me in a way no one else could.

Our reliance on each other had become so hard to deny that I think on a subconscious level I found myself gravitating towards him simply because, in the absence of any other significant relationship in my life, he quite literally became everything to me; and I know now that it was inevitable that we would eventually cross the line that we had drawn between each other so many years before. A line designed to protect; to temper our growing feelings towards each other lest we become more vulnerable to harm than we already were, to give those intent on our destruction even more opportunity to hurt, to maim, to kill.

But eventually we could deny it no more and after so many years trying fruitlessly to hold each other at arms length I fell so completely, so willingly, that my whole universe just seemed to collapse beneath the weight of his love. And foolishly we allowed ourselves to believe that maybe, just maybe, we could be happy; that finally we could find in each other everything we had sacrificed over the years. That our fractured lives could somehow become whole again if only we could find a way to hold on to each other through the darkness that, no matter how fast we ran towards the light, seemed always to catch up with us, ready to pull us under once again.

This last year has left me wondering more than ever just how much more I can reasonably be expected to take before I unravel so completely that I will simply fall to my knees and never find the strength to get up again.

Losing Mulder, standing by his open grave under a snow heavy sky as I stared at the polished wooden box that held the body of the man who had died without ever knowing that somehow, against all the odds, we had found our miracle, had left me more broken – more vulnerable and more incomplete than I thought I could ever be.

And the thought of his legacy that I nurtured within me became the sole reason for my existence; for our baby I forced myself to carry on - as best I could I carried on - holding on to the certainty that he would want me to take care of myself; to not give up on everything we had fought so hard for along the way.

Maybe that's why I was granted my second miracle, when against all the odds, in direct contrast to everything I had learned through my pursuit of science, Mulder was returned to me and while I floundered hopelessly in the wake of his total detachment from the relationship we had shared for so brief a time, eventually we had found each other again; healing wounds that ran so deep as to seem fathomless even as the darkness threatened to consume us once more.

And for a brief time I allowed myself to believe.

Stupidly I allowed myself to believe.

The look on Mulders face as he cradled his newborn son in his arms as the light shone soft and golden around us, promising a new beginning for us both in a world where maybe, just maybe, we could finally enjoy the kind of normal existence that others took for granted, to finally take recompense for everything we had sacrificed over the years as hope flourished anew within me; an almost forgotten acknowledgement that life did indeed have more to offer.

Of course I should have known better because past events should have taught me well enough that perfect happiness is not for us. And while I have been bestowed the gift of my precious child there has, as always, been a price to pay; that nothing in my life has ever been without cost.

Mulder has been gone from our lives now for five long months.

Five months were I have felt the loss of his presence beside me like a knife to my heart. Every second of every day I am consumed with an aching loneliness so intense that sometimes I forget to breathe.

This should have been our Christmas.

This should have been our time.

But instead I just want it to be over; to be filed away with all the other painful memories I have hidden deep within myself over the years. To finally accept that the happiness that seems to arrive so effortlessly for others is never destined to be ours; that our happy ever after is just not meant to be.

And while others excitedly plan for the season, anticipating a holiday filled with moments of abiding love, of brightly wrapped gifts and expectation of times to come, I find myself closing off more completely than I thought was possible. Because all I want for Christmas is to spend just one moment in time in Mulders arms; to allow myself to feel him, to draw the strength from him I need to carry me through this. To believe that one day we will be together again.

Because I miss him so much, so completely that on nights like tonight, there is just nothing left. When I lay in this bed listening to the sounds of William as he sleeps just a few feet away from me I feel a physical ache deep inside me that brings with it a realisation that without Mulder in my life, I am simply a shadow; one half of a whole that without him, can hope to only exist without actually living and that tonight, just as I have done on so many nights past, I will allow myself to cry scalding tears of regret that I manage to hide so adeptly during my waking hours.

That while others dream of bright mornings and gifts beneath the tree, I will dream only of Mulder.

And much later, when I feel a gentle touch against my cheek, of the weight of his long fingers as he caresses my skin softly, it feels so real that even though I know it isn't so, I can't help but murmur his name, feeling the touch on my face still for just a second before his voice brings me gently to wakefulness.

"Ssssshhhh Scully it's okay. I'm here."

Continued part 2