Title: The Waiting Heart
Author: Nat
Category: V  ScullyAngst  Post Requie- **dodges flying objects** 
Summary: Hope and reason can rarely co-exist
Disclaimer: They're not mine and I'll put them back on the shelf when
 I'm done, no worse for the wear. Any resemblance or similarity to
 persons living or dead is totally deliberate.
Archiving: Go ahead, just tell so I can stare
Feedback: I live for it at socerdev1@aol.com
 Author's Notes at bottom

When you are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep
and nodding by the fire, take down this book,
and slowly read, and dream of the soft look
your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep

how many loved your moments of glad grace
and loved your beauty with love false or true,
but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
and loved the sorrows of your changing face;

and bending down beside the glowing bars,
murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
and paced upon the mountains overhead
and hid his face amid a crow of stars
-W.B. Yeats

The Waiting Heart

In the end it all came to nothing. Colonization never happened; 
we were never turned into a slave race, or force-fed black oil. 

I'm not sure if that means we succeeded or that the aliens failed 
in spite of the fact we failed as well. Maybe it was even because 
of it. 

It all comes out to the same thing in the end.

I have not lost all hope, nor do I retain the hope of seeing him 
again. I just dream. I am a sensible dreamer, which should be 
by definition an oxymoron.   But, I've learned that things and 
people can not be so easily catalogued and referenced. You have 
to leave room for subtitles, anomalies, inventions, Mulder. 

It's hard to keep up hoping, praying when there is not one scrap 
of evidence, not one glowing red arrow. 

I suppose some people would find it ironic that I finally found 
the life I had always wanted, or that he had wanted for me. 

I had the child. A boy with a narrow face, choppy nose, and 
sea green eyes. A mischievous monkey who had agile hands 
and strong, young muscles that would climb up and down walls, 
chairs, and me. Mercurial, intelligent, a quick-witted student who 
was excellent with numbers but felt pinned in by their constraints.

I had the dog. Teddy: a beautiful, sweet, and incredibly stupid golden 
retriever.  

I had the house, the job, now I even have the grandkids. 

Two of them, two impossibilities.  Nathaniel's children, his rosy 
cheeked, bumpy nosed, green-eyed monsters. 

Nathaniel.  Gift from god.  Never has a name been more fitting.

There were times, years and years ago when I wanted this, needed 
this life. Needed it so badly that my stomach cramped, my eyes 
tightened, and tears of wrenched out pain would be squeezed out of me.  

I still do.  

People assume that with age comes wisdom. In reality with age comes 
information, interspersed with wisdom. 

But, how to explain that to a five year old who just wants to know 
which ice cream flavor to pick? Don't ask me sweetie, I've had 
more than my fair share worth of decisions. She takes a scoop of 
chocolate and a scoop of mint chocolate chip. Sounds good to 
me too.  

She sits down in my lap and takes too-large bites. One soft, 
chocolatey hand slips into my tissue paper soft, veined hand. 
I brush a few strands of brown hair out of her eyes. 

Is it the young who find comfort in the old or the old that find rebirth in 
the young? 

-                               -                               -                       -

Pleasssse send feedback! It takes a mere click of the mouse and a few 
seconds, but it makes my day ? As always flames are welcomed as well, 
I'll use them to roast some s'mores <g>

A huge thanks to my two wonderful and over-worked betas.
Ikkle who always responds, if not with speed and good typing, but 
with depth. Thanks for your honesty, encouragement, titles, and 
constant ego-lifters. You're 
the best ?
Emily who always makes time for me. I can't thank you enough
 for your bluntness, quick grammar eye, kind words, and gelatti.

Cat, who helped on the spur of the moment and made some small but 
essential corrections. Thanks hon. ?

~Nat

"Come to me in the silence of the night,
 Come in the speaking silence of a dream,
 Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes so bright,
 As sunlight on a stream
 Come back in tears,
 O memory, hope, love of finished years." - Rosseti