Title: The Immortal Author: Whyagain Contact: Whyagain@antisocial.com Archive: I would like to keep this fic on this web site, but a little sucking up to the author might very well get the unlikely results. Rating: PG-13 Summary: The Immortal will rise and fall as all things come and go, but this time, she left a note. Keywords: Post-Col, DSR UST, Diary Format, First Person POV Spoilers: Ah, we all know the world will end. That's about it. Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, Monica Reyes, John Doggett, etc. all belong to Mr. Carter and I have no legal rights with them. They also belong to their wonderful actors who brought them so enjoyably to life on the screen for us every week for nine years. Author's Note: This is my first post-col and also my first DSR fanfic. I have not done first person POV, and I have not used the diary format, either. So, as the readers can clearly see, I'm somewhat new at all of four of the keywords I have so graciously placed above this. Lovely, now that that's out of the way, I would like to thank NotA, she is a wonderful beta, and I would not have even thought about writing a post-col if it was not for her incessant insistence that post-cols were more fun than my usually smutty MSR. So, here I am once again, with only my sixth completed fanfic ever, if I have counted correctly, and the shortest fic I have ever written. So, on with the show! ~WhyA XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The Immortal by Whyagain DAY 1 I have to run. I have been running for so long and I am so tired and I try to run but I cannot seem to go any farther so I rest but even when I rest I am moving because I cannot stop. I do not even know where I am going but I know where I have been and I cannot go back because I have to get away. DAY 5 I hope you understand. I know you could never understand now what is happening, but you will have to accept this at face value, for what it is, for what it was. This seems as my last will and testament. I wish I would have known, so I could have at least brought a lap top so it would look presentable. I am sorry you will get this after it is done. I could not have it any other way. It would have complicated too many things, brought up so many emotions that I could not handle if they had been aroused. I know you will understand. You have always been intelligent and you have enough common sense to figure even this out. But you have to understand, not with your head, but with your heart. I need to know that I have not left you without defense. Not that I was ever... Never mind. DAY 9 It should bother me that I do not seem to know where I am going. It should, but after all that has happened, I do not see it as such a pressing issue. I know what I must do, I just need to find out how to do it. No. I know how to die. I have been so close to death too many times to forget. And you saved me a million times over. But now I cannot be saved. I do not want to die, do not think that. But I cannot be saved. It is already too late. I only wish I could hear you say it once more. Whisper it to me in the dead of night when the nightmares and demons are only kept at bay by merely your presence. When you were so close at my back and I could feel your breath on my skin and it gave me goose bumps, those are the times I want back, and that is what I dream about when I have screamed too many times for the same nightmare to come back. I wish I could have told you, and you could be here to comfort me. I should not have written that. It only makes me long for something that I cannot have, something that I never had, maybe. DAY 15 At least I know where I am headed. Road signs and towns listed on my map appear and they all tell me that I am headed north. North because it is cold? It is already cold and I think the heater is broken. But there is no traffic and I packed a winter coat. I realize now that I have to keep this testament of the last great battle. Funny, World War I was called "The Great War" and "The War to End All Wars", but it started World War II in turn. I remember my high school history teacher telling us that nothing good came out of World War I. I can only hope that this will be the last, as I am the last. And I cannot take the chance that I am wrong; I am the last. And as the last, I have to do this. I can save you and if I can save you, then you can work to save more people. I know you will. DAY 16 They want me. I have to admit it now and I had to tell you some time or another and now is as good a time as any, for I could not be able in an hour, and it scares me to death. The though of never seeing you again, the thought of not being there for the ones I love. But all I loved is gone. William is gone; my family is lost somewhere I sent them. I wish I could see them again and I wish that protection for them was not necessary, but anyone associated with me is in grave danger. Why you still stand beside me remains a mystery. They want me and I have to go. I have to go because that is the only thing I can think to do. I wish you were here. I even wish Mulder was here. As much of an ass as he was, I wish he was here. He had the answers, as I have none. Maybe I want Mulder to be here only because he is another. Then I would not be the only one and maybe he would do it and there would me no need for me. I could live and I could come back to you and you could hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. Like it was before all of this. But I am hoping for too much: Mulder is dead, as is every other that was immunized. Every other that had the chip, also. My chip. To give it is to die, to sacrifice everything and gain nothing. Gain maybe the lives of millions of people, but never knowing it is true. I will not know that I did not die in vain, but I will know that I did what I had to. What I thought was right, at least. I pray to God that it is right, but it is hard to believe when the world is falling apart at the seams. But I have to hold on to something and your image hurts too much. DAY 17 I have a lot of time now, too much time, actually, and it scares me. I know I cannot go back and I am not sure if my path is heading forward or in endless circles. But I know I am doing something, even if it is wrong. I know I am doing something and I can feel it. As much as I hate to admit it, I can feel the throbbing in the back of my neck as I near the destination, wherever that may lie. I hate to admit it because then I know death is approaching and then I cannot make my foot press the gas petal any harder. But gas is not a problem. Every single place I go is empty, and it feels as if I am the only person left on the planet. That is a frightening, yet real, thought that I have to consider and I do not want to and will avoid at all costs. But now I have to evaluate every single detail, write everything down, so it is known, how the world ends or rather begins a new. If the radio worked in this damn car I would probably be able to listen to the evacuation calls that they have undoubtedly started. The calling to those doomed people faster and faster toward their deaths. I can only feel sorry for them. Men, women, even little children will not be spared. And I can only pray that I will make it in time to save at least some of them. I hope that you have avoided the doom's day role calls. If there was any way, you could find it, I know you could. I just pray that you did not wait for me. Maybe I should have told you. Would it have been better? Would you have let me go? How I wish you were here to answer these questions for me, and yet, I could not bear the sight of you at this time. Where are you, John? DAY 20 I could not find a boat to take across the water, so a succession of bridges will have to do. I had tried to stay off the main highways and roads, but that idea's shot from here on in. The evacuation should be done now and I hope they are not searching for stragglers who want to view what the government is trying to protect them from, or rather, drawing them in to. I have seen the lights late at night and I have had to pull over to avoid being seen. But what would happen if I was stopped? The world would end, at least, the human race would not only end, but be turned into a slave race or merely digestives for them, nothing but food. I have to be strong. I have to stand up and be known. Soon my time will come. Very soon. So bring it on, alien scum. DAY 21 Nothing for today. I am so tired. My pen hand will no longer sustain even the weight of this pen, no less the burden of my thoughts. DAY 22 Yesterday, I stopped. I stopped for only a few hours, but it was enough. It was enough to know that is has really begun. Long enough to know that I am in way over my head this time, and for the last time. The motel had been deserted, well, there were no humans, anyway. What a strange thing to say, write, whatever. Anyway, there was no one there, so I grabbed a key and slept. I do not remember much of the trip or the obtainment of the key for I was too tired to even stand for more than a minute. While I slept, though, the monster gestated. It was born, rearing its savage head high and roaring in a terrible screech that roused me instantly. I knew what it was. Not what it exactly was, not enough to call it by a name, but I knew it meant danger and I knew it meant death. And I could have shot it and I could have avoided the gash on my arm, but I could not shake the feeling that I would need all the help I could get later on. They have black blood, the newborns do. The other aliens, they have green blood. Why does their blood change colors when they, uh, do whatever they do to become one of the others? the next stage? However, lucky for me, I never got to see its blood. The creature rushed at me and it all happened so quickly and I was so fatigued that I cannot even remember in what order it happened. I could not even feel when its claws gouged deep into my arm and I cannot remember the sound of my screams, although, I do remember doing so, as strange as that may sound. But after my blood was drawn, it looked at the red liquid pouring from the wound. It sat on the ground and looked at me. It stared with its cold black eyes, without any hint of emotion or expression. And then it roared and I was too petrified to move at the horrid sound. And it ran off. Just like that. I am afraid to even consider what that may mean. And I am again too tired to ponder the subject any further. I wish you were here, but then, I wake up and remember where I am. And I do not want you to be here anymore. DAY 24 There is some twisted irony buried in here somewhere. The impulse, the implant, whatever was guiding my steps, has led me to a power plant. A power plant in a barred wasteland of snow and ice and cold and I cannot decide if I want to get out of the car or if I want to turn around and go home. And if not home, then to the place where I am supposed to be. This cannot be it, not after everything I have been through; not after everything we have been through; not after everything all of us have been through. And if it was all in vain, if all the people who have died have died in vain, then I shall never be content to leave and give up. Monica, Mulder, Skinner, all of the faceless, nameless shadows that only travel in the memories of those who can remember them, if all of them have given everything to what I, all of us, have so fervently strove for, then I am nothing. So many lives this touches. I can only hope to do what I can and hope that it will be what will save us all. I want to turn around. I want to pretend this all never happened and I was never here and I could never have saved every single person on this earth, but then I would be lying. I would be a liar and a quitter and a failure to humankind. I am so scared that I will die for nothing. I will not be afraid any longer, though. I have to step through those doors like I own the world, as if I am immortal. And the immortal will rise and walk and be put to death. And everything will become something more than nothing again. My name will have no meaning. I will be another figure, another face in an old photograph that no one remembers. I will be the woman who you knew, but you cannot quite recollect who she was. I am that person, am I not? But I will be something to someone someday somewhere, and then they will know. They will know as you will know when the world does not end and the sky does not fall. When the rivers do not evaporate into nothingness and the lands do not flood with the great waters of the earth that did not exist yesterday, then they will know. And when the mountains do not crumble all crush all in their path and when volcanoes do not spew lava from the molten core, then it will be known to all. I hope to come back, to be safe and still save the world, but it is impossible. And if this is the last time I am able to write, know that I got out of the car and I placed a firm foot onto the ground and I took the steps that I did not think I could take. Know that I died for the human race who cared nothing for me and will feel no pain when I am gone. I want you to tell him, tell my son if you ever see him again, tell him that I loved him and that his father loved him, too. But if nothing else, tell him that his mom saved the world. I love you. Dana Scully.