Subj:	story to archive
Date:	9/30/00 12:26:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:	PennySyc
To:	NeverAgain4X13

TITLE:  On Angel Wings (Part 1 of 1)
AUTHOR:  Leslie Sholly
E-MAIL:  PennySyc@aol.com
DISTRIBUTION:  Anywhere, with my name
and address attached.  And please let me know!
SPOILER WARNING:  Emily
RATING:  PG
CLASSIFICATION:  VA
SUMMARY:  Scully thinks about her daughter.

DISCLAIMER:   Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox
own the character of Dana Scully.  I mean no
infringement or disrespect.

FEEDBACK:  Would be very much appreciated
at PennySyc@aol.com (Leslie).  This is my first
Vignette.  How did I do?



**************************
On Angel Wings
by Leslie Sholly
**************************

     I'm sitting in the grass under the spreading
branches of an ancient tree.  The grass is cool
and crisp and very green beneath me, the sky a
cloudless and dazzling blue overhead.  The sun
bathes me in its warmth while the softest of
spring breezes caresses my skin.

     It's a perfect day--or it could be, if I keep my
eyes on the grass or the sky or the weathered grey
bark of the tree.  It's a perfect day--as long as I
don't lift my face and look ahead of me.

     But I must--it's why I've come to this place,
after all.  So I lift my eyes and stare at the small
grey stone, a bitter reminder of a life cut short.

    Emily Christine Sim, the stone reads, along with
the dates which mark the beginning and ending
of my daughter's brief sojourn upon this earth.  I
didn't get to carry Emily inside my body, or
decide what name she would have, or even hold
her in my arms many times, but 
I got to pick out her tombstone.

     I went with Mulder to choose it in the hectic,
nightmarish blur between Emily's death and
Matthew's birth and our departure for D.C.  I
picked one with a rose carved at the top and at
the bottom a verse:  "Budded on earth to bloom
in Heaven."

     I want to believe.  I need to believe.  And, in
the end, I do.  In this, as in so much, I choose to
have faith.  Whatever twisted process gave Emily
life, it was God who gave her a soul.  Although
the men who blended my DNA with that of an
alien race created her as an experiment, God's
intercession allowed Emily to feel, to laugh, to
love.

     Emily isn't here, of course.  The vessel that
housed her spirit was taken from me before I
could lay it to rest.  That treacherous body built
for an obscene purpose, that caused her lifelong
illness and suffering, is dead and gone.

     But I know the truth.  Her soul, liberated from
its prison, flew up to Heaven on angel wings,
and when my time on this earth is through, she
will be waiting for me.



"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."

From Ode.  Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood by William
Wordsworth

THE END

Feedback, please, to PennySyc@aol.com (Leslie)