Title: Blood and Thorns

Author: Eileen S. Whipple

Email: whipples@connect.ab.ca

Classification: VA

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Leonard Betts, Memento Mori

Summary: "My roses are as red as my daughter's blood."

DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter owns the X-Files and I'm
just borrowing characters. In my opinion, Ma Scully
doesn't get used enough so I took it upon myself to 
write something with her. Nosebleeds belong to me and
everyone else who has ever had one.

Author's Notes: This was a response (no matter how late) 
to a Cancerfic challenge. It was "Scully gets a nosebleed. 
Describe the scene that follows." I do love writing Cancerfic 
because it allows me to write dark and angsty stories. This
was written to Tori Amos' "Little Earthquakes" and "Boys
for Pele" as well as the Rose Chronicles' "Happily Ever
After".




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Blood and Thorns
by Eileen S. Whipple
January 24, 2000
********************




My roses are as red as my daughter's blood. She is hunched 
over, right beside a bush, and the liquid on her hands drips 
to the earth. I stand, my mouth agape, and I don't know what 
to do.

My baby girl is bleeding and she says she's okay, but she 
isn't okay and I know this. An ugly and dark intruder is doing 
this to her, and nobody can stop it. The blood can't be stopped.

I clutch the rose I was going to give her and thorns pierce my 
palm. Now I am bleeding but I should be. It's okay for me to be. 
She's losing so much life with each nosebleed.

She was finally getting healthy and now this. No matter how much 
weight she gains or if the tumour stops spreading, the blood loss 
will ruin her.

She turns and looks at me, a tiny red bead remaining beneath her 
left nostril. "Mom, you're bleeding."

I open my hand and the thorns come out and the blood-red rose 
falls to the earth. She is so pale; thin blue veins are visible 
beneath her skin.

I cannot speak; I've never seen her nose bleed and I didn't 
really want to ever see one. I just thought it would remind me 
that my daughter could die before me. I already lost my other 
little girl to unnatural causes, and I didn't want to lose 
another.

"Dana, take care of yourself," I say. Here she is, trying to 
help me when a mass of blood just poured from her nose.

She wraps her arm around me. "We'll go inside and I'll clean 
you up."

My daughter the doctor is always around to tend to me, whether it 
is a cold or a burn from the stove, but I can't do anything to 
help her.

I've been thinking about her cancer so much lately. I was 
frustrated when she didn't tell me right away; I became angry 
with her but I regret that now. The anger was born of fear and I 
think she knows that.

Every time I've gotten a phone call from a hospital or her 
partner, the same memories flashed through my mind: the chilly 
February day she came screaming into the world, her first day of 
school, her senior prom and graduation.... Those are memories 
I'd love to experience again. I don't think I could ever let my 
baby go.

As soon as we get inside, I sit at the kitchen table and Dana 
goes to wash her face and get the disinfectant and bandages for 
my cuts.

My daughter is dying and I can't help her. One day she may lose 
too much blood or her tumour will push into her brain. Even 
though I've had much warning, I'm not ready to lose her. I'll 
never be ready. I lost her father in a heartbeat and her sister 
almost as quickly but now, I have to watch her suffer.

I put my face in my hands and the tears began falling, the salt 
getting in my wounds. For the first time in a few years, I begin 
to sob without caring that I wasn't alone.

"Mom!" Dana calls. "What's wrong?" I hear her rushing down the 
hall and I sense her in the kitchen doorway. Then I feel her 
tugging at my wrist. "Why are you crying?"

I stand up and throw my arms around her thin body. "I'm just 
afraid."

She strokes my back and rests her chin on my right shoulder. 
"Afraid of what?"

"You were bleeding so much. I knew I shouldn't have asked you to 
bring me that bag of fertlilizer." 

She sighs. "Mom, they come for no reason sometimes. I can never 
tell when a nosebleed is coming." She kisses my cheek. "You didn't 
do anything."

I know I had something to do with it. All the other nosebleed 
she's ever had and told me about came during times when she 
was under stress. She told me about a time just after she was 
diagnosed; she and her FBI partner, Mulder, were chasing down 
a suspect and her nose bled after running. The first nosebleed 
she had came after a fight with a criminal but she never suffered 
any blows to the nose. That damn bag of fertilizer... the blood I 
witnessed came because I asked her to give me a heavy bag.

My daughter murmurs in my ear, "First you blame everyone else, 
then you blame yourself. It's rarely your fault." She speaks and 
in her voice I don't hear the fear that I once heard, back when 
she discovered this killer within her body.

Tears fall down my cheek and I know she senses them; she pulls 
me closer and I cherish these moments. "Mom, everything will be 
fine. Don't worry."

"I just hate the blood. It's not even mine, but I hate it," 
I admit.

"It would be terribly dramatic if I said that with every drop I 
lose, I lose a bit of life. I don't see it that way. I see it as 
a sign to start living." 

Dana thinks that way but I don't think I can. She is calm in her 
acceptance and I know I can rely on her strength whenever I feel 
mine wearing down. She seems optimistic in this tough time, which 
she probably learned from Melissa.

I ask, "How is Mulder taking it?" I know he's very protective of 
his partner and I'm sure his reaction was similar to my own.

"Oh, Mulder. Well, he's trying to get justice for me, but the people
he's looking for are nameless and faceless." She lets her arms fall 
to her sides, leaving her body in my embrace. "I believe I will 
eventually get the justice he's seeking."

"I hope you do." Then I add, my voice a whisper, "I couldn't bear 
losing you. You're so grounded and I get my strength from you."

She looks at me and strokes my greying hair. "Mom, where do you 
think I get my strength from?" She smiles and I get her in another 
tight hold.

"But yours is like nothing I've seen before. I'd be lost without 
you, Dana."



Any feedback? I promise to answer!
whipples@connect.ab.ca