Closet of Eternal Sorrow

Chapter One

Author's Notes:

Story takes place before the events of "I want to believe". Medical reference is based on Google, Wikipedia and too many Medical TV shows.

Disclaimer: The X-Files belongs to 1013 and Chris carter. I am here to cause only suffering and pain to my fave characters.

****************************

Dr. Dana Scully peered through the room's glass window. The child in the bed appeared to be asleep. Her tiny bald form seemed to almost disappear amidst the bulk of her coverings and the various tubing protruding from her.

Scully remembered the first day she met Brylee. It was over a year ago. Brylee was five then, a feisty five, filled with exuberance and unable to stand at one spot for more than a couple of seconds. She was short for her age, but what she lacked in height, she made up with her impressive personality. She was sharp and witty, and Scully thought she was probably of above average intellect.

She recalled how Brylee used to dash through the hospital halls in those early days, before treatment began. She would smile at the sound of the young girl's voice screeching through the corridors, informing the staff that Brylee was about to arrive, and soon after she would be sprinting right into Scully's arms. Scully would cup the child's pointed chin in her hands and ask her about her day and Brylee was delighted to get somebody's full attention and she was eager to share every single detail.

Brylee was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma after her doctor noticed she was extremely pale and treatment for her anemia wasn't working. She was referred to Scully who had treated a number of children with the same condition and although Brylee's cancer was hard to treat, Scully was optimistic. Brylee seemed to be in the early stages of the illness and aside from her pallor, she appeared asymptomatic. But, despite high hopes and great efforts, the child declined rapidly over the year of treatment, and the once lively blond girls who roamed the oncology department halls, had become bedridden and stripped of even the most basic capabilities as the disease spread through her tiny body.

The final scans and lab results had left Scully no choice. Brylee's short life had reached its final stages. It was up to Scully to inform her mother of her daughter's upcoming demise.

Scully's gaze wandered across the room and landed on a huddled form, folded within itself. Miranda Sanders slept uncomfortably on a hospital bedside chair, her head tilted to the right, seemingly about to break apart from the woman's neck. Scully imagined how stiff she would be once she woke up. She knew Miranda was having back pain from her continued vigil over her daughter. The mother never said a word, but Scully would see her constantly rubbing the small of her back, attempting to untwist her shoulder blades or pressing firmly on the back on her neck, trying, in vain, to untangle her taut muscles.

It was time. Scully couldn't stall any further. She'd been trying to find a way out, a hint of hope for Brylee all through the week, but as the tests and scans amounted, she found herself constantly hitting dead ends. Whichever approach she took, she eventually ended hitting another obstacle, and then another, and another. Brylee's body was riddled with metastases, and they weren't responding to any of the treatments. She'd spent endless hours in the lab, trying to figure out a solution, but she finally had to admit defeat.

She heaved in a deep breath and pushed the door handle as she entered the sick child's room. The strong antiseptic smell attacked her nostrils. She was supposed to be used to it, but today her senses felt heightened than usual. She knew it was due to the fact that she was about to inform a mother that her child was dying. She worked with lost causes and she knew the consequences but it never became easier. Whenever she had to deliver a death sentence, she felt as if she was the one who was tying the noose around the child's neck, and the one who was pushing the stool from under him or her. At that moment, her senses became the sharpest. Every sound amplified, every smell intensified. Her vision was like a hawk's, catching the tiniest changes in a person's skin complexion as the news hit him or her. The sensation of touching a grieving parent would feel like an electric current coursing through her veins, eventually reaching her heart and she could feel each heartbeat as if it were lava eruptions from a volcano.