Title: IN A PERFECT WORLD... Author: aka "Jake" Rating: G Classification: V Spoilers: Through Season 7 Summary: It's short. It's heartfelt. It's about him and her...of course. Isn't that why we're here? Disclaimer: Do these characters really belong to Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions? If so, no copyright infringement intended. Fun, yes. Profit, no. In a Perfect World... By aka "Jake" In a perfect world, the skies would be as wide and blue as a new mother's eyes. Tender, easy, faultless. An affectionate expanse, warm and soothing, like a baby boy's receiving blanket wrapped around the fresh fact of his existence. So soft, the sleepy, boneless way he fits into the crook of your arm. "Once upon a time there was a little baby..." But today snow overwhelms your windows, shadowing your eyes with an overcast of muddled, spiral-down flakes that look and smell like ash. If only the sun would come out, then maybe you could see where He might have gone. It's been a lifetime since He went...away. Wherever. And now your baby's life dangles like an inadequate goodbye in the open parenthesis of his father's disappearance. But the baby doesn't know the difference the way you do. How can he miss someone he never knew? You might be able to answer that question, if only you had the strength, but your heart hangs itself on missing Him. After all, you never really had the proper opportunity to know Him either, did you? In a perfect world, two pairs of hands would rock your child, doubling the care, the love, the joy and halving the load, the worry, the fear. Incredulous eyes would surely shed tears to see His son, because His son is yours, too, and it's the merging that makes all the difference. Half of you and half of Him, stirred by Nature into a whorl of remarkable perfection. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes. Will your baby grow tall like his father? Will his heart be loyal? Will he become a hero? Perhaps he'll be a good man, too, hurtling reckless and indignant at the lies of men and the mysteries of the stars and you'll be proud you knew him in his finest hour. He has big shoes to fill, your son. Will you lose him, too, one day? What will you do then? In a perfect world, your baby would arrive after a wedding, a celebration more substantial than a long unspoken vow. A white dress with lace and high collar and beaded bodice. A veil to be lifted, revealing your suddenly shy smile. Your mother would cry from the front pew for her daughter's happiness and her new son-in-law's pride. A blessing in God's House. But then, maybe you didn't need to say "'til death do us part" because your two souls merged years ago, creating a pliant but unbreakable union, outlasting death. Outlasting all enemies...all loves...all. All but the loneliness carried for an eternity in the empty-armed tick of the clock on your nightstand. To be fair, He didn't leave you entirely alone, did He? Your baby half-fills your embrace. Do you remember how many times you held the Man? More importantly, why? "I won't let you go alone." You tried to protect Him, blocking out defeat and despair by packaging Him inside your quaking limbs, tucking Him as close to your heart as possible, saving Him. Your motives were always in His best interest. "I need you to hold on. Please...hold on." It wasn't possible to hold Him tightly enough though, was it? Some things were never written in your stars. In a perfect world, there would be a home for your new family. A nursery for the baby, a den for Him, maybe a garden for you. The two of you would share an uncomplicated expanse of bed where you would drape each other in need and longing and blissful, blissful love. You would caress His skin and He would kiss yours and you would both gasp at the pleasure of it. Will you ever see Him again? Will He ever see His son? Where is God in all this? "I found a key...the key...to every question that has ever been asked. It's a puzzle...the pieces are there for us to put together and I know that they can save you if you can just hold on." In a perfect world, you would never lose hope. You would not stop searching. You would always believe. But... Belief was His conviction, not yours. "I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't know what the truth is...I don't know who to listen to. I don't know who to trust." He trusted you, because you always told the truth and Truth was His passion. And it was His passion that brought meaning to your life. You rode the coattails of intuition with Him, despite your distrust of guesswork and hunches and gut feelings. "What is this discovery I've made? How can I reconcile what I see with what I know?" You butted heads. Talked at cross-purposes. Argued your points. But always, always, always you respected one another. And eventually, He made a believer of you. Almost without notice. You were His flock, a congregation of one. You followed His path until it became yours. And along the way, you gave Him more absolution than the universe has ever witnessed. But that wasn't why He loved you. He loved you because He could trust you when He could trust no one else. And because you embodied the cornerstones on which He could balance His scoured heart. Trust. Faith. Belief. Truth. You propped Him up. You made Him a better person. With you, He could forge ahead, determined, relentless, strong. Can He win without you? Is He fighting? In a perfect world, you would know He is safe and on His way back to live happily ever after with you and your child. He would fall into your embrace at the end of this day and receive your grateful kisses. You would hold on to Him and kiss Him and your perfect, perfect world would last forever. END