TITLE: Five Senses: Smell 
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net
ARCHIVE:  Anywhere okay as long as these header lines remain intact.
CLASSIFICATION: VR
KEYWORDS: MSR
SUMMARY:  Fifth in a series of Scully's reflections on Mulder
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
DISCLAIMER:  Characters aren't mine.  They belong to Chris Carter, 
1013, and Fox.  No infringement intended.

Dedicated to MM, who innocently uttered the phrase that set this one in 
motion after weeks of bad starts and scrapped attempts, "I wonder if souls 
can smell."
___________________


Five Senses: Smell
by Susanne Barringer


I believe that the one sense that must be lost in death is smell.  It is easy to 
imagine the soul continuing to see, hear, feel, and even taste in eternity.  
But the mustiness of the grave, the mildew of rotting flesh, the very 
essence of death itself must hinder smell.  Smell is the sense that is most 
entrenched in the memory--perhaps, then, not requisite for the soul.  

Smell belongs to the living.  

He lies with his back to me and I press my nose into the back of his neck 
where his hair meets the tanned curve that begins his shoulders.  Here, all 
of him, all of his smell, coalesces into something complete and whole and 
perfect.  The muskiness of his skin, the light perfume of his shampoo, the 
sweetness of his perspiration, and a smell distinctly him--one which 
permeates his apartment, our office, my world--come together here in a 
glorious, cascading fountain of his essence.  If this be denied to me upon 
death, I must drink of it now, gorge myself on it, flood my blood and my 
soul with it.  Death has come too close to me too many times.  I will not let 
it deny me this.  I will carry it with me, against the odds.  I will not forget.

He smells of places we have been, and places we will never go.  Seashores 
and forests and wide expanses of green land.  Ice and sand, heat, rain, wind 
and grass.  Marshmallows, carnivals, concertos, rainbows, silk sheets.  He 
smells of Life.  In him, summer and spring are rolled up into a ball of scent 
that I can wrap myself around to make me feel like I am home.  For good.  
Forever.

He smells of Yesterday.  When his partnership challenged me and drove me 
up the wall and made me want to knock some sense into him.  When trust 
was born, nurtured, and discovered to be unshakable.  When I learned from 
his passion and belief, and found my own fortified by his.  When I couldn't 
love him, but did.  Then could.  And did.

He smells of Today.  When I am his one in five billion, and he drags me 
back over and over again from the brink of death.  When every moment we 
are together is like a miniature shred of ecstasy that seems that it cannot 
possibly belong to this world of lies, deceit, and death.  When he gives to 
me the gifts of his heart and his trust.

He smells of Tomorrow.  When Samantha is found, the truth is revealed, 
and justice is finally served.  Then, and only then, can we truly be together.  
Without doubt.  Without fear.  Without consequences.  I believe in the 
fairy tale future that we both deserve for all we have suffered, sacrificed, 
and lost.

He shifts in my arms and turns to face me.  I bury my face now in his chest, 
devouring this new side of him, hoping to hold it in my memory well 
beyond the time when mortality separates us.  I breathe deeply, over and 
over, taking him into me.  Filling my lungs with him and only him.  I feel 
inebriated.  I keep breathing, in and out, loudly, deeply, each breath 
planting just one more seed in the garden of memory I must cultivate in 
order to survive eternity.

"What are you doing?" he asks me, his voice curious, his eyes concerned.

"Living," I reply.

_________________
END


All my fanfic is available at my webpage:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dreamworld/2442

sbarringer@usa.net